Selected Poetry / Избранное (англ.)

She put a new embroidered skullcap on my head and gave me a pair of leather pants, something very necessary for a long winter journey.

When she was taking me to uncle Badri in the hotel, she wanted to give me as a keepsake a string of prayer beads and decorations for my skullcap called «Maryam-Ana»[12 - ««Mother Maryam»» – necklace made out of small beads and shells used as an amulet to protect children against the ««evil eye»».], but I refused to take them for some reason, saying: «You don’t have to do that.

Our hotel room was quite average, neither good nor bad.

The man from Yaik who was going to take me there was called Shest-pyat Sapyi. He hadn’t arrived to Kazan yet, which is why uncle Badri and I had to wait for him for a week or two.

Finally, our long-awaited Shest-pyat Sapyi arrived and got himself a hotel room right across from ours.

A few days after that, uncle Badri moved my things to his room and, handing me six coins two kopecks each, 12 kopecks all together, left for his home in the village.

Hard as I tried to plead with him so he would stay for at least one more day – that’s how much I hated to part with him – he left anyway, comforting me with different kind words.

After his departure I remained with Shest-pyat Sapyi and his wife.

Both the clothes and speech habits of this man, who came from another city, seemed alien to me.

For example, in the middle of a conversation he would suddenly say: В«I am a man advanced in years.

Shest-pyat Sapyi wore a fur coat, and its collar and sleeves were trimmed with fox fur. I thought that perhaps he was В«advancedВ» because he was wearing such a fur coat. Later, already in Yaik, I learned that В«advanced in yearsВ» meant В«oldВ».

With the 12 kopecks from uncle Badri I bought myself salt-dried Caspian roach and sunflower seeds.

A few days after that, we packed for the road.

They made me sit on the lap of Shest-pyat Sapyi’s wife in the sleigh covered in matting, so that I couldn’t look around in any direction. They would let me out only when we stopped at a village to have some tea.

I begged them: «Let me walk by the sleigh. It’s better that way – at least I’d be free.» I was not allowed. «You’ll freeze to death.