Novel

Part one

Ust-Kamen land.

On the right bank of the Bukhtarma-river Altai presented its beauty to the whole world.

Where the Irtysh-river falls from the southern Altai heights gliding in the soaring, Kurshim area hides itself captivating autumn. Primordial silence.

The Altai Kurshim is the Naimans’ nest built since times immemorial and they sit there densely and well-born gently.

Kurshim winter is grasping, not a snowflake but a fluffy lump falls from the sky, while summer is flying like fast mountain wind.

When it gets a little warmer, the snow thaws a bit, runs fast in a stream. There and then every cattle whims, fawns up to the piny ancestor Altai, carefully pattering its regenerative and guarding chest, I say it right.

The old man Altai raised a hand to its head and keeps the winy Markakol Lake on it safe– don’t you ever dare to touch it! - with its honey flavor, heavenly secrets and an empyreal face.

The necklace of Markakol is the snow-white yurts of the Altai people with pearly specks.

The mountain dwellers, Altai darlings, like marals have their own caprice – they look down nose at the others, nobody and anything constrains them – it is their own will that lies in the captivity of Markakol breath.

Fresh and sweet is the water of Markakol. The divine udder creatures are fed by its water and grass. They whiten while being milked peasant wive’s hips from enclasped teats and fill in leather buckets — it’s not milk but real bliss. And kumiss frets in the waterskins darkened by past times. It’s healing and thick with golden spots of fat. A man drinks one cup of it, gets red, his mouth buzzes like kobyz and sinks into the arms of the world of paradise. Drunk he is, his soul is lighter than a fly, he has saddled all seventy Altai winds and kicks up wrestling games and races, and horses clatter playing, and the mountains rattle.

Oh, if you ever dare to describe Altai beautiful women – all Altai gods will lack the words. Only praiseful mirrors are able to reflect their faces: their eyes are like the eyes of fawns, the skin is as white as snow, their laughter is a blistering dawn, and the figure is svelte as the branch of white willow. When look they backwards swaying a bit and smile with challenge—you worship the ground they walk on. And when their tongues catch your sight, immediately you will be pinned with your voluptuous fantasies somewhere high, perhaps right to the roof of space.

But that is not the point! Are you ready to listen, ready to hear everything-aha? I will get across thoroughly: how did it happen and why. Come up nearer, take seats and bend your ears. Not a fairy tale, as they say, once upon a time there lived... I’ll tell my story in plain words, neither brief but nor overlong it’ll be. So, let’s leave the empty talk, I’d rather start. I’m not that good at versifying, don’t take it a miss if I don’t seem a phrasemonger to you.

So, in those lands along the nighty paths a solitary horseman, a dark fellow, is sneaking on his motley horse. He has left Kurshim behind, ahead is Karaekem, rocky deadend ravine, ferny with bulrush. It’s even not a ravine but a gap, when you enter it – you never get out. He hides his face from noble Altai, in the darkness slides at a trot to stony slit. Who is he, the man entering the narrow gates of underground, if not he is a death-driven animal or is the earthborn soul that stole cattle?

The rider, before to finally sink in the ravine, stopped the horse, looked around. Somebody in grey is lying with a gun in a stony bed at the edge of a rocky wall. When this grey man saw the rider on the motley horse he lifted a white scarf, the latter waved back with his whitish hat. Then both the lean horseman and the grey owner of the gun came closer and together moved into the ravine depth.

Meanwhile so the things are going at Kurshim: people and cattle that stored fat at the highland Markakol pastures went down to the roots of the mountains and settled into their wintering again. Mamyrbai workfolk closed the sheds, cleaned up in the house, and lit a stove. Mamyrbai’s wife, Baibishe¹, waddling with an air of importance, ordered servants to dust out the thick felt of the yurt and to put it away after folding it. The beloved daughter of Mamyrbai, Akbilek in white dress flying in the wind, clinking golden earrings and silver pendants, shook red and yellow blankets and was carrying them home. She was just running past her mother when the latter, glumly blinking, grumpily pattered:

—                     What’s in the eye there? — and began spinning on the spot...

—                     Nothing is there... it’s to the joy... what eye is it?..

—          To the joy it’ll be, aha, — the left eye — and stopped in silence: who had sent her this bad luck?

After paying for the delivered hay and watching the workers tidying at hayloft, in the fresh air Mamyrbai reflected on politics - he wouldn’t stand aside while everyone is involved in the party concerns now. And in the evening he returned home.

The cattle went down the mountain slopes and scattered to their breeding grounds. The children noise, workers’ shouts, the cattle bellow, a soul-disturbing barking of dogs... The aul began to puff. The roar of the river. Red dusk. People took care of the cattle, boiled tea and began to settle for rest.

The sun has not disappeared yet when out of the already mentioned deep ravine four horsemen tore closely like wolves. One of them is the one on the motley horse already familiar to us. The three others were in overcoats, with guns and sabers. All the four rushed to the lowland heatedly without a pause. Bridle-bits grated in the chaps of the horses. Lowering, galloping by paths full of winds and twists, they burst into the aul that nestled as in a den. They burst in noisily. Then they frightened, pressed down the alarmed people:

—          Ah, rascals! Give us the horses!..

The gun is aimed at you, whip is over you! Unless you find horses, will go you for nothing?

¹ - Baibishe – the first, senior wife of Bai – a large land owner (or catlle owner) in Central Asia, Kazakhstan, Altai

—                     Yourness... Master...

—                     Oh, Lord, save!

—          Have a mercy, we are in no way to blame... — the only thing they could utter.

The servants have just brought in freshly brewed tea; have only praised Allah as one of Mamyrbai workers ran into the room:

—                      Raided!

—                      Who, who did?

—                      Greyish-grey...

—                      Who are they?

—                      All of them are Russians!

All that Mamyrbai could say was:

—          Clear up, hide, run, hide yourself!

The tablecloth remained uncleared, the utilities rolled down, things were thrown in a mess, Mamyrbai himself rushed with crash either to the doors or deep into the house ... a moment- and you can see neither his wife, nor daughter or the trouble-messenger. Mamyrbai’s finally decided to run, opened widely the entrance door and three guns set against his chest. Bai swayed and collapsed in the next breath.

Beaten by gun-butts and flogged along by blades, the aul men puffing from short breath, thrusted their well-doer Aqsaqal¹ Mamyrbai into a shed for cold meat and hung a cast-iron lock. Remembering the Allah and mincing to the corner of this building, Baibishe ran up and immediatley came across the Russians.

—                      Where are you from?

—                      Here... here, — she started...

—                      Have this — “here-here”! — and one of them hit her with a lash to the flashes in the eyes. A white turban slid to the face and the face slid from the mouth.

—                      Bring here the daughter! I said: bring!

—                      Whose daughter, well-doer?!

—                      Your daughter, your!

—                      Oh, I’ve no daughter!

—                      You have! You’ll drag her in!

The Russian slashed again. The woman began to moan, to whimper:

—                      No, I’ve no daughter —she lied as could.

¹ - Aqsaqal – “white beard” – refers to male elders, the old and wise

search.

The three Russians took the lanterns and started to search the entire house, they looked behind the bales with things, behind the stove, kicked down a pile of dry, just good for fire, cow patties—missed they no nooks, any hollows; and where it was impossible to peep into, poked with a sharp pole. All in vain, there was no girl.

As Baibishe heard at tea about the Russians, instantly she grabbed the daughter –then into the low back door and rushed quietly dragging Akbilek and bending down rather far from home. There-here, she finally squeezed her in some hole in the ground: “Don’t ever dare to move!”— and returned. Here she came across those three in grey overcoats that hadn’t found the girl. The Russians angrily but with the same sticktoitiveness pressed the mother, gave her twenty-five lashes. She was afraid: what if her shriek reached Akbilek and a maiden soul would jump in panic out of the tender body. She gritted her teeth allowing only herself to gnash them. How could it be the other way, how could she give the kaffir her bundle of joy, guarded from both cold wind and the heat of the sun?

Wicked night of carefree aul filled with malicious barking of dogs. There spread mismatched people’s yap that had never been heard before. There was the entire clan in the aul, and of all things only three werewolves with guns threshed the life out of it in a flash.

On the outskirts of the aul shot with fear, the horseman with an unpleasant face and dark thoughts prowled straining his ears and leading two horses. When growning rose upon the aul, he unhurriedly headed further in the darkness. The animal under him gave a loud snort, jerked. The rider drew the bridle, slowly took his leg out of stirrup and softly jumped down onto the grass. Having bound harness straps of three horses tightly he bent down, got together as a wolf and moved ahead. Five-six cautious steps and his ears caught a faint sound, close to rustling of the plant, which broke through never-ceasing nightmarish bark in the aul. Another step – his foot got hung up above a hole, in which something moved slightly.

—                    Uncle... — a voice murmured.

—                    Is that you, Akbilek? — as if he knew it full well.

 

—                    Me, save me, uncle, — and she started to crawl out of a cave.

—                    I will. Hide yourself. Lie down here for a while, — replied the Kazakh and disappeared in a fuss.

So Akbilek remained with her arms stretched. And that man seemed to stop somewhere close, seemed to have already saddled, seemed to hurry. Probably he decided to come back to her on a horse, now she was saved from death. My God! She implored while that pattering sound of hoofs didn’t close in but started moving away. The arms still stretched as if expecting for help of an angel from the Saviour warrior-host but the hoof beat was on the way far and far away...he rode away.

The hands gave away, knees slid down and she seemed to fall down into a bottomless underground zindan.

A desperate bark from the aul quietened down, puppyish yelp was replaced by spiteful growling of dogs and only sometimes a doggess let out a small screech. And then, it seemed as if somebody whistled. The straying away dog’s yapping began to approach again, they have already been tearing to pieces, gr-r-r-r!...And in a little while death would attack with snarling the poor girl. Again there was a horse clatter in the aul. Somewhere near they talked hushfully. Akbilek’s heart pounded brokenly. What else could happen to it when a hoof is above it – clip-clop! To hide thunder in her chest she covered the heart with her hands. Neither stones nor iron but death gritted, drummed in the temples. And like its harbingers three cold faces hung over her. The hole deepened into a grave. She beat against cold ground walls like a lark in a cage. Went totally mad:

—         Mommy, ah!

Her voice dashed towards the mountains and split against the rocks ringing. No matter how tightly ruthless forged fingers squeezed her mouth, a desperate calling of her wiggled out together with her for a moment and again flew up, reached and clung to mother’s ears. Mother, lost in the darkness and pain, threw herself as an owl to a cheep of its nestling. Ran up, God knows how could she seize her dear dove from the hands of two soldiers and cover with her body. They dragged her from daughter this and that way, finally hit her with gun-butts, and she left the daughter, but clutched at them. She knocked one of them down, then another one, started to beat them, the third one backed off. Released Akbilek rushed to the mother but when she saw what was the latter busy with, dashed back to her hole, mother ran after her. This moment the military that stood aside shot straight below her breastbone.

—         Alla-ah! — screamed and fell down.

The Russian trio threw Akbilek across a horse and disappeared.

The baby cried excitedly to her mother, the earth and the sky began to shake, hoofs rumbled, next the mountains thundered, again barked the dogs.

—                       Where, how? — and a chase started straight off.

—                       On your horses!

The earth, the skies have been already howling, stones gritted. Having noticed the chasers, two Russians broke off their running and started pinpoint firing. One of the chasers broke into two, grabbed the horse’s mane, sliding despondently off the saddle. Those who were riding after him drew reins of their horses at a loss, began to get off them.

Who was that queer specimen on the motley horse? Who were those Russians that abducted the girl? And what was the name of the man shot in the attempt to free the girl? Should we call all names? Or should we make them speak on their own?

Let’s vote. Who are for us to report everything on our own, raise your hands? One, two...no, let those people raise their hands who want to hear the voices of the characters. Four, Five... Together with me we make up the majority. Thus, let them face the music on their own.

First will speak the fellow who caught a bullet.

 

 

I’m of dark complexion, middle height, with deeply set eyes, nose is as bulbous as sheep’s one, but my moustache is foxy one. I am sort of twenty seven. My name is Bekbolat. On my head I am wearing a winter astrakhan hat trimmed with velvet, on my shoulders – a Russian-style jacket, grey chapan, triced up with a morocco and silver belt, there are worn-out high boots on my feet. I have a leather cloak with me, on the belt there is a sharp knife with an intricate bony handle and small strap from a cover for a drum – you can’t say that I’m a stranger to the arts.

I am a guy from a rich family, though by today’s measures – from a prosperous one. We had five hundred sheep, two hundred horses, up to sixty heads of cows; the number of camels reached twenty, now almost nothing has left from the former flocks and herds.

Our father had been the chief of our people, headed the aul and judged in the neighborhood over a long period of time. This way he could be even presented: authority. The elder brother married, separated, and received his part of fortune. My junior brother studies in Semipalatinsk. After my mother died from consumption in the Year of the Horse, the father married the whitish, with the nose like bawyrsak, poor old maid, paid fifteen heads of cattle extra the set Dower. Since that time she has been an albatross around his neck.

Besides that father paid the routine tax to the mosque and observed rigidly all directions in the holy month of Ramadan. He also kept by his side a slick Hodge with pointed up moustache. The Hodge seemed to teach us, kids. For seven years we had suffered torments with him. In the summer it was a separately fixed yurt, in the winter it was a living room at home. No matter how I beat off nor used bad words, played pranks and then tasted the teacher’s stick, all the same I was taught to read and write. Only after the father had run the Hodge off for his fun with a neighbor, we breathed a sigh of relief. And all hell broke loose – since my fifteen, having heard plenty of saucy tales from the experienced guys, I gave peace to no young woman, sneaked after them at nights, broke into the doors, squeezed through, tore away... I entered a company of jolly nice dzhigits¹, was insatiable for merrymaking and tricky jokes, learned to sing and play dombra, to fire a gun, to hunt with hounds and golden eagles. I‘ve fed, cured, trained and lost so many birds that I’ve myself learnt to speak bird language. Wonders will never cease! I have a tireless fast horse under my saddle, a raptorial hawk on my arm; I’m fashionably dressed, I ride all around the lands shooting ducks and geese, and in the dark evenings I keep my eye after the beauties but who of them can resist me!

¹ - dzhigit, also spelled as djigit or jigit – used in Central Asia to describe a skilful and brave young man, or brave person in general

sometimes they keep a displeased eye, it happens they praise when I return from hunting with a shot fur animal and that’s enough. That is why I don’t care all these tribal quarrels and clan honor. If, of course, we have to fight with strangers or to return the woman that ran away from her husband, then I’m in with everyone.

My father wanted me to marry one hollow dark girl but I beat off and started a talk about Akbilek, Mamyrbai’s daughter. I had already found out everything about her. Clear thing, nobody was waiting for me as a groom with open arms, as a guest I was not welcomed either. As they, perhaps, considered that I set my eyes more on a dowry. But then, I think, the father of the only daughter, who seemed to like me too, made up his mind not to break her destiny to his own will and sent a man to me with such words: let her decide, and I hurried to her immediately.

I had to turn several times and race with red hares that jumped out of the boulders so that not to give them run across our road. Then we could have made it to there in time.

Approaching the aul we heard really rabid dogs, stopped and suddenly heard woeful cry of Akbilek: “Mommy!” – then – a shot. Somebody took off, they’re speeding away, here I could not stand it and thought – ah, I’d lose my head but wouldn’t let them go away just for fun! I took after them. As soon as I started to catch up with two horsemen, a bullet stuck into my right shoulder. It went dark in the eyes, and everything was spinning around. I don’t know – what next happened to me there. Yeah, my friend, who could have expected for this? Wonders will never cease! They stood around me frightened; it looked like they stopped the further chasing. Ah, then we would have caught up with them for sure. What a terrible pity, I laid myself open, and they sent you to gra-a-ave! Clansmen and friends, where is my fault? That I lost Akbilek? If pity of at least the size of a fly stirred in your soul, then why were you standing ramrod straight?

 

 

Perhaps the Kazakhs have the right to accuse us both of plundering and stealing the girl, have they the right to accuse in the death of a man too; have they, if to face it, every reason to think of us as bandits. How could they, being mountained off, having no idea what happens in this world and living like wild animals, realize our goals and understand us?

Excuse me, gentlemen, could there be found a man who wished his exile from the land of his fathers, parting with the relatives and close people? A man, who wouldn’t love peace and carefree, full of high sense life among them? A man, who wouldn’t dream of a sudden meeting with a beautiful woman in a dark garden, of tender embraces and a coo of admiration into his ear? Everyone’s will is to live after his own heart, why is life coming around the other way? What is a justness of lots, awarding one with happiness and giving grief to the other? Everything is destined beforehand. The man has only to obey the long arm of coincidence. The Universe forces us upon its inevitable choice: it is a stranger to freedom.

If it were not for fatality of the Universe, would there we be among the Kazakhs in the mountain vice between China and Altai? I am theyoungest son of the landlord of Tambov province. My grandfather at the times of His Imperial Majesty Alexander II in the Turkish campaign commanded an army, and his warrior’s road steeped in glory. My father waged war too, he served until getting a high rank, inhis autumn years returned to the family manor, sowed bread and kept a rich house. Vastness of well-cared-for fields, a shady garden, a stone manor house, a stable with racers, kennels with greyhounds... we had all of these!

One of my brothers graduated from the faculty of law at University and then went with me to the Military Academy. Of the four brothers I was the most unpresentable but at the German front I was the first to distinguish myself, the first one who was promoted to a higher rank. Without any hesitation we went to war to defend the Tsar, Motherland and our people. And would there live ignorant Kazakhs in good health and well-being unless we had stood to guard the native frontiers? Would they, if it had not been our, Russians, swordcraft? Well, they should be grateful to us only for the fact that they hid under the mighty hand within the Russian borders. And what is the use of them to the state? Except for those four roubles of taxes that they paid from every household and the deliveries they made to food depots? They drink kumiss at their pleasure appeasing the bellies and look at the women while scratching their thighs. And when they were called out for rearward works – no! - they balked immediately, got frightened. The Kazakhs are afraid of soldier service to death. They assure that when they took out the Russian citizenship, the Empress Catherine promised by way of an oath and with a stroke of the pen on the Agreement not to razor them to soldiers. Actually, the cowardish reluctance of the Kazakhs to serve in the army did not cause anybody’s special objections. Who could vow that the weapon they had in their arms wouldn’t turn against us if we suddenly seemed enemies to them? In such a case the integrity of the Russian Empire could have been at threat. It’s quite possible, that having the weapon in their arms they could have rebelled with all their lands and cattle and fell under the sway of another state. You can’t think seriously that they are able to live independently. So, they should obey us, the Russians. There is no nation in the world than we are, capable to reliably take care of them. Perhaps, they are offended at us because of lands. The land belongs to the treasury. Naturally, when there was lack of arable lands we had to pass to the peasants those lands that they regarded to be their own. They have plenty of them. The Kazakhs use to think that they have the right as it was earlier, to roam across the steppe at their own sweet will. But there are also other nations in the world apart from them; they also need to live on somehow. That is why you needn’t be angry if excesses of lands are passed to the others. You should also sow and harvest, build the cities and live in them. Then noone will squeeze up at this land. But the Kazakhs don’t want to understand this.

The Kazaks think themselves to be humiliated and blame us. And how would their offences have found their expression for us if they had been armed and the Kazakh troops would have happened within the Russian cities and villages? Wouldn’t they plunder and rape?However, such has already happened. Just yesterday in Semirechye, when the land plots were cut off for the migrants, the Kazakhs mobilized into the entire army. Didn’t they blade the innocent peasants into pieces? Didn’t they rob the belongings and savage women? Let’s recall three-hundred year mocking Tatar yoke. The Kazakhs were also involved in it, and brutality that reigned in those centuries – wasn’t it all their doing? The Russian ambassadors that arrived at the Horde were pressed down by wooden deck on which the feasts were made. So, my dears, your ventures are also known. But for the God’s grace, such cards fall out for you, you will hardly demonstrate touching pity to us. And what a tough luck, no occasion occurs.

Anyway, we didn’t care a lot abot the Kazakhs. No one expected us to be here. Simply the Empire after collapse split into two, the Tsar was kicked away from the throne, the power was usurped by the proletarian rabble, soldiers and damned Bolsheviks; and we, Russia’s best sons who rose against dictatorship, backing off in deadly battles, found ourselves at the edge of the world. Those who ran for dear life hid in China. And we, about seventy officers of the army and fleet, debris of all retreating troops, clung to Altai rocks and now withstand the Reds as hard as we can. They’ve planned to starve us to death, to finish off with frosts when we have neither medicines nor ammunition. Otherwise they won’t do us to death where there is a way in but any way out. Do they seriously expect us to die this way – humbly, idly - in the mountains? They force us to attack the Kazakhs and take the cattle to scuttle, felt mats and blankets for our bodies. Actually for those who are still alive it’s also nice to have the utensils.

No need to say that while being at a deserted, making the heart only sick, mountain caving, a normal man will lose his wits without the known stuff. Lust...by no means it is a poetic passion, but, I beat my breast, we – are young, the blood in the veins hasn’t grown cold yet. To hell with it, with lust, you simply get tired of being in long spite and at each other’s throat. And we are able to love, can’t imagine a life without a woman, I say - not a small fish in a big pond. But where are women? The Kazakhs have them. They are people too. Theblack eyes of the Kazakh women hold their ground to the European eyes in their magic. Unless, certainly, to expect from them a charm of Parisian coquettes.

Dislike of the Kazakhs to us is explained only by the ignorance natural for them, ah, what a trouble – their women do not like us either! But we don’t need their love, we need their young girls. And our hearts belong to Russian beauties, don’t they? Backwardness gives birth to estrangement; educated people don’t avoid the other nation, would the European-educated Kazakhs marry Russian girls if they did not fall in love with them?

If we killed the Kazakhs, so it just happened in the heat of a battle, in a crazy confrontation... anyway, it’s all the same: to finish off either a man or a hen – one-two jerks and that’s all. Who knows why is it so: either we got used while living in the jillions of deaths or we have died out inside...In principle, what is life, and what is death? A man is born to die. What difference does it make: now or tomorrow? Theentire life flies before you blink. So, take everything from it, all delight and sweetness promised by her moments. There’s nothingafterwards. And what’s ahead – a red-ear wolf winter frightens with its blade.

The Reds are all around. Tomorrow is – hunger, coldness and death in a battle. And death is inevitable whatever face it appears. Any day now we, after stepping over the line of the earthy life, once and for all will lose the last hope to see our relatives and beloved, the family home and who will then dare to condemn us for killing and raping women in agony? In the meantime, we’re still alive. And we survive.The Kazakhs blame us knowing neither us, nor goals and our ideals. Let them. It’s everybody’s loss.

 

 

I am of small size, with a slightly protruding nose, crop-eared, bug-eyed lad with hair stubbled out over a low forehead. The age is about thirty-five. My father is Toybazar and I’m called Mukash, I was lucky neither in the saddle nor in a feast. I pastured goats for a greedy, grubby, disgusting small master. People there, at summer pastures, revel in kumiss, boast lying on a side, lazily and drunkenly, and I, in the torn pants, herd restive goats from a hut along the mountainous paths. When only the folks begin to have fun on the swings, start games under moonlight with songs and cocky bywords, and I am already pushed in my back towards a ragged mat nearby Bai’s yurt: “Lie down, you’ve got to get up early”. When only I sleep tight at pleasure – I am pushed again: “It’s time! Herd the goats!” – and they will awake me finally with a kick. Nothing to do, I rub my eyes and herd glumly horny animals having had time only to swallow a cup of sour milk. Till the very heat of the sun I run after the goats, throw stones into them and yell myself hoarse.

Up to my fifteen years I pastured sheep for Shamanbai, a big fool he was! I told him: I was tired of walking to death, no, he didn’t allow me to herd on a horse, was afraid that it would trail grass for sheep, said, they had to eat their special grass, any other one was no good. There was no end of troubles with a bull, when disyoked in the evening it butted like a crazy cow, turned off its face, and in the morning you couldn’t put a saddle onto this stinking restless beast, it wasn’t a ride — disaster.

One night I couldn’t stand it any longer, wide-awake of the thought that folks had fun there I ran to play too - be that as it may, well then, so that would be the will of the God. We began a hide-and-seek play; I was a Black-eared dog, the other guy was Wolf. As intended he carried away and hid at a distance one girl Aisha. I ran jumping to search for her, looked – another one had already been around her, so-called “Black-eared” big fellow. Damn, I’m angry: it was me who had to be in his place; I was constantly thinking of this when the following day after I had herded sheep to a spring and tied bull’s legs, I started to make myself comfortable in the afternoon in a dry channel, I leaned my back against steep slope and could barely hold my eyes open. Suddenly something burnt my face, it was too maddening. I got scared. I jumped to my feet and rushed heaven knows where like crazy. When I looked back I saw Shamanbai riding a grey horse after me and flourishing a whip. Wherever I poked like a fly, there was no salvation and shelter, then I turned my face to him: hit! The only my fault was that I fell into a doze, all the sheep were safe and sound, all in one piece.

I thought of revenge but went keeping mum. There was another shepherd offended by his Bai. So we laid a plan and cut two wethers of Shamanbai and a couple of sheep of that guy’s master. We sank that meat in a cold spring and ate for the whole month. We choked with it as water washed out a meat flavor but we finished the meat. Our theft was certainly revealed. A shepherd like us snitched about us. He was as bald as an onion bulb and tried to toad to his master as a dog. Of course, Shamanbai ciphered twice more out of my salary than he had lost.

