Kitabı oku: «Everything Begins In Childhood», sayfa 19

Chapter 39. Parting with Grandpa Hanan

It sometimes seems to me that memory is like a sack of old things stuffed into a storage room or the corner of a closet. When you want to find something, you begin to rummage in the sack, pulling out one thing after another. And as you do it, you remember everything related to these things, and you feel pain somewhere in your chest. And you remember everything that was dear to you. The longer you look at an old thing, the longer you hold it in your hands – be it a dress, worn shoes or a small broken box – the more you remember people’s faces, colors, sounds, even smells. And those are not just snatches of reminiscences that drift before you but whole scenes from the past that had seemed forgotten and hidden at the bottom of the sack. All you need to do is take it out of the closet and rummage around in it.

* * *

It’s cold in the house this morning. I put on Mama’s warm cardigan, throw her favorite red scarf on top of it, and put on the skull cap, a present from Muhitdin, the doctor from Namangan who fought so long to save Mama’s life. Dressed like that, I sit down at my desk to work in the blue pre-dawn expanse of a cold October morning, and I hear Mama’s voice, “Get up, son, get up…”

Why today? Mama’s scarf… early in the morning, just as in the old days when Mama’s tender voice would wake me up… or at an even earlier pre-dawn hour, just like today…

* * *

“Get up, Valery. Get up!”

Mama was shaking me by the shoulder. I opened my eyes and squinted from the bright electric light… Had I overslept? No, day was just breaking.

Mama didn’t go to the kitchen to fix breakfast as usual but sat down on the edge of my bed. That was strange… She was pale, her hair disheveled. That was also strange. She usually did her hair after getting up, and then she woke us up. She propped her disheveled head on her hand, her elbow resting on her knee, and said quietly, “Grandpa died…”

Perhaps, in a child’s mind there isn’t, nor can there be, the feeling of the loss of a relative that adults experience. Nor is there the feeling of despair that something in your life is over for good and will never come back, an almost physical feeling of loss, of horror in the face of something that is beyond repair, in the face of nonexistence.

My feeling of loss was quite different.

Grandpa Hanan was gone. It meant that I would never hear the joke with which he always greeted Emma and me, “Your mama is ai.” And he liked to say it even after we grew older. I wouldn’t see the way he stuck his hand under his skull cap to scratch his head. And suddenly, I visualized that, and many other scenes, as if on a screen.

“Get dressed, quickly,” Mama’s voice was now heard from the kitchen. I hadn’t noticed that she was no longer sitting next to me. “Get dressed, wash yourself. We’re going to Tashkent.”

Grandpa had died today. It meant that his body had to be committed to earth today. That was the Jewish custom, and those customs were observed very strictly by our branch of Jewry in these parts.

Our whole family, the four of us, set out on our journey.

Our bus station had just received new Icarus buses made in Europe, which were big and comfortable. Those Icarus buses seemed to us a miracle of technology and embodiment of beauty compared to the old, run-down, domestically made buses, which resembled slow crawling beetles, which were stuffy, crowded and shaky. The Icarus buses ran smoothly and fast.

This time, it seemed to me that our bus was going terribly slow. The forty-five-minute ride from Chirchik to Tashkent seemed to last hours. Even the trees along the road, which usually flashed by quickly outside the windows, slowed their run.

At last we were there. We walked across Old Town along the familiar Sabir Rahimov Street. In the schoolyard on our right there were many children, a long recess must have begun. The laughter and squealing were so loud that they rang in my ears. Girls were skipping rope near the metal fence. They were carefree, unlike us, as they skipped and counted, “Bir, ikke, uch…” Girls, with sun-burnt faces, wearing skull caps, their myriad thin black braids bouncing down their shoulders and backs… This was an ethnic school. Classes there were taught in Uzbek. And I remembered that Mama had also attended an Uzbek school. She had worn a skull cap and made many braids. Her father was still young: Grandpa Hanan…

“Ester!” a familiar voice called to Mama. A car that was going in our direction put on its brakes near the sidewalk, and Uncle Avner, Mama’s brother, looked out of the window. “Ester, we are taking Papa to Samarkand. Will you go with us?” “Already?” Mama whispered, gave her travel bag to Father and ran to the car.

