The Exile: A novel about Taras Shevchenko

by Zinaida Tulub

  Butakov’s Kazakh guide also recalled that there was yet another, fifth estuary to the east of this one in the Bishkum Inlet. Butakov decided to look for it at once, but another gale whipped up the sea and the schooner was tossed around at anchor for several days, after which she sailed into an inextricable labyrinth of sandbanks. The Constantine got out of it in the end, but the torments and thirst were beyond endurance by that time. There was no fresh water either on Tolmachov Island or on its eastern shore. Half of the crew was laid up, and the rest barely stirred their arms and legs. Istomin warned Butakov that the sick were on the verge of dying. The captain contravened all instruc­tions and orders of the war ministry, headed for Tokmak Island, and cast anchor two miles off the western estuaries of the Amu Darya. Here on the leeward side of the island, the water was almost fresh. The feverishly thirsty crew could not have their fill of the water. A day later the pain in the men’s stomachs subsided, and on the fourth day all of them without exception were on their feet.

  Finding himself in the place he had visited the year before, Butakov decided to explore again the third brim­ming arm or the Amu Darya. During the night he and Rybin waded across the arm, sounding its depth. After checking the soundings with those of the previous year, Butakov concluded that this was the only navigable arm in the Amu Darya estuary which could be freely entered by flat-bot­tomed ships with a light draught.

  The Kazakh guide told Butakov that there was the grave of a saint on Tokmak Ata Island. People held the saint in high respect, but the khan prohibited them from making pilgrimages to the island until the harvest of strawberries growing there was over. The khan, however, visited the island to pray in the winter.

  With a small supply of fresh water, Butakov sailed forth in search of the Nicholas whose crew must have also been suffering from thirst.

  The two schooners met at last toward the evening of the twenty-first of June. Pospelov immediately saw Butakov to report. He had managed to chart almost the entire eastern seashore, except for the last thirty miles, after a voyage that was much more perilous than the Constantine’s.

  “I’ve brought you water, sensing at a distance how diffi­cult it was for you without it. Order the men to haul it on board,” Butakov said, going into a bustle of activity. “Tikhon! Boatswain!”

  “Boatswain here!” Kryukov responded as he rushed into the wardroom like a whirl.

  “Issue the Nicholas one steel barrel of water and about seventy pails. And you, Tikhon, treat us to hot tea with lemons.”

  “And with some delicious berries,” Tikhon added, laying the table. “I’ve been on the island with the topographers today, and picked a pailful of wild strawberries.”

  Since it was dead calm, the schooners stood alongside, as though at the pier of a large haven. Both crews took to hauling the water with a will, within an hour sixty-five pails of fresh water were transferred to the Nicholas and her thirst-plagued crew drank with delight the tea which the thoughtful cook had brewed for them.

  In the wardroom tea was served as well, accompanied by a lively conversation.

  Suddenly the tender sounds of a mandolin came from the upper deck, then a guitar joined the melody and some­one started singing in a muffled voice as if hesitating whether to raise it, the guitar was strummed again, and a loud, affirmative chorus broke out. Shevchenko went on deck and after several minutes he returned to the ward­room and snapped to attention before Butakov with an uncommonly solemn and excited look.

  “Your Excellency, the crew of the first naval Aral flotilla entrusted to your command humbly asks your Excellency to come on deck and listen to the song composed by the crew of the aforementioned flotilla in honor of the First Aral Survey Expedition and its gallant captain-lieutenant, dis­coverer of new lands and seas.”

  “Enough of making fun of mo, Taras Grigorievich!” Butakov said with an embarrassed smile. “Better sit down and have some strawberries. We haven’t seen such a wonder of a dessert for so long.”

  “But I’m not making fun of you,” Shevchenko said, this time seriously. “The crew has really composed a song in your honor. Parfenov and Zabrodin come from a family of North Russian balladeers!”

  “All right, let’s go and listen to them, Alexei Ivanovich.

  “The song sounds quite good,” Pospelov said as he got up and let Butakov walk ahead.

