by Ak Welsapar
“Dear cousin!” begged Ay-Bebek, “I’ll say nothing against you, but please help me escape these invaders! Let’s tell everyone they’re coming, if we go together, they won’t catch us!”
Aypi glared first at Ay-Bebek, then at the multitude drawing nearer with their metallic clamour. She looked down, then snapped her head straight up with an air of decision.
“If you can’t doll up a woman, it’s no use being jealous of those who can!”
“Who’s going to doll me up? I’m not a doll; I’m a living person. Are you speaking to me?” asked Ay-Bebek, dumbfounded.
“No, not you, but to these wretches. They blame their own cowardice on everyone else, but never themselves!”
Ay-Bebek begged again, “Dear kinswoman! If you’ll pardon me, this isn’t the time to take offence. Come, let’s get out of here! We’ve got to warn the village!”
Aypi looked at her with contempt, and shook her head.
“Whether we warn them or not, what can they do about it? They won’t even have time to get scared. I say let them all die. They aren’t even alive; they just sit there and gossip anyway. I’m tired of them. Aren’t they the ones who made ashes of my precious life? The scoundrels,” she laughed uncannily, “they blamed me for their own sins, they yoked me with all their guilt, as though they were lambs themselves! But I wasn’t the one that brought these troops in the first place or now! If you go and tell everyone they’re coming, they’ll blame it all on you. That’s how men are: They try to hide their frailty, and that makes them even weaker. Do you think I agreed when they decided to kill me?”
Ay-Bebek struggled to recall the terrible legend: “If you hadn’t told these troops everything you knew in exchange for that ruby necklace, they wouldn’t be pouring over here! How can we save ourselves now?”
Aypi reared up like a trodden viper and hissed, “Woman, don’t talk unless you know what you’re talking about! They aren’t enemies; they’re my friends. They’ve come to take my revenge. They have no business with the village; they’ve only come to catch your husband! They’ll take my revenge against men!”
Ay-Bebek swayed, as though her heart had burst.
“Come on then, let’s tell him, he can get away quickly, he’ll go out to sea and hide!”
Aypi cackled ruthlessly.
“Ha, do you think it’s possible to hide from so many? These will find him, even if he goes to the ends of the earth. There’s no safe place!”
As she said this, she waved a rag to the clanging throng of men shaking the ground with their footsteps.
“Come on! Here I am!” she shouted, her red spotted kerchief blowing in the wind. “Come, let me show you where he’s hidden! He won’t escape! His punishment is written, take my revenge on him!”
Ay-Bebek, horrified, felt a sudden surge of strength in her limbs and, springing from the ground, came at Aypi from behind.
“Be quiet, shut up! Don’t tell them where Araz is; please don’t denounce him! They’ll kill him, they’re our enemies!”
Aypi spun round and grabbed her.
“Those you call enemies gave me a ruby necklace, and those you call friends drowned me in the sea!”
“If they did, it was your own fault! Wasn’t the first crooked step your own? You couldn’t control your own greed!”
Aypi’s breathing slowed and her face became white, until it seemed flame and sparks would fly from her mouth.
“If I choose to live well and have pretty things to decorate myself with, it’s no one’s business!”
A ruse occurred to Ay-Bebek: “She’s a materialist, so unless I can bring this bitch around with a few bribes, she’ll send these soldiers to Araz, it will be a disaster...”
“Aypi dear, please don’t do this, don’t destroy my home. I’ll give whatever you ask, I have a lot of things; my chest is full of gold and silver. I have a silver medallion as big as a shield, it’s yours, it’s gilded too – and has carnelians! I have a seven-piece bracelet, that’s yours too, just get rid of these raiders, send them away, don’t kill Araz! Our children are so little, if you take Araz, I won’t be able to survive. There’s no one alive to help me, everyone’s hands are full, and I’ve never lived alone before! How can you do this? If you take my husband, I’ll die filthy, and my little children will have to beg at the doors of strangers! Please don’t, Aypi!”
