In the end it seems that most of what Tamerlan did during his six months in Dagestan was talk. Talking—and having someone not only listen to what he had to say but also take it seriously enough to question and criticize and try to guide him—was a radically new experience for him. Feeling, for the first time in his life, like he belonged most certainly entailed a kind of radicalization, a fundamental shift in the way he perceived the world and himself in it—but that is just as certainly not what anyone has meant by suggesting that Tamerlan might have been radicalized in Dagestan.
IN MID-JULY 2012, Tamerlan told his friends he had an issue with his documents that required him to return to the United States at once. Like the claim that he went to Dagestan to have a new Russian passport made because his old one had expired, this documents story is murky. Given that at the time the Tsarnaevs left Russia the country was issuing only five-year passports, Tamerlan’s Russian passport actually would have expired years earlier. Unless the Tsarnaevs had a passport made for Tamerlan at the Russian consulate in New York—which appears exceedingly unlikely, because Anzor and Zubeidat went back to Russia to get their own documents in 2007—he would have had no Russian document to renew and would have had to travel to Dagestan on his United States documents. Another clue suggesting that Tamerlan was likely traveling as an American is that about halfway through his stay in Dagestan he went to Azerbaijan for a few minutes. Jamal told me about the trip: he drove Tamerlan to the border, and Tamerlan crossed it and came right back. It had something to do with his documents. But if Tamerlan had indeed been in the process of renewing his Russian passport, he would have been unable to leave the country just then. It would appear that he was in Dagestan as an American, with a Russian visa that allowed a maximum three-month stay—and he had to leave and reenter to restart the countdown.
He had no desire to leave Dagestan for even a few minutes. He told Jamal he wanted to stay, and the older man berated him. “What are you going to do here?” he shouted. “Herd sheep? Go back to America and get an education!” Tamerlan told Gadzhiev he wanted to stay, and Gadzhiev understood and welcomed his desire. And when Tamerlan had to leave, he said he would return soon. Whatever was calling him back clearly had nothing to do with his Russian documents: it was an American exigency.
TWO MONTHS after Tamerlan’s departure, the Union of the Just staged a protest that criticized not only the Russian regime but also American foreign policy. Shocking onlookers in Kizlyar, the protesters burned a United States flag—a gesture that had never before been seen in Dagestan. Months later, when Gadzhiev was interviewed by men representing the FBI, he would taunt them by recalling that protest. One could say, if one were so inclined, that it was Tamerlan Tsarnaev who had radicalized the Union of the Just.
Seven
PATRIOTS’ DAY
Tamerlan returned to Cambridge in July 2012. A couple of weeks later, Zubeidat left for Dagestan. There was an understanding in the family now: Dagestan was the place to live. Anzor was back there, starting a car-repair business with Jamal’s help. He was not the reason Zubeidat was going back—she had her own family in Dagestan. Jahar was talking about going the following summer. Tamerlan now thought of Dagestan as his home—he just needed to get his U.S. passport and he would be on his way. Joanna asked him once why he would want an American passport, given how he had come to feel about the United States, and he seemed not to understand the question. A U.S. passport was and always would be a valuable commodity—no matter how inherently hypocritical Tamerlan might find the American electoral system or how inherently unjust the American mode of government. It was an odd exchange. Joanna was employing rhetoric that had too often been used against lefties like her: If you hate America so much, why don’t you just get out? Tamerlan saw no contradiction in his response. There were many things he disliked about America, and he saw valor in speaking out about them—but he saw no reason to reject so prized an asset as an American passport. If his English and his political education had been better, he might even have said that dissidence is the highest form of patriotism.
Things had not been good between Tamerlan and Joanna in a while, as this uncharacteristically confrontational encounter might suggest. Norfolk Street, where the Tsarnaevs had lived longer than anywhere else since Zubeidat and Anzor met, was no longer home. In September, Jahar returned to college, leaving only Tamerlan, Karima, and Zahira. In November, Joanna asked them to move out, which she had not done even when the rent was severely in arrears. Now she served Tamerlan a formal eviction notice.
But they were a family breaking up, and the eviction notice was just one of the many steps in this jerky process. Tamerlan and Joanna went through stages when they attempted if not a reconciliation, then at least a connection. In January 2013, Tamerlan gave her a phone number for his sister Bella and suggested she call her. Bella said she had just returned to the New York area from Chechnya, where she had divorced Rizvan. Ramzan, their son, was staying in Chechnya, as the rules required. Bella said her health was worse: the problem had spread to her heart. Perhaps Tamerlan had hoped that Joanna would help Bella seek medical treatment and pay for it; perhaps Joanna tried to. But when she next checked in with Bella, the young woman said she had found medical assistance in New Jersey and was doing all right. Tamerlan said that Ailina had remarried, and her husband was Muslim. Joanna told Tamerlan she would let him stay until June 2013.
Time and again that winter she steered their conversations away from Ron Paul and conspiracy theories, and toward what Tamerlan might do with his life. He said he wanted to go into auto electrics. He mentioned a private school that offered vocational training in that field—a school on a par with the Catherine Hinds Institute. Joanna talked about ways of getting a more serious education. Once when they were standing in the front yard, she suggested he was better than what he was aspiring to. Tamerlan seemed taken aback, sheepish and confused. But what was it that he was better than, exactly? There were so many ways in which Joanna had been disappointed and so many ways in which he had given up trying—but in all likelihood this conversation, too, concerned needing to make a living. This was likely the last time they spoke.
JAHAR HAD A NEW ROOMMATE in room 7341 of Pine Dale Hall, a sophomore dorm at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. Andrew Dwinells was a studious engineering major, the kind of kid who would surely turn a degree from a middling state school into a stepping-stone to a decent graduate school, a respectable career, and a solid middle-class childhood for his future offspring. This was supposed to be Jahar’s path—that was the story told in Kyrgyzstan, Dagestan, and even Cambridge—but Dwinells’s presence served up daily reminders of how little Jahar had in common with a young man who was actually living the American ambition. They never talked. They exchanged text messages only when one of them was locked out of the room, which happened often enough. The door locked automatically when shut, leaving whoever had forgotten his key card to stare at the light-wood veneer with the colorful name tags—Andrew and Jahar—and cutout stickers that, with some difficulty and no small doubt, could be identified as a lily pad and a turkey. The residential advisor had placed these on the door, as if the boys were eight years old. Inside, the decor was just as unimaginative and inelegant. Two long, narrow strips of furnishings mirrored each other: twin beds hiked up on banks of drawers; desks pushed up against opposite walls; two narrow cupboards that blocked the window. The two sides of the room were identical, except Jahar’s was always a mess and Andrew’s was neat bordering on uninhabited.