Then I served as a herdsman for another rich man, it was that time when I started growing wise a bit. I acted on my own: alone I caught up with a stray from a herd horse, broke horses without any help of other herdsmen. I stood for a night watch on my own too. Snowstorms made no disturbance to me with my herd. Any danger makes a man of a man. Just stand against a cold wind, hoofs of wild studs, bands of robbers and wolves in the endless dark nights. The one who was beaten by wind can saddle a wind too. Any distance, any danger is simply a fun for me. I’ve become the one I wanted to be among the horses. The passion revives: herded the horses - saved brisk forces.

That time the women started to notice me too. My name became of some importance, you could judge by the clothes: as proper as it should be. I began to lure women, those who were poorer, played long enough with them. I used to bring the entire horse for meat to such one, and the wolves could be blamed for the loss. Bai herd helped me to make the Dower. I got married. I also caught the trick of re-firing a brand on other people’s horses; I had a lot from them too. After I had become the family man, I started to observe the lent in the due month of Ramadan.

Having eaten my head off on horses, I got bored - a short lead isn’t up to me – ah, I thought: be that as it may, and went to hire on a steamboat. I saw all the cities down the Irtysh: Uskemen, Zaysan, and Semey. I learned to speak Russian a little. Without ceremony I hung about among the Russians and started to imagine myself as somebody important, stuck my chest out. Everything I did seemed to be right to me. I found a common language with both the right Russians and the right Kazakhs. I learned everything they could – to lie smoothly, to spread the word and to hide for myself whatever lay in a temptation’s way, learned to shuffle and to wind round my little finger. I’ve become as good as anyone of them because I’ve seen and understood a lot. And I’ve really mastered a round oath, if it was necessary I could tell where to get off in Russian:  “What a hell! My ass! No shit, you don’t have any rights!”...now I would never be at a loss. Will there be a quarrel or a fight - it won’t be me to get lumps.When I navigated a steamboat I raised ten puds¹ for a bet. I used to throw any carcass up on my back. Now I have no equal among my countrymen, what are they to me? I haven’t done well in the only one: I couldn’t master literacy. But I’m not alone here. Eh! If only I could write and read, I would make the Kurshim river flow backwards or would do something of the sort...

¹ - pud.-measure of weight equal to 16 kg

joined the Bolsheviks was appointed the head of aul, even of volost¹, was given a rifle, “understand” was given a rifle, Bai’s cattle and spare wives of Bai too; they took land away from the rich men and gave to the poor people – then I lost sleep and my merriment disappeared. I’m walking and thinking: what if I join the Bolsheviks too, then I’ll have a rifle in my arms... Yeah, it won’t be me if I don’t act as intended. One Kazakh crossed such way: “Devil you are; now I’m also christened”. So and I decided: “Ah, be that as it may, then I’ll see what is what” – I went and joined the cell and hung a five-chambered barrel over my shoulder.

I arrived at the aul menacingly: immediately they hurried to slaughter a sheep for me. So I started to carry out my service shooting in the air from time to time just for frightening. Well, in due order I sequestered the weapon which had remained after the Whites, made searches in the houses of the men under suspicion, withdrew food under the directive which was called “surplus appropriation sytem” and did many other things that could benefit the authority. To tell the truth, the people started to turn away from me glowering, called me “christened one”. The first to look sideways and to grin at me were my relatives. Clear thing, they looked at me with envy, made up any nonsense about me, palmed off such things! There’s nothing to do, as they say, when you shut the trap of the crowd, then will chatter those who stood aside. One local teacher took special pains – a son of the bourgeois Mamyrbai. He was tireless to complain to the town to these educated that I, said he, demanded a bribe from him, robbed completely, threatened –arrested. Before my very appointment to the Head of volost this teacher collected from complainants papers with denunciations at me and thrust them into the Council. There they decided I was unworthy and did not elect me the Head of volost. Bai’s fosterling! If I’m alive, I’ll return you all back! They took away arifle.

¹ - volost – administrative division in pre-revolutionary Russia

they mocked at me. Until now I endure their taunts. Why will I feel sorry for this Bai’s family? I’ll get the desired and calm down, won’t get – will be I a worthless limb.

 

 

Akbilek, who was thrown over a saddle, completely hardened to a stone from long jolting and fell down the ground as a dead body.

She came round in a smelly, crooked house made of six poles covered by felt – kosh¹ among the Russians who were strange to her and wearing clothes odd to her.

By her side, pressing her with the outstretched hand there lay a bristly to the temples man with swollen nose and matted red hair. Hot, as if from sulfur fumes, breathe coming out of his downcast mouth made her shiver from chill. She did not understand what had happened to her and where was she, her glance swept over hanging above her heavy thick felt and when her memory returned the events of the night, her eyes became two springs boiling from tears.

A naïve ray of dawn peeked curiously through ragged felt, cheerfully slid over Akbilek’s face but didn’t hurry to dry her running tears. The darkness that pressed soul made flashing light to grow sad, and an inevitability of what had happened became especially obvious; no salvation. But a yearning to slip out of this red hand didn’t retreat. Akbilek carefully lifted this heavy paw, moved it away from her and stepping like a colt on a slippery ground, cautiously and looking behind raised slightly the veil of doorway and slipped out.

The hut, of which she got out, was on the edge of the camp that consisted of seven shabby koshes with guns leaned to them and every goods and chattel hung over them. Her eyes were neither drawn by four majestic mountain tops sinking in milky whiteness, nor were they entranced by forest laces which rose to them. A golden eagle soaring in the mountain height didn’t captivate them, bush branches that intricately twisted didn’t interest either; she stared at copper rumpled jug at the fire, smoked tripod and dirty ladle. Poor ladle! I am like you, muck, slobbed and tears ran of her eyes again.

¹ - kosh - nomad’s tent

guard watch that stood on the border of the military camp pointed his gun at her shouting: “Stay put!”

The shout was so sudden and frightening for her that she gave a convulsive jerk and fell down. So, she couldn’t escape; the Russian jumped behind her, grabbed and dragged back to the kosh. Akbilek gasped for air like a caught fish and shouted with all her might...but no sound she made. When he drew her into a felt den, another two men that slept there put up their heads, and stretched rubbing their eyes. Then they began to talk over with a chuckle, looking at Akbilek and made hand-rolled cigarettes with tobacco. The Russian who gripped her was that red-haired man who recently had pressed her with his hand. Squeezing her waist he stretched with his mouth to her face. Akbilek faced away not allowing an evil-smelling mouth touch her. Right there the rest of men began to laugh at their red-haired friend. A tall pale-faced Russian with black moustache, who kept sleeping, awoke from their laughter and without standing up looked Akbilek over. He didn’t begin to joke with the others, only went to a tin washstand and washed his face with water which he knocked out of its nipple, all the time he was absorbed in his own thoughts.

The man sitting with a blank appearance in the laughing company always seems to be mysterious. Laughter of the other people seals him with a shade of sorrow.

A black-moustached man seemed to Akbilek exactly such a man – a mysterious one, even marked by death. Incomprehensible things always attract. Who knows why he attracted the excited attention of Akbilek who was lost in captivity. Maybe she longed for compassion herself. Perhaps because of a naïve guess that he was a stranger here too. Quite possibly it was her feminine that showsitself especially bright in loneliness. But whatever it was, something has happened.

And Black-moustached, whether of inevitability to see a desperate appeal in Akbilek’s eyes, or judging from any other motives, irritatingly took up with a word Red-haired man who tried to stick to her face again. Next he snatched her out of Red-haired man’s grip. The latter did not resist, he only shook his head displeased and replied something. However, he stopped leeching with kisses to the girl. The rest of the men finished smoking their hand-rolled cigarettes in the total silence and went out. Black-moustached looked at Akbilek warmly, gave a cough and then started a talk with Red-haired man but now grinning. At first Red-haired man got sulky and frowned, he insisted on something with gloomy exactingness. He didn’t yield gleaming with his eye-pupils badly, and then he began to shrug his shoulders. Stretched up staring right at the eyes of Black-moustached and threw the words in a jerky and angry manner. They stood in front of each other as two dogs with a growl: “Gr-r – gr-r!” For a while Black-moustached was making a dab at doggish Red-haired man, then frowned and went out of the kosh. Red-haired man stood for some time, obviously cursed and with his fists clenched went out following him too.

The men in the other huts also woke up: there was a sort of glassy chip in the indistinct voices. Some of them would come in to Akbilek, look daggers at her: “Aha, kizimka...”- and disappear grinning. Akbilek hid her eyes from those who came in and waited in agony when they would leave her alone again. They didn’t, crowded into the cosh again. Soon they hung up a bucket with water over the fire, brew tea and started to drink it dipping dry bread into the iron mugs. After finishing tea they began a never-ending talk. Akbilek recalled her father’s words: “As soon as you treat these Russian dogs with tea, they start chatting and you can’t stop it”. Red-haired man, as it goes with a tea-lover while enjoying tea, grew kinder, broke out into sweat drops flowing from the temples to his cheeks. A man sitting next to him stretched a cup of tea to Akbilek – she didn’t take. And Black-moustached didn’t return after he had disappeared.

After drinking tea and smoking neighbors left. Red-haired man took a gun into his hands, screwed out some piece of iron and began to twist it and to turn it over, polish and attach back to its place. Akbilek was afraid he was about to shoot her just at once. The soul flew straight to the top of her head, a little more and it would fly to the skies. Here two Russians appeared wearing hardened to tin rustle clothes. Rumbling with the sabers that hung in the belt scabbards they stood strictly and told to Red-haired man something abruptly. Red-haired man answered with only a couple of words and began to get dressed in silence. When he finished he pulled Akbilek’s hand and dragged her out of the kosh. Akbilek’s heart pounded waiting for the deadliest. The Russians stood in groups discussing something. Seeing that the girl was brought out they went in chain to bushes.

“Here is my death, - Akbilek got terrified. — Maybe, it’s even better if they shoot me together? Or they have any other rules? What ifthey have planned something?! Ah-Ah! If they all do it, what will I be like then...”

The Russians lined at the meadow behind the bushes. Three of them went aside. Red-haired man pulled Akbilek to him, pressed and kissed three times on tight lips. Then, accompanied by two men he moved to those three men. So there stood six. One of them shouted something to the people who hadn’t followed them. He got short reply. Red-haired man and Black-moustached stood closely facing each other, then turned around and went away as if counting their steps. Next they turned to each other again and stood motionless against each other trying to avoid eye contact. The rest four people stepped aside and a voice sounded: “One, two, three!” A speaker threw down his raised arm and two shots went off. The Russians rushed forward. Black-moustached ran up to Akbilek waiting for end-all and embraced her hastily.

The dead Red-haired man was picked up and carried away by several soldiers. And Black-moustached hurried to take Akbilek to the kosh, keeping her in his cuddles and kissing. It was clear for her that there had been a mortal combat, but why had they gone away? Black-moustached left her for a moment and returned with a goggle-eyed, pitted, curly man. The bug-eyed spoke to her in the Kazakh:

—  Hello, sister, — and stretched his arm to her. Mother tongue caused her liking and she reached out her hand in reply but jerked it back immediately returning herself a look of whatever irreconcilability she could. The bug-eyed was an interpreter and was invited to speak to her.

—          This gentleman liked you. He is a very big nobleman. He is afraid of nobody. When he saw you, it couldn’t stand it, — and for greater certainty he pressed his hand to the heart. — When he saw you he asked to give you to him. But he got a refuse. That one was also a nobleman but a small one. They quarreled and got at grips. That is why there was a duel – they shot each other. You haven’t liked the Russians before because you’re the Kazakh daughter from the steppe. Don’t be afraid. No one will touch you. This nobleman won’t let anyone hurt you. He wants to make you his wife. The other noblemen wanted to make you a wife for everybody but he was against it, he said: That’s not good enough, then we’ll all turn to animals. He knows a lot, a clever guy. He is a man like you’re. The God is one, the soul is the same. Don’t be afraid of him, love him. This man loves you. He’ll take care of you. He will give you the clothes and food, he won’t make you work. How do the Kazakh women live? They are maidservants. Bai beats, scolds, makes to work, a woman goes dirty, bad. And our Russian law is good: we don’t beat women, - and he clenched his fist in front of her. -  We hold them here; we take them to the theater. We allow them to go for a walk, - all the time the bug-eyed tried to talk Akbilek round, spoke nonsense.

Sometimes Black-moustached prompted him something. Akbilek curled under her everyday silk in green stripes upper chapan, hid both feet and hands under its hem; she only from time to time raised at Black-moustached her eyes filled with large tears and listened obediently.

The Russian interpreter chatted and chatted constantly. The maiden’s brain couldn’t store everything he had talked. He said: big nobleman. So what of the fact that he is a very high-placed gentleman? Has she dreamt about the Russian nobleman? He will feed her andgive clothes. That’s nothing! Would she have entered the house of Bekbolat who had proposed to her as a maidservant? Black-moustached risked his life for her. Anyway, there’s nothing special about it, Akbilek has known she was beautiful.

She remembered mother, and tears ran from her eyes again... her mum died so that to...she even couldn’t think about such... what husband can she think about, she who was made bare-headed, who shamed herself, who recently has lost her mother?.. Will she be really a bride to the man who killed her mother, stole her, plundered her native aul?.. Where’s her father?.. Where’s she?.. What do thepeople think of her now?.. Why haven’t you died yet?.. What else will have you to tolerate?.. She wished her mother’s bullet had shot her...there’s no yesterday, and tomorrow...what will happen to her...unknown...along with all this I’m alive and still beautiful... after all I didn’t do it... there’s no my fault in this...who is able to blame her? Everyone loses and gets lost himself. There’s no fault.

Thoughts were spinning one after another in the buzzing Akbilek’s head. She bowed her head peering over an oil spot in the corner of the robe when suddenly she felt a touch of hot hand of Black-moustached who sat quietly by her side. Akbilek tighted her lips angrily as if wanted to say: “How dare you!” but she was only sinking in the depthless anguish. Black-moustached pointed with his chin to the interpreter to leave them alone and carefully raised her hand to his lips. Akbilek didn’t move over...She had no forces, only fear.

 

                                              * * *

 

After noisy night raid at the aul Mukash had in his hands two Mamyrbai’s horses and only one thought in the head: how to escape, to avoid unnecessary troubles. He left a snaffle in the camp of the Whites and heard from them: “Ah, Mukashka, well done!” – and on his way home he couldn’t get rid of various rubbish that passed through his head.

Yes, he revenged to Mamyrbai’s son successfully and craftily when he handed in his sister to the Russians for amusement. But when he was searching for her these dogs killed her mother. That was too much, but who could have known it would happen so? It seems, one of those who rushed to chase them died too. Unless these heroes pour everything with blood here, they won’t go away. Who knows, perhaps that one who caught the bullet at night was one of his brothers? Maybe they won’t know anything? Perhaps they don’t careabout me at all? Hold on, I’ve gone mad completely – perhaps, the Devil drives me... but how to arrange everything properly then? I can’t do that: if everything reveals – they will eat my head off. And I’m not an enemy to my people; I’m not that snake’s creatures; I haven’t done anything unthinkable...

Well then. What’s done is done, nothing can be redone. And there’s nothing to argue about... and come to think of it, haven’t the rich men deserved this? Don’t they rob the people? Why does Bai get richer? Everything is gained by the worker’s back; they are in clover thanks to labor of the little people. I would look at them, if the shepherds didn’t pasture their cattle, haymakers didn’t bring them hay, servants didn’t fire a stove, and workers didn’t dig out wells. The Soviet power fell onto their heads for a good reason. Deservedly! Who knows, maybe I was led against them by some plan of the God...And then, the Whites are ready to gobble up each other from hunger; they would have raided the aul without me. If it hadn’t been me, some Kazakh would have been found to give them any Kazakh girl for his benefit. There would have also been such Kazakh who would have rushed headlong chasing to take revenge for his relatives. I’m lost for words, there would have been such and this would have ended the same way. Of course, every case is special and the people aren’t able to repeat it accurately. But one thing is for sure: in the case similar to this one there would have been the man like me. How many military troops have been there? How many armies tried to rule the people? And they rob and press. And what do people do?  Nothing.They suffer in silence.

And I’m in the league of my own. I have a rifle. Ten people can’t overcome me. The Russians taught me to shoot; I send bullets one by one. I’m cautious and unnoticeable in the day. And take the course at nights... what am I to be afraid of? Although, there’s fear, I shouldn’t have got into this politics from the very beginning. There was no use in joining the cell, getting involved in search of sorts of enemies with a gun in my hands. No, I’m not afraid of death, it will be one day. But there’s death and there’s death. And mine is such...Only it can make people forgive me. Yes, they used to think of me as of daredevil, dashing fellow and I had my price in the society. I hope not to fall from the saddle.

With such thoughts Mukash reached his aul. The aul is on the sunny slope of the very high mountain, in the valley there are five-six low stone buildings. All of them belonged to his relatives, the head for everyone here is Mukash himself, Aqsaqal is Mullah Tezekbai.

Tezekbai can’t write his own name; the only fame is that he is Mullah. Out of forty hadithes of the Prophet that he had learnt once he remembered only “halannabi gaylayssam – ayt y paygambar galayssalam”. He usually mentions the God and frailty of life of the man at the funerals, blessing the commemorative flatbreads and when the cattle died – that’s the whole service; he used to murmur something at breakfast during the Lent, say a couple of Arab words and that’s all. He knows to harp on only: ayatil-kursi. The same he repeats when both sacrificing and blessing, and when a woman has anaemia – again it’s ayatil-kursi. Nobody except the close people recognized him as the Mullah. And when there’s funeral alongside he gets nothing, if only he doesn’t bury relatives or some match-makers... as they say, he was good at neither piety, nor knowledge of the Holy Book. And that is why he wasn’t invited, he wasn’t allowed to go around the neighborhood visiting the Muslems and collecting the fixed tax in faith and contributions they had to pay. Anyway, he couldn’t stand such people insatiable to the treating at the other people’s fires: “What do you want? You’d better lie at home!”

To be honest, there was no particular harm from the impostor Mullah, if not to take into account his grumbling remarks to the old wife for her untidiness and tasteless thin soup when he returned home after he had wandered a bit in the steppe with a smoothly scraped stick crosswise his back and watched calfs from far away. But his displeasure with untidiness of the old woman was more thanks to the old years; you can’t say that Tezekbai himself was very tidy and neat...

Nevertheless, Tezekbai was respected in his native aul. Any event, whether it be a returning to winterings or birth of a child, he is seated at the place of honor and a dish with purely burnt and boiled sheep head and fleshy hip-bone is put in front of him. He is the first to be given beestings in time, and kumiss; and when it happens that he isn’t at the table then daughters-in-law are sent: “Call for Mullah!”

When he put for show his origin from the oppressed masses, Mukash on the contrary pushed the God in his advanced mentality, however, he, despite of his so conscious step, held the Mullah in respect and tried to pass him by which was simple:he had nothing to talk about; he knew everything. In an inevitable meeting he greeted as it should be, but without that sort of the kind... The Mullah understood his behaviour and he also tried to go by him faster and didn’t start a talk. It doesn’t suit to the self-respecting elderly person to stand chatting with every Tom, Dick and Harry.

Approaching the aul, Mukash felt a trifling concern: “I wish I didn’t meet the Mullah”. He pulled his head into shoulders and bent down to saddlebow.

Mukash’s wintering bulged out of the aul to the east. The wild stone of the walls gleamed with grinning cherry red light. The Mullah’s dwelling pushed forward with widely open door. A red dog which lay at the threshold barked as soon as it heard crunch of stones under hoofs. No matter how hastily Mukash pinched his horse to the gates of his shed, one non-necked eye of the Mullah, who went out with a jug for washing in shoes and winter chapan thrown over his shoulders, caught him. In such a way he could scratch out his secret thoughts and Mukash hurried to hide away from the Mullah. A white puppy barked when he hastened to unharness the horse quicker under the roof. His swarthy round wife Altynay, mincing and muffling up in a fur coat, opened the door which he first closed and poked into it. Displeased, twisting her cheek threw: “Is that you, ah?” – and disappeared.

Mukash replied quietly into emptiness: “It’s me” – arranged the horse and went home. A smoky acclimated smell of the low dwelling with one weak-sighted window warmed his nose with in abundance. It was a pleasure to see his three-year old son Medeu with his flat forehead and bluish sniffles over open mouth on the homespun blanket. He was turning around in his sleep and threw out his lovely hands out from red chintz blanket. At first he wanted to smell his son sweetly but some puzzle emerged in his head against his desire. And he didn’t dare to touch the angel-like son. It was a sort of shame: first he was ashamed of the Mullah, now he is ashamed of a sleeping son. And he gave a start as if a dog sneaked to his leg and barked. But without pausing to think he imitated kicking the invisible dog straight to its nostrils: “Shut up!” – put off a belt, pulled a red pillow out of bed, threw it under a window and lay there, stretching his knees up to elbows.

Altynay, sitting on a dirty, straw-laid bench took off her scarf and had only a night robe left. She started creating ablution as if she prepared to pray; but stopped to blow her nose noisily. She returned to the bed, wiping red, as if licked-clean by a goat, hands with a heaven-knows-when torn white rag.

—          Why have you twisted up there? What am I to do with the horse? — she began to grumble at Mukash.

And he even didn’t lift up his head, only said between his teeth:

—          Let it go out by midday!

Altynay gave a stare at the husband and said in irritation:

—                     And you? Won’t you get up to give it water? I’ve already warmed up.

—                     No, I won’t, — replied Mukash and covered his head.

Altynay didn’t care much frequent night disappearances of her husband, perhaps so that he had to do it on service. At first she was a bit afraid to spend nights with a kid alone but with time she got used little by little. And then, who could she complain here, who could she trust?

Altynay milks the cows, looks after calfs, sticks the oven with a poker, fires it, carries ash outside, then returns with water, cooks, sews; cleans up in the rooms, sweeps, rakes mung out of the stall. She does everything the skies have set up for her. She seems to crinkle as if she got tired of the hard work and is on her last legs, but here is morning again: she rubs her eyes, and so have neither arms nor legs rest up till the very night… No, no, never. Even if she has any free time, she doesn’t let a spindle out of her hands when she pops to the neighbors for a moment or talks with them in the street. She knows her job – there’s food to the full, the clothes are in good order, what else? The order in the house is the wife’s duty, the cattle on the pasture is the husband’s one. This is also set up by the skies.

Now everything isn’t like it was before, now Altynay is pleased. Why is she? Because. The spouse has the horse. He has become a respectable man. And such man has the house to match him. Its floors are carpeted with almost new woven rugs and white felt mats. Now she has what to shake out when she opens a lid of a forged trunk box and sorts over the gained belongings. When she wants to dress up: here are cambric dresses, here are velvet waistcoats. You can boast with such husband. She has the right; after all she is the wife of the important official.

Altynay, in former times poorish and unsightly, now allows herself making speeches. The women: “Where is your husband going?” – she replies: “On business to the Head of volost.” Or “The Head of volost called him”, - and she cocks her nose up protruding her lip. If someone has underpaid a tax, daughter-in-law is naughty, or there’s another sort of trouble – Altynay points out patronizingly: “Why haven’t you submitted this to our consideration?” “To consideration” sounded often out of her mouth and noone could expect that whatever she considers something or not – it doesn’t matter.

Recent days something has gone against grain for Altynay who imagined her spouse this way. She can’t understand at once what exactly. Aha, here’s the matter! No, she’s saved her taste to life all in one piece. She’s had it in her blood to play with keys lordly and she’s kept this habit.Of course, being a reserved by nature, earlier she has also allowed a scornful tone to pierce through her talk with the husband, a pretended displeasure has pecked through too, but without any doubt she’s been quite fine with the husband. And now she’s really started to shout at him word by word feeling with her skin that it’s all right. Perhaps it was because that at some unkind time her “to consideration” ceased to reliably cause people’s former timid assentation?

Sure thing, Altynay carries out pre-praying ablution of hands and legs but she doesn’t settle down to namaz itself. Do you think she follows the tracks of her husband? She doesn’t. Any other man would approve her non-diligence if saw how she says grace with her awkward quirks of knees and bubbly mouth murmuring indistinct words. Every God’s pilgrim would only exclaim: dear, you’d better wash up cups than to scoff at such holy thing as namaz is.

Altynay sat at the edge of the bed, started to draw leather stockings on her legs. Again her restless hand came across a hole in a foot that appeared because of everyday wearing. When will she get rid of these holes? It’s no good for the wife of the authority to shine with toes that peep out from the shoes....but here the entire pile of future things to do has come into her head “to consideration” and she hurried to get up. It was time to go to milk.

She found a dock-tailed cow with a calf that has stuck to its udder. She jumped up, ripped off calf’s muzzle, look here: this damned has sucked almost everything to dry. She took a loop on the calf’s neck and pulled it to the torn end of the rope that was hanging on the bear spear of the stall, but that rope turned out to be short, she couldn’t tie with it. She pulled the cattle this way and that way and finally tied together scraps of lead as she could. She began to milk the cow with patch on its forehead. She pulled nipples so hard that the cowcurtsied jolty. Yet still the nipples got swollen from the stubborn fingers of mistress and milk streamed into bucket ringing its song. Altynay started to turn it every way in her mind: where to take a rope stronger that the torn one. You can’t decide at once: the people say – there’s no sheep – you’ll pay the whole camel for a sheep rope. Rope of mixed wool is no good. It’s very likely she’ll find the rope she needs only in Small aul at craftswoman Zhamal-apa, there’s no such rope in her native aul. This craftswoman made a new hammer for her, but it’s disappeared, I think local boys have stolen it, the other way – where could it roll to?! Damn them! Who is a thief then?

