The Exile: A novel about Taras Shevchenko

by Zinaida Tulub

  “Where is the flock? Where is the herd?!” he screamed at his kin and servants.

  The people looked at each other in confusion. The camels were already on their feet and their usually contemptuous eyes looked calmly and proudly at the people. The saddled horses with slackened girths snorted and shook the sand off their pelts, but there was no more than half the horses left and the sheep had disappeared altogether.

  “Where is the flock?! Where is the herd?!” Djantemir kept yelling ever more loudly.

  Presently Shauken came out of her yurt.

  “Do not ask, but order!” she interrupted her husband sharply. “Make the women and old men dig up the belong­ings of the aul and the men look for the animals.”

  Shauken’s words seemed to have made Djantemir sober, and the jigits themselves had realized by now that finding the flock would save them from death by hunger. They quickly tightened the saddle girths, jumped on the horses and galloped off into the probable direction the storm had driven the flock.

  First of all the people of the aul raised Zeineb’s white yurt which collapsed at the outset of the storm. The elderly, corpulent Zeineb had almost suffocated under the weight of the kerege. When she had come to, she joyously pressed her little grandchildren to her side, and asked:

  “Where is Kuljan?”

  “What? Wasn’t she together with you?” Djantemir asked. “She was but when the yurt collapsed she disappeared somewhere.”

  “Call Kuljan!” Djantemir ordered. “Who saw her dur­ing the storm?”

  “She dropped in at my yurt,” Shauken said reluctantly. “She opened the flap and let a lot of sand in, so I ordered that she lower the flap, but she got angry and left. I haven’t seen her since,” Shauken lied, concealing how she had actually chased Kuljan out into the storm.

  Everyone started looking for the girl, but she was no­where to be found, neither in the yurts nor in the collapsed jolim uyami by the rocky hills. So people started probing the sand with poles, and whenever a pole struck against something soft, the sand was carefully dug aside and either a rug, a rolled up carpet, or at times an unconscious person was unearthed. While the unconscious were coming to, the search continued, but there was no trace of Kuljan.

  Jaisak was lying off to one side and moaning quietly: when the sandstorm had broken, he dropped to the ground between the camels and shouted to his mother that she quickly take cover at the foot of the rocky hill.

  On learning that Kuljan had disappeared, he got up and made a second round of the camping site, probing the sand with a soyil. But his search was in vain, he only found the dead Faizullah who had suffocated under a dune, and his teenage grandson. They managed to bring the boy back to life. But still there was no trace of Kuljan. Crushed with despair, Jaisak stuck a hand into his pocket and found something soft and silky in it. It was a ribbon from Kuljan’s braid he had found in the morning and for­gotten to give her back. He clutched it with a feeling of sadness and suddenly recalled his wolfhounds and Jolgusta, Kuljan’s favorite dog. There were only four of his bold four-legged friends left after another two had died fighting the wolves. Jaisak called the dogs, lot them sniff the ribbon, and ordered them to seek the scent.

  The wolfhounds started to run in circles, their snouts close to the ground. Jaisak went up to his workhorse, tightened the saddle girth with one hand, and taking hold of the horse’s withers, swung into the saddle with an ef­fort.

  “Where are you off to?” Kumish asked, frightened.

  “To look for Kuljan,” he answered matter-of-factly.

  “But you’re not well yet! Stop!” she cried.

  Jaisak did not so much as turn round. He rode slowly, looking intently at every bump and wrinkle on the ribbed sand. The wolfhounds and Jolgusta circled around him. Now they seemed to have picked out the scent, then they stopped again, raising their snouts and barking in confu­sion. Some time later all of them suddenly dashed ahead, ran up a high drifting dune, and rolled down its opposite steep side. Here they sniffed the ground again. Then Jol­gusta went down on her haunches, lifted her head and broke out in a drawn-out howl, while Koskar and Barbass started to dig the sand for all they were worth.

  Jaisak’s heart missed a beat on hearing that dismal howl. He jumped from his horse, slid down the slope of the dune, and helped the dogs with a spade.

