A girl named Zuhrakhan, who collected the most iron and steel, was mentioned on the radio and received thanks from the school administration, among the excellent students of the ninth grade, disappeared.
On that Saturday, when returning from school, Zuhra gave her books and notebooks to her sister Fatima and went out to pick tulips, but she did not return. His parents at first cursed, then cried and destroyed the whole tulip field and the whole village. The school administration was even more worried than this - they told the executive committee of the team and raised the whole village, informed the district, because if there are four excellent girls in the class - Zuhra is twenty-five percent of them. was
The old man and the old woman rubbed each other in order not to enter into any more ugly dreams: Zuhra was a shy girl with a delicate taste, she did not join her schoolmates, one of the girls who came out of town to pick tulips caught her fancy it is not surprising if he played. ("Didn't she run away with some guy?" It was unheard of.) This was the only good suspicion that could be entertained. In fact, on Saturdays and Sundays, the young people of the city would come to this tulip field and eat it if they found a single seed. Among them, there is a beautiful one, there is a rich one, there is a poor nature, there is a widow... In addition, Zuhra is extremely close to the eyes, a person who looks at it, his eyes dim, and wants to look again, in particular, she wears a matching dress and her hair is "stork" when he made a nest, the word "beautiful" was used to praise him, sometimes it became a rarity, sometimes it became obsolete.
The old man and the old woman were a little comforted in the hope that Zuhra had gone with a suitable young man, that is, a well-educated one, but Fatima was in trouble: "If Zuhra said she was going to pick tulips, would you have sent her alone?" ? If you went together, you wouldn't get anthrax on your legs, if you weren't so weak, so stupid!..."
The old woman used to say such things not only in pain, but in general, because Fatima is more free than cheerful and cheerful Venus. It looked better.
Ten days later, Fatima came home from school crying: because Zuhra's attendance in the class had decreased significantly, they wanted to delete her from the class book. For the old man and the old woman, this was like the news of Zuhra's death. Fatima was shocked again:
"If you weren't a palpis-pandavaki, we wouldn't have had such days!" Zuhra is younger than you, and when she said she was going to the tulip field, you blocked her way, and if she didn't, you dragged her by the hair! Woe to you if this is your situation, you will not get a husband, you will die on my head!..
Fatima heard a lot of such insults, finally she lost her soul and said in tears:
- Ayajon, don't put all the blame on me, after all, Zuhra would not have accepted my word, not even your word! Did you remember that when you ordered a job and said, "Daughter, peel only four onions," he looked back and said, "I'm not good for you!" Even then you did not say anything. I've been looking after you since I can remember, if I could take over the whole household, I would put you on a seven-layer blanket! If the person who does the honor and service of the parents is good! It's all your fault, you pampered Zuhra so much that she would study well! You would squeeze my daughter's tumor yourself so that her hand would turn black!
The old woman couldn't say a word against Fatima's words: in fact, she could not read in time and saw all the shortcomings and difficulties in her life because of ignorance. 'zlab, in front of his success in school, he did not notice his sin as an elephant at home. After that, Fatima got rid of her depression, but the old woman's sadness was added to her sadness, she ate herself and became a fist-eater for almost a month until Zuhra's letter arrived.
Zuhra said this in a blunt letter without a header:
"My husband and I fulfilled our heart's desire and took a strong place in the ranks of happy families, and we are moving towards the bright peaks of the future, flowing in the arms of a happy marriage. You have lived in the painful arms of feudalism, you do not know what love based on high ideals is, so don't be upset with me, your happy days are coming.
Fatima read the letter adding the words "my dear father, my loving mother" at the beginning, and "I wish you good health" at the end. There was no address or signature on the letter, the envelope was stamped with the eleventh communications department of the city.
The words "happy life, bright peak" of the letter comforted the old woman. But the old man snatched the letter from Fatima's hand, tucked it into his bosom, threw his cloak over his shoulder, and left for the city. questioned the school, office, enterprises: finally, he came across the city police department. Four days later, the police responded: "Such a woman is not registered in the city."
A rumor spread that there was a big meeting in the district near autumn, that Zuhra and her school were talked about, and ugly things were said. These rumors upset the old woman who was in a good mood. The old woman lay down for a long time.
Winter has passed. Spring has come. There was no sign of Zuhra alive or dead. Sometimes, when he was very burned, the old man would hit his head and cry: "Mourn Juvanmarg, stay in mourning."
