Роллан Сейсенбаев - День, когда рухнул мир

„The old man is making a fuss again,“ some corporal complained to the lieutenant-colonel. „It was he who stopped us from working.“

„In that case, pass on this order to everyone: the wells are to be left as they are, since we didn’t manage to complete the job in time. Well, as the saying goes, it’s not fate, it’s not God’s will,“ said the lieutenant-colonel thoughtfully.

My father came up to me and drew me towards him and asked me gently: „Well, how did you get on up there, did you help the old folk?“

I embraced him. He smelled of smoke, sun and gunpowder, all the smells that had dominated the steppe over the last few days.

„Ask grandfather…“ I answered.

„That means you did help them! Good lad!“ Father patted – me on the shoulder. „Come on then, let’s carry the things inside.“

Grandmother lit a fire in the summer oven which stood in the yard and began to bake taba-nan – bread. Grandfather climbed up onto the roof and brought down a ladder, then he took a small shovel and disappeared down the well.

Grandmother and I helped him carry the buckets which he handed to us. Only nearer lunch time, did grandfather, tired and haggard, climb out of the well.

We sat down to rest in the shade.

„Ata,“ said my father guiltily, „forgive us, but we ate all your hens. There was no choice.“

„Oh, that’s alright. It doesn’t matter,“ answered grandfather briefly. „It’s more important that the earth and the people that inhabit it survive…“

„I’ll go into town soon and buy you some more chickens,“ father promised. „Good.“

I became bored with this domestic talk and suddenly felt depressed and alone in the deserted village.

The adults began to talk about their future, about deprivation, of their fear in the face of the atomic bomb, of the American threat. Father was trying to convince the old folk that there was a threat from America. He became excited and waved his arms about and I suspected that he was repeating what he had been told by the soldiers. And once again I remembered the hills. I remembered that terrifying explosion when it seemed that at any moment the umbilical cord which linked the sun and the earth would snap and the earth would be hurled into the depths of an unknown universe just as the thundering boulders had crashed down the mountain, frightening people and animals. I remembered how the horses ran in all directions from fright and the old men were only able to find them on the next day. I remembered, too, how the earth sank away under one’s feet and how I hugged the cold, damp earth and how little Kenje, having lost her mind, ran through a hail of falling stones.

Suddenly, I gave a start. Near me, something white appeared for a moment and into my lap, miaowing complainingly, plopped a filthy, bedraggled cat. 1 shook her off in disgust, but not taking the slightest notice of me, she went up to my grandmother and’ began to rub herself against her leg.

„It’s our Ginger!“ it suddenly dawned on grandmother. It was true. We all instantly recognized our cat. Grandmother sat on a bench and Ginger made herself comfortable on her wide skirt. Out of its half-closed eyes, tears fell.

„She used to be ginger and now she’s white,“ I said in wonder.

„Can’t you see that she’s gone grey?“ said grandfather angrily.

„Oh, bow tough you are, man! You don’t have nerves, you’ve got steel in your veins! And what do you think you are doing? You’re destroying yourself, you’re sowing death… You have poison and not seeds in your hand. Even the animal has gone grey – it couldn’t take whatever it is you’re up to… What will we leave our children and grandchildren?“ Grandfather stroked my head and said, „Don’t forget my words! If things continue as they are, people will quietly, imperceptibly go insane. And this, anyone who still has an ounce of common sense, will confirm…“

I took the cat in my arms, pressed her to my chest and began to stroke her grey coat. I pressed her closer and closer to me and inhaled the familiar odour of smoke and the grass of the steppe. The cat also smelled of rubbish tips and mice. Our Ginger was strong and brave. More than once she had dealt with snakes who had slid into our yard. There was only one occasion when she had been unable to overcome an enormous, fat snake – she exhausted both herself and her enemy. The snake was still able to free itself and slip away, but some of the older children beat it to death with stones. Our cat disappeared at one and the same time as the snake. We searched for her for many days but were not able to find her. She had either run away or been killed.

However, ten days later, the cat unexpectedly appeared at our house again. It seemed that she had lain low for a while, somewhere. She must have been ashamed of how she had been unable to overcome the snake. „See how proud our Ginger is!“ grandfather praised her at the time.

