Ah, if it is taken away, my choice will make the mirror fresh.
Then they all tried to work out the original couplet. Oyxon sent Gulsum to the library and had the poetess’s The Hidden One’s Anthology brought from there. After turning the pages, Oyxon exclaimed ‘I’ve found it!’ She recited the couplet:
The morning I greet with tears and sighs,
No breath can burnish my mirror of desire.
The contest was not over. Conolly produced a copy of the Babur-nama featuring several colour-plates, which he passed around for everyone to see: ‘This is the Red Fort, which Aurangzeb captured when he killed his brother Dara Shikoh; that’s where he locked up his own father Shah Jahan, and where he put his daughter Zeb-un-Nisa under house arrest. In this same prison Dara Shikoh had kept his son (and Aurangzeb’s nephew) Suleiman Shikoh,’ said Conolly, telling of the last bloody days of the Mughal emperors, keeping his audience captivated until past midnight. ‘To keep his throne and crown, Aurangzeb killed his brothers and imprisoned both his father and his daughter. At the end of his life, he wrote a testament bitterly repenting all these acts.’ Conolly presented a copy of this testament to Nodira, whose passion for all things Indian he had cleverly picked up on. Other souvenirs from his time in Delhi were handed around. Leaving Oyxon until last, while everyone else was cooing over their own gifts, he gave her a portrait of the Queen of England getting into a barouche; very discreetly, without anyone noticing, he winked at her.
—
‘Did you say Conolly?’ Muborak chimed in. ‘We’ve got him, too. We’ve got them all. We brought them from England. Let me tell you, brother, this story is very interesting. Just give our brother Moshe a bit of time, he’s got a lot on his hands…
‘When we arrived in London, all I had to do was say we’d come from Bukhara and my God, the invitations came flooding in, everyone’s door was open to us. We were guests of the grandsons of the English rabbi, Joseph Wolff. Rabbi Wolff went to Bukhara half a century earlier, looking for Stoddart and Conolly. And when he came back, he wrote a book as thick as a brick. We’ve all read it.’
Abdulla was both perturbed and intrigued by these stories of the English: in what sense could they connect with his novel? The more he heard of Muborak’s eager storytelling, the more Abdulla realised that they were mixed up in everything, impossible to leave out.
‘Chief Minister Hakim realised that his influence on Emir Nasrullo was waning. He presented himself to the Emir, he bowed to the ground thrice, then kneeled, reciting a solemn oath. The Emir asked: ‘What is your complaint?’ Hakim said, ‘Your Majesty, I have served you and your predecessors until my hair has turned white, and in doing so have acquired neither wealth nor power. I have thought only of your majesty’s glory. I have compared you to Timur Lang, to Alexander the Great. Well, then, what have I done wrong that you no longer require my advice?’
The Emir answered this question with another: ‘If you want something, why not say so?’ The Chief Minister said: ‘Why does Your Majesty turn to ruins the magnificent creations he has built? Why, after capturing the English foreigner, was he brought to Bukhara? England is a powerful kingdom, India is its province. The English have given refuge to two Afghan rulers. The infidel Ranjit Singh is threatening to invade Afghanistan, and if he succeeds he will not hesitate to attack Bukhara. Furthermore, Russia and Khiva have trained their eyes on us. The Shi’a kizilbash troops are ready to unite against us. May Allah preserve us from them all! There is only one way to save ourselves from these impending disasters: strike an alliance with the English.’
Nasrullo waved his hand, as if to say, is that your advice? I’ve understood! You’re free to go! Hunched, the white-haired Chief Minister left the Emir’s presence.
Believing him to be in the pocket of the English, the Emir killed this old-fashioned man, who had once put him on the throne!
—
The Islamic New Year had now passed. After this, the days would become hot, the apricot and cherry trees must have been setting fruit already. Very soon, the strawberries would be ripe. The Chorsu market must be full of greens: Chinese rocket, wild garlic, coriander and spring onions. The children would go to the Jar Canal to gather sorrel and mint. Was there any prospect of Abdulla tasting Rahbar’s delicious herb samsas?
The dear spring is on its way. The dear spring will soon be seen.
The time is shortly coming when we see her dress of green.
