The Exile: A novel about Taras Shevchenko

by Zinaida Tulub

  That night he slept profoundly and serenely for the first time in days, and there followed a period in which he gradually regained peace of mind. Even drill seemed to him much easier after a healthy sleep at night. When his soldier’s duties were over, he immediately hurried to his poorly furnished but nonetheless quiet and tidy room. He never said that he was hurrying home, because home, as he saw it, merged with Ukraine.

  At first the boys, Vasiliy and Stepan, were afraid of their tutor, but eventually when “uncle Taras” made them an ABC out of cardboard Lavrentiev had got from some­where, and painted an animal or bird on the reverse side of every card, they were suddenly overcome with a trust­ing love of him, not letting him leave them for hours on end and begging him to tell them a fairy tale or some interesting adventure.

  At first Shevchenko taught as he himself had once been instructed to relate every letter with a whole word: P stood for pan, M for man, and G for good. When he visited the Isaievs again the next Sunday and told Lidia Andreievna about his lessons, she advised that he explain to the chil­dren that a letter is no more than a symbol representing one speech sound: M in the word moon, for instance, con­veys the sound of a mooing cow, S the hissing of a snake, and Z the buzzing of a fly or bumblebee. Shevchenko had not heard about this new phonetic method of teaching the ABC before and was fascinated by such a simple and intel­ligible technique. He explained it to the children the very next day and their joy knew no bounds when they com­posed out of the scattered letters the simplest and dearest word for every child — Mama.

  The new method of teaching made their pace of learning so rapid that within one month the boys could already read a printed text. Another thing that proved of help was Na­talia Andreievna giving the boys her ABC by which she herself had once been taught to read and write.

  Shevchenko had grown physically stronger while living in his private quarters, and his good mood made his verse sound mellower and tenderer. He even added a lyrical introduction to his mournful poem The Princess.

  12

  The Taming

  Taijan’s father had once been an outstanding hunter. He hunted with hound and falcon, but most of all he loved to hunt with a golden eagle. The old man was utterly deaf and barely moved around for his progressive rheumatism, but on seeing the eaglet he suddenly livened up and his eyes flashed in a youthful way from under his puffed up eyelids.

  “He’s not ours. We got him for the bai,” Taijan shouted in the old man’s ear, but his father understood him only when Taijan pointed first at the eaglet and than at Djantemir’s white yurt which seemed to be tinted red in the setting sun.

  In the morning Taijan went to the bai, but Djantemir had not yet returned from his visit to Zulkarnai, and Shauken was in charge. After a look at the eaglet, she flared up.

  “What kind of a sorry scarecrow is that?! Take the creature away, away! We won’t need such a freak. Call Jaisak! I’ll tell him what sort of eagle we need.”

  After cursing her in his mind, Taijan threw a cloth over the eaglet and took him to Jaisak’s yurt.

  “Take him, auntie Kumish. Our mistress doesn’t want him.”

  Kumish waved her hands with horror. “Oh no, Taijan, no! I’m afraid of him. Look how fierce and angry he is. Why, he might peck my eyes out. Take him to Jaisak. I don’t have a place to put him anyway.”

  Taijan realized that old Kumish would really be unable to handle the restless bird, and took the eaglet to the pasture.

  “All right, let’s wait for Djantemir then,” Jaisak said. “In the meantime, we’ll have to tame this bully. Will you help me?”

  While Taijan was holding the eaglet fast, Jaisak quickly tied jesses to the bracelets on the bird’s feet. At each end of the jesses there was a copper ring through which he passed a strong kulash-long leash of raw camel leather with a metal ball at one end and a noose at the other. The ball was larger than the rings to prevent the leash from slip­ping out. Jaisak tied the other end of the leash to the kerege.

  Then, after pulling on badger-skin mittens that reached to his elbows, he gathered the jesses along with the eaglet’s feet in his fist and pressed them strongly. The bird let out a cry of pain and started to thrash, trying to peck the young herder, but Jaisak suddenly jerked the leash and the eaglet fell headlong to the ground; then he threw him up with a strong movement of the hand and settled him on his mit­ten again. The eaglet made to free himself, but Jaisak dropped him head down as before and threw him up on his mitten a moment later.