Fatima graduated from school. His intention was to study again, but the old man insisted: "If that's the only way to study, then let the schools burn." In addition, seeing that Zuhra was like this and how her mother was lying, Fatima changed her mind and went to the chairman to ask for a job. When the chairman heard his mother's words about Fatima as "incompetent", despite her appearance, he sent her to the manager of the farm and then called the manager and said: "Find a job."
Fatima was "working" on the farm, and one day a conversation broke out, and Fatima complained about the carelessness of the animal called a cow: "If I were the president, I wouldn't take care of cows, I would join scientists and get milk from the fodder I would take out a car," he said. The milkmen laughed. When the chairman heard this, he patted Fatima on the shoulder and said: "Honestly, honestly, it's good that even if you have a rough idea in your head, it's good that your head is not empty." transferred to nursing. These days, the farm has switched to milking cows by car, and the cows are not yet used to it. When they see the bowels of the car, many of them would break their hearts and look around their heads, squeal, and try to swim the milker. Fatima was satisfied with the fact that it was higher than the bottom, and she was interested in the car and began to work with enthusiasm.
While she was lying down, the old woman woke up a little bit in the melon stew, but soon she fell back to sleep, and she died. Zuhra entered on the ninth day of Azah. The old man saw him and opened his mouth to curse, but he could not curse, he growled, "Don't break your neck, my child." Zuhra was wearing a big red scarf, she was wearing a checkered handkerchief on her lap, and she was paying respect to her mother's memory in her own way. When they heard that he had come, they came out to ask for his favor. Zuhra kept turning her back to the women. Fatima thought that the poor man's face was ugly and pushed him gently:
- At this time, nobody remembers the past. Don't be shy, tell them something...' he said.
Zuhra's face was not angry, she looked like this because she considered women's requests for favors and saying "thank you for cheering me up" to be old fashioned, so she glared at Fatima:
- What am I ashamed of, the issue of free love was raised by Navoi and Tolstoy! - he said, turned and entered the house. Fatima was embarrassed by people and made her sick.
Fatima waited for people, watched, sat on the porch talking with her father until the end of the day, then she gave him a seat and went into the house to lie down. Zuhra was still not asleep, she was crying and swollen. Seeing this, Fatima's resentment was written, she did not say the harsh words that caused her heart about her actions, the blunt letter she wrote, and what she had said, but on the contrary, she comforted her and asked for her hand in marriage. . Zuhra left her husband eleven months ago with a five-month-old child in her womb.
"My parents are feudal, the den of feudalism, they wanted to make me a maid, a housemaid!" You know that I am not good at housework, I hate cooking. That's why they only taught me, and I studied well. No, I must be lame for these! They did not let the servant take it, they sold our "Moskvich". Also: "Don't wear a sleeveless shirt! Don't argue in front of someone! You go to the cafe so much!..» I'm bored! I left!... But my husband loved me: he carried me in his hand, and when he went out, he always brought something... The poor thing spent three or four months traveling and begging. "As long as your parents are there, let the pit of my shoulder see your house," I said. His mother came three times and his father once, I didn't accept either of them!
Fatima could not digest the words "I didn't accept" and started to cry when she saw the Moisafids who came and returned from the door with their big heads small.
"Should your husband leave his parents?" she said.
"Even if it's too late... young people must live!"
"Should we hang them from the ceiling?" What would you say if your husband made this request?
Zuhra went on to say, "You don't understand such things."
- Did you finish school correctly? They turned out to be like this... Which institute will you enter next year?
Fatima asked in surprise:
"Where am I going to leave my father alone?"
"That's right, but my father is passing away, you are just entering the world!"
Fatima yawned:
"I went to work, I'm nursing a cow on the farm..." he said.
Zuhra suddenly raised her head.
- What? After ten years of study, are you not good enough for anything other than tappi with a cow?
Zuhra turned away in disgust, but Fatima waited for him to tell her that she entered this job temporarily, out of desperation, about her plans to study, but Fatima snorted softly like a kitten without hesitation.
Fatima woke up at dawn. Zuhra got up before him and left - who knows, she said that people will gather again in the morning, or she couldn't bear to be in front of her father, thinking that "Fatima will tell me that I left my husband"...
Venus could not be traced. Fatima did not tell her father that he had left the house, she thought that they would reconcile.