* * *

It was quiet in Grandma Abigai’s yard, even though there were many people. Grandma, wearing a black dress and a headscarf, got up from a low stool when she saw us. She hugged my father, gave Emma and me a pat on the head and asked quietly, “And where’s Ester?… I see… She’s gone with him… Yes, he’s gone, he’s no longer with us…” Grandma nodded her head and looked at us, as if answering our question, “Where’s Grandpa?”

Grandma Abigai’s eyes were red, her eyelids swollen. I thought that perhaps there were no more tears left in her eyes. But Grandma sat down on the stool again and began to cry, burying her face in a handkerchief and slapping her knee lightly. Her three daughters, Marusya, Rosa and Rena sat next to her. The collars of their dresses were slightly torn as a sign of grief. That was an old custom.

Emma and I made ourselves comfortable on one of the long benches near the gate. Our cousins, Robert and Boris, were already there. Boris was my age. He was Uncle Avner’s son, a serious boy who was praised in the family. He had been studying violin for several years.

As I sat down, I looked around. There was an old bed across from us at the door to the house. It was covered with a dark cherry-colored, patterned carpet, attached to the wall and hanging down onto the bed, on top of the korpocha, a padded mattress. Grandpa liked that carpet very much, and now his photograph was attached to it.

The old bed was Emma’s and my favorite place in the yard. We particularly liked to jump on it. Its metal net was just as good as a trampoline; it bent under our weight, then sprang back again. We would jump up and down, up and down, squealing with delight. The bed would answer us in its squeaky voice, kir-rr-kirrrk. It seemed to enjoy stretching its old bones.

Grandpa used to come out of the house at the height of our merriment, holding a bowl of fragrant tea. We would stop jumping. “Ah, you pranksters,” Grandpa would say and sit down on the bed. Flushed with excitement, we clung to Grandpa and stroked his short beard. Grandpa’s face, always somewhat pensive and tired, softened, became smoother and younger when he smiled. Then he would begin our game, which was always the same.

“Your mama is ai!” Grandpa repeated, pinching us lightly on our necks, bellies, chests. He did it tenderly, without hurting us, but we were very ticklish. We squealed and wriggled but didn’t try to break away. On the contrary, we hugged him even tighter.

It seemed to me that Grandpa loved us, but not the way Grandparents usually love. He enjoyed our company as an equal, and whenever we were together, he turned into a child.

There were our two warm bodies next to his, big, worn out, tired… Was it possible that it didn’t just give him joy? Perhaps, it gave him strength.

As he played with us, Grandpa would often begin to cough. His cough was hoarse; it lasted a long time. He bent almost to the ground, trying to clear his throat, but he didn’t always manage to do so. If he did, it didn’t help for long. Hugging him tightly, I felt, almost always, a wheezing and bubbling in his chest.

* * *

…I continued looking at the old bed, on which other people were now sitting. Neither Grandpa nor I were there. Never again would he sit next to us there. It was his portrait on the carpet instead of him, as if replacing him on that sad day when we were seeing him off. I wanted to look at his portrait, but it was also scary.

Meanwhile, the remembrance ritual continued the way such rituals were done in every Jewish family. They were not much different on the surface from Asian rituals. Lamentations, sniffling, sad exclamations were heard now and then.

“Why have you abandoned us?” the hunched over old woman exclaimed melodiously. She looked up and rocked, lifting her hands to the sky. She was Buryo, Grandma Abigai’s sister, who had arrived from Samarkand to take part in the ritual, not only because custom required it. Buryo really loved and respected Grandpa, who had helped her and her family generously many times.

Several other women joined in Buryo’s lamentations, including my aunts.

“Father, Father, you’ve abandoned us orphans! Why?” That’s how they lamented, rocking backward and forward, raising their hands to the sky, patting their knees and stomping their feet slightly.

When I was a child, I, naturally, didn’t know much about funeral rituals. It was later that I, unfortunately, became acquainted with them. On that day, we children just watched everything that was going on with curiosity, no more than that. I, for one, mourned Grandpa very much, but I would never have agreed to shout about it in front of everybody, and not a single child would have. Perhaps, tolerance for many customs and understanding the need for them comes with age.

