The Bloody Veil
Шрифт:
Closing your eyes to problems doesn’t mean getting rid of them. “ostrich politics” has not yet benefited anyone. So, my reader, shake your heart in your fist and read, read and think.
The Author
1991 year
THE PAIN LEFT IN THE HEARTS
For a few days, my mother barely moved her legs "No urine, my children. My head turns", she said. First of all, she tried to help us at home. Then she completely followed.
When I came to her after work, she repeated:
– The forces are leaving me, son. I cannot get up. The plane is damned. I always had a headache after he was pollinating the cotton fields we were working on.
I tried to comfort her:
– The chemicals have nothing to do with it. You are probably tired.
Sadly shaking her head, she replied:
– You do not know, son. This is a bad airplane.
Why do I remember my mom’s last days so often? Probably because since the day she came down, our family has left peace. In the hard days of my life, my mother’s broken voice always sounds in my ears: "This is a bad airplane".
From day to day, my mother’s face became more and more pale. In a brigade truck she was taken to the hospital. When we were about to go back, my mom repeated again and again:
– Visit your father more often. Whatever happens, the pressure is high. In those days, my father was in the hospital. My mother told me the disease of father was out of war.
Never in the post-war years the pressure of my father had fallen below two hundred. As soon as the bad days began, he had to go to the hospital to at least somehow ease his suffering. My soul was worried. After working for two days on a warp cleaner, I went to the brigadier and gathered with my mother.
I was walking, swallowing dust, in a cart attached to the tractor. I remember the days when we moved from a flowery, roasted chestnut to a whole. I was angry at my father – and what he could not share with the district management then.
"Why have we suffered so much pain, – I think. There was nothing on this whole. They lost their health".
Because of the dust raised by the wheels of the tractor, nothing is visible. When I closed my eyes, I was immersed in memories. Transparent water, the thick greens of the trees, the clean sky of the native shrimp, like on the screen, pass before my mindful eye. A bitter insult covers the heart. I am crying. Tears shake the eyes and frozen a dirty strip on the dusty face. The tears do not want to descend on the burned ground.
So we arrived at the bus stop. The tractor stopped. The driver pushed his head out of the cabin.
– We arrived. – I jumped to the ground, raising a cloud of dust. As I walk away, I cut off some clothes. Several students at the stop, stirring their nose, look at me. I rush to get my shirts, wipe out dust and dirty traces of tears from my face.
"A very decent guy, he could go to some city to study than to stick to the tractor", – I read in their eyes. A full children’s bus stopped near us. Afraid of pitting girls, I let them go ahead. With every push of the bus from my curly, like the wool of a bark, the hair will be dusted. And the girls unnoticedly try to move away from such a fool. The road is distant. And at every stop, those who get out of the bus and get into it at least once let them look straight at me. People like me went on the bus. One came out, probably right under the tractor, even his nose was in the oil. When the passengers saw him, they forgot about me.
Having recovered from the embarrassment, I surrendered to my thoughts again.
Finally, I got to the hospital. Fear crossed the threshold.
– Oh yeah! Oh stand up! Where are you? – I was blocked by a nurse in a snow-white coat.
– To my mom, – I broke.
– In this form? – She asked ridiculously.
I was frozen, not knowing what to answer. I looked, surely, very unfortunate, and she, smiling, noticed: – Your look is just inhuman. Where are you from?
…When I recorded these pages of the past, I found it unnecessary to tell about the events and experiences as novel’s heroes with book, high-parent words. I would fool myself and the past. I decided to speak, like a witness speaking at the court: "I swear to speak the truth, only the truth and nothing but the truth."
I stood down, lowering my head.
– Gulistan is a big city, – the nurse said. Bathroom is available. You would be bathed, and mother would be glad to look at you. I would get up on my feet faster.
Hearing the word "bath", I trembled, because over the years I have forgotten what it is. We swim in the muddy water of concrete arches. The dirty flow of water by autumn became transparent. But to get into the cold water at this time is no longer possible.
Apparently, noticing under my dust-gray eyelids confusion in my eyes, the nurse finally regretted:
– Okay, what, we have to tell your mother, but on the condition that you get to the bathroom on the first bus and wash there. – Then, noticing in my hands a knot with two leeches and a parvarda, added: – How is your mother's name? I’ll give your knot and tell her that you came.
I gave the knot to the woman and turned back. Life on dust whole has turned me into a savage. Therefore, when he sat in the bus again, all people rubbed with interest and astonishment on me dusty. I felt it sharply now. I walk, pulling my head into my shoulders. The amazed eyes of strangers completely confused me. I want to hide, hide. When I got out of the bus, I finally felt freer.
In the bath from the hot water intercepted the breath, the heart compressed. My body, for years forgotten about this feeling, first felt discomfort. But no, I gradually got used to it, and the warm water calmed me.
I did not want to wear my dusty clothes. But what will I do, no one has made clean clothes for me. I was sick, somewhat pulled onto myself. As I walked out, I felt an unusual lightness.
When I got back to the hospital, the nurse immediately said:
– Look! What a good guy. Why did you start yourself so? Go, your mom in the seventh chamber, waiting not to wait. Always come clean and neat.
I didn’t have time to look at the slightly opened door as my mother called me to her and, looking closely, cried out:
– My dear, my son. How I missed you. God, save him from the evil eye.
She looked at me and couldn’t look at me. All her joy was passed on to me, these were happy moments for me. In my soul, I thanked the nurse who sent me to the bathroom.
My mother’s white clothes highlighted her unnatural paleness. She asked about the family, about my father.
– I was told about my illness today. Anemia, they say. After lunch, the blood will be transfused. Yes, by the way, the doctor asked to come to him if someone came from the house. Go, son, while he’s here, maybe he’ll say something new.