Everything Begins In Childhood

Chapter 9. Macaroni

“Ester, did Eshaim bring you two rubles?” Grandma Lisa asked loudly for everyone to hear.

Hands on her hips, she stood on her porch with the kitchen door wide open.

It was Sunday morning. Grandpa had just knocked at our door and given Mama two rubles before leaving for work. After casting a sidelong glance at their windows, he mumbled, “Don’t forget to write it down.” He had been ordered to do that. In other words, Mama should remember that the money had been lent.

“So, did he bring it?” Grandma asked again, informing the inhabitants of our yard about the situation in the family. “Go to the bazaar and buy a chicken leg and rice for Amnun. Cook broth for him. Also buy a flatbread and a big tomato, this big,” and she spread the fingers of her right hand for fear that Mama might buy a not-big-enough tomato.

When Father was sick one had to go to the bazaar quite often. On Sundays, Mama took us along.

The way to the bazaar was familiar, down to the very last detail. Korotky Lane was connected to Shedovaya Street by a short lane of about two hundred meters that was wider in some places and narrower in others. It was no more than two or three meters wide at its narrowest point. The walls of the houses that formed that narrow passage were propped up by massive brick buttresses. Thick at the base, those supports held the houses up during earthquakes.

An old man and an old woman, as they say in fairy tales, “Once there lived an old man and an old woman…,” lived in one of the houses. When the weather was good, the old woman usually sat on a little wooden chair at the gate selling sunflower seeds. Just toasted, they were piled in a small bowl and smelled very appetizing.

The old man and the old woman didn’t have children. Sometimes, they invited local kids to visit and treated them to sunflower seeds. Their one-bedroom apartment was very poor – a table, a couple of chairs, a bed and a wardrobe, though they had a television.

I liked Shedovaya Street very much. It was wide and paved and had ariks on both sides. Stately oaks grew along the ariks. Somewhere up there, high above our heads, their branches came together forming a thick leafy arch.

It was particularly nice there when it rained or during a thunderstorm. Bolts of thunder could be heard, lightning flashed, rain drummed on the roofs and treetops, but all that was outside. I was in a different world where leaves didn’t rustle, the wind didn’t blow, and not a single drop of rain fell. I was protected by the giant oaks.

Shadov Street and our neighborhood were densely populated by Bukharan Jews. Our relatives also lived there – my grandpa’s younger brother, his nephews and their many children. We didn’t see them often, but on days of festivities or grief most of the extended family got together.

I had known since childhood that I, Mama, Papa, and our whole family, were Bukharan Jews. But I didn’t have the slightest idea what it meant. Only when I became an adult did I ask myself, “Who am I, after all? Why are people who have never lived in Bukhara are called Bukharan Jews?” The explanation turned out to be quite complicated. It took me very far from Bukhara, from Uzbekistan to ancient times.

In 586 B.C. an event took place that became one of the most important in the history of the Jewish people. That event was the Babylonian captivity.

The troops of the ruler of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar, destroyed Jerusalem, and most of the population of Judea was driven away, to Babylon. Half a century later, Babylonia was conquered by the Persians. Jewish prisoners were allowed to return to their homeland. However, it is known that the majority of them stayed in Babylon. Throughout the centuries a distinctive ethnic commonality appeared. They didn’t assimilate with the Persians. On top of that, when the Romans finally defeated Judea, Babylonia became the world center of Jewish culture and science. The historical consciousness of the Jews was founded and developed there. Judaism became firmly established. Its spiritual culture expanded. It’s enough to remember that the Babylonian Talmud was developed there.

But our ancestors were not destined to make their new homeland there. Beginning in the fifth and sixth centuries A.C., events took place in Persia that brought many cruel persecutions against the Jews. A considerable number of Persian Jews gradually migrated to different countries, including the cities of Central Asia, Tash and Shash, as Tashkent was called in the ancient times, as well as Samarkand and Bukhara.

Bukhara was the center of a big powerful khanate in the Middle Ages. Commerce, crafts, arts, and sciences all thrived there, and it was where the largest Jewish community in Central Asia gradually came into being. I read somewhere that the first mention of it was in the thirteenth century.

That was possible because Bukhara was the resplendent capital of the largest Uzbek khanate. Much later, at the end of the eighteenth century, the name of that Jewish community, “Bukharan Jews,” came to refer to all the Jews of Central Asia, including Uzbek Jews.

