Elman

Mr Elman, please introduce yourself.

My name is Elman, I’m fifty-five. I work as a teacher in Baku. My home village, though, is Qaratəhlə. I go back there every summer; I have land there and a house. But I don’t live there. There’s a lot behind that simple sentence, and it takes a long conversation to explain it.

What was your childhood like? What was Qaratəhlə like back then?

I was born there and grew up there. Until I finished school, my whole life was inside that village. Back then the village was full: there were children in every house and noise in every street. My father worked on the collective farm, my mother kept the house. We had a big yard and an orchard. In summer everything was full of colour: hawthorn, pears, mulberries. When I go there now, some of those trees are still standing. They’re thirty or forty years old. I put my hand on the trunk and I feel something. I don’t know what it is, but I feel it.

The village was big, it was alive. Now when I go, I see that half the houses are empty. One yard has been left to ruin, another roof has caved in. It’s a hard thing to see. Seeing the place where you spent your childhood like this eats you up inside.

What was school like? What language did you study in?

At school we studied in Azerbaijani, and we had Russian too. It was the Soviet system then, and Russian was compulsory. I knew very little Georgian; I’d picked up a bit at the market and in the neighbouring villages. I still don’t know it well.

What did you do after finishing school?

I went to Baku to study. I sat the exams and studied history. My father very much wanted me to study.

How did you get on in Baku? Was that transition easy?

It wasn’t easy. Baku is a big city, and I was a village boy. The first year was very hard. I lived in a dormitory, money was short, I missed home cooking. But little by little I got used to it. I made friends, I got to know the city.

After I graduated, I found work in Baku and became a teacher. That’s how I stayed in Baku. But staying wasn’t really a decision either; life just turned out that way.

You built a house in the village. Why?

I’ve turned that question over many times. Why did I build it? In fact I knew that, as things stand, I wouldn’t be able to move there. But I built it.

The first reason is my father. My father is buried there, and my mother too. The cemetery is inside the village, among the people. Leaving this land would mean leaving them. I can’t do that. Every summer I go, I sit by their graves and talk to them. I need that. Without it, something inside me would break.

The second reason is the village itself. This village is my identity. I’ve lived in the city for more than thirty years. But when someone asks “Where are you from?”, I say “I’m from Qaratəhlə.” That hasn’t changed. I built the house so the bond wouldn’t break. Without a house I’d come and go, but there would be nothing there for me. With a house, you tell yourself “I’m going home.” The key is in your hand, the yard is yours.

You go every summer. What is it like?

As soon as classes end in June, I pack. My wife sometimes comes and sometimes doesn’t; she has work in Baku too. The children have grown up and have their own lives. Most of the time I go alone.

When I drive into the village, there’s a particular feeling. I know the road, every bend of it. The road has changed, it’s asphalt now, but the map inside me is the old one, and that’s the map I follow.

Some of the neighbours are still there. We sit and drink tea, we talk. We ask about the people who have left: who is where, whose child has grown up. These conversations go on for hours; you don’t notice the time passing.

In the evening I sit in the yard. Night in the village is completely different; all you hear is birds and the wind. In Baku there’s noise even at night: the street, air conditioners, neighbours. That quiet of the village doesn’t exist in the city.

Are you learning Georgian now?

Yes, at fifty-five I go to a Georgian language course. My friends joke: “Teacher, back to school, are you?” We laugh. But I mean it: you need to know it. I have land there, my grandfather lies there. I want to know the language of that land.

What will you do when you retire?

I’ll go back. I’ve made that decision for good. When I retire, I’ll go back to Qaratəhlə. I have a house, I have an orchard. It will be a quiet life. And I’ll write: for years I’ve been collecting material, there are things I want to write, and there’s never time.

When I say this, some people smile and say “We’ll see.” They know that plenty of people have said the same and then stayed in the city. Because in the city there are children, grandchildren, hospitals, comfort.

But I mean it. Because there’s something there that isn’t here. That quiet, being on that land. Getting up in the morning and stepping out into the yard. At the end of their life, people want to go back to their own land. It’s a feeling that doesn’t change.