There is a magic correlation between silence and snowfall. There is solitude medially, which I am fond of. I don"t know why. Perchance, it"s because solitude has some sweetness about it, that is, the fine feeling of recollection where our bygone days, our youth and childhood, have flown, like autumn cranes. It"s the most beautiful endless land where one sooner or later departs for. Particularly, when one is persecuted by authorities and suppressed, as if by mother-in-law, by the epoch one lives in, and in that case one has a chance to live falling into recollections. Nobody can deport him from there.
Recollection is not an official institution, and it doesn"t belong to the state. One is absolutely free and independent there. That"s why I love solitude.
. Thinking about it and drinking hot sweet tea, watching through the window frame the night snowfall, I sat by the window in silence.
My wife and the children were sleeping around the sandal. Since there was no gas supply in Matarak we set up a "sandal", a primitive means of protection from frosts. A sandal is a kind of a table, but lower than a table. Beneath the sandal there is a hole where we put little pieces of burning charcoal. The table is covered with a blanket called "korpa". We protect ourselves from cold under this korpa.
I long sat watching the snow falling now strait, now slantwise. The innumerable snowflakes, like a mad swarm of white flies, where whirling by the street-lamps light.
I had been sitting by the window for a long time before I went to bed under the sandal blanket towards morning when my Babat got up to say her "bamdad" prayer. I lay in twilight listening to the hissing of my wife who painstakingly prayed to God reading the Holy
Suras of the Koran.
Hoping to learn the prayer I repeated the words. But listening to the prayer and the quiet voice of my wife I fell asleep again. When I woke up my wife was clearing the yard from snow, laying out a path to the toilet which had a curtain instead of the door. I went out into the yard and seeing the fabulous landscape pronounced:
- Hey-hey-he-e-e-ey!
I uttered these sounds with puffs of steam coming out of my mouth. My wife, leaning against the spade made of veneer, stared at me setting right her hair sticking out of her downy kerchief, and beamed with a smile.
The tall poplars and huge willows of Matarak, the roofs of houses, fences and gardens, as if covered with a white blanket, were sleeping in delicious dreams. A flock of crows flew past croaking over my head. The winter was staring at me with huge eyes in all its splendor. Like a huge anaconda, a thick gray smoke smelling of rubber, was coming out into the cold sky that stuck out of the chimney of Ramazanov"s house. He evidently heated his house burning the old tires of his "Zaporozhets".
Admiring the winter landscape, and slightly limping, I made my way to the toilet. As I got out I washed my face and hands with snow, like a tempered soldier that had to serve in the depth of Siberian forests, guarding the camp fences wrapped in barbed wire from prisoners whose piercing voices, would, like frightened birds, fly through the grids of window openings into the thick darkness at frosty nights:
- Mo-o-o- mmy! I want to go ho-o-o-me!
I washed myself with snow throwing snowballs at my wife. Babbat responded paying back in my own coin. The morning silence answered our laughter. What purity! All is white!! It"s like the soul of a good person...
I entered my study which was beyond compare in size. The only bad thing about it was that it was strictly forbidden to heat it with electric heaters and ovens! . Since there were tons of
inflammable cotton wastes, i.e. uvada, fire could break out any time there.
So I sat in my spacious room, shaking from cold and blowing my reddened hands to warm them up. Suddenly, a loud stream of invectives from Usta Churan directed against the Kalankhan Adalatov resounded from Uvada Factory.
When I went out a fight broke out between the director and the watchman. When I saw Usta Chran taking out a knife from top of his tarpaulin boot I rushed there to do something to prevent the fight from turning into knifing. Calling them to come to reason I pulled them apart.
The reason for the fight was Kalankhan Adalatov"s joke which Usta Churan took seriously. Then it was cleared out that when Usta Churan started coughing because of the cold he had caught, Kalankhan Adalatov, as if he were an otolaryngologist, advised him that he wanted to get rid of the cough, he should eat a handful of snow with ice every day before lunch. Usta Churan ate a handful of snow, which only intensified the cough. Therefore he started abusing the director like anything. Consequently, Kalankhan Adalatov challenged him to a duel. He even had written the historic document, sounding like an invitation, which he named a "Duelnome".
Duelnome
"For insulting my personal honor and dignity, I herewith challenge Kuldashev Churan Yuldashevich to a duel which is to take place by the side of the Karadarya River, outside the pigsty, at 5 p.m. on December 31st of this year. The duelist shall arrive on time, along with his second. The weapons to be used in the duel shall be stones, 500 grams each. The distance between the duelists shall be 25, 5 meters.
May the Truth and Justice triumph in the whole world!
- Monsieur Duke don Antonio de Charle el Kalakhanos Adalatos
Signature Seal Stamp of Uvada Factory
When, as a witness, I got a copy of this document Kalankhan Adalatov said:
- Al Kizim, you have the great honor to be my second in the duel. I don"t know about Churan but I have thought everything over, every little thing. The duel will be arranged like in good old times, with the duelists wearing tail-coats and top hats. I looked at the director in surprise and said:
- Pardon me, Kalankhan Adalatovich, but where shall we get the 19th century suits, I wonder? Incidentally, making such suits is not our business. Besides, it takes much time to have them made. If we place an order at the fashion house with their couturiers and modelers, the time fixed for the "duel" will sink into oblivion, and the future generations will laugh at us.
- Don"t worry, Al Kizim, haven"t I told you that I have thought everything over? I have a friend by the name of Manna Sundal, who is a theatre producer and lives with his family at the Theater of Comedy and Satire. We have signed a bilateral agreement with him on the lease of suits. Under this agreement, Kunzhibay has already remitted the money to their bank account.