Menacingly screaming and waving her hand Altynay herded cows out of the shed towards the pasture, returned home with a bucket of milk, filled a black bowl with it and the massy rest of it poured into old yellow tray. Who but her knows that milk poured into shallow utensils floats into thicker sour cream? Say what you like, but Altynay is an economic woman. She squeezed – you can say even!... – scratched out milk for three—four waterskins of butter. Let them croak but give what they have to. She is so thrifty that while making sour cream can allow herself only to drop a bit into a pleadingly stretched shell-hand of her son. All extracted milk she boils to a state of sweet irimshik¹ and makes salty cottage cheese – curd. She remembers very well, how important it is to soak, grate pieces of curd in winter evening – and to put them into hot broth. Then after eating thick soup to the full you can go out to the frozen shed even in one dress - only steam curls. She sells butter, buys clothes, flour, tea on the gains. When the elderly aul matrons scold their thriftless daughter-in-laws they certainly say: “What a rotten creature you are! Look at Altynay, she can sew mittens out of flea’s skin! Such should be the Kazakh wife!”

With her wide back Altynay covered the bearings of Mukash’s night trips as well as his passion to boast with things and to life in grand style. His wife has enough brain not to make a parade of everything; she’s hidden expensive things that were gained in the corners. But is the man able to judge all her virtues? Perhaps he imagines Altynay as a woman is an ultimate dream for the utterly destitute.

Would your woman grumble and allow herself to be dowdy if she hadn’t any other merits such as to hide craftily from envious eyes everything that her husband hunted and a skill to cook a fatty soup from, you can say it, empty water, you godless man! And what whims have to do with it?

¹ - irimshik – a kind of home made cheese

began mixing dough for bawyrsaks¹. Her arm joints moved as a machine. She mixed the dough in a moment and then went to summer kitchen to make fire. She arranged, hanging on a poker, a large bucket from the Mullah’s house for frying bawyrsaks. Now she is sitting in the smoke of slightly burning oil and here her son appears without paints, still sleepy, rubbing his eyes and calling his mum, he gets at her knees.

— Are you up, my little sunbeam? — Altynay, embracing him with her right hand, lifted and kissed his forehead.

Medeu fixed at flat holed pieces of dough which shone golden restlessly in the bucket and opened curved little mouth smacking his lips:

—          Mum, a piece...

—         Yeah, my sun, here’s your piece, — hurried to agree with him the mother and pinning it with a reed she gave it to his hands.

Quaggy chubby Medeu took the reed at its both ends brought bawyrsak to his mouth and began to blow diligently at it and bite piece by piece crinkling his face. The fire is blazing, oil is boiling, bawyrsaks are hissing. Her Medeu is by her side. Now imagination of Altynay is busy with the thoughts about how she boils the teapot, wakes up her husband, makes the baby comfortably next to him and only three of them begin to enjoy holily the food which was sent to them by the Most High.

After she made tea and raised from the bed her “to consideration” who slept his fill, Altynay reached this her dream too.

To the left she set up samovar with crooked nose, puffing exactly like dear Medeu. Altynay, lifting with four fingers spread wide a cup with red bandlet, was drinking bitter tea and sweating diligently. Her husband, having slouched at his will, was also keeping silence and swallowing up bawyrsak by bawyrsak in silence. And her dear Medeu tried to keep pace. He lay back on the father’s legs and was chewing with an effort the mash which stuffed in a mouth, with painstaking he opened and then closed his eyes.

¹ - bawyrsak - Central Asian fried dough, donuts

habit of the Kazakh to wait for an invitation staring at the table of the other people! We’d better find out how the people feel after that night incident. Has master Mamyrbai survived at his hearth and home? Let’s return to them and have a look, follow me, my pupils!

 

Even after they had kept to their beds, long time the men couldn’t come to their senses, they shook heads, turned around moving as if on the crippled legs, got out of their dwellings and called their relatives. The women shivered buzzing. They never got tired calling their fathers, husbands along with this they all huddled to one another as if hoping to find a saving female in themselves. They clamored, whined, made a fuss with cries: “Axe, axe” with which finally frightened themselves. Then they rushed to the food shed of Mamyrbai, broke it open and began to pull him out:

—          What? What? Oh, holy men, ah! Are you safe?

Mamyrbai’s eyes fell out of sockets, he kept asking with interrupted breathe:

—          Where’s Baibishe? Where’s Akbilek?

—         Oibai, auh! Where are they? We haven’t seen... — they were astonished and flung themselves to the left, then to the right.

Soon the women’s voices poured into one cow roar, instantly it burst the night darkness with its animal desperation. There left no heart from heart after such terrifying whine. It turned out – they came across the stretching from earthen hole body of Mamyrbai’s hostess. But Akbilek as if melted; perhaps those men dragged her with them.

Mamyrbai began to drone hard and crashed down as a sack. The aul was bleating pitifully as sheep flock already and here their ears caught a sound of horse stamp of a rider that was coming to them.

—         They shot, shot! — approaching cry cut into burnt out crowd like a blade. The crowd split again, clatter and chatter and confusion arouse.

-    What?

—                     They went away!

—                     The hostess was killed! Oibai!

 

—                    Bekbolat was shot!

—                    Eh!

—                    And who is he, how did he happen here?

 

—                  Well, he hunted here with Bekbolat. They heard a woman cry and at once began chasing...

—                  Is he dead or still alive?

—                  He’s still alive, but who knows...

The man that arrived was one of those who had brought Bekbolat to the aul. There they bandaged his wound and parted to different sides.

“Yes, death, it’s...whether you want it or not but it will take what it wants. Any way you slice it, any way you look into its eyes, it will sneak behind like a thief, you will only then know when it mows you down... but who and what can withstand it?” – they had a talk and the next day, gathered together and buried the old woman addressing Mamyrbai with condolences: “What can you do...you should endure...so, it’s time...” and anyone dared to say about Akbilek nothing more than: “It’s even more terrible than death....you should hope!” It’s such a wound that doesn’t have a heart to name all names. As this wound has torn away not only Mamyrbai but lay on dignity of everybody and humiliated tormentingly.

And when the people who gathered at the funeral repast slightly stopped feeling that so painful sensation which smarted their souls, which said there was their fault in what had happened too, fault that sprang from their slave nature, willingness to protect neither themselves nor their close people – then they began to crowd close and fantasize each in his own way. Some of them said:

—          Relatives, someone takes revenge on Aqsaqal. Somebody’s from our people. Otherwise how could they sneak along the steep hillside to the aul, they didn’t fall down...

They were echoed to:

—          You say it right, if they looked for women, there are lots of them in the known places. The Kazakhs were in it. How do the Russians know who and where lives? — they concluded the case.

The others said:

—                      Who could plan such matter?

—                      Who’s the culprit? — they began to turn it in the mind.

—                      Who hated Aqsaqal so much?

—                      A weed won’t grow for nothing, unless Zhamanbaylar’s people are involved in the matter.

—                      Leave it, who of them dares that? And then, they have never been enemies. Perhaps it’s a stranger.

—                      It looks like this is on Kurbankazhi supporters’ heads. They joined the party; will they pity now the other people? — uttered someone aside.

—                      What an utter nonsense you say! What, have the parties appeared only today? There have never been such cases before, you’re singing the song of strangers, perhaps, you want to bring somebody the full egg or ripe melon... Kurban-kazhi isn’t able to throw the Muslem’s daughter to kaffirs to tear her to pieces. He also has children, how will he look at the face of God? — the white-bearded man with wolfy look forced the accuser shrink.

—                      In my opinion, this case is on Aben’s head — said the man with bluish beak on the spotted face who sat comfortably with the inverted snuffbox on his palm. — Last year he managed to push off to the Russians his horse with bald patches, since then as if the blood has arisen in him: “Oh, how to pull off a deal again!”

— Hey, what can he do? He would dare nothing on the earth without instructions of such people as Mukash. If there’s nobody behind him, he isn’t able to wipe his ass — again man with wolfy eyes claimed indisputably.

They handled everybody who had reasons to revenge to Aqsaqal; ten-fifteen persons were gathered, handled all possible versions but having only assumptions they managed to get hold of nobody’s hoof. The case was also complicated by the fact that they suspected one people and justified the others for reasons that were far from the heart of the subject, reasons related to party conflicts, quarrels of blood such as: somebody has taken something in the wrong way, the other hasn’t returned something, someone hasn’t shared the meat of the stolen cattle, the other one because his wife ran away from him, or, on the contrary, because he stuck to the other wives and daughters, and somebody  was responsible for having a loose tongue – everyone danced from his sore places and pouring his inside. Somebody was cutting throat, the other one was skinning. In addition to those who sincerely bothered themselves at this trial there were also such people who came to gloat over Aqsaqal Mamyrbai secretly. There were unvarnished stool-pigeons, how could they blunder away a fair chance to settle old scores, if they wanted it so much! Those who came to express heartfelt condolence were on the small side.

The only matchmaker, somebody from trully well-wishing people and a few neighbors who the hostess particularly had welcomed with kumiss in the full-brimmed cups – these were the people who came to express that compulsory sympathy which is shown to both friends and enemies. And now... although the people sympathized, they still couldn’t get rid of inappropriate thoughts on this incident.

The company, which parted in different sides after the funeral and various mourning ceremonies, roamed with brain searches. They listened to, asked again and pondered on who had arranged such low act after all. That was because such sort of the things had happened not only to the chopped off Mamyrbai recent days, but another several auls have suffered in the same way too. The cattle were drivenaway and the aul people were trapped, robbed, humiliated, and burnt. The people always have had prick-ears. No matter you hide or conceal something but there’s always a man who has heard something, that knows something, isn’t it? They tattled, shook rumors and glances as necessary and came to the fact that noone but Mukash had been involved in this case. Will you ask how it has been revealed? Like this.

There was one shepherd who saw Mukash rushing in a trot to Karashat in the late afternoon that ill-fated day. That is the first clue. When Mukash’s wife became spiteful one day and didn’t give a bolter to one of her sisters-in-law, the latter said: “As if I don’t know where you have stashed the people’s belongings! I’ll make you do your nuts and reel off! I know everything! I know whose that dark red carpet is, and I know where from you have taken white felt and that cambric dress...” they heard this and immediately sent an unnoticeable man from Suleymen’s house to Mukash. That man returned and reported: he recognized the carpet. That was the second clue. A hostess of the green cambric dress and green sleeveless jacket was found. That was the third clue.

Another guy named Suyrbai assured that he had noticed that the motley horse of Mukash had obviously spent that night under a saddle. This Suyrbai had never enjoyed everybody’s confidence, but all the same...that was another one reason into the same thriftbox - the fourth one. Tezekbai-Mullah also noted that Mukash loved to spend nights anywhere but home. He is a simple-hearted man. With thisclue it will make five. Besides, everyone remembered that Mamyrbai’s son had collected the necessary material about Mukash and didn’t allow him to become the Head of volost which caused the candidate’s offence. So, if it’s not Mukash, then who can it be? “Mukash, noone else but Mukash” – so has everybody decided.

Now there’s Mukash within the eyeshot of people. What will they do with him? How to take revenge? Will they kill him with an axe? Willthey bring him to justice? Or will they kill him themselves? Will they burn the house and drain dry? The people were about to accomplish both this and that action, if not all of them. Yet, there hasn’t been a chance. But there’s the fact that has made an end to everything. And this fact was in the following.

Mamyrbai, deprived of wife and daughter, from early in the morning sat on the hill in the open steppe and stared somewhere. Suddenly he saw a rider with fluttering in the wind ears of winter hat who was rushing towards him from the neighboring aul. The rider rose upand greeted him. As soon as they said hello he reported:

—          Bai, have you heard what had happened this night?

    — No, I haven’t.

—                     Oibai, what’s going on!

—                     What is it, my good-hearted?

— Thanks to our God we will get a chestful of fresh air...

—                     Has anything happened to Mukash?

—                     It hasn’t, oibai...

—                     Speak then!

—                     The Reds have seized all the Whites in the mountains.

—                     How have they? And where’s Akbilek?

— Nothing is known about Akbilek....So to say, everyone has been gripped one and all.

—          So then... how did it become known? From whom?

—          The people from Turkulak aul came. There stayed a detachment of the Reds and Mukash allured the Whites there and the Reds seized everybody there. The Whites were so confused that they didn’t move about. These dogs are strong against the women only and when they are pressed down, they are nobody.

—          And how does Mukash manage to deceive everybody?

—          He’s found a loophole; he’s a cheat, a famous adventurer...

—                     That means that he’s been in on it together with the Russians again...

—                     You bet! A big position is waiting for him again.

—This is exactly what the bastard has planned. Holy men, ah, what has happened to Akbilek, aha? You’ve found nothing about her...

Mamyrbai stood up roughly and dragging himself moved home. Hurrying people he sent five horsemen to search for Akbilek.

Let these horsemen ride around the auls, ask passers by in the steppe while we tell the news about Akbilek.

 

Akbilek, straitened and frightened like little goitered gazelle, with her eyes full of tears all the time was thinking about mother and aul. She refused even from a crumb of bread. Even though she petrified and squirmed from hunger and wanted the only thing – to die, the butterfly of her soul was still ruffling in her chest and didn’t want to fly off. It’s surprising what a drop of nectar has the winged soul found in this foul life!

A man is an enduring creature – he will survive death, he doesn’t care bondage and torture chambers; he gets used to everything, he can live at war too. Even a man sentenced to death eats, drinks, dreams sweet sleeps and life doesn’t wear him down. I don’t think there is more enduring creature in the world than the man is.

No matter how numb was Akbilek but she gradually shook down with her fate.

Whether it be a charm of being or fear, self-love or passion of the man... whatever,but when Black-moustached orders: “Kiss” – Akbilek touches his face with her lips, “Laugh” – he says and sees mouth stretched into a smile; he asks: “Speak” – and she mutters incomprehensible for her Russian words which she learned by heart: “Love you”.

For almost a month Black-moustached clang like a limpet to Akbilek. And so he wandered with her along green mountain meadows and in the forest. There he armed her, here he hugged her waist, there entwined her hair with torn flowers and here picked up sweet berries for her. He took her to springs on bushy slopes, took shoes off her, washed her feet and kissed them tickling her heels with black moustache. And if Akbilek got tired, he carried her arranging her head on the bend of one arm and maintaining the other hand firmly under her knees. He did everything on his own: gave her tea, fed from his hand, plumped up and made bed in the most remote part of the dwelling. And when he arranged her by his side under a grey overcoat he pressed her so tightly to himself and so hungrily and long while sucked in her lips, caressed her body that Akbilek’s heart rose up to her throat, pulse was fastening hot and she, burning and forgetting herself she grew weaker and opened to him...

What was next she didn’t remember....As if she had happened to be in the other world.

Willingness of Black-moustached to kill anyone who touched his kyzymka, his admiration of her which grew into puppyish gladness to lick her legs, tiring reluctance to make a single step away from her, glance full of drowning tenderness, words like verses – all of them were incomprehensible for Akbilek. Do the people scoff at or humiliate the others this way? Or is he really in love with her? If not, then perhaps his behavior can be only explained by the fact that he hasn’t seen women for a long time? She wasn’t able to think this thought to the end, especially if to remember that no matter how close was Black-moustached with her, everything in him - from smell to gesture – has still remained strange to her. They were so different how different were the sky and the earth but when their bodies ran into one, all the differences seemed to disappear. From time to time Akbilek, who thought that the man shouldn’t wheedle so, tried to justify his kneeling before her, and I have to say she did find. He is the man, her husband, but he is unorthodox! Everything he does – sits, prays, speaks, drinks vodka, eats pork, stinks of cigarette smoke – he does improperly. And how can she allow his sinful chest press to her white breasts?!

In the twilight hour of one day during their sitting in the ravine the Russians started to get ready to go somewhere. Talking excitedly they cleaned and shot guns, looked through harness, saddled horses. Just that time Akbilek was returning with Black-moustached from their walk in the forest thicket. Right at once she hurried to hide in the hut, curled there on a soldier rag and remembered the aul with a sigh. She pressed her face to the kosh grating. Through a cosh rent it could be seen how Black-moustached went up to the crowd of the Russians who were preparing for a journey busily and hastily, and began talking to them. He returned frowning and with tight lips and looked over the bolt of his gun, next he began to pack his clothes and lifted his saddle...And when Akbilek raised her head and looked at his face with a dumb question: “Where are you?” – he threw anxious eye on her. Although it lasted only for a moment, it was so heavy that Black-moustached casted down his eyes as if became confused. In some time he went out and returned with the interpreter already. The latter translated his words:

—             We’re leaving to war. What will you do?

Akbilek stared at him in amazement not knowing what to reply. and when she heard the question:

—          Where would you like to be? — Akbilek dropped her head, shrugged shoulders and in a wailing voice asked:

—                     Won’t you take me back to the aul? ...

Black-moustached shook his head no and asked:

—                     Do you want to go with us?

—                     To war?

—          To war — Black-moustached uttered and put a hand on her shoulder.

Akbilek waggled her head:

—                    Then leave me here.

—                    Won’t you be afraid at night?

—                    If I am, then let it be... I’ll stay here... will you return? — she emitted.

—                    It’s impossible — Black-moustached replied in a wavering voice.

As soon as their conversation broke off another three Russians entered. Watching their mimicry and sharpness of voices Akbilek realized the most terrible threatening hang over her. Black-moustached was angry at them. Through his slitted eyes he spoke through clenched teeth and made them go deadly pale. The Russians twitched their necks and began to draw off with the fingers their collars as if from choking.

Akbilek guessed that he replied to them: “I won’t give her to tear to pieces” – and she fixed with gratitude at Black-moustached. After those Russians had left Black-moustached sat down and ordered the interpreter with an abrupt nod to go out too. For a while he sat with his face down and rubbed with his hand drops of sweat on his forehead, then shook his hand, jumped to his feet and stretched the hand to Akbilek as if begging: “Come on”. She stood up immediately.

Black-moustached took Akbilek’s hand and led her out of the kosh to the right, towards the bushes around the spring.

Gusty humming wind. No moon. Heavy darkness. Dark icy straggly clouds hid the mountain tops and a dark hungry hen was picking grains of stars in the sky. The subtle rays of hope that had kindled before were dying out with the stars. Akbilek’s heart, full of anguish, was fading away with them. With gleaming eyes she was peering at Black-moustached’s face.His face went dark, eyes became bloodshot, nostrils were flaring. His pace was firm which she didn’t like especially. The heart squeezed and fell to heels. They went deep into the thicket and when they were on a meadow surrounded by the trees Black-moustached stopped, stood motionless for a while staring at Akbilek’s eyes, hugged, pressed to himself and kissed her lips three times. Then he went five-six steps away from her but first his hands that lay on her shoulders as if ordered rigidly: “Stay this way”. He gripped a rifle from his shoulder and pointed it at Akbilek. With a scream which stretched into a moan she rushed straight against the trunk. The Black-moustached’s pointing arm gave a start and the rifle fell down to the ground.

—          What for? What have I done wrong? Ma-a-aster! What have I done?.. - Akbilek burst into tears with her entire body shivering and hung on his neck. — Kiss me, please... Lovingly.

Black-moustached raised his arms a bit and hugged her half a heart, patted her back with his hand – he’s taken mercy on her. Again hebegan staring at her face. Then picked up the rifle and returned to the camp with Akbilek. There he called over the interpreter andexplained:

—          I love you, I’ve ruined my soul for your sake, and I don’t want anybody to love you after me.

Akbilek froze to the tiniest bone. “Oh, the Creator! I can’t, can’t believe the Russian! All this time he acted like a loving husband and saying goodbye he decided to kill, he loves...only himself! Hard-heartedness...hard-heartedness, what is to shed blood for him?! He wants to live...but I don’t want to die either! Take pity on me...” – these thoughts floated in her mind and the last moment she’s found what to say:

—          Don’t kill me! Let me live! Perhaps some day you’ll need me again, you don’t know for sure, do you? I’ve got a dream that I was following you and called you to the town. You’ll return alive and go back to your people...believe me.

“Good wishes – half the battle” — this is a simple proverb but it warms up any heart, especially if the man goes to die. Black-moustached took Akbilek’s words for a good sign and, as if accepting her prophecies, kissed her on lips.

In the twilights which are pleasant only when you’re at home sitting under cosy lamps, the Russians obeying guttural order jumped onto saddles and moved in a single line out of the narrow neck of the ravine. Akbilek’s shadow, frightened for ever, humiliated and corrupted by man’s affection, also began to move away from Akbilek together with them. And while tapping of horse hoofs was heard she sighed unintentionally: “A-ah..” and breathed out in a whisper: “Allah...”

Akbilek wandered lonely through the abandoned camp of the Russians as a stray puppy but solitude was no burden for her. To die straying in the desolate mountains but not of a bullet seemed more preferable for her. Until the last sound of riders moving away was heard she couldn’t believe: “The Creator, have You saved me?” It went quiet. And she threw a handful of sand after them – like buried, sighed with relief and finally looked around.

Dank shaggy heap of clouds covered like a two-humped male beast the white mountain tops spreading over all slopes with impenetrable darkness. Here watching them star hurried to disappear from the skies like timid shepherd who saw bold thieves sneaking to his herd.

Chilly haze, halloo! How to see in it the dark mist swirling in Akbilek’s soul?

Autumn leaves! Why are you dooking, who you, faded away, are trying to lull, halloo?

Quails, come on there on strong branches, you’re carefree and happy-go-lucky, halloo! It must be nice to you to call and hope for sympathy of inky night. Are you to appease the anguish in Akbilek’s heart? Or are you sure that you’re blessed to bring to the God a doleful cry of a small duck pained by white-tail buzzard, which is nosing the ground among lopsided empty koshes but still gazing at the sky?!

Clouds, halloo, why wouldn’t you disperse?!

Leaves, halloo, you’d rather cover the sad beautiful girl than fly asunder on the ground rustling!

Frozen winds, don’t dodge dissolutely but bring to the father a message about his daughter left in deadly gap.

Oh, heartless forms of nature, ah! Your Altaic language isn’t known to wounded beauty! Gone is the beautiful hostage who didn’t want to consider your gloomy masks and please your will! She trusted herself to the God of Altai and was gone!...

The night darkness grew thicker. Akbilek was horrified. Something, a large number of it, flew over her head. Shiver penetrated Akbilek. When something flies up with crash, flutters in the grass, rustles in the bushes, hoots – Akbilek gets motionless covering herself with arms as if she is just about to be grasped by mysterious monsters. When she lies down – there’s no sleep. And she’s absolutely scared to sit. But to move somewhere she’s afraid, besides she can easily get lost and injured in the darkness... Still the sharp thought doesn’t leave her mind: to go away from this place as soon as it’s possible. But where can she go to in the middle of the night? She can’t make up her mind. The native place seems to her, there are Kazakh things there, Kazakh utensils....Next to it there’s a kind of dwelling – kosh, apparently it’s already familiar but she’s not able to make a step there no matter how terrifying it is under the dark sky.

Not knowing what to do now Akbilek is sitting hunched up, cringed and is looking around fearfully. One night seemed to make a layer over another one. Even a trough which is knocking around here in front of the nearby kosh isn’t seen. The Creator, ah! How soon thedawn will be?!

At some point the coming from forest howling seems to her. It’s so sinister. Some shadows began to romp about in the nearest kosh that stood open and crooked like a witch. Akbilek used to hear the wolfish howl near the flocks outside the aul: the sound was the same. Itcan’t be, ah! Are these wolves?..What am I to do? Come off it, the wolves won’t dare - how they know whether there are people in the koshes. And the Russians with guns are so frightful – they’ll be afraid. Or have they already understood that the latter left the camp? When these Russians were here, the wolves didn’t dare to give a squeak...

The kosh door jamb creaked quietly. It seems someone has come in sight but noiselessly. Fear has big eyes but it’s dark as midnight.She’d rather stand but she can’t. The howl was heard again, more distinctly and clearly. The howl kept growing. Shaking mountains itswept all other sounds. Akbilek’s hands stretched themselves to one of the poles and drew it out of koshs’s felt. With her both hands she caught the fathom-long pole – you can break any spine with it, she stood behind the hut. Who but her should meet the wolves fully armed, there’s noone really. The howl seemed to cease. Akbilek put down her cudgel and fetched her breathe but it turned out it was too early to calm down. A splash of water came from the spring...

Who is it?..A man?..An animal?...It doesn’t matter who. Akbilek sat down and gripped the pole again. She caught her breath and froze.

Here a couple of two round red eyes flashed in the black shroud. Red-red eyes which burnt with fire. Akbilek stood up and ran to the kosh, pressed with her back into the most remote edge. And what could she do if the stick fell out of her hands in front of entrance to the kosh. She crawled carefully, stretched her hand outside and began to fumble on the ground...

Look: two lights multiplied into four. If only it were so! Another couple of crimson spots flashed after them. Six burning wolf peepers looked like sixty to Akbilek. The blackest night filled with fiery eyes only. They shimmered, here fading away, there burning out again, flickered, approached...

Is this all real?...the grass is already rustling under them.

There-here, here they are...

Oibai, ah! A pack of wolves!

Where will I go now?!

Be careful, here they are swaying curtains of the kosh, sniffing the ground...

Oh, the Creator, ah! Will they really find her?..