When I saw how sad Grandma’s eyes were when she looked at the old tree in the middle of the yard, my heart tightened. That tree had stopped blossoming and dried up not so long ago. It had grown on the spot laid with light bricks, and it had become almost as light. Slightly bent, with outstretched boughs, it made me think of a figure frozen in the middle of a rapid-flowing stream in a desperate effort to keep its balance. Grandma had been upset when the tree dried up, and she often repeated, “It’s a bad omen.” But her eyes were drawn to the tree now and then. Maybe she remembered about the bad premonition, or maybe she was thinking about her resemblance to the lonely, dried-out tree trunk.

* * *

Two hours passed, and Boris and I grew bored with the ritual. Besides, when the mourners’ shouting got very loud, we were amused, but we couldn’t laugh, nor even smile, on such a sad day. They would notice it right away and say that we were heartless grandsons. Boris and I exchanged glances and got off the bench noiselessly.

We sneaked quietly, step by step, to the far end of the yard, to one of the storage rooms. There was the tandir, a clay stove which no one used any longer. There were a lot of old things scattered around that no one needed any more.

I liked that stove. It seemed to me to be a living creature. Every time I opened the door of the storage room, the tandir, when the daylight hit it, smiled at me merrily with its big round mouth, as if it was welcoming me.

Climb inside it, and you could get to the roof through its stovepipe. Even though the stovepipe wasn’t narrow, I felt somewhat ill at ease, uncomfortable, suffocating inside it. I would be covered with sweat, but I would overcome my fear, and, after getting to the roof, I was sure I would never be afraid to do it again… Alas, I was afraid every time I did it.

* * *

“C’mon, c’mon!” That was Boris pushing me. He was climbing into the tandir behind me. I had already reached the stovepipe. Just a bit more, and I would be able to grab the bar, shaped like a cross, on the roof above the stovepipe… And there I froze.

That damned enclosure, the boards that surrounded the opening on the roof were all black inside from soot, and I had on a white shirt. How could I forget?

“What’s wrong?” Boris urged me. “C’mon!” Oh, well, I’d take my chances! I would try not to touch it.

I reached for the bar, and, suddenly, a sharp sting pierced my bottom. What was it? A bumblebee? I dashed upwards. Another sting! I yelled, dashed up again, forcing my way among the boards with my shoulders and elbows. As I hung there like a monkey, another sting – it dawned on me that it wasn’t a bumblebee. It was Boris! Boris, that damned traitor!

To confirm my guess, Boris’s loud laughter sounded, booming and sinister, from the tandir. The stomping of his feet was then heard – my cousin had played a cruel joke on me and had decided not to climb onto the roof.

So, there I sat on the slate roof in sorrowful meditation – what should I do? The shoulders of my shirt, the sleeves, the whole of it was covered in black streaks and spots. I wouldn’t be able to go back to the yard looking like that. Everyone would notice and ask, “What’s wrong with you? Where did you get covered in filth?” And if my father saw it…

But I had to climb down. I couldn’t sit there until everyone was gone. Besides, the boys could be heard yelling, puttering around in the clay, looking at something outside the gate near the arik. And Boris was already there, I could hear his voice.

My anger was dying down. I climbed out of the tandir, washed my hands in the neighboring storage room, shook my shirt energetically, which was useless, and sneaked sideways along the walls through the yard. On my way out, I managed to notice that more people had arrived, Grandpa Yoskhaim and Grandma Lisa among them. Here I was at the gate. I threw it open and dashed to the boys, calling to Boris. A piercing screech and the grinding of brakes were heard as an old Volga car stopped abruptly after lurching sharply, close to me. A pale, frightened man jumped out of it. “I almost ran you over,” he mumbled in Uzbek. And the fear on his face was immediately replaced with rage. “Are you crazy? Why don’t you watch where you’re going?!” he yelled loudly.

One could understand the man’s anger – another second, and I would have been lying under his car, badly injured and possibly killed. What would have become of him? But at that moment, I was incapable of thinking about it. I just couldn’t function or understand what had happened. My legs were shaky; I felt nauseous.

The man yelled, waved his hands, and there was already a crowd around us, mostly people from the yard. Someone was patting me on the head. It was Grandma Abigai.

“You must be frightened. It’s all right, it’s all right. Ah, that’s the last thing we need today. Aka Yoskhaim, take him to your place, please,” she asked Grandpa, who was nearby. “He’s so scared. I hope he won’t get sick. Let him pee, and wet his lips with urine,” Grandma remembered the old remedy to prevent a scare.

Obviously, that day was so sad that, no matter how hard I tried to make it easier for myself, it ended up in trouble.