They"ve got everything: wigs, white pants, gloves, box-calf boots, pocket watches, walking sticks and other things. You will put the stones, wrapped in paper, in the case which you have kept since you graduated from the Evening Department of the Literary Institute named after Alexey Gorky.
- I have some reservations about the stones you want to be used in the duel - I said, and added: by tradition we must use revolvers, well, at least hunting guns. Otherwise it doesn"t appear to be serious.
- No -Adalatov said - setting right his black piratical frontlet. We should stick to the old traditions of our ancestors that lived in the Stone Age. Say, Dante and Pushkin used revolvers, and Pushkin misfired. As a result the world lost a great poet. As for stones, they never misfire, unless you take a good aim, of course.
- Well, well...- I said admiring the wise Director"s argument. You are the greatest thinker of the 20th century!
- Excessive praise is derision - the director said and continued: so you"d better go, and may God help you, Al Kizim. On your way, drop in at our house. Tarzana Nikolayevna will give you the case which I have kept since I graduated from the Evening Department of the Literary Institute named after Alexey Gorky. Find some stones 500 grams each. Weigh them carefully and put them in the case, which helped me graduate from the institute, and bring them here.
- All right - I said and walked out of Kalankhan Adalatov"s study.
Outside, cold wind was whistling, and it snowed. Wrapping myself up in the sheepskin coat I made my way home. On my way I dropped in at Kalankhan Adalatov"w house, took the worn out case from Tarzana Nikolayevna and went to look for stones.
On the bank of the river, in the cold wind, I long messed around picking stones. I came home late in the evening, hungry, tired and cold. I was all blue, shivering like the skeleton of a hanged man whose flesh had been eaten up by crows. I wrapped myself up warmly in the blanket and lay down thinking about how nice it was to have a house to live in with a heater helping some peoples go through the cold winter. The rulers of these peoples, trying to keep power, destroy the natural resources and send to other countries the free gas deposits which do not belong to them, whereas people spend winters sleeping in sandals, i.e. home-made heating beds, like I do.
I felt myself comfortable in the sandal, so that I fell asleep without even having supper. In the morning I got up, washed myself and shaved, had breakfast, and taking my shabby case packed with stones and walked home, limping. At the gate of Uvada Factory I greeted Usta Churan who was clearing the road from snow.
I went straight to the Director"s office. He was happy to see me, and, like a one-eyed Cyclops, stared at my shabby case. When I opened it he took a couple of stones and weighing them in his hands said admiringly:
-Good for you! Very nice stones! - Kalankhan Adalatov said aiming at me as if training. Then he put the stones back into the case and showed me the 19th century suits which his friend, the theatre producer Manna Sundal, had brought.
At 4 p.m., dressed in old suits, we went across the field of Khasan Abu Doud towards the pigsty, were the duel was to take place.
By that time the snow had considerably intensified covering the fields, trees and roofs of Matarack"s shacks with big whirling snowflakes.
Stumbling in the snow we finally reached the site. Measuring the distance with my feet, I determined the firing lines. Then I marked them with flags. Kalankhan Adalatov, dressed in a tail-coat and top hat, was proudly standing over the deep ravine of the Karadarya River. His artificial hair and side-whiskers, were sticking out like caracul of his hat. He stood leaning against the walking stick. When the watch showed 5 p.m. a man appeared against the background of the snow covered fields. It was usta Churan. Half an hour later, he, too, was at the appointed place.
Turning to me Kalankhan Adalatov said:
- Ask him why he has come without a suit on and without his second?
I asked him:
- Comrade Kuldashev, why have you come without a suit on and without your second?
He answered coolly, like a hangman:
- Tell your Director, that if he wants to fight with me, I can do it without a suit on and without a second.
Kalankhan Adalatov looked at me with his only eye and flopping his eye-lashes gave a sign as if to say: "Go!"
I asked Usta Churan to come close. When he did as I said I asked him:
- Comrade Kuldashev, it"s your choice: heads or tails?
- Heads - he answered. I tossed up the coin and caught it. The duelists stared at the coin in my hand.
- Tails -I said.
- No objections - Usta Churan muttered.
- You will be the first to hurl a stone, Sir - I said addressing Kalankhan Adalatov and added:
- Please, take your stands.
The duelists did as I told them. Standing on the firing line and sneering maliciously, Kalankhan Adalatov said to Usta Churan:
- Have some snow for you"ve got very little time left to live. You"ll go to the other world and work there as the hell"s guard.
Then he said his prayer and uttered blowing at the stone: "Kuf-suf!" Aftеr that, he aimed at Usta Churan"s head. The latter took off his hat and threw it down on the snow.
Kalankhan Adalatov had hurled the stone before I waved my hand with the stop-watch. But-alas- he missed!
It was now Usta Churan"s turn to throw a stone. He hurled it without even taking aim, and, with a mathematical accuracy, hit Adalatov right in the head. He staggered and fell down on the spot like a sewed tree. He got a craniocerebral trauma.
Usta Churan picked up his cap, put it on carelessly and with great strides set out for Matarak, like a Komsomol member that gave out land to peasants, measuring the plot with his feet, during the revolution times.
Having brought Kalankhan Adalatov round I put him on the spread suit and dragged him to Matarak.
It was getting dusky, and it was still snowing.
Sura - (sometimes spelled "Surah" سورة sūrah, plural "Suwar" سور) is a "chapter" of the Qur'an (Koran), 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'.