Letters home

The hill after the evening Qurbana, 24 August.

The Feast was open this year, with limits: only 5,000 on the terrace, masks, a mark on the ground for every family. We had seven guests, all from Irad. The pilgrims from the other side were not let in.

A new neighbour appeared in the lane last winter: a church cantor, with his wife and three small children, who moved into the empty house near the walnut. They came to ask for a ladder. We have since lent them a ladder, a table, and two chickens.

No guests since March. We painted every room, changed the curtains, made a proper bathroom on the ground floor, and mama sewed new covers for all the cushions. Aigerim's children helped: they painted the door blue and some of the cat.

I counted what we spent on repairs: about as much as we lost in the missing season. That is, nothing was lost, only changed into a better house. I tell myself this at night.

This year the Feast was without pilgrims. The quarantine, the checkpoints between the cities, and the archeparchy asked pilgrims to stay at home. Only the people of the city on the hill, standing apart, in masks. Mar Ephrem blessed from the steps to a half-empty square. The bells sounded louder somehow.

The guest house is empty since March. The patent we paid. Mama says: in 1992 it was worse, and in 2007 it was worse. She is always right.

The checkpoint is on the road to Tash-Kömür now. The city asked all guest houses to close. I wrote on the board at the gate: "Konok üy Jangak is closed until further notice. Pray for us, we pray for you." Mama added in her own handwriting: "Walnuts for sale."

The first week was strange, the whole house quiet, my cousin shouting from the roof for news. The second week was easier. Now we repair things: three doors, one stove, the stairs. A guest house is always in need of repair when the guests have gone.

First time that a guest wrote through the app: "Do you have a room for the 23rd of August, two people?" I answered in the app, he paid the deposit in the app, and then he arrived on the 23rd and found a room with a mattress that the cat had decided was her own. I removed the cat. He paid the deposit regardless.

Mama keeps the old booking book, the one with the squared pages. She says, "The app forgets, the book remembers." Both are full.