by Chi Zijian
‘But what if the Yellow Sickness keeps you there for ever. Who’ll look after Maria and Hase?’ asked Luni.
Dashi was mute. In the end he didn’t leave the camp, but his eyebrows remained knitted.
The Yellow Sickness was a poisonous flower, blooming for almost three months and then withering in the autumn. That bout of the disease claimed the lives of thirty people. I couldn’t have imagined that the sickness would sweep away all but one member of Lajide’s huge brood, Vladimir, his younger brother. When I heard that there were just nine people left in his urireng, and that pitiful Vladimir had lost all his relatives, I brought him into ours. Even though Lajide was no longer with us, I felt Vladimir was family.
Vladimir had been a lively teenager, but watching helplessly as one blood relation after another departed like the stars at dawn, he became taciturn. When I went to fetch him, he was crouched like a stone by the riverside. In his hand he held the mukulén – a mouth harp left by his father. He simply watched me, motionless.
‘Come along with me, Vladimir,’ I told him.
‘Is the Yellow Sickness a Spirit?’ he asked forlornly. ‘How can it carry away a person just like that?’ When he finished speaking, he put the mukulén to his lips, lightly blew a note, and then his tears cascaded.
Zefirina survived. Dashi was incomparably happy but Maria began to moan.
Dashi liked Vladimir a lot. He taught the boy how to ride a horse, and the two rode on a single mount. They looked just like brothers. Once again I heard Vladimir’s laughter, and when he played the mukulén, it seemed filled with a balmy spring breeze.
It wasn’t just the children who liked to listen, even grown-ups like Yveline and Maria did too. The sound of the mukulén in the camp was like a happy little bird that put us in a cheerful mood.
Bucks often battled ferociously to win a mate during rutting season. So every September, to prevent goring, we severed the sharp points of their antlers, and sometimes even covered their mouths with a wire halter. Ivan and Hase formerly handled these tasks, but now they were carried out by Dashi and Vladimir.
The studs aside, the other bucks usually had to be castrated. I dreaded listening when they were neutered because they shrieked wretchedly. Back then, the method of castration was quite cruel. After the male reindeer was pushed down on the ground, a cloth was wrapped around its testicles, and then smashed with a wood pole. At that instant the buck’s wail resounded over the mountains and down into the valleys. Sometimes the castrated bucks even died. I wondered if it wasn’t simply the wounding that did them in, but perhaps because they had lost their qi, their life-force.
Our men were typically a bit hesitant about performing castration. Unexpectedly, Vladimir performed this chore crisply and decisively. He said that he had learned the craft from his father when young. When he smashed the bull’s testicles, his handiwork was quick so they didn’t suffer too much, and after the castration he played his mukulén, consoling them with music to speed their recovery.
Dashi and Vladimir penned the studs up during the day and only let them out at night for foraging and mating. That year not one of our bucks died from castration, and they all looked strong and healthy.
That winter a Han named He Baolin arrived in our camp on a reindeer. He had come to make a request of Nihau. His ten-year-old son was very ill with a high fever and couldn’t hold down his food. Baolin begged Nihau to save his child.
In general, a Shaman is happy to rid someone of an illness. Nihau’s mouth agreed but her eyebrows frowned. Luni thought she was worried about her children, and to comfort her he assured her that he was capable of looking after Grigori and Juktakan.
Before Nihau set out with her Spirit Garb and ritual implements in hand, she paid no heed to Juktakan who was playing next to the hearth, but she held Grigori to her bosom and kissed him again and again, her eyes shiny with tears. Even when far from the camp, she kept looking back at Grigori as if she hated to part from him.
Ever since his birth, Nihau had kept Grigori close by her. The first two days after her departure, Grigori didn’t miss her much. He and Andaur happily learned the Bear Fight Dance from Luni in the snow. But over the next two days Grigori began demanding to see his mother. ‘Eni is mine,’ he said. ‘Why did someone take her away?’
‘Eni has gone to cure a child and she’ll be back very soon,’ Luni told him.
Grigori began climbing trees like a lynx, saying he wanted to get to the top and see if he could spy some trace of Eni. The very day Nihau was on her way back to our urireng, Grigori clambered up the tallest pine near the camp. He had just seated himself on a cluster of large branches when a ghostly raven flew towards him, fluttering its wings noisily.
