Mother's Testament: 4 Wool and Clay

During the journey the mothers, surrounded by their crying children and gripped by the most morbid sense of foreboding, tried to make sense of their desperate plight. Among them was Alahan-hada, the mother of seven children. Her mother, the elderly Rozihan, was in tears the whole way. Alongside Gyuli was Tadzhigul with her two children. From time to time she would be overcome by bouts of coughing. 

           

‘Where are you from originally?’ Gyuli asked her.

‘I’m from Donmiallia, just outside Zharkent. We were a peasant family. My husband Askar’s parents crossed the border. They arrested Askar – they accused him of having contact with China, although he never received so much as a letter from there –’ Tadzhigul broke out in a fit of coughing that prevented her finishing. She put a handkerchief to her mouth to try to stifle the coughing.

           

Gyuli gave her some water and saw that the handkerchief was stained with blood. ‘I see you really are unwell. So how will you manage away from home?’

           

‘If I can just survive until Askar comes… I don’t want to leave the children as complete orphans.’ Tadzhigul looked at her son asleep in her arms. For the rest of their journey, Gyuli tried to help her wherever she could.

           

The three families, none of which had previously travelled further than Zharkent, were taken to the settlement of Chilik. They were dropped outside the Kolkhoz Workers’ Club, where many women, old people and children had already arrived from various districts: all members of the families of ‘enemies of the people’. There they were left to fend for themselves. The local inhabitants had learned from bitter experience and were wary of helping the new arrivals, so avoided them. There was no work here for the mothers, nor was there a chance of education for their children. The mothers begged for help, but their appeals went unanswered.

           

Their first task was to find some kind of shelter.           Gyuli with her three children, and Tadzhigul with two, settled in a half-ruined building with a single room. They did what they could to make it habitable, washing it out and putting the stove and kang in order. Gyuli took to walking through the village in search of some kind of work; the food they had brought from home had already run out. So she was delighted one day when, walking around the periphery, she discovered clay. Her mother knew how to fashion tono ovens from clay; she and her sister had used to help her when they were small. So, now the women would mould these ovens and sell them in order to feed their children.

           

Tadzhigul seized on the idea excitedly. The two women began heaping clay into sacks and dragging them to the house. Gyuli ripped open a quilt, made long ago by her mother, which was stuffed with wool. While she tore the wool up into small pieces, Tadzhigul and the girls fetched water from the aryk. After combining the wool with clay, Gyuli added water and began to puddle the mixture until it became a homogeneous mass. The heat and the heavy work caused her to sweat profusely, but there was nothing for it; they had to earn money and to feed the children.

           

To make a tono oven it was necessary to turn the clay mixture they had prepared twice a day, morning and evening. They sprinkled a little water over the place where the clay had been and covered it with old sacks to prevent it drying out. After six or seven days like this the clay mixture could be considered ‘ripe’. Now they would dig a hollow in the ground to suit the size of oven required, in which they laid the first layer of the mixture. Small pebbles were placed on top of each layer that would become very hot when the oven was fired. Each morning they added another layer, and a further each evening, with a slightly smaller diameter each time. The result was a dome-shaped oven with an opening in the top – a tono. Now the oven was built, it had to be thoroughly dried out in the sun. Anybody who bought an oven was advised to carefully light a fire of dry dung bricks in it for six consecutive days, as this would cure the inside of the oven properly and give it a protective coating of carbon. Only after following this procedure should they fire the oven with wood to bake their nan flatbreads.

           

Despite the laborious work and the heat of high summer, Gyuli did not wait for the first oven to dry before she started on the next. And one by one she began to sell the ovens to the local women.

           

Selling the tono became a profitable undertaking for Gyuli. She was happy because this gave her an income with which she could support her family.

           

One day on her way home she bumped into Alahan, the mother of seven.

           

‘Good heavens,’ Alahan exclaimed, ‘how thin you’ve become! Have you been ill or something?’

‘Not at all, my dear Alahan, I’m in good health. It’s just that I’ve been making clay ovens in this heat. And thanks to that I’ve been able to go to the bazaar and buy flour, meat, butter and vegetables. And how are you? How are you managing to feed your children?’

