Serik Asylbekuly - Let off Steam, Kazakh-Style

A play in two acts and six scenes

Main characters:

Komekbayis a farmworker, 44 to 45 years old.

Rystyis Komekbay’s wife, 42 to 43 years old.

Zibashis a young woman, saleswoman, about 35 years old.

Yermekis Komekbay’s neighbor, about 45 to 46 years old.

Alaydaris Komekbay’s classmate.

Zhanaydaris Alaydar’s son, a student of the 4 thgrade.

The district police officer, about 32 to 33 years old.

Act first

Scene No. 1

Afternoon. Komekbay comes back home from work. He strides, enters the porch of his old house, built of mudbrick, with a gray slate roof, heavily corroded by the sun and wind and having holes in some places. While crossing the threshold of the corridor, he accidentally kicks the samovar pipe, which was behind the door, and nearly falls down. The pipe flies several meters aside with a tin roar. The corridor hasn’t been tidied up today and it shows: there are two or three plastic washbasins of different sizes here and there, a crumpled water can with gobs of dirt on its sides, various shoes for going to the yard are scattered randomly. And the house that looks like this makes Komekbay, who is already irritated, even angrier. He can barely hold back from raging.

Komekbay.Why haven’t you tidied up yet?! And it’s always the same story. It’s like mayhem here! Total mess! Yrysty! Yrysty! I’m talking to you!.. Yrysty!

Komekbay leaves his shoes in the corridor, enters the inside of the house. The God-given Komekbay’s wife, Yrysty, lies on the sofa in the front room. Her face is slightly swollen, a colorful silk kerchief slid a little from the woman’s head to her neck.

Rysty.What happened?

Komekbay.Where have you been?

Rysty.What do you mean? I’ve been at home. I’ve just lain down to take a nap…

Komekbay.Eee, you’re always sleepy, you just can’t get enough sleep! Sleep is all you need. It’s already evening. When will have dinner?! Put the kettle on at least! Come over here, we need to talk…

Rysty.Alright, alright, say what you want to say…

Komekbay.Come closer, I said!..

Rysty.Oybay*, for God’s sake, I’m here!..

[*Oybay is an interjection of discontent.]

Komekbay.That’s it. We’re moving! Start to pack up. I’m fed up with this Kentup- Shitsville… the devil take it!.. We won’t stay here for another minute!..

Rysty.What are you talking about? Winter is coming, there will be frost soon!

Komekbay.What frost, a-a? It’s only the second of November today!..

Rysty.So what?! December will come with blizzards before you know it. It’s winter! Don’t you think so?!

Komekbay, who was hanging his jacket on the coatrack at that time, gets wide-eyed and casts a meaningful look at the woman.

Komekbay.When will you quit this stupid habit you have? As soon as I start a serious conversation, you start opposing me at once. You simply can’t act otherwise! Anyway!! Who is the man in this house – me or you?

Rysty.Oybay, you, of course, you are the man! What happened? Can you explain it so I could understand?!..

Pause. Komekbay catches his breath, goes all limp a little, steps up to the korpe * on the tor, sits down tailor fashion, sticking out his chest.

[*Korpe is Kazakh style blanket]

Komekbay.Is there any kozhe*?

[*Kozhe is cooled rice soup with kefir]

Rysty goes to the closet, pours rice kozhe from an enamel bucket into a bowl and brings it to her husband. When she gives a bowl to her husband, she keeps rolling her eyes, and carefully looks into her husband’s pupils, as if trying to find out something.

Rysty.So, what’s the point?

Komekbay.The point is that I got into a serious fight with this bastard Nietali, and I’m sure there is no turning back. The fact is that I delivered two vans of potatoes, 6 tons of pumpkins, 3 vans of watermelons and melons to the cooperative store the day before. And he gave me lame 120 thousand tenge, without the flicker of an eyelash. “That’s it?..,” I asked. “Yes!.. That’s it!.. We spent the rest of the money to pay for transportation, to pay resellers, that is, illicit dealers, to pay taxes, to pay everyone else,” – he said. Well, now you tell me. It’s a real rip-off, isn’t it? I couldn’t stand it anymore and began to swear in dirty! Damn this cooperative society to hell! I’ll quit it all! So, if we don’t get out of this aul, we’ll kick the bucket one fine day! We must leave! Do you get it?

Rysty.You should’ve threatened him that you would turn to the authorities, to akims*

[*Akim is the head of the district administration]

That you would make a complaint.

Komekbay.Do you think I didn’t threaten him?.. He only grinned: “You can turn to whoever you want, even to the devil himself!” Or do you think that this rogue doesn’t know that hawks will not pick out hawks’ eyes. They are all in this together! Cut it short, this is my last word! We are moving!

Rysty. (She smacked her lips confused) But, darling, where will we move?! Where is this Wonderful world?!

Komekbay.Over the hills and far away!.. We should find some work to support our children. I’m speaking Kazakh to you! I explained everything in the simplest terms! We have to leave – otherwise, we’ll starve to death.

