A few days later we left for Frunze, and there got jobs with an expedition that was investigating the possible development of the Anarkhai steppe for pastures. I was to be a lorry driver and Kadicha an odd-jobs worker. And that is how we began our new life together.
     The expedition travelled to the very heart of the Anarkhai steppe, it was somewhere in the region of Lake Balkhash. The farther, the better, as far as I was concerned. If a break had to be made with the past, let it be a clean break.
     In the beginning I tried to drown my sorrow in work. And there was plenty of work there. In the three odd years I was with that expedition we travelled the length and breadth of the vast steppe, sinking wells, laying roads, and building trans-shipping bases. Anarkhai is no longer the wilderness it used to be, where a man could lose his way in broad daylight and wander about the monotonous, hilly steppe overgrown with wormwood for a whole month or more before he struck habitation. Today it's a land of cattle-breeders with good houses, cultural centres, and everything. They plant grain crops too nowadays, and even stock hay. There's any amount of work there still, especially for us drivers. But I came back. And not because I got sick of roughing it there, no, that was a temporary inconvenience. Kadicha and I were not afraid of hardships, and I must say that we got on well together, we respected and liked one another. However, respect is one thing and love is quite another. Even if one of the couple is very much in love while the other is not, it's no life, the way I see it. Such is human nature, or maybe it's the way I'm made, but I always felt there was something lacking. And that something cannot be compensated either by work, friendship, or the kindness and affection of a loving woman. I soon began to regret that foolhardy decision of mine to leave without making another attempt to win back Asel. In those last six months in Anarkhai my longing for Asel and the boy became unendurable. I could not sleep. I kept seeing Samat, smiling and swaying on his plump little legs. His sweet baby smell was something I would remember all my life. I longed to get back to my beloved Tien Shans, to my blue Issyk-Kul, to the steppe where I once met my first and only love. Kadicha knew how I felt but did not hold it against me. Finally, we both realised that we could not go on living together.
     Spring came very early to Anarkhai that year. The snow melted quickly and the hills turned green. The steppe was coming back to life, absorbing the welcome warmth and moisture. At night the air seemed transparent, the sky was spangled with stars.
     We were in bed in our tent near the derrick. It was another of my sleepless nights. Suddenly, in the silence of the steppe, I heard a very distant, barely audible train whistle. How that sound ever reached me can hardly be explained. From where we were it was a twelve hours' drive to the railway. Maybe it was my imagination, I don't know. Whatever it was, it made my heart beat faster, it told me to get going.
     "Kadicha, I'm going away."
     "Yes, Ilyas, we have to part," she answered.
     And we did part. Kadicha went to northern Kazakhstan, to the virgin lands. I want her to be happy. I honestly hope and believe that one day she'll find the man who, without being aware of it, is waiting for her somewhere. She had bad luck with her first husband, and she had been no happier with me. I would have probably remained with Kadicha if I had not known what real love was, what it was to love a woman and be loved by her. It's the sort of thing you can't put into words.
     I took Kadicha to the train and saw her off. I ran beside it while it gathered speed. "Good luck, Kadicha, don't think too badly of me," I whispered to her for the last time.
     The cranes were flying south from Anarkhai, and I was headed north, to the Tien Shan mountains.
    

