Holdor Volkano
2. Chapter of the powest "Lights far away"
Translated by Sarah Kendzyor
SEPARATION
If I didn’t write of
my long-suffering mother in this section, it would be as if I were
neglecting a great duty. As my poor mother was bedridden for a long
time, my father had intended to marry other women. As my dear
grandfather Mirjalol and my dear grandmother Maf’firat have said,
they loaded my mother’s luggage up on a donkey wagon, wrapped my
ill mother up in a quilt, and sent me to lift her up. I was around
five years old at this time. After a short time my father married,
and jealousy completely wore my mother out. My blessed aunt would say
"Let children raise themselves” and to my father say, "Hey,
raise your child!”, as she was sent to the so’ri tangled in
swaddling clothes. Having been informed of these events my uncle,
that is, my father’s younger brother Fazil, took me. "Take,
consider it yourself,” said Mirjalol to my elders.
As I bounced back and
forth between them like a tennis ball, my grandfather Abdusalom heard
was what happening and scolded my father and uncle, saying he would
take care of it himself. My aunt Patila who was divorced and had no
children began to raise me. When my aunt left to marry a man named
Ismon aka, my father’s second wife, my step-mother, who was
childless, began to bring me up as if I were her own child. I was
around seven years old at this time.
And so my little brother
and I began to grow up with our step-mother. I slowly made my way
through school. At the beginning of school a friend at the time named
Erkin was raising cattle along the shores of the Qoradaryo. I still
remember mosquitoes would fly near their tails, which would wave
indolently, carefree, the cows spouting horns overnight, myna birds
looking them over, moving en masse down the river, loud noises urging
them on towards the shores, escavators into the far distance, the
rice fields sparkling like the glass of a mirror, the far «Zilolmas»,
or "Green bridge”, through which the train would pass by,
shrieking, the far side of the river bright green in the aerodrom
where the AN-20 airplanes would fly overhead. Erkin and I were two
untamed savages, building a shallow ford of rocks in the river, the
thickets in sight far in the distance, high and imposing cliffs
casting the waves of the river. Sometimes my mother would enter my
dreams in this heavenly part of my most wonderful homeland.
