We had an election the other day. I mean an election in our family. It was on an alternative basis.
My wife stood for the election along with me. She was a candidate from the "Free Women" party. I saw that our sheep was also voting for my wife, so I said:
- It"s not fair. The sheep"s voice doesn"t sound right. "Ba-ba! Ba-a-ba! - says the sheep. One sound is lacking here and namely the sound "t", and the letter "T", accordingly. "Baba" doesn"t mean "Babat". So I would ask the Election Committee not to count that voice in favor of my rival.
The Committee did as I said. I had won and became head of the family again. My sons became oppositionists and went underground. Using my catapult, I started persecuting the birds
which every night flew together in the huge maple-tree outside our house to discuss some secret matters. I would shout to them:
- You, silly birds, get out, quick, will ye? Who gave you the right to hold an unendorsed meeting?! We are not against meetings as such. But if you are in opposition, then, please, hold your meetings indoors, say, in a club or somewhere.
The silly birds took offence at my words of wisdom and flew away without dropping in at the nearby club.
- Well, you may fly away, if you wish - I said - fly, you wretched migrants! Traitors of Motherland! We have no time for politics and meetings now. From now on very stringent laws, which I have written myself, will reign in our family. That"s the way it is. If some citizens don"t like our laws they may fly wherever they want. Let them die safely abroad if the want! Coalitions and negotiations are out of question!
The birds had flown away. Our orchard and kitchen-garden were desolate now. Consequent-ly, the leaves in the trees as well as melons and gourds were all eaten up by hordes of locusts. The family economy was in a complete failure. I started looking for some other ways of recove-ring the economy of our family.
In autumn I went to the local winery and bought a carriage of grapes for wine production. I brought them home, put them in a vessel and shut the lid hermetically. A month later I opened the lid and saw the grapes bubbling and smoking like a swamp. Well, I thought, that must be all. After that I started working on my self-made woodworker day and night and, at odd moments, making underground wine. I had made fifty boxes of it and hiding them in the cellar went to look for buyers. My buyer was a thirty two years old guy by the name of Khalim Khazori Khalty. He was about two meters tall, as thin as shaitan, fair-haired, with big rabbit"s front teeth and brown eyes. He bought my wine for his younger brother"s wedding party. On the wedding day the guests drank that wine and started running to WC. After the wedding all the victims gathered round and knocked Khalim Khazori Khalty"s front teeth. He split and betrayed me. They started pursuing me. I had to hide myself under an assumed name and using a beard and moustache glued to my face. As the victims had vowed to make short work of me I always came home late at night. As I was sick and tired of living in hiding I left home following my nose.
I now lived in Kashkirkishlak at the baker"s by the name of Zhavatokhun. I worked at his bakery. Apart from Zhavatokhun there were two ice cheerful guys there. One was thin and tall, the other was the other way around, thick and short. The thin one"s name was Sunnat, the thick one had the name of Ummat. The baker Zhavatokhun-aka was a good man. He was fond of quails. When they sang in the cages made of pumpkins he would rejoice like a little child. The quails sang to please him: "Pick-per awick! Pick-per awick! Pick-per awick!"
He wore a green skull-cap. It was green from grass. He used that cap to kill insects in the meadows for his quails. He also gathered seeds of wild hashish and fed the birds with them. The quails would peck them, get tipsy and sing songs falling into a reverie.
Now and then Uncle Karavan, a friend of Zhavatokhun, would drop in at our bakery. The old man, too, loved quails, their fights, in particular. He wore a gown called yaktag which is similar to the Japanese kimono, and would always have a fighting quail up his sleeve, feeding him with little pieces of meat and a boiled egg. The fighting quails" name was Spartacus. He named him after the legendary gladiator of ancient Rome.
I was lucky to attend a quail fight one day. There were fans around. In a small of circle of people two little birds stood staring at each other with burning flames in their eyes. The referee threw them a handful of seeds, and the fight began. People staked on the outcome of the fight. There were shouts all around: "Aha, knock it! Put its eyes out! Eat it! Strangle it! Get hold of its throat!"