Oh, holy men, ah! One of the grey creatures has found a bone at the fireless hearth and sunk its teeth into it.

Just imagine what has happened to Akbilek!..

She didn’t dare to breathe, and so she froze.

Soon in the open aperture of the kosh that hid Akbilek there appeared rumbling wolf muzzle...

Akbilek’s desperate cry which cut through the night made a wolf jump aside, for some seconds gave her hope for saving but rapacious eyes flared again, chaps grinned, rumbling grew louder. The wolves rushed forward, spinning on one place, roared with deep-chested hum. Akbilek understood that the animals would certainly lunge at her and decided to outrun them. She went heels over head by leaps and bounds, grabbed the stick and began to wave it around shouting: all the same she could see nothing.

From time to time she heard a particularly vicious growling. Sometimes it gave sweetly to her hands from a blow by the pole either on the flesh-eater or on to the kosh. Spinning was faster and faster. Akbilek, having lost her senses is waving and waving with her stick. The wolves closed around her. Akbilek hits out, wolves dodge, Akbilek beats, and wolves jump at her. Akbilek prays to God, wolves rage. Akbilek pipes...wolves growl...Akbilek shrieks, wolves howl...And so she fought with them, long time fought...

Akbilek nearly has already choked of nervous breakdown, in fever and casting, she’s dying, there’s no escape... “I’ll fall now, now, now they’ll clutch at me, tear to pieces, eat...” – the thought was flashing across her mind when suddenly something flared under her feet. The wolves jumped away. It turned out to be coals of the fire – they drank tea but coals didn’t extinguish... Akbilek immediately began to throw them around with her legs. Wonder! Fire, ash and twigs that smothered secretly came up with a bang. The wolves backed off together from burning flame.

Akbilek hastened to throw dry twigs and crust that laid prepared here to the fire. And the wind pleased her, blew the fire high up as if justifying: “Actually I was on that side, see?” And the more fire flared up, the dimmer grew the fire in the wolves’ eyes. You won’t diebefore fire dies. The fire goes down and Akbilek’s life is destined to fade away. And how not to spell magic here?

¹- mazda – to be in flaring fire

herself.

Altai shook off his wrinkled loins the dark night with bloody eyes and monstrous fangs, scribed thinly lineaments of sunny fabulous beauty Kunekey in the melting moonlight of the leaden sky. The sky dome was filled with whiteness in the uprise, the mountain tops gleamed with gilt. And just when the red and heavenly dawn’s gate opened, Akbilek left looking back fearfully. She belted herself with a rope from the felt coating which covered the kosh chimney and went in the soldier shoes which she had found in the kosh, the top of them reached her waist. In her arms she had the night pole. Who else was she going to beat with it – she didn’t know, however, she took it with her.

The dawn broke, and the wind came round, the clouds split up. The larks flew up from their nests, dashed towards the rocks demanding from stony leviathans the payment for the right to see sun-faced Kunekey first. The larks, halloo, you’d better ask her for Akbilek.However, you needn’t; anyway she is going shining. Her face is illuminated. And she has a beaming day ahead! In a moment she forgot that scary long night, deadly dance with wolves, pattering by tips of soldier heels from stone to stone, you can’t catch up with her!

Akbilek was running like the sound of letter “E”. She hurried to her people, she has already seen enough of the Russians, strange, disgusting, who wanted to kill her – such were they! And she had no other way than to slip through the eye of a needle. Behind her there were deserted mountains, mountains full of monsters: wolves, bears, albasty¹, boars with an eye in the forehead. In front of her there’s a narrow path full of animals too: no one can gurantee her that night fangs won’t meet her on the future road.

Who but her will bring her out? So mother’s mollycoddle moves heavy boots, having forgotten about food, sleep, tiredness, desiring only to see the edge of the native aul.

¹ - albasty – female demonic creature, dangerous for mothers giving birth

where there’s everything in a pile: both the feeling of guilt and disgust. So puppy poos at the cleanly swept rag of the hostess. You take it for withers, poke it with its nose into its filth, it turns off its snout, whimpers, tries to move backwards. So is Akbilek like this puppy. She didn’t want to see anything, turned out. No matter how Akbilek hurried, all the same the tocks, boulders, stone fractures hid from her the native flat face of the steppe. But there came an hour when the sun rose over the entire mountain range at the height of a spear. Breathless Akbilek got up the edge of the stone trap and saw misty steppe space. She was so glad as if she was at home door. She came to such delight – give her wings, she’ll fly up!

Her knees doubled under her, ankles began to crunch. Nothing, she dragged further. Trying not to swing her arms she went down the slope to the valley. Crunch in the legs seemed to quite down. She hoped she still had forces; indeed it became a sort of easier to go on the even ground but as soon as she went up another one hill her legs leadened, began to ache and as if broke down.

Where are her tireless legs, as fast in playing tag as hare’s legs? Was she put an evil eye on or anything worse is approaching her? It’s terrible to imagine, ah, what if suddenly convulsions happen? I wish any aul appeared, if it isn’t an aul, let it be a lonely Kazakh, if it isn’t any Kazakh, I wish it were at least any animal. But the hills only came up with hillocks; they just looked as barriers, and nothing or anyone else can be seen.

After passing another wasteland Akbilek stumbled upon the steep stretching across...God’s mercy!.. The river, the river! At the opposite bank there ran up a road. It means people are nearby! Akbilek straining herself began to walk faster. The river turned out to be narrow, rolling round stones in the stony gully with splashes. She went out to a smooth river bank, pulled off her boots, took off her chapan, camisole, picked up the dress’s hem, rolled up sleeves, washed her face and drank water. Her throat was completely dry, she was very tired. When quenched her thirst she sighed with relief.

Akbilek sat quite for a long time at the water’s edge. She thought: “Here water flows and stops, flows and stops; there’s no end to it, nothing threatens it, it doesn’t know what death is. It doesn’t feel anything. Whether I drink it or no – it doesn’t care; it’ll give to drink to both a bad man and a good one. It’s also the God’s grace. It’s God’s mercy! And I haven’t got anything of it!”

For all her life water has been flowing in front of her eyes but such thoughts have never crossed her mind. She was amazed how theyhave come upon. She bent towards water smooth surface at her feet and saw her reflection. Her hair was shaggy, she hurried to do it up watering the locks. She wanted to comb the hair but didn’t, thinking: “For whom will I smarten myself?” She got up, looked around in search of a quiet place near there to have rest a bit. It turned out she had a tingle in her legs, then she pinched about three times calves, hips, it seemed to pass off.

 A shallow scour in the abrupt bank stroke her eye to the left. Without thinking too much Akbilek put on the camisole, threw chapan on her shoulders and dragging her cudgel after her moved to it.

She could hide there at the creek. Behind her – there was a wall of stone clay, in front of her – there was water, to the right – there was a creek, to the left – there was the bank that flew down from the steep. She sat hugging her knees and hunching looked at water. The sun began to strike down, the forehead grew hotter.

“Here’s the river. And where are the people that live here? Isn’t it usual to settle down at the rivers in autumn? And there’s a road along the bank...Oh, probably, the local people ran away from the Russians!  Everything around is torn off frenziedly! Now they are nobody!..How many girls, poor things like me, have disappeared! But such as happened to me, it’s hardly occured to them. I haven’t seen any other girls at the kosh camp...Or did they kill them just at once?.. The Russians, oh, so ruthless to the people they are! I won’t mention these damned, what if they appear again! Why haven’t they returned? Perhaps they came across someone? Who do they fightso? Maybe they fight with the Kazakhs from the outskirts? No, what for do the Kazakhs fight with them? What do they want? Do they want to destroy all of the Kazakhs and to have their daughters, wives, the cattle? So, why did they all disappear at once? It’s enough three-four of them with the rifles to go plundering the entire aul... And they were leaving away hiding, looking around like frightened. Orhas there been found justice to them? Who is their enemy? Oh, holy men, ah! Father used to tell something about “the Whites, the Reds”. Is there the matter in here? Are the Reds also the Russians? Do they also grab the girls – and go in hiding? If the Russians...so, they are perhaps the same as Black-moustached. He wanted to shoot me. Oho-oh, my poor head! The Creator, ah! What am I to do?!” - wondered she and guessed and then left it.

Water is flowing; splashes clean...Akbilek is watching at the clear water but muddy thoughts are lulling her. They have lulled, her eyelids close down. Fearing to fall asleep, afraid of something sudden Akbilek opens and opens her eyes that gather straws. There’s no way: the sun warms up – it’s one, splash of water, a question without an answer – it’s two, she didn’t sleep the whole night, was walking all morning and half of the day, got tired out...

Waking up Akbilek gave a start and immediately lifted her head. She got scared, of course! She happened to be God knows where, just about in a pit near a river. Here she remembered how had run away from the dark mountain ravine. Got up to her feet. The sun has inclined to the horizon, it went dusky. She looked over that bank peering at it, looked attentively over this one, searched for a ford; her feet were loose in the boots again. She was walking here and there. There was no ford. She was measuring with her pole a depth of water, it was deep everywhere.

It took her long to come out to shallow water covered with round pebbles from the edge to the edge. The course rushed in dimple. She took off the boots, pulled up underwear as higher over the knees as she could, with her leather stockings under the arm and crossed the stream stepping carefully with her white chubby feet over smooth stones.

The hill was seen in half-verst¹ away. She decided to go up it and to look for the people with her eyes.

       ¹ - verst – Russian measure for distance used in pre-revolutionary (mostly) and post-revolutionary times

 

the mountains but getting round them. Having decided all this, Akbilek began walking along the mountain passes trying to go through gentle, open places.

A rearing, deserted valley. Entwinement of pale grass, thickets of wild flowers, hillocks, embankments, red sand clay, and overgrown landslip seams. Grey mice, mottled magpies, brown hares, larks – you can see no one except them. People, who can show up, halloo! The deserted steppe is like a burn. How do the shepherds pasture the flocks in it and don’t die of boredom? Hey, bare boundlesswasteland! Sad is a view of a lonely traveler in the bare steppe.

Akbilek goes drearily along the steppe that still promises a saving, her knees are loose in the tops of the boots. A red-footed falcon is following a mouse, squawking straight like an eagle. There in the distance a lark flies up and falls down clearly, permeates heights, having no forces and trembling wings to stop still even for a moment. A voice of this bird disturbed particularly, the other sang differently – what has happened to the poor thing? Another four-five birdies were scampering in a circle around her, here coming closer, there moving away; the tiny patronesses were bustling: they would fly up, chipper indignantly and fly off aside.

One moment the lark darted down recklessly as if attacking. And Akbilek ran to the birdie like a shot. The place where to she rushed was thick with grass. Akbilek hurries up looking closely. The winged little thing, which sank to grass thickets, began to romp about, stirred there deepening into tangles of thick stalks and went noisy swaying the grass. What has happened to this poor creature? She ran up and saw a grey snake that lay springily spreading flat the greenery.

The snake throws up its sharp head, death is in it. Diamond eyes fix at the lark, bifid tongue flickers; the snake whistling crawls by its side, bewitching. Now it curls then it stretches emitting poisonous steams, now it’s ready to jump. The lark isn’t able to take its eyes away from the gleaming snake’s eyes. It waves the wings frantically, throws up miserably, balls – and moves down there, straight under the snake’s teeth. There it flutters. One, two: “Hop!”, and that’s all. The terrible snake eyes the birdie keenly with piercing glance, licks itself with the fork of the tongue, lies and waits when the lark itself jumps into its mouth.

Akbilek felt sorry for the lark. She slapped with her pole just on the sharpened villainous head. She simply hammered it into the ground, the narrow body began to pull itself desperately. The poor birdie came round a bit: moved, span on the ground, shook itself as if peeling off something sticky, waved its wings noisily and flew up to the sky like a bit of fluff. Akbilek gave two more strikes on the moving snake and went further.

She stepped away and remembered the words she had heard as far back as in the childhood: “Snake eats lark bewitching it”. How doesshe? “You’ll see on your own” – so they said. “I wonder what kind of magic is there in the eyes of this vermin?” she was surprised. The incident with the lark seemed to take weariness off her, she began walking cheerfully, and her heart was beating strongly giving back the even pulse. She was glad that she had saved the lark from certain death. And she was glad for her courage to kill the snake too. This was a good sign. The birdie is so defenseless, why is it to die?

                          Birdie, birdie —so my name’s,

                          I’m not a simple clod of feathers,

                          Boy gave me hurts and offences,                                                                                                                                                                           ^

                          Now then feel your orphancy!

So a bird curses in children games. But it’s no ways to blame. She’s come to the conclusion. And then came up a question which made her ponder again: “And who have I offended?” She imagined herself as the lark and her offenders as creeping creatures.  ^“I’ve beaten down the bird’s ruiner, so somebody will certainly kill my offenders too” – and she’s found her decision to be right.

She kept going and thinking this way when suddenly in front of the hill a whitish pointed spot flitted. Akbilek got scared and sat down immediately pulling her head into her shoulders. She hid herself, you couldn’t see. She was afraid to look raising herself – what if these are Russians but she had no patience to hide any longer – so much she wanted to see: who was there? “If these are Russians, they’ll find me all the same, everything around can be seen, come what may, I’ll take a look” – she decided and after she sat for a while, rose up and watched. At the foot of the hill somebody restless goes as if in a race. He mumbles something strange in his beard, there’s something like an owl clapped on the head. A guess came up that the Russians had no such pointed hats. It was just a relief, and a cone on the head became clear: it was a common Duana¹ – a magician, a healer and a holy man. There he has a staff in his hands.

— Hey, Duana! — she didn’t understand how she exclaimed, how she dared to call. A dervish stood as a horse at full speed, reared, stood motionless for a bit and then turned around and went straight to her.

Akbilek began to recognize him: the legs are dirty with clay; a sharp top of white hat is crowned by an eagle-owl’s feathers. A staff is made of snowball-tree, covered with dry tripe; it has tinkling rings and bells. He has fortune-telling shoulder of a lamb, beads of Prophet Khidr hang from his neck, there’s a knife on his side, nostrils are flaring, chest is unbuttoned, Adam’s apple sticks up, forearms are bare, and fingers are outstretched. He is beetle-browed watchfully; the beard sticks out with locks. He’s relaxed but vigilant keenly...he is that very man who you see once - recognize at once – he is that dervish Iskander.

Who is he, dervish Iskander? Is he dangerous for Akbilek? And while he’s cautiously moving towards her, we’ll try to tell you what kind of man is this Iskander.

There are no magical paths and mountain passes which Iskander hasn’t walked through. Whether it be Ust-Kamenogorsk or Borovoe, Semipalatinsk of Kar-Karaly – everywhere there’s been left a trace of his bare feet. He’s seen both a steam engine and a steamboat. He even has composed a song about this: “Ste-a-a-mbo-at, auh, ste-a-a-mmboat!..”

¹ - Duana – wandering dervish – holy man

 Anyway, mostly girls and daughters-in-law obtain adornments from him by request.

Iskander isn’t able to lie. He doesn’t know how it is possible. He never thinks of a man badly. He calls older people as fathers and uncles. And he addresses women: “mommy”, even if it’s only the youngest daughter-in-law in the house of other people. Everybody of the human race is “my child” for him. He never raises his voice onto anyone. He never replies to the person that offends him, only shakes his head. Sometimes he is asked:

— Duana, scare this prankster.

He replies stroking the delinquent child:

—            Leave the child, my good one, won’t scare, won’t scare!

Iskander adores children most of all. When Iskander appears the kids follow him in a file, they don’t leave him until his very departure. And dogs especially note him; to tell the truth, they follow him barking and growling. He goes shifting his staff steadily and if even a dog sinks his teeth into the stick, he never beats the animal. When the children are busy with studying then Iskander hurries to shake hands with the Mullah teaching them, and here immediately children jump and stretch their hands to dervish. Iskander asks the Mullah to let the children go and then gives them free rein. Sometimes he stays for a night in an aul. He squats near a house in the evening and holds abent right arm to a kid that as a rule stands out there. Then he begins to move him round and push down here and there. Such is wrestling for him. The children are interested; they get in line to for a battle with him. If a boy falls down, Iskander lets his hand out and says: “Eh, athlete, you’ve fallen down” – and if the boy stays on his feet then he says: “Hey, mighty man, you’ve won.”

Iskander believes everything he is told. “They say, such-and-such wants to see you, he wants you to bring him coal from a town” – they say to dervish and he replies: “Aha-a, that is how” – and goes to the mentioned so-and-so. There was such a case when in fierce winter days Iskander walked fifty versts to some Ishan Isakay bringing on his back a sack with coal for him. Moreover, he goes barefoot either loosening sand or snow. Such his soul is that his legs have never been acquainted with any footwear.

Praise is what Iskander likes. Tell him: “Honorable Duana, they say, you have competed with a steamboat?” – he replies pleased: “Oh, father, there was such case”. He’s raced with an ambler and with the horses harnessed into a bullock cart. He affirmed that he made hisgood running. Honor – to running – that’s all he can boast of. But those who have seen him running assured that he happened to be behind the horses only in the races for long distances. Sometimes he takes something into his head and he begins to run near auls on a level with stallions for two-three miles. And when you ask: “Duana, how do you manage not to get tired?” – responds – “Oh, The God gives strength”.

So runs Iskander, never seeking rest. Only enters any home on his way, exclaims “Truly!” – and runs with his hands over the face praying, and the next moment he isn’t there.

He doesn’t tell fortunes, doesn’t predict destiny. He assures: “it’s a sin” – and shakes his head from side to side. However, you can’t say he’s been diligent in prayings. Sometimes during namaz he goes up to the praying Muslims without washing his black heels and settles down nearby. He doesn’t utter anything from surah of the Koran but he moves his lips, reads something as if inwardly. From time to time he proclaims: “Truly!” – and gives dreary sound, and that’s all.

Iskander isn’t very good at chatting, his answers are short. And when he speaks, he can reply with a poem. If a master of a house says suddenly: “Duana, we have no lamb to treat you”— then you hear such a patter from him in season or out of season:

                              Eh, when you don’t have a sheep,

                                 So wisdom’s your reward.

                                 Wisdom’s everywhere seen,

                                So from above a feast you’ve got...

Nobody has ever seen Iskander displeased, with a protruding lip. Whenever you look at him he’s friendly and smiling. But nobody has even thought over why he is as he’s, how the heart pounds in his chest, what blood runs in his veins, what energy drives his body. They only thee and thouh to him: “Duana, Duana” – and only mention: “Such man can do everything”. Iskander’s life is a secret. Of course,Iskander is a man. But what kind of man is he?...

Perhaps that’s all what can be said about the man who Akbilek met. The dervish approaching her pronounced:

—          Ah, my child, my beam, dear... Where are you from? Akbilek not knowing what to say became confused and drooped.

—         Uncle Duana... me... me... of Aqsaqal Mamyrbai... — and went silent.

She was ashamed to confess that she had been under the Russian man, although it was against her own will… It’s impossible to keep silence either; she had to say something. She rubbed her forehead, fluttered her eyelashes and dropped her eyes to the ground... She murmured:

—         I’m the daughter of Aqsaqal Mamyrbai... got lost... now can’t find my aul ...

Duana didn’t ask how and when she had got lost.

—         Er-er, my child... got lost? Mamyrbai, Mamyrbai, Tauirbai, Suyrbai... I know, know... I’ll take you with me, look after you, bring home — and he offered his hand.

Being happy because the dervish didn’t begin to ask her about anything, Akbilek followed him gladly. Iskander dragged her after him with his left arm and with his right arm he moved his staff: only his dry, as if cut of wood, feet flitted. He goes, goes and pities her in tune with the steps: “Eh, my child, eh, my baby, the eyes are swollen, legs are beaten, she’s suffered hunger, and herself is faded...” And Akbilek has no words to say; only sometimes she looks at sticking with locks beard of the pilgrim and his darkened under the sun bosom. Warty fingers hold firmly Akbilek’s wrist. He hurries so fast as if somebody there far away has been tired of waiting for him desperately. Akbilek, who has got tired very quickly, is late to move her feet. She’s been warped like a baby that has been dragged behind his severemother. Finally she couldn’t stand it and begged:

—                   Uncle Duana, could you go a bit slower, please...

—                   Eh, are you tired, my child? —he let her hand off and walked not so fast.

However, he still measured steps with his sinewy legs to the bullish hum of his chest so lively that it was hard to make herself heard soon. Akbilek, who fell behind rather far from him, tried to hold him back with a conversation:

—                    Uncle Duana, is the aul far away from here?

—                    Ah — he stopped. — We’ll get there, get.

And he again pulled forward. Akbilek was absolutely tired but was shy to admit it. She talked again hoping to hold the traveler back:

—          Duana! — she nearly cried.

This time she asked if he had met any military people in these places.

—         Eh, an army? There are piles of enemies, there are, there are, — the dervish muttered into his beard.

Dissatisfied with the answer Akbilek asked which side her aul was.

—         There it’s under that protruding nose— and he pointed to the mountain that appeared blue in the distance.

Akbilek understood that this day she wouldn’t be able to reach home. She wished to limp to any dwelling... what was near for Duana with his pace, for exhausted Akbilek with giving away knees wasn’t achievable. He goes, she drags herself along...They have already covered so much...but still she wouldn’t be able to make it. There, at the very horizon on the slope something showed itself – either it was dark cattle in the pasture or darkened grubs.

The sun set down preparing for the evening prayer.

Akbilek got hungry and exhausted. She kicked off her pain-filled boots. She had no strength to go at all, and feeling nothing she just sat down. Duana, which had run a half-verst from her, returned to her in jumps when heard Akbilek’s thinned sorrowful voice. He realized that this time she was unable to move even her finger.

—         Eh, my child, eyes are swollen, legs are swollen... you’re tired, I suppose? Ah, I’ll carry my child on my back. Get on it, come on! — and he exposed his back.

Akbilek hesitated daring neither to climb up him nor to refuse do it. It seemed embarrassing for her, the maiden, to clamber up the spine of the cobby man. She remembered at once how Black-moustached had carried her in his arms when she had been his wife, pressed to him, kissed... anyway, isn’t it a sin to allow her body which was befouled by endearments of the kaffir Russian to press to the back of the holy man? But dervish was waiting patiently repeating: “Get on, get on, my child”.

The relatives are far away, she has no strength to go. Out of despair she had to get up, sighed trying on and stretched her hands to Duana’s shoulders. She simply forced herself to hug him round his neck but Duana was all right – he started to his feet like a workhorse and with a cry: “My holy feast is with me!” rushed on further. He passed his staff to Akbilek and her hanging aside legs he pinned with the corners of elbows. He clasped, shook her for stronger settling and walked on in a sweeping manner along the hillocks and stones.

Akbilek imagined what kind of rider she was and was ready both to laugh and cry. Anyway, she was satisfied. Firstly, because she saw herself riding away from the Russian. There with him there was no even hope to remain the human. There she put up with anguish, humiliation, shamelessness and death itself. And there was no evil intention in the fact that she goes on Duana and the pledge of this is holiness of the dervish. She desired the only thing – to get to the aul, to father. When she sees him, she will hug him after separation, pray above her mother’s grave and will begin to take care of her parent as mother did. But no matter how she calmed herself down her heart all the same was torn off, squeezed with a loop. Who did this? You remember yourself. And what does joy have to do with this?What does salvation have to? You can’t, can’t look at everything in a different way. It’s silly that life is taking a problem-free shape again. Any way you slice it – from all the sides around the dark clouds were encroaching, covering the light. She had only to suffer through the illness, to live through it...

If to put away the feeling of tension that arouse in her in the beginning of unexpected riding, in the course of it Akbilek has forgotten who she is sitting on. It seems that her mother is carrying her, a little girl, on the back and the days from the childhood have surfaced in her memory. She has a white chintz dress on, under the hem there are red panties trimmed with black silk; a hair pony-tail sticks out on her vertex. She is a barefooted nice girl who prefers running to smooth step. She decorates a goatling with white and black thrum flourishes and feathers of an eagle-owl, then imagines it like her horse and races with the the same kiddies like her. Together with the fry they pile on father who dozes peacefully and he startles under the children hanging on his shoulders and neck. Then gives up noisily: “You’ve laid me down, laid me down!” They play hide-and-seek hiding behind dozing camels, stumps, boulders, in a creek...Behind the house they arrange a house from a tripod for a doll woven from willow twigs. They put rugs under the doll, and hang muslin on her head because you know it is certainly wooed to, it becomes a bride and they as worldly-wise women gossip about on the occasion, demand a bride price from the relatives of a groom...She cuts patches for dresses of a doll-bride from mother’s dress squares; certainly she gets quite a blessing from mommy for this. But still, how can’t mother but love her! She snuggles up her daughter to stomach, kisses the cheek with gusto: “I can’t see enough of my white-white little daughter!..” Where’s mother now? Oh, the Creator, who and what will fill echoing emptiness now? Who will touch sighing Akbilek’s forehead with the lips when she appears at her home? Whom with will she cry, who’ll console her? Again Akbilek begins to grieve; again she’s on the verge of tears. And she would cry but right now straight in front of them a lark flew quiveringly out of a grassy bush and distracted her from tears. By these minutes the sun has also set down to the horizon. Itdarkens.

Maybe not to the point, but she’s just thought that it’s hard for the dervish to go with a burden. In two-three crosses through hills and creeks he took Akbilek off his back, rested a bit, stretched his hardened spine, started like a riding horse. God knows where from barking of dogs sounded. Akbilek brightened up:

—                   We got to the aul!

