II
We walked out of my grandfathers house and I climbed into uncle Sagdis cart. Apparently feeling somewhat embarrassed in front of uncle Sagdi, grandfather and grandmother came out to see me off. Barefoot little boys were running to and fro by the cart, curious to watch my departure.
The cart took off. Uncle Sagdi and I sat side by side. While we were on the road he tried to comfort me: «Well soon get to Kyrlai. Your mom there probably went out to meet you already. Allah willing, we have milk, katyk9 and lots of bread, you can eat your fill.» He consoled me with these words, promising that happiness awaits me in another two, or three miles.
Such kind words I hadnt heard in a very long time and they made me very happy.
It was the best time of summer, with forests and green grass all around. The sun wasnt yet too hot and its caressing rays also delighted me.
We finally arrived in Kyrlai. Uncle Sagdis yard turned out to be near the gates leading into the field. A little while later we stopped at a low house with a thatched roof and wattle fence. Just as uncle Sagdi promised, my new mother came out to meet me and opened the gate. With an expression of welcome on her face she lifted me from the cart and took me inside the house.
After he finished whatever had to be done in the yard and unharnessed the horse, my new father entered the house. Immediately upon entering, he turned to my mother. «Hurry up, wife! Bring the kid some katyk and bread», he requested.
Mother quickly pullet a jar of katyk from the under-floor cellar and gave me half of a rather large chunk of bread.
I hadnt eaten practically anything since we began our journey from Kazan, so I instantly and with relish consumed both the bread and sour milk.
Once I was through, I went outside with my mothers permission. Afraid I might get lost, I walked, looking back all the while, when I was suddenly surrounded by a bunch of boys who appeared out of nowhere.
The local boys stared at me with undisguised amazement. They were used to running every day from one end of the village to the other but they had never seen me before; besides, I was wearing a cotton shirt with a border, the kind worn in Kazan, and an embroidered skullcap on my head, inlaid with colored velvet, which my Kazan mother made for me as a farewell gift.
After gaping at me like that, they ran away. Today, I still couldnt join them, so I went home.
I went inside and found two grown-up girls there (for some reason I hadnt noticed them before while I was eating the yogurt).
One of them was plump, rosy-cheeked and blue-eyed, and the other was a lame girl, a thin, pale creature with crutches under her arms.
When my mother said to me: «These are your older sisters: one is Sazhida apa the other Sabira apa, go and say hello to them», I went over cautiously and shook their hands. It turned out that these were uncle Sagdis daughters and the name of the lame one was Sazhida. Thus began my life here which was quite good. I also got acquainted with the village boys.
Just as my uncle told me along the way, there was no shortage in the house of milk, katyk and potatoes.
A month or a bit more after my arrival, it was harvest time. Father, mother and my two sisters began to go to work in the field.
I didnt have to go to harvest. I would run around the village with the boys and spend days wallowing in the meadows. If sometimes I felt hungry during our games, I would climb into the house through a side window and eat the potatoes and chunk of bread my mother left for me.
They locked the doors after dinner but they would leave the side window unhinged for me from the inside.
During harvest time all the village people were at work in the fields, and since there was nobody left around except for old women not suitable for work, we attacked the plantings of green onions in the plots, harming them worse than any goats. When the old women, who stayed to watch after the houses, noticed us, we would jump over the fence and run away. The poor old women had no other choice but yell themselves hoarse and then bite the bullet.
The games made us feel hot, so we went down to the small creek behind the threshing floor and splashed in it for hours or tried to catch fish with our pants and shirts. It was a jolly time!
Once, when I got home in the evening after being out playing with the boys, I found everyone very upset. «Whats wrong?» 1 wondered. Then I saw that Sabira apa was thrashing about like crazy, from the floor to the bunk, with scary, bulging eyes, hurting herself on anything in her way. That is how I found out that she returned sick from the harvest, «stark raving mad.»
Everyone in the house didnt have a wink of sleep that night. Only I, when I felt awfully sleepy, went out and lay down in the cart.
Next morning, at dawn, I heard: «Your sister Sabira apa died and youre sleeping, get up, get up!» I opened my eyes and saw my mother in front of me.
This was horrible news for me, too, and although sleep is sweet, I jumped up at once.
Sabira was buried that same day. A few days after the funeral, I heard my mother saying to dad: «When you take someone elses child, your nose and mouth will be smeared in blood; when you take someone elses calf, your nose and mouth will be smeared in butter. Its true, what people say. Thats why it all happened to us!»
I often heard her say such things to him. Since that time, whenever I misbehaved or did something my mother didnt like, she would repeat these words to me.
As for father and I, we were good friends. He never said a single harsh word to me.
For instance, when the clothes I brought with me from Kazan my shirts, pants, ichigi and kyavushy boots, and my knee-length coat with pleats became worn out, my father decided to give me the blue linen shirt and the tunic which used to belong to his son, who died a year before my arrival.
