It was winter again. For the people of Matarak it was not a very joyful time, with gusty winds, snowfalls and severe frosts. Why not joyful? The matter was that there was no gas supply in Matarak. The gas-men had collected money from the poor villagers several times for the installation and disappeared.
The people of Matarak had waited a long time but the gas-men never came. The result was that the people"s dream about gas supply never came true. Those who had paid for gas installation complained to the "District-Gas" Manager who responded as follows:
- Who said there was no gas? Drop in at the shop, there"s a lot of it there! And the price is quite reasonable! Buy and use it! What"s the problem?
The people were surprised to hear that. Had their prayer really reached God Almighty, and they started selling gas in shops? The scientist must have invented some new energy source, something like a battery. When the Manager clicked his finger on his throat the people were still more surprised. They realized now that when talking about gas he meant vodka.
We were lucky to have coal in stock. But we only had one oven. Since we had recently married off our son we gave one oven to him for it was not good for the newly wedded couple to spend the honey moon in a cold barrack. Their honey moon would have turned into an ice moon. Our younger son Sharabboy, too, lives separately. He said he could do without an oven because he was a tempered man.
Babat and I built a sandal. If you have read the book from the beginning you should know what it is all about. It"s a life oven! Spending the winter time with a sandal is the cheapest way of surviving under severe winter conditions.
It snowed heavily at night. I lay wrapped in a blanket looking out into the low window and watching the falling snow. Sitting on a prayer rag called "sazhada" Babat sadly whispered the holy suras from the Qur"an and recited the evening prayer Khuftan.
I watched the snowflakes falling gently and quietly, gladening my heart and setting my mind at rest, like a payer. I could hear the barking of dogs far away. The falling snowflakes reminded me of moths that flow round the electric light or candle at night in May, burning their wings and falling down. Involuntarily, I remembered a line from Alisher Navoiy"s poem about a candle. "The candle stretched out its tongue craving for the blood of moths" - he wrote. In this line, without using paints and canvass, Alisher Navoiyi depicted a terrible picture. Even Alfred Hitchcock could not imagine such a scene. The moths are fond of light and fly around a candle happily, unaware of danger, and get burt alive.
These lines can be interpreted in different ways. For example, some people try to approach rulers and dictators moving in their circles like moths, with a view of making a fortune, and consequently, perish physically and morally. I thought, perhaps, it would be good to die turning around the candle of justice. It was different. And if we read this line from the pint of view of Astronomy we would see a more terrible picture, I mean, all the planets turning around the sun would sooner or later perish like moths described by Alisher Navoiy. Now think about what Alisher Navoiy wrote in his other poems and rhymes if he could depict such enormous pictures in just one line...
Thinking about it I insensibly fell asleep. I had a terrible dream. I saw the tremendous head of the Great Khagan Genghis Khan. He had his body hidden in the sand, with the tips of his red and brown mustache and beard turned up waving in the wind, his two little pupils were burning like lights in the eye sockets, with his mouth wide open and his red toungue glittening it. The most horrible thing was that his tongue was hairy. There was a big black horse nearby. It looked firm but was actually about to fall, bending its head to the ground. There was alaso a man of Mongolian appearience standing by Genghis Khan"s head. He turnded to me saying:
- I am Genghis Khan"s grandson. But you should,"t speak. Just keep mum.
I nodded in agreement. Then, staring at me intently and sternly, the big head of Genghis Khan began to speak:
- Do you see my horse falling down? And that"s not the end yet. There is a little stallion over there, you see?
Before I had time to look there I saw a long tall branch of vine lying in zigzag on the ground, like an anaconda. It was bleeding. Then up in the distance, beyond the tall vine branches, I saw the little stallion and... woke up. Babat was asleep. I was surprised because she generally got up early. I touched her trying to wake her up:
- Babat, dear, get up...
She didn"t wake up. I looked carefully and saw her open eyes faded and her pupils look like two gray plastic buttons. Hoping to revive her, I lifted her head but her jaw fell. She was dead. With her head wrapped in the bed-spread she died insensibly from the carbon monoxide. Since we didn"t have an alternative fuel we had put pieces of burning coal in the sandal...
- Poor Babat! Babat! - I howled beating myself on the chest like a mad gorilla - oh my dear Babat? Why have you left me? You were my only candle lighting up my path. Like a blind man I am all alone now. Oh my poor good woman! I had caused you so much pain. Pardon me please, if you can! You had always pardoned me!...
I sobbed kissing her callous bony hands:
- You have left me without saying good-bye! I didn"t value you like I should have done! You were so good! You never complained and never asked me for new clothes, jewelry or necklace. Silly me, I never presented you with tulips or roses, not even plants like cacti or something for Women"s D
ay!
On hearing the noise my sons entered the room.
- What"s the matter, father? Why are you crying? - Arabboy asked.
I got up and threw my arms around my son"s shoulders:
- Sonny, your mom has left us!.. For ever...
- What? - my sons shouted like one.
- Yes- I said- Mom is gone...
Not believing me, the boys dashed to their mother. When they saw that she was really dead Arabboy was the first to roar like a lion. The younger son, poor boy, took mom by the hand and, kissing it, wept speaking in Russian.
He had gone to a boarding school where orphans were fostered. Many children were Russian speaking there, and the teachers were for the most part Russian. Sharabboy kept crying:
- Mom, dear mom. Why should it have happened? My only one...
The boys cried themselves hoarse. When the neighbors came and the relatives gathered round the boys had totally lost their voices.
During the funeral the boys wept moving their lips like dumb.
A Sura (sometimes spelled "Surah" سورة sūrah, plural "Suwar" سور) - a "chapter" of the Qur'an, each of which is traditionally ordered roughly in order of decreasing length. Each Sura is named for a word or name mentioned in an ayah (section), of that 'Sura'.
Alisher Navoiy - Nizām al-Din Alī Shīr Herawī (Chagatai/Persian: نظام الدین على شير هروی; Uzbek: Alisher Navoiy) (9 February 1441 - 3 January 1501), also known as Alī-Shēr Navā'ī, was a Central Asian politician, mystic, linguist, painter, and poet of Uyghur origin who was born and lived in Herat.
Khagan or Great Khan (Old Turkic kaɣan; Mongolian: хаган; Chinese: 可汗; pinyin: kèhán; alternatively spelled Chagan, Khaghan, Kagan, Kağan, Qagan, Qaghan), is a title of imperial rank in the Turkic and Mongolian languages equal to the status of emperor