They walked along the road to the spot where it branched off and ran to the Archa meadow. There was still a lot of snow. It wasn't as easy as the boy had thought to keep up with those strong young fellows. He began to tire.
"Come, get up on my back," Kulubek offered. With an agile movement, he lightly swung the boy up to his shoulders. And carried him as easily as if he did it every day.
"You're all right, Kulubek," said the driver who walked next to them.
"Oh, I've carried my brothers and sisters all my life," Kulubek boasted. "I'm the eldest, and there were six of us. Mother worked in the field, father, too. By now my sisters have their own kids. I came back from the army, still unmarried, still without a job. And then my sister, the eldest one, says 'Come and live with us—you're a good nurse."Oh, no,' I said to her, 'I've had enough. I'll carry my own now . .
And so they walked, talking of this and that. The boy felt happy and secure riding on Kulubek's strong back.
"If only I had a brother like him," he dreamed to himself. "I'd never be afraid of anybody. If Orozkul wanted to shout at grandpa or touch anyone, he'd think twice at just a glance from Kulubek."
The trucks with the hay, left on the road the previous night, were nearly two kilometers from the fork. Heaped with snow, they looked like winter stacks in the field. It seemed that nobody would ever move them from the spot.
But the men built a fire and heated water. They began to crank the first motor by hand; it came to life and started sneezing. The rest was easier. Each following truck was started by towing, and so it went till all the motors worked.
When all the trucks were working, two of them towed up the one that had toppled over into the gully the previous night. Everybody helped to get it back onto the road. Even the boy found a spot at the edge and helped the men. All the time he was afraid that somebody would say, "Run off, stop tangling underfoot." But nobody said it to him, nobody chased him away. Perhaps because Kulubek had allowed him to help. And he was the strongest, they all respected him.
The drivers said good-bye again. The trucks started, first slowly, then faster. And the caravan went off along the road between the snow-covered mountains. The sons of the sons of the Horned Mother Deer were gone. They did not know that in the child's imagination, the Horned Mother Deer ran invisibly before them. With long, fast leaps she raced before the column. She protected them from trouble and mishaps on the difficult journey. From landfalls, avalanches, blizzards, fog, and other misfortunes the Kirghiz people had endured throughout their many centuries of nomadic existence. Wasn't this what Grandpa Momun had prayed for to the Horned Mother Deer when he had sacrificed the black ewe to her at dawn?
They were gone. And the boy was also going with them. In his mind he sat in the cabin next to Kulubek. "Uncle Kulubek," he was saying to him, "the Horned Mother Deer is running ahead of us along the road." "You don't say!" "It's true. Honest to God. There she is!"
"What are you thinking of?" Grandpa Momun broke into his thoughts. "Don't stand there. Climb up, time to go home." He bent down from the horse and lifted the boy into the saddle. "You're not cold?" asked the old man, wrapping the flaps of his robe closely around his grandson.
In those days the boy was not yet going to school.
And this evening, awakening now and then from heavy sleep, he thought anxiously: "How will I go to school tomorrow? I'm sick, I feel so bad . . ." Then he'd drop off again. It seemed to him that he was copying in his book the words written by the teacher on the blackboard: "At. Ata. Taka." With these first-grade words he was filling the entire copybook, page after page. "At. Ata. Taka. At. Ata. Taka."[note: "Horse. Father. Horseshoe."] He grew tired, the letters jumped before his eyes and he felt hot, very hot. The boy threw off the coverings. And when he lay uncovered and froze, all sorts of visions came to him again. Now he swam as a fish in the chilly river, trying to reach the white ship and never reaching it. Now he found himself in a snowstorm. In a cold, misty hurricane, trucks filled with hay were skidding on the steep road up the mountain. The trucks sobbed like people, and skidded without moving from the spot. The wheels turned madly, became fiery red. They burned and sent up tongues of flame. Pressing her horns into the body of the truck, the Horned Mother Deer pushed the truckload of hay up the mountain. The boy helped her, straining every muscle. Hot sweat poured down his body. Then suddenly the truck turned into a child's cradle. The
Horned Mother Deer said to the boy: "Come, let's hurry, we'll take the cradle to Aunt Bekey and Uncle Orozkul." And they began to run. The boy fell back. But ahead of him, the cradle bell rang and rang. The boy followed its call.
