Chapter Forty-Six
From the pupil of my eye
trickling inside me
this autumn world —
as though a bluish balloon
not able to find a wall
pokes out
in the emptiness
unable to be caught by the eyes.
-Belgi
Yakubjan Alimjanov, who was in the same class as Belgi, tells us:
When we were children we loved to walk up into the mountains. Our village is in a hollow and it’s surrounded by mountains on every side. The Chon-Alai mountain range begins to the south of us and runs off into Tajikistan, then further on into China. That was where our grandfathers went to get away from Soviet power. These peaks are always covered with snow, but in order to reach them you have to walk through hills that gradually get higher and higher. As children we didn’t have enough time for that. And so we eagerly