  If it had not been for the piece of felt which Kuljan covered herself with against the hail of stones, she would have suffocated long ago. The felt had bent over her head in a small vault and had thus trapped some air. She had lost consciousness during the last burst of the storm, and so was buried not too deeply under the sand. Jaisak dug the sand with quick strong movements, which made the pain in his shoulder so unbearable he bit his lips until they bled. A corner of the felt came in sight, then a limp suntanned hand. After throwing aside another five or six spadefuls of sand, he raised the felt, picked up the uncon­scious Kuljan by the waist and pulled her out. Jaisak start­ed to force air into and out of her lungs as he had once seen the Yayïk Cossacks doing to a drowned man. He did it awkwardly and unrhythmically, but still after some mi­nutes the deathly yellow face of Kuljan turned a dim pink, and a light breath escaped her parched lips. She stirred them, trying to open her eyes, which made her moan faintly.

  “Oh, my eyes,” another moan escaped her lips. “Sand…”

  He did not have a drop of water about him nor a clean handkerchief to wash and clean her eyes under the heavily ringed swollen eyelids. He had nothing, except for the ribbon by which the dogs had picked out her scent. He lifted one of her eyelids with a gentle touch of his finger and cautiously started to pick out the sand with the ribbon folded in two. She gave a moan, tore herself from his hands, but he checked her gently and said:

  “Have patience, Kuljan Djan. Your eye is full of sand, have to clean it. So be patient, my dear.”

  “It hurts,” she said with a moan again, but did not struggle in his hands anymore.

  When one eye was clean, Jaisak, not knowing how to ease her pain, licked first one and then the second tear-filled, bloodshot eye. His spittle soothed her eyelids and allayed the burning pain.

  “Do it again!” she asked quietly, when her eyelids had dried. “I feel better when you lick them.”

  He bent forward, pressed his temple against hers for a moment, and her eyelids brushed against his cheek several times with a barely felt touch like the petal of a flower or the wing of a butterfly.

  Kuljan started. Overcoming her pain, she opened her eyes for a moment, and their eyes met. It was no more than a fleeting glance. No more than a brush of his eyelids against her temple — the lightest breath of tenderness — had made both of their hearts miss a beat.

  A delicate blush beautified her cheeks. Shyly and carefully he helped her to her feet and onto his horse with his sound hand, and walked alongside the horse, going round the steep slope of the dune.

  They did not exchange a single word nor did their eyes meet anymore, but both realized perfectly well that a cherished secret had penetrated their hearts, a secret which they could never tell anyone in the whole world, because human language still lacked such limpid, fragrant and ethereal words.

  6

  The Visit to The Gerns

  The next morning the battalion’s quartermaster-sergeant brought Shevchenko the full set of a soldier’s outfit.

  Putting on the uniform, Shevchenko seemed to awaken for the first time since his short rest among kind people. The thought that he would be wearing this uniform through his twenty-five-year stint in the army beaded his forehead with cold sweat.

  Of the three uniforms he was offered none fit him. Mark­ing with a piece of chalk the places that had to be expanded on the largest of the uniforms, the quartermaster-sergeant grumbled angrily:

  “My, what a paunch to grow, God forgive me for saying so! What’s good for you in height doesn’t come together at the belly. Never mind, our drill will get the fat out of you in no time.”

  For some reason Shevchenk
o believed that he had to pay for the uniform, and as he sadly calculated in his mind the expenditures he would have to incur, he asked:

  “How much do I owe you for all that?”

  “Forty rubles,” the noncom answered, without batting an eyelid.

  Shevchenko counted out the money without arguing. Two skinhead recruits, who had come to receive their uniforms as well and had witnessed the scene, could barely swallow their laughter and ran out of the barracks where they gave vent to their bridled passions.

  “What a fool!” they roared with laughter, almost going down on their knees and clutching their bellies from the fun. “Did you ever see such a freak?! And he’s supposed to be a nobleman! An artist, they say. Studied at some sort of ‘cademy!”

  “What is going on here?! Why this wild laughter?” the stern voice of an officer suddenly rang out.