He woke when steps were heard on the porch and the door creaked. Grandpa Momun and grandma returned, seemingly a little less upset. The arrival of strangers at the post had evidently forced Orozkul and Aunt Bekey to quiet down. Or, perhaps Orozkul had tired of guzzling and had finally fallen asleep. There was no longer any shouting or cursing in the yard.
At midnight the moon rose over the mountains. Its misty disk hung over the highest icy summit. The mountain, locked in eternal ice, loomed in the dark, glinting with its ghostly, uneven planes. And all around, the foothills, the cliffs, the black motionless forests stood utterly hushed, while the river boiled and tumbled over the rocks below.
The wavering light of the moon flowed in a slanting stream into the window. The light disturbed the boy. He turned from side to side, closing his eyes more tightly. He wanted to ask grandma to curtain the window, but he didn't: grandma was angry at grandpa.
"Fool," she whispered, settling down to sleep. "If you don't know how to live with people, you'd better hold your tongue and listen to others. Don't you know you're in his hands? He pays you, even if it's only kopeks. But you get them every month. And what are you without the pay? Lived all those years, and learned no sense. . .”
The old man did not answer. Grandma fell silent. Then suddenly she said aloud:
“If a man's pay is taken from him, he's no longer a man. He's nothing."
Again the old man did not answer.
And the boy could not fall asleep. His head ached, and his thoughts were confused. He worried about school. He had never missed a single day, and could not imagine how it would be if he was unable to go to school in Dzhelesai tomorrow. He also thought that, if Orozkul dismissed grandpa from his job, grandma would eat him up alive. What would they do then?
Why did people live like that? Why were some good, and some bad? Why were some happy, and others unhappy? Why were there people who made everybody afraid of them, and others of whom no one was afraid? Why did some have children, and others not? Why could some people refuse to pay others their wages? The most respected people, he thought, must be those who get the biggest pay. But grandpa got very little, and so everybody hurt and insulted him. What could he do to make grandpa get more pay, too? Maybe then Orozkul would also begin to respect him.
These thoughts made the boy's head ache even more. Again he remembered the deer he had seen the previous evening at the ford. How were they doing out there at night? They were alone in the cold, stony mountains, in the pitch black forest. They must be frightened. What if wolves attacked them? Who would bring Aunt Bekey the magic cradle in her horns?
He fell into a troubled sleep and, as he drifted off, he prayed to the Horned Mother Deer to bring the birchwood cradle to Orozkul and Aunt Bekey. "Let them have children, let them have children," he pleaded with the Horned Mother Deer. And he heard the distant tinkling of the cradle bell. The Horned Mother Deer was hurrying with the miraculous cradle in her horns.
7
Early in the morning the boy awakened from the touch of a hand. Grandpa's hand was cold, from the outside. The boy shrank a little.
"Lie, lie there." The old man blew on his hands to warm them and felt the boy's forehead. Then he put his palm on his chest and stomach. "I'm afraid you're sick," he said anxiously. "You have a fever. And I was wondering—why is he lying in bed when it's time for school?"
"I
'll get up, right away." The boy raised his head. Everything began to turn before his eyes, and there was a noise in his ears.
"Don't even think of it." The old man settled the boy back on the pillow. "Who's going to take you to school when you're sick? Let's see your tongue."
The boy tried to insist:
"The teacher will scold. She hates it when anybody misses school."
"She won't scold. I'll tell her myself. Come on, show your tongue."
The grandfather carefully examined the boy's tongue and throat. For a long time he tried to find his pulse. Callused and rough from years of hard work, the old man's fingers managed miraculously to catch the heartbeats in the boy's hot, sweaty wrist. Then he said reassuringly:
"God is kind. You've simply caught a chill. The frost got into you. You'll stay in bed today, and at night I'll rub your feet and chest with hot mutton fat. You'll sweat it out, and, God willing, you will get up in the morning strong as a wild ass.”