Even if we begin counting from the eighteenth century, the Jews settled among the Uzbeks quite long ago. How could they not get along with each other? The Bukharan Jews adopted many Uzbek traditions. Their looks and behavior were similar to those of the Uzbeks. In our time, they could be educated in local schools and institutes. They took an active part in all spheres of the life of the Republic. But still… Bukhari, based on Farsi, which is related to Tadjik, remained their native tongue, while Uzbek belongs to the Turkic family of languages. The Jews spoke Bukhari at home and did their best to pass it on to their children. And they continued to practice their religion, Judaism. They observed ancient customs as much as they could. They settled close to each other, if possible, creating Jewish mahalli (communities). In a word, the Bukharan Jews did not turn into Uzbeks, they did not blend with them but created another distinctive ethnic community, another branch of the tree of nations.

The Yuabovs, my father’s parents, were among the Jews who had stayed in Persia and had not left during even the hardest of times. There had been quite a few people like them. Only at the end of the nineteenth century did my great-grandfather migrate by camel to Central Asia and settle in Tashkent.

But let’s return to Tashkent from our travels to the past… Mama and we reached Pedagogicheskaya Street, went down it and found ourselves in the very center of the city, crowded and bustling. Many streetcar and trolley lines crossed there. Taxis scurried around. The Central Department Store which towered over the center was surrounded by kiosks, canteens, and various repair shops. The Turkmen Bazaar was a stone’s throw from the center. It was not the biggest bazaar in town, but it was considered one of the best. It was strikingly clean. The air in its passageways, sprinkled with sand, was cool. Outdoor shops stretched, row after row, for about three hundred meters. Only collective farm members were allowed to open businesses there. Butchers, gardeners, craftsmen, and others had their stalls behind them.

The bazaar began operations very early and immediately turned into something of a beehive. The bazaar buzzed monotonously like a swarm of bees, and high thin voices soared above it. Those were tireless salespeople haranguing shoppers.

“Hey, opa, look at my strawberries. They’re so tender they’ll melt in your mouth! Try them!” a gardener tried to attract buyers.

“Come over here, folks! Everything’s from my own garden, as sweet as honey!” another gardener praised his fare.

Most sellers were elderly Uzbek men. They wore very similar attire –skullcap, chapan (long, quilted coat) and soft leather boots.

To say that it was customary to bargain at Asian bazaars is an understatement. It was a special ritual, a sort of skill, a game that spiced up the monotonous life. A price given by a seller was not just challenged. One needed to present an argument about why a price should be reduced. At the same time, the dignity of the seller and the produce was never debased.

Mama had a great command of that skill, and her Uzbek was perfect. She spoke it so well and grammatically correctly that people who conversed with her had no doubt that she was Uzbek. And generally, Mama who was tall and slender, with jet-black hair, was considered Uzbek at first sight. It often helped her get better prices. And it did help us that day.

We returned home after shopping. Mama had just started cooking when Emma began to whine and act capricious. She was sluggish on the way home, her cheeks red, her eyes crossed. It was clear without a thermometer that she had a fever.

Emma was often ill, now with the flu, now – pneumonia.

Seeing that Emma wasn’t well, Mama ran to bring the doctor, who lived nearby and visited us often.

“It’s the flu, a viral flu,” she said. “She must have got it at the kindergarten.”

She gave Emma an injection and warned Mama that she needed a shot every day. Seeing the doctor to the door, Mama gave her a bag of macaroni.

“Please, take it. I don’t have any money. It’s so embarrassing. We bother you so often.”

It was customary to pay visiting doctors or give them presents. But we had neither money nor nice things.

“Oh, c’mon, Ester,” the doctor was embarrassed. “You mustn’t.”

Pressing the bag of crunchy macaroni to her chest, Mama said, “I don’t have money to pay for injections. Please, send Emma to the hospital.”

An ambulance arrived in the evening. Emma understood that she would again be parted from her mama and began to cry, “Mama! Mommy! Don’t send me there alone! Please! Come with me!”

It was terribly noisy in the yard. Emma was crying and shouting. Jack was barking and straining at his leash. Confused, Valya and Misha were looking out of their window.

Mama, of course, couldn’t stand it any longer. She grabbed me by the hand, ran to the ambulance and persuaded the medics to allow her to accompany her daughter. We rode away.

I didn’t see the final scene, but I can reconstruct it for I had witnessed many of them.

It grew still. The yard went back to normal – a quiet, happy yard in which nothing was happening. Grandma Lisa walked slowly onto the porch.

“Misha! Valya! Why was the dog barking? Was someone here?”