Chapter 40. “Just Let Him Try It!”

“What do you go to school for?” Both parents and teachers ask this ridiculous question quite often, and always with a bitter intonation, or with indignation. You make noise in class – “What do you go to school for?” When you receive a D, come home with a reprimand on your report card, or with a black eye or torn pants – the same question…

Of course, we know perfectly well what kind of answer was expected from us. How could we possibly not know! And that’s particularly disgusting, because you had to lie.

To be honest, what boy, while at school, is capable of remembering all the time that he is there “to obtain knowledge,” as adults like to put it. To remember it all the time, one would have to be not a boy but some fictional character, some kind of a robot, or a model student. Such boys are not well liked by their classmates; they’re held in general contempt.

Only girls are forgiven for their diligence. Girls are a special case, though naturally, even they pretend. They find it more interesting to whisper to each other or exchange winks and messages with boys than to listen to a teacher and write down boring rules in notebooks.

Why am I remembering this? I’m remembering it because, for any student, the most wonderful time at school is the time when no one urges them to obtain knowledge, like, for example this time. The bell rang, five minutes passed, then ten, but our teacher still hadn’t shown up. In other words, our class’s head teacher, Flura Merziyevna, hadn’t yet appeared.

I would take full advantage of that golden opportunity, precisely because I had something very interesting to do.

Bending over a sheet of paper, I was deciphering a strange sentence that would have no meaning for an outsider: Kigoziini opab. This sentence made sense to me. Deciphered with the help of a secret code, it meant, “Valery, we have a hedgehog. When are you coming?”

Yura and I had been corresponding since the summer. We decided to encode our letters. You never knew who might read them in his home or mine. Our secrets were safe that way. Besides, when you added something to your parents’ letters or put a note into their envelope, you had to write long boring sentences, something like this, “Dear …, how is your health? How is the weather? Everything is all right with us. Wishing you the same.”

Coded letters liberate you from such nonsense. Parents are too lazy to ask what it all means. They just sneer condescendingly, “Are you playing some game again?”

I tore a clean page out of my notebook and was just thinking about how to answer Yura when all ideas were knocked out of my mind by a strong flick to the back of my head. “Ouch!” I exclaimed, extracting a hard wad of chewed, wet blotting paper from my hair. I had been so engrossed in deciphering the note that I hadn’t noticed the beginning of a shootout. And it was in full swing.

It was possible to have a shootout without leaving one’s desk. That was the best thing about it. We could play it when a teacher was away, like today, or even when a teacher we weren’t afraid of was in the classroom.

Crackling, crunching and rustling were heard – notebook pages were turned into peashooters. That was the weapon, though the most avid fighters even had metal tubes. The smacking of wet lips was heard – each fighter was busy making a dozen or so “bullets” by chewing blotting or some other kind of paper.

The rules of the battle had been worked out long ago. The class was divided into two groups – the right row by the window exchanged shots with the left row along the wall near the door. The middle row could exchange shots with whomever they wished.

The battle tactics… well, there were no agreed-upon tactics.

Most of the shooters sat in the back of the classroom. The backs of the heads of those who sat up front were perfect targets. Poor things – they not only couldn’t shoot back, they couldn’t even shout “ouch,” as I had just done. But it hurt when a wad of blotting paper hit you on the back of the head. And our shooters were skillful. After inhaling deeply and pressing their lips around a tube, they spit a bullet through it with all their might. Phooey! And the air, like an exploding capsule, pushed the bullet rapidly out of the paper tube.

When there was no teacher in the classroom, the battle proceeded openly, like today. The noise was deafening, though it was somewhat strange. All that could be heard was phooey! phooey! If an outsider had walked down the hall, he would have stopped in astonishment, “What are they all doing in there? Are they spitting at each other from head to toe?”

A white hail covered the classroom, but the zeal of battle began to subside. Besides, some of us were burdened by worry – why was our Flura Merziyevna so late?

We could guess why.

An incident had taken place before this class, during the long recess, about which everybody knew. And some of us, including me, had been present when it happened.

But we didn’t want to think about anything unpleasant. As soon as I began to chew a new piece of blotting paper, Gaag, who stood at the door, shouted, “She’s here!”

The class grew silent.