Grigori stretched out his hand to grab the bird, but the raven recoiled and flew off towards the sky while Grigori lost his balance and came hurtling down.
It was early morning, and Maria and I were standing in the camp greeting the returning reindeer. We saw Grigori’s descent. He looked like a big bird pierced by an arrow, screaming and falling with his arms open wide. His last call to the living: ‘E-n-i!’
By the time Maria and I carried Grigori’s badly mangled body back to the shirangju, Nihau had returned. A shiver ran down her back as she entered. She glanced at Grigori. ‘I know. He fell out of a tree.’
Sobbing, Nihau told us that when she left the camp, she knew that if she saved the life of that sick child, she’d lose one of her own.
‘Why?’ I asked.
‘The Heavens summoned that child. But I kept him here on the earth, so my child had to go in its place.’
‘You could have refused to save the sick child!’ sobbed Maria.
‘I’m a Shaman,’ said Nihau forlornly. ‘How can I see someone in death’s clutches and not save him?’
Nihau herself sewed a white cloth bag, put Grigori’s body in it and cast him on a south-east hillside. She sang Grigori’s last ballad there:
O child, my child,
You mustn’t go down under,
Where the sun shines not,
And the cold reigns.
O child, my child,
If leave you must, then go to the Heavens
Where there is brightness and
A shining silver river
And Spirit Reindeer to rear.
***
Cutting river ice to melt for water is an essential winter task. We use a metre-long wooden handle with a sharp iron tip to chisel ice from the river surface, and put the piles of ice in a bag or a birch-bark bucket. If the water source is nearby, we carry them back directly to our campsite, otherwise we transport them on the back of our reindeer.
That winter Nihau and Luni were like madmen. Every day they went to a lake or a river to cut ice, and no matter the distance, they didn’t use reindeer to transport it; they insisted on using their own bodies, and they preferred to go out and cut ice after dinner. After one, two or three trips and the moon had set in the west, they returned exhausted to their shirangju, laid down their heads and fell asleep at once. It was as if they wanted to use the ice-cutting to find their way through the endless night.
In front of the camp were towering heaps of ice. Under the midday sunshine, those stacks emitted a rainbow that sparkled like gems.
I often saw Nihau shedding tears among the ice piles. When Yveline, who still brooded that Nihau hadn’t married Jindele, saw Nihau looking hurt, she’d hum a happy tune. Perhaps Nihau’s misfortunes lessened the guilt Yveline felt towards Kunde.
In the eleventh year of the reign of the Kangde Emperor, in the summer of 1944 that is, Ludek the guide and Wang Lu the interpreter brought Suzuki up into the mountains again. By this time Suzuki could speak the Han tongue fairly well, and he summoned the urireng members himself.
At first, he asked if Ivan had returned. We told him no. ‘If Ivan comes back, you must bring him under guard to the Kwantung Army Garrison,’ he said. ‘Ivan is bad. He is your enemy. If you conceal his return and do not report it, Comman
der Yoshida will arrest everyone in your urireng!
‘The Yellow Sickness is over now, so training will be held as usual. If you don’t train well as a unit,’ he said, ‘how will we handle the Soviets?’ I think the Japanese had an inkling that their final days loomed.
Suzuki told Luni to bring the entire catch from our winter hunt. ‘After we reach Uchiriovo, I’ll personally take responsibility to exchange them for the goods you need. I’ll have Ludek deliver them to you up here in the mountains.’ You could tell that he was a military man who aimed to make a killing by doing business on the side.
At that time Vladimir was almost fifteen, and having only just survived the Yellow Sickness by the skin of his nose, he was very vigilant about the Japanese. While Suzuki was busy admonishing everyone, Vladimir remained hidden. But he was a naïve lad, and when he began blowing on his mukulén, it echoed like the mountain wind and revealed his whereabouts.
Suzuki followed the sound to its source, and asked Vladimir how old he was.
‘I’m fourteen,’ he replied gingerly.
Suzuki took the mukulén from Vladimir’s hand and tried blowing on it, but no sound came out. He shook his head, handed it back and told Vladimir to play a tune.
