The tree appeared mysterious, almost mythical.
“I hope you don’t mind my asking, sir, but how do you manage to to be so full of life at such a venerable age?” “It’s all because of the tree,” the old man said.
THE WALNUT TREE BY MICHAEL SHAINSKY 34THPARALLEL MAGAZINE ISSUE 102
When they told him at work that he’d be accompanying a group of American tourists, Nikolay wasn’t particularly happy. This Saturday was his only chance to take his car in for servicing. It was high time Sergey, his mechanic, changed the oil. Maybe I’ll manage to find time later during the week, Nikolay figured, get off work early. Come to think of it, how can you ever find the time for the car servicing with work, the day-to-day routine, and on top of it all self-improvement? And time isn’t the only thing in short supply—what about the money for my son’s private school? And diamond earrings for the wife on our 15th anniversary? And I need it all right now. Damned if I know. One thing is clear—you’ve got to stay on top of things, all the time, or life will kick you downhill all the way.
Nikolay was a manager at Vostok Tours. He was his own boss, true, but there was a lot of work. Tourists came in droves to visit the famous cities of Uzbekistan–Samarkand, Bukhara, Khiva–and, of course, the capital Tashkent, where Nikolay’s company was located. Nikolay’s primary responsibility was pick-ups and drop-offs at the airports, booking hotels, buses, attractions, and restaurants, co-ordinating local guides and tour directors, and designing itineraries. Sometimes he had to accompany the tour groups, especially when they needed someone who spoke English. Saturday would be just that kind of day.
In the morning Nikolay drove up to the Hilton Tashkent City hotel, parked his car, and walked around the building to the spot where the tour buses collected and dropped off the tourists.
The bus that his company had chartered for the trip was already there. Kudrat, the bus driver, saw Nikolay, got out of the bus, and shook hands with him. They had worked together a few times before.
Kudrat was the head of a large, traditional Uzbek family, and tips—especially in US dollars—were a serious boon to the family’s financial well-being.
It looked like the whole tour group was waiting, and Nikolay began distributing name tags. Yes, everything checked out, no-one was missing. Nikolay always appreciated American punctuality.
The day’s destination was the mountain beauty spot Lake Urungach. The plan for the next day was a farewell excursion around Tashkent, and on Monday the tourists would fly back home. The tour director assigned to the group, who had been with them for the itinerary this far, had called in sick, so Nikolay was to take them to the lake. He would organize a barbecue for them and then take them back into town in the evening.
Their first stop was Tepar, a village in the mountains about an hour and a half out of the city. The bus stopped at the end of a gravel road. The driver waited for the dust to settle before opening the door.
Time seemed to have bypassed Tepar. There were no traffic signs or lights on its narrow, winding streets. Not that there was much need for them—most of the traffic was dogs, sheep, and goats. A rooster ran out onto the road chased by a boy who grabbed it by the tail and took it away—probably home—leaving a few feathers to drift to the ground.
The houses were made of adobe bricks, a material that had been known for centuries to become harder with the passage of time. Quite unprepossessing on the outside and fairly basic inside, these houses provided shelter for the village’s 300 or so inhabitants.
Tepar was famous for its delicious mountain honey and incomparable apples, but lately the livelihood of the villagers had come to depend more and more on tourism. People had started coming in droves to see the main attraction of the village—a giant walnut tree.