He could do that because he was very respected in town, even though he was just a taxi driver.
I heard from Mama that Uncle Abram always supported his sister Sonia, whose husband had been killed in combat. Sonia was a widow with three children, and they lived in poverty.
Every time someone spoke about Abram, Mama shrugged her shoulders, “I don’t understand who she takes after,” and she would look askance at Grandma Lisa’s house. Grandma Lisa was truly the complete opposite of her brother.
It began to grow dark. Jack whimpered softly in the yard – someone must be coming home. It was Grandpa returning from work.
“Here I am. Who is the birthday boy?” he said cheerfully setting his shoulder bag down.
He’d had a long day of work behind him, but Grandpa didn’t look tired. He had always been like that – encouraging, energetic. He didn’t like to use mass transit. Walking was his natural way of getting around. And he was quite fast, too. Not many people managed to keep up with him. “Hey, you!” he would reproach a walking companion who fell behind. And, clenching his fist, he would explain, “An empty sack cannot stand upright. You should eat well!”
After rummaging around in his shoulder bag, Grandpa took out a package.
“Va-le-e-e-ya!” he cheered, aping Yura. “Here’s some vanilla ice cream for you… Where are you, you prankster? And for you, I have sherbet…
The ice cream was dished out and we, smacking our lips, began to devour it. I was sitting across from Yura. We ate, looking at each other. And, without a word, we understood that we were friends again.
It was April 7th, my birthday. It didn’t turn out too badly – I received a car, we had ice cream, but most importantly, Yura and I made up.
After all, we couldn’t live without each other.
Chapter 6. “Earthquake, earthquake!”
I woke up because my bed lunged under me. It lunged sharply as if it wanted to run away. Then it lunged again, not as sharply as before, and again, and again…
That was when I felt that everything around me was shaking and rocking.
Sleepy Emma was squealing in the dark. The floors were creaking, the dishes in the cupboard were clinking. The wall clock, long broken, began to tick-tock loudly, as the musical hammers suddenly started marking the time. The neighbors’ cows were mooing slowly and anxiously, hens were clucking. Jack alternated between howling and whining.
“Get up! It’s an earthquake!” Our parents threw blankets over me and my sister and took us running to the yard.
Grandpa and Grandma were already there.
“Zamin, Zamin!” Grandma Lisa shouted. She wore her nightgown and a scarf wrapped around her head. She was rubbing her lower back with her fist.
Grandpa, in his galoshes and drawers, which had slipped down to reveal his hairy stomach, threw up his hands in surprise. It seemed he was about to ask, “Where has it come from?” Grandpa had experienced many earthquakes throughout his life for they had happened in Tashkent before, but they had never been this bad.
Perhaps there were other relatives in the yard, but I don’t remember. I don’t even remember seeing Yura. I was too absorbed with what was going on around me.
In that pre-dawn hour, we, like primeval people, were alone against that natural phenomenon in our yard, on that small patch of land surrounded by the fence.
The earth continued to shake. Each vibration was echoed by a dull hum, similar to a remote clap of thunder.
It seemed that the outlines of the adobes in the yard leaned forward and jumped up like dancers on the dance floor, changing shape. The metal roof made strange sounds as if it had snapped and come apart at the seams.
Clinging to Mama, I bundled myself up in the blanket, covering my head so as not to see and hear it all. But the tremors seemed even scarier under the blanket, and it was stuffy in there.
I moved the blanket a bit and peered at the sky through a slit.
The vast expanses of sky ocean above my head were studded with blinking stars.
Dark against that background, the apricot tree with the outline of its spreading branches extended to the sky. It seemed to me that its top was planted firmly in the darkness of the firmament and held it up, swaying with each tremor. Maybe it was even telling the stars, “Don’t be afraid, I won’t let you fall down.”
An hour had passed since the earthquake began. The shaking grew weaker but could still be felt. The animals and birds were still anxious, and the shouting and crying of children could be heard from neighboring yards.
The day was breaking.
We could already see how our yards looked – the slanted chicken coop with its disheveled inhabitants, fragments of dishes on the table, pieces of the slate roof. Taught by bitter experience handed down from generation to generation, residents in our parts built their houses and even fences using saman. It was made of clay, cow dung and straw mixed with water. Adobes made of saman were much more pliant and less susceptible to destruction than bricks. But even houses made of saman could not withstand such a powerful earthquake.
Our house survived.
We didn’t yet know how lucky we were. Later, the broadcast on the radio announced that the earthquake in Tashkent the night of April 26, 1966, was magnitude 8. Thousands of houses were destroyed, tens of thousands of families were left homeless. The official announcement said eight people were killed, but that was clearly a lie. People spoke of hundreds who had perished.
We all went inside, but no one went to bed. Our parents wandered around the room, trying to tidy up. Mother checked first whether the gas stove was all right. Later they discussed whether Emma and I should be taken to the kindergarten.
“Do you think the kindergarten could possibly be open today?” Father doubted. “Let’s try. If it’s closed, I’ll bring the kids back home.”
But the kindergarten was open. It looked like a disturbed beehive. The teachers were setting up tents in the yard because the order had been given not to enter the building yet for fear of new tremors.
And not without reason – Tashkent suffered another earthquake during the night of May tenth.
The whole day was spent in bustle and worry.
The concerned teachers ran back and forth sharing news.
A few military men visited. They explained something to the teachers and scrutinized the premises through field glasses.
A radio was heard crackling in the yard. Announcers were broadcasting about the day’s events, alternating between Uzbek and Russian. However, they didn’t report anything new. People learned the news from each other.
“As I was passing the square, I saw a crack in the ground… just like an abyss, must have been a few dozen meters.”
“Have you heard about the Young Pioneers Club and the Puppet Theatre?”
“All of Kashkara is ruined. What’s happening there is awful.”
“They keep taking more and more people to hospitals. Will they have enough beds?”
“They continue to dig people out… Are they all alive?”
“I don’t know. You could still hear shouts and moans coming from ruined buildings this morning.”
The adults didn’t have much time for us that day.
We played in the sandbox, listening to their anxious voices.
I tried to imagine what the huge crack in the main square of the city looked liked, in that very square where parades were held on national holidays. How, I thought, would people walk there, how could cars pass? And was it possible to cover that abyss with something, to fix the square? But the square was eventually fixed, and not only the square…
Though the consequences of the earthquake were concealed from the public, they turned out to be so enormous and terrible that it was impossible to hide the