The game-birds, all bleeding, kept fighting, and it lasted rather long. Getting tired, they would cling to one another, with their bills open, like boxers do in a free fight. After a while, having a little rest, they would resume fighting to the delight of the spectators. In the end one of the two fighters would give up, and the fight would be over.
The quail fans would long tell one another stories about the fights. There were quails that would not even be exchanged for a car.
They caught quails in cotton and rye fields. One of the methods is called "tuzak" which is a loop made from horsehair and fixed with clay.
The tuzaks were set on the ground in places where quails walked around in search of food. Unable to lift the clay load they would get into a loop as they walked. The bird-hunters would then pick them and sort them out selecting the singing and fighting ones and frying for food or selling the rest to gourmets.
Another method involved using a net.
Early in the morning they would set nets in a grass plot. Near the net they would hang up a cage with a female quail which sang at dawn attracting mail quails. Then the hunters would go towards the net from the opposite side raising a noise by stirring the grass with sticks.
The ordinary quails could not fly far and high, so they would get into a net. The hunters would have their trousers all wet from the morning dew. But they were indelibly impressed. when a quail flew up from under the feet and got into the net
When I came to settle there I learnt a lot of things. My main task at the bakery was to prepare the dough by the time the master arrived.
Early in the morning I would make the dough and go to give the quails fresh water and feed them taking the cages out to the open air and hanging them on the branches of weeping willows outside the bakery. Zhavatukhan usually came to work after the morning service in the mosque when recited the Bamdad prayer (morning prayer) at 6 a.m.
He would bless me with his prayers and we would get down to work. Sunnat and Ummat would come at 7 a.m. I would switch on the tape recorder and we would, to the sound of classical music, bake bread in the form of flat round cakes looking like sun disks.
It"s really pleasant and encouraging to have such bread with sour cream for breakfast early in the morning. After work we would make some delicious dish, and after supper we would sit around chatting.
I had written a story about bread which went like this.
The main character of the story was a man by the name of Turdikul who went to a big city on business. He made up his mind to buy a piece of flat bread for lunch. He saw an old woman selling bread near a shashlik-house . Turdikul bought a piece of bread and dropped in at the cheap dining-room to eat it with shashlik. The bread was extraordinarily tasty. The following day he came to the same place and saw the same woman selling bread. Again he bought bread from her and went to the dining-room to eat it with spaghetti. He was amazed at the wonderful taste of her bread and decided to ask the woman for the recipe for making such good bread. But the old woman was not there.
Turdikul was preparing to go home. The following day he came to the place again but the woman was not there. He didn"t see her till the day of his departure. At the end of his business trip he went to see the woman for the last time. He suddenly saw the woman, but she was not selling bread. He greeted her and said:
- Granny, where have you been all this time? I used to come here to buy bread every day but didn"t find you. I should say, your bread is amazingly tasty. I wanted to ask you for the recipe. Why don"t you sell bread any more?
- Oh, sonny, - the woman said with a sigh - my husband has passed away...
- Sorry, I didn"t know. May he rest in peace. Was he the one who made that bread? - asked Turdikul
- No- the woman answered - you see, sonny, my poor hubby had ulcer on his neck, and some liquid was dripping out of his wound all the time. The sorcerer advised me to put flour on the wound, which I did. But the wet flour, turning into dough, was gradually accumulating. I did not throw away the dough though, why should I? That was the dough I used to make the bread which you bought and ate...
On hearing this, the main character of my book fell down moaning "Ah-oh-ah" and died on the spot. Militia men arrived and started interrogating the woman.
- I was kidding - she said - these people, they don"t see a joke. They have no sense of humor.
I think I have opened new horizons in world literature by writing this story. I read it to my fellow-villagers in Matarak. Up to now they cannot shake off the acute feeling of fascination from the story which I myself have written.
Shashlik or shashlyk - a form of skewered dish popular throughout the former Soviet Union, and Mongolia. Shashlik is generally either beef, pork, or lamb, depending on local preferences or religious observances. Pieces of meat for Shashlik are usually marinated overnight in vinegar and roasted over burning down pieces of wood or charcoal. Shashlik is usually cooked on a grill called a mangal.