tüş

Saliyka apa

Born in 1946 in a village on the Naryn, the one with the poplars along the street. In the 1970s the Toktogul water came up and the village went under it; she was twenty-eight. The family went to Kobozev, as it was called then, and she cooked in a works canteen for thirty-one years. Lagman for two thousand people a day, she says, and not one complaint (I have heard two complaints, from her, about the others).

She speaks Iradi to me, Russian to babushka Valya on the 3rd floor, and a mix to the television. She reads dreams the way she cooks: fast, without measuring, always a bit kinder than the ingredients.

She knows about this website. She says it is "fine, as long as the computer doesn't tell the dreams to strangers". I explained the internet. She said: "that's what I said".

apa's rules for dreams

1. Tell a bad dream to running water.
   In the village it was the river. In Nurzhan the kitchen tap counts, apa says; the water goes to the Chu anyway.
2. Tell a good dream to one person who loves you, and they must say Jakşılykka!
   "For good!" A dream comes true the way it is read, so tell it to someone kind. Never tell it to a person who will laugh.
3. Don't tell a dream before breakfast.
   Eat a piece of bread first. Bread first, words after. Especially if someone died in it.
4. A noon dream is not a dream.
   Tüş means dream and also noon. A dream from an afternoon nap counts for nothing. Apa invented this rule so that she could sleep after lunch in peace.
5. If the dream was bad, turn the pillow.
   And sleep on the other side. Babushka Valya says the same in Russian: "куда ночь, туда и сон", where the night goes, the dream goes.
6. Thursday to Friday dreams come true.
   Babushka Valya's rule. Apa's version: Friday dreams are from God, Wednesday dreams are from the stomach.
7. White is good.
   Milk, felt, a white horse, a bride's elechek, snow. Nearly always. If you see a rider in white on a far pass, apa says that is someone else's road, not yours. Light a candle for travellers and let him ride on.
8. Black bull, say nothing.
   Cross yourself, keep it to yourself until noon, and have a quiet day. "It's only a cow," apa adds, "but still."
9. Don't look dreams up in books.
   Apa's last rule, and she knows I am writing a book. "You write my words, that's different. Books from the bazaar are written by people who don't sleep."

things she says

about Umay and Maryam

When I was born apa hung a little cross, an owl's feather and a white thread over my cradle. That is the old way in the mountains: Maryam keeps the cradle, and the oldest women still call her Umay Ene, Mother Umay, quietly, because the priest asked them not to. Apa calls her Maryam in front of the priest and Umay Ene in front of me. She says both of them know who she means.