Chapter 50. The Teke Carpet and Other Treasures
“Ah, kids, what a carpet it was!” Mama closed her eyes slightly and raised her hands. “It covered the whole wall.”
She spread her arms, opened her eyes wide, and raised her eyebrows, showing the size of the carpet, as if amazed at its size.
“It was red and so beautiful, a real Teke carpet. It was soft and fluffy…” Mama closed her eyes slightly again, raising her fingers to her face. She rubbed her cheek as if running her fingers over the delicate strands of wool of that carpet. “It was so fluffy… and its pattern… it was intertwined. It seemed simple when you looked at it from a distance, but when you took a closer look, you could see that it was made of teeny tiny patterns that were like diamonds, or small cut stones… one inside another, one inside another… Get it?”
Mama’s hands flashed as she sketched the pattern in the air.
Mama was a wonderful storyteller. She was usually a person of few words, even reticent, reserved. But, suddenly, she would be transformed. It didn’t happen often, only when Mama wanted to tell Emma and me something.
Those were extremely fascinating stories with vivid details. Every feature of her face, each movement she made took part in Mama’s narration.
Emma and I listened spellbound, as if hypnotized. Perhaps there was a bit of the hypnotist in Mama. It seemed to Emma and me that we were actually seeing that red Teke carpet.
But before Mama began to tell us something, she had to be in the mood to tell a certain story. Most of the time, she felt that way when she remembered her childhood and her parents.
This time, the subject was not pleasant for me.
In my room, near the desk, there was a small carpet on the floor. One side of it reached the radiator, from the valve of which water dripped in winter. We had to put a jar under the valve and, naturally, empty it every two or three days.
That was what I sometimes forgot to do. The edge of the small carpet would get wet and, after a couple of years, it began to rot.
When Mama realized it and, sighing mournfully, took the carpet to the veranda to dry – it was late autumn, but the days were warm and sunny – I tagged along. It was clear that despite Mama’s kindness she would give me the scolding I deserved.
Emma, of course, came running to listen to Mama scold me.
But Mama hung the carpet on the window frame, took a seat at the table, propped her chin on her hand and sat, lost in her thoughts. The bright sun lit that small cheap carpet, and its colors shone. It had become more attractive. I was sorry about it and felt sort of embarrassed by what I had done.
“Ah,” Mama suddenly said, “what a wonderful Teke carpet we had. It was amazing. Our house was poor, just two beds in the corner and a table in the living room, but as long as the carpet was on the wall, the living room looked beautiful.”
That was the beginning of her story.
It was fall, and we were about to move from the veranda, where we liked to spend time, to the kitchen. It was also pleasant to have tea and chat there, but you couldn’t compare it to the veranda.
Today was, perhaps, the last warm day, windless and sunny. On days like this, there were, for some reason, particularly many dragonflies in Chirchik. Those carefree creatures visited our veranda constantly. What attracted them? It was clear why moths came – they were attracted to the light in the evenings. But what about the dragonflies? They flew inside easily but couldn’t fly out. Even though the window was open, they kept bumping into the glass. When there were a few of them at once, they would line up like a flight group, and took-took! could be heard as they banged their silly heads against the glass. It was hilarious to watch. Their transparent wings rustled. It was quite a sight. Catching them at such a time was as easy as picking a berry from a bush. One could catch them in a jar and let them go right away, but that was too simple. It was much more interesting to attach a thread to a long springy little body, to control that “little plane” for some time, and then let it go… Just as Yura and I had done with Maybugs.
I glanced at the dragonflies, but I wasn’t in the mood to watch them. Mama’s story was much more interesting.
She wasn’t here any longer; she was at her parents’ house… She was about nine. The whole family was at the dinner table in the living room. The children were on the wide couch that sat six to eight people. According to custom, a couch is for adults, parents and their guests, but they pampered the children in this family, giving them the coziest seats… And why was it so cozy on the couch? Because of that very wonderful Teke carpet on the wall behind it.
“You leaned against it,” Mama said, “and your back got buried in it, and it was so pleasant. It was as warm as a stove… That was in winter. And it was cool in summer. Perhaps, it only seemed so to us…”
Mama shrugged her shoulders and nodded, lost in her thoughts. But I was impatient to ask, “Teke carpet – what does it mean?”
“I’m not a great expert on carpets,” Mama confessed. “I only know that Teke carpets were especially valued in our parts. They were amazingly beautiful.”
I’m writing this book of memoirs for my children and grandchildren, who live in a different part of the world, in a different culture, so I have decided to tell them a little bit about those wonderful Asian carpets. There are certainly plenty of different carpets around them in America, in stores and at home. But do they know anything about genuine Eastern carpets? What those carpets meant for their ancestors?
I think that not only in Tashkent and Chirchik, but in the whole of Uzbekistan there wasn’t a family, even a very poor one, that didn’t have a carpet, even if it was old and threadbare. Some had it on the floor, others on the wall or a couch. It wasn’t, of course, only in Uzbekistan. The same went for all the Asian countries, the Caucasus and the South Caucasus. Inhabitants of those parts had been weaving carpets since ancient times. A carpet was a customary article in their daily lives, just as a table is for us. And it was just as important. In Asia, they knew nothing of tables for a long time; they ate sitting on a carpet. They didn’t sleep in beds but lay either a big piece of felt or a blanket on a carpet. These customs continued in many families in our time. Enter a teahouse in Uzbekistan and you wouldn’t see any tables.
We know that carpets were already in use in the Assyrian Empire and Babylonia. Those carpets, of course, haven’t survived to our times, but it shows that the tradition is rooted in antiquity. Carpet weaving has been a women’s craft since ancient times. And since the making of carpets took place at home for many centuries, it’s not surprising that its secrets were passed from mothers to daughters, so this female mastery ran in certain families. They were so skilled and talented that they could be considered exceptional artists. One only need look at famous Persian carpets in a museum, or at least in a reproduction. What splendor! What a wealth of designs and colors! Persian carpets, like other carpets, are made in different types of ornamental designs. There are “garden,” “hunting,” and “animal” patterns, and even patterns “with vases” among them. Judging by their names, it’s clear that one can find not only various patterns but depictions of flowers, people, and animals. Khorasan carpets are particularly attractive. Carpets are named after the places where they were made in Persia.
Teke carpets, about which Mama was talking, were made in Turkmenistan and also highly valued. In Turkmenistan, that carpet was named after the tribe that became famous for making them. The Teke were one of the large tribes that formed the Turkmen nation. Only historians remember that, and Teke carpets, also called Bukharan, are famous all over the world. There was a time when they were fashionable in England. The repeating diamond-shaped pattern of Turkmen carpets, which, in various combinations, has been replicated for centuries, is extremely beautiful. It is much more austere and geometrical than Persian carpets, but it’s exactly those features that attract many connoisseurs.