Yet another harvest season was here. The previous summer, when the whole village was at work, I played with the kids without a care in the world, but now they made me go out into the field with them to ride Sadri in the carriage (the baby’s full name was Sadretdin). This explains why I spent this entire summer doing strenuous chores – and for someone who loved playing as much as I did this was a true ordeal.
After the birth of this child, my adopted father continued to be affectionate with me, but my mom seldom spoke to me now except when she instructed me do some chores or work. This was how I lost the little love that has fallen to my lot.
And as if that wasn’t enough, the lame one caressed Sadri all the time, repeating deliberately to upset me: «My own brother! My real brother!»
V
Autumn arrived. When I finished my usual work on the potato harvest, I was sent to a madrassah (not the one I attended together with the girls at the abystai’s house). After I learned the lines and verses of the «Haftiak» very fast in school, I turned to the ayats of «Badavam» and «Kisekbash». And since I coped with this assignment quickly as well and I sat around for a long time doing nothing, they began to ask me to tutor boys who had fallen behind.
One of these boys was the son of a rich man from our village, and he invited me to his house sometimes as his tutor for some tea and cake with spelt flour.
On the one hand, I was a good student, on the other hand, I wasn’t so bad with house chores either. In the morning I opened the valve of the stove and I shut it later; I made bundles of straw to get the fire going; I took the cow out to join the herd and went out to meet her in the evening. I was quite good at all these things.
My father and I would sometimes go to the bazaar in Etna during the summer. I watched the horses while he made the rounds of the marketplace on his business.
The esteemed Fatkherakhman, our village mullah, was probably my late father’s friend or studied at the madrassah with him, I don’t know the real story, but for some reason he would give me five kopecks every week.
I spent the money buying white bread at the bazaar in Etna and would eat the bread along our return trip home.
As I sat behind him on the wagon, eating the bread, my father would turn to me occasionally and say: «Leave some of your bread for mother!» «All right», – I said. But even though I pinched off and ate it in tiny pieces, I can’t remember it there was anything left to give to my mother.
Since the Kyrlai village was the place where I opened my eyes to the world, I felt I had to dwell on these memories a little longer.
That is why I will write several paragraphs about the changes, which took place there and about some other things preserved in my memory, and I will then leave Kyrlai.
Sazhida apa suffered from tuberculosis for a very long time. She was in such a bad way that father had to carry her on his back to the bathhouse or wherever else she needed to go. In the end she died. My father was also struck by a sudden disease one evening, after returning from another village, while he unharnessed his horse. There were different speculations about the nature of his illness, such as: «He was struck by the horse devil», «hit by a falling star» and the like.
My father didn’t stop working despite his illness, but he became lame in one leg.
One autumn day, after dinner, my father and mother were in the barn, and I sat by the side window reading the «Message to Hafiza», when a cart pulled up by our gate. The stranger tethered his horse, entered the house and asked me: «Where are your father and mother?»
«At the barn», – I answered. The man said then: «Go fetch them then.» So I ran to the threshing floor and said: «There’s a man at the house and he wants to see you.» My father and mother immediately came home.
Soon after, father and mother walked inside the door and greeted the stranger.
They prepared tea. This time, with a guest being present, they poured me some tea, too, and they even placed a piece of sugar in front of me, which they didn’t normally do.
When my father asked: «What business brought you here?» the traveler replied: «I came here for this child.»
Father was bewildered by these words. «Why so? Why did you come for him?» he said. After these and other similar questions the traveler began the conversation thus:
«I am from the village of Kushlavych myself. This boy is our imam’s child. We lost touch with him several years ago and had no information about him, but we now found him. It turned out that he is living here with you. In Yaik he has an uncle – a man married to his father’s sister. When this uncle of his found out that his wife’s nephew was in the care of such simple folk he decided that the boy should live with him in Yaik. At his behest in Yaik, I went in search of this child and I’m now taking him away with me.»
The traveler’s words upset my father and mother to no end.
