“Ikki eshik orasi”

“Qora amma’s story”: in this chapter events are told in the first person by Qora amma. It is the years after the war. Qora amma’s only son Kimsan went to the front and has not returned; she waits for him for years, and has not even held mourning. Her adopted daughter Robiya, Kimsan’s fiancée, also waits for him, and is nearly thirty. Her brother Shomurod’s wife has left the family, and the boy Muzaffar is left alone. Out of pity for the child, Qora amma thinks of betrothing Robiya to Shomurod. The thought torments her: she asks her son’s forgiveness, but finally resolves to speak to Robiya. Robiya is frozen with shock – because she grew up calling Shomurod “ada” (father-like uncle). In “Robiya’s story” Robiya recalls her childhood: her sick mother died; her teacher father brought her in a hungry year to Tashkent and then to No‘g‘ayqo‘rg‘on; the elder Orif settled them in Husan Duma’s house, Qora amma took Robiya as a daughter, and Kimsan became her “brother”. In the village a school is built by communal work. Then one night her father is taken away: he has been slandered; the elder Orif promises to prove his innocence, but the house is searched, and at school the teacher taunts Robiya that her father is an “enemy of the people”.