by Chi Zijian
Ivan’s unexpected reappearance seemed like an illusion to Maria. ‘Tian ah! Tian ah!’ she murmured to the skies above, beating her chest. She couldn’t quite believe Ivan was there in the flesh.
Yveline was a bit lost too, as she could no longer blame Kunde for Ivan’s death. She suddenly stooped, as if a weighty stone were pulling her downward.
As for Kunde, he was like someone who had long been unjustly imprisoned emerging into the light of day. Tears of relief flowed down his face as he looked at Ivan, for if he hadn’t returned, Kunde would have lived out his days in self-reproach.
Vladimir couldn’t help himself and began to play the mukulén for the first time since his testicles were shattered. Everyone knew that he was not just welcoming Ivan; he was also playing a song of praise for Ivan’s beautiful bay horse. He blew and blew on his mouth harp and approached the horse with Dashi close behind. Tears stained their faces, and the animal’s eyes, bewitched by the tune, also shone.
When the sound of the mukulén disappeared into the forest like water flowing into the distance, Maria posed a tactless question. ‘When you went to the Soviet Union, did you find Nadezhda and your children?’
Ivan rubbed his face with those huge hands, and his tone was the same as ten years ago when Nadezhda left him. ‘I wouldn’t go looking for them. There’s no holding back someone who wants to leave.’
Ivan stayed two days and then mounted his bay. As he left, Dashi handed him a map – the one Yoshida had given Vladimir. When Vladimir returned to us he was about to burn it, but Dashi grabbed it from him.
‘There’s are all sorts of scribbling on it,’ said Dashi at the time. ‘Let’s keep it. It might prove useful.’
‘The Japanese lost the war. Keeping their things is just courting disaster!’ cautioned Yveline. But Dashi quietly stored the map away.
The day Ivan left I heard Kunde castigating Yveline again in the depths of night. Yveline still cried out miserably in pain. If Ivan’s rumoured death was once a whip in Yveline’s hands, now that Ivan had returned the master of that whip changed, and it was firmly in Kunde’s possession.
That winter, ageing Yveline became pregnant and her dry vomiting could be heard in the camp. Kunde treated Yveline with visibly greater tenderness. We understood, for Kunde intensely desired a child. He expressed thoughtfulness toward her as never before; he wouldn’t let her touch cold water, chop firewood, or feed salt to the reindeer out of fear one might get naughty and kick her belly, causing his cherished blossom to fall. Even when Yveline did her needlework, Kunde repeatedly reminded her to avoid bending suddenly and disturbing the foetus.
Yveline appeared unmoved by Kunde’s attentions and at times even sneered at him, as she kept right on doing her beloved chores. But one snowy day, Yveline suddenly vanished. Kunde was so anxious that his mouth became parched, and he shovelled snow between his lips madly as if flames were licking his stomach.
At dusk, when the snow stopped, Yveline suddenly appeared in the camp like a phantom. Her hair was dishevelled, face muddied with tears, and trousers stained purple. She stood before us with her legs crossed, legs that were like wizened branches blown by a fierce wind. She trembled violently and blood dripped, drop by drop, from between her legs, dyeing the snow with a patch of bright red love-peas.
Fitted in snowshoes, Yveline had criss-crossed the snow-covered mountain ridges and valleys all day in order to terminate the tiny life inside her that Kunde dreamed of day and night. I’ll never forget Yveline’s expression as she looked at Kunde. Behind that joyous, revengeful glance lay an unspeakable bleakness.
That night the sound of Kunde punishing Yveline echoed throughout the camp. But this time Kunde was using a real leather whip. Yveline didn’t cry in pain, no doubt because she had gone numb.
From then on, they rarely spoke to one another. They both grew elderly and taciturn, and in the years that followed, they were just a pair of weathered cliffs facing one another.
***
In the autumn of 1946 I gave birth to Tatiana. Valodya adored her. He often sat next to the fireplace, held her close to his chest and read poetry to her, unconcerned whether she comprehended.
Tatiana would squeal yee-ya, grab a lock of Valodya’s long hair and stuff it in her mouth like a grazing lamb. Her saliva got his long hair all wet and sticky. There was no way to comb it, so I had to rinse it regularly with water.
