One always wants to have good food and good clothes, a luxurious villa and a self made car, a Rolls-Royce, to kill the time in brothels with lovely prostitutes where they drink cocktail on ice and charming strip teasers slowly take off their underclothes as they dance. But an empty purse and a hole in the pocket did not allow that. I could not sell the uvada which I got instead of my wage.
As I was walking down the street one day, looking a frightening figure, unshaved, I dropped in at the barber"s to refresh myself . The barber was Usta Garib, a thick man of about fifty years of age, gray- haired, with a round swarthy face and a twisted mustache.
His booth was located in the center of Matarak by the side of a swift aryk with big poplars rustling above it. Next to the booth, under the weeping willow, by the side of aryk there was a water-wheel known locally as "Charhpolak". It"s an old mill revolving on its axis and drawing water from aryk to irrigate he little kitchen garden where Usta Garib grows tomatoes and cucumbers.
As I entered the room I saw Usta Garib sit reading the satirical magazine "Mushtum". When he saw me he put the magazine aside and rose to greet me.
- Yes, yes, Mullah Al Kazim, welcome. Fancy meeting you here!
We shook hands and I said:
- You see the bristly hairs on my face? I want to have it shaved. I feel ill it is, you know. My mug looks like an ant hill after rain.
- You are always welcome - said the barber. I will shave you so that you will look spick-and span. When you come home your own children will not recognize you. Your wife may even call the militia, and it will be hard to prove that it"s you, Al Kizim. DNA, blood test and all that. It will be a fancy ball sort of. Then they will claim that you"ve undergone a plastic surgery to hide your villainous crimes against mankind.
-Yes, - I said. - They will get to you, too. Like a surgeon who has done a plastic surgery on a dangerous criminal you will be thrown to prison along with me.
Usta Garib smiled slyly and pointed to the chair inviting me to sit down in the torn rolling chair. I obeyed. Usta Garib put a cape on me tightening its ends as if putting a noose around my neck the way they do it with dictators, carrying out the death sentence of the Hague tribunal. Then he started whipping the shaving foam using a piece of soap. His hand was working the foam while looking at me through the mirror said:
- I was kidding, Al Kizim. How are you anyway?
-Too bad , - I said, - My wage is so small. I am a participant of the tragedy at Chernobyl Nuclear Power Station. They call us "liquidators of consequences". When the Chernobyl liquidators receive their miserable pension they feel happy. We call our pension "CherNobel prize". You think it"s funny. But we don"t feel like laughing. We risked our lives, so to say. Many of us got 6-7 roentgen of radiation exposure. The money we get is not enough to buy even half a sack of flour. Just half an hour ago I got my pension. I am afraid of spending it. I want to consult my wife. She is thrifty. Maybe, I"d better invest it? What do you think?
-I advise you, my dear Al Kizim, not to consult your wife, never. A woman is a tool in the hands of Satan. Say, our forefather Adam followed Eve"s advice. The result was that they were driven away from the Garden of Eden. And now we children of Adam, forced by Satan, are ready to gnaw one another"s throat. We must think better of it and help one another. There is always a way out, in any situation. In other words, your pension can be settled in no time, do you believe me?
I thought for a minute and then said:
-Oh really? What do you mean? How can it be?
-Well you have to go to Klondike for that.
- Klondike? What is it?
-You don"t know what a Klondike is? You are in charge of a store-house, aren"t you? You should know! It"s Kumarkhona, an underground casino!
-Well, where is it?
- You"d better make up your mind first. If you do, I will tell you.
I agreed.
-That"s another pair of shoes, - Usta Garib said, and, sharpening the blade on the belt
hanging down from the mirror, started shaving me. His hands were shaking. Who knows? Just one motion and -zap!-my throat will be cut. I knew that Usta Garib was a heavy drinker. I wondered where this Parkinson of his was from.
At last he had finished shaving me. When he was applying a compress with burning,
badly smelling eau-de-Cologne I nearly kicked the bucket from suffocation.
- Well, there you are! I have shaved you. You may go now. Tonight the game will take
place in the old stable of Mirzakalandra. Mount!..
Usta Garib took the money for the work done, took off his apron and switched off the
light. We went out. Then he hanged the lock on the door, and we went our way to the place where gambling was going on with a swing.
The dark velvet of the cool evening was slowly descending, and the early stars were
twinkling up in the sky. Night lights appeared in the windows of small shacks of Matarak.
We walked down the road with tall poplars buzzing like huge organ-pipes in the spring wind above us. Beyond the ruins of the old pigsty the moon was rising. On our way to the casino I told Usta Garib that I didn"t know the rules of the dice.
