«Do you know, you official, what these people have had to go through? No, you have no idea. You do not understand that this land is the land of a great and sacred people! We have lived peacefully roaming these steppes for centuries, without offending anyone. Our summer pastures are here. Our Abai was born here. Later he became an inconvenience to the powers that be and we would be sent to Siberia for mere mention of his name. Then our great poet and philosopher Shakarim, who was befriended by your Tolstoy, was shot, and once again if a Kazakh were to just hint at his name, before he knew it he would find himself in Siberia. Our best people died in exile… And here you are just arrived from Semipalatinsk – you don’t even know that our entire steppe from the village to Semipalatinsk was strewn with human corpses. Hunger-have you any idea what that is? Do you know how many it wiped out? And then came the war. And how many perished – every second of our dzhigits fell in a faraway land. And take a look at what collective farmers eat, what they receive for a day’s labour. We don’t live, we exist. It’s not that many have forgotten the taste of meat, it’s, the taste of bread that they don’t remember. For each collective farm’s sheep that went missing we paid for with our heads. So, tell me, you official, when will our people begin to live? And will they live at all? You know you are sending us to our death. Isn’t that so?»

People listened in silence. They averted their eyes. They agreed with the old man but his outspokeness frightened them and some of them moved away, a blank expression on their faces, as if to say, «See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.»

«Where do you think you’re going? Stand still and listen to the truth! Have you lost both your reason and your honesty? Although today, it seems, for many honesty is a stone around one’s neck. But what use will you be to anyone without honesty, without a conscience? Have you ever thought about that?»

People froze in shame. And this is where my father interfered.

«Alright, Ake-Father, thank you for the lecture. However, we are all adults and an order is an order…»

However, he also avoided looking straight into grandfather’s eyes and I was mortified. I understood that at the time he was thinking that he would have to pay for grandfather’s monologue. But I wanted grandfather to tell the army officer more about our homeland. I thought that it was unlikely that the army officer knew anything coherent about us. This was probably the first time that he had ever seen any Kazakhs. Perhaps he thinks we are all sheep and he is a bear. I was feeling annoyed but just then the lieutenant-colonel went up to grandfather and embraced him.

«I do understand you, old man. We have all suffered. We have suffered more than any other nation. We lost the father of our people, Stalin, under whom the nation defeated fascism. And now a new danger threatens us. Do you know that the Americans have already dropped an atom bomb over Japan? And now they are threatening us and so we must defend ourselves. We do not want to attack anyone but we must be vigilant at all times. Am I not right? Yes, we are carrying out tests, but all measures have been taken to ensure that the local population is not.endangered. This is why we suggested that you leave the village. Therefore, insisting that we are driving you to your death is hardly justified. We have no choice – we want to save the country from an American invasion.»

Grandfather, frowning, did not speak. Then, turning around abruptly, he went towards his bullock cart. My father patted me on the shoulder and tousled my hair.