: The driver marries for love, but soon betrays his beloved by changing her. Having learned about everything, the wife leaves him and marries another, and the driver realizes that he has lost his first love.
The narration is conducted on behalf of the journalist. The stories of the driver and the road master are presented on their behalf.
Instead of a prologue
The journalist was in one of the regional centers of the Tien Shan, when he was urgently called to the editorial office. He was late for the bus and went to look for a passing car. There was a truck at the gas station, and the journalist asked the driver, a tall, stooped man of about thirty, to give him a lift, but he flatly refused, without explaining the reason, and left. The tanker said that the driver had a personal tragedy.
Soon after this, the journalist was sent to the south of Kyrgyzstan. This time he rode the train. His companion turned out to be the same driver. He rode to the Pamirs. To the question of the journalist why he didn’t give him a ride then, the driver answered that he had rolled his son and told his story.
It’s good when a person himself tells everything, re-experiencing, thinking, sometimes silently.
Thanks to his profession, the journalist personally knew the heroes of this story, could supplement it and explain a lot, but, after listening to the story to the end, he did not do it.
Chauffeur's story
This story began when Ilyas, a pupil of the orphanage, returned from the army, where he served in a motorized unit.
Ilyas - the driver, the main character of the story
His friend Alibek, who had been demobilized a year earlier, was already working at a motor depot that operated flights through the Tien Shan mountain range.
Alibek - Ilyas's friend in the army
Ilyas came to him and became a driver on the Tien Shan pass, one of the highest mountain roads in the world.
In the spring, part of the vehicles were sent to the aid of collective farms. Especially often newcomers like Ilyas were sent to collective farms. Once, near a distant ail steppe, Ilyas met Asel, a thin girl in a red scarf, slim as a poplar, and drove her home.
Asel - Ilyas's lover
It happens, it turns out, easily and joyfully in the soul, if a person sits nearby, almost touching with his elbow, about whom you knew nothing an hour ago, but now for some reason you only want to think about him ...
In the village of Asel, mother was already waiting - matchmakers arrived at their house. Ilyas could not forget the girl, although he knew that she was hooked. Ilyas had to go to that ail for another week. Two days later, he again met Asel on the same road, and after that a large stone on the side of the road became the place of their meeting.
Ilyas did not ask about the groom, but Asel said that she almost did not know him. He was a distant relative of her mother. Their families have long been related to each other, and now Assel’s turn has come. Parents would never have given the girl to marry a “newcomer, rootless chauffeur”, and Ilyas, knowing the old Kyrgyz customs, did not dare to give a hint about the wedding.
Five days later, Ilyas was called to the motor depot, and the Kadich dispatcher informed the guy that he was being transferred to flights to China.
Kadich - the manager of the car depot, in love with Ilyas
Kadich was not indifferent to Ilyas. The guy took her to the cinema several times, accompanied her home. There was nothing serious between them, but the driver Jantai, a greedy and petty gossip, constantly hinted that they had an affair.
Jantai - driver, Ilyas’s carpool colleague
Kadicha specially knocked out this appointment from the authorities in order to please Ilyas.
Ilyas felt that he should go to the ail, say goodbye to Asel, who might be waiting for him on the road. Leaving right from the loading, the guy rushed to the girl’s house and saw her mother escorting the matchmaker. From their conversation, Ilyas realized that in two days Asel would be taken to her husband.
Ilyas met the girl at the ail, drove to ride, but did not bring him back home.
All anxieties, sorrows as it vanished. There were only us, there was our happiness, heaven and road.
Lovers spent their first night in a truck cabin on the lake. Asel understood that her parents would be offended for a lifetime, but could not do otherwise.
Ilyas was congratulated by all the drivers of the car depot, only a meeting with Kadichi, who had a hard time surviving this news, spoiled the mood. A friend Alibek moved to a house he was building near a motor depot, and ceded his apartment to the newlyweds. Asel soon gave birth to a son, Samat.
Samat - the little son of Ilyas and Asel
The couple were already thinking of going to bow to Asel's parents when a disaster happened.
