The Exile: A novel about Taras Shevchenko

by Zinaida Tulub

  They counted the days and hours until the supply train would bring them new letters, newspapers and journals. In the end, they lapsed into silence, oppressed by their horrible isolation from the rest of the world.

  Werner frequently disappeared, because in the earth house there was little room for the geological collection which he had not put in order yet. For Shevchenko it was a period of prolific writing. Under the influence of the events on the banks of the Seine perhaps, the koliïvshchina peasant uprising resurfaced in his memory and ho wrote the ballad “Shvachka” portraying one of the leaders of the uprising.

  One thought succeeded another. Spring was arriving. In Poznan and Galicia dramatic events were in the offing. The poet’s heart yearned to be there, and unwittingly he re­called his years of youth in Vilnius where he, a Ukrainian, had fallen in love with a Polish girl. Under the influence of these memories he wrote a ballad about the love of a Jewish beauty and a young Lithuanian count.

  Then he recalled the treacherous Hanna Zakrewska, none­theless devoting yet another sad poem to her and hiding her true identity behind the initials H. Z. Shevchenko also wrote songs which have been sung by his people for over a hundred years now, although many Ukrainians, at times, do not know that the lyrics were created by their great Bard.

  Occasionally he was so engrossed in his thoughts that he forgot where he had intended to go when he emerged from his earth house. There were enough serious reasons to make him so thoughtful. He realized that the Constantine would soon weigh anchor and embark on her second scientific voyage. Till autumn she would be tossed on the choppy Aral Sea and then….

  Would he really have to return to the cursed barracks in the Orsk Fortress, to the stupid, cruel Globa, and the drunkard and martinet Meshkov? There would not even be Djantemir’s aul where he could occasionally take refuge during holidays to see Jaisak and listen to the akyns and the soft tremolo of their dombras.

  These thoughts unsettled him so much that he lost sleep, and after a seemingly endless night without a proper rest, he would get up with a headache and sore red eyes in the morning. Butakov did not see much of his artist now. But he, too, noticed that Shevchenko was not his own self anymore. At first he thought that this was an occasional mood, but then he understood the reason. Shevchenko’s future had to be given a good thought. But the press of difficult and urgent affairs did not provide the captain-lieutenant with the opportunity to find time for the poet.

  The expedition was planned to last for two navigations and end on the first of October 1849. The expenditures, materials, food supplies and everything else had been reckoned for such a period. The only thing that was not allowed for was that the one-thousand-verst trek from Orenburg to Raïm and the assembly of the Constantine had cut the first voyage by three and a half months, which had made it possible to survey and explore in detail only he western coast of the Aral Sea and without its northern bays at that, while the entire eastern coast, the countless islands off it, and the incredibly twisted northern shoreline would remain unexplored. The expedition also failed to take the soundings of the central part of the sea.

  After lengthy calculations Butakov realized that he would be unable to carry out the tremendous volume of work with just the Constantine alone throughout the summer of 1849, the more so since he had been deprived of such experienced topographers as Maksheiev and Akishev.

  To save the situation, Butakov started preparing the navigator Pospelov to take on the duties of both topographer and captain of the schooner Nicholas which had been the expedition’s auxiliary craft last year. Apart from navigating the ship on the open sea, Pospelov also had to carry out topographic surveys of the islands and shores.

  “I will give you a boatswain as help and the best of the sailors who made the voyage round the world with me.”

  “And where will you get your own sailors from?” Pospelov asked, surprised.

  “I will take about a dozen men from Bogomolov’s infantry, and Istomin and Werner will be instructed to be officers of the deck.”

  “From the infantry? But it is very dangerous to sail on an unknown and rough sea with infantrymen instead of sailors!”

  “Now what kind of a mariner would I be if I were afraid of danger?” came Butakov’s calm and simple reply. “Our people are keen-witted, they’ll learn on the job and by my personal example. Of course, I will have to show them a lot, but I don’t see why 1 should be ashamed of it.”

  Pospelov sailed as navigator not for the first time, and so Butakov’s idea did not surprise him. He decided to get down to studying seriously, realizing what great responsi­bility he would have to bear on the open sea.

