Young Suvankul and Tолгонай make a promise to share equally both joy and sorrow. They walk the same road: working on their native land, raising their beloved sons, and step by step building their family home. But war demands a terrible price from a woman and mercilessly shatters the destinies of men, drawing them into the grinding gears of history. Tolgoнай endures losses, pours out her pain and despair into the field’s silence, yet finds the courage to go on living—in her work, in the truth, and in the care of a wise grandmother. One day she snatches a child from death, one not her own, and is nearly killed herself: she carries him to the doctor across an icy river. Sometimes Tolgoнай speaks to the field and asks how to find the road to each person’s heart. And the field replies: “You are a Human. You are above all, wiser than all! You are a Human! Just say it!.”
Included in the collection are two more of the author’s stories: “Early Cranes” and “Farewell, Gulsary.”