Valodya had frequent contacts with the Han, studied their language when young and could read books in hanzi. He liked to compose poetry and he was our people’s poet. If you find that there is a certain passion to the way I tell this tale, and that I express myself fairly well, this is Valodya’s influence.
After our marriage, Valodya divided his clan in two. He designated a man called Chirala as Headman, and had him take twenty or so clansmen to live in their own urireng. They continued their nomadic hunting in the Bistaré River area, but whenever they encountered a major matter requiring a decision, Chirala would pay a formal visit to their Clan Chieftain, Valodya.
A dozen or so of his clansmen came with Valodya and were absorbed into our urireng. He was still a Clan Chieftain, but in our urireng, he obeyed Luni in all matters. His moderate and magnanimous behaviour incurred the dissatisfaction of a member of their clan nicknamed Puffball, however. He said Valodya had betrayed his clan.
After Dashi married Zefirina, Maria was always brooding and tried to exclude her daughter-in-law. Maria wouldn’t look at her, and when she ordered Zefirina to do something, Maria’s eyes avoided her gaze, as if Zefirina were a poisonous flower.
Maria had always been very hard-working, but after Zefirina’s arrival she became lazy and assigned virtually all chores to Zefirina. If Zefirina showed the least sign of dissent, Maria wouldn’t feed her.
One day Maria told Zefirina to comb her hair. But when Maria noticed that the comb was tangled with hair, she didn’t admit she was losing her hair at a frightening rate. Instead, she insisted that Zefirina was purposely pulling out her hair to make her go bald.
She summoned Dashi and handed him the comb. ‘If you don’t poke out Zefirina’s eyes with this, I’ll tear out all my hair!’
Instead, Dashi turned the comb on his own eyes. Maria rushed forward and snatched the comb back. ‘Dashi! Are you trying to end your mother’s life?’ she sobbed.
Even though Dashi didn’t actually pierce his eyes, one was damaged and this made Maria’s hatred for Zefirina even more venomous.
Once Dashi was chopping firewood in the camp and Zefirina was helping him stack it. Dashi took a break and laid the axe on the ground. Zefirina didn’t notice it and, holding logs in her arms, she stepped over the axe. One of our taboos is that a woman must not step over an axe, for it is said that she will give birth to an idiot.
Maria insisted that Zefirina had done so on purpose. Maria ordered her to kneel down, grabbed a piece of wood and struck her so fiercely that Zefirina had to cover her head.
Watching this scene, Valodya’s clansmen were outraged. If it weren’t for Dashi picking up the axe and vowing that he was going to cut off his foot and make himself lame, Maria wouldn’t have stopped punishing Zefirina.
When Zefirina became pregnant, Maria insisted that since she had stepped over an axe, the foetus was cursed and would certainly be an idiot, and therefore Maria was determined that Zefirina should not keep it. For two days and two nights Zefirina cried, but to avoid making things difficult for Dashi, she slipped away, climbed a hill, rolled down it, and had a miscarriage.
When Zefirina returned to the camp, her face covered in tears and her trousers stained with blood, the scene reminded me of Yveline. But the difference was that one aborted herself out of love and the other out of spite.
Maria’s hatred for Zefirina and Yveline’s disharmony with Kunde were two dark clouds hovering over our clan. But a dark cloud also loomed over Valodya’s kinsmen, and that was Mafenbao.
Real mafenbao, or Puffball, is a kind of fungus that grows in the forest. I
t’s round and white at first, but after it matures it turns brown and contains a sponge-like filling. Children love to step on mafenbao for fun. When you stamp on it, it shrinks instantly with a ‘poof’ and a grey, ash-like floss flies out from the opening. Mafenbao has medicinal uses. If your throat swells or you’re bleeding from an external injury, just apply the mafenbao powder and it will get better quickly.
The man nicknamed Puffball was a drunkard, and short and fat. If you saw him walking from afar, you’d think a ball was slowly rolling towards you. He had a daughter named Lyusya who was three years younger than my Viktor. Lyusya didn’t look anything like Puffball. She had a lovely figure, arched eyebrows, and a curved mouth that looked very sweet when she smiled.