A covetous fire played in Aypi’s beautiful hussy eyes.
“You wouldn’t lie?”
“How could I lie?” sobbed Ay-Bebek, “and why should I? I gave my promise, and I’ll hand over what I said, more even. I have tons of other things, they’re all yours, but get rid of the warriors, send them back! Look, they’re coming, if they get here, there’s no saving us!”
Aypi twisted like a snake again, mocking Ay-Bebek:
“No! I don’t believe a word of it! It’s clear you’re no royalty, what are you doing with so much treasure?”
The enemy troops crested the last dune, weapons glittering, and came streaming forward. Some of them, spotting Ay-Bebek, hurried their march, while some even broke into a run. Ay-Bebek now feared for her own life, besides that of her children and husband. She tore the silver collar from her throat and put it into Aypi’s hand.
“There, take it! Take that for now, then I’ll give you all the rest myself, if you’ll just send them away!”
Aypi took the shining, gilded collar in her fingers, turning it round and scrutinizing it until all thoughts of the oncoming army left her mind.
“This’s really yours?” she asked again.
Ay-Bebek was furious. “No, I’ve brought stolen goods to you!” she jeered, unable to stop herself. “How could I get away with wearing a collar stolen from a neighbour in a village with five households? When I was a girl my mother had it specially crafted for me, as a gift – but what’s it matter? First it’s gone to me, now it’s yours!”
Aypi hesitated a moment, staring indecisively at the oncoming army. Then her eyes caught on Ay-Bebek’s earrings. “Give me your hoops too!”
Ay-Bebek removed them hastily and put them into Aypi’s palm.
“Take them, just be quick!”
Aypi measured with her eye the distance from the battle line, and delayed again. Ay-Bebek, unable to tolerate any more of this, grabbed hold of her and shook with all her strength, screaming at the top of her lungs, “That’s it! Call them off now! I told you to call them off! Stop the raiders, you whore! Stop them!”
Ay-Bebek woke to the sound of her own voice, keening in harmony with the baby’s. Astoundingly, she had taken hold of the cradle with both hands and was rocking the baby back and forth, who had woken up terrified as a result. Actually, she herself was drenched in sweat. On top of that, milk had apparently spilled from her breast while she slept.
“Goodness, what a debacle!” she muttered, taking up the headscarf that had fallen, rubbing off her chest and putting a hand down her neckline to clean the milk. Then she recalled the worst moments of her nightmare, and froze... “Did I give my neckpiece to that miserable creature?” Then remembering more, she brought her hands up to her ears—to her hoops. To take hold of them made her feel a little better. “What a fool I was: it’s dire bad luck to give up something to the dead in a dream. Damn me, why’d I do that? She had me so scared.”
She snatched the baby into her embrace and stepped outside the house. There were dense clouds everywhere, but she guessed the place of the sun and took seven steps towards it. She spit three times over her shoulder.
“God, protect me from misfortune and worse! Stop the bad dream from coming true!” she entreated. “Tomorrow I’ll rise with the sun; as soon as I see your face I’ll make an offering and pray to you, dear God! Even now I don’t know if you’ve set behind those clouds or not. Please God; accept this wretch’s prayer. Oh, Araz, Araz...”
17
Today, Aypi flew o
nce around the village and decided that nothing of interest remained, so she headed out into the desert. After a while, she turned toward the city. Since her people would move there soon, it was only fitting she see it.
A person’s accomplishments often prove the opposite of their intentions. What goal had propelled Aypi from the sea bottom, if not to make herself known to, and take revenge on, the men who had once sanctioned her? She had done so, but the result brought her no joy, since her actions only hastened the obliteration of the village and drove the inhabitants away. How much or little was beside the point – her accomplishment was the reverse of her intention, so all that remained was to see the new place they’d obediently land in.
