Mr. Golden Teeth

Tashkent was small enough that someone I would know would be in the theater that night and would tell Henrietta the next day that I was spotted with Ariel and with a tall, handsome Uzbek man with golden teeth.

“And who is Mr. Golden Teeth? She asked. We were the only people sitting in an outdoor café, smoking cigarettes, drinking what passed for coffee. Having just taken Ariel to the airport, I realized that I didn’t have anyone, save Henrietta, in whom I could confide. She was the only person there close to my age. ” And why haven’t you told me about him. I thought I was your main biddy.

One of the only other Americans close to my age there, she was without a doubt my best friend in Tashkent. We spent so much time together that most local people likely thought we were sleeping together; in a way it served as the perfect cover for my being gay as rarely did one see a man and woman keeping company together as we did, without arousing suspicions of something else going on.

This was a bit complicated since she was married to an Uzbek. “Does your husband mind you being my main biddy?” I asked. Her marriage to an Uzbek provided for enough drama to spice up our conversations and for her to need a sympathetic ear every once in a while, at any hour of the day. When we first met, she had been dating Rustam, and they moved in together, happily, but to the dismay of his parents. But once they married, the parents made peace with the relationship and with her, though seeming to be on a mission to turn her into a perfect Uzbek housewife, cooking and cleaning after she came home from work. It was a bit of a challenge considering that she was the principal breadwinner in the family and at night, when she had the strength, she would study for her GREs and write her graduate school applications. Lately, there was pressure from the in laws, ad then from Rustam to have babies.

“I don’t want babies yet,” she said between nervous puffs of the cigarettes that she would smoke in chains, and blow smoke rings. Every day it was something new and she would come to my office at the end of the work day, stocked with her cigarettes, and we’d go for coffee and smoke and she would tell me of the latest incident at home. This time, though, she had a host of questions about Sherzod. I was at a loss for words, with not much to say about him, simply because I didn’t know much about him. Nonetheless, Henrietta saw this as a monumental event for me, finally meeting someone. “Well, he’s got a rack of golden teeth,” I began.

“Well, yes….So I heard. How old is he?” she asked and we went through the routine.

“27,” I responded, knowing the next question.

“Married?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so. He says no, so I guess not. I don’t know what to think,” I said.

She squinted an eye as she concentrated on lighting her next cigarette, “do you love Mr. Golden Teeth?” which it seemed was the name by which she would refer to him from then on.

“Honey,” I said rolling my eyes in my worldly wise manner, blowing smoke rings to the side, “I just met him. It’s a flirtation, at this point. He’s Uzbek; he lives in the old city, and I don’t know much about him. He doesn’t have a phone – a complete man of mystery. And he has gold teeth!!! In short,” I said emphatically,” he has gold teeth. We are worlds apart.”

“Sure,” she said. “It’s hard enough for a man and a woman in an intercultural relationship. I can’t imagine for when it’s gay, what with this society’s attitudes towards gays.”

“At least with gays, it’s private. You don’t have to deal with parental pressures. Certainly no pressures to have babies. But, I wonder who is expected to do the cooking and cleaning.”

“You are,” Henrietta said laughing. “Because Uzbek boys don’t ever earn how to do these things. Their mothers do it for them, and then the mothers pass them on to the wives to continue doing it. So, get used to it, babe!”

I mused aloud to her about what kind of prospects this relationship could have. Probably, eventually his parents would force him into marriage, not that marriage necessarily ends romances here, from what I’d heard; many people were forced into arranged marriages and continued affairs with the person they loved. Also, I wasn’t planning to live in Uzbekistan forever. And as much as an Uzbek man might want it, it’s just not possible for me to marry and Uzbek man and get him a green card to live in America.

Henrietta’s phone rang and she looked at the number and mouthed “what does he want,” and in a deadpan voice talked into the phone, “I’m having coffee…yes…with him….I have dinner ready in the fridge.” She rolled her eyes.

“Rustam?” I asked. “What’s his problem?”

“The usual,” she shrugged.

“What’s his problem with me?” I asked. Once we all used to get along, hang out together. But in the last few months after their wedding, he began behaving like a jealous husband, sometimes phoning me looking for Henrietta, even when she was just working late at the office.

“He’s jealous of our friendship. Anyway, don’t you worry about it. He needs to get over it.”

“Uzbek men are jealous, aren’t they?” I wondered about since Sherzod expressed some suspicions over the nature of Ariel’s and my relationship.

“They’re spoiled, I think that’s it. They’ve got it so sweet; they’re treated like royalty all their lives by their mothers, and they leave home to live with their wives who are expected to take over where the mother left off.” Henrietta put out her cigarette and looked down at her empty coffee cup. “This coffee is shit.”

“It’s not coffee,” I reminded her, “it’s Nescafe.”

“Why can’t they have real coffee in this country?” She looked up to the sky. “What’s so hard about it?”

“Why can’t they ever have milk, at least, to put in the Nescafe, to drown out the taste” I mused. “Places never seem to have both coffee and milk. It’s either one or the other or neither.” Though we’d had over a year to get used to Nescafe, we saw we were starting one of those bitch sessions about Uzbekistan typical of the pastimes of the other expatriates who we looked down upon. “Ok, time out! Enough bitching,” I said.

“Let’s just order beers,” she said, her phone ringing again. She closed her eyes.

“How about vodka?”

“Nah, it’s a weeknight, can’t. Anyway, we’ll order Baltica number nines; they’re practically the same proof as vodka. “

I ordered beers and another pack of cigarettes. Funny, before Uzbekistan, I didn’t drink or smoke. But here, it just seemed as natural as eating or breathing, just another thing necessary to get by.  ¶ 10:06 PM