The people, who had been sitting silently as if at a funeral, laughed loudly and amicably. ‘Comrades, stop laughing!’ exclaimed Zhanaidarov angrily. ‘This is no time for jokes. Who has any other suggestions?’ ‘There’s no point in wasting your time. We have to accept the idea,’ said the head of the livestock department himself. Zhanaidarov grabbed his head with his hand and paced vigorously around the room in front of the assembled subordinates, who were tensely silent, like children seeing a school and a teacher for the first time. ‘I think we have to accept this idea too,’ said the head of the office firmly, ‘We have no other option.’ It was as if the cabinet exploded! There were questions everywhere as to whether Ashten should be placed on a plinth or not, and if he was, what if he sneezed or coughed in the presence of foreign guests and the Secretary of the Communist Party? The district leader had to think long and hard. In the end, the question was put to a vote. The bureau unanimously decided that the plumber Ashten Zheldybayev should stand for one hour on the plinth in front of the tannery building. The guests were arriving that evening and would inspect the statue in the morning. Therefore, a group of three or four people must work with Ashten in advance, persuade and caress him to stand on the plinth for an hour, while trying not to anger him, not to step on any sore points, and speak with the utmost care and subtlety, as if they were pulling a horse’s hair out of a ball of dough. A group of district committee instructors arrived at Ashten’s house. Ashten, reclining on the sofa in front of the television set, opened the door to them because they said they were ‘from the district committee’. The men surrounded Ashten, prodded him, persuaded him, intimidated him, and promised him almost the moon. In the end they persuaded him to agree to stand for an hour as a living statue on a plinth. When he gave a muffled ‘alright,’ it was as if a mountain had been lifted from their shoulders. They wiped the sweat from their foreheads with a sigh of relief. ‘But be warned, I will not stand still for a minute after the time is up. I don’t give a damn about your Englishmen,

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