A Constellation of Vital Phenomena

Khassan Geshilov works on his manuscript detailing the history of Russia over many decades. The first draft, totaling over 3,000 pages, is completed in 1963. A publisher agrees to publish it, but only the first 228 pages, which cover the history of Chechnya up to 1547. After Brezhnev, a Soviet politician, rises to power, Khassan’s publisher only accepts early-history books, but Khassan continues working on his book, writing “as the voice of appeasement, justifying, glossing over, but never forgiving the four centuries of Russian depredations” (77). Finally, editor Kirill Ivanovich accepts the book for publication, but he’s later fired and imprisoned for “being too conservative with his edits, too vocal with his own opinions” (77). After Brezhnev falls from power, Khassan’s book is accepted for publication again, as long as it’s longer. As he writes, Khassan is careful not to write anything that will upset the Soviet government. Meanwhile, Khassan’s son Ramzan grows up, but Khassan is too engrossed in his work and is a neglectful father. Finally, in 1991 the Soviet Union falls.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, wars and poverty cause Khassan to lose his job and his publisher. One day, Khassan realizes Ramzan is helping the corrupt police and refuses to speak to him ever again. Ramzan tries to explain that he is doing it in exchange for food, medicine, and electricity that they can both use, but Khassan ignores Ramzan’s excuses and feeds his portion of the food to stray dogs. When Dokka disappears, Khassan is sure that Ramzan helped the Feds capture him.

After Akhmed tells Khassan that he is sneaking out of the village during the day, Khassan decides to visit Ula at home. Khassan tells Ula the story of how he met the love of his life, Mirza. During World War II, while Khassan was fighting in Poland, the Red Army rounded up the Chechens and banished them (including Khassan’s parents and sister) to Kazakhstan due to the government’s prejudice against their ethnicity. When Khassan arrived in Kazakhstan after the war, Khassan’s family was long dead, and Mirza filled him in on the deportation. After Stalin’s death, the Chechen ethnicity was reinstated, allowing the Chechens to return home. Khassan and many others dug up their family’s graves in order to rebury them at their homes. When Khassan and Mirza arrived back in Chechnya, they found a bust of Stalin and together destroyed it in the street. Khassan and Mirza embraced then for the first time, and Khassan noticed the oval-shaped birthmark on Mirza’s stomach. In the present, Khassan decides he will begin a new writing project, a letter to Havaa about his memories of Dokka.

Before leaving for the night, Akhmed told Havaa to teach the one-armed guard to juggle. Now, bored and miserable in the hospital, Havaa decides to try it. The one-armed guard is annoyed and sarcastic toward Havaa and sends her away. Havaa wonders how Sonja became the head of the entire hospital, thinking:

Women weren’t supposed to be doctors, they weren’t capable of the work, the schooling, the time and commitment, not when they had houses to clean, and children to care for, and dinners to prepare, and husbands to please. (98)

Havaa starts to think that since Sonja is a doctor, maybe Havaa could become a scientist one day. Havaa runs into Deshi and asks her what happened to all the men, but Deshi dismisses her and tells her to draw a picture in the waiting room. Finally, Havaa runs into Sonja, who takes Havaa to bed.