  This contest of endurance between man and bird of prey lasted for another two or three hours. By midday the eaglet was completely exhausted. Rahim could not look on any longer. “Leave him in peace! Why are you torturing the poor bird?! You’ve been throwing him around like a rag half the day. He’s hungry and tired. Sit him on a tugir.”

  “You can’t!” Taijan replied. “He must be made to understand that man is stronger and must be submitted to. Grownup eagles are thrown like that for three days without any food and rest.”

  In the end, Jaisak took pity on him. He sat the eaglet on the mitten, stroked his sparsely downed head, and re­peated tenderly:

  “Kal bopali! Kal bopali!”

  “Rahim, bring some raw meat and a lump of sugar,” Jaisak called to the young lad, who at first took the con­test between man and bird as an entertainment, but now was lying on the grass, his back turned to the scene of torture. These words brought Rahim to his feet and he dashed off to the herders’ yurt where the meat was being cut for the evening meal.

  At the sight of the food the eaglet started for joy and gulped several pieces of meat quickly and fearfully. Then Jaisak broke the lump of sugar into three little parts and put one of them into the bird’s beak. He took the food out of his captor’s hands warily just like he had out of his father or mother’s beak the day before.

  The weather was sultry and the sky cloudless. The short southern shadows clung to the ground, hiding under the belly of the horse and peeping shrinkingly out from under its side facing the north.

  “Good day, Kuljan!” Jaisak called out when he rode past her. “Rahim is missing you terribly and asked that you come to our pasture. It’s very fine there. You won’t re­gret it!”

  “I have no time,” Kuljan sighed. “Here I’m shearing and shearing the sheep, with no end to the work in sight. My palms are covered in blisters.”

  “Take a rest then. The women will manage without you,” Jaisak suggested. “When your father comes home, show him your hands and he will understand.”

  “He might, but Shauken won’t,” Kuljan said. “I also wanted to have a look at the herd and stay with Rahim for a while. How is Akbozad doing?”

  “The colt’s fine and healthy, may he be preserved from an evil eye,” the superstitious Jaisak said by way of warn­ing himself. “Don’t be afraid of your kshi apa! Get on a horse and let’s ride off!”

  It was only now that Kuljan saw Jaisak leading a second saddled horse by the bridle. She gave another undecided look to the huge black sheep she had not finished shearing but the temptation to leave was much stronger.

  “But what will I tell my father?” she asked.

  “I’ll do that, and all the herders will confirm that Rahim overate wild strawberries and is ill, and you came to treat him with strong tea and herbs,” Jaisak quickly found an explanation.

  “All right, I’ll go!” Kuljan decided and called her friend: “Finish shearing for me, dear Karakoz!” She jumped into the saddle like a bird. “Let’s go!” Jaisak cried out cheerfully. And they galloped off.

  Kuljan spent an unforgettable day at the herders’ camp. Rahim clung to her neck with a shriek of joy, and imme­diately started showing her his treasures. There were not many of them, though, because the songbirds did not let themselves be lured into his snares, and the cages he had prepared for them stood empty. Instead, he proudly treated her to two fried fish he had caught in the morning, and then led her to the forest to pick strawberries. Naturally enough, Jaisak joined
them lest she be attacked by a pan­ther lurking up a tree. His presence made her face red with blushes, and her eyes glowed with an inward light of a maiden whose love is pure and deep.

  The herders liked Kuljan, and during the evening meal she was treated to the best morsels of mutton and the best kumiss. Since it was improper for a girl to spend the night away from her parents’ yurt, Jaisak and Rahim saw her off right up to the aul.

  “It’s a good thing you returned, son,” Kumish said hap­pily. “The mistress gave us a new yurt as a present and keeps asking for you every day. Go to her and thank her for the present.”

  “Has the bai come back yet?”

  “No. Baisali and Iskhak returned, but the bai is laid up at Zulkarnai’s. He broke his leg in the mountains and won’t be back until he’s able to sit in the saddle. Now Shaukon is the leader around here.”

