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
Besides, seismologists all over the world had determined the precise scope of the disaster. People in every country of the world knew about it.
That was why Brezhnev and Kosygin gladdened the people of Uzbekistan’s capital with their arrival the day after it happened.
This time, the city received considerable aid from the government.
Chapter 7. Coal
As Mama and I were coming back home from the kindergarten, I suddenly saw a big black pile, almost as high as our neighbor’s house, at our gate.
“They’ve brought coal!” Mama exclaimed.
Trying not to get soiled, she took Emma and me down the narrow passage to the gate. Coal dust stuck to the soles of our shoes.
The yard was empty. Only Father was sitting near his favorite apricot tree.
“They brought a ton and a half,” he reported. “They wanted thirty rubles to transfer it to the storage room.”
Thirty rubles was a worker’s weekly salary.
“It’s all right, Papesh. We’ll manage ourselves,” Mama said.
Mama was eleven years younger than Father. She always addressed him very respectfully. “Papesh” was a respectful form of “Papa.”
Naturally Mama was concerned. It wasn’t easy to transfer such a huge pile of coal single-handedly.
But, as always, she did her best not to let anyone notice. She was a master of hidden feelings. No matter what blows life inflicted on her, no matter how hard and painful they were – and it happened often – she tolerated everything with dignity, without a word of complaint. And only when her patience was completely exhausted, did she cry quietly in a corner.
We bought coal once a year. It was kept in the storage room near the apricot tree.
Mama brought a few pails and a shovel, and we set to work. Mama carried two pails filled to the brim with coal, panting and walking heavily. I followed her carrying the two or three pieces that I could lift.
Coal dust stuck to everything – the sides of the pails, the walls of the house, our clothes, our skin. It penetrated our nostrils and got under our eyelids. The black trail made by our footprints traced our path from the coal pile in the lane to the storage room.
The pile diminished very slowly. The sun was setting. The long shadows of the trees grew paler, merging with the gathering dusk. The pigeon coop grew quiet. Cats began running around the attics, their green eyes sparkling here and there.
No one came to help us. A few days earlier, Father had quarreled with his mother yet again.
The quarrel was, as always, baseless and stormy. All the inhabitants of our yard took part in it, dividing into two camps.
When