Soon she was flying along the avenues, where the rows of shops and the city-girls’ outfits impressed her greatly. The fantastic, unfamiliar fabrics and tight-fitting patterns drew her eye: “These girls are dolled-up! Done up!” Most of the citizens looked like those strange foreigners she’d encountered in her own time, what could it mean? Had the descendants of those who’d punished Aypi for treating with foreigners become hopelessly intermingled with them? What cunning they had! Perhaps those who had destroyed Aypi hadn’t been merely foolish, but envious?
As the ghost wandered the teeming streets, her eyes suddenly fell on a conveyance making its way east out of the city, back towards the village. Her feminine curiosity was aroused, and she resolved to ride in this remarkable rolling transport. Without hesitation, she chased after the speeding contraption. Before it had gotten far from the city, she appeared at the first crossroads before the shining automobile, garbed in the style of the city girls. She barely had raised her arm when it came to a screeching halt before her.
“Hop in, beautiful girl!” said a dapper young man with meticulously styled hair, as he leaned over to open the passenger door.
“I’m a married woman, not a girl!” said Aypi pointedly.
“Even better!” said the driver, leering at his passenger’s doll-like torso. “You’re beautiful,” he teased.
“I know,” she answered.
“You’re dressed very well too,” he added.
“I know that too.”
“Your eyes pass right through me!”
“How else should it be?” the woman answered evasively.
Looking at the desert road ahead, the young man asked incredulously, “So you know everything then?”
“I knew it all ages ago,” she responded coldly.
“Is there anything you don’t know?” asked the boy, paying no attention to the meaning of her statement.
“How is a woman better than a girl?” she asked, locking eyes with him, “I’m unaware.”
“Before I married, I looked at girls,” joked the driver, “Now wives look hotter to me.” An easy grin. “That necklace of yours is as beautiful as a girl by itself, seriously though.”
“Really?” answered Aypi, her cheeks flushing pink just like a living woman’s.
Seeing the effect even this tame flirtation had on her, the driver was inflamed. “Some peasant who just learned to dress,” he thought to himself. “I should’ve known from the tacky old necklace she’s picked out of grandma’s hope chest. Well, I’m the one who wins. ‘What God gives to his servant, he puts before him on the road.’”
“Where did you get such a beautiful thing?” he asked. “It really catches your eye.”
“’Where did you get that’, they ask the thief! This is my own doomsday present. I haven’t had it off my neck for a hundred years.”
“Hahaha! Like I always say, ‘It’s been there for a hundred years! If you haven’t seen it, open your eyes!’ Speaking of which, don’t I know you? If you’re from our village, I must. What’s your name?”
“You wouldn’t,” she answered, innocently. “It’s been centuries since I’ve been around here.”
He hit the gas, his laugh filling the air-conditioned cabin.
“Now look here, our personalities are so similar. There’s a deep connection I sense. For example, you’ve just used my favourite saying.
Her cheeks flushed again, this time with annoyance.
“No, I am not using anything. I just call everything by its right name.”
The driver solemnly adjusted his necktie. “Okay, that’s fine. You’re not the kind to put too a high price on your own beauty, but allow me. I bow before your delicate loveliness!” As he clasped his hands, then kissed his fingertips, Aypi regretted that she was no longer living: There were still men who could honour a woman’s beauty after all! The young man continued, unaware of his passenger’s thoughts. “What elegant fingers! Ah, but your hands are just a little cold, has the AC gotten too chilly for you? This is a Volvo, it takes a hundred years to figure it out!” he laughed. “Perhaps we should stop a while and warm our bodies? And what about this: Turkmen seven star cognac, bless it all! To our future co-operation!” He leaned avidly over her, pulling out a bottle of pink liquid from the compartment in front of her. Would you mind grabbing a pair of those glasses and balancing them on your knee?”
“What in the world is this?” she asked.
The driver thought it must be sarcasm, or at least a joke, and looked at her from the corner of his eye. No, she was absolutely serious; she didn’t know what cognac was. If it came to good luck, when it rained it poured: a real peasant, she’d probably swoon right as he grabbed her round the waist.
