by Chi Zijian
I asked him what the mukulén would grow.
‘The sound that came out was so nice to hear. At least a flock of little birds will grow out of it!’
How could such words fail to bring a smile to our hearts?
***
But our happiness didn’t continue for long. In 1974, Valodya left me for ever. This tragedy began with a comedy.
That summer a travelling cinema came into the mountains to cheer up the forestry workers. They travelled between logging sites and tree farms showing films. We had never seen a film, and when Valodya heard the news, he discussed it with Luni. They contacted two neighbouring urireng, and, liquor and meat in hand, they went to invite the cinema troupe to play films for us.
The forestry workers were very friendly, and once they heard we’d never seen a film, they agreed. There were two people in the travelling cinema troupe: the projectionist and his assistant. But the assistant had diarrhoea, so the workers dispatched only the projectionist. Our reindeer transported the two big boxes containing the film projector and electricity generator.
‘The projectionist is an intellectual sent down to the countryside for re-education,’ explained a forestry worker. ‘He used to be an assistant history professor at a university, and he’s under supervision.’ They instructed that after the film we should escort him back safely, and we must ensure that nothing went wrong.
We hadn’t had such a merry get-together for many a year. Members of two neighbouring urireng, more than forty in all, crowded into our camp. They brought liquor and meat from a fresh kill, and we lit a bonfire and ate and drank, sang and danced.
The projectionist looked to be in his forties with a very pale face that rarely smiled, and he said little. Everyone toasted him, but at first he declined. Later on he cautiously moistened his lips with baijiu, then sipped at it, and in the end gulped it down heartily.
When he came among us he was a piece of wet kindling, but our enthusiasm and joy quickly dispelled the air of gloom about him. We ignited him and he transformed into a joyful flame.
When the sky had been rubbed black, the projectionist instructed us to hang the white curtain on a tree. With the electricity generator rumbling, he set up the projector and started the film as we seated ourselves on the ground. When the first rays of silver white light were projected onto the screen, we cried out in amazement, and even the hounds curled up behind the screen began yelping in terror.
Shadows of buildings, trees and people appeared miraculously on the screen, everything in colour. The people up there not only moved about freely, they could speak and sing. It was really unimaginable. I forgot the storyline long ago, because the people inside the film talked and talked, struck poses and sang ‘Yee-yee Ya-ya’ endlessly.
We didn’t understand the lyrics so we watched the film in a state of some confusion. But we were still excited about it, because after all we could glimpse an unlimited vista on a tiny screen.
‘Films nowadays aren’t as interesting as older ones,’ said the projectionist. ‘There are just a handful and they’re mostly revolutionary “model operas”. Earlier films were in black and white, but they had a more human feeling to them and they were worth watching again.’
Puffball got angry. ‘Since there are beautiful ones to watch, why do you play ugly ones for us? Aren’t you just cheating our eyes?’
The projectionist hurried to explain. ‘The more interesting ones from before have all been judged “poisonous weeds”, and locked away for safe-keeping. They can’t be screened.’
‘You’re lying. Why would they lock away beautiful films? And anyhow, you can’t eat a film, so how could they be “poisonous weeds”? You’re bullshitting us!’
Puffball was all riled up and wanted to punch the projectionist. Valodya rushed over to dissuade him. ‘I’ll only forgive him if he empties a bowl of baijiu in one go,’ said Puffball.
So the projectionist had little choice but to take the bowl and finish it off.
The film was over but the fun continued. We circled the bonfire and began a round of singing and dancing. Encouraged by the drink in our stomachs, everyone wanted the projectionist to sing us a song. Thanks to the bowl of baijiu forced on him by Puffball, he was already dead drunk. Swaying from side to side, he slurred his words but managed to explain that he didn’t know how to sing. Could he recite a poem instead? Yes, he could.
The projectionist recited just one verse:
Eastward flows the mighty river,
Washed away by its waves are those
Gallant heroes of bygone millennia
Whereupon he suddenly fell over, lost to the world. The contrast between the grand verse he recited and his sudden collapse set everyone laughing. We began to appreciate the projectionist, because only an honest fellow would allow others to get him drunk like this.
