Age 27; Russia, Moscow.

Timur was born on 9/11… It is like some kind of a hallucination; he was born on the day of a terrorist attack, and died in one.  A year ago he found this work, what they call ‘moonlighting’, mainly because there was money to be made there.  At the time, we were happy to get it…

We met in Switzerland, while on a school trip, and it was love at first sight.  When I saw him, at first I decided: “Tanya, don’t even think about him, you’ll never get such a guy.”  But later everything whirled about, went spinning, and it was clear that he was the one for me.  We loved the same songs, listened to the same music, read the same books, and were very similar to each other.  For three weeks we jaunted about Europe on a bus, and it was a fairy tale.  When we returned home, we had already decided to get married.  We understood that we did not need anyone else.  We decided to wait awhile, until he finished his studies, and until I finished the institute.

For two years we went out, until Sonya decided that it was time to be born.  Since she had made her mind up, so did we: it was time to get married.  Timur and I lived in perfect harmony.  Those tiny squabbles that would happen, which we always thought of as huge, were in truly insignificant in comparison with happens in family life!  These unpleasant times made me laugh, and I always said to him: “You know, we have such flowers, people have such berries…” In general we never argued; nothing of the sort ever went on.  We were so alike in our hearts that these were exceptional events.  Sonya was born, and will be 3 on January 30^th.  What a love they had together!  I loved this love, I loved that they loved each other so.  I cultivated their love in this family.  If I something had to be proven to Sonya, Timur always backed me up: “Mama said to, so that means that it must be done.” We never cut each other down in front of the child — we always backed up each other’s authority.  She felt that strongly, and now she feels the loss…  She grasps at me, like a drowning man does a straw: “Mama, don’t leave, stay here…”

Timur was a very purposeful person, and stubbornly occupied himself with his profession.  I supported him in this.  In the morning he would go to the army, during the day he would go to his parents to practice, and in the evening – to ‘Nord-Ost’.  Somewhere around eleven, or half-past, he would come home.  I told him that he needed to take a break.  We decided that we would save a little money and next year go somewhere on vacation.

A woman can only dream of such a man.  He was a remarkable husband, and took seriously his family obligations.  Work was divided precisely: he would do his, and I would do mine, and each was satisfied.

He always worried about politics, he was concerned about what was going on in Russia, and said: “Why is it that we Russians put up with how they treat us?”  I asked him: “Who’s the Russian here?” and laughed, because he was a Tartar.  It never seemed to me that Timur would be ruined by his surname.  I found him at Hospital #7 on Saturday night.  We were allowed through the police cordon on the street – with difficulty, but they let us in.  We went to the intensive care ward, and a policeman came out and said that he would find out for us.  He came back, with an assault rifle hanging on his belly, and said it right to my face: “He’s dead!”  No doctor came out, no one.  Obviously they had not expected us.  They did things incorrectly, certainly…  I asked some people from the prosecutor’s office, who were hanging around there: “Please, let us at least say farewell to him, before they cut him up.”  They said: “No, not before the autopsy,” and they would not let us in.  They sat there, and chuckled: “What was his name?  Khaziev?  Some kind of a Chechen, or what?”  I felt ill, and did not know what to say.  They had his documents in their hands, his army pass, and ‘Nord-Ost’ backstage pass.  They knew he was a musician… And that they would dare to say in front of me: “Chechen!” — this was such blasphemy.  But that was not everything!  The story, as they say, continues.  It turns out that when we left the hospital at seven, or half past seven at night, twenty men broke into our apartment: the police, FSB, and who knows who else.  They decided to check things out – just in case he was a terrorist!  They grabbed our neighbor and gave her the third degree.  She proved to them that it was just a young family living there, Muscovites, the husband was a musician.  What a nightmare!

How it all began, I found out by accident.  Timur knew that I do not watch television in the evening.  He called mom and asked her to call me and say that he would be home late…  He worried about me; he hoped that I could at least get some sleep that night.  He called me one time.  He said that there were 30 terrorists, some of them women.  I cried, and said that I loved him very much.  I wanted to shout: “Just come back, just come back!” – but I was not able to get anything out.  Friends said later that in front of him sat a young girl, she was cold, and he gave her his jacket, and telephone so that she could call.  The terrorists took the phone away from her.  Knowing Timur, I am certain that if he had anything to drink, he would have given it away as well.

When the assault began, I knew that something was going to happen, and I was praying the whole time… And here I saw something in my peripheral vision, something like Timur, in dark jeans, in his sweater, and it was if he was beckoning me to look at him, but he would not come into the room…  And them right then I hear his voice: “Everything will be alright with me…» And disappeared…  And I thought: all will be well… But later, well, if I had seen him, it meant, perhaps, that his soul had already left his body!  And then the telephone rang and they told me that the assault was over, that people were being taken away in buses…  That evening I found him.

«Filarmonik» #4, 2002

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