  Butakov coached his assistants for the forthcoming voy­age like a patient, persistent and energetic teacher would instruct his class for a severe examination. Every day he spent several hours instructing Pospelov, then without tak­ing a rest, he worked with Werner and Istomin, after which he finished processing and systematizing last year’s surveys and astronomical observations and diligently drawing the finally processed sections of the sea coast and islands. Thus, bit by bit, he drew the first scientific map of the Aral Sea which, right up to the mid-twentieth century, remained the best and only faultless source for navigators and students of the Aral Sea.

  For all the complex and difficult work he was engaged in, Butakov kept thinking how to save Shevchenko from soldiering.

  One day, when he was free, he went to the earth house which everyone in Kosaral, by force of habit, still called Maksheiev’s.

  After a sleepless night Shevchenko was in a gloomily depressed mood. He sat with his back to the door, clutching his head and rocking back and forth as if he suffered from a violent headache.

  “Taras Grigorievich, what is the matter?” Butakov asked, coming up to him. “Have you been taken ill? Or do you have a head or toothache?”

  Shevchenko started as if he had been roused from a hideous nightmare, and he looked at Butakov uncomprehendingly for a minute; then he got up and offered the guest a chair.

  “Still, what is the matter with you, old chap?” Butakov repeated, alarmed. “Has anything unpleasant happened?”

  “I’ve just been thinking,” Shevchenko replied. “A soldier of a penal line battalion has a lot of things to think about.”

  “Yes, of course. That’s just the reason I came to see you.”

  Shevchenko looked silently at Butakov; outwardly calm, his fingers pulling at a shred of newspaper.

  “First of all, I will recommend you as a noncommissioned officer for your wonderful work as an artist. Secondly, we will soon go out to sea on our second and last voyage, as you know. Back from the voyage, we will go immediately to Orenburg. Neither here nor at sea on board the Constantine will you have the opportunity to finish and process in every detail your sepias and watercolors. That is why I have sent a report through the proper channels of command to have you and me go to Orenburg in order to process your drawings and copy all the sketches onto a hydrographic map after it is drafted. Then we’ll make an album or even two albums with your drawings and present it to the czar. I be­lieve they will furnish the grounds for your return to your homeland…”

  Shevchenko kept silent. A sharp pain pierced his heart like a hot needle. Sick as his heart was, it trembled in his chest like water in a decanter during a swell at sea. Some­thing buzzed thinly at his car like a spring mosquito, and two transparent drops — as blue as the Aral Sea on a cloudless summer day — dimmed his eyes for a moment.

  Butakov understood everything. So as not to put him out of countenance any longer, he quickly got to his feet, vigorously shook the poet’s limp hand resting on the table, picked up his cap and left.

  29

  An Unexpected Role

  The steppe along the Syr Darya turned green tenderly and inconspicuously. The shattering noise of countless flocks of ducks, geese, swans and all sorts of other small waterfowl filled the rustling thickets of scrub and reeds, where the birds built their nests, while high up in th
e sky wedge after wedge of swans drifted toward the north. In the evening the frogs croaked in a clamorous chorus in the boggy lakes. Everything sang of spring and the joy of nature’s resurrection after the winter sleep.

  The expedition members were preparing to head out to sea.

  The Constantine was lying on her right side on the river bank. The sailors examined her bilge and sides, tarring and caulking her before the voyage. The tar bubbled in a caul­dron over a fire.

  Just like last year, Shevchenko sat on the sand under a shed roof and painted, trying to capture as best he could the vivid color scheme of the sunny spring day.

  The short talk he had had with Butakov left a deep mark on him. Now he realized why the sailors trusted their captain so much and relied so faithfully on his experience and knowledge, taking his word as something far more reliable than any official commitment.

  He was so engrossed in his work that he did not notice the appearance of Jaisak.

  “Oh, that’s you! Hello, my friend!” Shevchenko replied to the greeting of the young herder. “Sit down! What’s new?”

  “I’m in trouble again, Taras Aga! Help me one more time. I swear by the beard of the Prophet that I will never ever bother you with my affairs anymore… only save Kuljan … and me!”