„Are you hurt?“ I asked the cat. „Hurt is not the word, I feel terrified, little boy.“ „Forgive me for not recognizing you straight away.“ „My own mother would not recognize me now! Your grandmother, she recognized me – she’s clever and observant.“

I stroked her even more gently. And it crossed my mind that we were all part of the living world – tired-out grandfather and grandmother, my gloomy father, the cat which I held in my arms, our grey horse which had gone through that terrible experience with us and the soldiers who were rushing about the village to no particular purpose. I wanted to make sense of the thoughts, to put them into some kind of category, but whichever category I put them into, they fell apart.

„Put down the cat and wash your hands,“ my father said. I got up.

Ginger gratefully rubbed herself against my arm. „I think I’ll die soon, little boy. I have been THERE after all and everything inside me is on fire. Whoever was THERE will not survive, everyone says so.“

„Are you frightened?“

„Of course. The living are always afraid….“

‘Seventy-seven was my son’t first year at school. At that time we lived in Semipalatinsk. I remember it was Saturday. My son had gone off to school. My wife was reading a story to our little daughter and from early morning I had been busy at my desk.

It was quiet. Occasionally, a car drove past our window.

Suddenly, coming from our doorway, I could hear loud voices and the noise of hurrying feet. The doorbell rang and on the threshold stood my son, perspiring and panting!

„Mum, Mum, Dad! Markhaba! They’re going to explode a bomb. They’ve ordered everyone to leave the house. Quick!“

The neighbours from the upper floors were swiftly rushing down the stairway. We also began to get ready. I could imagine the anxiety my little boy had felt when he had heard that announcement. He knew that on Saturdays and Sundays when I worked at home, I would turn off both the radio and television and did not even read the papers, so that I could better concentrate. Saturday and Sunday, these were my days of seclusion. People had been given fifteen minutes to prepare themselves. He had taken about ten minutes to run from school. Consequently we had about five minutes left.

The tenants of our house were already in the street and in the yard. They stood together huddled in little groups and anxiously looked up at the sky… And then suddenly the earth trembled, pieces of glass rained down and the smell of gas immediately started to spread through the yard – obviously somewhere a pipe had burst. Broken glass shattered, and someone „went to call out the City Gas Emergency Service; the earth, which seemed to shake intermittently, gave out a muffled groan in obscure torment.

We decided not to return home and for a long time walked around a snow-covered vacant lot. Suddenly, my son anxiously tugged at my hand.

„Dad, and what if grandfather was left in his flat on his own? What if he doesn’t know anything?“

„No, that’s not possible,“ I assured him. „They always have the radio on, and the house is full of people. In any case, the neighbours would have warned them.“

We walked past three damaged telephone boxes but luckily the fourth was working. My son hurriedly dialled the number but all that we could hear was a long buzzing.

„They’re not at home. They’re outside,“ I said, but my son could not be appeased.

„Let’s go and see grandfather. What if something happened to him. He is old after all and he has had a shell shock“

We were lucky. We found a taxi immediately. My son kept impatiently hitting his knees with his fists. The journey from our district to the old part of the city seemed to take ages to him.

As soon as we reached the house we saw my father.

„Grandfather, grandfather!“ My son jumped headlong at him and my father turned around in surprise when he. heard his grandson’s voice. Father was in fact walking about, the yard with other tenants.

„Darkhan, my angel!“ He joyfully threw up his hands and smothered his grandson with kisses. „My little angel, my angel,“ he said and then became thoughtful. I tried to imagine myself a little boy again and my father young. I remembered that he rarely embarced or kissed me so lovingly and anxiously when I was small. But then times were different – harsh, compassionless, not favourable to TENDERNESS. And so he had preserved the unspent capacity to love a little being of his own and now that love and tenderness spilled over, wholly given over, to his ‘grandchildren. I do not know whether this is good or bad, I just do not know. There is a lot I still do not know about in this life of ours.

„Ata, we phoned you but there was no reply. We became worried and came over.“

„And I didn’t think of phoning you.“ Tears stood in my father’s eyes and he clasped Darkhan tightly.

I remember how he would often take his grandson home on-Saturdays and Sundays. They would take trips all over the place and return happy, excited and tired. They would visit the shepherds, relatives or father’s old war-time mates. He had many friends; he used to like helping his friends and people whom he had helped never forgot what he had done for them. He was a welcome guest at a Russian fisherman’s, at an Uygur musician’s, at the home of a Korean who cultivated water-melons.

We returned home late at night and my son, tired out from the day, sweetly slept in my arms, mumbling from time to time, „Grandfather… little hare… Grandfather… little hare, isn’t it?“ I gathered that this was a snatch of his unfinished conversation with his grandfather.