When Puffball was drunk he vented his anger on Lyusya. He made her remove his shoes and light his cigarette, and if her movements weren’t quick enough, he gave her a whack. If Lyusya came running out of their shirangju covering her face, everyone knew Puffball had slapped her again.
Valodya said Lyusya’s mother was a comely Daur maiden. One year in early spring she and two young Daur female companions were fishing on the Argun when a strong wind began to blow. The ice cover suddenly cracked and splintered into blocks, big and small.
In the midst of the panic, each maiden ended up on a separate block of ice. Even though they were on small blocks, the other maidens drifted towards the bank. The block carrying Lyusya’s mother was larger, but it followed the current and was swept towards the middle of the river.
In the blink of an eye it struck another big block of ice, and she fell into the water. There probably isn’t a Daur alive who isn’t a good swimmer, but the newly melted river was too cold. She splashed about for a moment but got cramps in her leg. The two girls who had just reached the bank shouted for help.
Puffball was passing by on his way back from Uchiriovo where he had been trading for ammunition. He threw off his clothes, dived into the bitingly cold river and rescued the Daur maiden.
Ignoring the fact that his daughter already had a sweetheart, her father insisted she marry Puffball out of gratitude for saving her life. So she left her Daur tribe and followed Puffball to live in the mountains.
Valodya said that right from the start he wasn’t optimistic about the union, because they weren’t a good match in terms of their looks, personalities or habits, not to mention that the maiden’s mind wasn’t on Puffball. So not long after she gave birth to Lyusya, she ran off. Fearful that Puffball would come looking for her, she left her clan with her sweetheart and was never heard of again.
From then on Puffball drank to excess and hated all females. He despised Lyusya, and said when she grew up she’d be indecent like her mother. Little Lyusya liked fish, as her mother had. But Puffball would intentionally toss fish into the fire until it was charred.
‘You’ve got to get it through your head,’ he said, ‘that just because you love something doesn’t mean you can have it!’
Viktor was keen on Lyusya, so whenever he found Lyusya running out from her shirangju, hands over her tearful face, he knew that Puffball had struck her and he was very angry.
To teach Puffball a lesson, Viktor went with Andaur to the forest and collected a basketful of mafenbao. Then they placed lots of round mafenbao, big and small, outside the entrance to his shirangju. When Puffball came out, he stepped on the fungus, and that ash-like floss flew right in his face, provoking a coughing fit.
Viktor was waiting at the side of the entrance to the shirargju. ‘Come quick and see – Puffball stamping on puffball!’ he yelled gleefully.
Vladimir was the first to come running over to see what the excitement was all about, and when he glimpsed Puffball’s pitiful countenance, he couldn’t help but guffaw. His laugh infuriated Puffball, who charged at Vladimir, landed a heavy punch on his chest and cursed at him.
‘Who are you to laugh at me?’ said Puffball. ‘You aren’t even a real man.’
This wounded Vladimir deeply, but he refused to show it. ‘You’ve got the brains of a child,’ he retorted. ‘Are you sure you have what it takes to be a man?’
And with that the two went at one another. Puffball grabbed Vladimir by the neck, and Vladimir kneed Puffball in the crotch.
‘Everybody come and watch!’ shouted Puffball. ‘This wimp wants to turn me into a eunuch too!’
After this incident, Puffball stopped speaking with our kinsmen, and we despised him more and more. Not only was he violent towards Lyusya, he didn’t even show respect for Valodya. He often mocked him, and said that Valodya had split up his own clan for the sake of a widow, so he was a wrongdoer. But Valodya understood Puffball’s deep-seated anguish, so he never quibbled with him.
Lyusya was a talented child who liked to gather wild vegetables and berries. She told Viktor that she liked such chores not only because she could avoid her father’s reproaches, but also because she could enjoy the bird chatter and the cool forest breeze all by herself.
One day Valodya and Luni killed a bear. They carried their prey back to the camp and the greeters all stood at attention and pretended to caw like ravens. That day Puffball volunteered to skin the bear himself. Before skinning a bear you must cut off its testicles and hang them from a tree because we believe that only a castrated bear will behave itself.
Puffball severed the bear’s testicles, wrapped them in grass, and then unexpectedly gave them to Vladimir to hang from a tree, grinning cruelly as he did so. Vladimir said nothing, but his face went pale and, his hands shaking, he took the testicles, walked unsteadily to a pine and attached them to a branch. When he turned around to come back, his eyes were sparkling with tears.