We revelled until the moon leaned to the west, and then members of the two neighbouring urireng began to take their leave. It was entirely on account of their reindeer that they rushed back, because if the animals returned in the early morning and found their masters absent, they’d be anxious.
I rose the next morning to find An’tsaur busy making breakfast and brewing reindeer-milk tea. Normally we make just one pitcher, but that day he poured the first brew into a birch-bark bucket, put the lid on and heated another. I thought he wanted to drink a bit more than usual, so I didn’t ask why. But when he cooked the third pitcher, I thought it was odd.
‘Those people who came to watch the film last night have left, so now we have just one guest, the projectionist,’ I said. ‘And no matter how much he drinks, he won’t finish three pitchers!’
‘It’s true they left, but a lot of people arrived last night in the film,’ said An’tsaur earnestly. ‘Men and women, young and old, a whole bunch! I went looking for them just now but I couldn’t find them. I wonder where they slept last night. When they come back later, won’t they want to drink reindeer-milk tea too?’
An’tsaur’s words amused me, but he seemed a little ill at ease as I laughed. ‘Could it be that the people in the film have gone away?’ he mumbled. ‘They sang until midnight and left with their stomachs empty. Will they have enough energy to reach wherever they are going?’
I went back to our shirangju and repeated An’tsaur’s words to Valodya, and he laughed too. But then we fell silent because our hearts were filled with a sweet-and-sour emotion.
The projectionist didn’t rise until past nine because he had indulged in too much drink. He said his head ached, he felt thirsty and his legs were weak.
‘Never mind,’ said Valodya. ‘Have some reindeer-milk tea and you’ll naturally feel better.’
An’tsaur brought the pitcher over and poured the projectionist a bowl. He drank it, and then he said that his head really didn’t ache so, and his legs had regained their strength. Valodya told An’tsaur to refill his bowl.
‘Last night I saw a fairy-like maiden,’ said the projectionist. ‘She didn’t look an Evenki. Who is she?’
Valodya realised he was asking about Maikan. But Vladimir was ill disposed towards any man who took an interest in Maikan. ‘You were drunk. You must’ve been seeing things.’
The projectionist drank three bowls until his face displayed the colours of the dawning sun, and then he enjoyed a piece of our khleb too.
‘Next time you visit an Evenki camp, you’d better bring medicine for a hangover,’ joked Valodya.
‘I really envy your lifestyle. It’s so harmonious, a kind of lost paradise like the “Peach Orchard Spring” in the famous fable.’
Valodya emitted a long sigh. ‘Where on this earth is there such a paradise?’
At around ten o’clock, we packed the projection equipment in cases, loaded them on reindeer and saw the projectionist off back to the tree farm. Both Luni and Valodya should have escorted him, but Maksym suddenly got a stomach ache, so Puffball volunteered to go in Luni’s stead. Puffball had been very drunk the previous night and his face was still re
d and his breath reeked of liquor.
The projectionist feared Puffball and kept his distance. But Puffball could tell, and he patted the projectionist warmly on the shoulder. ‘Brother, the next time you come to show a film, bring some of those interesting “poisonous weeds” along!’
‘Absolutely! Absolutely!’ assured the projectionist. ‘Sooner or later “poisonous weeds” become “fragrant grass”!’
Five reindeer and three men left the camp. Each man rode a reindeer with the other two hauling the projection equipment. If I’d realised that I was parting with Valodya for good, I’d have hugged him tight and kissed him tenderly. But I had no inkling whatsoever.
Perhaps Valodya had a premonition. As I watched him mount his reindeer, he suddenly joked: ‘If I come back as a character in a film, don’t let me go hungry!’
Indeed, he did turn himself into a character in a film. That evening he returned to the camp on his back. They had encountered a bear on their way, and in order to protect Puffball and the projectionist, he departed from the mountains and rivers of our world, and left me for eternity.
