Alex Gulkarov, a native of Bukhara, lived in Tajikistan before immigrating to Israel at seventeen. A biologist, researcher, and fluent in Russian, Tajik-Judeo, French, Hebrew, and English, he can now add another title - writer. Alex is the son of the late Dr. Josef Gulkarov, a respected linguist, journalist, founder and director of Tajik-Judeo Israeli broadcasting service.

Alex’s first book, Road of No Return, is based on the living memory of several generations - family stories passed from parents to children. Set against the upheavals of the 1920s-1930s, it tells the dramatic story of the Shamsi family and of the enduring power of family bonds and faithfulness to one’s roots.

I have read the book and warmly recommend it.

Here is a short excerpt.

Dr. Zoya Maksumova

***

The Amu Darya did not look like a border; it looked like a mistake of nature. The water was dark – not just black, but oily, thick, devoid of any reflections, as if the river devoured light itself. 

“We go at night,” the guide breathed in an almost imperceptible whisper, his hot, raspy voice burning Yosef’s ear. He smelled of cheap tobacco and the stale sweat of fear.  “Why?” Yosef whispered back, trying not to look at the black waves. 

Menahem, sitting slightly ahead, turned. His face in the dark looked like a pale mask. “Because during the day, it’s easier to count us. And easier to shoot us.” 

The boat was small – far too small for eight people. Directly across from Yosef, almost touching his knees, another family huddled together. A mother frantically pressed a tiny baby girl to her chest until her knuckles turned white, wrapping her in a tattered shawl. Two seven-year-old twin boys sat wedged into their father’s side. The man desperately whispered the Shema Yisrael, his jaw trembling violently from either the biting wind or sheer terror. 

The black water slammed against the flimsy sides with a menacing thud. Icy spray repeatedly hit Yosef’s face, burning his skin like drops of molten lead. Every time the boat lurched; animal panic seized him. 

Suddenly, a blindingly white, dead light ripped through the sky from the Soviet shore. A border searchlight. 

“Freeze! Don't breathe!” the guide wheezed, his voice dropping to a faint hiss. “If they spot us, machine guns will cut us down in seconds!” 

Yosef squeezed his eyes shut. His heart pounded in his ears, drowning out the splashes. The dead beam of light swept right past them, staining the black water a dirty gray. At that moment, the boat lurched violently as it hit a harsh current. In the dark, one of the twin boys sobbed in terror. His father instantly clamped a hand over his mouth so hard the child nearly suffocated. 

In the middle of the river, where the current raged hardest, the boat struck a submerged log. The mother holding the baby lost her balance. The treacherous black water struck. The boat lurched, a heavy splash echoed, and the woman let out a wild, frantic scream: “My daughter!..” 

The sound cut off instantly, swallowed by the heavy river silt. Menahem didn't even turn his head. To look back meant admitting that death was already riding in the boat with them. Throwing his whole-body weight into the oar, the guide rowed furiously to pull the vessel out of the line of fire. Behind them, something churned weakly in the dark water, but the searchlight swept across the river again, forcing them to flatten themselves against the floorboards. 

In the icy sludge at the bottom of the boat, the father wept soundlessly, trying to hold back his remaining sons as they tried to reach back toward the dark water. The baby girl had vanished into the deep alongside her mother. 

One of the boys whispered through clenched teeth, staring at the empty space where his mother and sister had sat seconds before: “They fell in... Onajonam... Mommy... Rebecca...” 

Without looking back, the guide rasped in a dead voice: “Someone always vanishes here. Hold on tight if you want to live.” 

When they finally stepped onto the foreign, deserted shore, no one counted how many were left. It had become meaningless. The survivors moved like ghosts. 

“Have we arrived?” Yosef asked with trembling lips, without lifting his head. 

Menahem looked back at the distant, dark ribbon of the Amu Darya, where the dead beams of Soviet searchlights were still sweeping. 

“No,” he said, “We have only stopped being there.”  

The book is available in print and digital formats in Russian and Hebrew. The English edition is available in digital format only.

To order, please contact: roadofnoreturn03@gmail.com