cattle for seventeen years. Over the years, we have raised not forty, but forty thou- sand sheep. And no one patted us on the shoulder, every- body just wags their fingers! They pay money, but no one will spare our children even a word. From birth, we have lived in this wilderness, away from people. Because of these forty fallen sheep…! Last year they swooped down at us like wolves…” “Woman, that’s enough! Shut your mouth! You’ll work this out another time,” the director sharply laid siege to the woman. “Karatai Isaevich, let’s look into the house. It would be nice to warm up, drink some tea.” Silently listening to the hostess, Karatai looked at the director of the state farm and thought that there was apparently a lot going on here that he should have known. When they entered the “living room” of the two room adobe hut, two girls stretched out by the stove, as if on cue, one was about seven, the other was four years old. The grader drivers settled behind the stove. Kenzhe- tai’s partner provided medical assistance to his comrade. It was clear that the victim would have joked further on his deathbed, because when his partner hurt him, instead calling out for his “mother”, he instead shouted out “father”. “God, when will they start to think! You can keep the house clean yourselves,” the hostess shouted from the threshold. “Lay down the blankets. Can’t you see we have guests? They always have to be reminded, they themselves don’t understand a damn thing.” With a common effort, the girls pulled three blankets from a chest: one was laid on the torus, the other two along the walls. The smaller girl turned out to be surprisingly nimble, she energetically moved around the dwelling, her black hair covered her face every now and then, and she, like an adult, threw it back with her hand on the back of her head. They laid the blankets neatly, smoothed them out, and sat down sedately in their places by the stove again. “Four boys and three girls,” said the landlady, whose name was Tenge, picking up the children’s things scattered on the floor. “Two of the boys are at school, the other two with their father. This one, the oldest of the girls, just started going to first grade this year. She came here for the holidays, but

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153