The feast following a bear hunt is the happiest time for us. After we’ve eaten bear meat, each person drinks a bit of the bear fat.
But because of Puffball’s insulting behaviour towards Vladimir, our clansmen were angry and sullen as we ate. Puffball could sense everyone’s resentment, but he intentionally spoke loudly and drank heartily.
Lyusya preferred not to see her father act like that, so she ate a small chunk of bear meat, picked up a birch-bark bucket and went off to pick the blueberries that were just beginning to ripen.
As soon as Lyusya was on her way, Juktakan began making a fuss, saying she wanted to go along too. The weather was very hot, but even under the scorching sun Nihau felt a shiver run down her spine.
‘You can’t go with Lyusya,’ said Nihau.
‘But I want to go! I want to!’
Juktakan was on the point of tears. ‘The child just wants to play. Let her go along,’ said Luni. ‘They won’t go far.’
‘No running off on your own. And stay by Lyusya,’ ordered Nihau. ‘Do you hear me?’
‘I know, I know!’ But when Juktakan ran off in pursuit of Lyusya, Nihau shivered again.
There are many taboos about eating bear meat. For example, no matter how sharp the blade used to cut its flesh, we call it kergingke, which means ‘dull knife’.
But Puffball intentionally brandished the knife and shouted: ‘Look here! See how sharp this knife is? If you don’t believe me, grab a hair and try it. Shwaa! And your hair will be sliced in two just like that!’
We mustn’t discard the bones carelessly when we eat bear. But Puffball cast the bones he chewed in every direction. He threw one into the fire, and another off into the distance like a stone.
Valodya was very cross. ‘If you dare throw away another bear bone like that,’ he scolded, ‘I’ll chop off your hand.’
‘I beg you, if you’re going to chop off my hand, then chop off both of them!’ said Puffball impudently as he munched on a bone. ‘Without my hands I can’t do any work, and you’ll all have to treat me respectfully like the Malu. Just think how comfortable I’ll be!’
Just as Puffball completed that sentence, he suddenly uttered a strange, ‘Ya!’ The bone he’d been munching was stuck in his throat, and his face abruptly turned into a ghostly grimace. His mouth wide, eyes bulging, his cheeks began to
tremble, his lips twitched, and his entire face, such a healthy red a moment earlier, turned green. His arms danced but he couldn’t utter a word.
Valodya stuck a finger inside Puffball’s mouth and swished it around, but didn’t touch any bone. It had to be lodged further down. Puffball grunted a low-pitched choking sound. Beads of sweat broke out on his forehead and he looked imploringly at his clansmen.
First we gave him a spoonful of bear fat and then patted him on the back, thinking that now his mouth was lubricated, with another few pats that bone would slide down into his belly like a slice of overripe fruit. But the bear bone had grown teeth and bitten into his gullet.
As this didn’t do the trick, someone suggested hanging him upside down, which would naturally dislodge the bone. Luni brought a rope, wrapped it around Puffball’s feet, hung him from a birch tree, and then patted him energetically on the shoulder. But like a seed that has finally found the most fertile of soils, the bone remained firmly embedded.
Everyone scrambled to take him down from the tree. By then Puffball’s face was purple and he was barely breathing. He made a big effort to lift his arms in Vladimir’s direction, his eyes full of regret, as if begging for forgiveness. Vladimir sighed and shook his hands towards Puffball to signal there was no need to apologise. Then he stood up and gathered the bear bones carelessly discarded by Puffball just a moment ago. Vladimir was so painstaking and sincere that you’d have thought he was searching for someone’s soul. Puffball’s eyes filled with tears.
But the bear bones gathered by Vladimir didn’t loosen the one lodged in Puffball’s throat. His breath grew fainter. We had tried every idea but to no avail. That bear bone had probably set its mind on severing Puffball’s throat.
Everyone’s gaze turned simultaneously to Nihau. Only she could save him!
Trembling, Nihau remained mute and buried her head in Luni’s arms. Her behaviour made Luni comprehend that if she saved Puffball, they might lose their beloved Juktakan. Luni also began to shake.