* * *

    When I arrived in those parts, the first thing I did was thumb a ride to Asel's village. Riding in the back of the lorry I tried to chase all thoughts away. I felt both frightened and elated. We were going along the same road where I used to meet Asel. It was no longer a country road though, it was a gravelled highway with concrete bridges and road signs. But I missed the old road. The spot where my lorry got stuck in the mud that day long ago was unrecognisable, nor did I see the boulder where Asel once sat waiting for me.
     I banged on the cab roof when we were nearing the village.
     "What's wrong?" the driver asked, poking out his head.
     "Stop, will you, I want to get off here."
     "Out here in the field? Why, we're almost there."
     "Thanks, but I'll walk, it's not far," I said jumping down to the ground. I offered him some money.
     "Keep it," he said. "We don't take money from our own fellows."
     "Just take it. How d'you know I'm a driver?"
     "It's written all over you."
     "All right. Good luck!"
     He drove on. And I stood there in the middle of the road, mustering my courage. With shaking hands I lit a cigarette. I drew hard on it, again and again. "Here I am," I said aloud, stamping out the cigarette. I walked to the village. My heart hammered so loudly it hurt my eardrums. I literally couldn't hear myself think.
     There were noticeable changes in the village: it had grown larger and had many new houses with slate roofs. Electric wires stretched from house to house. There was a radio loudspeaker mounted on a pole outside the kolkhoz office. Children were hurrying to school. A group of older pupils, walking along with their teacher, were busily discussing something. Maybe the kids who had once thrown sticks and stones at me were among them too. Yes, time marches on, it never stands still.
     I walked faster. There was the mud wall now and the willow trees in the yard. I paused for breath. My blood ran cold from dread. I hesitantly approached the gate and knocked. A girl carrying a school-bag came running out. It was the same girl that had once stuck her tongue out at me--a big schoolgirl now. She was in a hurry. With a puzzled glance at me, she said:
     "There's no one at home."
     "No one at all?"
     "No, Apa's gone on a visit to the lumber camp. And father's delivering water to the tractors in the fields."
     "And Asel?" I asked timidly, my mouth suddenly going dry.
     "Who, Asel?" the girl sounded surprised. "Why, she left ages ago."
     "And never came back?"
     "She comes home every year with djezde. Apa says he's a very fine man."
     I asked no more. The girl ran on to school and I turned back the way I had come.
     The news was so staggering that the name of the man she had married and her whereabouts seemed of no importance. Why ask? Somehow, the idea that Asel might find another man had never occurred to me. And yet I should have expected it. After all, why waste years waiting for me to turn up.
     I decided to walk back rather than wait about for a lorry going my way.
     The road had certainly changed, it was smooth and hard. The steppe alone remained the same with its dark patches of autumn-ploughed land and lighter ones covered with faded stubble. It rolled away from the mountains to the horizon in sweeping, gentle billows, ending in a pale fringe where it ran into the shores of the distant Issyk-Kul. The snow had left the ground damp and bare. Tractors could be heard rumbling where the spring ploughing was under way.
     It was night when I got to the district centre. In the morning my mind was made up: I would go back to work at the motor depot. All was finished, all was lost. At the moment I had to live and work, and the future would take care of itself...
     As usual the Tien Shan road hummed with traffic, there was an endless chain of lorries going my way but I wanted one from our depot. At last one came along and I raised my hand.
     The driver shot past, then braked abruptly. I picked up my suitcase and the man came towards me. It was Ermek, a chap from my regiment, I taught him how to drive back in the army. He looked at me with a tentative smile.
     "Don't you know me?" I asked.
     "You're... you're Sergeant... Ilyas. Ilyas Alybayev," he remembered at last.
     "None other," I said with a bitter smile: I must have changed a good deal if it was so difficult to recognise me.
     As we rode on we talked of this and that, recalling our army days. I was afraid he might start asking me awkward questions, but evidently he had not heard anything. That was a relief.
     "When did you come home?" I asked.
     "I've been on this job for more than two years now."
     "Where's Alibek Djanturin, do you know?"
     "No, I don't. He left before my time. I hear he's working as chief mechanic at a depot in the Pamirs somewhere."
     "Good for Alibek!" I thought. "Good for you, friend. You're a real djigit." So he got where he wanted after all. He finished a correspondence course at a transport technical school.
     "Is Amanjolov still the director?"
     "No, we have a new man. Amanjolov has been promoted to the Ministry."
     "D'you think they'll take me on?" I asked.
     "Sure, why not. You're a first-class driver, in the army they thought a lot of you, you know."
     "Yes, they did, once," I said under my breath. "Do you know Djantai?"
     "No, I've never heard the name."
     "So much has changed at the depot," I thought, and then asked: "Do you tow trailers over the pass?"
     "Sure. It depends on the load," Ermek answered lightly. "When the need arises we take a trailer in tow, sure. We've got powerful lorries now."
     He had no idea what those trailers had cost me.
     And so I came back to my old depot. Ermek invited me to his place and offered me a drink to celebrate our meeting, but I declined. I never touch the stuff now.
     The people at the depot were quite decent to me. I was very grateful to those who knew all about me for not pestering me with questions. They seemed to be thinking: here is a fellow who has come back after getting a taste of life elsewhere, he does his work conscientiously, and that's good enough for us. Let bygones be bygones. I, too, tried hard to forget everything, to forget it all completely. I would speed past the trans-shipping base, where once I had lived with my family, without looking to left or right, and never stopping for petrol at the filling station there. But nothing was any good.
     I could not deceive myself.
     I had already been back at the depot some time, I was settling down, I knew my lorry inside and out, had tried the engine at all speeds and on all the roads. In short, I knew my job.
     That day I was driving back from China. There was nothing on my mind, I just rolled along, smoking and gazing about me. It was spring, and a beautiful day. The sheep-breeders were moving to summer pastures and I could see their yurtas in the distance, with bluish smoke curling up from some of them. The wind carried the restless neighing of horses. Flocks of sheep were grazing not far from the road. The scene brought back memories of childhood. I felt a little sad... When I drove out to the lake I was stunned--there were swans on Issyk-Kul.
     It was only the second time that I had seen swans on the lake in spring. The white birds were circling over the deep-blue water. Without thinking, I swerved off the road and drove straight across country to the lake as on that day so long ago.
     Oh, Issyk-Kul, my Issyk-Kul--my unfinished song! Why did I have to remember that day when I came here with Asel and stopped on the same rise, right above the water? Everything was the same. The blue-and-white waves ran up the yellow shore holding hands. The sun was setting behind the mountains, and at the far end of the lake the water was tinged with pink. The swans wheeled over the water with excited, exultant cries. They soared up and dropped down on outspread wings that seemed to hum. They whipped up the water and started wide, foaming circles. Everything was the same, only there was no Asel with me. Where are you, my slender poplar in a red kerchief, where are you now?
     I was there a long time, and then I drove back to the depot. My nerves gave way and I got drunk again... Once again I went to the pub to deaden my reawakened pain with vodka. It was late when I left the place. The sky was dark and clouded. The wind came tearing from the gorge as from a pipe, it grappled madly with the trees, howled in the electric wires, and threw handfuls of pebbles into my face. The lake was groaning and gasping. I got to the hostel at last and, without bothering to undress, fell on my bed and slept.
     The next morning I had such a hangover I could not lift my head. There was a thin, nasty drizzle outside, half-rain half-snow. I lay awake for about three hours, reluctant to go to work. That was the first time that even work offered me no solace. But then I felt ashamed of myself and got up.
     The lorry went at a sluggish pace, or, rather, it was my mind that was sluggish, and the weather was rotten too. The cars I met had snow on them, evidently snow had fallen in the mountains. Let it fall, let there be a blizzard for all I cared, it was all up with me anyway, so why worry ...
