Valery Yuabov - Everything Begins In Childhood

Our house survived.

We didn’t yet know how lucky we were. Later, the broadcast on the radio announced that the earthquake in Tashkent the night of April 26, 1966, was magnitude 8. Thousands of houses were destroyed, tens of thousands of families were left homeless. The official announcement said eight people were killed, but that was clearly a lie. People spoke of hundreds who had perished.

We all went inside, but no one went to bed. Our parents wandered around the room, trying to tidy up. Mother checked first whether the gas stove was all right. Later they discussed whether Emma and I should be taken to the kindergarten.

“Do you think the kindergarten could possibly be open today?” Father doubted. “Let’s try. If it’s closed, I’ll bring the kids back home.”

But the kindergarten was open. It looked like a disturbed beehive. The teachers were setting up tents in the yard because the order had been given not to enter the building yet for fear of new tremors.

And not without reason – Tashkent suffered another earthquake during the night of May tenth.

The whole day was spent in bustle and worry.

The concerned teachers ran back and forth sharing news.

A few military men visited. They explained something to the teachers and scrutinized the premises through field glasses.

A radio was heard crackling in the yard. Announcers were broadcasting about the day’s events, alternating between Uzbek and Russian. However, they didn’t report anything new. People learned the news from each other.

“As I was passing the square, I saw a crack in the ground… just like an abyss, must have been a few dozen meters.”

“Have you heard about the Young Pioneers Club and the Puppet Theatre?”

“All of Kashkara is ruined. What’s happening there is awful.”

“They keep taking more and more people to hospitals. Will they have enough beds?”

“They continue to dig people out… Are they all alive?”

“I don’t know. You could still hear shouts and moans coming from ruined buildings this morning.”

The adults didn’t have much time for us that day.

We played in the sandbox, listening to their anxious voices.

I tried to imagine what the huge crack in the main square of the city looked liked, in that very square where parades were held on national holidays. How, I thought, would people walk there, how could cars pass? And was it possible to cover that abyss with something, to fix the square? But the square was eventually fixed, and not only the square…

Though the consequences of the earthquake were concealed from the public, they turned out to be so enormous and terrible that it was impossible to hide the

Besides, seismologists all over the world had determined the precise scope of the disaster. People in every country of the world knew about it.

That was why Brezhnev and Kosygin gladdened the people of Uzbekistan’s capital with their arrival the day after it happened.

This time, the city received considerable aid from the government.

As Mama and I were coming back home from the kindergarten, I suddenly saw a big black pile, almost as high as our neighbor’s house, at our gate.

“They’ve brought coal!” Mama exclaimed.

Trying not to get soiled, she took Emma and me down the narrow passage to the gate. Coal dust stuck to the soles of our shoes.

The yard was empty. Only Father was sitting near his favorite apricot tree.

“They brought a ton and a half,” he reported. “They wanted thirty rubles to transfer it to the storage room.”

Thirty rubles was a worker’s weekly salary.

“It’s all right, Papesh. We’ll manage ourselves,” Mama said.

Mama was eleven years younger than Father. She always addressed him very respectfully. “Papesh” was a respectful form of “Papa.”

Naturally Mama was concerned. It wasn’t easy to transfer such a huge pile of coal single-handedly.

But, as always, she did her best not to let anyone notice. She was a master of hidden feelings. No matter what blows life inflicted on her, no matter how hard and painful they were – and it happened often – she tolerated everything with dignity, without a word of complaint. And only when her patience was completely exhausted, did she cry quietly in a corner.

We bought coal once a year. It was kept in the storage room near the apricot tree.

Mama brought a few pails and a shovel, and we set to work. Mama carried two pails filled to the brim with coal, panting and walking heavily. I followed her carrying the two or three pieces that I could lift.

Coal dust stuck to everything – the sides of the pails, the walls of the house, our clothes, our skin. It penetrated our nostrils and got under our eyelids. The black trail made by our footprints traced our path from the coal pile in the lane to the storage room.

The pile diminished very slowly. The sun was setting. The long shadows of the trees grew paler, merging with the gathering dusk. The pigeon coop grew quiet. Cats began running around the attics, their green eyes sparkling here and there.

No one came to help us. A few days earlier, Father had quarreled with his mother yet again.

The quarrel was, as always, baseless and stormy. All the inhabitants of our yard took part in it, dividing into two camps.

When it happened, Grandma, as an experienced “military leader,” inspired her supporters, mostly her own children. As soon as they showed up, she gathered them together around the table, setting forth the reason for one more quarrel and distorting the facts without any pangs of conscience.

Grandma understood perfectly well that her stories added fuel to the fire and made the atmosphere of our community, which was far from friendly, explosive. But that was exactly what she delighted in.

Grandma Lisa was a virtuoso of squabbling. After stirring up trouble, she would step aside to watch innocently as the uproar developed. After enjoying it, she would take on the role of peacemaker and act as if she had nothing to do with it. In other words, she also somehow attempted to ennoble herself.

For precisely that purpose, she brought dinner for Papa to our place only two days after she had quarreled with him.

Mama understood perfectly well what fuss Father would raise on seeing the plate. That was why she put it at Grandma Lisa’s window.

Retribution followed right away.

“Mama!” Father’s younger brother Robert yelled. “This swine has brought the dinner back!”

“Where is this bitch?!” Father’s sister Tamara yelled as soon as she entered the yard. She had already been informed about Mama’s “crime.” “Where is she? I’ll…” And obscene cursing followed.

Aunt Tamara loved to use foul language. She kicked up a row with someone almost every day.

“Hey, you ignoramus!” Uncle Misha called to Mama with disdain.

He was a schoolteacher. He taught physics, while Mama was a common factory seamstress.

They all quarreled with Father, but it was impossible to understand why all the hatred was vented at my mama. She had no place to hide from them.

Even during the hardest times, she didn’t egg my father on. She didn’t influence him against his mother, brothers or sister. She kept silent when she found herself between the devil and the deep blue sea. She was quiet and patient.

That’s how she had been raised. She was calm and reserved by nature, even withdrawn. She was not in the habit of and didn’t care to interfere in the private lives of those around her, to denounce anyone, to gossip. She didn’t find it interesting. Besides, she had no free time.