I came to know Lajide because I was pursued by a black bear, an event that brought happiness to my side; and my eternal separation from Valodya was also due to a black bear. It seems this creature was both the beginning and the end of my happiness.
Generally speaking, bear mishaps occur in the spring. Having just crawled out from a tree hollow, black bears are terribly hungry, but since wild fruits haven’t yet matured, they search everywhere for game. That’s why most instances of bears harming humans happen then.
By summertime, there are plenty of edibles, such as various insects and wild fruits, so the black bears are fairly quiescent. Unless provoked, they rarely attack. But if aggravated, they will put a man in death’s corner.
Hibernating black bears choose a tree hollow as their hiding place. If the hole faces the sky, we call it a tiancang, or ‘sky cache’, but if the hole faces straight ahead or down, we call it a dicang, or ‘earth cache’.
By summertime both tiancang and dicang are empty and squirrels amuse themselves crawling in and out of them.
Puffball told me it was because of such an ‘earth cache’ that the tragedy occurred.
After they left camp and proceeded three hours or so, they stopped to rest. Puffball and the projectionist sat on the forest floor taking a smoke while Valodya went off to relieve himself.
They had just begun chatting when Puffball spotted a squirrel’s head poking out of a nearby dicang. He raised his rifle and fired. But it was a bear cub that he hit, not a squirrel!
It seems that a squirrel had gone inside the dicang to play. But when it discovered a bear cub there, it made a quick exit. The cub jumped out of its lair to snag the panicked squirrel, and Puffball’s bullet struck it dead.
The cub tumbled onto the forest floor, and Puffball turned to the projectionist. ‘Lucky you! You’ll have something delicious to eat in just a little while!’
But just as he was about to pick up the cub, a rustling sound emerged from the dense forest. It transpired that the she-bear had heard the rifle shot, realised her cub was in trouble, and come running over to the tree hollow. Puffball lifted his rifle and shot right at her, but his aim was off. He fired again, but again the bullet veered.
Now the mother bear made a mad charge for them, but when Puffball went to shoot again, the rifle chamber was empty. He hadn’t brought many bullets since this wasn’t a hunting trip.
If Valodya hadn’t fired at the animal from behind just in the nick of time and made her change the direction of her attack, said Puffball, he and the projectionist would have been done for.
The she-bear stood up and charged at Valodya. She was moving rapidly and Valodya fired again, and this bullet pierced her abdomen and tore open her intestines. But she was not cowed. She stuffed her guts back inside, and pressing the wound with one of her paws, rushed furiously at Valodya.
When Valodya shot his third round, the bear was already near him, but that bullet missed its target. Before he could get off the fourth round, the she-bear extended her blood-soaked forepaws, pulled Valodya towards her chest and then cast him down violently on the ground.
The projectionist fainted from fright while Puffball, rifle in hand, ran towards Valodya. But it was too late, for by then the she-bear had already ripped open Valodya’s skull.
She picked up Valodya’s gun, and grasping it like a tenacious soldier, proceeded towards Puffball. But her intestines came rippling out again, and, unable to withstand the pain, she put her front paws down and released the rifle. She crawled a few steps with great difficulty, and then stopped. Puffball ran forward and smashed her head with his rifle butt.
Puffball and Valodya were both good marksmen, and if he himself hadn’t drunk so much after happily watching the film the previous night, his hand wouldn’t have trembled, and Valodya wouldn’t have died in the bear’s paws.
And that is how the very last Clan Chieftain of our people departed.
We gave Valodya a wind-burial and there were many mourners. When his clansmen heard that he had ascended to the Heavens, they flocked from Jiliu Township and campsites scattered in the region. Nihau presided over his burial. The wind blew fiercely, and if it weren’t for Tatiana supporting me, I’d certainly have been knocked down by the gale.
Valodya’s departure left a blank spot in the ensuing months and years. I remember that once I missed Valodya so badly that my heart ached, but when I felt for my heart I discovered that my chest had turned into a hard rock. I threw off my clothes, grabbed my painting stick, and sketched freely on my chest. I painted and painted and a feeling of humiliation came over me. I cried. Just then Nihau entered my shirangju and she wiped clean my face and tears and the colours on my chest, and dressed me.