-Don"t worry - he said - You are a gifted man. You will learn fast. Casino is a tough
school. But the school leavers can do all except for reading and writing. Just roll the dice and grab your money by the sacks. Unless you go flop, of course. Casino is an eternal Klondike. Alaska! Muruntav!
-Yes, I hope so.
- You shouldn"t hope. You should be confident. Why hope when hope dies first whereas
man dies after. We die with a tormenting pain at heart, we die in misery and despair, hopeless and lonely. Nobody will need you then. Not even your own children.
He spoke walking with a measured step. I followed him like a dog that went out for a walk with its owner. When we arrived at the casino we saw a stout man with a swarthy face and a big mustache standing outside the stable. Like a custom"s officer he collected money from the visitors to the casino. I had to pay for the entrance from my own pocket. Usta Garim gave the money to the custom"s officer and said contemptuously:
- Na, teshib cheksin, - which meant "may this money pierce through your throat".
At last we entered the underground casino. It was a small stable with a mud floor and a
low ceiling. The squeaking door of the stable, looking like a lonely fleapit hut in a thick wood, with a green oak-tree growing outside, closed with difficulty. The stable was illuminated with a little portable electric bulb. There was a smell of vodka, sweat and tobacco smoke all around. It was hard to breathe. The high-rollers could hardly see one another in the dim light. There were about twenty people including the onlookers and Mirzakalandar, the owner of the stable who sat on the shelf collecting "chital" i.e. money for the rent of space.
Usta Garib and I went up to the game site with a chalked line for throwing dice. Beyond
the line there were cramped banknotes looking like leaves fallen from the autumn chestnut-trees in the quiet alleys where the wind was riding on the swing up above.
At last we, too, joined the game. Adil, a venturesome gambler, had the bones now. He
had great prestige among the gamesters. He set the bones right and said:
-Who is the next one?
The players stood motionless.
- Adiljan , we have a new player. Let him tempt his fortune - said Usta Garib pointing at me.
Adil turned to me. His face was grave like a granite mask.
-You bet - he said.
I looked at Usta Garib. He winked slyly and told me to venture. I pulled out my pension out of my pocket which I had just received standing in a long line patiently, and threw half of my money as a stake.
Throwing the dice, like gamblers do, Adil cried out:
- Gardkam!
I looked at the bones. I did not understand. I was just ignorant. Kumar is a good lesson for me. I looked at Usta Garib and saw that he was looking down in confusion.
-You have lost -Adil said calmly.
Then he raked up the money which I had got as my pension for the liquidation work done
at Chernobyl Nuclear Power Station. I sat motionless like a frozen polar explorer on the glacier of the northern hemisphere. The players and the onlookers looked like penguins, while Usta Garib, appeared to be sliding on ice like a walrus in the thick, gray fog of tobacco.
To redeem his sin he turned to Adil with the request:
-Adiljan, please, roll dice once more for this poor man. His hands never touched bones.
Please, I beg you, do it for the love of fellow-men.
-All right- said Adil - Let him stake.
A was grateful to Adil for giving me another chance and , with trembling hands took out the remaining part of my pension.. After I staked it Adil threw the dice with a shout:
-Gardkam
Then he said:
-Oh my Lord! I have won! My life is an endless swamp!
His words scolded me like boiling water. Yes, indeed, life is really an endless swamp. We
tramp across it in fear and tremble, a stick in hand, so as not to fall down. If you drown, that will be the end, Auf Wiedersehen! There is not a soul around. Nobody can help you. Uttering the letter "A" out loud , the first letter of the alphabet which you learnt at school, you will go to the bottom, leaving slush and seaweed behind and letting out the bubbles of the last portions of oxygen. Like a drowning man I asked Adil for help:
-Adiljan, throw it once more for the sake of King Zhamshid , the Guardian of gamblers
of all times . Adil replied calmly:
- " ер курсин" which means "may the earth see your money"
I begged:
- Adiljan, my money is gone. I have lost all up to a coin. Please, throw it once on credit. If I lose, I will bring the money tomorrow, by all means.
- No - he said - we don"t play on credit, and turned to other players.
I stood stock-still, really. My hands were hanging down loosely like chain frankfurters. I looked miserable.
Meanwhile Usta Garib encouraged me tapping me on the shoulder:
-Don"t worry, brother. There is a price to be paid for art. Cheer up! Don"t lose heart. If a
gambler is a looser to-day, he will be the king tomorrow! With these words he turned to the other players.