Months passed.
Meanwhile, Fatima plunged into work. It is known that a cow means fodder and milk, milking does not consist only of pulling the udder and expressing milk. After learning about this, Fatima became better at work every day, and it happened that the chairman expressed his happiness that "fire came out of the cut" at the report-election meeting, and after saying a number of interesting things, he added her to the ranks of advanced milkers. Because she was a good milker and joined the chairman's song, Fatima became the horse's head in the collective farm. It seems that fame is not only gaiety, but fame is also a decoration of happiness. Fatima suddenly opened up: those eyes that cast a black flame, those welding eyebrows, those laughs that whetted the appetite of young people... After Zuhra left the house, many people : "Now Fatima will sit down as an old woman", no, she kept coming up with new things: the chairman's brother-in-law, the fitter of the collective farm, the accountant's son, the chemist, the head of the pharmacy... Fatima will soon die. after the winter, he gave a favor to a young man named Samijon, who came to the farm as a veterinarian.
Being a thoughtful young man, Samijon searched for Zuhra for six weeks and finally found her. A friend of his saw Zuhra in the hall of the city library. If Zuhra is sitting in the hall, then he is a member of the library, and if he is a member, he should have his address there.
The two went to the city and actually found Zuhra's address in the library. Zuhra worked as a cashier in the hairdressing salon next to the central bathroom. Samijan stayed at the door, Fatima entered the hairdressing salon and saw Zuhra sitting inside the blue wooden fence, and her heart sank: she was thin and wrinkled, and there were only two curls left from her hair...
Zuhra caught sight of Fatima, hurriedly threw her yellow scarf over her shoulder, and involuntarily came out of the fence.
- Why, why did you come?... I'm working here temporarily...
"Are you okay... Is your husband okay," said Fatima, unable to say "have you reconciled?"
"He's gone, he's already gone." In Leningrad, studying...
- Has your child grown up?
"Venus is in the kindergarten," said Zuhra, and apparently she didn't want to be asked more, she asked a question herself: "I heard that you are touching the ground, who is she?"
Fatima hastened to say that the wedding depended on her going to the village:
"A veterinarian from our village, on a farm," he said.
Zuhra twisted her lip.
- Say cow doctor! Although tappi is not far from tappi!
Fatima's taste fell inside her. At that moment, Samijan entered. Fatima didn't know whether to introduce the two of them or not, but seeing him walking towards Zuhraga, she shouted "Samijon!" had to say. When Zuhra found out that this was the bridegroom, she looked at him and bowed to him with folded palms. Samijan stopped in a huff, and put his hand on his chest, which he wanted to ask. At that moment, a customer came to pay money at the cash desk, and Zuhra, while running, looked at Fatima and said: "Come around for a while, then we will go home." Samijon bowed and left. Fatima was ashamed of Zuhra's actions in front of Samijon, she went to the fence to cut her off, but she turned back after realizing that her heart had become narrow and jizzaki because of her treatment of her client.
"Zuhra, my dear," he said jokingly, "your mother was not Indian, so what would she do if you asked her to shake hands with the groom in our own way?" What do you mean by "come for a walk", if you are going to take me home, tell me your address, give me your key, and we will go!
Zuhra blushed, took a key from her pocket, handed it to Fatima with two fingers, and told her the address.
Fatima apologized for Zuhra's actions and told Samijon that she had not yet seen people, had not learned manners, and probably because of this, her house was broken.
Zuhra was staying in a house under the stairs of a four-story building across from the park. Fatima opened the secret door and entered the corridor, seeing the condition of the house and the kitchen through the open doors on both sides, Samijan died of shame.
- Oh, who said that a woman lives in this house, a young man!
Samijan hastened to put him out of his embarrassment:
- There is no harm, just as long! I was afraid that Zuhrakhan was young, alone, he had lost his footing, no, luckily... it seems that a human child, not a male breed, has set foot in this house. The poor guy probably doesn't even have a friend.
The two of them cleaned the house and the kitchen.
After work, Zuhra came with something in a yellow paper bag, went into the kitchen, and soon came home with food on a plate. The food was actually a dumpling, which was put in cold water while boiling, and the dough and minced meat were mixed together. Zuhra was not at all embarrassed that she didn't even know how to boil ready-made dumplings from the store, on the contrary, she seemed pleased that she once again made up for her lack of pots and pans. Fatima was touched:
"Before, you were afraid of becoming a slave to your mother-in-law, and you didn't touch pots and pans. What are you afraid of now? Can't you at least learn for yourself?"
