Twelve years ago Bekzod's father opened a bakery on our corner. He had worked in three other bakeries before that, and he had been carrying other men's bread for nine years.
At four o'clock this morning he was standing at the door with the key in his hand, and he did not put it in the lock. He gave it to his son.
His father mixes the dough by hand. He has always mixed it by hand, because a machine doesn't feel the yeast.
Now, at half past four, Bekzod is mixing it. He has been mixing it every morning since March, but never alone, and never with his father outside in the yard.
The scales are old. The heat from the oven fills the room by five. Bekzod's apron is white now and it will be grey at seven.
"You will burn a tray," his father said at the door. "Everybody burns a tray on the first morning. It isn't going to be the end of the world."
By seven o'clock Bekzod will have made two hundred loaves. At seven he will be standing at the counter exactly where his father stood for twelve years, and the queue will be waiting in the cold outside.
By August he will have been working in this bakery for six months. He is going to keep the shop. He told his father that in one sentence, in March, and his father said nothing for a long minute.
He did not burn the first tray.
He burnt the second one, because he was watching the first.
At ten past seven his father opened the shutters from the outside. Steam went out into the street, and eleven people came in.
One oven, one morning, twelve tenses — and the same question at four o'clock every day for twelve years: is the bread ready?