on, get dressed—and let's go. It isn't right! We're all there, and you are here
alone."
"Grandpa said I wasn't to get up," said the boy.
"Forget what he said. Come on, let's take a look. Such things don't
happen every day. Today we've got a feast. The bowl is fat,
the spoon is fat,
and the mouth is fat! Get up!"
With drunken clumsiness he began to dress the boy.
"I'll do it myself." The boy tried to push him aside. At-tacks of dizziness
came over him. But the drunk Seidakhmat would not listen. He felt he was
doing a good deed, since the boy had been abandoned at home, and this was
a day when the bowl was fat, and the spoon was fat, and the mouth was fat. .
. .
Unsteadily, the boy followed Seidakhmat out of the house.
The day in
the mountains was windy. Clouds scudded fast across the sky. And while the
boy was crossing the porch, the weather changed abruptly twice—from
intolerably bright sunlight to unpleasant murky gray. The boy felt that this
gave him a headache. Driven by a gust of wind, the smoke from the burning
fire struck his face. His eyes burned. "They must be doing the laundry today,"
thought the boy, because on big laundry days a fire was made in the yard to
boil water in the huge black cauldron for all three households. No one could
pick up the cauldron alone. Aunt Bekey and Guldzhamal usually lifted it
together.
The boy liked big laundry days.
To begin with, there was the fire in the
huge open hearth—you could play around it, not as in the house. Secondly, it
was very interesting to hang out the wash. The white, blue, and red things on
the line made the yard festive. The boy also liked to steal up to the clothes on
the line and press his cheek to the damp fabric.
This time there was no wash in the yard. And the fire on the hearth was
very big. Thick steam rose from the boiling cauldron,
filled to the brim with
large chunks of meat. The meat was almost ready; its smell and the smell of
the fire tickled the nose and made the mouth water. Aunt Bekey in a new red
dress, new leather boots, and a flowered kerchief that slipped off on her
shoulders, was bending over the cauldron, removing the foam with a ladle,
and Grandpa Momun stood near her on his knees, turning the flaming logs in
the hearth.
"There he is,
your grandpa," Seidakhmat said to the boy. "Come on."
And he began his song:
"From the red-red mountains
I have come on a red stallion . . ."
At that moment Orozkul looked out of the barn door, with a shaven
head, with an ax in his hands and rolled-up sleeves.
"Where did you disappear to?" he shouted angrily to Seidakhmat. "Our
guest is chopping wood"—he nodded at the driver—"and you sing songs."
"Oh, that won't take a moment," Seidakhmat reassured him, walking
toward the driver. "Come on, brother, I'll do it."
The boy approached his grandfather, who was kneeling by the fire. He
went up to him from behind.
"Ata," he said.
The old man did not hear him.
"Ata," the boy repeated, touching him on the shoulder. The old man
glanced back, and the boy did not recognize him. Grandpa was drunk. The
boy could not remember when he had seen him even tipsy. If it ever
happened, it could only have been at some wake for one of the Issyk-Kul old
men, where vodka is served to everyone, even the women. But just like that,
for no reason—this had never happened before.
The old man turned to the boy with a strange, wild, re- remote look. His
face was red and hot, and when he recognized his grandson,
it turned still
redder. It flushed and immediately turned pale. Grandpa hurriedly rose to his
feet.
"What is it, eh?" he said hoarsely, pressing the boy to himself. "What is
it, eh? What is it?" He seemed unable to say any other word, as though he
had lost the power of speech. His agitation communicated itself to the boy.
"Are you sick, ata?" he asked anxiously.
"No, no, it's nothing," Grandpa Momun muttered. "Go, go, walk about a
little. I've got to . . . I'll look after the wood . . . I . . ."
He almost pushed the boy away from himself. As though turning his
back on the whole world, he knelt again before the hearth, never glancing
around, absorbed only in himself and in the fire. The old man did not see his
grandson shift from foot to foot with a lost look, then go toward Seidakhmat,
who was chopping wood.
The boy could not understand what had come over his grandfather or
what was happening in the yard. And only as he drew
nearer to the barn did
he notice a large mound of red fresh meat, piled on a skin spread hair down
on the ground. Along the edges of the skin, blood still ran down in pale
trickles. A bit farther away, on the garbage heap, the dog growled, tearing at
some entrails. A dark-faced stranger, huge as a rock,
squatted beside the
mound of meat. It was Koketay. He and Orozkul, armed with knives, were
cutting the meat into pieces, calmly, unhurriedly, throwing the dismembered
Do'stlaringiz bilan baham: 