As he recalled the previous day and Orozkul and all that still awaited him, Momun's face darkened. He sighed, sitting at his grandson's bed, lost in thought.
"Well, what can you do with the man?" he whispered, and turned to the boy. "When did you get sick? Why didn't you say anything? Was it last night?"
"Yes, in the evening. When I saw the deer across the river. I ran to tell you. Then I got very cold."
The old man said in a guilty voice:
"All right. . . . Lie here, I have to go."
He stood up, but the boy stopped him:
"Ate, isn't that the Horned Mother Deer herself? The one that's white as milk, with eyes like that . . . looking like a human being . . ."
"You little silly." Old Momun smiled cautiously. "Well, let it be your way. Maybe it is she," he said quietly, "the miraculous Mother Deer, who knows? I think . . ."
The old man did not finish. Grandma appeared in the door. She hurried in from the yard, she had already heard something there.
"Go out there, old man," she said from the threshold. Grandpa Momun drooped at once. He looked shrunken and pitiful. "They want to drag the log out with the truck," said the old woman. "Go and do everything they tell you . . . Oh, my God, I haven't boiled the milk yet," she recalled herself and ran to fire the stove and rattle with the dishes.
The old man frowned. He wanted to argue with her, to say something. But grandma didn't let him open his mouth.
"What are you staring at?" she shouted. "Who are you to be stubborn? What do you think we are? Who are you to stand up against them? Some people came out there to Orozkul, with a truck big enough to carry ten logs up the mountains. And Orozkul won't even look our way. I begged and pleaded, I crawled before him. He wouldn't let your daughter cross the threshold. There she sits, your barren one, at Seidakhmat's. Crying her eyes out. And cursing you, her brainless father . . ."
"That'll do," the old man lost his patience, and, turning toward the door, he said: "Give the boy some hot milk, he's sick."
"I'll give him, I'll give him, just go, go, for God's sake." And after he left, she still grumbled: "What's come over him? He never crossed anyone, always quiet as a mouse, and now —look at him. And grabs Orozkul's horse on top of it, and gallops off. It's all on your account." She shot a vicious glance at the boy. "At least, if it was somebody worth taking risks for . . ."
Then she brought the boy hot milk with yellow molten butter. The milk scalded his lips, but grandma made him drink it:
"Drink, drink, the hotter the better, don't be afraid. The only way to drive out a cold."
The boy burned his mouth, tears stood in his eyes. And grandma suddenly relented:
"All right, let it cool, let it cool a bit. . . . Picked such a time to get sick," she sighed.
The boy had long wanted to urinate. He got up, feeling a strange, sweet weakness throughout his body. But grandma stopped him:
"You want to piss?"
"Yes," the boy admitted.
"Wait, just a minute."
She brought him a basin.
Awkwardly turning away, the boy let the stream run into the basin, wondering at the urine being so hot and yellow.
He felt much better now. His head ached less. The boy lay quietly in bed, grateful for grandma's help and thinking that he must get well by morning and go to school tomorrow without fail. He also thought about how he would tell every-one at school about the three deer that had come to their forest. He would tell them that the white doe was the Horned Mother Deer herself, that she had a calf, already big and strong, and a great brown buck with huge horns; that he was powerful and guarded the Horned Mother Deer and her son from the wolves. He also thought that, if the deer remained with them and didn't go away, the Horned Mother Deer would soon bring Uncle Orozkul and Aunt Bekey the magic cradle.
In the morning the deer came down to the river. They emerged from the upper levels of the forest when the brief autumn sun was halfway up over the mountain range. The higher it rose, the brighter and warmer it became below, among the mountains. After the numb, chill night the forest came alive with the movement of light and colors.
Making their way among the trees, the deer walked unhurriedly, warming themselves in the sunny clearings, nibbling the dewy foliage on the branches. They went in the same order: first the buck, then the fawn, and last, the high- flanked doe, the Horned Mother Deer. They followed the path down which Orozkul and the old man had dragged the ill-starred pine log to the river the day before. The trace left by the log in the black earth was still fresh—a ragged furrow with scattered tufts of grass. The path led to the ford where the log had been left, caught among the rocks.