—                   We got, my child, we got, — replied dervish and threw her up once again on his back.

Akbilek thought she felt a smell of boiled milk which finely interissued with a smoke of a burning kizyak under a cooker.

—                   We’ve come, uncle Duana! Now I can go on my own.

—                  Eh, my child, we have to go and go— declared the dervish not thinking to lower her off.

And when gurgle of boiling milk was almost heard, dervish stopped.

—         Here, below is an aul — he announced.

Akbilek crawled off his back. She stretched as she could stiffen hands of the dervish. She wanted to stretch his legs too but he moved over, then she shook hems of his chapan and went by his side again.

Soon the aul that nestled up to the hill slope appeared. You can’t say it was built as a completed settlement. It didn’t even look to have afriendly row. There were seen five-six running aside winterings here and there. They as if declared to an attentive man such are our masters, they keep away from each other without the good of the cause and without desire to live one nest. Cattle stood gloomily near some of the sheds. It looks like it’s going to be driven to camping-grounds. A large building at an earthen hillock smoked thickly. A shadow moved to it from a little dwelling to the right. To the left of the slope there’s a shed with some things in front of it, it’s hard to distinguish how, but many. Not knowing which house to choose Akbilek walked mechanically but dervish suggested:

—                       Let’s go to that house.

—                       And whose house is it?

—                       It belongs to a rich man Musa.

—                       And what if we go the one that is nearer?

Akbilek didn’t want to go to a rich house. Rich house means that everything is all right in it. And certainly decent people live in it. In her current conditions it wouldn’t be quite cautious to poke to a respectable house. It’s no good to go to decent people having such a look.

—      Could we go to the nearer house? — repeated Akbilek.

—                   The people who live in the houses that are nearer are hungry, and I suppose you, my child, are hungry, you have to eat... — said dervish loudly.

—                  So what of it... We need only a sip of milk, perhaps they will find a place for us where we can lie down— Akbilek didn’t calm down.

Yes, even the holy man can hardly pluck out something that has been taken into woman’s head. Iskander-Duana didn’t persist. Now can you tell that he is as weak-minded as everybody thinks him to be?

—         Eh, my child! Well, all right, — and he turned to the first wretched dwelling on their way.

But as soon as he turned around and stepped, Akbilek almost caught him for the leg:

—Don’t tell them there, uncle Duana, who I am? Tell them that I gathered kizyak and got lost, and you’ve found me.

Dervish frowned and said:

—          Eh, my child! Is it good to lie? Liar is an enemy of Allah— and he walked already at an easy pace.

A lazy dog when heard a knock of the dervish staff moved only an ear but when a hat of a strange man appeared it had to stand up. It realized that it was impossible to lie quietly and began to bark diligently. Here a woman in the torn leather pants got out from under a cow hugging a bucket. She rearranged the white hood of a married woman which slipped aside – kimeshek, only the nose peeped under it and wiped at a dog with her leg:

—          Go away, go away!

Dervish put the staff behind his back and approached her:

—Hey, mother, we’re guests sent by the God.

The woman didn’t reply, stretched out her neck trying to see Akbilek who kept beside dervish’s back.

—                    And who is this girl?

—                    So, can we stop at your place? Will you allow?

—                    Oibai, auh! When the rich people live there... We aren’t able to accept guests properly... — she only could say when Akbilek jumped to her:

—                    Auntie, we’d be glad to have acidified milk. We went to you knowing that you wouldn’t offend us...

—                    Oibai, dear, auh! Well, if you came... that’s that... share everything we have with us— the woman grew kind when heard a tender voice. She was ready not only to accept her but to warm if can.

—                    If so, come into the house! — and she took the uninvited guests to her narrow dwelling. — Don’t get to the crossbeam. Lower your head, there, there!

The hostess went after the guests pointing how to get through lopsided door. They entered. Akbilek pulled the rope hammered to the door to close it but it tilted even more and like a stubborn animal didn’t want to move. Akbilek gave up this venture.

It was dark in the room like in a stone cave. The woman led dervish who clung to her blindly somewhere and Akbilek dragged herself there too.

—Who’s there, mom? — a voice of a child sounded. Hay rustled under Akbilek’s feet. Stink spread from all the corners. A hole shimmered; apparently it was a sort of a window. Akbilek arranged herself awkwardly next to dervish on some rug that lay on the ground. Here dervish exclaimed his words loudly:

—Truly!

Akbilek gave a start and the woman exhaled remembering ass out of surprise.

The child screamed, cried and calling mother made for her. And mother told him:

—                    Shut up! Take him, Duana! He will cut off your ear!

The kid immediately fell silent.

—                       Eh, my child, don’t cry! I won’t cut off, won’t —dervish calmed him down.

—                       Where’s the goddamn lamp gone? — said hostess moving her hands around her and got outside grumbling. Soon she returned bringing a smoked cover from a metal jug. She fixed it crookedly on the edge of the stove, dropped oil on the punky wick, and softened the light with her weather-beaten hand. Then her hands disappeared in the darkness again. Fearing that woman can take an interest in her once again, Akbilek asked piteously:

—Auntie, can I drink water?

—                       Dropsy of heart occurs from water, drink some curdled milk— she replied.

—                       Then give me some curdled milk mixed with water. I long for a drink.

—I’ll give you to drink, dear, give.

The woman began to potter about in the stove jangling her pots and pans.

At this moment out of the stove like in a fairy-tale there appeared a shaggy head of a very little grubby girl. Dervish who put his staff against the wall behind his back, suddenly bent forward and drawled-whined something of his own. The draggle-tail began to stare athim.

The woman brought Akbilek a flat dark scoop gazing into her face attentively; the latter’s eyelids were closing, she had to hold the piece of plate at her lips. While Akbilek was drinking, she was standing, looking at Duana and was scratching her leg through a hole in the hem with crunch. She had hardly left as Akbilek fell on either a winter coat or cottonwool pants, in other words some house lumber, and covered herself with chapan. As Akbilek began to fall aside dervish moved over and then stood up completely and almost by feel got out of the house. Having seen that her guest lay down the hostess went out too. Akbilek didn’t know what was next as she fell into sleep.

In the yard the woman pressed on dervish asking him all about his traveling companion. And when she heard: “Mamyrbai’s daughter”, she said having understood everything: “Aha!” The fact that she had laid down in her house the daughter of the famous Mamyrbai was such great news that it couldn’t get enough place in only one woman. She certainly had to run quickly to Milch Camel for a handful of flour.

What nonsense! Will a normal person beg for flour from a camel? It goes without saying that the woman ran to the neighbor known as Boz-izen. Yeah, the Kazakhs are smart enough to give such name to a decent woman. Thanks that they didn’t give a nickname sort of But-zhimas with a hint that such woman never clasps her thighs. However, if you wish we’ll tell who this Boz-izen is. We can do this easily. To gossip, to gab is a pleasure for us. So, let’s start, well then, off we go.

So, we’re talking about a wife of the famous Musabai. Every aul dog knows that she was called Milch Camel for megalomania intrinsic to her. If only all of a sudden even the steppe spoke about its significance it would never over-talk Boz-izen. A stream of bragging has been running from her mouth up till now even though the boaster has become older pretty well. No matter how enemies tried they couldn’t dissuade Boz-izen in falsehood of the choice of her passion. Her thin-necked husband with outworn beard couldn’t say a word listening to his spouse. Yeah, sure, Boz-izen would be the first and matchless not only in the aul but probably in a half of the world if one red nosy bitch – Birmagan’s wife who doesn’t give her to open her mouth – weren’t in the way! Women, beauty, when they begin to scold, they tell such things...but enough, let them!

So, what are we talking about? Aha-a, about that poor woman who rushed to Boz-izen. I wonder why she hasn’t run to the Red-haired, who, by the way, is her relative. Well then there’s some kind of cunning here. Surely she’s decided to take advantage of the unthinkable event and to milk the camel once again (it should be said, she’s already succeeded in this).

When the neighbor entered, Boz-izen was lulling her fair-haired child Anaurbek, who the Red-haired calls only as a bastard. Of all things, she named her son after some famous Turk about whom she only chanced to hear something! Indeed, lousy dog would certainly be called as Wolfhound.

—          Calm down, Anuar-zhan! Take a sleep, sweety! — and she taps with her hand son’s shoulder, strokes, arranges a blanket, tucks in at his side, looks and can’t see enough.

When she sees the neighbor-woman at the door frame, Boz-izen bends her brow importantly:

—Kumsinay, are you on business or so?

—On business... There’s one... — Kumsinay edged away, edged away and approached Boz-izen.

Boz-izen spread the sides of kimeshek on her shoulders, sat down comfortably and waiting for more or less fresh news placed to the neighbor her ear which could be guessed under thin white fabric of the covering. The latter began to whisper.

—Ah, leave it! — Boz-izen threw her head back but in the next breath she bent with her cheek to interlocutor as excitedly as a hunter to a rifle’s butt. — So is she alone?

But they couldn’t talk to their hearts’ content as they were informed that the husband returned and the hostess had to stand up and go to the front room. She came back with a cup of flour, gave it to the neighbor and said:

—                    I’ll come.

—                    Come but there’s nothing to watch at. She’s asleep.

Kumsinay’s objection for Boz-izen is like a stamp of a louse for an ear. Without putting off so important day indefinitely she hurried to a summer kitchen where her mother-in-law was boiling milk and winking at her she told the latter everything she had found out. The old woman tasted milk and began to stroke up fire in the stove. With a look, as if I care nothing, Boz-izen rearranged her mane under the kimeshek and began to search for her husband. The spouse eased oneself at the backyard and fumbled with the pants: one hand was on the belt, another was under it. When she came across him, Boz-izen pulled his hand out of the depths of his underwear and stroke dumb:

—Oh, have you heard?!

Having informed in such a way everybody in her house, Boz-izen dashed outside with the news. She went out and moved from house to house having huddled her hands in front of her. So she went crash along the entire aul and reached Kumsinay’s dwelling with a tail which was made up quickly of one girl and two women.

Even though Boz-izen isn’t a wife of a big boss but she is aware of all events that happen in the volost. She breaks in on party squabbles and twists the rich people with all her might, keeps her eyes open and likes to be in on things, so a public person she is. She can fight with men either in draughts or in cards. For company’s sake she can put tobacco behind her lip. Her guest sings certainly and when he gets all steamed up she drawls a song together with him. She’s an insider with the young people too. Only one tiny flaw is inherent to her personality: the dress she has on is always ideally perfect but she doesn’t care other woman troubles. New blankets are thrown anyhow, the bed is never made, litter is left, and things are in a mess. Disgusting Red-haired constantly shoots off mouth about her: “She even doesn’t sew her ass!”

A pretty romantic girl, which looks like Boz-izen very much, is shifting around her. This is Aytzhan, isn’t she? Yes, she is. Boz-izen praises her Aytzhan, asks to play music on dombra, to sing songs, drives with the guys and she is with them, and when it comes to jokes and indecent phrases, Aytzhan is never able to compete with her. So, she’s married this Aytzhan recently and now is bored without tricks but here the God has sent Boz-izen such lucky chance to have fun:

—          My God, why not to come to us, she dragged herself to this miserable Kumsinay, why really?! — she goes and boils over.

Boz-izen is curious: what is this girl like that the Russians have been after? Why is her Aytzhan worse? How is she dressed? Of course, these aren’t the questions. It’s important for Boz-izen to know what has happened to her after the Russians. Just to find out this. TheRussians dropped to her aul too. The women and girls hid themselves among the rocks but she came to hands of three soldiers, sufferedfrom them. One girl from the lower house in the aul also couldn’t hide and went mad after such things, now she lies quietly there at thestove. However, is even such violence able to destroy in woman her nature in its most natural sensual meaning?

Boz-izen comes with retinue to Kumsinay’s house –somebody lies curled up in the corner. It’s unlikely Duana. It seems he wanders somewhere behind the house where the dogs’ barking comes from. Boz-izen passes a lamp to a companion, comes up to the lying girl and lifts a chapan hem from her face. Akbilek sleeps snuffling, a trickle of spit is stretching from the edge of a bit open mouth.

—                    Eh, poor her!

Kumsinay came behind:

—                    And what did you want? Let her sleep.

Boz-izen raised chapan on the sleeping girl higher, looked over bone buttons of the dress, looked almost under the hem, felt all pockets, and touched leather stockings. When she finished her manipulations, she arranged wild hair and concluded:

—This is the girl, from all side she’s the girl!

They started discussing chapan made of silk and sleeveless jacket embroidered with semiprecious stones, and cambric dress. One of them says: “The dress is like Aytzhan’s one”, another doesn’t agree: “Aytzhan has better one”. Boz-izen has to talk herself. In her opinion it turns out that the women don’t understand anything in the matter. Aytzhan has everything five times higher quality and richer. Aytzhan is cleverer too. The same Russians didn’t keep up with her, she saved herself from shame. And she was lucky too (the fact that she got pregnant then from someone of them, doesn’t count).

The women chatted, gossiped to their pleasure, blabbed and broke up – each went to her cauldron.

Waiting for his wife, Musabai whatever pondered over, but came to nothing in his thinking vain attempts, lying lean on the bed just like the Arab letter د. The point is he was from fast-growing rich men and in the new status he still felt quite unsteady (only yesterday he was among the urban poor, actually as well as his wife). And he uprose thanks to his wife, it may be said, everything is gained by her figure. And here his two fillies were lost and then found at Mamyrbai’s pastures. He couldn’t reach to get them back. Mamyrbai certainly had to cover his people even if their case was obvious horse-stealing otherwise how would he look in the eyes of his people, how would he hold them? And now his daughter has come to his hands, how couldn’t he take it out her. This is a dark thought that’s wandering through his mind. To hide the girl – but the entire aul has already known about her. Even if his people don’t snitch, Birmagan will rat. This worker has been quarrelling with all the men for the whole summer, has been sticking to women like tar. And his red-haired woman... What if to take her away to someone rather far off? It will turn out too. Or, maybe, to put her under some guy to heighten disgrace? But what is a profit from it? No, it’s necessary to think of such painful strike for Mamyrbai to know...But what could be made up here? This is a problem – a difficult one. Here his wife has appeared and began to tell what a beauty this Akbilek is. She’s described her in such a way that a lustful desire has risen in him. What could he bypassing Boz-izen?

—                    So what is all her beauty to me! — he only could exclaim in a fit of anger.

—                    And who said that you have to care about her? — she immediately cut him down to his size.

Musabai had only to lie on his side, puff and bulge his eyes. “Move aside!” – the woman pushed him, lay with her back to him and became sad remembering the old insoluble question: “Why did I marry this fool?”

 

At midnight they tried to wake Akbilek to have tea but she didn’t arouse. And when she opened her eyes in the morning – the house was full of people. She looked to the right and here her second uncle Amir sat.

—                  My dear! — Amir cried, his jaw’s trembling and his hands were spread wide apart.

—                  Uncle! — Alikbek could only say. She pressed her cheek against his shoulder and burst out sobbing.

Two guys from her own aul who came with Amir looked at each other and no matter how they tried to pin groans in the throats, they couldn’t resist and shook with roar the roof of Kumsinay’s dwelling. These sounds prompted women to come to excitement and they started to wail in chorus. Even Boz-izen leaned against the stove sorrowfully and sighed:

—           How else!

But all the same the crowd of women wasn’t satisfied with the developing scene. They considered that Alikbek didn’t cry bitterly enough and there were no bright intonations in her sobbing. First she couldn’t wail desperately as it’s usually done even at common seeings-off or, let’s say, funerals. Couldn’t she bring out with melodramatic statements her hiding heart ravishing and strained so that to splash out overfilling her anguish with more or less decent agony. She simply sobbed and that’s all.

Well, Akbilek didn’t learn to wail properly. It seemed to her that it was too long for her first grieve – farewell with the parental house. She used to behave like a child in her fifteen years...She bawled once only at quickly limp body of mother and then she had to mourn over her own little head quietly-quietly. Could they understand the reasons of her so simple behaviour at all – it’s unknown but they were very disappointed to see only a weeping child before them.

They stood and sat, crying silently for company’s sake and looked at each other until Amir explained his fast arrival:

—          As soon as a messenger appeared from this aul at night, sleep vanished as if by magic. I jumped up the first horse I saw and dashed here.

That means, while Musabai was chewing over his revengeful thoughts, Birmagan sat his man on the fastest racer and sent him to Aman without looking at dusk. The red-haired Birmagan’s wife also did her part. She got into sympathy to Akbilek deeper than the others and occurred closer than everybody to her at this moment too. She took her hand and trying not to stare at her, said:

—As soon as we heard, we felt so sorry for you, more than for our own daughter. What else could we do?

Here one of Amir’s friends added:

—          This is the way the relatives show the relationship — he said and gazed boldly at Boz-izen as if he let her know: “You’ve sort of queened it here recently and what are you now?”

He knew, of course, about the clash between Musabai and Mamyrbai. Sure thing, he’s likely to know personally those barymta¹ – offenders who had driven Musabai horses. As soon as Red-haired heard about kindred preferences in the next breath she caught up to the said and pulling her shoulders added:

—Eh, yeah, what do we talk about here... we don’t cling to the crap of the other people as some Kazakhs do...

But Birmagan didn’t let her speed up by interrupting needless woman’s attack:

—          What’s the use of talking about it!

¹ - barymta – one of forms of tribal arguments – (here: stealing of horses)

last word. She darkened and shut flat lips tight. Would she have to bear such things here unless this grunting wild boar had sent the messenger on the horse at night? And this red-haired woman of him...Stinky bitch! You can’t count her dirty tricks!

Kumsinay began to brew up tea. The aul people went out to stretch their legs. Red-haired began to invite Akbilek to her house. Amir after he had given thanks to the God, talked about returning home. Here Birmagan began to intrude his hospitality too but the guests hurried home

—Then if so, I’ll saddle for Akbilek my chestnut ambler and bring her to the father on my own as is right and proper! — announced Birmagan and walked out.

This turn of events has finally struck Boz-izen. She came back home and:

—          You won’t see the life, you glutton! He sits at home as if pressed by evil spirit! — she began to gnaw the husband.

Musabai kept silent.

At his horse-standing Birmagan threw a beautiful blanket on the saddle of his chestnut horse, sat Akbilek on it and himself jumped up a young mare. Together with her and Akbilek he moved on to the way desired for everyone.

And the dervish went on his own way.

On the way Amir began speaking how good it was that she had met the dervish in time, like there’s some use from Duana too because he wandered here and there and everywhere, however he didn’t approve his taste for poverty, he considered his habit for nothing to go barefooted both in winter and summer as shameful one. Later he told about the captured Whites, about Mukash.

Akbilek, who rode with her face lowered down, kept her ears open. Only now she heard about the capture of the Whites... She understood who the man had been that had come up to her when she had hidden squat that night in the hole and who had ordered to her before leaving somewhere: “Lie here for a while.” Mukash! That was him who pointed at her to the Russians. She went over all the past days and touched Black-moustached with a tail of her memory. A moment – and he’s again in front of her: with his caresses...with a rifle...And she got surprised that she’s alive, that she was going home with her uncles. With this strange surprise a feeling of shame fell on her. Now she’s not the former Akbilek, now she’s slobbered, trampled, bedraggled...The body which was virgin clean like beestings before now is bitched-up, soaked with sin. A crow nested between her untouched, snow-white breasts. Not a maiden she is but a bitch. A dirty pitch fleck has unglued her innocent earlier heart, nothing can extenuate.

Oh-ah! And how is my betrothed? He will refuse... certainly he will refuse! What’s the use of leavings of the Russians for him? And if he refuses, who will pick up then? For people I’m as an ulcer, purulent ulcer.You knew all this indeed, knew! Perhaps, something is wrong with my head...I wish the wolves had torn me that night so heavily that there wouldn’t have been left any nail from me, brazen one?!

Everyone will turn away from me! From the girl, worn out, old tart. And the skin is all in wrinkles, breasts are a kind of bangled, the back is crooked, thighs are sort of flattened...Lips are pale, all is cold. I looked in the mirror there, at the Russian’s – the face was so faded away, it looked like a walleye appeared... I lived only just a little, and I’m already an old woman!

My God, my God!.. Why won’t I get lost right now, won’t die anyhow! Let the horse stumble under me, let me fall to its hoofs without a sound! I wish the ground fell through under me and it swallowed me! It may be done this way: a black cloud would appear suddenly and strike me with a thunder! If it’s also impossible, then let a witch fly against me and choke me! Well, if this doesn’t happen, then as soon as they bring me to father I wish I fell down, fluttered eyelashes - whack! – and that’s all. It’s better to die than to live andremember.

Akbilek looked over the sky – no, a menacing cloud which she called out hasn’t appeared in the skies. She looked down – the ground isthe ground, it hasn’t even started. She hit the horse’s sides hoping that it would bolt, stumble - naughty horse even haven’t thought to fall off its feet, it keeps going as it has been doing quietly in line with the other horses. Akbilek looked at the uncles nearby. They haven’t thought to stare at her, they are looking ahead whipping the horses, stirrups are only squeaking under the soles of their boots: “When will they finally get off us?”

Akbilek dared to watch what was there ahead. She took a look —here’s the aul already. She saw the native buildings — tears came up to her eyes. Here the women that saw them from far away hurried to her home. And there the dogs from her father’s yard began to bark. There even heifers-neighbors pulled their muzzles to her side bleating. Here the women’s moaning sounded to her.

The wounded soul seemed to relief among the sounds of wailing chorus. Akbilek wanted to sob with them. The shining sun disappeared behind a veiling of tears. As if in a fog, grey-haired people drew nearer to her, the old women held her under elbows, kissed her on forehead and took somewhere and there put in front of a huge-huge man. The father. Akbilek cries and cries...

Poor little Akbilek! Who but you should weep tears? You’ve lost your mother that bore you in her womb and fed you patiently like aruana its colt! You’ve lost a key to tomorrow, seemingly inevitable happiness. The golden pot turned over and rolled away, golden oil spilled. Adolescent girl’s heart stopped beating – it’s charred. Your spring bud not having had time to blossom, has withered, has become rot. Your light soul is covered with ash. Cry, heal with a tear! Wash away the anguish with tears! Cry out the sea of tears! Let this sea storm! Let salty waves billow! Let sink in them those who offended you and let every drop of the sea cried by you will be a poison for them! Let everyone who they love and who love them whimper in the eternal mourning like you do.

 

 

 

                              Part two

WOUND

A rifle bullet rips out the whole piece of meat – it can house a fist. If you don’t cure a wound, neglect it, then say good bye quickly. If you’ve stopped such a packet, there’s no salvation.

Lead smashed Bekbolat’s shoulder so heavily that the wound gaped as a cave. “The bullet should be taken out...Grassy chewing – it helps thousands injures and wounds...” – everybody put in with his advice until a telegraphist that came from a city claimed: “Unless you show him to a doctor, he’ll die.” They decided to take him to treatment. In the town they found Mamyrbai’s son, there’s nobody else. Tolegen, almost a relative, began to run over every town offices and obtained an assignment to hospital.

Bekbolat lay in the hospital for about twenty days. It looked like the doctors treated him perfectly. In a couple of weeks the arm got alive, the wound began to close. With time he sort of fitted in the hospital, and although only boredom reigned around he became accustomed to its grey bedsheets, unbearable stink of excrements, to vegetable food despite of the fact that this was terribly windy food for his stomach.

The day came when the doctors finally allowed him to go out to spend a penny. Bekbolat went outside.

Fair-haired mothers dressed in everything white, with white armlets moved here and there in the yard talking to each other. They carriedsome bottles, towels, teapots, basins. A doctor with finely curled moustache and smoothly slickered, as if by a heifer, hair, also dressed in white crisp clothes, communicated with the mothers in Russian while going rounds in the hospital and giving some instructions. Hospital walls, and ceiling, and floors were smooth as if a plane went over them. Everything was swept out, everywhere was clean – a mosquito had nowhere to catch hold. Seeing all this order and feeling better from day to day, Bekbolat thought: “How a patient wouldn’t recover here? It can’t be otherwise.”

Bekbolat had nothing presentable on his feet – shoes were shabby. He was dressed in yellow robe with tarpaulin collar; the head was tied with a white scarf. He dragged himself past the doctor trembling like a mouse chilled in water.

The doctor asked: “Where are you going?” – fixed eyes at him and apparently remembered that he himself had allowed the patient to get up, said: “All right, walk further”, — and winked at him.

Toddling in the hospital corridor and yard seemed to strengthen a bit knee joints and the entire body a sort of improved in health.

Having opened the gate, Bekbolat got outside. He wouldn’t like to see hospital corners and timeworn bed linen which was soaked with unbearable smell of medicines for ages. In front of his eyes there’s a day shining with all colors. The air rings. As soon as he looked at the blue sky he felt as if he’s taken a new lease of life. His face has brightened and thoughts have clarified. He’s cheered up and went tomove to home grounds. He wanted to see his people as soon as possible so much. And if to speak about matters of the heart he remembered Akbilek. “I’ve seen the light of the day, have recovered. And what sufferings does she endure? Does she weep? Or have the Russians killed her? Or have they altogether..” — he hurried and stood up at the edge of a steep bottomless cliff. Itching has covered the entire body, a tender vein as if broke at the top of the heart. As soon as the wound began to close, these thoughts never left him day and night and he felt an abyss under him. His heart was breaking hundreds, thousands of times but this time the heartbeat was felt somehow differently. He visualized Akbilek again, but in the endless steppe filled with free and careless flow of the living world, beside the reality he saw her as a flowering stalklet.