After opening the door, Flura Merziyevna stopped. She had a pleasant face, round, kind and somewhat sad, and she didn’t smile. Sometimes, her face looked sadder, and we knew why – Flura Merziyevna’s husband, also a teacher, who taught drawing at our school, drank a lot.

Sometimes, when Bondarev would pass by in the hall during a recess, the stench of alcohol in the air was so strong that it seemed the wind had blown it in. Bondarev’s former nickname was “Little Hedgehog” because he shaved his head, but when his addiction to alcohol became known, his nickname was changed slightly to “Little Drunk Hedgehog.” Bondarev’s two sons, Alexei and Vladimir, were in our class and surely knew about the nickname, though no one said it when they were around.

The expression on Flura Merziyevna’s face was so sad, as if Little Drunk Hedgehog had gotten drunk today worse than ever before. She looked at us, sighed, and said quietly, “Those of you who were behind the school during the long recess, stand up.”

No one moved. My back strained, and my legs twitched slightly, but the “law of the pack” that kept others on their seats, held me in place. We had to procrastinate as long as we could.

The long recess. How well it had begun when Zhenya Andreyev and I ran out into the school yard.

It was late autumn. There were neither flowers nor little musicians in the yard. The wind blew along the paths, arranging the rustling yellow-red leaves into piles. Then it swirled and swirled them, as if in an endless dance, carrying them from one end of the yard to the other.

Yes, the weather had turned bad, but we didn’t complain. High school students even preferred inclement weather, of course, with the exception of torrential rain. When the weather was bad, they could hang around behind the school without being bothered – not a single teacher would venture into that part of the school during recess.

Comparing a long recess with a time-out between the two halves of a hard and tense game, one could imagine the teachers putting their heads together, discussing the next tactics they would use to counter the intrigues of their disobedient, lackadaisical students.

Teachers were the last thing those very lackadaisical students cared about now. It was their time to relax. That’s why they had to hide in a secluded corner behind the school.

Bychok means “cigarette butt.” One could often pick them up in places where men would get together, say, at a beer stand. Sometimes, kids would steal them, or even whole cigarettes, from their fathers. Quite a few bychoks could be found behind the school, where high school students in the upper grades smoked their own cigarettes during recess.

Today, the smokers had great luck. A day before, there had been a volleyball game between our team and one from a neighboring school in our school’s sports hall. After the game was over, the players had smoked to their hearts’ content outside. That was clear from the number of cigarette butts. On top of that, the choice was better than at any cigarette kiosk. Not only were there Prima, Belomorcanal, and the local Golubeye Cupola (Blue Cupolas) cigarette butts without filters, but even foreign made BT butts on the ground. It was clear that there were some well-off guys among the players.

I avoided the gatherings behind the school because I didn’t smoke, and I didn’t feel I belonged there. Zhenya was a different story; he did whatever he wanted. On our way to the pavilion, we had to pass the bychkovists, and suddenly Zhenya stopped.

“Wait. We should ask Petya whether he’ll bring a ball tomorrow.”

Petya Bogatov, our classmate, an excellent soccer player and the owner of a real soccer ball, was also a smoker. Apart from him, three of our other classmates – Bulgakov, Zhiltsov and Timershayev – were there, hanging out with the seniors.

While Zhenya and Petya talked about the ball we needed for the next day’s game, some boys picked up bychoks and were getting ready to enjoy them.

I stood near Sergey Bulgakov and watched him wrap a piece of thin wire covered in blue insulation tape around a cigarette butt accurately and skillfully. It was a necessary precaution; otherwise his fingers would smell of tobacco. Everybody did it.

Then Bulgakov struck a match, but he didn’t begin to smoke. First, he held the flame against the filter. Heaven knows who had smoked that cigarette. And only after that did Sergey half-close his eyes and pull at the cigarette butt. The way he stylishly held his cigarette butt on the wire handle was a sight to see.

Everyone was already smoking, some of them leaning against the wall, others either squatting or walking back and forth, joining small groups involved in lively conversations.

Our classmate, Vitya Shalgin, approached one of the groups. Timur Timershayev immediately took a step in his direction. He threw out the unfinished cigarette butt, moved closer to Vitya and said:

“Haven’t I told you to stay away from Irena?”

His voice was so hoarse and low that it seemed to me the smoke was pouring out of his mouth from rage, not because he had smoked.