The deer walked to this spot because it was the most convenient watering place. Orozkul, Seidakhmat, and the two men who had come for the timber walked to the river to find the best way of getting the truck down to the bank, in order to get the log out with a towline. Grandpa Momun ambled uncertainly, with bowed head, behind the others. He did not know how to conduct himself after the previous day's scandal. He did not know what to do, what to say. Would Orozkul allow him to take part in the work? Would he drive him away as he had done yesterday, when Momun was going to try and drag the log out with the horse? What if he said, "Hey, what are you doing here? Weren't you told you're fired?" What if he insulted him before strangers and sent him home? The old man was torn with doubts. He walked as to an execution, yet he walked on. Behind him was grandma, pretending that she was just going on her own, out of curiosity. But she was really keeping an eye on him. She drove Obliging Momun to seek a reconciliation with Orozkul, to win his forgiveness.
Orozkul stepped out importantly—the lord of the woods. He walked, puffing, snorting, and throwing stern glances right and left. And though his head ached from the previous night's drinking binge, he gloated vengefully. Glancing back, he saw old Momun ambling behind him like a loyal dog whipped by his master. "Wait, I'm not done with you yet. I won't even glance at you now. You're nothing to me—an empty place. I'll have you crawling at my feet," Orozkul gloated, remembering the frenzied shrieks of his wife the night before as he was kicking her, stretched on the ground before him, throwing her out of his house. "Just wait and see. I'll get these fellows with their logs out of the way, and then I'll bring the two together, let them go at one another's throats. She'll scratch her father's eyes out—she's gone berserk, like a she-wolf," Orozkul thought to himself during the breaks in the conversation with his visitor as they walked.
The man's name was Koketay. He was a dark, burly peasant, the bookkeeper from the collective farm by the lake. He had long been on friendly terms with Orozkul. About twelve years ago he had built himself a house. Orozkul had helped him with the timber, selling him logs for boards at bargain prices. Then the man had married off his older son and built a house for him as well. And again Orozkul had supplied him with logs. Now Koketay was setting up his younger son on his own, and needed more timber for construction. This time, too, his old friend Orozkul came to his aid. Life was damned difficult. You
did something and hoped that now, at last, you'd have some peace for a while. But no, something else kept turning up. And a man couldn't get along nowadays without people like Orozkul.
"God willing, we'll invite you to a housewarming soon. Come, we'll have plenty of fun," Koketay was saying to Orozkul.
The other puffed smugly on his cigarette.
"Thanks. When we are asked, we don't refuse; when we're not asked, we don't invite ourselves. If you call me, I'll come. It wouldn't be the first time I visited you. I'm just thinking—it might be best if you don't start out back till evening. Let it get darker. The main thing is to get past the Soviet farm without attracting attention. If they find out . . ."
"You're right enough." Koketay was undecided. "But it's a long wait till evening. We'll start out slowly. After all, there's no patrol post on the road to check us. Unless you accidentally run into the police or someone like that . . ."
"That's just it," mumbled Orozkul, frowning with heart-burn and headache. "You can travel a hundred times on business and never meet a dog on the road, and then you'll take some timber once in a hundred years, and you'll be sure to get into a mess. It's always that way."
They fell silent, each thinking his own thoughts. Orozkul was angry because the log had been left in the river. Otherwise, the truck could have been loaded last night and sent off at dawn, and he'd be rid of the worry. But no, they had to get in trouble! And it was all the old man's fault, with his sudden rebellion. Decided to go against authority, to have his own way. All right! He will not get away with it so easily . . .
The deer were drinking when the men came to the river at the opposite bank. Busy with their own affairs and conversations, the people did not even notice the animals across the river.
The deer stood in the reeds, red with the morning light, up to their ankles in water, on the clear, pebbled bottom. They drank in small sips, unhurriedly, stopping now and, then. The water was icy. And the sun above was getting ever warmer and more pleasant. As they quenched their thirst, the deer enjoyed the sun. The dew that had dripped abundantly upon them on the way down was drying out. A light mist rose from their backs. The morning of that day was blessed and serene.
The White Ship Page 12
