16
With her heart in her mouth, Ay-Bebek stepped outside. As if for the first time, she took in the winding rows of familiar, run-down houses and huts standing incongruously but jauntily on frail stilts. Then she went back home and opened up her old hope chest, took two pieces of paper from it and folded them into her handbag. She took the baby up in her arms and carried him outside.
“Baljan! Baljan!”
“What is it, Mom?” he asked, as he came running from the backyard where he had been playing.
“Come and follow me!”
Together they left the village. She observed the wilting flowers and mourned the receding tokens of spring, which so recently had been poppies sparkling like red gold; just as she mourned her distant girlish dreams, long since turned to ash.
“Where are we going, Mommy?” ask