Eleven years later, my son and I would stand at the graveside of Kant in the centre of the town previously known as Konigsberg, on whose streets a paratrooper, my father, had been wounded. And now his grandson, my son, is serving as a frontier guard in a Baltic Military District.

It was a cold, damp day and drizzling drearily. We stood by Kant’s grave and my son suddenly said, „Dad, do you remember when I was in my first year at school and there was a huge underground explosion?“

„When you saved us?“ I said smiling.

„Yes, I remember how I ran from school and was afraid I’d be too late. I thought I wouldn’t make it and you would all be killed and the house would be destroyed. Yes, I remember. I dragged Markhaba down the stairs. She was little then, terrified, and she kept mumbling, ‘Mum, Mum’…“

„What made him remember that?“ I thought when we were passing the monument to Schiller near the drama theatre’. The monument… it had been spared although the city had been bombed so much that nothing had been left standing. A war is a war. I suppose it has its own laws…

„Yes, and that day when we went to see grandfather he took me to see his old friend! They had both fought at Konigsberg and for some reason, they started to talk about it, recalling the battle. Grandfather was an excellent raconteur. He described Konigsberg so perfectly that I was overwhelmed when I arrived here because his description was so exact. And did you know that he lay near the cathedral by Kant’s grave for half a day? That’s when he was wounded and heavily concussed. Thanks for bringing me here.“

My son’s words perturbed me considerably.

„I’m glad that we could be here together,“ I said.

And then I remembered that while he was alive, my father often dreamt of showing us Konigsberg, or Kaliningrad as it is now called. „You’ll see the kind of city it is,“ he would say. „Those castles which have miraculously survived are a real wonder! People have settled there for centuries. They knew how to build, how to live. It’s enviable how well they do many things. Let’s take cows for example. Do you know how much milk the Germans manage to get from their cows? We must go, we certainly must go there. You’ll see the places where I spilled my blood.“

His dream never came true. At fifty-eight he died from an extensive heart attack.

And here we are, his grandson and his son, wandering around the town, over those stones where my father’s tarpaulin boots had stepped, the grandfather of my son.

The memory of three generations of Kazakhs has flowed into one in a strange European city, far from our Asian steppes and mountains.

In the evening of the fourth of August I was to fly to Semipalatinsk. All the matters I had to have settled by the fourth were done and on my desk calendar, opposite each item, was a thick, red tick.

I automatically turned over the page and gasped.

5th AUGUST. FRIDAY.

Twenty-five years ago (1963) in Moscow, the representatives of the Government of the USSR, the USA and Great Britain signed a Treaty banning the testing of nuclear weapons in the atmosphere, in space and under water. More than one hundred governments were party to this treaty.

To my mind, this was an extraordinary anniversary, perhaps the most important date to be commemorated this year, an event of universal magnitude, a reminder that on that day men could feel like human beings instead of murderers. The Treaty was worthy of people and people were worthy of the Treaty.

5th AUGUST. COMMEMORATION OF MY FATHER.

In the morning when I arrived in Semipalatinsk, the first thing I did was to rush to a newspaper kiosk where I bought up many local and national papers.

„The city centre,“ I told the taxi driver, and settling down in the back seat of the Volga, I began to look through the papers bursting with curiosity to find out as quickly as possible how the world commemorates the long-awaited day of the celebration of human reason.

I carefully looked through the Pravda, leafed through the Komsomolskaya Pravda, the Izvestia, and my hands began to shake. „It can’t be!“ I thought, opening up the Trud, but here too there was not even a word on the twenty-five-year-old Treaty. I put my last hopes on the local the Semei Tani, but even this paper filled with articles from TASS and KazTAG was also silent about the Treaty. I lost my temper. Are there no independent ideas in this town, doesn’t it have its own voice? Is it possible that narrow-minded self-conceit is flourishing in my native land, that very conceit for which the great Abai reproached my countrymen? I was also angry with myself for not thinking of writing about this anniversary. Something inside me crumbled. Pitiful and irresolute, I was disgusted with myself.

„Brother, if you have time, take me to the cemetery. I want to visit my father’s grave,“ I asked the taxi driver. We stopped in front of the park. I gave the whole bundle of papers, which had only annoyed me, to the flower-sellers. I bought a bunch of deep-red carnations, my father’s favourite flowers.