  At the sight of the officer the soldiers snapped to atten­tion. “Your Exlency, we’ve got a fool of a transit convict here. The quartermaster-sergeant brought him a uniform for which he paid money.”

  “Who is the fool you are talking about?”

  “We don’t know. Shevchenko’s his name.”

  The officer went into the barracks. The orderly on duty jumped to his feet and rattled off the report.

  “At ease!” the officer waved his hand, and asked, “Who’s Shevchenko here?”

  “I am,” said Shevchenko, who had changed into his canvas suit again.

  “That’s no regulation response!” the officer remarked, not knowing yet how to react to the man’s liberty for which an old soldier would have been dispatched to the guard-house at once. “What is the proper regulation response?”

  “Excuse me, sir, but … I haven’t learned it yet,” Shevchenko mumbled, snapping to attention.

  “All right, you’ll have enough time for that.” The officer smiled involuntarily. “So tell me the truth only: how much did you give the quartermaster-sergeant and what for?”

  “I paid forty rubles to the soldier who brought me the uniform. He said that it costs that much.”

  “Did he demand the money?”

  “Oh no. I just asked the price and he told me.”

  “Did he take the money?”

  “Of course he did.”

  “What a scoundrel!” the officer said bursting into laughter. “Never mind, he will return you the money right away, Do not worry. But I advise you to learn the regulation responses as fast as possible in order to avoid trouble.”

  What the officer said to the quartermaster-sergeant re­mained unknown, but fifteen minutes later the sergeant, raving mad and his face brick-red, flew into the barracks and threw the crumpled bills on Shevchenko’s bunk.

  “Here you are! Choke on your money for all I care, you mutt! You damned squealer! I don’t need your forty rubles. I didn’t ask for them, did I? Or demand them? I just took them, because you’re such a fool who doesn’t know what’s what in life!” he spat out angrily, and without waiting for a reply, rushed out of the barracks as madly as he had entered it.

  In the end, toward the evening, Shevchenko received the niform not from the quartermaster-sergeant, but from the battalion tailor.

  Then he was called to the battalion office and given a leave pass for a total of eight days during which time, as it was explained to him, he did not have to show up in he barracks at all or, if he wanted, he could come for breakfast, dinner and supper.

  It warmed Shevchenko’s heart to realize that kind people could exist everywhere.

  Neither did Gern forget about the poet. He read atten­tively through Shevchenko’s entire dossier and was struck with surprise: there was everything in it — the indictment, examination records and the verdict, but not the verse which had sealed his cruel fate. That was why Karl Ivanovich could not fully grasp the utter hopelessness of the poet’s situation.

  Shevchenko arrived at Gern’s home at the appointed hour. Gern immediately saw him into the dining room and intro­duced him to his wife.

  Gern was on the wrong side of thirty, a tall, slender man, which made him look like a twenty-five-year-old. Everything in him — his face with its high forehead lined by wavy chestnut-colored hair, lively clever eyes, well-cut nose, and groomed silken mustache — was consonant and refined.

  His wife, Sophia Ivanovna, had a typically Polish appear­ance: blond hair, dazzling white face with a faint blush, roguish dimples, and full rosy lips. She invited him to the table, poured him a cup of tea, and offered him rum and tasty patties with cherry filling.

  A lively conversation began. Some minutes later Shev­chenko had a feeling he was among old kind acquaintances. Sophia Ivanovna told him that there were a lot of her compatriots living in Orenburg as exiles. Among its resi­dents was also the artist Chernishov whom Shevchenko would have probably met in St. Petersburg. She asked him to visit her home more frequently and was sincerely sad­dened when Shevchenko informed her about his approach­ing departure to the Orsk Fortress.

  “Oh those fortresses!” she said with a sigh. “Many as they build them, there is still no peace.”

  “My dear, there is nothing you can do about it but get­ting used to being the wife of an officer. We have built twenty-nine forts now, if we add to them the Raïm Fort and another two on the rivers Irghiz and Turgai, for which I myself chose the sites the year before last.”

  “What do you mean? I thought you simply took back Kenessary’s wife who had been held as a hostage,” Sophia Ivanovna said, surprised and even excited.

  Gern gave a smile.

