In addition to the fact that uncle Badri’s whole family was amazed, my religious zeal became known to everyone in the village.
Shortly after uncle Badri had me leave Kyrlai, he had to travel to Kazan on some business.
I didn’t spend the entire month of his absence doing nothing. Kamaletdin and I attended the school in our village which was like a madrassah. There was so much to learn that we even had to stay there overnight sometimes. The honorable teacher in this school had the habit of hammering knowledge in his students. In this short time I was often horrified as I watched how he beat the daylights out of some of his students, treating them like dogs.
I found the possibility that the whip of the esteemed teacher was going to hit my back someday very frightening. Besides, it wasn’t particularly pleasant to be herded to the morning prayer together with the rest of the students, so I thought to myself: «Let uncle Badri return soon, then I could go back to Yaik!»
Finally, uncle Badri came back. He brought me a new hat, new felt boots and a new quilted coat. I was very happy to put on my new clothes, but I pulled my old hat from the heap of old clothes and hid it in the attic, so that when I come back one day I would find it there. This was another one of my strange actions.
After that we spent only a few days in Kushlavych. Then we packed our belongings and drove in the direction of Yaik.
After a day and a night on the road, we arrived in Kazan (most likely, from the side of the Hay Market) and finally stopped at some place.
Suddenly we saw a man running towards us with widespread arms: he had an almost entirely white beard but his eyes looked young.
«You’re still alive then?» he exclaimed, coming up to me. «Your mother saw you in her dreams just yesterday. Come on, I’ll take you home. You’ll have some tea and spend the night with us», – with these words he took me away.
We came home. Mom met me. She missed me, poor thing, and was also crying.
They prepared tea for me. Father brought some meat dumplings from the inn, and we had a good meal. They asked me how I was doing during the time I was away. I told them everything I could recall.
Nothing seemed to have changed in the lives of these parents of mine in the time we lived apart, except that my father’s beard turned gray, and that they moved from the New Quarter to the Old Quarter.
I spent that night at their place. In the morning, after tea, my mother washed me in the tub. She put a new embroidered skullcap on my head and gave me a pair of leather pants, something very necessary for a long winter journey.
When she was taking me to uncle Badri in the hotel, she wanted to give me as a keepsake a string of prayer beads and decorations for my skullcap called «Maryam-Ana»[12 - ««Mother Maryam»» – necklace made out of small beads and shells used as an amulet to protect children against the ««evil eye»».], but I refused to take them for some reason, saying: «You don’t have to do that. I don’t need anything. I’m going to a rich house.»
Our hotel room was quite average, neither good nor bad.
The man from Yaik who was going to take me there was called Shest-pyat Sapyi. He hadn’t arrived to Kazan yet, which is why uncle Badri and I had to wait for him for a week or two.
Finally, our long-awaited Shest-pyat Sapyi arrived and got himself a hotel room right across from ours.
A few days after that, uncle Badri moved my things to his room and, handing me six coins two kopecks each, 12 kopecks all together, left for his home in the village.
Hard as I tried to plead with him so he would stay for at least one more day – that’s how much I hated to part with him – he left anyway, comforting me with different kind words.
After his departure I remained with Shest-pyat Sapyi and his wife.
Both the clothes and speech habits of this man, who came from another city, seemed alien to me.
For example, in the middle of a conversation he would suddenly say: «I am a man advanced in years.» For the life of me, I couldn’t understand the meaning of the word «advanced».
Shest-pyat Sapyi wore a fur coat, and its collar and sleeves were trimmed with fox fur. I thought that perhaps he was «advanced» because he was wearing such a fur coat. Later, already in Yaik, I learned that «advanced in years» meant «old».
With the 12 kopecks from uncle Badri I bought myself salt-dried Caspian roach and sunflower seeds.
A few days after that, we packed for the road.
They made me sit on the lap of Shest-pyat Sapyi’s wife in the sleigh covered in matting, so that I couldn’t look around in any direction. They would let me out only when we stopped at a village to have some tea.
I begged them: «Let me walk by the sleigh. It’s better that way – at least I’d be free.» I was not allowed. «You’ll freeze to death. Your uncle told us to look after you so you wouldn’t freeze», they said.
My uncle instructed that guy, Shest-pyat Sapyi, to bring a good sledge from Kazan, and it was attached to our rear. In front of us was the sleigh of some other folk from Yaik, loaded with various merchandise, so we travelled in a «caravan». For this reason, feeling as if we were prisoners in the enclosed sleigh, suffering a thousand different inconveniences, we finally drove into Yaik in the evening of the eighteenth day of our journey.
In Yaik we stopped at uncle Sapyi’s. «We’ll have some tea first, and take you to your uncle and aunt later», – they said.
Later that evening, between the two prayers, I went to my uncle and aunt, accompanied by uncle Sapyi.
We met a young woman in a green quilted gown on the road. «This is your aunt, say hello to her», – Shest-pyat Sapyi told me, so I greeted her.
Their house was only about sixty feet away. I entered the gates, climbed up a very high set of stairs and stepped onto the second floor…
AUTUMN
Look around, my friends, autumn is here,
And winter in its white cloak is already near.
The birds are moving southward, flying far away,
They have a better place where it is safe to stay.
The forest dyed in yellow, soon all its leaves are gone,
The harvesters have gathered their grain and corn.
Naked seem the fields, bald like a Tatar’s head,
The lark dives from the sky, hunting for his bread.
Small pockets of grass retain the gleam of silk,
The sun is getting tired – its rays are growing weak.
Darkness ousts the light. It makes me so sad.
The wind is cold and nasty, spins around my head.
Autumn is depressing, as everyone agrees,
Flowers lose their bloom, leafless stand the trees.
A forsaken graveyard is brighter than this field,
Without the summer grass, gone is its glossy shield.
Six months of heavy slumber… So I can shut my eyes,
Oblivious completely to those gloomy skies.
Nothing will awake me, neither heavy wind nor rain,
I will awaken only when spring comes back again.
The carpet of young grass will tempt me to lie down.
Happy I will be like the shah showing off his crown.
I wonder why my people aren’t happy in their land.
So let the day take over, and night come to an end.
Will I ever see this happen while I’m still alive?
Just a dream it is, alas, first I have to die.
1906
EPITAPH TO MY BELOVED
I feel your heartbeat in my soul; you never died,
Your warmth and grace the two of us have tied,