In late autumn, on the way to the most difficult section of the route, Dolonsky pass, Ilyas saw a truck whose engine failed. The driver and the passenger of the truck, a man in his forties, a roadman named Baytemir, were asked to give a lift, but Ilyas decided to transport their car through the pass on a cable.
Baytemir - road master, second husband Asel
This was a dangerous matter - no one had ever carried cargo on trailers on the steep serpentines of the Dolonsky Pass.
Ilyas was stubborn, insisted on his own, and risking his own life and the lives of passengers, he delivered the truck to the road master's house. He was not going to compete with Dolon anymore, but life ordered it differently.
In winter, Chinese workers asked the drivers of the car depot to transfer equipment to a large plant under construction near the border as quickly as possible. There was a lot of equipment, and they asked to transfer it in a week. It was impossible to do this with the forces of the automobile depot.
And then Ilyas remembered how he pulled a truck on a cable through the pass, and offered to attach a trailer to each car. At first, the drivers laughed at such a reckless offer, then they began to argue. Alibek suggested thinking, conducting tests, but Ilyas did not want to wait. His pride was hurt, and he proved to everyone that this was possible.
Each person has his own character! Of course, it must be controlled, but this is not always possible.
Having persuaded Kadich to give him a trailer, Ilyas took the load and went to the pass. On a steep serpentine, he lost control, the truck skidded, the trailer landed in a ditch and got stuck there. Ilyas could not get it out, he cowardly fled, leaving the trailer with the load in the cuvette.
Having arrived home in a state of insanity, Ilyas quarreled with Asel, nearly hit his wife when she advised him to immediately go to the motor depot and called him a coward. After spending the night in a guesthouse, Ilyas nevertheless appeared at the motor depot and found out that he had been removed from the highway and transferred to domestic flights. The drivers did not greet him, Alibek was especially angry, because Ilyas ruined the matter, and now you can’t prove that you can walk with a trailer through the pass.
Everyone considered the guy an upstart who wanted to “earn fame,” but instead of listening to his comrades and changing his mind, Ilyas harbored an insult. That evening, he got drunk for the first time. Kadich met him drunk and took advantage of this - Ilyas found himself in her bed. When Ilyas left Kadichi's house in the morning, Jantai saw him.
So their connection began. Alibek nevertheless insisted on using trailers, came up with brakes to attach to them and called Ilyas as his partner on a test flight, but he rudely refused. On the same day, Ilyas had a fight with Jantai - trailers interfered with him, because they reduced the monthly mileage, and, therefore, earnings, and he decided that Ilyas thinks the same.
Since that day, Ilyas almost did not appear at home, spent the night with his mistress, drank a lot. Asel did not know about her husband’s troubles, but still suffered, hoping that soon life would return to its former track. In the end, Ilyas decided to part with Kadichi, but did not have time. Arriving home one day, he discovered that Asel had gone and taken her son.
It turned out that Dzhantai took revenge - Asel told about Ilyas’s novel, and Kadich involuntarily confirmed his words. Ilyas rushed to the ail, to Asel's parents.Her mother scolded Ilyas, did not give him a mouth to open, and he decided that Asel was at home and did not want to see him.
A few days later, Ilyas and Kadichi left - they settled down "on an exploratory expedition to develop the pastures of the Anarkhay steppe." They stayed together for more than three years, lived together, but there was no love.
Respect is one thing and love is another. If even one loves and the other does not, it is ‹...› a fake life.
In the past six months, Ilyas has longed for his wife and son. Finally, he and Kadichi realized that they could no longer live together, and broke up. Ilyas returned to the Tien Shan. In the village, he learned from his younger sister Asel that she came to visit her son and husband every year.
Ilyas returned to work at his native motor depot. The boss was new there, Alibek became the chief mechanic of the Pamir motor depot, Dzhantai also disappeared, no one remembered the incident with the trailer, and Ilyas was eagerly taken.