  The sailors were sitting around on coils of rope, on a bench, others on a spare anchor, bulwark, or right on the deck planks. Two of them played mandolins, and Parfenov the guitar. When the officers had settled on folding chairs, Parfenov strummed a ringing chord and Zabrodin sang in a high lyric tenor:

  “When ‘cross the sea…”

  “When ‘cross the sea, the Aral Sea,” the men joined in.

  The sailors sang in a masterly fashion. The melody was austere, brave in its purport, and distinctive in its own way. It conjured up pictures of the mariners’ hard and heroic toil amid the perpetual roar of the choppy sea.

  Butakov was deeply moved and excited. Embarrassed, he kept fingering the cap in his hands, while a faint breeze gently ruffled his dense black hair.

  “Thank you, men. Thank you from the bottom of my heart,” he said at length, his voice quavering against his will. “But you should have added that without such brave and good sailors as you no captain could have achieved anything. It’s our common job and our common purpose.”

  “If only we could sail under you all our lives!” the excit­ed sailors said.

  “What other captain would have crisscrossed the sea to get fresh water for us?”

  Butakov motioned to Tikhon, ordered something in a whisper, and a moment later the sailor was back with a flask of vodka and glasses.

  “Men, let our voyage end well, and fortune bring us together on the seas again!” Butakov said, raising his glass.

  During the night the schooners parted: the Nicholas sailed to the south-east to finish surveying and sounding the depths of her last leg of thirty miles, while Butakov, measuring the depths in the open sea, headed northward to the mouth of the Syr Darya, where he had to take food supplies on board, repair the masting, and test the chro­nometers. All this took up much time, and the Constantine put to sea again only after a month.

  At that time the Nicholas, carrying quite a few sick men, approached the estuary of the Syr Darya. Butakov ordered Pospelov to have the sick hospitalized at Raïm and let the Nicholas lie in the Syr Darya no less than two weeks to let everyone have a good rest and regain their strength, after which they were to start sounding and surveying the northern part of the sea. Butakov then sailed into the Perovsky Inlet where, in Chubar Tarauz Bay, he found a wonderful haven protected from all winds. Besides, the ha­ven was three hundred versts closer to Orenburg than Raïm and Kosaral, and deep enough even for large-keeled steam­ships and sailers.

  From the Perovsky Inlet Butakov headed for Cape Kara Tiube. On the way Shevchenko admired the white Aulye Cliff resembling a huge marble sarcophagus rising high over the sea. Then the schooner sailed to the Kulandi Penin­sula where coal had been found the year before. Butakov went ashore, ordered wood to be chopped and coal to be hewn to augment the galley’s fuel supply, and with Rybin made a detailed survey of the site of a future coal mine. After rounding Cape Uzinkair, the Constantine entered the inlet on the far side of the Kulandi Peninsula and Butakov named the inlet in honor of Chernishov.

  Further on they sailed to the north along the steep shores of the Ustyurt. Butakov kept sounding the depth, while Rybin went ashore to chart the land now and then. The Constantine ran into a furious gale which raged for two days, after which the mariners reached the Kara Tamak boundary line; six versts to the south of it, by a spring of bitter water, Werner discovered yet another deposit of coal, this time an outcrop seam.

  Butakov was happy at the discovery. After Rybin had gone ashore the next morning, Butakov suddenly saw a caravan of several camels and a large flock of sheep moving across the coastal hills. His Kazakh guide put Butakov’s mind at ease.
Those were just traders heading for a bar­tering bazaar, but Butakov was nonetheless afraid they might take captive Rybin’s survey group and sell it in Khiva, where a Russian seized in Khivan territory would fetch a good price on the slave market. The schooner was riding at anchor. Butakov ordered to have a blank cannon shot fired to call Rybin back on board, but the caravan took fright and hastily retreated behind the nearest uplands.

  Rybin did not go ashore anymore, and only on the sev­enth of August did Butakov go ashore to establish the longitude and latitude of the schooner’s position and have some wood chopped. The operation was in itself risky because a large aul was pitched in the uplands nearby.

  A number of axakals rode up to Butakov on the shore and asked:

  “Who are you and why have you come here?”

  “We catch fish, cure them, and hunt game,” Butakov replied calmly. “We have come here to chop some wood to cook mutton and brew tea, and hold out the hand of friendship to you. I have a present for you here: two mats, tobacco and needles.”

