Forty-nine years yesterday. I went up as always. A young man was there with a camera from the university, to ask the old ones for their stories. I told him mine. It took an hour and he took notes and did not interrupt. That's all.
The cross on the debris fan is twenty-eight years old now. The survivors who are left are old. I counted: fewer than thirty at the debris fan this year. The priest read the names. I read one.
I will keep going while I can.
My friend Jumabai Sydykov died on 11 September at home. He was in his 80th year. We buried him the next day beside his father under the apricot tree hill. A great many people came, from Talas and Nurzhan and Aulie-Ata, some on foot.
I sat next to him on many days. I will say this about him: he never played the akyn in front of the bees. They liked him. They sat on his hat. The day before he died he asked for a spoon of honey and said: "Mamat, this is the last season." I said, be quiet. He laughed.
I put a jar on the grave. The bees will find it.
Today is 23 July. This year I went up with Papa, with the other families from the old Sary-Say. Papa was twenty-one in 1973. He had come down to Kara-Buura for the dipping of the sheep and he stayed two nights. When he went back the village was not there.
I did not know all this. He never told me in all my life, and I did not ask. Today, at the debris fan, a priest said the Qurbana and an old woman read the names, a very long list, in a thin voice. Papa read one name aloud, his cousin Aigul's, and put a small jar of honey on the stones. Then we went down. In the bus he said: "Now you know what is under there."
I won't write more. This is only to say that on this day every year there is someone from our family at that place.