Vitya mumbled something in response. I couldn’t hear it even though I was standing nearby. But Timur, obviously, didn’t care about his reply. He drew his arm back and punched Vitya in the face. It was a very hard blow, for blood gushed from his shattered mouth. Vitya cried out, staggered and crouched.

Timur was generally a quiet guy. I don’t remember him ever losing his temper. He never attacked anyone, even though he was very strong. But, all of a sudden, he did.

It grew noisy. A few boys dashed to Timur, who was still standing over Vitya, his stance threatening, to pull him away. Timur tried to break away, yelling:

“Get out of here! Just let him try to walk her home again!”

After pushing the boys back, Vasily Lumis, also our classmate, went over to Timur. I hadn’t noticed him appear, but it was good that he had.

Vasily Lumis was Greek, so perhaps he had inherited strength, decisiveness and fairness from his ancient ancestors, from some Hercules. Vasily took Timur by the head in his ample hand, folded his other into a fist, shook it in front of Timur’s face and said:

“You either be quiet or I’ll knock off your schnozz.”

“Schnozz,” or nose, was the favorite word of our school Hercules.

Timershayev calmed down right away. He knew, as did everyone else, that Vasily never repeated anything twice.

Now, everybody surrounded Shalgin. He was still sitting, very pale, blood dripping from his injured mouth.

“His whole lip is split. The wound’s very deep,” the boys were saying. “Are his teeth intact? We should take him to the teachers’ room, quick!”

Taking Vitya to the teachers’ room would mean confessing that we had been behind the school and witnessed the brawl, in other words, being subjected to interrogation. Helping him would mean revealing oneself, and others. “Can you get there by yourself?”

Shalgin nodded and, holding his head up, trudged along to the teachers’ room. At that moment, the bell rang, and we ran to our class.

* * *

That was what had happened before class. That was why Flura Merziyevna was late and entered the classroom with such a sad face. It was clear from her first words that Vitya Shalgin had “fessed up.”

Everyone who had been behind the school hoped in vain for a miracle. After not obtaining any confessions from us, Flura Merziyevna sighed again and began calling names. Timershayev was first. He stood up, clattering the seat of his desk. He looked gloomy, and it seemed he was about to repeat, “Just let him try it again!”

Irena Umerova, the culprit in this scandal, primped like a queen. She sat, tossing her white bows about, obviously happy and proud that the boys had fought over her. The rest of the girls stole envious glances at Irena. Just imagine – she was the first girl in our otherwise friendly class to have been the cause of a fight. Ah, girls, girls…

We plodded along in single file to the teachers’ room on the second floor. “Handling room-meddling room,” that’s what we called those unpleasant premises, because we were summoned there for only one reason – to be nagged at, set straight and the like. We had many graphic expressions for the subject, and we were about to experience them all.

The white gowns of ambulance attendants could be seen in the far corner of the teachers’ room. Vitya’s bandaged head was visible among them. He was to be taken to the hospital for stitches. Now, hardly anyone felt sorry for Vitya – he had betrayed us.

Inna Nazarovna Bass, the academic director, was at her desk near the window. She was the one we couldn’t stand. It was she who summoned us to the teachers’ room to set us straight more often than anyone else. And she would set us straight so hard that we thought she should have been a jailer rather than the academic director. Even her appearance evoked our loathing. Her small black curls protruded over her forehead like a bed of cauliflower turned black. She used her long, manicured nails to pick at her teeth, and she would scratch her calves, sticking her hands into the top of her smart black boots. Inna Nazarovna thought she was irresistible, and she dressed as stylishly as her means and understanding of what chic was permitted.

Now, she sat with her legs crossed, her small round predatory eyes scrutinizing those standing at the door.

“Well… Bulgakov is here, naturally… You practically live in the teachers’ room. Are you trying to get expelled from school soon? Perhaps it’s time to do it, along with Zhiltsov, for company. And you, Timershayev, have you decided to go straight from school to the courtroom? To a jail for juvenile delinquents? Imagine how happy your parents will be! Do they teach you to behave that way at home? I’ll have to ask your parents. But first, you’ll tell us how you have reached the point where you could do something like this. Do you understand that you nearly killed Shalgin?

Inna Nazarovna moved forward, fixing her eyes on Timershayev. Timur was silent. He didn’t look at Inna Nazarovna so her piercing gaze didn’t affect him.

He had that same expression on his glum face: “Just let him try it again!”

“Timershayev, are you deaf?”