-
Just like this.
-
I say how we can guess whether it’s a doe or buck...
The breakfast was left on the table untouched. No matter
how fast the husband and wife ran after the rabbit among the
vines, they failed to catch the rabbit.
-
It’s strange...- a little later, her husband said while
turning his car with speed now left, now right in the
narrow streets of Mardakan. - So strange...
-
What’s strange? ...
-
The death of the rabbit... It is for the first time I hear that
a buck and a doe shouldn’t be kept together.
Saying these things, her husband fixed his sunken eyes at
the point very close.
His countenance had fairy changed since yesterday. There
were dark shades under his eyes, his face had become pale.
...In the evening hardly the children got the garden when
they began to cry over the rabbit’s death. They kept pestering
their father for a long time to find out the place where the rabbit
had been buried. Then they went to the same place, and made a
small grave from tiny stones, shingle and vine leaves.
...The supper passed in a melancholy mood. The children,
with their pale faces, chilled off the meal reluctantly fumbling
with their long forks in vermicelli.
While her husband was swallowing the meal unchewed
quickly in big pieces, his swarthy face was becoming darker
and darker, and the knot of his eye brows turning bluish. Being
very thoughtful, her husband’s eyes were fixed on something
very close. As if the rabbit was dying again in front of his eyes,
right under his nose.
-
Didn’t I tell you that 1 was doubtful of those
strawberries?
-
Which strawberries?.. - Her husband startled.
-
Those you fed the rabbits with...
-
I’ve also tried some of those strawberries.
181
-
Is your body the same as that of a rabbit?..
-
Poison doesn’t bare direct relation to the body whether it
is small or big.
-
Yes, it does.
-
No, it doesn’t! - Her husband suddenly raised his voice
and banged his fist on the table and everything came clanging.
-
Old Isa explained to you very clearly; a doe or a buck
shouldn’t be kept together... Usually one of them dies...
-
Which one dies?..
Her husband didn’t answer her and nervously pushing his
plate aside stood up.
-
Oh, my God! You are giving me a great deal of trouble!
You wouldn’t care even if I happened to die... - he said and
cursing the rabbit, went at a good pace toward the depth of the
garden, disappeared in the thickness of the grove and didn’t
come out of it until the late hours of the night.
...The other rabbit was watching them the whole night from
behind either this or that bush and now and then shaking its
pink ears.
...At midnight they were woken by her younger daughter’s
noise. The child had woken up, sat up on her bed and was
crying rubbing her eyes.
-
What’d you want?..
The girl didn’t answer. She didn’t stop crying either.
-
You want water?..
She said “no” crying and shaking her head.
-
Maybe you want to pee?..
Again the girl shook her head.
-
Maybe you are hot?..
-
No-o-o-o...
-
Why are you crying then?
For a long time, the girl shook her head to all questions
crying.
182
Her husband, his face angry, with blank look in his eyes
reddened with sleeplessness shouted nervously:
-
What on earth do you want then?..
Startled, the child ceased crying and said humbly:
-
I’m itching all over...
... As the next day was day-off, the weather seemed
gloomy. Since the death of the rabbit, it seemed as if the
greenness of the garden had faded, the leaves had shriveled and
turned grey. The rabbit peeping from inside the faded grass
looked as miserable as an orphan.
A heap of dirty clothes piled up in the comer of the yard
within the week was waiting for her with the challenge of to be
washed. The dirty clothes were so crumpled and faded that
when thinking of that they had been worn a couple of days ago,
one could get mad.
...Her husband, with the cigarette in his mouth, was
probably digging the bed of the tree nervously at the far end of
the garden. Now and then he stuck the spade in to the ground as
a knife and looked at the sky with his face expressing sickness
and tiredness.
After a while throwing the cigarette away, he sat on the
sand, his shirt around his head.
-
What if you cook kufta for dinner?.. - he asked.
-
Go and sit in the shadow rather than wrapping that shirt
around your head.
-
I like it here.
-
You’ll have a sun-stroke.
As his shirt was on his head, her husband’s face wasn’t
seen.
-
It’s great, isn’t it?..
-
What is great?..
-
Everything.
The sound of Isa’s radio was heard as there was silence for
a while. Mugam was on.
183
-
There are three things in the world that I dislike... - she
said. - ...Heat, mugam, and kufta...
From underneath his shirt, her husband said again with his
face invisible.
-Now it’s great!..
She came and sat face to face with her husband. Her
husband’s face wasn’t seen from here either. That’s why,
raising the edge of his shirt, she said:
-
...At least, find a hedgehog...
-
What do you need the hedgehog for?..
-
For the rabbit not to miss.
Her husband stood up and shook his clothes.
-
What else shall I find?!. Don’t you need a
belly-dancer?..
She couldn’t catch her husband’s last words as she was lost
in thought.
-
Why do we need a belly-dancer?
-
To belly-dance for the rabbit.
...Bozbash* was as salty as poison. Putting the spoon into
his mouth, her husband smiled with difficulty for courtesy.
-
Salty...
The children didn’t touch bozbash, cooked a pan of
scrambled eggs splashing the oil on the floor and ceiling of the
kitchen, then quarreled and turned the frying pan over.
Her husband’s voice was heard from the bedroom:
-
What shall we have for supper?..
...For supper as usual, they went to the café near their
summer-house in the evening.
.. .The sumptuous table was laid for them.
She sat face to face with her husband as usual.
-
Would you have caviar?..
* An Azerbaijani dish made of chopped meat, peas, potatoes mixed
with some spices.
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