  Jaisak made a wry face.

  “All right. If it’s so, let us go together, apa.”

  Kumish threw a white veil on her head and minced along at her son’s side.

  Shauken was about to go to sleep when they came up to her yurt.

  “You behave as if you were hiding. I hope you’re not?” Shauken asked with an angry smile but nonetheless play­fully, as she greeted them.

  “I have a lot of work on my hands,” Jaisak said with a bow. “Mother and I have come to thank you and Djantemir for the present. It’s a good present, and it has to be deserved. That is why I stayed with the herd. My father died, so did Grandpa Faizullah, and the herders over there are young and inexperienced.”

  “That’s what we appreciate in you,” Shauken smiled. “You are a real jigit and deserve such a present. Live in your yurt to your heart’s content. And now tell me how this year’s lambs and calves are coming along.”

  Jaisak reported briefly and precisely, and although she tried to prolong the conversation, he precipitated the depar­ture.

  “Let us go, apa! At dawn the shepherds will come to me to drive the flock to another watering place. I promised to help them. Good night, mistress!”

  Shauken could do nothing but let him go.

  The day before his departure for the mountain pasture Jaisak stayed with the flock throughout the whole morning. When he was going back to the aul down a mountain foot­path running along a stream and rounded a cliff, he stopped abruptly in his tracks, stunned. In a scanty creek he saw Shauken bathing.

  “Oh, it’s you, Jaisak!” she gave a cry, either from fright or for joy.

  Jaisak turned away shamefacedly.

  “Salaam, mistress,” he mumbled, not knowing what to do.

  “You greet me rather badly, Jaisak,” Shauken said play­fully, wringing out her wet hair. “You’ve turned away and don’t want to look at your mistress.”

  He turned his face toward her and went rigid with shock. She was standing in the water only up to her knees, abso­lutely naked, the water dripping from her head and run­ning down her legs. Blood shot into his head when he saw her plump body in its blooming prime. Summoning his will, he forced himself to turn his back on her.

  “It is not fit for me to look at the wife of such a re­spected person as our aga,” he said in a peculiarly dull voice. “Do not play such jokes on me, mistress.”

  Shauken shrugged her shoulders angrily, but nonetheless slipped into a long chemise and started to plait her braids.

  “I am sick of the old man. Besides, the creek here is so warm and clear. And where do you water your herd?”

  “Wherever I come across water. Sometimes here and sometimes lower down the stream,” he replied, without understanding what she was leading up to.

  “So I’ll be coming here as well. And you’ll be looking at me, be­cause it is sweet for a young jigit to look at the body of a woman.”

  “You say bad things, mistress! Don’t! Besides, it is dan­gerous walking these footpaths alone; not so long ago a panther tore a jackass to pieces here, and Ulagai killed another panther with a stone sling.”

  “But I won’t be alone — you’ll be with me. Wouldn’t you protect me?”

  “The herd is grazing far away from here. I wouldn’t hear you, and people might see and censure us.”

  “Where do you see people here? Only the forest, meadows and cliffs all around. There will be but the two of us. I am sick of Djantemir’s grouching. I hope he doesn’t re­turn at all! We’d have a wonderful time together.”

  “And do you know, mistress, what punishment we’d de­serve by the shariat?” Jaisak said, trying to impart a polite tone to his voice. “They’ll take a lariat, make a noose at both ends, throw such a noose round our necks each, bring up a camel, put it between us, make him lie down, and throw the middle of the lariat across his back, then the camel will get up, and you and me will dangle down his sides. I don’t know about you, but I am not willing to die yet.”

  “They won’t dare! What is not permitted to a common woman is permissible for a bai’s wife, and like all men Djantemir will be sleeping in his yurt, without suspecting anything. Who will dare tell him something against me?” Shauken went on, finishing plaiting her braid and drawing closer. “Don’t you really want me? Why are you standing there like someone struck by lightning? Stop pretending to be an innocent lamb! I am telling you: nobody will dare to even hint.”

  “I will dare! I will tell!” a strained boyish voice suddenly rang out.

