Mother Earth by Chingiz Aitmatov
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Mother Earth by Chingiz Aitmatov 1 Father, I know not where you lie buried. I dedicate this to you, Torekul Aitmatov. Mother, you brought us up, the four of us, I dedicate this to you, Nagima Aitmatova. 2 1 In her white, freshly-laundered dress, dark quilted jacket and white kerchief she slowly walks along the path through the stubble. There is not a soul anywhere. Summer is over. No voices can be heard in the field, no lorries raise a trail of dust on the dirt roads, no harvesters can be seen on the horizon, and the herds have not yet been put out to graze in the stubble. Beyond the grey high road the autumn steppe fades away into the distance. Rows of smoky clouds move soundlessly above it. The wind sweeps soundlessly over the field, rippling the feather-grass and dry weeds and slips off soundlessly towards the river. There is a smell of wet grass drenched by morning hoarfrost. The earth is relaxing after the harvest. Bad weather will soon set in, the rains will come, the first snow will cover the earth and blizzards will rage. But now it is quiet and peaceful. Let's not disturb her. She has stopped and gazes about with the dull eyes of old age. "Hello, Field," she calls softly. "Hello, Tolgonai. So you've come? You've got much older. Your hair is white. And you carry a staff." "Yes, I'm getting old. Another year has passed, and you, Field, have had another harvest. Today is the day of commemoration." "I know. I've waited for you, Tolgonai. But have you come alone again?" "Yes, as you see, I'm alone again." "Then you haven't told him yet, Tolgonai?" "No, I didn't dare." "Do you think no one will ever tell him? Do you think no one will ever mention it by accident?" "I know. Sooner or later he'll find out. He's bigger now, he might find it out from others. But to me he's still a child. And I'm afraid, so afraid to say anything." "A person must learn the truth, Tolgonai." "I know. But how can I tell him? That which I know, that which you know, my beloved field, that which everyone also knows, he alone does not know. And when he finds out, what will he think, how will he look upon all that has happened? Will his mind and his heart lead him to the truth? He is still a boy. That is why I am uncertain about what I am to do, how, I am to keep him from turning his back on life. I want him always to look upon it boldly. Ah, if only it were possible to tell it to him simply, in just a few words, 3 like a fairytale. I can think of nothing else these days, for who knows, I might die suddenly. Last winter when I fell ill and lay in bed I thought my end had come. It was not death I was afraid of - had it come I would not have resisted - but that I would not have time to open his eyes. I feared I would carry his truth away with me to the grave. He could not understand why I was so anxious. He worried about me, he even stayed home from school and kept close to my bed, he's the image of his mother, 'Grannie, Grannie! Should I give you your medicine? Or some water? Do you want another blanket?' But I could not summon up the courage, I did not have the heart to say anything. He's so trusting, so innocent. Time flies so quickly, and I cannot think of a way to start the conversation. I pondered it this way and that, but I always came to the same conclusion. If he is to judge all that has happened correctly, if he is to understand life properly, I must tell him not only about himself, not only about his own life, but about many other people and their lives as well, about myself and my times and about you, my field, about our life, and even about the bicycle he rides to school, never suspecting a thing. Perhaps that is the only right way. For nothing can be discarded, nothing can be added: life has mixed us all together in a single batter, it has tied us all into a single knot. And such is the story that not every adult can see his way clear through it. It has to be experienced to be understood by the heart and the soul. And so I keep thinking. I know it is my duty, and if I could fulfil it, I would not be afraid to die." "Sit down, Tolgonai. Don't stand there, your legs are tired. Sit down on that stone and let's think it over together. Tolgonai, do you recall the first time you came here?" "It's hard to remember, so much has happened since then." "Try to anyway. Try to remember it all from the very beginning." 2 I recall very dimly that when I was little they would lead me here by the hand during harvesting and sit me in the shade under a haystack. They would leave me a chunk of bread so that I wouldn't cry. And then, when I got bigger I would come running here to guard the crops. In the spring they would drive the herds through here to the mountains. I was a fleet-footed young girl with flying hair then. What a wonderful, carefree time childhood is! I remember the herdsmen were coming through Yellow Valley. Herd after herd, heading to new pastures, to the cool mountains. When I think of it now I realise how foolish I was. The herds thundered across the steppe like an avalanche, if you got in their way they'd trample you in a second. The pillars of dust rose a mile high in the sky, but I would hide in the wheat field and jump out at them suddenly like an animal and frighten them. The horses would rear up in terror, and the drovers would chase after me. "Hey, you shaggy-head! Just wait till we get our hands on you!" But I would dodge them and scamper away down the irrigation ditches. 4 Rust coloured flocks of sheep passed here day after day, their fatty tails swaying in the dusty air, their hoofs clattering like hailstones. Black-faced shepherds drove the flocks onward. Then came the nomad camps of the rich villages with their camel caravans and their wineskins of fermented mare's milk tied to the saddles. The young girls and young wives, dressed in silks, swayed on their frisky pacers as they sang songs of green meadows and clear waters. I wondered at them and, forgetting all else, would run a long way after them. "Oh, if only I had such a dress and a tasseled shawl!" I dreamt, gazing after them till they disappeared from view. What was I then? The barefoot daughter of a hired farm-hand. My grandfather had been made a ploughman for the rest of his life to pay off his debts, and so it went in the family. Yet though I never had a silk dress, I grew into an attractive girl. I liked to watch my shadow. I would walk along looking at it, as if admiring myself in a mirror. I certainly was a funny girl. I must have been seventeen when I met Suvankul during harvesting. That year he came down from Verkhny Talas to hire himself out as a farm-hand. Even now, if I close my eyes, I can see him exactly as he was then. He was still very young, about nineteen. He didn't own a shirt but went about with an old quilted jacket thrown over his bare shoulders. He was so black from the sun he looked smoked; his cheekbones glistened like burnished copper, and though he seemed thin and lanky his chest was strong and his arms were made of steel. You won't often find a worker such as he. We reaped the wheat easily and close to the ground, all you would hear was the ringing of the sickle and the swish of cut ears. There are people like that: it's a pleasure to watch them work. SuvankuI was such a one. Though they said I was a fast reaper, I could never keep up with him. Suvankul would work his way far ahead, then he would glance back and return to help me. But that hurt my pride, and I would become angry and chase him off, saying: "Who asked you to come back? Leave me alone, I can manage without you!" He would not take offence. He'd just chuckle and carry on in silence. Why did I get so cross then, silly girl that I was? We were always the first at work. Dawn would just be breaking, everyone else would still be sound asleep when we set out for the field. Suvankul always waited for me at the edge of the village, on our path. "Here you are," he would say. "I thought you left long ago," I would always reply; though I knew he would never leave without me. And then we would go on together. Meanwhile, the dawn would break, bathing the highest snow-capped mountains in gold, while the wind from the steppe blew in like a river of the purest blue.