by Kurban Said
‘The Toy,’ she said, ‘and you’re not coming?’
‘I can’t, Nino.’
‘Your ancestor died on the bridge of Gandsha. I have known that stone since I took my exam.’ Suddenly Nino collapsed on the floor and cried out like a wounded animal in the throes of death. Her eyes were dry, and her whole body was trembling. She cried at the top of her voice and Iljas Beg ran out of the room.
‘I’ll come, Nino. I’ll come, I promise, it’s just for a few days.’ Her cries continued, on the street people were singing the wild song of the dying republic. All at once she calmed down and looked straight ahead with dead eyes. Then she got up. I took the suitcase. The bundle with the Toy was in my arms, and we walked down the stairs silently. Iljas Beg was waiting in the carriage. We drove through the crowded streets to the station.
‘Just for three or four days,’ said Ilas Beg, ‘just three or four days, and then Ali Khan is with you again.’
‘I know,’ Nino nodded quietly, ‘we’ll stay in Tiflis and then go to Paris. We’ll have a house with a garden, and the next child will be a boy.’
‘That’s how it will be, Nino, that’s just how it will be.’ My voice was clear and optimistic. She clasped my hand and looked far into the distance. The rails were like long snakes, and the train came out of the dark like an evil monster. She kissed me quickly. ‘Good-bye Ali Khan. We’ll meet again in three days’ time.’
‘Of course we will, Nino, and then off to Paris.’
She smiled, and her eyes were like soft velvet. I just stood there on the platform, unable to move, as if nailed to the hard asphalt. Iljas Beg took her into the compartment. She looked out of the window, quiet and lost, like a little frightened bird. When the train started to move she waved, and Iljas Beg jumped off.
We drove to town, and the town was like a carnival. Farmers from the outlying villages came and brought the machine-guns they had been hiding, and ammunition. From the other side of the river, in the Armenian quarter, we heard a few shots. Over there was already Russian territory. The Red Army Cavalry flooded the land, and in town a man suddenly appeared who had bushy eyebrows, a hooked nose, and deep-set eyes: Prince Mansur Mirza Kadjar. No one knew who he was and where he came from, only that his House was that of the Imperial Kadjars, and on his cap glistened the Silver Lion. He took the leadership in the manner born as one of Aga Mohammed’s heirs. Russian battalions were concentrating towards Gandsha, and the town became crowded with refugees from Baku. They told of executed Ministers, of imprisoned Parliamentarians, and of corpses, weighted with stones, sunk into the deep Caspian Sea. ‘The Mosque of Taza Pir is now a club, and when Seyd Mustafa came to pray at the wall the Russians beat him up. They bound him and put pork into his mouth. Later he managed to flee to Persia, to his uncle in Meshed. The Russians had murdered his father.’ It was Arslan Aga who brought this news. He stood in front of me, looking at the weapons I was distributing.
‘I want to fight too, Ali Khan.’
‘You? You little ink-sprinkled piglet?’
‘I’m no piglet, Ali Khan, I love my country, like anybody else. My father has fled to Tiflis. Give me a weapon.’ His face was serious, his eyes flickered. I gave him weapons, and he marched in the columns I was leading for a sortie over the bridge. Russian soldiers held the streets on the other side. We crashed together in a man-to-man fight. I saw broad masks, and glittering triangular bayonets, and was gripped by a wild fury. ‘Irali!—Forward!’ somebody cried, and we lowered our bayonets. Blood mingled with sweat. I raised the butt-end of my rifle, a shot grazed my shoulder. The Russian’s skull burst under my blow. Grey brains poured into the dust. The dagger in my hand I stumbled over an enemy, and saw in falling Arslan Aga pushing his dagger into a Russian soldier’s eye. …
From afar we heard the metal call of the trumpet. We were now lying behind a street corner, shooting blindly at the Armenian houses. During the night we crept back over the bridge, where Iljas Beg was sitting, festooned with cartridges, putting up machine-guns. We went into the mosque’s court-yard, and by the light of the stars Iljas Beg told me how, once, when he was a boy he had nearly been drowned. He had been swimming in the sea, and had been gripped by a current. Then we ate soup and peaches. Arslan Aga was crouching in front of us, bleeding gaps in his teeth. During the night he crept across to me, trembling all over.
‘I’m so afraid, Ali Khan, I’m such a coward.’
‘Then put your weapons away and run across the meadows to the river Pula, and then to Georgia.’
‘I can’t, I love my country just as much as everybody else, even if I have the soul of a coward.’ I was silent, and the new day dawned. Far away the guns blustered and near the minaret stood Iljas Beg with his field-glasses, next to the Prince of the Imperial House of the Kadjars. The trumpet sounded mournful and challenging, the flag was flying over the minaret, and some one started to sing the Song of the Realm of Turan. ‘I have heard things,’ said a man with dreaming eyes in a face dedicated to Death, ‘a man has appeared in Persia by the name of Reza, he is leading many soldiers and chasing the enemy as a hunter chases the deer. Kemal is sitting in Ankara. He has amassed an army. We do not fight in vain. Twenty-five thousand men are marching to help us.’
‘No,’ I said, ‘not twenty-five thousand men—two hundred and fifty million men marching, all the Muslims in the world. But whether they will come in time God only knows.’ I went to the bridge, sat behind the machine-gun, and the bullets were gliding through my fingers as if they were rosary beads. Arslan Aga was sitting next to me, passing bullets to my neighbour. His face was pale, and he was smiling. There was a movement in the Russian lines, and my machine-gun was hammering away like mad. Over there the trumpet sounded for attack. Somewhere from the Armenian lines came the notes of the Budjenny March. I looked down and saw the dry, cracked river bed. Russian soldiers were running across the square, knelt, took aim, fired, and their bullets grazed the bridge. I answered with wild firing. The Russians fell like puppets, but behind them new lines rose, running towards the bridge, falling into the dust of the river bank. There were thousands of them, and the thin bellowing of my lonely machine-gun sounded feebly on the Gandsha Bridge.
Arslan Aga cried out, high and plaintive, like a baby. I looked across to him. He was lying on the bridge, blood pouring from his mouth. I pressed the button of my machine-gun. A rain of fire fell on the Russians, and their trumpet sounded the attack again. My cap fell into the river, maybe it was shot away, maybe blown away by the wind in my face. I tore open my collar and coat. Arslan Aga’s body was lying between me and the enemy. So a man could be a coward and yet die a hero’s death for his country. Over there the trumpet sounded the retreat, the machine-gun fell silent, and I was sitting on the bridge covered in sweat, hungry and waiting for relief.
And now I’m sitting here in the shade of the mosque wall, eating soup. Over there, at the entrance of the mosque, Prince Mansur is standing, and Iljas Beg is bending over a map. In a couple of hours I will again be standing on the bridge. The Republic of Azerbeidshan has only a few more days to live. Enough. I will sleep till the trumpet calls me to the river again, where my ancestor Ibrahim Khan Shirvanshir laid down his life for the freedom of his people.
Ali Khan Shirvanshir fell at quarter past five on the bridge of Gandsha behind his machine-gun. His body fell into the dry river bed. I went down. He was pierced by eight bullets. In his pocket I found this book. God willing, I will take it to his wife. We buried him in the early morning, shortly before the Russians started the last attack. The life of our Republic has come to an end, as has the life of Ali Khan Shirvanshir.
Captain Iljas Beg, son of Seinal Aga, from the village of Biniyadi near Baku.
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