  “A Russian officer’s wife is not permitted to know everything” he said. “At times there are such things as official secrets.” Turning to Shevchenko, Gern explained: “Here we have to be actors performing a variety of roles: now we’re simply military men, then diplomats, and sometimes itelligence officers or topographers. Indeed, two years ago I went with a mission to a chieftain of the rebellious Kirghiz. You’ve probably never heard about him, or have you?” He interrupted himself, and when Shevchenko shook his head, Gern continued: “The Kirghiz have rebelled against us frequently, right from the times of Pugachov, but throughout the past ten years the rebellions of Kenessary Kasimov ave been the most significant and, I should say, the most organized. He is a man of no average standing. Probably he dreamed of uniting all the scattered tribes — the ones in Siberia, around Tashkent, Khiva, Kokand, and our local Kirghiz — into a single nation. That is why he not only fought battles, but also wrote laws for them. For instance, he abolished the kin courts and introduced a single court of law instead, codified the ancient Muslim tax, the zakat, which every sultan or khan levied for his own interests, and made it into a single state tax that goes to the state treasury — not to the Russian, of course. In short, he tried to become a unifier of the Kazakh lands. Under the aegis of Great Britain, as you might well understand. In general, he is a rather narrow-minded nationalist and by no means a champion of freedom. A typical despot and slave owner.

  “We, that is, our command, suspected for a long time that Kenessary was playing a double game. That was why General Obruchev decided to show him up and had him summoned. Our adversary was rather dangerous, because the Emir of Bukhara had supplied him with six hundred rifles and fifteen pieces of artillery along with hundreds of shells.

  “We realized pretty well that behind the Emir of Bukhara stood the Britons who had been dreaming of seizing our Central Asian markets long ago. At the same time the Khan of Khiva sent Kenessary fifteen argamak horses, two saddles covered with gold leaf, and a whole caravan loaded with gun powder. Understandably, all these presents had one and the same label: Made in Great Britain.

  “So we, too, marshalled a substantial force against him when suddenly we received a strange order from St. Petersburg: Kenessary was to be pardoned for all his previous rebellions, as were his family and all of his relatives; even his favorite wife Kulimjan was to be returned to him. To compromise on all controversial points, a mission or dele­gation with Dolgov at its h
ead was to be sent, and I, as a general staff officer, was to accompany Kenessary’s wife, with secret orders to choose two strategically useful sites — one on the river Irghiz, and the other on the river Turgai — for the forts.

  “I carried out the orders, and did it so shrewdly that Kenessary did not suspect anything — otherwise we would not be sitting here at this table drinking tea.

  “When we arrived at his camp, he isolated us completely from his people and started to delay the negotiations, not letting us leave either. We wandered around with him for a month and a half, but did not achieve anything. In the meantime, Kenessary had written to St. Petersburg that he would cooperate with Russia, provided we destroyed all our forts built on Kirghiz land. Obruchev got mad at that, and we immediately laid the foundations of the forts on the Irghiz and Turgai, while Kenessary wandered off to the Syr Darya on the banks of which we laid the founda­tions of the Raïm Fort as well.

  “Officially, we are not at war with anybody, but a lot of blood keeps flowing. The old soldiers will tell you quite a few things about the local campaigns, attacks and sieges,” Gern concluded, sipping his tea that had become cold by then.

  The story impressed Shevchenko immensely. Neither in St. Petersburg nor in Ukraine had he ever heard about this undeclared war.

  “I simply cannot understand — who needs this steppe? It’s just a desert and nothing else!”

  “That’s true, but this steppe is crossed by trade routes running to our Central Asian markets — to Bukhara and Persia, to Afghanistan and, in the future, to the fabulous India. We must render them safe. Central Asia is a gold mine for commerce. Small wonder the Britons covet it so much and send rifles and guns to its semi-savage chief­tains.”

  “So that’s the reason. I see,” Shevchenko said. “A little less than a hundred years ago the poets called the czarina ‘the Godlike Czarina of the Kirghiz-Kaissak Horde’ in their odes. The tribes pledged loyalty to her back in those years, but I see they are still fighting us.”