Once Ilyas drank hard again and in the morning, with a severe hangover, got behind the wheel. Then he stopped at the eateries several times, drank more. By evening, Ilyas was completely intoxicated, lost control, and the truck crashed into a roadblock. There the road master Baytemir found him and brought him home. In the wife of Baytemira, Ilyas recognized his Assel. He spent the night at the road foreman, who received Ilyas as a dear guest. In the morning, obeying the impulse, Ilyas suggested that Asel take her son and leave with him, but she refused.
Ilyas returned to the fleet with a firm decision to leave forever. Passing by the Baytemir estate, he saw his son playing by the road and offered to ride him. Since then, Ilyas has come to ride Samat. He was happy to see his son at least a few minutes a day.
Once he did not see his son by the road. The children playing there said that the mother forbade Samat to go to the road. It was on that day that Ilyas met a journalist and refused to give him a lift. A little later, Ilyas nevertheless saw his son, tried to take him away forever, but the boy saw Baytemir, began to cry, asked to be with his dad, and Ilyas let him go. This was his last date with his son.
The journalist met Baytemir when he was instructed to write an essay on mountain road workers who were supposed to go with a delegation to the Pamirs. Baytemira, the best road foreman of the area, was also included in the delegation, but he refused to go.
The journalist stayed with Baytemir for the night and went around with him. Bypassing the road section, the master told the journalist his story.
The story of the road master
Baytemir was a Pamir Kirghiz. In his youth, according to the Komsomol call, he came to the construction of the Pamir Highway. There he met a girl named Gulbara, fell in love with her.
Gulbara - first wife of the road master Baytemira
When the construction came to an end, it turned out that there were not enough personnel to service the road. A friend of Baytemira, a young engineer, persuaded him to finish the courses of road masters. Returning from the courses, Baytemir married his Gulbar and stayed to work on the site of the Pamir Highway.
Soon, two girls were born to them, and then the war broke out. Baitemir was drafted into the army, and Gulbara remained instead of her husband as a master on the road site. Throughout the war, Baytemir served in the sapper battalion, built bridges and crossings, and reached almost Berlin. He survived only thanks to the memories of his wife and daughters.
Gulbara wrote to Baytemir often, he stopped receiving news from her only in the spring of 1945, then he was suddenly released home. Returning, Baytemir did not find his home. It turned out that he and his family were blown away by an avalanche. Baytemir could not stay in the Pamirs, went to the Tien Shan, became a road master. He did not want to marry again - he could not forget his Gulbar.
Bytemir gradually got used to being alone. One day he was returning from the city along the way. On the way, the driver stopped to take another companion - a young woman with a small son. Realizing that the woman had nowhere to go, Baytemir arranged it in his house, and he spent the night in the extension.
When a person is in grief, there are ten unspoken words behind every word.
A woman named Asel turned out to be laconic, but Baytemir guessed that she had left her husband and could not return to her parents. The next day, Asel was about to leave, but Baytemir persuaded her to stay, and promised to find a job.
So they began to live: Asel - in the house, Batemir - in the cold annex. The road master became attached to Asel's son, Samat, fiddling with him as if he were his own. Loneliness is gone. Asel, the road master “loved with all his heart”, but could not tell her about it - he saw how she was waiting for her husband, she watched each car with a look.
As time passed, Samat began to call Baytemira dad. One summer, Asel met Dzhantay on the road, and he said that her husband had gone somewhere with his mistress. In the evening, Asel decided to leave. Baytemir did not restrain her, but confessed her feelings. Asel did not leave and after a while became the wife of Baytemir. In winter, the couple went to the ail and reconciled with Asel's parents.
But in life it’s not always what you want!
Samatu walked the fifth year, when Ilyas appeared in the house of the road master. Baytemir immediately guessed everything, but Asel did not talk about it, just waited for her to make a decision. That is why he refused to go to the Pamir - he did not want Assel to leave the house secretly, without saying goodbye.
Instead of an epilogue
The journalist got off the train, and Ilyas went on. He dreamed of starting a new life, getting married, having children. Ilyas hoped for happiness, but he realized that his first love, Asel, his “small top in a red scarf”, he lost forever, and will remember her “until his last days, until his last breath”.