Like all others who sat or slept on suitcases, I could appreciate the peacefulness of Tashkent as a kind fate for the time being, its familiar and peaceful morning sounds from outside my window, where I shared a courtyard with a composer who was known, probably better outside of Tashkent, due to the city's declining intellectual life, who drew his inspiration from similar sounds. Breaking my first sweat of the day after a cold shower, over hot tea beside the kitchen window, I heard birds, roosters from neighboring houses, and the scratching sounds of the ladies outside who would be bent over their short makeshift brooms to sweep the eternally dust-covered streets. It was almost poignant, their futile quest to push the desert dust around, only to find it piled back up on the walkways later in the day. The dust was inescapable. It formed a film of dust on your shoes everytime you stepped out and I seemed to always be wiping down my shoes. People here looked at you from the foot and up in this country, and in most of the world, apparently, and clean shoes were de rigeur, despite the constant attention they demanded.

I didn't remember ever having to clean my shoes this often in New York, but New York isn't in the desert. And in New York, I never had to outfit myself as I did here, not only in clothing, but in demeanour, masking the many aspects of my inner landscape that were foreign or simply socially unacceptable here. It was best to not stand out too much, to blend in, to reserve one's opinions or passions, and to keep ones shoes clean, despite that now I questioned the value of the effort, and in time and adaptation would do so instinctively. Everywhere here, even on the street, perfect strangers who I would pass by would eye me in such a way that made me wonder if they not only saw the Western foreigner, but a social outcast as well. Sometimes I would leave the house early for work, only to walk on empty streets and avoid dealing with the occasional Uzbek man sitting on the side of the road peeling sunflower seeds with nothing to do and nowhere to go, calling at me from across the street as I'd walk past, asking for the time, even though he most certainly had no need for the time, but just wanted to see my watch, or ask me where I was from, or engage in some way with the exotic beast.

But when I walked outside, it seemed like there was no one there. I didn't even see any cars driving by. Everything seemed quite still and hot. This heat was different from the New York heat. It was dry and you could feel every movement of the air, like the slight wind of the tree branch that swayed from the moment a bird took flight from it. Something about walking here felt different, walking on this earth I felt the earth, that there was a different character to it. It was dirtier than I remembered, the pavements were cracked and the dirty tratuaries were filled with discarded bottles, cigarettes, and weeds growing through the cracks. My phone rang and it was Hennrietta.

"Oh my God!" She called into the phone. "Did you feel that?"

"What?" I said.

"The earthquake?"

"What earthquake?"

"The one that just happened."

"No. I'm outside." Usually one only felt these smaller earthquakes, which usually had their epicenters in Afghanistan or Western China, and of which we were only feeling a softer, shorter tremor.

"It woke me up, I was in bed and looking up at the ceiling, which seemed like it was going to bend, and the light fixture on the ceiling was shaking, and all my dishes were rattling in the kitchen, one coffee mug fell on the floor and broke. The dog went crazy, and Ali is taking him outside to walk and calm down."

"Can't believe I missed it." I said. "You can't feel it outside." I felt bad, felt like another one of those situations in this country where something might have happened and I had completely missed out on it, and here I was the journalist who was supposed to know about everythying. But here I was standing on a quiet street, walking by buildings, where I hadn't heard a sound. Tashkent was on a faultline, and in the early 60's, had a devastating earthquake that required the whole city be rebuilt. I was told, in fact, that the city was once very beautiful, with ancient buildings, and many traditional styleneighborhoods. But once it was rebuilt, it was done quickly and full of mammoth Soviet style buildings, that reminded me somewhat of New York city's housing projects, holding impossible numbers of families. Perhaps at one time they may have looked attractive and solid, possibly just for their novelty, or out of gratitude for a roof over the head, but time had not been kind to these buildings, and their worn and torn condition reflected the country's economically tough times. Even here in the center of the city, in one of the so-called "prestigious" neighborhoods.

She suggested that we meet for lunch at the pool at Le Meridien.

"I don't have my bathing suit."

"Just strip down to your underwear, no one will know," she said. "Yesterday Natasha and I took a dip in the fountain on Mustakilik Square. Crazy, no? But when we get there, we find just about everyone else from the office there as well. It's so damn hot. Ok, I have to go." She abruptly hung up on me, as she had taken to doing with me regularly these days and I assumed that it was because Ali had just entered the house.  ¶ 11:47 PM