He did so, and Suzuki was very pleased. ‘You’re fourteen now,’ he said, ‘and it’s time for you to serve Manchukuo. You should go to the Kwantung Army Garrison too.’
Vladimir was inseparable from Dashi, and wherever he went, Vladimir was naturally willing to go. Vladimir nodded to signal his willingness.
Suzuki pointed at the mukulén in Vladimir’s hand. ‘And bring that with you to play for Commander Yoshida!’
Dashi realised that Suzuki wanted Vladimir to bring his mukulén in order to ingratiate Suzuki with his commander. And since Dashi couldn’t bear the thought of leaving behind his beloved horse, he had a bright idea.
‘That’s the war-horse Commander Yoshida left behind,’ he said, pointing at his beloved mount. ‘He hasn’t seen it for years and must miss it terribly. Why not take it back to the garrison and show it to Commander Yoshida?’
Suzuki agreed. After all, it would be convenient to use the horse to transport the urireng’s winter catch.
Luni knew that after carrying away all the fruits of their winter hunting, Suzuki would probably pilfer a good portion for himself. Putting their catch in his hands was like stuffing a few plump hares in a wolf’s mouth. So taking advantage of the moment when Suzuki was indulging in drink, Luni quietly passed three bundles of squirrel pelts and two bear galls to me. ‘Stash them in a hollow tree near the camp!’ he said.
But as he set out to leave the mountains, Suzuki was noticeably suspicious about the number of pelts. ‘Why are there so few?’ he asked Luni.
Luni told him that last winter there wasn’t much game and bullets were in short supply, so they hadn’t killed many animals.
‘If you’re hiding your catch, I’ll confiscate your rifles!’ said Suzuki.
‘Go ahead and search,’ said Luni coolly. ‘If you find any hidden, I’m willing to hand over all our rifles to you!’
Suzuki didn’t conduct a search. He probably realised that if we had concealed something, searching for it would be as difficult as climbing to the Heavens.
Once again just women and the young were left in the camp. We busied ourselves, for we had to mind the reindeer and attend to the children. A few days later, Suzuki did send Ludek to bring us the goods obtained in exchange: a bag of whole-wheat flour, one box of matches, two packets of coarse tea and a bit of salt. It was baijiu that Yveline most longed for, and when she saw that the miserably few items obtained in exchange for our winter catch didn’t include even one bottle, she was so angry that she vented her frustration on Ludek. She even insisted that he must have drunk it all on the road.
Ludek was indignant. Suzuki had said since only women and children remained in the mountains, they wouldn’t need spirits. So Ludek hadn’t transported baijiu for any of the urireng.
‘If I want liquor, I don’t need to snatch it from your mouths. I can buy it any time and anywhere I like back in Uchiriovo!’ said Ludek.
‘Pah!’ scoffed Yveline. ‘You’re just a slave to the Japanese, a walking map. You bring them into our mountains year after year and get your soldier’s rations every month, so of course you don’t worry about food and drink!’
Ludek sighed again. After he unloaded the goods, he led his horse away without even sipping a bowl of water.
I still had a birch-bark bucket of blueberry wine I’d brewed myself, and I carried it over to Yveline with both my hands. That evening she emptied two bowls in succession and staggered away from the campsite. When she was tipsy she liked to go and drink from the river.
Not long after she arrived there, we heard a sombre sound. At first we just assumed it was the river moaning, because it was the rainy season and the river waters were rising.
But later Nihau could tell that was Yveline sobbing. It was the first time I ever heard her cry like that. No one went to comfort her. We just sat outside our shirangju and quietly awaited her return.
Her moaning continued, and when Yveline finally came staggering back to the camp it was very late. There was a full moon and the night was almost as bright as daytime. The silver moonlight blanketed her, and we could clearly see her loose-hanging hair and a snake twisting in her left hand. She walked to the clearing in front of the shirangju. Her feet began to dance to and fro, and the snake swayed too.
Suddenly, the snake miraculously stood up straight on Yveline’s hand, raised its head and leaned towards her, as if to murmur something in her ear. An instant later Yveline fell on her knees. ‘Tamara, forgive me,’ she said. ‘Go forth in peace.’