  The old men looked at one another, accepted the pres­ents with words of gratitude, but shot wary glances at the weapons of Butakov’s companions.

  “Besides,” Butakov continued, “we wanted to buy several sheep from you or barter them for various things you might need — axes, saws, knives and such like.”

  The axakals took counsel with one another in low voices, and then the oldest of them said with a nod:

  “All right. Tomorrow morning we will drive the sheep here.”

  After the axakals left, Butakov walked up a neighboring hill and got down to work.

  He had just finished his astronomical observations when a fresh breeze swept down again. The waves grew higher with every minute and tumbled on the narrow strip of beach at the foot of the hill with a wild roar, raising yellow mud from the bottom. The boat had to be pulled onto the beach, and Butakov had to stay on Khivan terri­tory for the night. This was very dangerous, since it could have resulted in diplomatic complications, and he regretted having gone ashore in the first place. Fortunately, the night passed without any mishap, and in the morning he waited in vain for the promised sheep.

  Nor did the men find any brushwood, and instead of wood they cut tumbleweed.

  “It’s all right,” Butakov said to the sailors. “Porridge can be cooked on tumbleweed too; we’ll find wood in an­other place.”

  The schooner continued sailing along the southern coast from Kin Kamish to Takmak Ata. The tumbleweed went for kindling as did the deck benches and even spare boat oars, but Butakov did not dare go ashore again and the Constantine had to chart the southern coastline “by eye.” On the twentieth of August a cold wind started to blow, and the Constantine bore to sea at last in the direction of the colorful, densely wooded islands discovered the year before.

  On the way Butakov unexpectedly came across yet another little rocky island and beside it a second, level island. The first he named for Admiral Lazarev and the second for the glorious Russian mariner Bellingshausen. Here the sailors chopped trees and brush for fuel. Rybin charted the whole island, while Butakov sounded the depths between the islands as well as the inlets and bays of Nicho­las Island.

  The strong wind suddenly changed to a dead calm, with only a gentle swell rhythmically rocking the schooner on the sheet of sea water. Then the cherished wind rose again, wiping the mirror-like glitter off the tenderly warm sea, and the Constantine sailed eastward across the sea to Menshikov Island where Butakov once again tried to locate the fifth, most easterly estuary of the Amu Darya in the Bish Kum Inlet.

  This time he entered Bish Kum from the east, from be­hind an island which protected the inlet from the northern wind and open sea; there he found a wonderful anchoring place and named the island for Yermolov. The water in Bish Kum was sweet and teemed with very tasty and immensely valuable species of fish: the island itself was overgrown with a good forest, and the sailors immediately lay in a supply of firewood, water and fresh fish. The beach in this place was deserted, but during the night feeble lights glimmered in the distance — it was a camp of Karakalpaks who, as the old Kazakh guide explained to Butakov, came here to pick the strawberries which grew abundantly on the island.

  For three days the Constantine lay at anchor in Bish Kum until a southerly wind got up. She scudded to the north, sounding the depths in the open sea for the last time; on the tenth of September she entered the estuary of the Syr Darya where she encountered the Nicholas again.

  Both crews rested five days, then Butakov and Pospelov sailed into the Perovsky Inlet, established its position and, specifically, the site of the wonderful haven at Chubar Tarauz; then they returned to Kosaral where they had both schooners unloaded and their flags hauled down.

  The expedition was over, but its members had still a lot of work to do. Butakov hastily put the finishing touches to his geographical, hydrographical and nautical charts of the Aral Sea, and systematized his astronomical observa­tions. Istomin kept his calculator clicking from morning till night as he counted up the expenditures that went into acquiring food, medicines, clothes and the like. Rybin checked his topographical data and drew a topographical chart of the islands and coastlines.

  Werner and Shevchenko also had a considerable share of work to take care of. They had to systematize, number and catalog every rock, clod of clay, and fossil, and put them into flat, numbered boxes. After the mineralogical collection they started work on the botanical collection and tended the potted plants which were gathered as samples of rare desert flora.

  “If only the frost doesn’t set in on our way back. It’ll ruin my plants,” Werner kept repeating again and again as he took the readings of the barometer and thermometer with great alarm every morning.