Tolegen, cautious well-built guy, visited Bekbolat in the hospital two-three times. He came and asked with sympathy: “How is the wound? How do you feel? How is appetite — he carried on a conversation only about this. After all Tolegen is Akbilek’s blood brother, which confused Bekbolat and prevented him to ask about her. And he himself didn’t start a talk about the little sister. Trying to find out with roundabout questions at least something, Bekbolat asked him what the people spoke now but Tolegen replied simply: “Well, in general, everything is as before... Nothing special is heard...”— and said not a word about Akbilek. “What kind of man he is? Didn’t he really go and visit the father? After all, his birthmother was killed, little sister was stolen, and his soul should surely hurt. Or is he really just as he’s? Has he hardened here in the city? What’s the use of such son to the poor father?”— Bekbolat thought watching at him. But nomatter how these thoughts disturbed him, he didn’t reproach him of anything. And the latter talked to the doctors in charge, popped in at a parting and left again. There was, like, the little sister, but she came out. “What does he want from me” Why does he go then?” — Bekbolat racked his brains never realizing what kind of man this Tolegen is. This his reservedness brought Bekbolat to a dead-lock and caused vague fears.

Now the recovered Bekbolat couldn’t especially wait to find out as quickly as possible about everything that had happened to Akbilek. Butfrom whom and how? Will he meet any Kazakh? Yesterday when he lay on the bed it seemed to him some Kazakh went by, he passed and disappeared. “I wonder who he’s. How did he happen to occur here? Anyway, aren’t there any Kazakhs in the nature that visit doctors?”— and, leaning against the walls he shuffled off behind him, passed a corner... He made his way to the back door of the hospital...and saw two in fox treukhs¹ sitting and talking about something. Having run against them Bekbolat rejoiced:

—As- salamu alaykum! ²

The Kazakhs turned their heads and threw sharp glance at him. One of them, as intended for the Kazakh, replied to his greeting. The other swarthy-faced one, shoed in Russian boots and dressed in perfectly-stitched chapan, - a bit of a gift! – glared with cocky eyes and bulged his lip. A neat black malakhai³ hung over a smooth, like an onion, face. Bekbolat greeted again. The Kazakh reluctantly returned his greeting as if saying: “Who called you here?” The Kazakhs stopped speaking at Bekbolat’s appearance. But I guess soon they felt uneasy: the owner of the boots asked Bekbolat’s name. Having heard his name, the guy started talking affably:

—                  Aha, are you the very Bekbolat? Have a seat— and he moved aside inviting to sit down. — You’re the one who has been shot recently, aren’t you?

Bekbolat asked:

—Do I know you?

—                  I’m Shiny from Takyr’s people — answered the guy in such a tone as if everybody in the world should know his shiny face, grinned and stroked the shaved clean head, highlighting a special importance of his shine. — And his name is Musatay, he’s our kinsfolk.

Bekbolat said to Shiny:

—Er, it seems I’ve heard something about you.

Shiny started and immediately eyed him keenly:

—                        And what have you heard of me?

Bekbolat replied with a slight hesitation:

—                        I’ve heard that you’re trained, real genuine guy.

Shiny answered to these Bekbolat’s words:

¹ - treukh- three ears- a fur cap with two ear flaps and a back flap

² -  an Arabic greeting often used by Muslims around the world. It nearly translates to “peace be upon you”, but is often considered the equivalent to “hello” or “good day” in English  

³ - malakhay – a large fur cap, differed from treukh in folding front flap while treukh had just fur trimming

Bekbolat pretended that he understood him:

-Er.

“Er!”— and there was no more sound.

A raven was found for an eagle! Who’s Aben and who’s him? That one is a lion and this one is a mouse. Seven volosts eat out of Bai Aben’s hands humbly. Didn’t Aben go to St.Petersburg and visit the Tsar as a guest? How could he think to fight with such a man, what shine was a ground for this with the strength he had? He’s obviously light-headed guy...that’s all that came up to his mind. But Bekbolat didn’t express his appraisal of the declared battle. He missed the different news and began to ask carefully about the other things.

Shiny’s been aware of all the news, has heard all gossips. When only you listen open-mouthed – he bursts out. His tongue never stopped. Bekbolat began to grow stunned with his chatting, the soul was off.  But that guy was pouring and pouring into one pile: what party won at the elections; who takes bribes, who gives; who put out his daughter at the elections as a bait; whose cattle, house was plundered; whose daughter, wife ran away; who quarreled - fought with whom; how the Whites make war with the Reds; for whom was a complaint shoved down; about whom the newspapers published; who went to prison; who was freed; for whom a bail was paid. Therewere no unfamiliar Akims for him. There were no people who he talked to. He knew all the laws. He saw everything with his own eyes. He tried everything to the touch, to his tooth. He carried everything without spilling a drop. He persuaded, swore, from time to time speaking in Russian weightily. Bekbolat stiffened, turned sour which had never happened to him before; he didn’t believe but gaped at the words of Shiny. Finally there came a moment when Shiny, after he had proved what an expert of laws and how eloquent he was, reached the ultimate level of self-satisfaction. The flow of words that walloped on Bekbolat seemed a thick shrub with the branches pushing each other without any gleam. He was rushing among the phrases like a hound dog for ghostly hare. Helpless to catch hold atleast one word he heard only buzzing. However, although it buzzed terribly in the head he still caught one interesting for him news. This news was about capture of the Whites from Karashat ravine. As soon as he heard about this he himself began to talk:

—                        Er, all right! Holy men, ah! Have they taken everybody?

—                        Everybody. They have given a tug to everybody and have lost noone.

He wanted to ask: “And where’s Akbilek?”— but the tongue didn’t turn to ask about her in public. The Kazakhs could think: “Why does he ask about the girl who the Russians had played with?”— and they’ll begin to mock. Realizing that the questions increase and the conversation has no end, the natural Kazakh that had come to Shiny couldn’t stand and stood up with the words: “I’ll go somewhere — have one business”, and left. With his departure Bekbolat stared at Shiny more openly betraying his excitement. And one moment he winked at him as if a man who wants to trust him his most intimate words:

—I wanted to ask you about something.

—                     Ask, ask, — said Shiny pattering.

—                     And what about Mamyrbai’s daughter: have you heard anything about her?

—                     No. I haven’t heard about her. The Whites were brought to the town just yesterday by the evening. We can find out. I understand, she’s as they said, your bride— replied Shiny and added in Russian: — Pity, pity!

—                     Holy men, ah! If you can find out, then do it for me...

—                     I’ll do. I’ll find out today or tomorrow. The people come from those places every day... But what’s the need in it now?

“What’s the need?”— these words hurt Bekbolat: people believe that noone needs her for sure. Bekbolat clenched a bitter lump in the throat and said:

—All the same.

Shiny agreed with him for show. A mother in white dress came out to the porch and addressed Bekbolat motioning him with a finger:

—Hey, Kyrgyz!.. Doctor...

Bekbolat got up to his feet and Shiny nodded his head reproachfully and spoke in Russian loking at Bekbolat:

—No, they can’t but humiliate: “Kyrgyz and Kyrgyz”, tramp’s brat! — He looked at the nurse-mother: — why don’t you address the comrade as “comrade, citizen”?  

Bekbolat smirked; still it was not clear at whom: “Really! They lacked such a stallion indeed!”— and he disappeared behind the hospital door.

                                                * * *

— Er, so it’s this Shiny they have rumored about! —said Bekbolat going along the hospital corridor.

It turned out they called to eat. Bekbolat sat down unwillingly to swallow a thin boullion from a tin bowl. Whether water or soup – it tasted all the same to him: the thoughts were turbid, torn as if in fever.

Did the Russians kill Akbilek? Or is she alive? If she’s dead, there’s nothing to talk about. And if she’ alive and sits at home, then what?

Oh, what was she like when he first saw her, when he called in to her with a company of hunters with golden eagles! The face is white; forehead is open, with swan neck. The eyes are sparkling, eyebrows are thin, and lips are tender, plump like those of a baby! The figure is delicate, flawless like spring sprout. And when she tinkled with necklaces in braids jumping off the place; when she rounded a white hem of a dress with her knees sitting down again; when she walked in dandified shoes leaving the room; laughed her silver ringing after whispering to her mother; when she poured out tea slightly embarrassed and presenting herself as a timid girl; when she lifted up a drinking bowl holding it up with three fingers and snapping eyes from behind of falling heavy eyelashes, one of his friends dropped sugar by a bowl. He tried to laugh off:

—What quivering ducks there are in these lands! They feel hawks from far away.

And he heard a response from the mother:

—Sure thing, if hawks are sharp-sighted. — And here she added: — Akbilek, my soul, see the guests off to the horses! —she also went with her to untie bridles from horse standing. Akbilek’s lifted hand which bard itself being whiter than silk: “Farewell! Safe travels to you!”— and, sparkling with her eyes she bowed the head histrionically...he remembered everything, every thing, he wished he forgot.

Her voice was especially unique. She laughs and you don’t know what world are you in. All the women of the world are unworthy of her nail, her footstep.

And so day and night, and the next day Bekbolat thinks of Akbilek. No matter how he tried to think of her with disgust, even hatred, she stands in front of his eyes the way he saw her for the first time – as angel in the flesh. He tried to drub her image of his head with the memories of his ambler, of his gun, his hunting stories – everything was in vain, went by. A stallion, animals, fun, and the most sophisticated airy dreams – she shut in by herself everything. Ultimately everything led to the thoughts about her. Akbilek entrancedeverything by herself. He couldn’t understand why.

Bekbolat here gets up from a bed, there lies he down, it’s unbearable for him. He popped in several times to Shiny with the only question – there were no news. It became completely awkward to ask. Indeed, he soon will be a laughing stock for the entire world. The entire Universe was placed at the edge of Shiny’s tongue for him. It draws to him and that’s all. But Shiny’s always busy; he has his endless conversaions with every Kazakh he meets. Each Kazakh that spoke to Shiny gives birth to hope in Bekbolat: “Er, this one, maybe, has told something about Akbilek”. But his expectations have never come true.

Bekbolat stands leaning against the railing of the hospital porch. Shiny sits on the logs near a shed and talks to another Kazakh. Here, at last comes the moment when he saw the interlocutor off. Having wrapped himself with a hospital robe he hurried to Bekbolat shaking his head and sounding off in Russian:

—What a swindler, what a che-a-at!

—What? What did he say?

—The deuce knows! — and he continued in the native language: — He assures that they decided that a postman of the robbed post-office wasn’t at fault. Now there’ll be hell to pay. And I was arrested exactly because of this post-office!

And Shiny explained the crux of the matter. Bai Aben was at enmity with the Head of volost...The Head of volost passed a sentence upon him, and after he sealed it with a stamp of the aul foreman he sent it with a post to the town. Aben found out about this intrigue and sent three riders behind them. They caught up with a cart and after they took away the post from carter, they delivered cargo to the town. The sentence was destroyed but the rest of papers were carried to the Council. There they declared: “The carter almost attacked us himself, he demanded the only our horse, didn’t get it, in the next breath he threw the post over the sides but we collected the papers on the road and here, brought them”. The Head of volost is Shiny’s relative. Apparently Shiny prompted him to make up the sentence with policy. It didn’t work, well, clear thing why he rages: “The deuce knows!”

—All the same, everything is oiled. The materials are already sent to the province. Any day now I’ll put Aben to prison. God seeseverything! I won’t be Shiny if I don’t put him! — Shiny got excited striking in conclusion the speech with his “the deuce knows!”

When finally Shiny shut up Bekbolat tried to change the subject:

—                     That guy, dressed as the Russian, is he in service anywhere?

Shiny looked at him with bewilderment, grasping why he asks:

—Ah? He’s an agent of the Cheka¹.

There are no Kazakhs unaware what the Cheka is and who agents are. But Bekbolat doesn’t care, he draws his interest:

—                    And who is he for you?

—                    Do you think there are places where there are still no our people? Everyone in the Cheka is ours!

—                    Then how did they arrest you?

—                    Oh, dear! It depends on how to look at it — and he winked to Bekbolat. I’ll emerge the next day. How do you like my prison?The solution is always found. I was arrested, no doubt, but here I’m, lying in the hospital. — and he waved with his arm God knows to whom.

Bekbolat said another couple of unimportant phrases and then asked about the girl. Shiny replied:

—                       No, nothing has been heard yet... — and added: — Instead of thinking about the girl, you’d better think of the girls’ tricks.

—                       Er, what does it have to do here?

—                       The deuce knows! The agent told an interesting story here.

—                       What story?

¹ - the Cheka – The All-Russian Extraordinary Committee for Combating Counter-Revolution, Speculation and Sabotage

look what was it and they two ran in different sides. The watch looked – something was left white on the ground. He sees – a sort of short panties. So the watch brought these panties to the Cheka. As expected, they called Madisha to the Cheka and asked: “Do you recognize?”  — and she tried to grasp panties here, then cried there. Oh, what a shame, ah!...This exactly incident we were laughing at... She brought scandal upon both the Kazakh and the Nogai, aha? Bekbolat didn’t find the story funny and he muttered as if it concerned him personally:

—                       She did it on her own will.

—                       Er, these town girls need just the only one that to shake with their amenities, — pronounced Shiny and further began to speak about some unclear problems.

Bekbolat listened to him and having no desire to admit even in his thoughts Akbilek’s involvement in this dirt, he said:

—The town is surely the corrupt place.

And so they were talking when in the hospital gates there appeared one more Kazakh. Shiny immediately jumped up to him and cried:

—Er, Zhambyrbai, how are you things going on?

Having greeted, Shiny took Zhambyrbai to the logs, seated him on them and they started a talk. They talk and talk. Bekbolat is all his eyes, watches them. Finally Shiny took a look at him, then again caught hold of Zhamyrbai and again asks him something. Zhamyrbai answers, Shiny interrupts him and again asks something. Then he smiles at Bekbolat and calls him over with a hand.

—                  Suyinshi!¹ — he demanded an award for tidings of great joy.

—                  Take, take, — Bekbolat hurried with response.

—                  The girl has returned home fine and dandy.

—         Oh, holy men, is that true? Holy men, ah, is it? — he only repeats.

—                  Shall we lie?

—                  Holy men, ah, holy men, ah!

Since that minute Bekbolat has been thinking only how to get out of the hospital as soon as possible. The next day Shiny talked of Bai Aben again when they met:

 

¹ - notification of good news. A messenger informing about the glad news with a cry “Suyinshi”asks to repay him.

—I want to submit one more complaint. If to write it from your name, what do you think?

Bekbolat horrified. If he sued anyone these were only wolves and foxes; and the judge is a golden eagle. He didn’t have, thanks God, to write the complaints for animals. Sure thing, he answered as he answered:

¹ - a council of the province during the post-revolutionary Soviet times

3.   He also seduced a wife of one man and later as being of no use sold her to somebody for cattle. This habit of him has been known until now. He seduced the wife of Beysen Abish-uly, sold to Kulyk Burzhykbai-uly. He also sent his assistants to freedom-loving aul foremen, and if those had low-fat meat on the table, he passed them a sentence: they should have brought to him after they had butchered that much of horse, this much of camels for their fault.

 

—And this is also true?

    —It used to be, he liked to go on a visit.

 

4. Here is the list of workers of Aben Matay-uly: six horse herd wranglers of which four pasture at night and two in the daytime. Three sheep breeders of which two pasture at night and one in the daytime; one man pastures camels and another one – cows. For his two houses there are four milkers of mares, two people muck out, in addition to them for these two houses there are six milkmaids. He didn’t pay a kopeck to all of them. The causes: widows owe for husbands, someone owes for cattle, to some man he promised a help in getting married, to another man he promised to tame the woman on a loose, the third person he accused of theft, he just considers the other man as his slave. He believes that such things are allowed to him by faith and service. But the life has such an order as after the Tsar-Liberator there’s been no such official right to have slaves. Since then 52 years have already passed. Musapir Zhaytugan-uly is his slave, he herds his horses. And his children as slaves pasture the master’s sheep.

— So, what will you tell to this?

— Is it so not in vain? If you are rich so how do cope without workers?

5.          I also inform that in1914 Aben Matay-uly had a work contract at Kokkol factory. He delivered there coal for 11 kopecks for a pud, and he paid his carters 9 copecks. He delivered one million of coal. It means that due to the carters he profited 20 thousand roubles. In those times, if to count, for a fact an average horse cost 20 roubles. So, due to all carters he obtained a thousand of horses. And he was friends with a factory manager. He presented him with two beautiful horses and two perfect foreign two-barrelled guns. And when the contract was finished he ordered to steal those horses presented to his friend-manager. And he betrayed his sidekick.

—Haven’t you heard about this either?

—We have, people talked not in vain. But how do we know how much revenue he received from the contract? And he returned his horses, that’s for sure.

6.                     Also in 1916 he took at Saradyr fair from a merchant Petr Pavlov a contract to deliver to the Irtysh river 30 thousand puds of raw wool. He received for this 1 rouble for a pud and he paid 90 kopecks to each carter. Thus, he ate three thousand roubles of people’s money. Those times a sheep cost 6 roubles. It turns out that he enriched himself by 500 sheep.

7.                     When on July 25, 1916 at Karabass factory there was issued a decree on recruitment of the workers from non-Russians, Aben Matay-uly acquired a defense contract for recruiting. He received 96 horses from those who wanted to be free from the work, in addition he had the payment form the factory under the contract for the recruited workers. Moreover, he wrote down into the lists children and false sick people instead of men aged 19-31. He demanded a horse from each of the other people, and if they didn’t give then he threatened to throw into prison. In such a way he got 140 horses. Four people made money out of this with who he shared earnings: Akyp Zhamyshbai-uly, Seyit Tolemis-uly... - Shiny broke off here since Seyit happened to be no one else but the blood father of Bekbolat...

Puzzled Bekbolat could only say:

—                    No, our father has kind of nothing to do with it...

—                    If he hasn’t, so he hasn’t, — said Shiny and continued to read.

8.                 Besides, after he had made friends with the town Commandant Alexeyev in 1919, he pressed the people he hated and threw them into prison. For their liberation he obtained large sums. The Commandant arranged for Matay-ula the winning at the elections for the post of the Chairman of Provincial Assembly. After that Aben Matay-uly went to Shili and Shengeli. There he entangled people and brought 30 horses.

9.                 Also last August the Head of volost Abbas Matay-uly referring to the alleged order of Kolchak and District Council ordered to collect the tax inthe amount of 130 thousand roubles. He hurried the aul post people with the threat to send a detachment on tax levies. He took moneyaway from all big people. We believe the third part out of the money was appropriated by the Head of volost Abbas Matay-uly, Aben Matay-uly and...(he stumbled at a name again) and the aul foreman Zhusip-uly.

—Will you argue there was such a case or wasn’t?

—Why do we have to argue? He collected the money. But who knows who and how made profit ...

—          When you don’t know then listen further.

10.           Besides in 1919 when he was in Semipalatinsk he found a way to Kolchak’s treasury and promised to deliver to the army 300 horses. After returning home he sent 70 horses. He brought textiles for 70 thousand, tea for 30 thousand and factory tanned leather, apart from these one hundred and ten thousand roubles. And instead of undelivered 230 horses he transferred to Kolchak’ treasury 500 roubles. But again after this on the ground of collecting horses he sent the best ones to his herds. Despite the telegrams which were sent to him officially, he didn’t deliver any horses. In such a way Matay-uly and (he muttered indistinctly a name) – uly appropriated these 230 horses...

—          It was that time exactly that our father didn’t agree with such cases, that’s why he separated from him — Bekbolat began to assure the snitcher.

—                     I don’t argue with this either, but they communicated.

—                     And could be it the other way?

—                     No, we’ll discuss it later...

 

11.           After this there were the national elections. The representative of Shamen Aydarbek-uly came to Sartau and after negotiations with Matay-uly he recommended Zhusip-uly who had been the third aul foreman 20 years ago, to the post of volost revolutionary commissioner. There was nothing to do, what could be asked – so only one Matay-uly replaced by his will a choice of all population for their volost revolutionary commissioner. Later he announced that there came an order to slaughter 40 bulls and with the help of police they took away from 40 people the bulls they had.

—Right. And they took away one our bull.

12.                  We know that the Treasury paid for this slaughter of cattle. But this made it no easier. We know who of our villains ate this meat.

13.                  Besides, Matay-uly built for himself two winterings in two places. One building is near Shakat spring on the lands of Alkebai and Korabai, Boksar-uly...He built his second house at the eastern bank of a lake, after he had taken the land away from the children of Kurmanbai, and he occupied the northern bank, having taken the land away from the children of Toppazar. He deprived everybody and made the poor people suffer.

 

—           And will you say this is a lie?

—           No, I won’t. He built winterings and occupied the lands.

 

14.   He brought together the best builders of log-houses from all sides, forced them to work at the construction of one wintering and then of the other, after that he didn’t pay for their work. He doesn’t cook food at his house but gives orders to the neighbors: we’ll come to stay, cook kumiss and boil fatter meat. If he eats with his henchmen a fat sheep at somebody’s place, then the people don’t consider this day unprofitable.

15.   To put it mildly, the people of Sartau are sheep, Aben Matay-uly is a wolf. No matter how many sheep are, what can all they against a wolf?

All these evil deeds are known to everybody, it’s worth only to put them together. And if a fair man goes round the houses of injured people, he’ll be told everthing about the crimes that aren’t known yet.

The purpose of my notice is: if the just power shows its justice then the ideals of a great number of people will be satisfied.

I also ask in my statement: let my name a secret for Aben Matay-uly. Matay-uly’s anger is terrible, he won’t leave me alone.

Informer.

May 20, 1920”.

Shiny finished reading his denunciation, bulged out his blaming finger, lined on the paper with the nail of the ring-finger:

—                      There are 15 facts here, 15 unsinkable criminal cases, you can tie a stone to an ass, with might and main!

^—                            How do we know? We’re common people, — said Bekbolat and made a helpless gesture being afraid of this piece of paper. In those troubled years his father was at quarrel with Aben. The reason of it was that they didn’t come to an understanding when divided the sum obtained from 300 horses undelivered to Kolchak, so his father had a grouch on Aben. Since then he had responded to none of his invitations. Aben decided that a coward wouldn’t lift his head and while collecting 40 bulls he took one away from Seyit too. Seyitdidn’t come to senses. Then Aben started to support as a counter to Seyit his aul fellow Durbeuil and made him an important person. Seyit couldn’t allow Durbeuil to be in a command, so he organized his party in the aul. Aben winded Durbeuil up. And the latter referring on Seyit’s debts to someone sent the police to him and took away a cow from him. Seyit tried to return the lost by his son’s arms but with no result. Since that time the kicks by knee from Aben have only increased. He even encroached on the women of his clan, his lands, sent horse thieves. There’s no doubt about it – he’s made a lot of unjust things. Seyit had no one to base upon in the struggle with Aben. He couldn’t stand out openly any how but even so he pulled up his socks and somehow or other he edged Aben’s protégé out of the position of the Head of volost. He proposed the town shoemaker-Communist to his place. Although the shoemaker was the Communist but still he was feeble against Aben and he went mad a bit. He turned out to be quite bad Head of volost – see how he was beaten with the post recently. Bekbolat knew this story already by heart. It was unpleasant to him but he couldn’t simply put it off.

—Our father was really displeased with Aben. Is it possible to clear his name out of this statement?

Shiny replied counting for a naivety of his fellow:

—Er, absolutely, — he assured without mentioning the fact that a copy of the denunciation had been sent to the authorities long ago.— Because Shiny has taken care of people.

But Bekbolat caught on some evasiveness of the reply and decided to talk over all the reticence:

—                    And what if this statement has already been sent?

—                    Er, it’s easy to correct. We’ll find a way out.

—It’ll be right if we find, — that was all what he said although he didn’t believe fully

Distrust to Shiny had its reasons. And how he could be trusted here?

Shiny is a notorious swindler. There’s been no intrigue he’s been involved in. He started as an interpreter working for Bai Aben. He took a distinguished schooling from Aben, grabbed everything that came to his hands. He also participated in the theft of government money. He “borrowed” from many people – they tolerated, so he arranged everything. After the take-over as soon as the Tsar was thrown off the throne he was engaged in organization of elections, started the payment of bribes. Sometimes he’s invited to a toy¹ in his honor but he turns up his face, like, eat your meat youself: he’s shown his great importance. Why wouldn’t you be hard to please if seven girls wash your feet? He presented himself either as “Commissioner” or “taxman”, claimed he had an order, a mandate, and collected a tribute around all volosts. Not to put too fine a point on it, he used to kill, steal and make counterfeit documents with forged seals. Everything hetouched was ruined, grew poor. A hundred of times he went to jail, a hundred of times he got out of it. He lied both in Russian and in Kazakh with the same craftiness. He’s tempted many girls, corrupted and gave the elbow then. To marry and then divorce for him is as easy as to reverse a hat and to put it on. Even the stone thrown at his head stuck to him. You beat him and he grows fatter as a badger. He jerks hoofs as a stallion. The protruding forehead shines, eyes play, the nostrils of the snub nose tremble. Lean is, the zinger, flies up like a devil. You can’t trace how his arms flicker, can’t follow where he’s moved to. He has one hundred masks on his face.

Bekbolat thought in a daze: “Of all things, such people also happen! He’s surely immortal! Such man will survive even in an icy country. In any case, I have to get out of the hospital to the people, to the steppe, to the Kazakhs, and this man...let him go hang! He only messes about!”— with such thoughts Bekbolat moved to the hospital ward. He met the doctor without the white coat in the corridor, perhaps he was going home already. And again he stuck to the doctor with the old question.

