Late pigeons
Шрифт:
No matter the customers say: “Please take, it is yours, you did it as I wanted!”, he doesn’t agree.
He is used to say: “Conscientiousness is important! I am happy if you are satisfied with my work. I am sure you will share your ideas with your friends, and feel satisfaction from my work. In such a way your friend informs about me to another person and so on. As a result I will have more customers. And that kindness of you is enough for me…”
7
Most of the population, living near Siyab Bazaar in the Old City, do business in or near the bazar, as well. One buys goods and sells it there, the other prepares food at home and sells it in the bazaar. Another person buys for cheaper price from wholesale traders and sells in retailers’ stall, or delivers his goods to the women who occupied the stalls in the bazaar for retail sales. Even a youngest member of a family can bring a bucket of cold water and sell water in the hottest days of summer.
Masturakhon is a tailor, customers take the costumes and women’s clothes, that she sews, directly from her house. With the help of makhalla executives they opened a personnel record book in the knitting factory and recorded her as a craftsman.
Her neighbor Khamida is engaged in baking bread. The bread she bakes become a piece of art. There exist a lot of generations of bread bakers. Khamida is the 7th generation of bread bakers, and she has baked bread for 40 years. Thanks to their business they built beautiful houses, organized pompous wedding parties. Now her children and grandchildren are continuing her business and Khamida just controls them.
Samarkand bread, named Gala Osiyo bread, is famous all over the world with its taste, weight and elegance. The tourists coming from foreign countries get astonished as they see Samarkand bread and define it as one of the seven wonders of the world. In fact Samarkand bread has been well known and famous throughout the centuries in the Great Silk Road. Tradesmen,who started in a caravan, would bite a piece from Samarkand bread and leave the rest at home in a good hope to come back to Samarkand safe and sound. After a year or two, or even five years later, when he came back home he would eat the rest of the bread hung on the wall. Regardless of time this bread doesn’t lose its taste, if the dried bread is soaked in water it will become soft and eatable.
There are a lot of legends and myths about Samarkand bread all over the world. A tourist, who visits the Registan Square – the symbol of the city, becomes astonished by its view, and wishes to taste Samarkand bread, as well.
Bread is consumed on daily basis and praised as a blessed boon. Whenever a guest comes home we place bread on the table first of all. Although it is carried in a basket it is liftedto the head. These traditions show Uzbek people’s respect to bread.
One day Khamida came to Raykhana’s home and complained that her daughter couldn’t catch up with selling bread in Siyab Bazaar, she came to ask Raykhona help her in sales. Masturakhon couldn’t reject her. Late tonight her daughter came home with some money in her hands.
“Whose money is this?” – she asked in a surprise.
“Mine!” – Raykhona replied in a triumphal tone and added: “Khamida gave this money as my salary for today!”
Like this Raykhona started helping Khamida in sales of bread. She has an easy hand, everyone wants to buy bread from her, not a single bread returns back from the bazaar. Masturakhon objected to her daughter’s selling bread in the bazaar.
“Stop selling bread, what do you miss?” – once she said to her daughter.
“I am idling at home, mommy, is selling bread embarrassing? The money I earned I am using for myself, buying books, I can give you as well…”
“I don’t need your money, just stop it. You are already a big girl, every day we have guests at home regarding you, and it wouldn’t good if they say that you sell bread in the bazaar…you see me?”
“Their tongues are not subject to them, is a person selling bread not a good man? Furthermore, I am always before the eyes of everybody. Have you heard something bad about me?” – Raykhona asked.
“No, no, my darling, I am just worrying about you… Just want to say…you’d better take care of yourself…my girl!”
Although her mother warned, Raykhona continued selling brad in the bazaar after her lessons, and used to do her lessons till midnight. And then she would sleep after a tiresome day…
A father and a son may not tell their secrets to each other in a family, but, on the contrary, a mother and a daughter can trust each other. A daughter learns many unspeakable things from her mother, tells her secrets to her mother and gets many useful advice. Masturakhon and Raykhona were of the same kind of mother and daughter. Once Raykhona told her mother about Otabek after having hesitated a lot. She told about the first meeting, about his smartness, but she hid that she had fallen in love. It was because of her shyness. But the mother understood everything.
“Daughter, you are our only child in the family, forget about Tashkent, you know that we have a lot of smart guys in our neighborhood, each one smarter than the other, with wealth families. Will I have to seek the way of Tashkent every time when I want to see you?” – Masturakhon reprimanded her daughter. “Now a family from Kircha is wooing you to marry their son, their son won a Green Card Lottery and in America now, and working as a lawyer there. They say he erns thirty thousand dollars a month. I would have married you to him, but America is far away, if you go far from me, I will not endure that…”
“Mommy, Tashkent is not far away. If you catch Afrasiyob train it will get you there in two hours…”
“No, I will marry you here, in our makhalla. Do you know shop holder Ato? He has more than 10 shops in Siyab Bazaar. They also reauest you for their son, if you agree you can meet him, and we can make the deal with them…”
“He hasn’t a definite job, he spends all he earns in the street, do you want to spend my life with him?” – Raykhona said sorrowfully.
“OK, then. What about the grandson of the Valikhodjaevs. He is good guy. He knows five languages, travels to 3-4 countries every month. He has done his PhD…”
“No, I will not marry him. I do not like being buried in the books…”
“You keep rejecting everybody I say. What have you seen in that guy from Tashkent? We don’t know him, his relatives. Your father will not agree, as well. There is another guy from the neighborhood. The son of Academician Vohid Abdullo’s sister. They also want you. We can start preparations if you consent.”
Having seen her daughter peeling at one point Masturakhon went out of the room being upset of that her daughter wasn’t hearing her advice.
Raykhona also doesn’t want to go to Tashkent, who wants to go far from relatives, friends? But life has its own rules, precepts of hearts and dreams. Does love not mean marrying a person who you adore, having kids from him, living with the beloved person? Raykhona entered her room with these thoughts and murmured to herself: “You stand between two fires, Raykhona”. She put her head on the pillow and went asleep.
The next day her mother told her daughter’s story to her father. He didn’t object, but said: “Of course, I want my daughter be with us, but if they suit each other we should not hinder. We have to investigate about the guy’s family.”