     My mood could not have been fouler. The sight of my face in the wind-screen mirror made me sick: a bloated, flabby, unhealthy face with a stubble of beard on it. I ought to have stopped and had a meal on the road. I had not eaten anything that day, but I was not hungry. A drink appealed to me more. You know how it is, give in to the craving once and it's hard to stop. I felt better after that first glass. The car, too, went at a livelier pace, I dropped in at the next place I came to, had a tumblerful and then another one. The road flew past me now, and the wind-screen wipers flickered back and forth before my eyes. I crouched over the wheel, sucking on a cigarette that had long gone out, aware of nothing but the oncoming cars flying past me and spattering my windows with mud. I stepped on the accelerator, it was getting late. Darkness overtook me in the mountains. It was a starless, gloomy night. The vodka I'd had began to tell. I was getting tired. There was a whirl of black spots before my eyes, blotting out the road. It was stuffy inside the cab, I wanted to retch. I had never been so drunk before. Sweat came pouring down my face. I had the feeling of riding on the twin rays of light streaming from my head-lights and not driving a lorry at all. Riding those rays, I would take a sheer drop into a deep, lighted chasm, clamber up the wavering rays that slithered up and down the rock face, and follow their weaving, zigzag path. I was growing weaker with every minute, but I did not stop because I knew that once I slackened my grip on the wheel I would lose control. I can't remember exactly where I was then, it was somewhere in the pass. Ah Dolon, Dolon, you giant of the Tien Shans! You certainly are difficult. Especially at night, and more especially for a drunken driver.
     Vibrating with the strain, the lorry got to the top of a rise and started rolling downhill. Everything went round and round, the black sky seemed to overturn. My hands no longer obeyed me. Gathering momentum, the lorry flew down the slope. I heard a dull crash, a metallic grating, the headlights flared up once and then darkness enveloped me. "I've crashed," the thought was a pin-prick in the depths of my consciousness.
     I don't know how long I lay there. All I remember is suddenly hearing a voice that sounded muffled and far away as though my ears were stopped with cotton. "Here, give me a light," the voice said. Hands felt my head, my shoulders and chest. "He's alive but dead drunk." Another voice said: "We've got to clear the road."
     "Come on, friend, try and move over, we'll get the lorry out of the way," the man said, giving my shoulder a slight push.
     Groaning, I raised my head. Blood trickled down my face from a cut on my forehead. Something in my chest wouldn't let me straighten up. The man struck a match and took a look at me. He then struck a second match and looked again.
     "Bad, too bad. How did you get that way, fellow?" in the darkness he sounded sorry for me.
     "Is the car badly damaged?" I asked, spitting blood.
     "No, not very. It skidded across the road, that's all."
     "Well, then, I'll be going, I shan't block the road," I said, trying to turn the ignition key with fingers that shook badly.
     "Come along," the man said, putting a strong arm about my shoulders. "You've done enough damage. Come on. You'll stay the night at my place, and in the morning we shall see."
     The two of them dragged me out of the cab.
     "Kemel, drive the lorry to the side of the road, we'll see to it later."
     He jacked me up on his shoulder and dragged me along. I could not tell where we were going in the darkness. After a long trudge we got to his place. The man helped me through the door. A paraffin lamp was burning in the front room. My host made me sit on a stool and began to unbutton my sheepskin for me. I looked at him then and remembered. He was Baitemir, the road master, the man whose lorry I had once towed over the pass. Though ashamed of my condition, I was glad to see him again. I opened my mouth to apologise and thank him, when the clatter of logs being dropped on the floor behind me made me turn and look. Slowly, with an effort, I got to my feet, feeling as though something too heavy for me to bear had descended on my shoulders. In the doorway stood Asel with the logs scattered at her feet. She stood unnaturally erect and stared at me dumbly.
     "Why... why..." she whispered.
     I almost shouted, "Asel!" but the look in her eyes was so forbidding and aloof that I could not utter a sound. I dropped my head, burning with shame. That moment of silence was terrible. Baitemir broke the spell. He made me sit down again, and said calmly to Asel:
     "It's nothing, Asel! This lorry driver had a slight accident and he just needs a rest... Bring us some iodine, will you."
     "Iodine? The neighbour has borrowed it, but I'll go and get it," her voice acquired warmer and more worried overtones.
     I sat there without moving or speaking. My drunken stupor was gone, I had sobered up with a jolt. My blood pounded in my temples.
     "We must bathe the wounds first," Baitemir said, examining the cut on my forehead. He took a pail and went out. A barefooted boy about five, wearing nothing but a singlet, peeped out of the next room. He stared at me curiously. I knew him at once. I can't explain how I knew, it must have been my heart that told me.
     "Samat," I forced out the word in a whisper and held out my arms to my boy. Just then Baitemir appeared in the doorway, and I flinched away in fear, I don't know why. I was afraid he had heard me calling Samat by name. I felt like a thief caught in the act of stealing. In my confusion, I covered the cut on my forehead with a hand and suddenly heard myself asking:
     "Your son?"
     Now, why did I have to ask that? I can't forgive myself to this day.
     "Yes, he's my boy," Baitemir replied with a host's geniality. He put down the pail and picked up Samat in his arms. "Sure, he's my boy, my own boy, aren't you, Samat?" he said, kissing the boy and tickling his neck with his moustache. There was not a shade of suspicion or insincerity in Baitemir's manner and speech. "Why aren't you asleep? My curious little colt, so you had to come out and see? Now off you go, back to bed!"
     "Where's Mummy?" Samat wanted to know.
     "She'll be back in a minute. There she is now. Go along, sonny.
     Asel came running in to the room. She took the scene in with a quick, suspicious look, handed Baitemir the bottle of iodine without a word, and took Samat off to bed.
     Baitemir wet a towel and wiped the blood off my face.
     "Don't yell now," he smiled, painting the cuts with iodine, and then continued sternly: "You should get it really hot for that business, but you're our guest so never mind. Will you give us some tea, Asel?"
     "In a minute."
     Baitemir spread a quilt on the felt carpet and dropped a cushion on it.
     "Sit down and relax," he said.
     "Thanks, don't bother about me," I mumbled in reply.
     "Come on, sit down, make yourself at home," he insisted.
     It was a perfect nightmare. I could hardly breathe because a hand seemed to be gripping my heart. My nerves were taut with apprehension. Oh why was I ever born!
     Asel came back into the room and, trying not to look at us, took the samovar and carried it into the yard.
     "I'll come and help, Asel," Baitemir called after her. He got up to go, but Samat came running in again. He had no intention of going to sleep, it seemed.
     "What do you want now, Samat?" Baitemir asked with gentle reproach.
     "Uncle, did you come straight out of a film?" my son asked me earnestly and came up closer for a better look.
     I guessed what he meant. Baitemir did, too, and burst out laughing.
     "Oh you silly baby," Baitemir laughed, squatting down in front of the boy. "You are a scream honestly." He turned to me and said: "We take him along when we go to the film shows at the mines."
     "Yes, I've come straight out of a film," I said, joining in the fun.
     "That's not true," Samat declared, frowning.
     "Why isn't it true?"
     "Because where's the sword you fought with?"
     "I left it at home."
     "Will you show it to me? Show me tomorrow?"
     "I will. Come here. Your name is Samat, isn't it?"
     "Yes. And what's yours?"
     "I am..." I stopped. "I'm Uncle Ilyas," the words stuck in my throat.
     "Go to bed, Samat, it's really getting late," Baitemir told him.
     "Let me stay a little longer, Daddy," Samat begged.
     "Oh, all right. We'll bring in the tea now."
     Samat came and stood beside me. I stroked his hand. He looked like me, very much so. His hands, too, were like mine, and his laugh.
     "What do you want to be when you grow up?" I asked, to get into some sort of conversation with my son.
     "A lorry driver."
     "Do you like riding in a car?"
     "I like it very, very much... Only no one takes me when I raise my hand."
     "I'll give you a ride tomorrow. Want to come?"
     "Oh yes. I'll give you some of my knucklebones," he said and trotted off to his room to get them.
     Out in the yard, the samovar funnel was spitting tongues of flame. Asel and Baitemir were talking quietly.
     Samat returned with a small goatskin bag in which he kept his knucklebones.
     "Choose any ones you like," he said, spilling his brightly coloured riches before me.
     I wanted to take one for a souvenir but I didn't dare. The door was kicked open and Baitemir appeared carrying the steaming samovar. Asel followed him in. She busied herself making the tea while Baitemir placed a low round table on the felt carpet and put a tablecloth on. Samat and I collected the knucklebones back into the bag.
     "You've been boasting of your wealth, I see. Oh you little braggart, you!" Baitemir tweaked Samat's ear fondly.
     Tea was ready and we all sat down. Asel and I pretended we had never met. We tried to appear calm, and that was perhaps why we said nothing most of the time. Samat had climbed into Baitemir's lap and was cuddling up to him, twisting his head this way and that.
     "Ouch, Daddy, your moustache always prickles so," Samat complained, but he would not leave Baitemir alone, and thrust his face into his moustache again and again.
     It was no easy thing for me to sit there so near my son whom I dared not call that, and hear him calling another man Father. It was no easy thing to know that though Asel, my darling Asel, was there beside me I had no right to look straight into her eyes. How did she come to be here? Did she marry this man for love? She gave no sign that she knew me and treated me like a total stranger, so how could I learn anything? Did she hate me so? And Baitemir: had he no suspicions about me? Didn't he see how like me Samat was? Why did he make no mention of that encounter of ours when I towed his car? Had he honestly forgotten?