Rysty.And… who and where is waiting for us with open arms?!

Komekbay.You do it again! You always oppose me! Who is the master of this house, you or me? Who?!..

Rysty.Oybay, of course, you are the master!… Just tell me: where are we going to wander around now, with five little children, after leaving a warm place… the frost is coming soon! And who will give us shelter, at least a building extension, there, in that land? Firewood, food, water? You can’t find a common language with Nietali – quit the cooperative society. Go into business, or whatever… become a farmer again.

Komekbay.I’ve already tried everything, both private business and farming. It’s not like I had a good life and decided to join this cooperative society to work for this rascal Nietali. Wherever you go – it’s the same old situation everywhere – they’ll rob you blind. Let’s move to Maylybas. I’ll get a job at the railway station. I think the head of the station is German. Let’s ask him for protection. And our Kazakhs, who are ready to swallow a camel alive, will devour us with all our shit. You know, never seek justice from the Kazakhs!

Rysty.Do you think there is work at the railway station? Alaydar has recently said that job cut started there as well. Many people were left without work.

Komekbay. (He recovered a little and started muttering in a strained voice) Well… we’ll work it out somehow…

Rysty.No, my darling!.. You can move by yourself, if you want. I won’t move away from here. We moved from Ekpindi to Kentup seven years ago. Right? Then you wanted to get back on the road and promised: “Oybay, we’ll move to Kentup, our hometown, our family is there, and there is work, production is ramping up.” And there, in Ekpindi, you also had a fight with your bosses. Is it so hard for you to live in peace like all other normal people?

Komekbay.But I argued with them not because I had nothing else to do. They are the ones who don’t let us live a normal life. Now you tell me. What is one hundred twenty thousand tenge, considering the current prices!? It will take us two months to spend them. And what’s next? We’ll starve for the next ten months, won’t we?

Rysty.Well then, keep doing what you do – keep on fighting with your windmills. I’ve said enough, that’s it!.. I will not leave this permanent place. Do you think that moving is easy? You simply can’t live in peace. And you do the same thing again and again! – you dive into a problem and then you try to solve it like crazy. There are normal people who live in our aul, everything is on an even keel, they mind their own business.

Komekbay.So do you really think that we all need to turn a blind eye to the injustices, frauds and corruption that are happening in front of us? And where is humanity, where is conscience? Where?!! Does nobody need them anymore? If so, then one fine day, as you put it, everything will decay on an even keel and will rest in peace finally. You may have heard the expression: “The one who hides the disease is doomed to death.” You are an educated woman after all. You finished school.

Rysty.If I’m destined to die, then, yes, I will perish! Why would you care? In the end, you won’t even let me die in peace. I guess you can do stuff like that! Fighter for justice!

Komekbay.Okay, say what you want. I won’t keep my mouth shut anyway! I will tell them the truth in person! If we suffer silently, we will rot together with them and vanish into oblivion. And the whole society will decay and rot.

Rysty. (Angry) If it rots, let it rot! They say for a reason: “Misery loves company!”

Komekbay.This is the psychology of slaves. But the society of slaveholders has remained far in the darkness of history. Even the era of feudalism has gone in time immemorial. Well, tell me, what century do we live in? That’s right: in the 21 stcentury! They say, it’s the age of humanism, when democracy and pluralism have stretched their wings widely throughout the world!

Rysty.Enough, stop messing me about with your phantasmagorias, democracy and stuff like that, which you learned from newspapers and magazines that are lying around in the corners of our house. These newspapers and magazines are like an infection. They stuck to the poor fellow. These journalists from the capital have nothing better to do, so they think up and write all kinds of nonsense. And I can’t understand – why they don’t get tired? Of course, if they have something to wear and something to eat, they can grow fussy for sure. They stir the pot for no apparent reason.

Rysty goes over to the offensive, putting pressure on a jaded Komekbay, who has lost confidence in his righteousness.

Rysty.What do you, a tractor driver who stinks of diesel fuel and solid oil, need, a? Newspapers and magazines? Let a bunch of writers, journalists, academicians, scientists in the capital read newspapers and magazines! They get money for this from the government. Why would you care at all? Do they pay you for this? Who the hell died and mage you one of them?! “Pulymberism, pulymberism”– you can’t stop talking about it from dawn till dusk, and you only enrage everyone. What are these words about? “Pulymdyber” – is that about money? Do they say “give me my money”?

[Pulymberism is the Kazakh ironic transliteration of the word “pluralism”]

(Pulymdyber means “give me my share”)

Komekbay.Indeed, you think only about money. And you don’t care where they come from. Were they earned honestly or dirty? You don’t give a damn. And pluralism means that different opinions are considered. Simply put, this means that both the simple worker Komekbay and the housewife Rysty have an equal right to express their disagreement with the words of the boss Nietali. And only when various opinions are considered, truth and justice will triumph in society and in the state.