—                     When will you allow me to go?

—                     Tomorrow, tomorrow, — the doctor replied.

Bekbolat cheered up a bit, he lay down onto the bed and again thoughts about Akbilek came upon.

¹ - toy in Kazakh – feast, banquet, wedding

The next day in the regular hour the doctor examined his wound, talced it with a white powder, re-bandaged and gave permission for discharge. Bekbolat took off the hospital robe, dressed all in his things and felt as if he became the man again. He went outside, dusted off chapan’s collars, moved his shoulders, drew himself together like a bird that leapt out of a cage and, without looking back walked away resolutely.

The day is cloudy. It rained at night, there’s mud in the cart rut.The familiar town, the familiar street. The mothers, soldiers go along it, they cross it. The square in front of the Province Council is filled with the Kazakh horses...

Bekbolat went past two-three quarters and reached Tolegen’s flat. Tolegen wasn’t at home, he was in office. The Russian cook prepareddinner at the stove.

—                     Aman, aman, — she greets, recognizing...

—                     Er, don’t you cook too much meat?

—                     Guests will come, — she replied in Kazakh as she could.

—                     What kind of guests?

—                     Commissioners are coming.

—                     I’ll be a guest too, — said Bekbolat smiling.

—                     Good. We’ve plenty of vodka, pork, — she joked.

—                     Leave it, eat your pork yourself!

The cook laughed. Bekbolat wanted to speak on many things but not with her...He passed from kitchen to the rooms. The cook who has cleaned the floors recently, cried:

—Hey, wipe your feet! — and gripped him for the sleeve.

—Eh, leave me! Feet are clean! — Bekbolat answered stretching the soles of boots over a wet rag that lay at the room entrance and entered a room.

Two clean rooms. The center of the first room is occupied by a big table. Around it there are chairs. In the corner on the hanger there are Tolegen clothes: two trousers, a pair is made of black cloth, the other is from blue diagonal cloth; a fur coat, tarpaulin raincoat, a short camisole and quilted pants. It’s unbecoming for Tolegen to wear both camisole and aul pants. “Why does he keep them?”— Bekbolat thought.

He sat in this room, looked over and felt clothing nodding his head in bewilderment: “Does he wear all this himself?” Then he went to the distant room.

Between two windows there was a desk. On its surface there was a folder with papers, banded with leather, a rectangular stone container with a copper lid. At the edges there were two bronze candlesticks and some other things for pens and cigarettes. That tablehad a built-in shelf tightly filled with books. Opposite the wall there was a shining mesh bed with white pillows and a wadded blanket. In front of the bed there was a small plush rug, above it – big photos, at the lower bed board there was a mirrored wardrobe, and six chairs upholstered with velvet.

Tolegen is a gentleman by nature. The Soviet getleman. And he has the Soviet title. His friends call him no other but Prodkom¹.Everything in the world can be found at Prodkom’s place: a suite made by “Moskvashveya”² and black caviar. The life of Prodkom for him and for his friends seems natural. But every coin has two sides. So he has sometimes to hear from his friends about his growing prosperity:

¹ - abbreviation which stands for Food Commissioner, used in the Soviet times

² - acronym for the Soviet textile manufacturing enterprise in Moscow in 1920-1930

over a threshold.

—How is your health, how is the wound? Have you recovered?.. Good... The service takes all the time away, I couldn’t get out to you— and he begain noisily condemn himself for the fact that he hadn’t visited Bekbolat in the hospital last time. He laid the bag on the table, went to the kitchen, gave some orders to the cook and returning continued: —There is also news from the steppe. And in your aul everything is all right... And our father... — he hesitated. — He seems to be in a good mood.

He kept silence that his sister had been found. He waits how Bekbolat would behave and that one said with a faint joy:

—Yes, I heard, everything got well.

Tolegen feeling that Akbilek is still desired for Bekbolat, looked at him more cordially. Not knowing how to exactly express his liking for him he drew out of a pocket a silver cigarette case full of graceful expensive cigarettes:

—          Will you smoke?..

Bekbolat who had no habit to smoke tobacco, still found it inconvenient to refuse. He reached out awkwardly to the cigarette case stretched to him, poked with two fingers and, scattering cigarettes, yet managed to catch one. Two-three cigarettes rolled on the table.

—It’s ok, ok, — Tolegen hastened to calm down the wildish fellow-countryman, picked them up to his cigarette case.

Bekbolat was flattered by almost timid affability of Akbilek’s educated brother and in his thoughts he admired the future relative: “This guy has achieved everything, anyone would boast such brother-in-law.”

Tolegen took out of his deep pocket a white handkerchief, abundantly sprinkled with fragrant eau-de-cologne. He waved with it and thoroughly, pushing its head with his finger to a nostril, wiped his nose. It was impossible, improper to keep silence with a guest, particularly with the groom; he’s not a savage but what to speak about — isn’t clear. Tolegen walks around the room, wipes his nose wih the handkerchief and thinks of acceptable subject for conversation. A coming party seemed an appropriate theme:

¹ - abbreviation used for Revolutionary Committee, a body of authorities in the USSR in the years of 1920-1930

—I have to accept guests today. It’s wonderful that you’ve come in such proper time.

He wanted to tell a saying that the unexpected guest is led by the luck of the master of the house but he resisted. It seemed too much of the Kazakh to him, too much ambiguous. The groom may not like it. Bekbolat also wanted to respond to his kind words but he didn’t know what to say, only softened the expression of the face which seemed to him more eloquent than any word flows:

—Ah-a, — and that’s all.

—One comrade has come from the center of the province. So he was invited, — Tolegen explained.

It should be understood as: look, here’s my world, my ambit of acquaintances; secondly I have contacts with the center of the province too, for you, groom, I’m an important person. Bekbolat had to support this conversation, he moved again:

—And who is this guy?

Tolegen answered that his name was Akbala and he was a member of the provincial Revkom.

After a conversation in such a manner, Tolegen referring to the need to watch the cooking of food, left the room. Bekbolat found it awkward to stay in the rooms on his own without the master and went outside to stretch.

 

                                                   * * *

The first guests were Ykan and Typan. Tolegen met them:

—Ah, Yka, come in, — he shook his hand and sat him down on a chair.

Bekbolat put his hand to his chest and also stretched the other hand to him. Ykan took a look at him over his glasses and let him hold his fine-boned baby hand:

—How do you do?

Tolegen offered a chair to a swarthy jowly man:

—Ah, Tyla, here you are.

Bekbolat, thinking that he does it wrong when shakes with both hands, rallied his spirits and held rigidly with only one hand his warm soft palm. Typan tried to look down upon him:

—How are you, dear? — and, as if he moved his shoulders sat next to Ykan.

Tolegen jokingly addressed two guests:

—No matter how many you ask, but the people with the Kazakh vestiges never want to come in time! I’m glad to see you! — and he looked at his watch with a thin bracelet.

It sounded drearily enough. Ykan took forced fright as if condemned with a terrible crime. He stared like a stuck pig and said gaping comically:

—What, we’ve come early, haven’t we? — and tossed his head dejectedly.

Typan matched Ykan:

—                   It’s not us who should be ashamed of our fathers’ traditions. What’s the use of shame, when you aren’t full? — and, having looked at Ykan, he gurgled with chuckling.

—                   No, not early. First of all I said that I was glad to see you. — Tolegen started to smile widely.— Here, have a cigarette! — and he pulled out of the pocket the same silver cigarette case and opened its lid.

—Eh, that’s another business, — said Ykan with satisfaction. He took out of a pocket of a short worn beshmet¹ an oblong snuff box, opened it carefully and put in front of him. — Thank you. I only fiddle around with my own tobacco, — and he added some words in Russian.

Then he pulled out of the snuff box a square piece of cut paper, put it on a finger and licked, strewed grainy tobacco and began to roll up a hand-made cigarette. Having rolled it up more tightly, he slobbered its edge properly, made up a cigarette as thick as a ring-finger with an end similar to uncircumcised boy’s dick and squeezed it carefully into a mouthpiece which looked as if gnawed by a horse. He put back the remaining pieces of paper to the snuff box, closed its lid tightly and the snuff box went to his pocket. And out of it he pulled flint and steel, zipped the flint with his left hand and the steel with his right one and started to strike sparks, a light flashed and flared.

¹ - an oriental quilted coat

nostrils whirls of dust in the evening time. There was some kind of exaggeration in it. Ykan acted more culturally, blowing with smoke a smoky cloud already hanging in front of him. His hand with the mouthpiece fixed between the index and ring fingers, was soaring aside. He was in a state of bliss.

Someone may be surprised with such a detailed description of Ykan’s tobacco smoking. Does he have anything to write about? I’ll note –I have. We can also smoke.

How else but smoking tobacco, neither opium nor vodka, you can distract yourself with when you’re in no humor, bored, your eyes want to see nobody and anything, when you sit and regret that another empty hour is absolutely punk, when you repent and grieve? The doctors call tobacco, opium and vodka a poison. They assure that we poison our bodies with them, burn veins and spoil blood, cause diseases and fast aging, and generally kill ourselves. But in the first place isn’t yearning the same poison? Doesn’t it eat out a soul? And spite, curling in the bosom – doesn’t it poison and shorten life before everything else? A poison is killed with a poison. We won’t condemn Ykan’s smoky blissout, let him even naswar put behind his lip.

Our condescension to Ykan can be explained. Earlier he lived in a big city, was known as a horse breeder. He knew a price of a fast horse and of wine, was married to a Rusian lady. He participated in the congresses of Kerensky’s supporters. As he considered: he’s seen the world. And when the Reds took the power his so nicely arranged household began to fall down. He had to return to his ownplace with senile grey hair and infirmity. There were roving around the flats, the corners. He wasn’t able to buy a coat for daughter and shoes for son. All that he had left to him was to grumble freely into his old woman’s ear. The service is trifling, he set to work as a Department Deputy Chief. So, why Ykan has to be reasonable? Wht else has he got to do unless to smoke biting tobacco with delicate manners? Leave him alone, why do you care about Ykan?

And what about Typan?

Typan — here’s he, sitting cross-legged in new shoes. Black trousers are made of solid cloth, though only the remnants of the former wardrobe. Dark jacket hasn’t gone out of style. Turn-down starched collar is triced with a tie in black polka dot. Like Ykan, he didn’t graduate any university; he neglected the service but had authority in the society of his own.

It’s clear that Ykan is displeased with the current peace. The Bolsheviks don’t give at least five kopecks for honor and foundations. They don’t care your knowledge, experience and your noble grey hair. Another headache is pension. Will he have it or no – it’s a complete darkness. Moreover, the youth began to think too much of themselves, they press with their instructions: “Act this way, do that way”. Such as Baltash even doesn’t say hello when meet, look sideways, with the exception of, perhaps, Tolegen, he doesn’t forget the God.

And Typan sees only “messes” everywhere. He lashes this or that way everything in the world with a displeased protruding lip... but he has no concrete complaints to the Soviet power. He keeps watch and does his service with his whole heart and stands on his feet firmly. Such is he, Typan - he always finds a hole to get a leg where he needs. Ykan is deprived of such gift; he behaves as if he’s on his deathbed: “Go to hell, all of you!”

Auh, we’ve said nothing about the age of Ykan and Typan! You won’t be very mistaken if one day you suppose that Ykan is about fifty years old and the other day he’s sixty. His live mimicry doesn’t give to view him closely. Typyn’s age can’t be defined, it varies depending on the circle of contacts: in the forms he points out 45 years and among women he’s 30-35 years.

It’s not really clear why Tolegen invited these two elderly citizens in the company of his young pals. Perhaps he followed to some Kazakh traditions or maybe planned to use them somehow in the future. They certainly were pleased: “He considers us”, came readily and now sit and imagine as if they are somebody.

Typan is deprived of staidness, he speaks lively:

 — How are you, Tolegen? How’s the service, strides?.. Well, have you returned the grain according to those taxes?.. This is a real mess... — he started, speaking as a true defender of the Kazakhs about the complaints of aul fellows for violence, oppression...

Listening to Typan’s passionate speech, Ykan stares amazed and says:

—Er, really?! Er, indeed?!

In the office Ykan is ingulfed with hundreds of orders, reports, forms, and requests. He himself is like a hopeless request. He knowsnothing about what’s going on beyond his desk, that’s why he’s surprised. Although, to tell the truth, he’s never had an idea to take interest what troubles are there in the steppe.

They talked mostly about salaries, less about flats, heating of the houses, about tobacco and how to live and to gain. Such was their conversation when the young, yet green Commissioners with bulgy bags under their arms, found them.

One of those who came — as friendly as a lamb, was Akbala; the second — with dark both face and clothes — was Baltash; the third one —pockmarked Doga had protruding lips, flat nose, one eye looks into the sky, another asks for bread. The fourth one— Zhorgabek — sagged as a saddle before Doga and before Baltash he bent as an axe. Zhorgabek pursued his activities as land manager, Doga was his chief, and Baltash was the Head of the county. As soon as the foursome appeared smashing in the doorway, Tolegen exclaimed:

—                    Ah, come in, come in! — and rushed to meet them.

Our Bekbolat also jumped to his feet and drew himself at the doorstep.

—Er... — Typan paused on the sound and stood up welcomingly.

Ykan, not daring to stand up or sit as before, fidgeted on a chair, leaned on it; just think on your own: either he raised himself a little or he drew in horns.

Typan shook hands with two comrades and said to the rest:

—We’ve seen today, haven’t we? — and smiles deliberately. Ykan nodded to Akbala greeting him. Next to him Bekbolat pushes his spade to the hands of the guests who came up.

Commissioners threw their bags around in a mess – none the less they’ve come to have rest. Baltash passed to the bed and flopped down on it. Zhorgabek took an advantage of Typan’s courtesy and sat down on his chair... Akbala stood at the table and began to turn over the leaves of the books from the shelf. Doga settled down alongside, sat down to the mirror, smoked with a pursy eye.

After he looked everyone over, Bekbolat chose to sit down far from them because these young men that piled in without a peep made the entire house dance in front of them.

Tolegen came in and again went to the kitchen, sharpened the knives, prepared meat for the table.

Akbala, examining one of the books, said:

—                    Hey, there’s Kautsky here too.

Tolegen replied from the living-room:

—                      I’ve got Engels too; we keep to Marxism after all.

—                      Wow, really! You rank below the Marxist, — Baltash said arrogantly reclining on the bed.

Zhorgabek and Typan have found the topic acceptable for both. They were discussing it in a low voice, exchanged smiles and made faces. The conversation came down to vodka.

—Why don’t we have a drink? — Zhorgabek concluded.

Ykan, who hasn’t found himself in this “bird talk”, kept silent aside in a solitary sitting next to Bekbolat. With his head down he was absorbed in a difficult process of making another his cigarette. After smoking, Ykan looked back at Akbala, slowly pacing along the room, touched Typan’s shoulder and asked Akbala:

—Who’s that young man?

¹ - Province revolutionary committee

behind his back. Typan has made a puzzled face and asked affectedly:

—What’s in there in your hand? — and he stretched his sleeve.

—Nothing... A bit of this... — Tolegen got confused and hastened to arrange the bottle that he had brought in under the table.

—What, is this raw spirit? — Typan didn’t come off.

—                    A little bit “for a run-up”. — Tolegen looked the guests over from under his eyelids and smiled innocently.

—                    Oh, this isn’t done, — rugged Baltash said and caught Akbala out of the corner of his eye.

—                    I don’t know how about you, but we aren’t frightened by this, — Typan said and stroke his stomach.

—                    Besides, there isn’t much harm in it. Only for appetite — Tolegen assured and put the glistening bottle on the table.

Everyone stared at this reservoir.

—Damn it, where do you find it? — Zhorgabek in surprise smacked his lips.

—Sometimes there’s a case... — Tolegen replied.

—                    He knows fat offices— Doga noted and winked.

—                    Is there the evening meeting today? — Baltash asked Typan.

—                    It isn’t expected today... — Typan replied and patted the bottle playfully. — Let’s not annoy it. I know how it gets really angry...

Ykan hasn’t tasted vodka for ages. And here’s such a luxury! Damn it all, will he get it or no?! The company began to specify vodka’s degrees. They grimaced, discussed the amusing subject this or that way... Ykan couldn’t stand it, lifted the glass that stood in front of him:

—                    Enough to torment the white thing, dear!

Everyone at the table laughed. Akbala, who had been sitting modestly until then, ordered:

—Aqsaqal ordered, pour!

Smiling Tolegen mixed spirits with the prepared water and poured it into the glasses:

—Right!

Baltash looked around and asked Tolegen:

—                      Put down the curtains on the window.

The guests raised the glasses:

—                      Well, who’ll we drink to?

Typan, who considered himself as the head of the table, looked at Akbala and hastened to suggest:

—I think we should drink in honor of the guest that came to us.

Akbala shuddered:

—No, it won’t do. Let it be anything else... We can do it to some socialist idea... — he pronounced, refusing, with which he only highlighted that he embodied it.

Here Baltash jumped from the chair and cried lifting the glass:

—Long live the Soviet power! — and he started to clink glasses with everyone personally.

—Long live! — everybody around caught up.

No matter how Ykan tried to cry expressively “Long live!”, he had none of that admiration bordering on madness, as everyone did. Typan cried the toast better than the others.

The second toast was to the Bolsheviks, the third one — to the autonomy of the Kazakhs, followed by the one to the guests, in the end there was the toast to health of the host. Vodka was poured and poured. Only Bekbolat couldn’t lift his glass, he hardly held the fork.

Half a liter of spirit made up a bottle and a half of vodka. Vodka cheered up the company visibly. They roared with laughter. The conversation became more fun. Akbala boasted his activity in the province to his utmost, the rest listened. Less heated Doga and Baltash preferred laughing at the jokes of Typan and Zhorgabek to chatting. They sometimes joked with them. Ykan showed a great zeal in drinking particularly. Doga and Typan attacked the meat with especial insatiability. Anyway, nobody cared respectable manners. The guests turned red already, they grabbed each other’s elbows, threw their arms on the shoulder of the neighbor, the eyes went narrow, somebody poured vodka, smoldering cigarettes were thrown over the table, the tablecloth was about to catch fire. They smoked, harped on in Russian, laughed...how maddening! Their behavior grew more and more unclear for Bekbolat. They showed themselves as the people from the other world. He got stuck between them like between heaven and the earth. He thought it was probably because of his illiteracy.

Bekbolat didn’t follow the company and remained in the sitting room. “They are the same guys like I’m, auh! If we had studied in the town, we would have been the same!”— he thought and became his own man for a while. And at once there appeared the sense of shame: why was he so slighting about himself...They are also not without drawbacks. If to cast away the clouds of tobacco smoke, hard drinking, scribbling and speaking Russian, is their life more full and interesting than mine is? And how is it possible not to die out f anguish in these rooms with narrow ceilings? Is it possible not to miss the willful steppe, the peaks of Alatau, the greenery of woods, the hunting with hound dogs and golden eagles in the narrow streets?! How is it possible to live bending under a ceiling and leaning against a wall? Holy men! They sank irrevocably in this hellish being, auh! Don’t they have a longing to see their parents, relatives, relations? They aren’t better in anything. And they surely despise us, me, Akbilek...

The cook came in, began to move chairs and clear the table. Bekbolat didn’t want to get in her way, went outside, washed his face and recovered his breath. Smoke has poisoned him to headache.

After he caught his breath, Bekbolat settled on the porch steps as freely as he could. Shiny’s story sounded in his mind as if he was in the hospital again. There appeared desire to get away. Away from these smoked, drunk, business-like Kazakh Commissioners to people! The desire grew stronger. The people from his aul should have visited him long ago. “Why is there no one? The father is also nice...He also likes to present himself as the state man! Or doesn’t he need me any more?” — he thought so and took an umbrage about the father.

When he returned to the house, Bekbolat heard the young gentlemen arguing furiously about something in the distant room. His ears caught: “Matayin Aben...Mukash”. Mukash — is the very Mukash. Aben — is the father’s enemy. He wished he saw them face to face with a whip in his hand in the steppe! Bekbolat moved on carefully and sat on a chair at the doors of the distant rom. He began to listen to the voices coming from there.

Baltash spoke. Standing at the table he swatted a pile of papers with his hand and changed to Russian:

—                   There’s truth in all these complaints... why rich man grows richer? The people are cattle for him. He gets rich by their work. he sucks blood from the weak. In my view, Bai Aben is a real rabble, the most harmful element. How many people he he cankered! I believe we should end up with this. Particularly this rascal has collected the materials about Mukash!.. To tell you the truth, I don’t consider Mukash totally spotless man. Perhaps he’s also offended people but he’s despatched with the Bais too. He is the true Communist, the committed Communist. The end justifies the means.

—                   Comrades, allow me to tell some words too, — Doga said, lifting his hand and blinking.

Akbala raised his chin slightly, looked at him and permitted:

—                   Speak up.

—                   I want to tell... — Doga started significantly, hands on his hips. — Indeed, Aben Matayin is Bai, and that he was the Head of volost is also truth. And what does it mean? It means he had the authority with the people, has it now. But would it be correct to destroy all Bais in one day basing only on the fact that they are rich? No, that wouldn’t be the right decision. It means, many facts in thecomplaints for Aben Matayin don’t correspond to the facts. All this was struck off by citizen Takyrov, known to everybody as abarrator. It should be said — brilliant barrator. Now a criminal case has been initiated against him, he’s arrested, yeah, it’s done. It means we can’t fully trust these denunciations; we can’t... As for Mukash, he uses the Party as a fur coat, only to cover his affairs, he does. He’s a sly, very cunning... it means, his goal is to become the Head of volost. Until now thieves and swindlers have managed to join the Party. It became known, for instance, that seven horse thieves joined the Party cell of Zhaman-aul, it’s known for certain. It means that such people as Mukash can’t be called true Communists. Whatever he did: pandered to the Whites, set them against the auls, indulged in capturing girls, women, led them to do this... — here he threw his eye on Tolegen.

Tolegen lowered his eyes. And Bekbolat fixed at the floor at his place.

—Yeah, so then, we have the materials at our hands, — Doga went on gesticulating. — It means, we can’t proceed with the matter until we check them, we can’t...

As soon as Doga paused, both Baltash and Typan began to ask the permission to speak stretching their hands: “Me...I...”

—Let him speak out— Akbala pointed at Typan. Bekbolat liked how Doga took digs at Mukash but he couldn’t accept his appraisal of Aben. He thought listening closely: “What will this character say?”

—Auh, guys, Comrades! Let’s have a look at this matter keeping cool, as the Kazakhs do... Guys, Comrades, you’re certainly Communists but you’re the Kazakhs too. We all work for the benefit of the Kazakh people...we’ve worked not a dozen of years... we’ve worn out not one pair of shoes, more than you have...it won’t be boasting, if I say that we are more acquainted with the Kazakh affairs, — the speaker said and looked over the present wishing to know what effect has made the beginning of his speech.

Baltash screwed his face and turned away making it clear: “We know how you’ve worked for the benefit of the Kazakhs”. Zhorgabek frowned: “He’ll spoil everything!”— and he took a look at either Akbala or Typan. Doga nodded: “Come on, speak!” Ykan, pecking the table like a bird, rolled up a cigarette. Tolegen kept sitting with the air of detachment, his head lowered as if this conversation had nothing to do with him.

A doomed butterfly is spinning and spinning around a spark.

Typan noticed Baltash’s displeasure, grew timid and spoke differently:

—I’m so... as a senior... It’s no concern of us, unless you want to know the opinion of uncles...

Akbala encouraged Typan:

—No, no, speak. Your opinion is also useful. Indeed, you’ve worked for the benefit of the people.

Typan understood all delusiveness of his words, he carried on following his way but now avoided the statement: “we’re the Kazakhs”:

—                      Let’s talk frankly. — he cleared his throat and went on: — This is a scandalous affair. In Sartau people went mad on theparties... Two parts quarrel, write complaints and mix everything with policy. Save God, whatever they lie, whatever accuse of... Don’t pay attention to the word “God”, this is just a saying... — He cleared his throat again. — Still leaving aside outside papers, I, for example, will speak about the last letters... — and he spoke about robbery of the post, known to Bekbolat from the Shiny’s words.

—                      The only thing is who can we trust to? Eyes don’t cover everything the Kazakhs have lied here, all their complaints...

Typan got heated— a brave man he was, he literally shot down all Kazakh messes in the planetary scale then he changed smoothly to the person of Aben Matayin but now he spoke differently. Aben has appeared as an educated man who subscribed newspapers and magazines, built schools, taught children, founded funds to feed the poor, but what was this! — he cared of their way of life too, advanced them to culture, to the leading edges of the civilization, he paid grants to the students, destroyed the remains of the detachments of the Whites, taught military service to young men, hid refugees, warmed up those who suffered from war – and everything was done nobly. He first thought about fate of the people, had an indisputable authorities with the entire county. If it weren’t him, there would be chaos, anarchy, revolt! — he stated everything very promptly, neither to add nor to diminish.

Typan’s eloquency made such strong impression on the company that it crushed down every Baltash’s efforts to object at the grassroots. He only jerked his head as an unbroken horse and took offend. Doga cheered up, shielded his squint eye with satisfaction and his entire look said: “Ah, well done, you’ve scored the hit!” Although Baltash made efforts to object, Akbala, as the person authorized by the center, didn’t want to break the order and gave the word to another speaker — Zhorgabek.

