Many years went by, but nothing was forgotten, and memories of his lost mother warmed his heart, as if childhood had never ended. Chagatayev had never known his father. A Russian soldier in the Khiva expeditionary force, Ivan Chagatayev was killed before Gulchatai had given birth to Nazar. She was then the young wife of Kochmat, by whom she had already had two children, but these children by Kochmat died while Nazar was still very young, and his mother told him about them only later, saying only that once upon a time they had been alive. Kochmat was poor, and much older than his wife. He lived by going to work on the Bey’s lands in Kunya-Urgench and in Tashaouz, working in the fields so that at least in summertime he could give his family bread. And in wintertime he slept almost all the time in his mud hut, dug into one of the foothills of the Ust-Urt. He was saving up his failing strength, and Gulchatai lay there with him under the same cover; she also slept and dreamed through the long winters in order to eat less, and their children lay between them while they were still alive. Gulchatai went out occasionally, to get some plants to eat or to work as a farm girl in Khiva. One time she couldn’t find any work in Khiva; it was winter and the rich people were drinking tea and eating mutton while the poor were waiting for the warmth to come, and for plants to start to grow. Gulchatai was huddling in a bazaar where she ate what she could find on the ground, left there by the traders, but she was ashamed to beg. It was at this Khiva bazaar that the soldier Ivan Chagatayev noticed her, and began to bring her every day a little of the soldiers’ food in a pot. Gulchatai ate the soldiers’ soup with beef in it in the evenings when the bazaar was deserted, and the soldier talked to her a little and then hugged her. It was against her woman’s conscience to reject the man after the food he had given her, so she was silent and did not protest. She had been thinking: with what could she thank the Russian, and she had nothing except what nature had given her.
“Why do you have tears in your eyes?” Vera asked Chagatayev on the day of his departure for his own country.
“I was thinking of my mother, and how she used to smile at me when I was little.”
“Well, how was that?”
Chagatayev was flustered.
“I don’t remember…. She was happy for me and she was mourning me—people don’t smile like that now. With her, tears ran down her happy face.”
His mother had told Nazar that her husband, Kochmat, had not beaten her when he learned that Nazar was not his son but the son of a Russian soldier, nor had he become bitter at her, but just withdrawn and hostile to everybody. He went off by himself a great distance to catch his breath there from his sorrow; then he had come back and he had loved Gulchatai just as he had before.
Nazar Chagatayev went for a walk with Vera for the last time. That evening a train would take him to Asia. Vera had already fixed everything for his long trip: she had darned his socks, sewed on all his buttons, she had ironed his linen herself, and she tried out and tested all his things several times, caressing them and envying them because they were going away with her husband.
On the street Vera asked Chagatayev to go with her to a friend’s house. Maybe in a half hour’s time he would stop loving her forever.
They walked into a big apartment. Vera introduced her husband to an old woman and asked her:
“What’s Ksenya doing? Is she home, or somewhere else?”
“She’s home, she’s home. She just came in,” the housekeeper said.
A black-haired girl between thirteen and fifteen was sitting in a big, disordered room. She was reading a book, and twisting the end of her braided hair in her hand.
“Mama!” the girl shouted in delight to her mother as she walked in.
“Hello, Ksenya,” Vera said. “This is my daughter,” and she introduced the girl to Chagatayev.
Chagatayev shook her strange hand, childlike and feminine; the hand was sticky and dirty, because children do not learn cleanliness right away.
Ksenya smiled. She did not look like her mother—she had the regular face of a young person, a little sad and pale from the fatigue of growing. Her eyes had different colors—one was black, the other blue—which gave her whole face a meek expression, as if Chagatayev were looking at some regrettable and delicate abnormality. Only her mouth spoiled Ksenya—it had already grown thick, the lips were full, as if they were always thirsty for drink, and it was as if some strong, destructive plant were bursting through the innocent silence of her skin.
All of them were silent in the ill-defined situation, although Ksenya had already guessed what it was all about.
“Do you live here?” Chagatayev asked the girl.
“Yes, with my papa’s mother,” Ksenya said.
“And where is your papa, is he dead?”
Vera was at one side, looking out of the window at Moscow.
Ksenya laughed.
“No, what are you saying! My papa is young, he’s living in the Far East, and he builds bridges. He has already built two.”
“Big bridges?” Chagatayev asked.
“Big ones… One of them is a suspension bridge, another With two supporting piers and with sunken caissons, they’ve disappeared forever, they’re lost!” Ksenya said happily. “I’ve got photographs of it from the newspaper.”
“And does your papa love you?”
“No, he loves some strangers, he doesn’t want to love Mama and me.”
They talked some more: Chagatayev felt a confused regret inside his heart; he sat there with the light, sad feeling of being asleep, or traveling somewhere. Forgetting ordinary life, he took Ksenya’s hand in his, and held it, not letting go.
Ksenya sat there in terror and amazement, her different-colored eyes looked out poignantly, like two people who are very close but do not know each other. Her mother, Vera, stood apart, quietly smiling at her daughter and her husband.
“Isn’t it time for you to go to the station?” she asked.
“No, I’m not going today,” Chagatayev said. He felt an attachment to Ksenya, a feeling of human kinship and of anxiety about what would be best for her. He wanted to be a protecting strength for her, a father, and an eternal memory in her heart.
Excusing himself, Chagatayev went out for a half hour, bought various things at Mostorg, and brought them back as presents for Ksenya. If he hadn’t done this, he would have regretted it for a long time.
Ksenya was delighted by the presents, but not her mother.
“Ksenya has only two dresses, and her last shoes have gone to pieces,” Vera said. “For her father doesn’t send us a thing, and I have only just started to work…. Why did you buy all this nonsense? What need does a girl have for expensive perfume, or a suede bag, or some kind of gay-colored bedspread?”
“Now, Mama, never mind, let it go!” Ksenya said. “They’ll give me a dress for free at the children’s theater, I’m an activist there, and the Young Pioneers will be giving out mountain-climbing boots soon, so I won’t need shoes. Let me keep the bag and the bedspread.”
“It all makes no sense,” Vera complained. “And he needs the money himself, he has a long way to go.”
“I’ve got enough,” Chagatayev said. He took out four hundred rubles more, and left them for Ksenya’s board.