           

The two fellow-villagers got talking. Alahan remarked that Gyuli had not only lost weight but was also sunburnt. Her eyes had become sunken and she had wrinkles that extended to her temples. She had aged by ten years.

           

‘Gyuli, come and see us this evening,’ Alahan said to her. ‘I’ll teach you some lighter work.’

           

Gyuli nodded agreement and went home. Scarcely had she opened the door before she heard Selimyam’s voice:

           

‘It’s Mama! Mama’s back! We’re hungry! Tadzhigul-hada has fallen over again.’ The girl was holding her baby brother Yadikar, whom she now held out to her mother.

           

Gyuli put down her sack and picked up little Yadikar, then went to see Tadzhigul. She felt the other woman’s forehead.

           

‘I’m already feeling better, sister. Please don’t be angry with me for being such a burden,’ she began.

‘Don’t you ever say such things! It is important that we are here for each other.’

‘Well, you know the saying: I’ve no strength, but can’t tell you where it hurts,’ Tadzhigul said, trying to smile. ‘My sight went dark and I fainted.’

‘Let me go and make some noodle soup, or we’ll all be fainting with hunger.’

           

Selimyam and Aminam rushed to peel vegetables. Instead of squabbling, Gyuli’s and Tadzhigul’s children looked after Yadikar, played together and did domestic tasks. Yadikar could already crawl and was even trying to stand up.

           

The keen aroma of grilled, seasoned meat so taunted the ravenous children that they would have jumped into the big metal kazan; they did not take their eyes off it for a moment. As soon as the noodle soup was poured into the bowls the children fell upon the food greedily.

           

‘Sister, I will remember your kindness for the rest of my life. You have taken care of me like a mother.’

‘Enough words, hada. Eat up – you need to build up your strength,’ Gyuli replied.

           

While they were eating Selimyam remembered:

           

‘Oh yes, apa, an old woman came today asking for a tono and she said: “I’ll come by tomorrow by cart. Make sure your mother’s at home.” Apa, if you sell one and buy some flour, will you make us some nan?’

‘Yes, my little one, I’ll make nan, and I’ll buy you clothes for winter.’

           

Gyuli then also remembered that Alahan had invited her to visit. She ought to go and see what kind of light handicraft she had in mind for her.

           

After dark, Gyuli made her way stealthily to where Alahan lived. It was quiet all around, with only the occasional soft whistle of the night birds. She entered the house to find grandmother Rozihan surrounded by her grandchildren.

           

‘Ah, Gyuli, is that you? Alahan’s been waiting for you. Come in, sit down.’

           

Greeting her, Gyuli went in and sat down beside the old woman. Alahan brought some Uighur tea and started to talk about her life and situation.

           

‘Two of my older sons work on the plantation, harvesting melons. The foreman, Akhmat-aka, tells everyone that they are his relatives. Two of my daughters knit clothing, and I help them if I have spare time. I also managed to bring a hand-operated sewing machine from home. I sew all sorts of things on it – dresses, suits, quilted jackets. I cut down old clothes for the children. People give me vegetables or flour for this.’

‘Tell her about Big Dzhanyat,’ old Rozihan threw in to the conversation.

‘Big Dzhanyat lives on the next street. One time she brought her old coat to me and said, “My daughter’s getting married. Would you turn this old coat inside out and alter it for her.” I worked sewing that coat for four days, and when I gave it to her she did not even say thank you. Today I sent my daughter round to her, but she threw her out of her house grumbling “I’m sick of these orphans!” But that’s life – you do meet ungrateful people like this.’

‘If you haven’t experienced something like this, daughter, you’ll never understand somebody who has. They say the full man doesn’t understand the hungry, and for a good reason,’ grumbled grandmother Rozihan.

           

Alahan now leaned towards Gyuli. ‘And the light work I was talking about is yarn and knitting. In our house mother combs wool and spins thread, and the girls knit.’

           

‘When you get to my age spinning isn’t easy. Afterwards your hands ache all night,’ complained Rozihan. ‘Gyuli, I can teach you to spin.’

‘I’d be very happy for you to teach me a little.’

‘It’s easier than making ovens,’ Alahan remarked.