  “What’s the matter? Tell me about it, and then we’ll think what to do to get you out of trouble.”

  “Yesterday I visited the farthest herd, when some stran­gers arrived there. ‘Where is Djantemir?’ they asked. ‘We’ve come to see him from Imam Moldabai.’ My heart nearly jumped out of my chapan like a rabbit. ‘Djantemir is away now, but I will see him in a couple of days. What do you want me to pass on to him?’ ‘And who are you?’ they asked. What was I to do? I went and lied, telling them I was his son. ‘Tell me everything and I will let him know, because my father left with the axakals and kin for the funeral repast of his uncle Kamisbai. There is no one in the aul now.’ They thought a little, exchanged whispers, and said, ‘Tell your father that Moldabai will come and see him on the new moon to propose to his daughter who was Ibrai’s betrothed.’ ‘All right, I will tell him,’ I said, and the steppe swayed before my eyes like the waves of Teniz Aral. They took my word of honor that I would pass on the message. I invited them to the herders’ camp, butchered a sheep, and treated them to a lavish meal. How I could stand all that is something that is beyond me. They kept looking at me closely all the time. ‘You must be ill?’ they asked. To which I said, ‘Yes, I am; a cursed fever in devouring me and I cannot do anything about it.’ They left today in the morning, and I came to you right away. Oh, what will happen now and what am I to do, Taras Aga! It will bring Kuljan and me to ruin.”

  Jaisak clutched his knees in utter despair.

  “First of all calm down, and let us think it over,” Shevchenko said.

  On seeing Werner in the distance, Shevchenko waved to him.

  “Hey, Thomas, come over here, old chap! The two of us are in such a mess we cannot get out of it by ourselves.”

  After hearing out Jaisak’s excited story, Werner shrugged his shoulders, and said:

  “I don’t see what’s so unclear to you about this whole affair. Kuljan must be proposed to right away and the wed­ding held just as fast so as to give Moldabai the run-around.”

  Jaisak looked at Werner with wide-open eyes, surprised how simply he had dealt with the problem, but his moment of joy passed just as quickly as it had appeared.

  “Djantemir won’t give Kuljan in marriage — Moldabai is much richer than I am!” he exclaimed in despair.

  “Oh damn it!” Shevchenko rapped out.

  “How many sheep do you have now?”

  “Oi, a lot! At the baiga I got one hundred and fifty for Karkerat. My horse won me…” he started adding up his flock with his fingers, and got mixed up.

  “We know how many,” Werner interrupted him. “At the baiga you took two hundred and four sheep. How many are there left of your father’s sheep?”

  “After I gave some to enter the baiga, I had half a hun­dred left without one hand,” Jaisak said, raising five spread-out fingers and stumbling falteringly through the Russian language as he usually did when he was excited.

  “That makes it forty-five, and in all, you have two hun­dred and fifty. Then you bought another hundred before I he baiga,” Shevchenko reminded him.

  “Yes, and there are some left from Father’s flock,” Jaisak started again.

  “We’ve counted them already,” Werner cut him short. “So you have two hundred and fifty and the four hundred you bought. That makes it a total of six hundred and fifty sheep. And how much money do you have?”

  “A lot of money. There are three big bills on which you see a fat woman against the light. She wears an iron skull cap with a cross on her head. And there are a lot of other bills, too.”

  “Three hundred,” Werner made a guess. “And how much of the other bills are there?”

  “Oi, I don’t know. There is one hand of red ones… five,” he corrected himself, recalling the proper numeral. “And ten… well, the color of this here young grass… There is one hand of blue ones, two or three larger bills, and silver coins. Oi, I don’t know… also there is…” Jaisak tried to recall.

  “So why do you keep sitting on your pants, you chicken-heart? Go to Djantemir and propose to Kuljan right away. What you have will be enough for the bride money, the wedding party, presents, and for your life.”

  “Oi, but he is as angry as a tiger after the baiga. And Shauken is always setting him against me. So she, too, is very, very angry with me.”

  “What for?”

