grow up next to, next to this beauty I am quite an old woman, eh! When I saw her about two years ago, she was a girl busy with dolls, but now look, she’s so charming!” Malika chirped. “Malika, I think we will have enough time to philosophise on the topic of the transience of life,” the husband said, and Bagila caught that the topic of old age greatly offended him. It turns out interestingly, that even though they haven’t had time to sit down yet, the husband has already pulled his wife back twice. “And what is left for us but to philosophise?” Malika continued playfully, not thinking of changing her tone. “A person who has seen a lot, who has experienced a lot, philosophises, but I’m not a girl,” she exclaimed cheerfully, and everyone understood that it was too early for her to show off. “All right, come to the table.” At the table the conversation was as twitchy as in the car. They talked at the same time about the weather, politics, about the appointment of one person and the dismissal of another, then, as expected, they returned to the Tashkent shish kebab. Bagila did not understand this table conversation very well. There was nothing unexpected in their words, nothing new that could remain in her memory, or that would touch the soul. She often visited such dinner tables with her parents, where people of various kinds met. At first, she was surprised by the similarity of words, jokes and laughter of the people sitting at these tables, she was especially surprised because people did not resemble each other, at least in name and surname, in appearance and behaviour, in position… But over time she was so accustomed to this that she no longer automatically delved into their conversations. She found a good way to spend time at such tables: look at people, smile and think about her own things. And this time, as she sipped her thick brown tea mixed with milk, she kept her eyes on the bookshelves that lined both of the long walls of the living room, making the room look more like a small library. And at the table they laughed loudly, smacked their lips, chewed, and somehow this image did not fit in with the bookshelves behind them, it even seemed to Bagila as some kind of sacrilege. She looked for
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