Mother resented this plan of his for a long time: «I cant give away to a stranger the clothes that belonged to my son, which I keep as a memory!»
Father finally flared up: «Come on, dont be so spiteful! Do you want the kid to walk around naked because it wasnt you who gave birth to him?» With these words, he grabbed the clothes almost by force and told me to put them on.
III
The harvest was over and autumn came. When the wheat was reaped, it was time to dig potatoes.
This time around, when potatoes were being gathered, I didnt have a chance to run and play as I did during harvest time: I had to put the dug potatoes into sacks. I coped with the work quite well.
Although it was already getting cold in the autumn, I was barefoot. So to keep my feet a little warmer, I stuck them into the ground.
Once, when I was sitting with my feet in the ground and sorting the potatoes, lame Sazhida apa accidentally thrust the iron shovel right in this place.
The wound was deep, so I jumped up and cried a little where no one could see me. Then I sprinkled the wound with earth and went on working, but no matter how frozen my feet were, I didnt stick them into the ground again.
(They will ask: «Why did you write that?» What for? I did because the wound was very painful and I still have a scar from it on my leg, thats why I decided to write about it.)
In the meantime, the work in the field came to an end.
One evening my mother and father told me that early the next morning they would take me to the school of the mullahs wife, abystai.
We got up at dawn, before sunrise, and had some tea. After clearing the table, mother took me by the hand and brought me to the house of the revered Fatkherakhman, which was only five-six steps away from us.
When we entered the house, we found abystai, who was to be my teacher, sitting there with a rod in her hand. Around her were little girls my age, these made the majority, but there were older girls as well. Scattered among them, like a few peas in a bowl of wheat, were little boys like me.
My mother handed the teacher two whole loaves of bread and one or two small coins, after which both of them and all of us, students, prayed for a long time.
When my mother went away, leaving me at the school, I, along with the girls, began to read in a loud voice without a moments hesitation: «Elep, pi, ti, si, zhomykyi.»
After a few days of reciting «elep, pi, ti, si», I was given the «Fundamentals of Faith».
The syllables and verses of this book kept me busy the whole winter. That winter, I circled around these short «Fundamentals of Faith» and didnt progress any further. Right after the «Fundamentals of Faith», I heard these naughty verses from some mischievous girls when abystai was not at home: «Kalimaten tayibaten, our mistress is rich, money shes got a lot, and her nose is full of sn»
Since anything you hear or see for the first time already constitutes knowledge, I memorized this ditty at once, naturally, and liked to amuse with it those boys who were less «enlightened» than me.
IV
My first winter in Kyrlai was gone. Spring arrived and the snow began to melt. The fields and meadows around the village looked black once they had freed themselves of the snow.
A little later came the Sabantui festival10. On the day of the holiday I was awakened very early and given a small bag, slightly larger than a pouch.
I went around the village, carrying this bag. Village folk always rise early, but today on the occasion of the Sabantui everyone got up particularly early. Kind words were spoken in every home, and there was a smile on every face.
Whatever house I went into, I was given not only sweets and a couple of honey-cakes, like the other boys, but each owner gave me an orphan and the son of a mullah several colored eggs.
Thats why my bag quickly filled with colored eggs, and I had to return home. I think the rest of the kids were still out collecting their treats.
My father and mother were surprised and delighted that my bag was filled so quickly.
I dont remember whether I drank tea that day or not. I gave the bag to my mother and taking with me a few eggs, I ran outside.
When I ran out into the street the sun was already high up in the sky and the entire village was bathed in golden sunlight. The village lads and girls, perhaps pulling on their white stockings more smoothly and wrapping their puttees around their feet more diligently under their bast shoes, were already out on the street.
From the opposite end, the head of the Sabantui with a flag in his hands (a stick with cloth tied to it) went from house to house collecting headscarves, cotton cloth and other similar items. We, barefoot boys, ran after him, not lagging behind.
After the scarves and fabrics were collected, all the local folk women, girls and kids gathered on the meadow. A wrestling and racing competition followed. There were dozens of carts with nuts, sunflower seeds and gingerbread, white with red stripes, standing across the meadow.
Of all those things, the favorite gift a girl could get from a lad was, of course, the white gingerbread with red stripes, because theres even a song about this gingerbread:
There were also horse races and races in sacks. The headscarves were given away and the Sabantui festivities came to an end.
I cant recall now how many days that holiday lasted. I only described one. Even if it lasted three or four days it seemed like one day to me.
I also have to add that I couldnt run around and play that summer like I did the one before, because right before the beginning of spring a boy was born in uncle Sagdis family, and when mother was at work I always had to babysit the infant.
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 babys 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 wasnt 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 abystais 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 wasnt 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 fathers friend or studied at the madrassah with him, I dont 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 cant 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 didnt 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: «Theres 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 didnt normally do.