I held myself back. My face turned pink from excitement.
Grandfather asked my father: „Aman, esenbisin, karagym. How are you, my son?“
„Everything’s fine,“ my father answered. „How was your journey? Did everything go well?“
I understood that he was asking out of custom, for he himself knew as well as everyone else what was taking place all around.
„The old man is making a fuss again,“ some corporal complained to the lieutenant-colonel. „It was he who stopped us from working.“
„In that case, pass on this order to everyone: the wells are to be left as they are, since we didn’t manage to complete the job in time. Well, as the saying goes, it’s not fate, it’s not God’s will,“ said the lieutenant-colonel thoughtfully.
My father came up to me and drew me towards him and asked me gently: „Well, how did you get on up there, did you help the old folk?“
I embraced him. He smelled of smoke, sun and gunpowder, all the smells that had dominated the steppe over the last few days.
„Ask grandfather…“ I answered.
„That means you did help them! Good lad!“ Father patted – me on the shoulder. „Come on then, let’s carry the things inside.“
Grandmother lit a fire in the summer oven which stood in the yard and began to bake taba-nan – bread. Grandfather climbed up onto the roof and brought down a ladder, then he took a small shovel and disappeared down the well.
Grandmother and I helped him carry the buckets which he handed to us. Only nearer lunch time, did grandfather, tired and haggard, climb out of the well.
We sat down to rest in the shade.
„Ata,“ said my father guiltily, „forgive us, but we ate all your hens. There was no choice.“
„Oh, that’s alright. It doesn’t matter,“ answered grandfather briefly. „It’s more important that the earth and the people that inhabit it survive…“
„I’ll go into town soon and buy you some more chickens,“ father promised. „Good.“
I became bored with this domestic talk and suddenly felt depressed and alone in the deserted village.
The adults began to talk about their future, about deprivation, of their fear in the face of the atomic bomb, of the American threat. Father was trying to convince the old folk that there was a threat from America. He became excited and waved his arms about and I suspected that he was repeating what he had been told by the soldiers. And once again I remembered the hills. I remembered that terrifying explosion when it seemed that at any moment the umbilical cord which linked the sun and the earth would snap and the earth would be hurled into the depths of an unknown universe just as the thundering boulders had crashed down the mountain, frightening people and animals. I remembered how the horses ran in all directions from fright and the old men were only able to find them on the next day. I remembered, too, how the earth sank away under one’s feet and how I hugged the cold, damp earth and how little Kenje, having lost her mind, ran through a hail of falling stones.