  Jaisak had to tell them how she tried to seduce him in the Alatau mountains. Shevchenko and Werner exploded in a gusty and long laughter on hearing the story, but for Jaisak it was no laughing matter, and when both men stopped, he frankly voiced what had been flickering in his heart as a last hope all this time: “Oi, Taras Aga! Ask the mayirs to see our bai. Djantemir is afraid of the Russian chiefs like of hell and will do anything they tell him, because without the mayirs he is nothing: if the Khivans attack — the mayirs kill them; should the jataks or tyulenguts refuse to work — the mayirs punish them for rebellion; if there are a lot of wolves — the mayirs shoot them. If the mayirs order, ‘Give Kuljan in marriage to Jaisak,’ he will do as they say.”

  Shevchenko realized that for Jaisak this was really his last and only hope.

  “Well, we’ll try,” he said. “We will go to Butakov, Bogomolov and Chortorogov, and, hopefully, the comman­dant of Raïm will join us.”

  “Oi, but make it faster I beg of you,” Jaisak said with a moan. “The new moon will be in three times my hand. And what if Moldabai arrives earlier?”

  “Forget about Moldabai. When the bai accepts your bride money and sets the day of the wedding, send one of your reliable friends to Moldabai and tell that old fiend that he is late and Kuljan is married off already. Nobody will find out about your lie, if you keep your mouth shut.”

  Jaisak was so excited he only kept repeating: “Oi, Taras Aga, go see the mayirs as fast as you can! They won’t listen to me. Ask them yourself. Djantemir has to be told many words… different words… clever words… which I do not know.”

  They were met by a merry and jaunty Butakov. Shevchenko told him without much ado what had brought them here at such an unusual hour.

  “I don’t sec why we shouldn’t help a good man,” the captain-lieutenant said. “To tell you the truth, I’m a match­maker without experience, but your idea is remarkably timely: I have to see Djantemir to buy some sheep to feed up my crew before the voyage. So let’s combine the pleasant with the useful. All of us will go there and take Bogomolov along. But for such a ceremonial occasion as matchmaking dress uniforms and decorations must he worn. I advise you to spruce yourselves up, gentlemen, because for such a per­son as Djantemir every medal, every toy on a guest’s chest means a lot and gains particular significance. By the way, I’ve received a badge for being a member o
f the Geographic Society. So I will pin it on, too. And you, Jaisak, don’t worry. With God’s blessing, everything will be all right. Taras Grigorievich, go to Bogomolov and Chortorogov and invite them to take part in this distinctive expedition.”

  In less than an hour, the Kosaral authorities, with Bo­gomolov and Chortorogov in the lead, as well as Werner and Shevchenko, crossed by boat the vernally brimming arm of the Syr Darya and made merrily for Raïm. Butakov dropped in on Commandant Damis and asked for any kind of carriage to get to the aul. Damis immediately gave orders to provide the “glorious mariners” two tarantasses, and on learning of the distinct purpose of their unexpected trip, he himself joined the group together with Lieutenant Eismont and Ensign Nudatov. They, too, put on their dress uniforms and all the decorations and regalia that went with them.

  After seeing Butakov and the others as far as the fort, Jaisak raced off to the aul by the shortest route, cursing himself for going to Shevchenko on foot instead of on horseback. Still, he managed to arrive earlier than the suite of matchmakers and tell Kuljan that today his and her fate would probably be worked out. The news made Kuljan excited. He, too, was not his own self but advised that she dress in her holiday best and go out to meet the guests, and if her father or the matchmakers were to ask what she wanted, she should tell frankly what she dreamed of and what she wished with all her heart.

  The wild barking of the dogs indicated that the match­makers were approaching.

  Djantemir was frightened out of his wits when he was informed that almost all of the officers were coming to his aul. He concluded that the Russians had decided to drive him away from his new wintering site, levy some new tax, or do some other nasty things to him.

  They took offense… got angry with me… didn’t stay to the end of the toi… and didn’t listen to the akyns. Now they’ve come to take vengeance on me, the thoughts raced through his bewildered mind. I’ll have to set things right — receive them in the best way, solemnly and respectfully.