     When we settled down for the night, I felt more miserable still. I had a bed made up for me right there on the felt carpet, and I lay with my face turned to the wall. The lamp was turned low and Asel was tidying up after the meal.
     "Asel," Baitemir called softly from the bedroom.
     She went to the door.
     "Wash his shirt, will you?"
     Asel took my blood-smeared checked shirt and started washing it, but she stopped almost at once and went into the bedroom.
     "Did you let the radiator water out?" I heard her speaking quietly to Baitemir. "It may freeze..."
     "Kemel has done that," Baitemir answered as quietly. "There's hardly any damage to the lorry. We'll see to it in the morning."
     I had forgotten about the water, but my mind was not on motors just then.
     Asel finished washing my shirt, and as she hung it to dry over the stove she heaved a deep sigh. Then she blew out the lamp and went into the bedroom.
     The house grew dark. I know that none of us slept that night. Each of us was alone with his thoughts. Baitemir had Samat in bed with him. I could hear him whispering tenderly to the boy and tucking him in when he tossed and kicked off the covers. Now and again Asel sighed audibly. I seemed to see her limpid eyes in the darkness, brimming with tears. What was she thinking about, who was in her thoughts? She now had three of us... Maybe her memory, like mine, was bringing back to her all those beautiful and bitter things that bound us together. But she was out of reach now, and her thoughts were out of my reach too. She had changed, her eyes had changed. They were no longer the same trusting eyes, shining with innocence and candour. There was sternness in them now. But she was still my Asel, my sweet young poplar. Her every movement, every word was dear and precious to me. I felt more bitterly regretful, more wretched than ever. I bit hard on a corner of the pillow and lay thus, without sleep all night.
     Through the window I watched the moon dive in and out of the gathering clouds.
     Asel and Baitemir got up very early, and as soon as they went out into the yard to do their household duties, I got up too. It was time to leave. Stealthily, I tiptoed to Samat, kissed him, and quickly left the room.
     Out in the yard Asel was filling a large pot with water, and Baitemir was chopping wood for the stone hearth on which it stood. He and I went to where we'd left the lorry. We smoked as we walked and neither of us said anything.
     I had hit the road posts, I saw, knocking down a couple of them together with their concrete bases. The lorry had a smashed headlight, a dented mudguard and bumper, and a jammed wheel. With a crowbar and hammer for tools we repaired the damage as far as we were able. What we had to do next was a tedious job. The engine was frozen dead. We burned cotton waste to warm up the oil pump, and together turned the crank again and again to start it. Our shoulders touched, the palms of our hands were hot from turning the same crank, we breathed into each other's face, we worked for the same purpose, and perhaps we were thinking of the same thing.
     The engine refused to co-operate. We were getting out of breath. Asel brought us two pails of hot water. She put them down before me without a word, and stood aside. I poured the water into the radiator. Baitemir and I had another go at the crank, one more, and at last the engine caught. I got in to the cab. The engine was working fitfully. Baitemir raised the bonnet to check the sparkplugs. At that moment Samat ran up panting, his overcoat flying. He ran around the lorry, obviously dying for a ride. Asel caught him and without releasing her hold on him stood beside the cab. She gave me a look so eloquent with reproach, pain and compassion, that I would have done anything in the world then to get them back and make up for the wrong I had done them.
     "Asel," I said, leaning out of the open cab door. "Take the boy and get in. I'll take you away like that first time, I'll take you away for ever. Please, Asel," I begged her, the roar of the motor drowning the sound of my voice for Baitemir.
     Asel said nothing. Her eyes were swimming; she looked away and shook her head.
     "Come on, Mummy, let's go for a ride," Samat cried, tugging at her hand.
     She walked away with drooping head, and never looked back. Samat did not want to go home, he tried to pull free and run back.
     Baitemir slammed down the bonnet, handed me the hammer through the window and said: "Ready." I drove away.
     Back to the wheel, back to the mountains and the roads. My lorry was carrying me--what did it care!..
     That's how I found Asel and my son again. That is how we met and parted. All the way to the frontier and back I thought and thought about it. I was worn out with my hopeless brooding... I really had to leave now, to go for good, I could no longer stay there.
     I was determined to do it, I quite made up my mind as I drove back to the depot. Going past the turning to the road-maintenance station, I saw Samat playing near the road with a little girl and another boy. They were building walls and sheep-folds of small stones: the game is called tashkargon. I may have seen them playing there before... I have been driving past my own son almost every day and never knew it... I stopped.
     "Hello, Samat," I called. I wanted to have a look at him. The three of them raced to the lorry.
     "Have you come to take us for a ride, Uncle?" Samat asked.
     "Sure, I'll take you for a little ride."
     The kids piled into the cab.
     "This uncle is our friend," Samat boasted to his chums.
     It was only a very short ride, and I'm sure I got more pleasure and happiness out of it than the kids.
     "Now run home," I said, opening the door for them. They jumped down to the ground, I got out too and held Samat back.
     "Wait, Samat, I want to tell you something," I said.
     I picked him up, held him high over my head, looked long and hard into my son's face, and before putting him down I kissed and hugged him.
     "Where's the sword, Uncle? Have you brought it?" Samat asked, remembering.
     "What a shame! I forgot to bring it, sonny. I'll have it with me next time I come," I promised.
     "You won't forget, will you, Uncle? This is where we always play."
     "Good. Now run after the others."
     As soon as I reached the depot, I went into the carpenter's shop and made three toy swords. I took them along the next day.
     The three kids were there waiting for me. I gave them a ride again. And that is how I made friends with my son and his chums. It did not take them long to get used to me. When they saw me coming they would race one another to the road shouting. "It's our lorry! Our lorry's coming!"
     I came back to life. I felt like a human being again. I started on my daily trips with a light heart, with a wonderful feeling. I knew that my son would be waiting for me on the road. I would have him sitting beside me in the cab if only for a couple of minutes. All I cared and worried about now was to get there in time to see my boy. I timed it so that I always made the pass in the daytime. It was fine spring weather, the kids were always out playing and I usually stood a good chance of seeing them. I was so terribly happy, I lived and worked for those meetings alone. But I had moments of panic. Did Asel and Baitemir know that I gave the children rides? Whether they did or not, they might forbid Samat to see me, they might not let him play near the road any more... I dreaded it, and in my heart I begged Asel and Baitemir not to do it, not to deprive me of those fleeting meetings at least. But one day it did happen...
     May Day was approaching, and I decided to give my son a present. I bought him a toy lorry that could be wound up. I was held up at the depot that particular morning and started out later than usual. I had to hurry to make up for lost time on the road and maybe that was why I was nervous, on edge, and worried for no reason at all. When I had only a little way to go I placed the parcel on the seat and tried to picture Samat's delight. He had better toys of course, but this was special--it was a present from a driver friend to a little boy who dreamed of becoming a lorry driver--when he grew up. However, Samat was not playing there that day. His friends ran to meet me, and I got out of the cab.
     "Where's Samat?" I asked.
     "At home. He's sick," the boy answered.
     "He is?"
     "No, he's not sick at all," the girl volunteered with a knowing look. "His mother won't let him play here any more."
     "But why?"
     "I don't know why. He's not allowed, that's all."
     Well, that was that. It was all over.
     "Here, give this to Samat," I handed the parcel to the boy, but then I changed my mind. "No, don't," I said taking it back. I walked to my lorry feeling pretty low.
     "Why won't Uncle take us for a ride?" the boy asked his sister.
     "Uncle's sick," she replied gravely.
     She said it. I had never felt more sick and broken up before. How could Asel be so hard on me? All right, I had been a rotten husband, but surely she could have a drop of feeling left for me, even if it were no more than pity? No, I could not believe it. It was not like Asel, something else was behind it. But what? How could I know... I tried to persuade myself that Samat was really ill, I had no reason to disbelieve his friend. And now I became so convinced that he really was ill that I saw terrible pictures of him tossing in delirium. Supposing he needed help, supposing he needed some medicine urgently, supposing they had no car to take him to the hospital? After all, they lived up in the mountains and not in the centre of a city. I was crazed with worry. I raced back with no definite plan of action in my mind, all I knew was that I had to see my son at once, now... I wanted to believe that I would see him, my heart told me I would. As bad luck would have it, I ran out of petrol and had to stop at the filling station...