‘You painted a bear on your chest,’ she told me later.
***
In 1976 Viktor died from constant drunkenness. I didn’t attend his funeral in Jiliu Township because I didn’t care to see off a spineless man, even if he was my son. They buried him next to Ivan.
Viktor’s son September began working as a mailman for the Jiliu Township post office, and that year he fell in love with a Han maiden, Lin Jinju, who worked at a store in the township.
I went to the township again for their marriage in the autumn of 1977. Lyusya took me to the store to see Lin Jinju, and there on the shelves I saw two rolls of cloth displayed, one a bright milky yellow, and the other a deep blue-green.
The colours of Jiin River at dusk when Tibgur was swept away by the torrential current flashed before my eyes. These are the two colours of the river of my life. Sentimental memories flooded my heart and tears criss-crossed my face.
My tears made Lin Jinju uneasy. ‘Doesn’t Grandmother want me to be her grandson’s bride?’
I asked Lyusya to explain to her that I was just recalling a river.
After September’s marriage, Lyusya returned to my side. She still wore the deer-bone necklace Viktor had polished for her, and every month at the full moon she cried, for that’s when Viktor traditionally sought pleasure with her. I learned this secret soon after they married, because each month when the moon was full Viktor’s blissful cries rang out from their shirangju.
In 1978, Tatiana and Suchanglin moved back to our urireng with their new-born daughter Soma. Irina was already ten, and Tatiana sent her to primary school in Jiliu Township where September and Lin Jinju looked after her. Tatiana told me that she yearned for a son. Prior to Soma she had been pregnant in the mountains, but in her sixth month she tripped and fell and miscarried. It was a boy, and she and Suchanglin were so distressed they couldn’t eat for days.
An’tsaur arrived at the marriageable age too. I never thought any maiden would be keen on him, because his simple-mindedness was common knowledge. But one named Yolien took a fancy to him.
Yolien’s urireng was nearby, and once Puffball went there and recounted the amusing tale of how An’tsaur brewed s
everal pitchers of reindeer-milk tea for the film’s cast.
Everyone chortled, except Yolien. ‘Eni, An’tsaur is so kind and his heart is so pure. You can count on a man like that for a lifetime. I’m willing to marry him,’ she told her mother.
Yolien’s Eni repeated these words to Puffball, and Puffball was overjoyed. He ran back immediately and conferred with us about An’tsaur’s marriage, and we quickly held a wedding for them.
At the beginning Nihau and I worried that An’tsaur didn’t understand about what went on between a man and a woman. But not long after their marriage Yolien became pregnant and we were truly overjoyed.
Yolien didn’t rely on An’tsaur’s kind heart for a lifetime, however, for the following year when she gave birth to a pair of twins, she haemorrhaged badly and died.
We usually bury a woman who dies in childbirth the very next day. But An’tsaur wouldn’t allow it. He stayed at her side and didn’t permit mourners to approach. One day passed, then a second, third and fourth, and despite the cool autumn weather, her corpse began to rot. The stench attracted throngs of ravens.
‘Don’t think that Yolien has died,’ I said to An’tsaur. ‘She has actually become a seed, and if you don’t bury her in the soil, she won’t be able to sprout, grow and bloom.’
‘What kind of flower will Yolien bloom into?’
I recounted the legend Yveline had told me. ‘Lotus flowers blossom all across Lake Lamu, and Yolien will be one of them.’ Only then did An’tsaur permit us to bury his Yolien.
From then on, when spring arrived An’tsaur would ask me: ‘Has Yolien bloomed yet?’
‘One day when you find Lake Lamu, you’ll see her.’
‘When will that be?’
‘One day you’ll surely find it. Our ancestor came from there, and in the end, we shall all return there.’
‘Yolien will become a lotus blossom. And what about me?’
‘If you’re not a blade of grass next to the lotus,’ I said, ‘then you’ll be a star that shines down on its blossom!’
