by Leonid Solovyov (1906-1962)
There’s a
bazaar in the village of Gamash. A huge square, not really a square. A sea of robes
and turbans.
People are
worried and making noise...
They buy,
sell, and act as commission agents...
An Uzbek
farmer buys a rope. He examines it carefully. He finds a tear and shows it to
the merchant.
He waves
his arms, smacks his lips, and swears by the beards of all the prophets of
Allah that no decent rope can be made without a break... What kind of rope is it
if it doesn't break? It’s not a rope, it’s trash...
The farmer
steps onto the end of the rope and tries to break it. The merchant makes an
anxious movement. But the rope holds. The merchant calms down.
“I wanted
to tear it. You could hang 100 pounds on it, and it wouldn’t break. And a
tear—what a tear, it’s nothing...”
The farmer
is imbued with faith in the rope’s strength. The bargaining begins, and after
an hour of noise, shouting, and arguing, the rope becomes the buyer’s property
for 80 kopecks—the “tanga cake.”
The buyer
takes it, lists its shortcomings in detail once again, hangs it over his
shoulder and leaves.
A minute
later he runs back.
“You
swindler! You old devil! May they strangle you with your ropes. You cheated me
out of one tanga (tanga is 20 kopecks). At the co-op, the same rope is 60
kopecks.”
The seller
is unperturbed. The buyer jumps and snorts.
“On the
rope. Give me the money.”
“Don’t you know,” says the seller,
“that when a person drowns, he doesn’t have to worry about catching a cold in
the cold water...”
Shouts and
curses begin. A crowd gathers. People laugh.
“Inflatable!”
Unfortunately,
another Uzbek passes by. He’s holding exactly the same rope.
“Oh, urtak,” says the buyer, “how
much did you pay?”
“Three
tanga.
“Where
to?”
“Amana cooperative.”
The buyer
looks reproachfully at the unwitting seller:
“Eh-eh-eh!
- And he goes to the co-op.”
The rope
failed to sell. The farmer heads back to the merchant.
“Give me
at least a ten-kopek coin.”
He looks
around and, seeing that there is no one around, says:
“That’s
how they teach fools.”
The
impudent eyes laugh.
“Ah.
Fools? Well, Miley!”
Naduty
stands next to the merchant. The merchant pays no attention to him. Two more
people approach.
“How much
is the lasso?”
“One sum
(one ruble).”
“Go to the co-op,” the deceived man
intervenes, “they’re 60 kopecks there.”
“Thank you,” they answer, and
leave.
The
merchant’s hair stood on end and his eyes widened.
“What are
you doing?”
The farmer
remains triumphantly silent. Another Uzbek approaches.
“How much
is the soap?”
“Thirty kopecks,” the merchant
replies, looking pleadingly at the recent petitioner.
“And in the co-op it’s 20 kopecks,”
he says into the space.
The
customer leaves. The merchant is red and angry. He bares his teeth.
“For your
ten-kopeck coin! Go away!”
“Give me a
ruble.”
“What?
Robber! Burglar! Basmach!”
“Okay
then. Give me 80 kopecks.”
At this
time, two more people come up and also head to the cooperative with the farmer.
The
merchant takes out a fifty-kopeck piece with trembling hands:
“Here you
go.”
“Another
30 kopecks.”
“Here you
go.”
The farmer
leaves triumphantly. The merchant’s eyes pour cold poison after him.
* * *
The
co-op’s stalls are lined up in a row. It’s impossible to squeeze through.
Congestion.
“Urtak!
I've been asking for 10 arshins for a long time!”
“3
pounds!”
“Change
the ruble.”
“Get in line, get in line,” the
policeman shouts.
The
cooperatives are well-organized, with an understanding of the farmers’ needs.
Kerosene, oil, soap, and calico are available.
The spider
traders look sadly at the cooperative, their hands folded on their stomachs.
Suddenly:
“T-r-r-r...
this... this... tr-r-r.”
“Post! Post-o-post...”
A tractor
has arrived.
Where to?
The crowd
parted. A tractor with a raised swindler crawled along.
“Yakshi!”
laughs one Uzbek. “He doesn't ask for drinks. He doesn’t need food. He only
eats when he works.”
The bus is
good.
And the tractor
hums...
“Here, buy...”
“Expensive.”
“How many?”
“Two and a half
ming, brother.”
“Nothing. Two and
a half thousand. It’ll pay for itself in no time...”
“If only on
credit...”
“Ask, and they
will give you a loan...”
* * *
They bring the
horses. We mount. We ride.
It takes us a
while to get out of the crowd. When we’re already driving across the steppe, I
look back.
A cloud of dust
hung heavily over the bazaar.
There are
quarries along the road.
“Here 25 Red Army soldiers held back the
onslaught of thousands of Basmachi,” says the guide.
“How many of them
remained alive?”
“One.”
...The steppe
stretched far and wide like a wide yellow carpet.
In the village, a
minaret rises above the dust.
[800 words]
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