* * *

     Ilyas fell silent. Rubbing his flushed face with the palm of his hand, he heaved a sigh laden with sorrow, then pushed up the window as far as it would go and lit another of his countless cigarettes.
     It was long past midnight. But for us two, all the passengers on that train were most probably fast asleep. The wheels rapped out their never-ending song. Through the open window I saw the summer night fading away and the lights of small stations flashing past. The engine droned sonorously.
     
     "That was when you spoke to me, agai," and I refused to give you a lift. Now you know why," the man smiled wryly in answer to some thought of his own. "I left you at the filling station and then you overtook me in a Pobeda. I saw you... Well, I drove on, sick with worry. But my heart had not deceived me, Samat was there, waiting for me on the road. When he saw me, he ran out into the middle of the road shouting: 'Uncle! Uncle driver!'
     "My little boy was perfectly well. God, was I relieved, I was so happy I wanted to hug the world. I stopped the car and ran to him.
     " 'You are not really ill, are you?'
     " 'No, Mummy wouldn't let me come. She said I mustn't ride with you again. And I cried,' Samat told me.
     " 'But why did she let you come now?'
     " 'Because Daddy said that if someone wanted to take us for rides, let him.'
     " 'He said that?'
     " 'And I said I was going to be a driver...'
     " 'Of course you are, and a good one too! Do you know what I brought you?' I produced the toy. 'See, it's a lorry, the very thing for young drivers.'
     Samat beamed.
     " 'I'll ride with you always, always, won't I, Uncle?' he said with a plea in his eyes.
     " 'Of course you will. Always,' I assured him. 'Would you like to come to town with me on May Day? We'll make the lorry pretty with little flags, and afterwards I'll bring you home.'
     "It is difficult to explain now why I said that to him, what right did I think I had, and what is more why did I suddenly believe it could be so. But that was not all, I went even further.
     " 'If you like it, you'll stay with me for good,' I proposed to my son in all seriousness. 'We'll live in the cab. I'll take you along on all my trips, I'll never let you go, never part with you. D'you want to come?'
     " 'Oh, yes,' Samat cried eagerly. 'We'll live in the cab! Let's start right now, Uncle!'
     "There are moments when a grown man acts as irresponsibly as a child. We got into the cab. I turned the ignition key irresolutely and pressed the self-starter. Samat was delighted; he pulled and tugged at me affectionately and bounced on the seat. We were off. That made Samat happier still, he laughed and chatted, telling me something about the wheel and the dashboard, and I laughed with him. I came back to my senses with a jolt. I was hot all over. What was I doing? I slowed down, but Samat would not let me stop.
     " 'Faster, Uncle, let's drive faster,' he begged. I did not have the heart to refuse the plea in his shining eyes. I put on speed. Just as we really got going I saw a steamroller working on a stretch of road ahead of us. The machine turned about and behind it I saw Baitemir. He was raking the tar across the patch. The sight of him startled me. I wanted to stop, but matters had gone too far--I had taken Samat too long a way from home. I crouched over the wheel and shot forward. Baitemir did not look up from his work; he took no notice of us with all those cars going past every minute. Samat saw him, though.
     " 'There's Daddy! Let's take Daddy along, Uncle, shall we? Stop, I'll call Daddy.'
     "I did not stop. How could I, what would I say to Baitemir? Samat leaned out of the window to look, and all of a sudden he got frightened. He burst into tears and screamed: 'I want my daddy! Let me out, I want my daddy. Stop the car, I don't want to go! Mu-mmy!'
     "I slowed down and came to a stop behind a rock where the road made a turn.
     " 'Don't cry, Samat, please don't cry. I'll take you back in a minute, only please stop crying.'
     "I tried to comfort him but he was so badly frightened he would not listen.
     " 'I don't want to go with you. I want to go to Daddy! Let me out!' he screamed, banging on the door. 'Let me out, I want to go to Daddy! Open the door!'
     "What an awful thing to happen!
     " 'Please don't cry, Samat' I pleaded with him. 'I'll open the door in just a minute, only please don't cry. I'll take you to your daddy myself. Come on, let's go.'
     "He jumped out and started running with loud wails. I caught hold of him.
     " 'Wait a minute. Wipe your tears. You mustn't cry. Please, my own darling boy, don't cry. Hey, what about your car, have you forgotten? Look!' I grabbed the toy and wound it up with shaking hands. 'Look, it's running to you, catch it,' the lorry ran down the road, bumped into a stone, overturned and rolled into a ditch.
     " 'I don't want to look,' Samat howled louder than ever, and rushed away.
     "A lump rose in my throat. I rushed after him.
     " 'Wait, Samat, don't cry! Wait, I'm your... I'm your... You know...' but I could not bring out the words.
     "Samat was running away, and now he disappeared round the bend. I followed him as far as the bend, and stopped.
     "I watched him run to Baitemir and clutch at him. Baitemir squatted down and held him close. The child locked his arms about Baitemir's neck and peeped round at me, in fright.
     "Baitemir took him by the hand, slung the rake on his shoulder, and the two of them started down the road--the big man and the little boy.
     "I stood there, hugging the rock, for a long time and then I walked back to my lorry. I paused beside the toy car, lying wheels up in the ditch. I felt tears trickling down my face. 'Well, that's that,' I said to my lorry and patted the bonnet. It felt warm. There was something endearing to me in that warmth. My good old lorry, the dumb witness of my last meeting with my son..."
    

* * *

     Ilyas stood up and went out into the corridor.
     "I'll take a breath of fresh air," he said to me the door.
     I remained in the compartment. It was almost dawn, pale streaks of sky flashed past the window. The blurred outlines of telegraph poles could be made out already. We did not need the light now.
     I lay there wondering whether I should tell Ilyas what was known to me but not to him. But he took too long coming back. And so I did not tell him anything.

* * *

     It was after Ilyas had discovered the whereabouts of Asel and his son that I happened to meet Baitemir.
     A delegation of Kirghiz road workers was going to the Pamirs, and I had an assignment from the Tajik central newspaper to write an article about these men.
     One of the delegates was Baitemir Kulov, a front ranking road master, and my purpose in coming to the Dolon was to make his acquaintance.
     However, we met by chance, and a very lucky chance it was for me. A road worker, waving a small red flag stopped our bus when we were somewhere up in the pass. There had just been a landslide, he told us, and they were clearing the road. I left the bus and walked to the place where it had occurred. The site had already been railed off with sturdy timbering. A bulldozer was pushing the earth and debris to the brink of the road and over. Men armed with shovels and beetles were working where there was not room enough for the bulldozer to manoeuvre. A man in a tarpaulin raincoat and high boots walked beside the bulldozer and shouted orders to the driver.
     "A bit to the left. Give it another go. Now come closer to the timbering. Good! Stop. Reverse."
     They were almost through, and a passage had been cleared. The drivers held up at either end hooted and swore madly, demanding to be let through, but the man in the tarpaulin raincoat ignored their shouts and went on working with perfect composure. He made the bulldozer go there and back again and again, ramming down the earth within the enclosure. "That must be Baitemir, he certainly knows his job," I decided. I was not mistaken. It was Baitemir Kulov. At last he opened the way to traffic, and the cars and lorries continued on their way.
     "What about you? Your bus has gone, you know," he said to me.
     "I'm here to see you," I said.
     Baitemir showed no surprise. "A welcome guest you will be then," he said with simple dignity, and shook my hand.
     "I've come to see you on business, Bake," I said, using his pet name. "You know, of course, that a delegation of our road masters is going to Tajikistan?"
     "I've heard about it."
     "Well then, before you go I'd like to have a chat with you."
     Stroking his brittle brown moustache, he listened to me with a deepening frown.
     "I am glad you came, but I am not going to the Pamirs, so don't take the trouble to write about me," he said.
     "But why? Is your work keeping you or is it something at home?"
     "My work is the road. You've seen it for yourself. And at home," he fell silent and lit a cigarette. "At home... well, it's the same as with everyone else, of course, I've a family and things to do... Anyway I'm not going to the Pamirs."
     I tried to make him change his mind, explaining to him the importance of having a man of his calibre among the delegates. Baitemir heard me out politely but remained firm.
     I was terribly put out and angry at myself for bungling the whole thing. My professional instinct had played me false, my approach had been wrong. As a result, I had no story to take back, I had not fulfilled the newspaper's assignment.
     "I'm very sorry, Bake, I'll be on my way then. I'll get a lift."
     Baitemir looked at me thoughtfully, with his calm, intelligent eyes, and smiled behind his thick moustache.
     "City people are forgetting our customs. I have a home, a family, a dastorkon and a place to sleep. Since you've come to see me, you will leave my house tomorrow, and not before you have rested after your journey. Come, I will take you to meet my wife and son. You must forgive me, I have to make my rounds before it gets dark, I shan't be long. It's work, you know."
     "Let me come with you, Bake."
     There was a twinkle in his eye as he looked at my city clothes.
     "It's hardly the thing for you to go tramping with me. We've far to go and the going is steep."
     "Never mind."
     We went together. He stopped to examine every bridge, every turning, precipice and overhanging rock. We naturally fell to talking. It's a puzzle to me to this day: what did I do or say to make Baitemir like me and confide in me? He told me the story of his life and the story of his marriage.

