I always bring my mother carpet-socks when I come back from my yearly holiday. The kind you see in the Caucasus. They’re called “jubas,” sometimes “jurabis.” My mother offers her prolonged thanks to God, as though receiving a very rare gift. And she brags to the neighbors about her kind, kind son.

          Her legs always hurt. They swell and ache as soon as they are cold. When the neighbors ask after her health, she says, for their sake and her own: “It’s just old age.”

          But old age is not the only source of her pain. Others may not know this, but I do. I know it well.

As a child I often got sick—the measles, whooping cough, fever… That’s why, on our kitchen wall, you could find everything from a blue crow’s feather to a cockscomb hanging from nails.

          I especially suffered from sore throats. Scarcely would my feet touch the damp ground before my throat would start to hurt. To this day, I don’t understand what the feet have to do with the throat.

          I can’t remember how old I was at the time, but I know I was very little; I was riding on a sled with my brothers when I broke into a sweat. I ate ice to cool down. That evening I had a temperature. I was racked by a terrible cough. My mother had me rinse out my throat with alum, but this did nothing. Then she boiled dried apricots and gave me the liquid to drink. It didn’t help… I was gripped by fever and, though I was no longer in pain, it was hard to breathe. I was barely aware of anything and then I fainted—all I could hear was the sound of my mother wailing the same words over and over:

          “Voy, what can I do? My son is dying!”

          She quickly wrapped me in a quilt.

          I can’t say how much time passed, but at one point I was vaguely aware of being in her arms. She was carrying me, trudging through the night. I could feel the snow falling thickly, but no flakes touched my burning cheeks. She was plodding, gasping, her feet slipping; and with each heavy step, I felt her warm breath on my face.

          Eventually we entered a house dimly lit by a small lamp. Then everything grew dark again. Mother was still wailing: “He’s dying! My son is dying!”

          “Have no fear, pasha, when God sends disease, he doesn’t forget its remedy.”

          I faintly recognized Grandma Haji’s voice.

          She had me lie on my back and put my head on her lap. Then she thrust a gauze-wrapped finger into my throat. My stomach turned and I started to writhe, but couldn’t free myself from Grandma Haji’s grip. She did something in my throat. I shrieked and bit her finger. It was strange, but after a while I felt better. When I opened my eyes, Grandma Haji was smiling down at me.

          “Why did you bite me, puppy?” she said, stroking my hair. Then my mother bent over me. She was still out of breath, her hair matted and her face damp.

          A little while later, I sat up, putting my feet on the sandal stove over the fire. Grandma Haji had me drink some sort of bitter liquid. Then, satisfied with my recovery, she turned toward my mother: “Oh, pashaaaa! What have you done?” she cried.

          Bewildered, my mother looked at me, then at Grandma Haji.

          “Your feet!” Grandma Haji said, shaking her head. “How did this happen?”

          It was then that I noticed my mother’s boots at the door. They were full of snow.

          “You walked through the snow with no socks?” Grandma Haji asked, horrified. “What will we do with you now? We’d better crack open a crow’s bone and rub your feet with the marrow, or you’ll be a cripple.”

          Mother drew her feet off of the sandal stove, both of them red like bloody mutton. 

          “They weren’t cold,” she said in a low voice. “In fact, they were hot. The snow made them hot.”

          “Can you feel anything?” said Grandma Haji, massaging mother’s feet.

          “What?” mother asked, looking not at her feet, but at me.

          “Do you feel my touch?”

          Without a word, mother shook her head and burst into tears.

The day after, she took to her bed. She stayed there a long time. Father shot a crow somewhere and brought it to her. Grandma Haji did her best concocting some remedies. And mother recovered. But from then on, her feet would swell and ache whenever the weather turned cold…

I bring my mother carpet socks when I come back from my yearly holiday. She gives me her prolonged thanks to God, as though receiving a very rare gift, and immediately shows them off to all the neighbors, bragging about her kind, kind son. In those moments, I remember that terrible night, when the snow fell thickly, and mother’s feet were red as bloody mutton. And I leave without saying a word.