Coal dust stiffens their hair and clothes and collects in the creases in their faces. Jargal searches for clothes for Birdhan and Hasanbek. They live in two rooms. The lives of Jargal and her family are black with coal. Coal collects in the creases in their burnished faces, gathers under their fingernails and pits their skin.
Coal dust stiffens their hair and clothes.
It shifts when a draft cuts across their stone floor. For the family, coal is home. They live in the crumbling workings of a former mine. If I didn't have children, I would go to the country and be a herder. It's the coal that keeps them in Nalaikh.