The fellow-villagers surrounded us. Now, when I look back after all these years, I think grandfather somehow instinctively sensed what really threatened the lives of these simple people. How else can I explain his outburst – he was an intelligent, calm person, who certainly understood that his words would not change anything. Absolutely nothing. They eyed each other – the tall, stately lieutenant-colonel and the stooped, yet still powerful, gnarled old man, whose strong hand firmly gripped his whip.
«Do you know, you official, what these people have had to go through? No, you have no idea. You do not understand that this land is the land of a great and sacred people! We have lived peacefully roaming these steppes for centuries, without offending anyone. Our summer pastures are here. Our Abai was born here. Later he became an inconvenience to the powers that be and we would be sent to Siberia for mere mention of his name. Then our great poet and philosopher Shakarim, who was befriended by your Tolstoy, was shot, and once again if a Kazakh were to just hint at his name, before he knew it he would find himself in Siberia. Our best people died in exile… And here you are just arrived from Semipalatinsk – you don’t even know that our entire steppe from the village to Semipalatinsk was strewn with human corpses. Hunger-have you any idea what that is? Do you know how many it wiped out? And then came the war. And how many perished – every second of our dzhigits fell in a faraway land. And take a look at what collective farmers eat, what they receive for a day’s labour. We don’t live, we exist. It’s not that many have forgotten the taste of meat, it’s, the taste of bread that they don’t remember. For each collective farm’s sheep that went missing we paid for with our heads. So, tell me, you official, when will our people begin to live? And will they live at all? You know you are sending us to our death. Isn’t that so?»
People listened in silence. They averted their eyes. They agreed with the old man but his outspokeness frightened them and some of them moved away, a blank expression on their faces, as if to say, «See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.»
«Where do you think you’re going? Stand still and listen to the truth! Have you lost both your reason and your honesty? Although today, it seems, for many honesty is a stone around one’s neck. But what use will you be to anyone without honesty, without a conscience? Have you ever thought about that?»