«Splendid! We fed him three or four years, when the price of a peck of flour was so and so much, and now, when he became fit for work, you want us to give him to you… No way, forget it! If he has family, where were they before?» They began to bicker and exchange words like this.
Once in a while my mother would interject a remark: «No way! We don’t have any children to spare!»
To which the stranger, uncle Badretdin, responded with: «So you’re saying ‘No way, you didn’t have the right’ to hold someone else’s child… I’m going to take the issue before the village constable. We’ve been looking for the child all this time, but it turns out you had him all along. I’ll drag you through the courts!»
It’s not hard to frighten village people with such words and my poor parents caved in.
A little later, my usually headstrong mother said: «All right, dear, we’ll have to let go of him. Looks like we can’t have him as our child… Allah forbid that you should get into trouble!» – As she said this, she broke into tears.
Soon afterwards, like the sea that can’t calm down after a storm, my father, too, conceded at the end of the fizzling out dispute.
Giving me my old knee-length coat and worn-out felt boots to wear, they brought me immediately out of the house, and put me on the cart.
Weeping bitterly, my mother and father saw me off all the way to the field gates.
Mother cried out: «Don’t forget us! Don’t forget! If you do, you’ll become a hot ember in hell!» These were the last words I heard from her as we drove out of the village.
Since the situation regarding my departure was decided practically within a half hour or so, I couldn’t say goodbye to any of my village friends and acquaintances. I couldn’t explain anything to them.
Evening fell and dusk was already descending as soon as we left the village.
Along the way, we stopped in Uchile village to visit my grandfather. They treated us to some tea at his place.
Nothing much changed in this family except for the fact that Sazhida apa got married.
After we had our tea, we drove past Verkhniye Aty, Nizhniye Aty and Sredniye Aty until at midnight we finally reached my native village – Kushlavych.
Along the road, I must have been bounced around pretty badly in the back of the cart, because in uncle Badri’s house, I instantly fell asleep like a log.
After waking up, I saw that I was in a black hut without any chimney. There was no furniture here at all, nothing but bowls, cups, spoons, a scoop, a clamp, a breast collar, and other things of that sort.
We drank some tea. Uncle Badri had a big blue-eyed wife with a friendly face, named Gaisha, a 14 or 15-year-old son, Kamaletdin, a daughter, Kashifa, aged 12 and a newly born baby girl, Nagima. After tea, we went into the house across the way from this one.
This house looked nothing like the black hut I spent the night in: the walls were built of fresh yellow pine, there was nice furniture and decor, even a desk – for a villager like me the interior was more than satisfactory.
When I saw uncle Badri’s barns full of meat, various grains, wheat and rye, I decided that he must be one of the richest people in the village.
Kamaletdin also showed me there large orchard, not particularly beautiful in the autumn but with a lot of bee hives.
After I walked into this white chimney house, I didn’t leave it the entire day and went to bed there.
In the evening, going through the books in the house, I stumbled upon Fruits of Conversation[11 - The Fruits of Conversation is a collection of works of literature and folklore, compiled by Kayum Nasyri in 1884.] and began to read it. I liked the last few poems very much and tried my best to understand them. However, since in Kyrlai I read only Hafiza and the religious-mystical book Sabatel-Gadzhizin, I was perplexed by the presence of indecent words in this book, and I began wondering: how could there be such words in a book?
Sometimes, under the influence of this book Fruits of Conversation I loudly argued with Gaisha abystai in the black hut, where she washed her laundry. My aunt put men to shame, while I ridiculed women.
Wherever I went, I was always singled out among other boys as the son of a mullah. Even in places where lots of children got together I wasn’t allowed to play tag with the girls. I also tried to behave as appropriate to a mullah’s son and use my own erudition.
Here’s an example. Once when I was at uncle Badri’s place, a man by the name of Sitdik, well known in the village, came to see me. He was drunk. He came up to me and said the words of greeting but I didn’t answer him; he gave me his hand but I didn’t shake it.
They asked me why I acted that way. I immediately answered with a line from Badavam:
«Don’t send greetings to a drunk,
And never shake his hand.»
