Selected Poetry / Избранное (англ.). Gabdullah Tukai
I will relate the story of my life not from the words of other people but as I myself recall what happened.
We walked out of my grandfather’s house and I climbed into uncle Sagdi’s 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: «We’ll 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 hadn’t 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 wasn’t yet too hot and its caressing rays also delighted me.
We finally arrived in Kyrlai. Uncle Sagdi’s 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 hadn’t 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 mother’s 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 couldn’t join them, so I went home.
I went inside and found two grown-up girls there (for some reason I hadn’t 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 Sagdi’s 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 didn’t 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. «What’s 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 didn’t 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 you’re 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 else’s child, your nose and mouth will be smeared in blood; when you take someone else’s calf, your nose and mouth will be smeared in butter. It’s true, what people say. That’s 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 didn’t 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 can’t give away to a stranger the clothes that belonged to my son, which I keep as a memory!»
Father finally flared up: «Come on, don’t be so spiteful! Do you want the kid to walk around naked because it wasn’t you who gave birth to him?» – With these words, he grabbed the clothes almost by force and told me to put them on.
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 didn’t 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 didn’t 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, that’s 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 mullah’s 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
Tatar dairy product of sour milk somewhat similar to yogurt.