THE ROAD MASTER'S STORY

     You asked me why I did not want to go to the Pamirs. I'm a Pamirs Kirghiz myself, but fate has brought me here, to the Tien Shan mountains. I was little more than a youngster when I joined the Pamirs road builders with many other Komsomol volunteers. We worked with a will, the young ones especially. And no wonder, for we were building a road right into the heart of the inaccessible Pamirs! I got to be a shock-worker, there were bonuses and honours, but that's just by the by.
     I met a girl there, on that job. I fell in love with her, I loved her with all my heart. She was both beautiful and clever. She came from a village to work in construction, and that was no simple thing for a Kirghiz girl to do in those days. It's not too simple nowadays either for a girl to take up an industrial career, as you yourself well know, we are still fettered by our ancient customs. Well, a year went by. The road was nearing completion. They now needed road-maintenance crews. Building a road can be done by mass effort, but maintaining it takes skill. We had a young engineer, Husainov his name was. He's still in the road business, a big executive he is now. We were friends, and it was his idea that I should go and take a course of training. I was afraid my Gulbara would not wait that long, I was afraid her parents would take her back to the village, but no, I came back to find her there, waiting for me faithfully. We got married and stayed on at the road-maintenance station. Our marriage was a happy one. And I've got to tell you that to road workers, who live up in the mountain passes, a happy family, a wife, mean much more than they do to anyone else. This I know from experience. And my wife had a great deal to do with my becoming so devoted to this work. Well, we had a baby girl, then another girl, and then the war broke out.
     The Pamirs road was like a river in a downpour with people streaming down it to join the army.
     My turn came too. We walked from the house to the road one morning. I carried the baby, while the bigger girl walked beside me, clutching my coat. Oh my Gulbara, my poor Gulbara! She carried my haversack and tried to appear calm, but I know how she must have felt about staying alone with two kids at the road-maintenance station up there, in those uninhabited mountains. I wanted to send them to the village to stay with my relatives, but Gulbara said no. She said they would manage, they'd be there waiting for me when I came home. And then someone had to stay and look after the road... That last time, we stood on the edge of the road and I said good-bye to my wife and my children. We were very young then, Gulbara and I, we were only beginning to live...
     I was in the engineer battalion. To think of all the roads, river crossings and bridges we built in those war years! There's no counting them. We crossed the Don, the Vistula and the Danube. Freezing in the water, or suffocating in the smoke and flames, with shells exploding all around you, smashing the crossings and killing men, you felt you could not stand it any more, you wished they'd hurry up and kill you and be done with it. But then you'd remember your family, waiting for you in the mountains, and you'd get double your strength back. Oh no, I thought, I didn't come all the way from the Pamirs to die here under the bridge! I'd twist the wire with my teeth to hold the supports in place but I wouldn't give up... And they didn't kill me, I got almost as far as Berlin.
     My wife wrote often, she never missed the postman collecting the mail down the road. She wrote me in detail about everything, and about the road, too. She had stayed on as road master in my place. I knew how hard it must have been on her, it wasn't just any road, it was in the Pamirs.
     Suddenly, in the spring of 1945, her letters stopped coming. I was worried, but I told myself I was at the fighting front where anything might happen to the mail delivery. One day I was summoned to headquarters. Sergeant, they said to me, you've done your share of fighting, take our gratitude and these medals and go home, just now you're needed there more. Of course, I was glad. I even sent a telegram home.
     When I got off the train I decided not to report the military registration and enlistment office, there was plenty of time to do it later, but to go straight home. Home! Home as soon as I could get there. A lorry picked me up and we started up the Pamirs road.
     I wished I had wings, the going seemed slow after the fast Studebackers I had ridden in at the front.
     "Step on it, brother," I shouted to the driver. "Squeeze all you can out of your old rattletrap! I'm on my way home!"
     I was near now. My house was beyond the next turning. The suspense was too much for me. I jumped off the moving lorry, slung my haversack on my back and ran. Running fast I took the turning and ... I did not know the place. Everything seemed to be there: the mountains, the road, but no house. And not a soul anywhere. Nothing but heaped stones and rubble. Our house had stood at the very foot of the mountain. The valley is narrow there. I looked up at the mountain and my blood ran cold. It must have been a mighty avalanche. Hurtling down from a great height it had wiped everything clean off its path sparing nothing; it looked as if a giant claw had scraped the soil off the mountain-side and ploughed up a huge gulley far down into the valley. My wife told me in her last letter that there had been plenty of snow and then rains had suddenly begun to fall. The avalanche should have been blown up in good time and eased down, but it was no job for a woman...
     Some home-coming, that. I had faced death thousands of times, I came back whole from that inferno, and they... they might never have existed... I stood there, paralysed. I wanted to shout, to scream so the mountains would quake... But I couldn't. Everything turned to stone inside me, I was no longer alive. My haversack slipped down my shoulder and fell on the ground at my feet. I left it lying there: I was bringing some presents home for my little girls and my wife, and on the way I had swapped my tunic for a bag of sweets. I stood there and waited, expecting a miracle to happen. Then I turned and walked away. Once I stopped and looked up: the mountains seemed to be rocking, crowding together, bearing down on me. I screamed and broke into a run. Away, away from that accursed spot! It was then I wept...
     I don't remember how or where I went, I only know that finally I came to the railway station. I wandered among the people there like a lost soul. Suddenly I heard someone calling my name. It was Husainov, demobbed and on his way home. I told him everything. "Where are you going now?" he asked. I had no idea. "That's no good," he said, "you've got to pull yourself together. I won't let you go wandering by yourself. Let's go to the Tien Shan mountains to build a motor road, and then we'll see.. "
     And that's how I came to be here. The first years we were busy building bridges. It was time I settled down some place. Husainov was already working in the Ministry. He came to see me often, and advised me to go back to my old job of road master, but I didn't have the heart, I was afraid. At the construction site, with people all about me, my grief was easier to bear. But this was a lonely job, it might prove my undoing. I had not recovered, the past was too vivid. It was as if my life had ended there and the future held nothing for me. The thought of marrying again never crossed my mind. I had loved my Gulbara and my little girls too much. I believed that nothing and no one could ever replace them. And marrying just for the sake of living with a woman was not my idea of happiness. It was better to be alone.
     Still, I agreed to take on a road master's job, to give it a try. I was put in charge of this section here, right in the pass. And it was not too bad, I got used to it gradually. Maybe it was because this is such a troublesome section, it's the pass, you know. But I liked it that way. Time took the edge off my pain. I had dreams, though. I dreamt I was standing there, turned to stone, staring at the place where my home had been and feeling the haversack slipping down my shoulder... The morning after one of those dreams I would leave the house early and stay out on the road all day, until dark. All that time I was alone. True, I did wonder sometimes: "Perhaps you will yet find happiness?"
     And find it I did when I least expected it, a difficult insecure happiness.
     It happened about four years ago. My neighbour's mother fell ill, and the man just didn't have the time, what with his work and his large family, to take her to see a doctor. The old woman was growing worse with every day, and so I offered to take her in a lorry that had delivered something to us just then. The doctors wanted to keep the old woman in hospital but she wouldn't hear of it. She said she wanted to die in her own home. She told me she'd put the curse on me if I didn't bring her back. And so we drove back. It was already dark. A little past the trans-shipping base the driver stopped and I heard him asking someone: "Where d'you want to go?" A woman's voice answered something. The driver said: "All right, climb in."
     A young woman carrying a baby and a small bundle approached the side of the lorry. I helped her up, gave her my place nearest the cabin where the wind was less fierce, and myself settled down in a comer.
     It was terribly cold with a raw wind that went right through you. The child began to cry. She rocked it and cooed over it, but the baby went on crying. Something had to be done. I couldn't put her in the cab because the sick old woman sat there. I touched her shoulder and said:
     "Here, give him to me, maybe he'll calm down, and you'd better slide down lower, you'll feel the wind less."
     I put the baby inside my sheepskin and held him close. He stopped crying and fell asleep. Such a cute little mite he was, he must have been about ten months old. I held him pressed to my left side. And suddenly my heart leapt and fluttered like a wounded bird. It was a bitter-sweet sensation, and I thought: "Will I never be a father again?" And the mite, he just nestled to me as if it were none of his business.
     "Is it a boy?" I asked.
     She nodded. The poor girl was frozen stiff, the coat she had on was pretty thin. I wear this raincoat in the winter too, on top of my sheepskins, can't get on without it in my job. With the baby in one arm I held the other one out to her.
     "Pull this coat off me. You'll catch cold."
     "Oh no, don't bother, please," she said.
     "Come on, pull," I insisted. "It'll protect you from the wind."
     She wrapped herself into my raincoat and I tucked it in round her legs. "Warmer now?"
     "Oh yes."
     "Why did you start out so late?"
     "I had to," she answered softly.
     We were driving along the ravine then, past the miners' settlement. Everyone was asleep, all the windows were dark. Some dogs chased after us, barking wildly. I sat up with a start: where was she going anyway? For some reason I had thought it was this settlement, there was nowhere to go beyond that, only the pass and our road maintenance station there.
     "You're there, I suppose?" I said and banged on the roof of the cab. "It's a short way to the pass and the lorry is not going any farther."
     "And what's this place here?" she asked.
     "The miners' settlement. Isn't this where you're going?"
     "Yes ... it is..." she said uncertainly. Then she quickly got to her feet, handed me my coat and took the baby in her arms. He started whimpering at once. There was something wrong here, she was in trouble. I couldn't leave her alone in the dark and in that cold.
     "You've nowhere to go," I said bluntly. "Don't get any wrong ideas. Give the kid to me," I practically took him by force. "Don't say no. Sleep the night at our place and then it will be up to you. That's that. Let's go," I called to the driver.
     We drove on and she sat there saying nothing, her face in her hands. Perhaps she was crying.
     "Don't be afraid," I said to her. "I'm not going to do you any harm. I'm a road master, Baitemir Kulov is my name. You can trust me."
     I fixed them up at my place. There was a small spare room in the yard, and I made myself a bed there. Sleep would not come. I lay there puzzling the thing out, it worried me. Prying is not nice, I hate it myself when people pry, but all the same I had been obliged to ask her a question or two. She might be in need of help. She had answered stiffly, with reluctance. But I could guess the things she left unsaid. She was in trouble, and to her every word there were ten left unsaid. She had left home, left her husband. A proud soul, evidently. I could see she was suffering terribly but she would not give in. Oh well, everyone is free to act the way he chooses. She knew best. Still, I felt sorry for her, she was a very young woman, more like a slender young girl. She struck me as a gentle, understanding sort. How could a man let her go away? However, that was their own affair. I would put her in the first lorry that came along in the morning and say good-bye. I had had quite a hard day, and soon fell asleep. I dreamt I was going somewhere in a lorry with a baby under my sheepskin, nestling close to my heart for warmth.