Spring’s silken skirt is stroking
Across the head of the damp black earth
Renewing its power and provoking
The black treasury to its gold give birth.
May our land be filled with growing!
May our souls smell spring’s sweet coming!
May our hearts with its spirit be bursting!
Abdulla had fallen asleep with bittersweet thoughts clouding his mind: he was awoken by the sound of his name, and led out into the corridor. This time, he was taken to see Vinokurov, who dismissed the escort before addressing Abdulla.
‘I’ve done everything you asked, Qodiriy. I’m guessing Yunusov has already had a confrontation with you: he was weeping. Beregin hasn’t said a thing. Cho’lpon asked me to give you this piece of paper here. Take it and read it, don’t be afraid! Then you can use it to roll a cigarette, unless you’ve given up smoking.’
Abdulla unfolded the proffered paper, and recognised Cho’lpon’s old calligraphic hand.
‘My dear Abdulla,
No person, no wave, no typhoon, no fire!
In my eye is the light of a grievous surrender.
Oh, my fiery past, conceal your face,
You have satanic, unjust powers.’
Beneath these lines was a decorative signature, done in the Arabic script: ‘Cho’lpon.’
Abdulla glanced up at Vinokurov, ‘May I write a few lines to him now?’
‘As long as there’s nothing anti-Soviet in them, brother.’
‘Nothing at all, just a few lines of verse. A poem to keep his spirits up.’
‘Just don’t write in the Arabic script,’ the turnkey ordered. ‘I’ll need to read it myself before I pass it on.’
Abdulla took the sheet of paper he was offered, and wrote:
When the lies and falsehoods start,
That, awaking from sleep, we send into existence.
A time will come when swords never stay in their scabbards
And at that time we’ll fly off as far as the blue sky.
Then he returned the paper to Vinokurov.
‘Nobody in the cell is giving you a hard time, are they?’ Vinokurov asked.
‘Not me, no; but Gena and his crew are throwing Muborak about like a stuffed toy.’
‘Well, you tell me if they start on you!’ Vinokurov slipped the piece of paper into his breast pocket and shook the tobacco out of two cigarettes into Abdulla’s cupped hand. ‘If they see you in the cell with cigarettes, you’ll be in trouble,’ he explained, ‘they’ll think you got them in return for snitching.’ He waited for Abdulla to hide the tobacco in his pocket, then shouted to the soldier by the door. ‘Take the prisoner back to his cell.’
—
Two days later, Muborak gave Abdulla the document he had promised, in exchange for enough tobacco for a roll-up.
If I reach Khiva, it is my wish to pass on afterwards to Kokand. Our relations with Khiva are fairly firm. Until Russia’s quarrel with this state is ended, we will not change our relations with the Khan of Khiva: we will only look after our own interests.
But if the Russians besiege Khiva, we will find other ways of getting to Kokand, and, winning over Fergana in the Emir’s favour; we will promote our idea of a union of peaceful Uzbek khanates in an independent Turkestan.
Arthur Conolly.
Into this document Abdulla rolled up the tobacco Vinokurov had given him two days previousl
y and then lit up. After his first puff, he passed the cigarette to Muborak. He wondered how Muborak managed to get any document he wanted into this place so easily. It had taken him enormous trouble to get just three very brief notes to his home, smuggled through Sunnat, and he was too afraid to attempt communication in any other way. The last thing he wanted was to get his family into any danger. But Muborak had a family that was preserving these documents: he’d said so himself. ‘My people at home have made plenty of copies, so don’t worry about using them to make cigarettes!’
Whatever was going on, Abdulla still didn’t fully trust Vinokurov, although in one thing, at least, the Russian wasn’t deceiving him: he had passed on Cho’lpon’s letter.
Muborak seemed to have noticed that the tobacco was different; frowning, he turned to Abdulla when a sudden shout from Gena made him jerk. With trembling hands, he passed his cigarette to Abdulla before hurrying over to join the thieves. At first, Abdulla allowed himself to be lost in his own thoughts, smoking and contemplating the Englishman Conolly. But the noise from the far side of the cell was gradually building to an uproar, making it impossible to think. When Abdulla looked over, he saw that the thieves had embarked upon a new form of cruelty. They had blindfolded Muborak as if for a game of hide and seek; one thief then climbed onto another’s back, opened his fly and stuck his penis straight into Muborak’s face, accompanied by screams and laughter.