  Both Shevchenko and Werner were in high spirits. Wer­ner was sure that since he had become a noncom on Butakov’s recommendation last year, he would certainly be pro­moted to ensign, that is, automatically be relieved of his status as an exile in recognition of his scientific contribu­tions to botany, geology, and, above all, for having discov­ered yet another deposit of coal.

  “I’ll have myself discharged at once,” he dreamed out loud, “and enroll in one of the technological colleges to the east of the Dnieper. In three to four years I will be an engineer.”

  “Why to the east of the Dnieper?” Shevchenko asked, surprised.

  “Have you really forgotten, Taras, that we Poles have recently been prohibited from going into the civil service or studying at universities and colleges to the west of the Pulkov Meridian?”

  “Oh, damn it! Again I’m forgetting where I live and in what times,” the poet exclaimed.

  Shevchenko wanted very much to see Jaisak and Kuljan to learn how they fared, but the aul had left Raïm almost simultaneously with the departure of the Constantine, without telling anyone where they would be wandering until winter.

  Shevchenko rode to Djantemir’s empty house, but the jataks guarding the winter quarters of the terrible bai did not understand any Russian; they greeted Taras Aga joyously, bowed to him, and talked away in their tongue, repeat­ing the names of Djantemir, Kuljan and Jaisak. So Shev­chenko had to return to Raïm without having found out anything in the end. He left Jaisak a written message with a jatak, in which he said that he was going to Orenburg where he could always be inquired about at the home of Fedir Lazarevsky.

  Raïm was full of new arrivals that summer: soldiers’ wives, merchants, officials, craftsmen. They had built them­selves a lot of yellow-gray adobe houses with flat clay roofs and enclosures of clay as well. Little sheepfolds, cowsheds and tall haystacks huddled around the houses, and hens and chicks scratched in the dirt. Nothing here was of interest to Shevchenko anymore: his heart was far away.

  And even the supply caravan not having brought him any letter almost failed to upset him.

  He carelessly leafed through the newspapers of the past few months, showing Werner only a report from Paris about President Louis Napoleon Bonaparte reviewing a
pa­rade of the Guarde Nationale.

  “You just give him an inch and he’ll take an ell! Mind my word, that president will become a king yet. Just to think that all this happens in Paris, the cradle of the Republic! They write that the peasants greeted him!”

  “That’s because the late Napoleon gave them land, while all the others just wait for the moment when the land can be taken away from the peasant. Well, we have to hurry up with our work,” Werner changed the subject of the con­versation. “After the caravan has its rest, we’ll have to join it on the way back to Orenburg.”

  During the last night at Raïm Shevchenko could not fall asleep. All his and Werner’s things had been packed long ago, except for the bedding and the collapsible cots. Werner sat silently at the table, staring into the air, as Shevchenko pulled out his cherished bootleg notebook and started to write. Suddenly he became sad that thoughtlessness and even contempt had at times overcome him in regard to this blue sea, the grandeur of the brimming Syr Darya, and Raïm and Kosaral where he had lived much better than in Orsk. He had been treated with consideration and respect not only as a person, but as an artist and poet, and this sadness was involuntarily reflected in his parting verse.

  Then an abrupt pain gripped his heart — either because of the imminent parting, or because of the indefinable forebodings of new woe.

  The sailors suggested going by longboat to the Perovsky Inlet and then joining the supply caravan, but the cara­van’s chief refused to keep an eye on the expedition’s goods on this stretch of the trek. So the crew had to join the caravan from the outset. In the morning the inhabitants of Raïm came out to see the mariners off. The day before, the officers had invited Shevchenko, Werner, Istomin and Pospelov to a farewell supper and had so much drink that they could barely stand on their feet. The sailors, Ural Cossacks and infantrymen also downed a shot or two of vodka, which they had honestly earned for their cruel struggle with the merciless winds and gales on the small but choppy Blue Sea.

  And when the forward guard detachment with two field guns set forth, followed by the creaking wagons of the caravan and several old soldiers who had gotten tickets of discharge for long service, Boatswain Parfenov took his guitar, struck a ringing chord, and young low voices struck up the Butakov Song.