  Rahim, his face red with rage, darted from behind a cliff where he had been lying with a fishing rod on a flat stone, hoping to hook some evasive graylings. He had heard every single word of the conversation and appeared from behind the cliff, fearing that Jaisak would not be able to resist the woman’s temptation.

  “Oh, it’s you, you pup!” Shauken hissed, her face going pale.

  Her lips trembled, she felt sick in the pit of her stomach. Jumping from foot to foot as if the stones he was standing on were burning his bare soles, Rahim cried frantically:

  “I’ll tell everything! Everything! You alone will be pun­ished by death. Jaisak isn’t guilty of anything!”

  “And what about him traipsing around the woods with girls? Do you think he was just picking strawberries with Kuljan there?” she hissed again, clenching her fists.

  “What?! Don’t you dare telling lies about him and my sister! They are young, and they enjoy being together. Ugh, you old hag!” Trembling with rage, he rushed up to his stepmother. “Just you try and lie about my sister. Just you try and chase her to work! She’s no slave of yours! I’ll tell everything about you! Both to my father and to the jigits! And to the women, too! To everybody!” Rahim cried out, jumping in front of her like an enraged rooster. “Just you try!”

  “Hush, Rahim! Calm down! The mistress was only jok­ing! Nobody will pick on Kuljan anymore! And she won’t be chased to work! Go home now, mistress, and calm down as well: the boy will hold his tongue, but you had better forget the way to this place,” Jaisak said sternly. “And thank Allah that the boy was alone here.”

  “Not alone!” Rahim cried out with furious anger. “Ismagul is here and Grandpa Ulagai! The three of us are fishing together. Hey, Ismagul, come out here, and you, too, Grandpa!”

  An embarrassed Ismagul, Rahim’s friend, came forward from behind the cliff, carrying a pail with about half a dozen graylings swimming in it, and then the gray-bearded shepherd Ulagai appeared. Shauken’s jaw dropped; abruptly turning on her heel, she ran away, forgetting her mirror and towel on the stone.

  “Aha, got scared, you snake! Running, aren’t you? Run, run, you nasty creature!” Rahim cried after her. He fell silent only when Jaisak gave his arm a powerful jerk.

  “Shut up, Rahim! Enough! If she was behaving indecent­ly, so your behavior isn’t any better. It’s not your business to teach your elders. For this your father might give you a good whipping with a kamcha. She’s been tamed as it is. She won’t dare touch Kuljan now, but you, too, have to keep your tongue between your teeth. And you, Ulagai, and Ismagul, too! All right, let’s go!”

 
Several days passed. Shauken locked her tongue; Kuljan had a brief rest after shearing the sheep and took to her favorite occupation — weaving carpets. Shauken did not pick on her anymore.

  Kuljan visited the herders on several occasions to see Rahim who did not come to the aul for long, so as not to meet the “cursed harlot,” as he called his kshi apa now. Under great secrecy he told Kuljan what had transpired at the mountain creek, and Kuljan understood why her life had suddenly taken an easier turn. Every time she met Jaisak, she blushed and was all aflame with the pure joy of first love. Even the thought of the distant Ibrai rarely crossed her mind now.

  In the meantime, Djantemir had sent word that his leg had mended, and the aul was expecting him any day. That was why Taijan and Jaisak again made preparations to catch a golden eagle in the mountains.

  Catching a large grownup eagle followed quite a differ­ent procedure from taking an eaglet from the nest. The first thing Taijan did was find three young slender pine trees over six feet tall each; he felled them and stripped them of branches and bark. On the tip of the first he wound a bundle of wool saturated with tar; to the top of the second he attached a ring, passing through it a thin but strong, twisted string with a noose at its end; and to the third he fixed a reflector made of a shining white tin plate. To find such a piece of tin in the mountains was next to impossible. Taijan’s deaf father had one, but he would not lend it to his son for anything in the world. So Taijan had to pretend to have been taken sick and stayed in bed for two days, waiting until the old man would leave the yurt to warm himself in the sun so the plate could be taken out of the chest while he was outside.