Then the serpent jumped out of her hand and wriggled away in the grass.
I don’t know how she caught the snake alive or why Yveline uttered my mother’s name. After the snake left the camp, Yveline went back to her shirangju and slept.
The next day I asked her why she had called out Mother’s name. ‘Did I really bring a snake back with me?’ she asked. ‘Are you sure that’s what you saw? I was drunk, I don’t remember a thing.’
I assumed she was telling the truth and asked nothing more.
Many years later at Ivan’s funeral, we noticed two maidens had suddenly appeared, claiming to be Ivan’s goddaughters. As we were trying to guess where they had come from, Yveline – short-sighted by then – told us that this pair of young ladies decked out in white must be the foxes whose lives Ivan had spared.
Everyone in our clan has heard that tale. It is said that one day the young Ivan went hunting on his own deep in the mountains. He walked all day without encountering any prey, but at dusk he suddenly spotted two snow-white foxes running out of a cave. Excited, Ivan raised his rifle and prepared to fire when one of the foxes spoke to him.
‘Ivan, we know that you are a fine shot!’ it said, bowing respectfully.
When he heard them speaking in a human tongue, he realised the foxes were Immortals who had attained enlightenment, and so he let them go unharmed.
It was at Ivan’s funeral, all those years later, that Yveline finally confided what transpired that night at the riverside. She had been sobbing so hard that she wanted to bury herself in the river, but just then a snake quietly crawled up behind her, climbed her neck and wiped away her tears. She realised that the serpent was of a special provenance, so she brought it back to the camp.
But when she began to dance and wave the snake about, it unexpectedly pressed close to her ear and spoke to her in a human tongue: ‘Yveline, do you really believe you can out-dance me?’ Recognising Tamara’s voice, she knelt down and released the snake.
By the time Yveline recounted all this to me, she was already an old woman flickering like a candle in the wind. She had no call to lie. Granted, I didn’t hear the snake speak, but I did hear Yveline pronounce Tamara’s name, and I saw her kneel before it. From then on, I’ve forbidden my children and grandchild
ren to kill snakes.
The training in the summer of 1944 was the last for our urireng’s men. The following year the Japanese were defeated and surrendered. That last session was very short, just twenty days or so, and then the men returned. But neither Vladimir nor that horse returned, and Dashi looked especially downhearted. He said Commander Yoshida liked to hear Vladimir play the mukulén and kept him to serve as his mafoo, or groom, so the horse stayed there too.
I was very worried about Vladimir. ‘Why didn’t you insist on bringing him back too?’ I asked Luni.
‘I did,’ he replied, ‘but Suzuki wouldn’t hear of it. Yoshida was fond of Vladimir and his mukulén playing, and couldn’t do without him.’
‘Vladimir wasn’t keen to remain behind,’ explained Dashi, ‘but Suzuki threatened that if he didn’t stay at his post as a mafoo, he would slaughter the horse that we both adored, so he had no choice.’
It had never occurred to us that the horse would be the source of Vladimir’s lifelong misfortune.
In the first ten days of August, 1945, Soviet planes appeared in the sky and the mountain forests rumbled with the sound of guns. Very soon the Soviet Union’s Red Army had crossed the Argun and attacked the Kwantung Army Garrison. We realised that the last days of the Japanese were at hand.
After the event Vladimir told us that even before the Red Army arrived at the Kwantung Army Garrison, things were already in chaos. The Japanese began incinerating documents, destroying goods, and rushing to prepare for retreat. Although the Japanese Emperor had not formally declared defeat, Yoshida knew that the game was up.
As Yoshida withdrew with his troops, he stuffed a map inside Vladimir’s shirt. ‘I can’t guarantee your safety! Get on your horse, go back into the mountains and find your family. You’re young, and if you lose your way take a look at this map.
‘If you run into the Soviet Army, don’t admit you served as a mafoo for the Japanese!’ He also gave Vladimir a rifle, matches and biscuits.
Just before his departure, Yoshida asked Vladimir to play his mukulén one last time. Vladimir chose ‘Parting at Night’, a tune that his father had taught him. He had played this song when the Yellow Sickness claimed his loved ones. The sad, haunting tune covered Yoshida’s face in tears.
