The Boy Who Sells Pistachios

Their clay hut stood on the crown of a hill. Every day the boy came down for half an hour, easily and lightly, along the face of his father's footpath, since apart from their family nobody else lived up on the summit; and at the hour when the sun had gone altogether and the dark pressed down on everything around, he would shoulder his bundle and, if it was empty, walk home singing, and on days that turned out badly, walk with his head down and grieving. It was the road of his childhood. In spring and summer and the first of autumn he went barefoot, and for the rest of the year he wore his father's old boots, stiff and coarse.

Along the great asphalt road, where cars of every colour went past at speed and often, the glad bustle and stir, what we might call real life, began — provided that this or that driver took some notice and stopped. The boy saw the travellers and always felt the longing of it: there they were, going to the city, or coming back to their houses after seeing the city. He envied the boys of his own age from his heart and soul, envied them and consoled himself that little by little, once he had gathered some money, his father would certainly take him to the city. They say the city is full of people and full of noise, that it has many tall buildings and shops of every kind, so many that a person from the villages does not dare go inside. Behind the goats and the sheep the boy had covered long distances, hill after hill, and still he had not seen the city.

A white Volga cut the thread of his thoughts. A tall man in a suit got out ahead of all the others and went off toward the mounds. The driver and two more men got out, first yawned, then stretched their backs. The boy, counting the moment as a prize, kindled a handful of wild rue. He carried the sooty black tin under the car and made the charm over the wheels. Just then the owner of the car said carelessly:

"Hey, friend, come on now, at least don't be a nuisance here."

"A white road to you. May the wind always pass beneath your car."

The boy set the tin of rue aside and brought his sack forward.

"Take pistachios, uncle. Long strings. There are no empty ones."

"First tell me, have you got water?" asked the man who had gone off behind the mounds.

"Yes, spring water, clean, I'll just —"

Ten metres further off, from behind a boulder, the boy fetched a teapot of water.

"Come on, pour, let's wash our hands. Ah, ah, ah! Spring water is a companion of the soul. Is the spring far from here?" he asked, curious, drinking from the spout.

"For us, who are used to it, near. For you city people, far."

"How much are your pistachios, clever one?"

"Ten dirams."

"Set aside ten strings. And don't leave the reckoning for your water out of your head."

"In our parts they don't sell water."

"Yes. How old are you?"

"Twelve. Why?"

"You're the same age as my son."

"Does your boy go to school?"

"Of course, but he's weak at it, he's lazy. What about you, what form are you in?"

"Me? In the war years the school door was shut, and by the time I was nine or ten there was too much work — the goats and sheep, the cow, there's no time for study. Then they said our school had no teacher and moved it to another village."

"Come on, let's go. What are you doing sitting there gossiping with a street child the size of a hand span?"

"In a moment, one minute." The boy's companion held out the money and went toward the car.

"Uncle, uncle, this money of yours is too much!"

"Keep well!" was all the boy managed to hear, and in the place where the white car had been standing a moment ago there now hung a ring of dust and haze.

People come in all sorts, his father says. Twice a month his father gets up from his sleep at three or four o'clock and slaughters one of the fat sheep, separates the head and the trotters, cuts it up joint by joint with a knife, throws it into a saddlebag and takes it off toward the city, to his old acquaintances who sell combs and knives. By his own account, because he lets it go cheaper, three or four men gather and divide the whole sheep among themselves. Later, with his saddlebag full, he certainly comes back — but there is no hope from his father. It is quite clear that this time too he will not do what the boy asked of him.

A red Zhiguli pulled up. The driver took water out of the boot and poured it into the radiator.

The boy ran over to them. Two men inside the car were arguing.

"Uncle, pistachios —"

"Uncle! Uncle! What are you saying? Get out of my sight, clear off!"

The boy said not a word and went back to his place.

Sometimes the boy would be left wondering, and would think that in this small world of his road nobody knows anybody, nobody has any business with anybody, everyone is a stranger. To give himself something to do, he gathered reed grass and, without hurrying, wove a hat. It was neither handsome nor built to last, but it kept his head in shelter from the burning light of the sun.

A yellow bus with its paint faded came to a halt at the edge of the road. Its engine must have had some fault, because the driver set about searching for it. For a few moments the boy stood stock still. From inside the bus, ten or twenty pairs of eyes of his own age were looking at him.

"Strings of pistachios, sweet pistachios," the boy said, biting his tongue.

"Anyone who wants pistachios, get down and buy," said one of the women, of whom there were two. "But if you get a stomach ache, I'm not answerable."

Fortunately the boy had a great many strings. There were enough for everyone and four or five strings left over.

"Are you going to the city?" the boy asked with longing.

"Yes, we're on an outing. We're going to watch the circus, we're going to see the zoo," said a little girl.

"They've been missing the monkeys," a thin-built boy added with a smile, teasing.

"Are you coming back in the evening?"

"Yes. Where would so many of us sleep?"

The boy no longer heard anybody talking. His heart came to the boil all at once. Oh, how he wanted to be with these girls and boys, to go to the city. But he remembered that his hat was made of reed grass, that his shirt and trousers had not been washed in a long time, and that he himself was barefoot.

Three times in a row the driver started the bus engine and killed it. At last he announced that they were setting off.

"Teacher! Please, I have one request. All these pistachios are for you, take them, take them, free of charge — yes, children, I have a tortoise too," and he brought it out of his sack, "this is a present for you. I'll just —"

The boy ran nimbly behind the boulder. And a moment later he brought a handful of seven-coloured mountain flowers, which he had wrapped in damp paper.

"This is for you too, teacher. Only bring a book, I beg you, one book."

Inside the bus, for the space of a few breaths, a complete silence took hold. Outside, cars of every kind and people who were strangers went by, this way and that.

"What kind of book?" the teacher asked, taken aback.

"A schoolbook, with big big letters. Coloured, with pictures."

"We'll try. It ought to be in the city," said the other teacher.

"I'll be waiting. People have deceived me several times. They even took my money and went, and after that they drove past without stopping."

And the boy climbed down out of the bus with a shining and hopeful look in his eyes.