most recent years, Bagila began to seriously understand that her father’s work was hellishly hard, that he worked with wear and tear, not thinking about himself, she understood that their family wealth, parental generosity, unchanged in relation to her, are all connected with her father, who always, as far as she could remember, did not know rest, day or night. When they settled into a soft compartment of the branded “Kazakhstan” train, a lean, tall young man of about thirty years entered with them, he had a huge armful of newspapers and magazines, as if he had bought the entire contents of the kiosk standing on the platform. It seemed to her that he greeted them coldly, deliberately. Bagila gave a short nod in response and again began to look out the window at the platform with a smile, where her mother, brother, two sisters and several friends were standing to see her off. Bagila’s father not only did not respond to the stranger’s mean greeting, but he was also genuinely surprised at his presence in the compartment and stared into the guy’s face for several seconds, then pointedly asked in bewilderment: “Is your seat here?!” in such a tone, as if the stranger was not worthy even to stand next to him. The young man, with his former cold calmness, laid out newspapers and magazines on a small table, pushing Bagila at the same time, and answered with a caustic smile: “Yes, my seat is here, right where you’re sitting.” His direct cold gaze was so sharp that it seemed to pierce through the interlocutor. For a brief moment, Karatai was crushed by some frightening inner strength of the stranger, but then, after quickly pulling himself together, he assumed the posture of a dominant person with indifferent calmness and went out into the corridor. “If I’m not mistaken, that’s your father,” the guy suddenly spoke, and without looking at Bagila, he continued to leaf through the newspapers. “I just want to understand, is he taking you to school? He seems like one of those people who strive to ensure that their daughter enters a university at any cost, I can tell just by looking at him. Undoubtedly, it seems that he did not like me very much.” The man’s tone touched Bagila, she almost exploded with indignation and began to bite her lips. But the guy was imperturbable and

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