Abdulla leapt to his feet without thinking what he was doing, marched over and struck the thief in the face with as much strength as he could muster. There was a brief, stunned silence, during which Abdulla had just time enough to feel his heart sink when he heard a small voice pipe up behind him: Sodiq. ‘Beat them up!’ And that was all it took. A moment later, all the ‘politicals’ – those who had the physical strength to do so – joined forces in attacking the criminals, while the weaker ones wailed and called for help. When the soldiers rushed in, stamping their feet, they had to tear the prisoners off each other. Gena and his crew were hauled out of the cell, and Kosoniy was appointed elder.
—
Madali was as changeable as the weather in winter. After hours spent happily flying his pigeons and banging away at his drums, the Emir would abuse the first person to cross his path. Drunk on beer, he would stagger to the harem and torment his wives, not sparing even the two prostitutes he’d set up as his procuresses.
One day he got it into his head to invade Jizzax, and set off with a mass of soldiers from Fergana. He delayed the journey by resting at some places where he pitched camp. One night, he got roaring drunk, left behind a hundred thousand soldiers and went off on his way with only a hundred men. When his generals, alarmed, saw that their Emir meant to go to war with just these hundred men, they tried all they could to dissuade him. Refusing to dismount, Madali shouted back at them, ‘I am a warrior for God. We’ll smash Jizzax and its troops in battle. I’ll lead the attack myself!’ The generals replied, ‘Your Majesty, you are the ruler of a great kingdom, but Jizzax castle has three thousand well-trained soldiers occupying it. Come, leave them to us; we’ll encircle Jizzax with our full force, while you stand back to enjoy the sight.’ The Emir appeared to have been won over, then suddenly rode away towards O’ratepa. Any who dared to go after him were cursed by the generals, but that didn’t stop his courtiers and companions from following in their leader’s suit. The Fergana army, abandoned by its ruler, remained pitched midway between Kokand and Jizzax. Only a week later did that army limp back to Kokand, straggling and destitute.
And this was the kind of stubborn, fickle character which Conolly now found himself having to contend with. The previous day Madali had shown Conolly his fluttering pigeons and boasted of his extraordinary drums. Today, he accused the Englishman of being a spy working for Nasrullo. ‘You’ve come to reconnoitre, then tell him the easiest route from Bukhara to Kokand!’ Madali was on the verge of throwing Conolly into a dungeon. But the Englishman used all the cunning he had:
‘If there is any force opposing English interests in Turkestan, then it is without a doubt Emir Nasrullo. He is not only sowing trouble between the Uzbek emirates and creating the conditions for a Russian conquest of Turkestan, but he has spat in Britain’s face by holding our officer Stoddart for the past two years. Tell me, Your Majesty, how can I possibly be working for such a man?’
Madali may have been drunk, or have been smoking hashish. He mumbled: ‘If you’re not a spy, why were you planning to go to Bukhara after you left here?’
‘To rescue my brother officer.’
‘You ignorant fool,’ Madali scoffed, ‘Nasrullo will throw you in the pit alongside him. When you’re rotting in his pit, squeezing out your pus and sores, you may remember what I’ve said.’
‘Your Majesty, if you wish to ease my situation, then allow me to obtain a letter of recommendation and an inscribed amulet for my journey.’
‘Do as you like, then!’ Madali exclaimed, exasperated, and set off for his porcelain dovecote.
—
The ornamental royal carriage followed the Kokand streets in the direction of the Shaykhon district. Inside, Oyxon had drawn back the silk curtain, and the sight of Conolly, who was sitting next to the driver, made her heart miss a beat. She suddenly recalled another carriage, another journey. It must have been the scent of spring in the air – it was the time when the daisies, the amaranths, the early roses and the aromatic basil were wafting their fragrance through the town – that made her head swim.
She remembered her childhood days in O’ratepa, when she gathered mint and sorrel by the canal banks, its crystal-clear water, and her grateful mother stuffing samsas with the herbs. If she closed her eyes, she could still see, quivering in her imagination, the pure blue sky which had finally emerged from winter, to be flung over the tall poplars like a gauze cloth.