“Let me stop the car here,” said the bold youngster, hitting the brakes and pulling over into a hollow between two dunes where the flowers and grasses had already withered from the sun’s fervour. “Wonderful! There’s nobody else here but us two,” he began discreetly, “now we can forget our troubles and relax; that means you too. I think there’s something on your mind. Is it just a woman’s fear of the unknown? Don’t worry a bit. I’d never harm you; in fact, I’ll be your hidden friend for life. Allow me to introduce myself, the name’s Kerem, they call me Kerry in the city; I’m Mered Badaly’s son.”
“I am aware,” she answered curtly.
“What’s the matter? You hear Mered Badaly’s name and think I’ll judge you? Don’t worry, I’m not a prude; my father’s prudishness is enough for one village, and that’s why I went to the city and don’t even come back unless I need to. This time I had no choice, the old man told me to come get him and show him his new place in the city, they have no reason to stay here anymore, he said. If I hadn’t met you it would’ve been a wasted day, but now I know this is the best day of my life! The point is, I live in the present, not in the past like my dad. A true representative of modernity!” he laughed. “It’s constant fun when you’re with me!”
“Is there anything constant left about these people?” she muttered through her teeth.
“Raise the glass! The first drink is to our meeting! And let’s not be so formal. How about a more casual relationship, okay?”
“If you think so,” she said, and brought the mysterious glass of pink liquid to her nose. The persistent, complex smell of the reserve Turkmen cognac, which would have invigorated a connoisseur, made the woman with the ancient necklace nearly gag.
“The window! Open the window!”
“Well, well!” he laughed. “Don’t just throw it onto the sand, it’ll only throw up a bunch of dust!” With that excuse, he nimbly caught hold of her hand holding the glass. “Look, take a little sip of it like this… first touch it to your lips a bit, then take a mouthful, and gently swallow it down your throat… careful… easy now…”
“My goodness! Sir, you are quite a paragon!” said the woman, her eyes flashing. “As though you’ve given drinking lessons to some new woman each day! You think you’re so trustworthy that you need show no restraint around unfamiliar womenfolk!”
“First of all,” the city boy said with mock outrage, shifting even closer to her, “don’t call me sir, we’re already friends actually. Secondl
y, don’t be shy, there’s not a living soul around except for you and me. Be yourself and relax!
“Don’t say ‘besides you and me.’ Say, ‘besides me’,” warned Aypi.
“What?” he asked, astonished. “Aren’t you a person too? In our society women have equal rights, and they’re just as honoured and empowered; don’t be shy.”
“So we’re equal, are we?”
“Yep, equal, don’t hesitate at all!”
“So when they feel like trampling on it, men will bring women’s honour down to their own level, is that it?”
“No, it’s not like that, don’t twist my words!”
“Well then,” she asked, “what is it like?”
The boy saw the discussion veering in an unnecessary direction, so he snatched pre-emptively at the young woman’s waist. He immediately drew his fingers back like they’d been scalded.
“Your body…” he stuttered, staring in confusion, “it’s so flimsy, like… just like you’re – bodiless?”
Aypi glowered “All you need from a woman is her body?” she asked bitterly. “Just a twitching body?”
“I need a lot of things from a woman, the body is just the nicest of them.”
“They say your new bride is from the city,” she said, trying to shame him, and at the same time indicate that she was aware not only of events in the village, but also the thoughts in his head. “Doesn’t she have a body? When you have a city girl like that, what do you need from a ‘peasant’ like me?”
The fellow’s fevered brain missed the significance of this remark.
“I married a city girl for the city and to have a wife – that’s something else. You could call me an unmarried married man – a bachelor with a wife. My place, my work, and my fun are in the city. What,” he sighed wistfully, “can I say to you? It’s too complicated for you to understand, it’s too subtle.”