‘Tomorrow I’ll go to the bazaar and buy some wool, then I’ll come here for a lesson,’ Gyuli promised.

‘Are you getting letters from Tair?’ the old woman asked.

‘I’ve only had one, from Siberia. I wrote back straight away and now I’m waiting for a reply.’

‘It’s a harder life in those penal colonies than we have here. May Allah grant him strength and patience.’ Alahan drew breath. ‘I haven’t had any letters from my husband at all.’

           

They went on sitting together, drinking tea and sharing their burdens and concerns.

           

‘It’s getting late, I’d better go,’ Gyuli remembered suddenly. ‘Tadzhigul’s very ill and I’m worried about her.’

‘May Allah grant health to us all and may He preserve us,’ said grandmother Rozihan, raising her hands in prayer.

           

From that time onward, Alahan often sent her sons to Gyuli with a melon or watermelon, asking how she was.

           

The days passed in their appointed order. Gyuli and Tadzhigul had a single aim: not to allow their children to die of hunger. The children were growing fast and were doing everything they could to help their mothers.

           

Every evening an old woman selling milk would pass their window. Catching sight of her, Selimyam would shout out: ‘Apa, the old woman’s here who sells milk!’ and rush outside. Aminam, who was her age, would run along beside her, and behind, with short, mincing steps, came Saniyam, holding on tight to the hem of her sister’s dress.

           

The girls nurtured Yadikar. He grew stronger and stronger on his legs and was already starting to talk. Tadzhigul’s son Omar was a quiet, shy boy.

           

This year Selimyam and Aminam would have gone to school, had they not been branded as belonging to ‘the families of the enemies of the people’. This injustice outraged Gyuli to the core. But she herself was secretly teaching her children to count, to read and to write the letters of the alphabet. Imitating her mother, Selimyam took it on herself to teach the younger children. Her sincere desire to help and to be seen as a grown-up greatly pleased Gyuli and Tadzhigul. And in a short time there grew up the illusion of a normal life.

           

The hot summer reached its end; now autumn arrived and plunged the world into gold. But with it came new worries. Gyuli and Tadzhigul began to lay in a stock of firewood, collecting brushwood from the land outside the village, sawing up dry branches and stacking them. In the evenings they knitted. Gyuli, having mastered the craft, also taught Tadzhigul to knit. By the dim light of the lamp the mothers held heartfelt conversations and knitted children’s clothes. On bazaar days, they sold the clothes, and the proceeds sustained them. They were grateful to Allah that this winter they would not go hungry.

           

One evening as they sat at their knitting, Gyuli gave Tadzhigul a worried look and said: ‘The good days are ending. The wind’s changed and there’ll be snow soon. We need to save up for a stove, or the children will catch cold.’

‘Why don’t we give up milk? We can survive on tea. That way we’ll save money,’ Tadzhigul replied.

‘But if the children get nothing but tea and a scrap of bread, they’ll be completely emaciated. Look, they’re already just skin and bone.’

‘So let’s buy a stove, and then there’ll be money for food again.’

           

Without reaching agreement on the matter, the two women sighed.

           

‘Whose fault is it that there is no happiness in our lives and that our families have been scattered about the earth like millet?’ said Gyuli. The two women lay their work aside and sat without speaking. After a while, they lay down beside their sleeping children and fell asleep themselves.

           

Life in exile from their village was becoming intolerable. Yearning to be allowed home, Gyuli and Tadzhigul began to haunt the doorways of various offices, begging and weeping, and eventually, in 1940, ten families were given permission to return. They were told to move to the village of Koktal, some seventeen kilometres from Zharkent.

* * *

‘But why didn’t they just let them go back to their own villages?’ asked Ruth, shaken. ‘Why torture the children so much, children whose fathers had been sent to prison for no crime? How was it possible to trample the rights of people so much?’

‘I think those politicians and officials had hearts of stone,’ I replied. ‘I’m not sure they could really be described as humans.’

           

I looked out of the window. Dusk was gathering; the clouds below us were turning grey. We were brought dinner, but Ruth declined any food. I soon finished my meal and put down my fork and napkin. When I looked round, Ruth was giving me a questioning look.

           

‘Would you like to hear more?’ I smiled. ‘Well, then, carry on listening.’