The carriage rolled on, cutting through air that had cooled after sunset, but the evening held no fears for Oyxon, nor did the chill distress her. In the calm, she recalled a couplet she had written some time ago:
In this world of mine, like a deaf-mute looking round, I suffer for love,
In this sky of mine, like the day plunging, I blush a hundred times.
For some reason, these thoughts, her racing heart, her shallow breathing, were centred on the figure of the athletic foreigner sitting on the other side of the curtain.
Good, Oyxon thought, he reminds me of Gulxaniy, but why, when he requested a letter and an amulet from one of the Haji, did I offer to take him to my revered father? Granted, it was the Emir who gave the order, but might my father not chase us away from the door, saying, “To hell with his majesty the Emir!” Is this my way of repaying him for the portrait he gave me? He gives me the Queen getting into her barouche; I give him myself, riding with him in one of our carriages?’ As if searching for a sensible answer to her questions, she raised the curtain a fraction and saw red hair curling over Conolly’s neck from under his headgear. Gulxaniy, then Qosim, and after that her father passed through her mind.
After leaving the palace, there seemed to be nobody about. Conolly seemed to sense that Oyxon’s attention was fixed on him; to lessen the awkwardness, he began to sing. The song was in a language of which Oyxon knew not a single word, and the tune itself was strange, not at all like our grave, drawn-out melodies – even the sad notes had a playfulness about them. Conolly’s voice grew gradually louder; it had something of the stormy sea hitting the rocks about it, of broad green meadows and forests, and above all a yearning, a heartfelt longing for these things. Oyxon’s mind fitted the music to a couplet by Nodira:
With cries of woe, the hoop of time has broken free of the beloved,
My great grief, oh heart, is that you ignore my sorrowful state.
Does Conolly have a wife or a beloved waiting for him in his country? she wondered. She didn’t think anyone had thought to ask him that. Startled by where her thoughts were taking her, she shook h
erself and laughed aloud. Really, was she looking for another rival wife in a foreign country when she had a harem full of them here? As the laughter rose to her lips and filtered out from behind the curtain, the song being sung on its other side died down.
—
Why not? Abdulla asked himself. Though this would have its critics – he remembered how much abuse was hurled at Past Days: ‘How could Otabek marry Kumush without his parents’ consent? No Uzbek would do a thing like that!’
One evening, Abdulla was summoned to the door. Now that farce they called an interrogation was over, was Vinokurov’s conscience bothering him again? But it was Trigulov who had called for him.
On the interrogator’s desk was the same old fat dossier; but this time Trigulov left it closed.
‘Well, Qodiriy, will you smoke?’
Abdulla took a cigarette from the offered case. Trigulov said: ‘Take a few more, only it’s best to squeeze the tobacco out into your pocket: if they catch you with cigarettes in the cell, you’ll be in trouble.’
What trouble? Could they all be trained to say exactly the same things? Vinokurov had used those very words. Abdulla extracted another two cigarettes from the case and tipped the tobacco out into his pocket, then lit up one for himself. He nodded at Trigulov as if to say, at your service.
‘The novel I’ve been planning will be set in a prison,’ Trigulov began. ‘The main hero is a prisoner. But not just any old prisoner, no; he is an extremely unusual man. He doesn’t get on with anyone around him, because he’s a theatre director, a playwright. He’s used to everyone dancing to his tune.’
Abdulla drew deeply on his cigarette. Not a writer, but a playwright: he could be grateful for that, at least. Trigulov went on: ‘The prisoner is given a death sentence. True, there hasn’t yet been a trial, but the interrogator has whispered it in his ear. Because of this, the prisoner washes his hands of this world. When he gets back to his cell, he invents games based on everyday senseless things that have happened in his life, since he hasn’t the strength to face what is coming. Petty, trivial things: extra summons to see the interrogator, a routine confrontation, another prisoner joining him. Nothing changes. The extraordinary man is left to his own devices. Outside prison he has a wife and children. He thinks of them, for want of anything else to do, and amuses himself in idle chat with the other prisoners: that’s all he does.
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