The room I grew up in was in my grandparents' house in Kokand, at the end of a street of mulberry trees. It had one small square window that looked onto the courtyard, a low ceiling with a wooden beam across it.
On the floor there was a beautiful old red carpet, so worn in the middle that you could see the threads. I slept on a mattress next to the window. Opposite the door hung a small wooden clock with a brass pendulum. It always ran ten minutes fast. My grandfather said this was on purpose, so that nobody in the family would ever be late.
My grandfather looked like a strict man. He was tall and bony, with a grey moustache and eyebrows that met in the middle. But at home he was like a child. He built kites for us from newspaper, and he cheated at cards so badly that even the youngest of us could catch him.
When I was nineteen, my grandparents died within a year of each other, and the family sold the house. I did not go back for ten years.
Last spring I finally did. The street still had its mulberry trees, but the house had become a café. The courtyard was full of tables under umbrellas, and my room — I knew it at once from the beam — was now a quiet corner with two armchairs and a bookshelf.
It looked smaller than I remembered. Rooms always do.
On the wall opposite the door, in exactly the same place, hung a small wooden clock.
I asked the owner about it. He was a young man with flour on his apron. He said he had found it in the attic when he bought the house, and he had not had the heart to throw it away. "It looked like it belonged there," he said. "It's a strange clock, though. It runs ten minutes fast, and I can't fix it."
I told him not to try. Then I ordered a tea, sat where my mattress used to be, and stayed until the clock said it was time to go — ten minutes before it really was.