     I was up at dawn. I went on my rounds but came back very soon. How are my guests, I wondered. I lighted the stove and put on the samovar, taking care not to waken them. But she was already up and getting ready to leave. She thanked me for helping her. I refused to let them go without their tea and made them wait for it. My little fellow-traveller of the night before turned out to be a very amusing baby boy, and it was pure joy to play with him...
     "Where do you want to go?" I asked her when we were having tea.
     "To Rybachye," she said after some thought.
     "Do your parents live there?"
     "No, they live in the village beyond Tosor."
     "Oh, that means you'll have to change lorries to get there. Not too convenient, that."
     "But I'm not going there. We can't go to my parents," she said with a pensive look at her baby. "It's our own fault."
     I assumed that she had married against her parents' will. And so she had, as I was to learn later.
     She wanted to go out and wait on the road, but I talked her into staying in the house because it was too windy outside for the baby, while I went and stopped a passing lorry.
     I walked there with a heavy heart. I felt unaccountably sad and miserable at the thought that in a few minutes they would be gone and I would be left all alone again.
     At first, there were no lorries going her way. And then I let one pass, I did not raise my hand. It frightened me. Why did I do it? And that's when the torture began. More lorries came, but I kept putting it off. Now, I thought, now the next lorry I'll stop for certain, but my hand would not obey me. No, that wouldn't do. She was waiting and relying on me. I hated myself, but it was stronger than I was. I walked up and down the road. I had no difficulty in finding pretexts and excuses: either the lorry had a broken wind-screen and it would be cold riding in the cab, or I did not like the look of the man at the wheel, a reckless driver or a drunk perhaps. The sight of lorries already carrying passengers made me want to shout for joy. Anything not to let them go now, not now, let them remain a little longer, five minutes longer... "Where can she go anyway?" I asked myself. "She can't go to her parents, she told me so herself. And who'll take her in with a baby in Rybachye? The winter will kill him there. The best thing for them is to stay here. She'll live here a while and work her troubles out. Maybe she'll go back to her husband. Or perhaps he'll come and find her here..."
     Maybe I should have let her come with me and sent her off. I went on like that for about three hours. I really hated myself. Enough, I'll bring her here and stop a lorry in her presence, I decided. Otherwise I'll never do it. I met her coming out of the house. She had done all the waiting she could. I felt ashamed of myself and I must have looked as guilty as I felt.
     "Was I very long?" I mumbled. "There are no lorries going your way, or rather there are but they don't look suitable somehow. I'm terribly sorry ... don't think anything wrong... For God's sake, come into the house for a minute. Please do."
     She looked puzzled and disappointed, but without a word followed me into the house.
     "Are you just taking pity on me?" she asked.
     "No, it's not that. You see... I am afraid for you. You'll have a hard time. What will you live on?"
     "I'll get a job. I've worked before."
     "Where will you get a job?"
     "Some place or other. But I'm not going back, and I am not going to my parents. I'll get a job and live."
     What could I say? She could not stop to think about anything just then. Her hurt and her pride were driving her on, it did not matter to her where. "I'll get a job and live"--it's easier said than done. But you can't force a person.
     The baby stretched his arms to me. I took him and kissed him, thinking: "My sweet little one, I'll have to let you go now. You have become as dear to me as if you were my very own."
     "All right, let's go," I said quietly.
     We got up to go. I carried the baby. In the doorway I paused..
     "You can have a job right here," I said. "You can live and work here. There's a small spare room. Honestly, do stay. Stay awhile. It's never too late to leave. Think it over."
     She would not agree at first, but finally I persuaded her.
     And so Asel and her little Samat remained with me at the road-maintenance station.
     The small room in the yard was cold, and so I insisted on Asel and the boy taking my room, while I moved my things to the small one. It did very well for me.
     I was living a different life. On the surface of it nothing had changed, I was still alone, but I had come back to life, my heart had thawed out after its long spell of loneliness. Naturally I had not kept aloof from people before then either, but even rubbing shoulders with people, being good friends, working together, helping them and accepting their help, is not enough, there always remains a sort of void in your life that none of this can fill. I became terribly attached to the little chap. When I had to make my rounds I would wrap him up warmly and take him along, carrying him all day. I spent all my spare time with him. How could I have lived without them? I could not even imagine it now. My neigbours were good people, they were kind to both Asel and Samat. But who doesn't love babies? And Asel was so guileless and warm-hearted that she soon became one of us at the station. And it was also because of her, because of Asel, that I became so attached to the boy. Why conceal it, I could not even conceal it from myself no matter how I tried. I fell in love with her. I fell in love with her at first sight with all my being, my whole heart. All those years of loneliness, all the grief and suffering, all that I had lost, went into that love. But I had no right to speak about it. She was waiting for him to come. She never showed her longing, but when we were working on the road I saw how eagerly she looked at each approaching lorry. Sometimes she took the boy and sat for hours on a roadside stone. But he never came. I did not know who he was and what he was like, I never asked Asel and she never told me.
     The months went by. Samat was growing. He really was a bright and lovable child. Maybe someone had told him to or maybe it was his own idea, but he began to call me Father. The minute he'd see me coming he would rush into my arms, shouting: "Ata! Ata!" Asel would watch him with a dreamy smile. It hurt and made me happy at the same time. I'd gladly be a father to him, but what could I do?
     That summer we had some repair work to do on the road. The traffic passed close to us. Suddenly I heard Asel call out to one of the drivers: "Hey, Djantai, stop, will you."
     The lorry stopped with a screech of brakes. Asel ran after it, I could not hear what she and the driver were talking about, only her angry shout:
     "You're lying. I don't believe you. Get going, get going this minute!"
     The man drove off, and Asel dashed across the road and ran home. I believe she was crying.
     I could not concentrate on my work. Who was that man? What did he tell her? All sorts of doubts and surmises crowded into my mind. When it got too much for me I went home, but Asel did not come out, she stayed in her room. Later that evening I went in to see her.
     "Where's Samat? I haven't seen him all day."
     "He's here," Asel answered in a crushed tone.
     "Ata!" Samat stretched his arms to me, asking me to pick him up. I played with him and made him laugh, but she remained sad and silent.
     "Asel, what happened?" I asked her.
     "I'll have to go away," she said with a sigh. "It's not because I'm not happy here, Bake. I'm very grateful to you, very. But I'll have to leave, I don't know where I'll go, but go I must."
     I could see that she really meant it. All I could do was tell her the truth.
     "I have no right to hold you here, Asel. But I'm not going to stay here either. I shall have to leave too. I've had to leave an empty place once before. Why go into explanations? You know how I feel, Asel. If you go now, for me it will be like that day in the Pamirs again. Think, Asel... But if he does come back to you and your heart bids you go, I shan't stand in your way, you will always be free, Asel..."
     Holding Samat in my arms I went out into the road. I walked up and down with him for a long time. He did not understand a thing, my darling boy.
     Asel remained, but I did not know for how long. What was she thinking about, what had she decided to do? Those questions worried the life out of me.
     And then one day, at noon, I came home and what did I see? Samat was actually trying to walk. Asel was hovering over him to catch him if he fell. I stood and stared.
     "Bake, look, your son can walk," she said with a happy smile.
     Did I hear right? Did she say "your son"? I threw down my shovel, squatted on the ground and beckoned to Samat to come to me.
     "That's the boy, that's my darling little camel, come to me, come, plant your little feet firmly on the ground, don't be afraid!"
     Samat spread his arms wide, and shouting "Ata!" ran to me. I caught him, tossed him high up and hugged him hard.
     "Asel, let's celebrate tomorrow," I said. "Make a string of white and black wool and invite the neighbours' children."
     "All right, Bake," she said, laughing.
     "It's got to be black and white wool."
     I took my horse and galloped to my friends the livestock-breeders and brought back plenty of koumiss and mutton. We invited our neighbours to come to our small "hobble-cutting" festival the next day.
     I stood Samat on the ground, hobbled his legs with the black and white string, placed a pair of scissors beside him, and led our little guests to the opposite end of the yard.
     "The first one of you to reach Samat and cut the string will get the first prize," I explained to them "The others will get theirs in turn. Get started, go!" waved them to a start.
     With whoops and shouts the children raced to Samat. The string was cut.
     "Now, my son, run!" I told Samat. "Children, take him with you."
     They took Samat's hands and ran with him.
     "People," I said watching them and not addressing anyone. "People, my baby colt can run! May he grow up to be a swift-footed stallion."
     Samat trotted after the children, then he turned round called out "Ata!" and flopped. Asel and I rushed to him. When I was picking him up, Asel said to me for the first time: "My dear husband."
     And that is how we became man and wife.
     That winter, the three of us went to see Asel's old people. They were still very angry with Asel, but eventually they forgave her and gave us their blessing.
     The years slipped by. Samat is now five. We live in complete agreement, and there is only one thing we never talk about, never mention. We never put it in so many words, but we have an understanding that for us that man does not exist...
     But things do not always shape the way you'd like them to. He turned up one day, not so long ago...
     There was an accident on the road. It happened in the middle of the night. My assistant, he's my neighbour, and I hurried to the spot on hearing the crash, afraid that someone might have been hurt. A lorry had run into the road posts. The driver was badly bruised, practically unconscious, and very drunk. I recognised him but could not remember his name. He helped me out once, by taking my lorry in tow over the pass. And towing a lorry over the Dolon is no laughing matter, you know. It had never been attempted in these parts before. But that chap had daring and gumption, and he did get over safely. I liked him for it. I liked him a lot. Not long afterwards someone else got as far as the pass with trailer in tow, he almost made it but evidently something went wrong. The trailer got stuck in a ditch and he drove away, abandoning it there. I wondered at the time if it was not that same dare-devil, and I was sorry he had not succeeded. Before long, however, towing trailers over the pass became a routine matter. The drivers learnt how to do it, and a good thing it was too.
     Quite honestly, I did not know that he was the man Asel had left. But I would have done the same even if I had known. I brought him to my place, and instantly the whole thing became clear to me. Asel came in with an armful of logs. At the sight of him she dropped the logs to the floor. But we all pretended we had never met before. I had to tread with the greatest care lest by some incautious word or gesture I should cause them pain or prevent them from finding one another again. I had nothing to decide. It was up to them: it was their past and their son, sleeping now in my bed, held close in my arms.
     None of us slept that night, each one was busy with his own thoughts. I had something to think about too.
     Asel is free to take her son and go. It is their right. She must follow the bidding of her heart and reason. And I ... what do I matter, it does not rest with me, I must not stand in her way...
     He is still here, he works on this route. Where he has been all those years, what he has been doing, I don't know. But that's beside the point. It's their own affair...

