Татьяна Трубникова: Disrupted Breath

Only two week passed and Aslanbek shoot from weapon in such a manner that it really seemed to be extension of his hand and mind. The boy felt some special magic which he didn't know earlier. The pointed gun was an imperative gesture. To throw stones – it was great. But shooting… All it takes is to hold a hand with gun outwards of a disliked person… one insensible motion of fingers – your willing and gesture became a death.

For sure Aslanbek didn't have enemies whose death he could desire. But the only gesture charmed him. As well as a steel weight in his fingers.

Aslanbek knew the meaning of most surah in Koran. But Salman passed him over. He learned Arabic. He assured it wasn't difficult. Avar was much more difficult. Prophet Mohammed told to read Koran only in Arabic. That's why Salman was reading it in the original. He often shared with the friend his ideas which visited him after they had been shooting long enough until smarting eyes and were sitting at Aslanbek's favorite hillside. During reasoning Aslanbek always heard mountain breath much better. It seemed any minute now he would distinguish words…

On a whim he said:

– Salman, one day you will be a mullah. No! Imamah! I don't know who. But you will be the Chief. And everybody will mind you.

Salman thought and said:

– I want only to know Allah. If it's necessary to be the Chief for this purpose, I will be the Chief. La-illahail-allah.

There was no tele receiver in their aul. Father and many other aksakals took it as Satan which cobweb make the mind obscure and dishonor religion. Aslanbek was jealous of Ahmet. Shamil had taken him to the neighbor aul. There was antenna and tele receiver. What would it take to tell about this afterwards! Although it was six of one and half a dozen of the other. Roughly a dozen time the same thing. Aslanbek hated him for conceitedness but was listening and couldn't tear away all the ten times. It seemed there was an entire world in television. And other people were there. Strange clothes. And countries. And big cities. Large road like a canon. Flush like a mirror. The one thing Aslanbek couldn't believe at all – there was a town in America, as said Ahmet, where was saklia as big as a mountain. Saklia stuck to mountain – that was understandable. But how could they stand separated?! Great Allah! What if that was true?! He wished to see it at least once in life. What a strange thing, he suddenly imagined he knew how this saklia was called… he remembered Ahmet didn't say this. And at the same time the word was on the tip of the tongue. Exactly like the words which mountains wanted to say him but he couldn't pin it down…

At that moment Aslanbek thought he would never see saklia like a mountain. In fact, nobody had seen who he knew. Even wok stag Rashid. But he knew everything. He knew Koran from memory as well as that their mountains would become plain one day…

The events that had happened after Aslanbek learned to shoot straight were misty, floaty and at once awfully. Misty because the boy didn't understand what was happening. However, something was going on. Once the aul community gathered. Everybody was troubled. A feeling which was in the air was associated somehow with Aslanbek's first memory in the life – how everybody had been waiting for Kurban Bayram.

Father went away. First Aslanbek thought he would return. As earlier he sometimes had been going away. Many days had passed. The face of his mother Patimat was often sad and wistful. Ahmet was darkling when looking at her. Now Aslanbek understood – they knew something he didn't know. He couldn't bring himself to ask about this.

One day mother run into the house and fell crying.

– What happened to father? – Aslanbek snapped.

– He had been taken away by mountains, – Patimat answered.

– Mom, Г m already big. What happened to father?

Then Ahmet went away. He should be seventeen soon. He was also devoured by mountains. Aslanbek was left the elder man in the family.

Only four years had passed but how much Aslanbek's life had changed. How he was changed! Now the most compulsive thoughts were about women. Sometimes he couldn't thing about something else. He painfully followed with his eyes every woman on the right side of thirty… Senior women were old bones. The sisters had married ad went away in other auls. Patimat became much more silent as she was with husband. The junior brother had grown up. He was already ten. Being senior Aslanbek never bullied him. He never humiliated his young dignity. He didn't force him to kill mutton. He didn't beat him. And he never tortured him with hunger and thirst. Ruslan minded him without doubt as befitted. Aslanbek tried to teach him to help mother in all things, as if he felt that exactly Ruslan should provide her a pillar support…

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