I turned black from grief. I clenched my teeth to prevent myself from howling like a wolf. I wanted to have a smoke. I had no money to buy cigarettes. I looked down and saw a but. I picked it up, on the sly, and struck a match to light it. I felt some relief. Suddenly Usta Garib called me. I ran up to him. He gave me the bones and said: "suna". If we decode the word it will mean "a gift to a player from his partner who respects him from the bottom of his heart". I was happy again. The sun rose again, and the icebergs melted in the Northern latitudes where I lay as a polar explorer. I livened up, so did the dogs. I imagined riding in a sleigh pulled by sled dogs at a high speed cheerfully encouraging them and coming back come after covering boundless expanses of the polar circle. The gamblers sitting in smoke as if in an icecap, that is the smoke of the stable, came out to greet me. Addressing them, I declared solemnly:
- Everybody is invited to stake!
Then I said the long prayer which I had learnt from my granny. I prayed blowing on the
bones. Kuf-kuf - these are not my hands they are the hands of the great sultan Zhamsid! Lord, help your slave who was left an orphan so long ago. Gardkam!
I cast the dice and looked at Usta Garib. He turned pale. Like a ballet dancer, he slowly
tiptoed towards the door. But he was held back by Adil"s accomplices. I happened to have lost big money. Adil stared at me like a hangman his eyes as cold as the ice of Antarctica. Then he said:
- It"s ten minutes past nine now. I give time till morning. Should you fail to bring me all
the money you"ve lost by morning we shall bury your friend, the barber, alive, along with burnt limestone so that the cops might not identify him... If you squeal on us then you are done for. My fellows will find you at any cost. That"s all. You may go. Get out before I change my mind.
After that my sun sank below the clouds, and again I turned into a huge piece of ice blown by the wind of the Arctic Ocean where the hungry polar bears were sniffing around in search of food.
I went out and made my way home. Where else could I go?
When I got home my wife came out and said:
-Oh, dadasi (father of my sons) where have you been? I am worried and have been
waiting for you, and you never come. You look so pale, what"s the matter? Are you not
feeling well?
By intuition she felt that something had happened to me. I told her the whole story. What"s the use of hiding it from her? For it is said that all that is hidden shall be disclosed. On hearing what I had done poor Babat nearly fainted. She grieved and cried and then looking into my empty eyes, as if she was looking into a well, she said:
-What shall we do now, dadasi?
Silently, I looked into the sky where stars were twinkling far away, and the moon was shining like a thirsty vampire.
Looking at the pale moon I said:
- I don"t know, Babat, pardon me, please, if you can. It"s the devil"s work. What can I do? I really don"t know. The sands are running out.
Babat looked at me pitifully and burst out crying in silence. Then she said:
- Don"t worry, dadasi, there is always a way out of the difficulty. Give them our sheep
and our cow. What do we need them for if your life is in danger?
To pay off my huge debt I turned out our nine sheep and one cow. Adil"s bodyguards, the skin headed men with severe death mask faces, met me outside the house of Mirzakalandar, where the game of chance had been going on. Five minutes later Adil came out to count the sheep plus the cow and said:
- That"s not enough.
He ordered the bodyguards to bring the pliers. When they brought them he told them to hold me tight by the hands and legs. After the men had done that Adil came up to me and, pliers in hand, and said:
-Will you please open your mouth, puppy...
I strained myself in anxiety.
-Why? I haven"t got a toothache. And I don"t need the services of a dentist...
Then Adil opened my mouth by force and grimly started pulling the golden coronas off my teeth, with the dirty pliers. I screamed for horrible pain. Usta Garib, not wishing to see the dramatic scene, turned his face to the wall and closed his ears with his fingers. He was apparently a very nervous man. Adil, in cool blood, like a hangman, was pulling out my golden coronas. At last the infernal operation was over. He had taken out all the coronas, along with my teeth.
The pain was so unbearable, that I couldn"t close my mouth, keeping screaming. I looked like a vampire that had just sucked out the victim"s blood at moonlit night and had his mouth full of dribbling blood and saliva. After the treatment Adil let us go and said at parting:
-Come to see us again.
I cursed him like hell but instead of words only air came out of my toothless mouth making me resemble an aborigine who has his front teeth knocked out with a stone, for appearance.
From then on I started speaking with a whistle, like a seven year old boy who has his teeth fallen out.
5 Aryk - an irrigation ditch, looking like a little river, spring or brook
Muruntav - a big gold mine in Central Asia
jan - also jon _(L (lit. "soul" ) used as a suffix added to a name when addressing a person, both male and female, and denotes " my dear, my sweetie, my soul" - e.g. Adiljan - Adil, my dear