* * *

     His rounds done, Baitemir and I walked back to his place. Day was ending. A springtime, smoky sunset was spreading across the sky, enveloping the ice-capped summits of the Tien Shan mountains. Lorries sped roaring down the road.
     "And that's how things stand now," Baitemir said pensively after a silence. "I cannot leave home now. If Asel decides to go, I want her to tell me so herself, let her go with a clear conscience and with my blessings for the boy. I could not love him more if he were my own flesh and blood, you know, yet I can't take him away from them. That's why I'm not going. The more so since it's the Pamirs. Naturally, I'm not telling you all this for your newspaper article. Simply as man to man...

IN PLACE OF AN EPILOGUE

     I parted with Ilyas in Osh. He was going to the Pamirs.
     "I'll try and find Alibek when I get there. I'll begin life all over again," Ilyas said, speaking his dreams aloud. "You may be sure, I'm not a finished man. With time I'll marry again and have a home and a family like every other man. I'll have friends too. The only thing I'll never have is what I have lost for ever and ever... As long as I live, until I draw my last breath, I shall remember Asel and all those beautiful things that were ours.
     "The day I was to leave I went to the lake and stood on the rise above it. I was saying good-bye to the Tien Shan mountains, to Issyk-Kul. Good-bye, Issyk-Kul, my unfinished song! How I wish I could take you with me, your blue waters and your yellow shores, but I can't, just as I can't take the woman I love with me. Goodbye, Asel. Good-bye, my pretty poplar in a red kerchief! Good-bye, my love, I want you to be happy..."