Zuhra laughed.
- This is enough for me, the purpose of dumplings is to eat dough with meat, both are ready, I will eat them together!
- After all, one day your husband will come, you are not reconciled... Zuhra probably has no hope of reconciliation:
"I won't trade my freedom for anything!" he said.
- Isn't loneliness itself a captivity? - said Samijon with a laugh.
Zuhra began to talk passionately about her husband, and under these words was only a sorrow: "He was not worthy of me, he was not worthy of a wife like me." Apparently, this pain gnawed at him, sucked him up, dried up his spirit and made him think that "this is the world, no one can find his worth in life." Now it is known that Zuhra's house keeping, clothes, and self-care are the result of this, every word and movement now emphasizes this, even when she cleans the table and takes out the empty plate. his speech, speech, and his whole body: "Hey, people of the world, you see how much I'm being humiliated and oppressed!" it seemed to be.
There was no sound from anyone in the tea place. After making eye contact with Fatima, Samijan said that it was time to open the conversation:
"If you and your husband have quarreled like this, what are you doing alone in the city, let's go to the village," he said.
Zuhra replied after a while:
- From the city to the village... wouldn't it be a step back?
Fatima became bitter.
"What if there's a way back, will you fall from the shining peak?"
Zuhra paled as she remembered what she once wrote to her parents: "We are moving towards the bright peaks of the future."
- Do not scold! - he said with a twitch of his lips.
Samijon was also touched by this.
"The peak that a person aspires to is not in the clouds like a mountain peak, but on the ground," said Samijon.
Fatima was not satisfied with his answer:
- My mother and father agreed a thousand times; my friends, relatives, the whole collective farm is happy with me, is there a higher peak for me! Who is happy with you? Even your beloved husband did not agree! What peak did you aspire to?
Zuhra slumped in her chair, pressing her pink handkerchief to her lap. Seeing his condition, Fatima regretted saying this. Zuhra's eyes were soft, tears were streaming from thick eyelashes. Standing up, Zuhra suddenly threw herself at Fatima, hugged her tightly, rubbed her face against her stomach to swallow the cry that was coming from her, then threw herself on the ground and hit her head on the bed frame several times. . Samijan picked him up and laid him on the bed. Fatima didn't know what to do, she was scared and said: "Let me die" and stroked his head...
Today, Saturday, Zuhra had to pick up her daughter from daycare, so her coach brought Venus when it got dark because she didn't go on time. Zuhra opened her eyes hearing the sound of these. The trainer, seeing the illness of Zuhra, asked how she was doing, then sent Venus to her. Venus kept holding her skirt. Fatima noticed right away: when Zuhra was heartbroken, the girl beat the poor girl a lot, maybe she got tired of herself by hitting her. Samijan also noticed this. Indeed, Fatima had stretched out her hand to say "come" and the girl, even though she was a little strange, ran and sat in her arms and looked at her mother with a frown.
The guests stayed for four days. Fatima was sleeping with Zuhra, Samijon in the hotel. They didn't take Venus to the nursery, Samijon was playing and messing around.
On the fifth day, when Zuhra was fully recovered and ready to go to work, the guests left. It became awkward to invite Zuhra to the village, even to the wedding. For them, it was a big deal to convey the news to the old man: "Zuhra is walking safely, her daughter has grown up."
Zuhra followed them to the bus station. The bus is ready. Fatima picked up Venus, and when she got on the bus, she handed it to Zuhra, Venus shouted at Fatima saying "Daddy", she didn't believe her and went to Samijon. Zuhra was embarrassed. Meanwhile, the bus honked one after the other. Fatima got into the bus through the closing door and tried to hand the child to Zuhra through the window. Venus squealed again and grabbed Fatima's hair. The bus spewed smoke.
Samijan stuck his head out of the window and shouted:
- Zuhra Khan, go and bring it yourself! Go this week, we look forward to it!
Zuhra's eyes filled with tears, and she wiped the checkered handkerchief in her hand: she noticed that she had such a good daughter, that she had beaten her so much; Unaware that his waistcoat, which he had thrown on his wrist, fell under his feet, he took a couple of steps from the side of the bus...