Zhorgabek immediately ambled. He neither began to debate Baltash’s opinion nor addressed Doga with any comments. He clarified only some moments in Typan’s speech. He didn’t begin to develop the involved topic. He didn’t consider it necessary to return to age-old intra-Kazakh quarrels. What was the point to discuss senseless things? He spoke about tomorrow, mentioned that the people who wanted to become the nation should first of all raise up education, maintain fair trial...and so on and so far... and all this the Kazakh youth would accomplish and there should reign unity exactly between the young people, everything should be done in concord, that every hope was laid on the youth... — and he sang hymns to the youth of the country and again called for re-union. He spoke in accordance with the line of the Party, there was nothing to find fault with any word.

Bekbolat sat as a real silly thing — understood nothing: who was right in this discussion, who was wrong. He definitely liked only charges to Mukash. Nothing else was worth mentioning.

He understood why one part curses Aben deadly but he couldn’t understand those who praised Mukash, asserting that it was certainly necessary to support him and to make arrangements about a position for him! What was the reason? Well then, there was a reason. You’d ask what it was. Here it is.

Baltash is the Head of the county. However, he isn’t from this county. He isn’t a relative to local people in any generation. But Baltash is a son of a poor man and he’s proud that he has nothing. He likes neither Doga nor Tolegen and believes that such people when they make their way to the Soviet work, spoil everything. Doga and Typan used his absence to push Aben’s man to the position of the Head of volost. When he returned, Baltash was angry, he threw Bai’s henchman off and sat his Head of volost – shoemaker Kurenbai. The shoemaker believed he had an obligation to the Commissioner and collected ferret skins for winter coat for Baltash. Although Baltash paid for everything, every tail of them, all the same he was pleased with his Head of volost. And Bais intrigue against such personnel! That was all secret of his hostility to Aben.

And what about Doga? Doga is from evil knows where. It’s true, his relatives referred to Aben’s clan. During elections in Sartau Aben called him his nephew, treated kindly, he gave him full meal, not being stungy he squeezed into his pockets crunchy notes.  Is that all?Perhaps, no. Doga has found one beauty for himself. And not without reason he believed that Aben would help him to win her hand.

What about Typan? Oh, we aren’t able to tell you everything that has happened in his former life. We’ll only remind that in those illustrious imperial times he worked as an interpreter for Aben. Later he was a translator at the Justice of Peace which impacted greatly his standing. Typan came from the same clan as Aben did as well as his wife originated from the same volost. Aben is the very power for Typan, and all the rest is only an incident. So, we won’t dig out further, that’s enough.

Now, we’ll discuss Zhorgabek. He’s just found a job at the state service. His father is the one of the known Heads of volost. In the gymnasium he was reputed as a quick-witted, smart, sharp-tongued pupil, he didn’t finish the studying though. He would go far but his biography held one black spot— the service in Kolchak’s administration, after which when the Reds came he hid himself in the auls of relatives for a long time. In some way his character was similar to Tolegen’s nature. Along with this he was more crafty, grasping, educated, enterprising which forced to treat him with more respect than to Tolegen. With the first phrases he could arouse liking of those he met. The most important in him was that he didn’t look for enemies. On the whole he was spoken about as: “Zhorgabek is a dzhigit!”

Ykan, who could hardly wait for completion of Zhorgabek’s speech, asked the host’s permission to go home and left. Such disputes were of no use for him. He’s lived among the Russians for too long and he’s been so out of touch with the blood roots that he’s grown completely cool to all nuances of the Kazakh intrigues. He prefered a meaningless chatter over a glass of vodka to logomachy, exciting hints for clan, flocks and for news about who and what brings from a market. Whether the vodka which he drank arouse the memories about his really devil-may-care revelries or perhaps he feared painful reprimands of his old woman for the prolonged bean-feast, whatever it was but Ykan found it necessary for him to leave.

Tolegen was silent. Why will he speak? Doga and Typan told everything could and should be said. In fact, he counted on them.

Akbala, who afforded grounds for all comrades to speak and listened carefully to every speaker, finally decided to speak himself. He was of those rather young but ripe ones who made his mark as early as at the meetings in the first years of the revolutionary revolt. He was known as an organizer, remembered and talked about: “Well, look at him!” He published his articles in the newspapers, wrote solid reports. He’s had the reputation of the authoritative figure of the last youth call-in. He’s joined the Communist Party not so long ago but he’s already been calling the youth to become the Party members. He wanted sincerely to become the true Communist. He’s a competent guy. The masses mesmerized by his speech have caused his genuine delight. He studied every solution of the Party Congress, every new published book. He liked to read himself into discussion of Lenin, Trotsky and other prominent participants of the congresses. He learned by heart separate strong phrases, the exact words and if he didn’t quote them word for word, then in any case he did it as it was required. He sometimes told the aphorisms of the leaders in such a way that there was an impression that he was the author of these maxims. All the reads showed it.  If to buck up, he’ll gain the character of an enlightener. However, when he went away from a tribune, he was barely able to repeat what he had said there.

Yet, don’t hurry to call him a light-minded chatter. On the contrary, he’s made an impression of a reserved, able to behave with dignity in any situation man, who speaks to the question. And he believed himself that he was highly educated, cultural and eloquent. If there’s any blunder, if he stumbled when stepped out of place then he wasn’t embarassed at all, he didn’t torment himself with self-castigation, but built a new plan and found a way out of the current circle of troubles to the better tomorrow.

Akbala imagined himself modestly as a messiah, whose ideas and goals can’t be rejected. The reason why he didn’t hurry to say his word but preferred to listen to the others deserves more detailed explanation. It wasn’t that he wanted to make sense of the situation which was in Sartau. Neither was it that he wanted to reveal an enemy element waiting for somebody to let out a secret and show his true colors. It was his desire to find among those debated the proper people to carry out his fundamental ideas.

Akbala’s strong point was in the fact that he could speak both Russian and Kazakh equally well. When he spoke in Kazakh, he immediately bought Bekbolat up:

—                     Yes, Comrades! Now I’ll tell my opinion. — he touched the lips with a handkerchief and without raising his eyes, went on: — The case we’re considering now should be taken not only in one volost or county scale, this case is typical for entire of Kazakhstan, — he squared his shoulders, twisted and rubbed fingers, raising his head slightly, nodded with it staring at Typan’s belly opposite him.

—                     We weren’t ready for the revolution. The revolution fell on us like from the sky. We’ve been harvesting the ripes grown by the Russian proletariat, the Russian Bolsheviks, — Akbala declared meaningfully and paused.

This phrase has already been pronounced for hundreds of times, cried at the meetings and it has flashed in the newspapaers. But all the same Akbala uttered this outworn statement as the new revelation.

—Yes, today power belongs to farm laborers, poor people. The class of hired workers has overcome the class of the rich long ago, has taken control of lands, factories, plants, property of the rich men...however, let’s compare. The class struggle of Russians has already been spread to the utmost, it’s been going on not a year long. Our class division hasn’t even started. Why? Don’t we have Bais, poor people, extortioners and their victims? Is it peace and quiet, Grace of God? No, Comrades! Our robbery of the working people, injustice, violence, oppression also strikes the eye. But the rich men have the power and they hide from us the tears of the oppressed masses. The masses suffer inside, they’re humiliated, dispossessed...Yeah...Yeah...the rich men don’t grow richer of an inheritance. They grow rich sucking the blood of the working people; get fat exploiting the labor of people. And this is naked truth. The example is the wealth of thisAben. And this is indisputable. Yeah..Yeah...why our poor masses as a class aren’t able to withstand the rich men? Don’t they have any rights? Don’t they understand their benefit? Don’t they undertsnd that they stand at the death’s door? We know the reasons. Our farm laborers and poor men didn’t have such uniting, mobilizing centers as factories and plants. Poor people, crushed and robbed, suffer singly at the very bottom. If to tell more precisely, we didn’t have proletariat. And if we had, it wasn’t numerous. Now it’s ready to emerge because our industry is built. There were mine workers before too...Yeah...yeah...our farm laborers and poor people aren’t able to divide white from black, they were blind...Yeah, the children of the poor people have begun to study recent years. Earlier only children of Bais, aristocrats, the Heads of volost studied... Yeah, then we have such vice as inter-clan feud. Aqsaqals, horsemen heading the clans set one clan against the other, they force the poor people fight each other... Yeah, now it’s time for the power of the poor people. And this power orders us to love the poor people, arrange their life, teach them, help them with a job. And should we love the poor? Weshould. Should we arouse the class solidarity, class hatred in them? We should. And how? What are our possibilities? That’s the point — Akbala concluded, pulled cigarettes out of his pocket, lighted the cigarette, took a pull at it and continued: — There’re two solutions on the matter in the province... If to think it big, we can even say there are three approaches. But I wouldn’t call the third approach the solution on the matter. Because the supporters of this approach affirm that we have no classes, and they associate class struggle only with the Russians, — and he threw a sharp glance at Zhorgabek.

Zhorgabek closed his eyes with a view of understanding and approval.

—We, the Kazakh Communists, can’t approve such approach... We need to get on the path of revolution...Yeah, and so there are the solutions of the set question. The first is the revolutionary expropriation of all land property of Bais, their houses, cattle, right up to the wives, if there are several of them, and then the equal, accurate, I can say as if with a sharp knife, division between the poor. To level property position of the rich and the poor. Otherwise, the rich will continue to manage pastures and water sources, the poor won’t see justice as far as it’s possible. Some Russian comrades carry out this policy. We can add to them such comrades as the shoemaker Kurenbai sent to the volost from the town as well as a number of comrades from mediocre youth...As for the second approach, no revolutionary is possible here, the poor will never get rid of oppression... — and he began to pour the arguments.

They were as follows: if to take away cattle from Bais, it will be captured by the absolute robbers. They will destroy everything as atrophy, will eat at once and the government won’t receive any profit. This will lead to pestilence, hunger and civil war.

—It’s dangerous, comrades, to try to make the rich from the poor at the expense of the rich. The poor man at such free ride can get upto such level of envy that Socialism and Communism will be mere words for him. He won’t get used to hard work and gain brain. Without understanding such simple thing as “costs-revenues” the poor man will waste everything... the poor man should be taught. We should open his eyes, help him find his place. Justice and power should serve to the poor. We need to open cooperatives, guilds, nomad poor should be led to settle way of life, taught crafts! — he exclaimed.

Having looked at dumbfound audience with satisfaction, Akbala added a bit later:

—We should consider the rich and the poor from this point of view. Aben isn’t alone, there’re many Abens. We need to struggle withthem. It’ll be a long struggle. They also have possibilities; they have a lot of strength. They can find loopholes. They have agents everywhere both in the county and in the province. How will we know who is tied with whom by umbilical cord? First of all, we should clear out our ranks from those citizens managed by patrimonial links. Here’s a hostile influence. Unless we are clean, we’ll cope with nothing, — and he stopped talking this time finally — blew off the lamp.

Whatever you may say, Akbala gave a powerful speech. Powerful it was but not all comrades liked it. Zhorgabek and Typan didn’t like slogan “intensification of the class struggle” especially. They were the supporters of that rejected third approach. They hid the Kazakh affairs. And the words “not to take the pastures and cattle away from Bais” were hateful for Baltash, the true son of a poor man. Although deep inside he was ready to protest, he restrained his temper. The fact that Akbala refused him two-three times in the opportunity to debate has got him. In addition to this the definition “mediocre youth” put him on the unpleasant alert. “What if he suddenly will put me to their list” — Baltash feared.

Only Zhorgabek didn’t calm down. He began to pour the questions about Marx and capitalism, about construction of Communism in one country and what the Kazakhs will have from it?

Akbala cut Zhorgabek with a glance, casted up eyebrows after he had listened to him, and masking his hostility thoroughly, said:

—                          Your questions require in-depth coverage. I can answer them now too. But this time I’ll withhold because firstly we drank and got drunk to some extent; secondly I don’t think it’s possible to quote Marx and Lenin at the moment. We’ll consider these questions in–depth later. However, they can be answered this way. If to look into the root of the question, we’ll find no other way than that onechosen by the Russian proletariat. We should follow it, uniting with it but not arrange any other own Kazakh policy. There’s no suchpolicy! There’s no own individual history as well. We have to do practical work. We should carry attention over to the class struggle but not divide enemies and friends basing on relationship. You’ve been familiar with Marx works, why don’t you have the revolutionary spirit? — and he laughed affectedly.

—                          How do you know that we don’t have the revolutionary spirit? — Zhorgabek answered the question with the question and also laughed.

Both Zhorgabek’s questions and Akbala’s answers sounded as unclear as the Arab phrases from the Koran for Bekbolat. Bekbolat doesn’t care capitalism and socialism. He felt annoyed that they chatted, forgot about Aben and Mukash. Something should be done to them! The young dzhigit couldn’t understand that the only thing they were busy with was deciding the fate of Bai Aben and Mukash. What can you do — he hasn’t been a thinker, he thinks differently. Bekbolat sat and couldn’t understand who was he and what world he was in from such conversations. His head finally hardened into stone from never-ending words and he went away.

                                                

                                                        * * *

 

The snow that fell at night is fabulously fluffy. It’s calm, a bit frosty. The air is like glass. Two horsemen are going away from the town clattering along. Hoof tracks are like craters from explosions — so the snow scatters! Feast for the eyes! Clip! Clop! Slab-sided chestnut horse with crimson tint has a small graceful head. Sinewy legs are like those that Asiatic wild ass has. A crupper is shortened, a saddle is well-formed, and stirrups are lowered. A pale young rider in a felt raincoat presses horse’s sides with his kness, strikes croup with a whip.

The red horse of the second rider is without a saddle. It’s broke, keeps even run adapting to the chestnut horse. The rider has a simple look, the clothes are worn.

Who of you have flown in a saddle like a wind? Those who galloped the horse know: soul flies to all holy men along the skies; you can even snatch with the teeth!

The lad on the chestnut horse folded a whip and looks closely at the appearing mountain.

—                   Wow, how maddening! Newly fallen snow is as if odered! Hey-ho! — and he beats with a whip shaft on his top of the boot.

—                   And no mistake, — agreed his travel companion.

—                   Have you trained the golden eagle?

—                   Recently, a week or two ago...

—                   I wish I could go out today!

—                   What will it be with the new fallen snow?

—                   You don’t think about the birds...

Bekbolat cared for bird passion. His friend Akbergen, who was a bit late with the horses to the town, made excuses: they had just learned about his hospital stay. They had tea and immediately moved to the steppe, to the auls. And there of all things, the snow fell down thickly before going on the road!

Bekbolat owned a golden eagle and a hawk. He hasn’t seen his hunting birds for ages! If you ask him at the meeting, as is right and proper, about the sheep— he’ll certainly bring the conversation to the birds of prey.

The other day Akbergen went hunting hares — the birds should be fed, and the golden eagle left without attendance, threw cap off the eyes, rushed at tame fox and broke two flight feathers. “Well, my goodness, ah!” However, if to smooth the wing, it seems nothing is seen...But Bekbolat, as usual, will look over every feather — flight, tectrix and rectrix feather of the tail. He had to confess. Bekbolat gotangry.

Akbergen is Bekbolat’s emotional friend. They grew together. From the very first steps they went closely each other.

On his shoulders Akbergen had the old mother, wife and not a soul more if not to count two cows and a horse. In the holy month of Ramadan he begins to keep a fast at home and finishes at a steppe fire. Since he’s a hunter with a golden eagle, a hunter, a singer, and on the whole a good fellow. Bekbolat trusted him more than anyone else, even more than his own father.And how it can be the other way, in fact Akbergen was let into all his secrets. From boy’s fights to the first love to the same person they went together through hunting, fun, hunger, laughing, grieve and survival.

Akbergen traced and caught a fox-cub in a bare ravine for about a verst. He scrambled up a cliff. If you set a foot just a bit not properly— you’ll fly straight to jaws of death. However, he got the golden eagle’s nestling. For three days he kept watch with a fox-cub tied to him at the nest of the golden eagle. For three nights he slept there in the cleft dying in the ringing frost. Afraid to chill the nestling which he took out the nest, he wrapped it in his leaky fur coat. Fearing that a sly fox-cub would get the nestling he ran to the wintering. His leg slipped on a stone and he rolled down and broke his collarbone. He tamed the bird of prey— his whole arm is cut with the claws. Both fox-cub and nestling were for Bekbolat. Everything was for his sake: he was in charge for him in the reckless years of youth, trampled out a path in lack of roads, bared his teeth like a wolf, crept as a cat, crawled like a dog and held his horse an iron stake. Who else buthim is able for such sacrifice? Who will bear?

All Akbergen clothes are inherited from Bekbolat. He ate from his table too. Bekbolat helped him to marry. Everything is according to Akbergen’s dreams: Bekbolat will marry soon and begin to live his own aul, he’ll live next to him in a modest yurt, he’ll shake up kumiss for him and in general will arrange aul’s affairs. What else does a man need?

If there exists true male bonding in the sublunary realm, it’s this one that ties together Bekbolat and Akbergen. And it’s tightly fastened by one passion — hunting, without it life is unthinkable like without air. Hunting took everything away: they had no time to have a hand in household. It was a pity to spend a minute even for love games. Bekbolat’s father called them— “a pair of brainsick”. Even with all these things considered they had absolutely different characters.

There were such circumstances in which Bekbolat all of a sudden began to show inappropriate stubbornness or he was lost or ran into extreme irritability but Akbergen never lost his mind. He always cleared the hot air with a proper word. Far and by he could find the wayout. Bekbolat often took Akbergen’s advice when he was in a jam. He would live quietly and well but thanks to his friend all the time he got into different troubles and Bekbolat felt guilty. Yet it has never come to Akbergen’s mind to back out of problems falling on him due to Bekbolat. He believed if he could stand out, lift, contrive in the name of his friend, then it should be this way. Bekbolat’s excitement would have ruined him a hundred of times without Akbergen. But who would be Akbergen without Bekbolat?  No one and anything. They complemented each other, formed an integral unit, if it can be said about a hoof and a horseshoe.

“Where there’s counting, there’s no friendship”, — you can hear this at the friendly feast not once. Don’t believe it, everything has its counting. And we haven’t met any friends that keep their count. Just a list of personal profit and losses is filled in deep under the skin and it’s not accepted to speak about it. If friends assure that they neither know nor want to know, who and why really owes, then perhaps both are very sly or hopeless idiots. There’s no eternal, non-binding male bonding. As there’s no such man who would be ready to forget his interests absolutely, unless we speak about the above mentioned idiots.

In town Bekbolat and Akbergen had time only to exchange a couple of words about health and daily life of the relatives. They didn’tmanage to have a heart to heart talk at Tolegen’s house in the evening. So only now, in the saddles in the steppe, they plunged into a quality chat. What does Bekbolat speak about? Sure thing, about Akbilek. But first of all he began to speak about the birds. He couldn’t understand how they hadn’t kept an eye for the golden eagle...Finally Akbergen closed:

—                   We cared about the birds those days, didn’t we?

Bekbolat immediately agreed:

—                   Yeah, the days were crazy. As if the stars turned away from us... It looks like the snow lay flat, but look, hares’ traces are blobby there... Who could have thought that such disaster would fall on me?

—                   Eh, it’s all in God’s hands... She’s unfortunate too, — Akbergen replied guessing thoughts.

—                   What do you mean, what is “unfortunate”? Because she came into the hands of the Russians, or how?.. — Bekbolat asked looking at his friend’s face closely.

—                   And how to call her the other way? It’s all clear, people say... Dishonored.

Bekbolat became angry and noted with irritation:

—                   But who managed to keep honor then? It so happened.

—                   Eh, destiny. Who could have expected that she would never see the bride’s kerchief?..

Bekbolat grinned realizing what his friend drives at.

—What are you hinting at?

—                   Nothing, — Akbergen smiled.

It’s clear: he didn’t dare to tell that marrying Akbilek is out of the question now.

—What do you have on your mind? I have nothing to be ashamed of! — Bekbolat cried with displeasure.

Akbergen’s face got frozen - it was frosty after all... With an effort but firmly he pronounced moving his lips barely:

—I wasn’t going to shame you. As you know, I don’t need it. I just don’t know what to say... And what do you think? You’d rather explain to me, slow-witted before growing angry... What shall we do now? My dark head couldn’t even imagine that this is possible in this wide world...

Bekbolat’s heart softened after such tirade. He hugged his friend, even wanted to kiss which he had never done before in his life but changed up his mind.

—In the first place — the God, and then you, my friend, are closer to me than anyone else. I haven’t kept any secrets from you. And I’m not going to. I have nobody to consult except you. I think about her...I should have asked you about my father, mother and I’m asking about Akbilek... I can’t but speak about her and I am not glad to speak. You can see it yourself...Well, the things are this way...

And he began from almost the youthful dreams about the beautiful girl; how he was shot dead when saw Akbilek... he composed the entire poem on the way. And he ended it so:

—          What happened, happened. Is it written on my forehead that I’m an unlucky person? Though...I don’t know. I have to marry all the same. To look for a new bride, to send the father to woo...a real fiddling. It’s all in God’s hands, however, let people talk what they want, and I am on my own... I want to marry her, — and he stopped talking with a sigh.

While Bekbolat was talking, Akbergen was nodding with the air of understanding and was saying yes: “Eh, eh”, like, you’re right in everything. And when stopped, he began to beat breast and assure that from the moment he was at one with Bekbolat. But unlike Bekbolat he spoke not so extensively and emotionally but without haste. He laid emphasis:

—If you’ve conceived so, what can I say against? I have one friend, as they say, but many enemies...We should be aware of them exactly. We have to think, to look round where to keep silence, what to say to whom, to lead everything to be right...Your love is your law.

Law is certainly a strong word but still Bekbolat felt that he had to justify even in the eyes of the most intimate friend:

—As the God will order... and I have to wait only. It’s not my fault that it happened so. The grief has fallen from the sky. Who can cover himself from it? Frankly speaking, are there many women in that district who weren’t pressed by the Russian soldiers? The entire armies have passed: the Whites, the Reds, the Blacks...  but I haven’t heard that one of them declared himself as a tainted woman. You’llfind a cracked egg even in undisturbed nest. The Earth also cracks...And today everything we cherished is slashed with a blade — here it seemed he finally clocked his friend.

“Honor of disfigured”— Akbergen thought but didn’t argue any more.

—But still, what will people say? How will look at this our people at home?

— People have already said, they have nothing to add. I don’t have a spare ear to listen to everything the people talk... those who also couldn’t save their daughters and sisters, perhaps, are glad to hear about Akbilek. They’ll gloat for a while, let them. But those relatives, who really sympathize us, won’t condemn me yet. They will be silent from Akbilek’s side too. And after all, it’s better to marry Akbilek than any Barrel.

The friends laughed. There has been one old maid in their aul— stupid, shrill, bandy-legged, with potbelly. Someone married her at last. She’d better be glad quietly and bear children but no: there was no conversation where she claimed she married being vestal. Bekbolat and Akbergen teased this as ugly as death woman with some meaningless abandon, utterly ruthless.

The remainig distance to the aul the dzhigits spoke only about women. The theme for young men is endless.  It’s unable to tire up our two heroes, particularly when they speak about frivolous persons. We’ve got bored with, we should admit. So, we won’t develop it any more.

The dzhigits shoot off the mouth, roar with laugher to tears, pleased.

Bekbolat’s heart lightened.

 

                                                 * * *

Baltash entered an office.

A table covered with a red cloth. Inkstand of grey spotty stone, a glass for pens, candlestick, paper clips. An armchair upholstered with velvet. Polished furniture. The table is so large that you can fix a tent on it. To the left there’s portrait of Lenin, to the left — Stalin’s portrait. A telephone on the table. Stretch your arm — you’ll reach an electric button. As soon as you press it, a secretary runs bowing his head on the ring.

Such was the office Baltash entered.

Both the arm-chair and the table are very well set up, as good as a harnessed carriage: “Sit down and fire ahead!”

Baltash set his bag with a pat on the table, smoothed his cheeks and sat down into the yielding arm-chair, tipped back. He moved up the jacket sleeve with buttons and looked at the watch. It’s after nine. He drew up to him a pile of papers to that lay to the left of him and began to cut in a pen like the sheep are clipped. On one piece of paper he put resolution angle wise: “To consider”, on the other one: “To check”, on the third: “To put at the meeting”, on the next one: “No funding”. He didn’t forget such solutions as “To hear”, “To return to the issue”. Somebody knocked on the door.

—May I?

The man asking in was the Chief of Finance Department, the county financier Shtein. He sat down and started to move, as a magician, with his hands in which the papers here appeared and there disappeared. It’s not clear how it happened, but Baltash, who didn’t agree with him in any issue, eventually signed: “No objection”, and sometimes he put his signature barely having time to pronounce: “Huh?...” Baltash isn’t a whale on finances. He’s not very quick at catching the point of strange words: “budget”, “debit-credit”, and “quarterly plan”. As an executive official he feared to make any office misstep but always a piece of paper comes out wherein it could sneak, but how, which way — he couldn’t imagine. However, he didn’t dare to dispute the arguments of such experts with a family name ending with “...shtein”. They’re crafty. And it seems there are no hitches. The other day he tried to analyze an account himself; he laid it this way and that. The false figures struck his eyes at once but when Shtein began to go nineteen the dozen and recount, it turned out just the opposite result, all rows of figures added up. “debit-credit” always adds up in the hands of such accountant.

As soon as Shtein left the office, Baltash scratched his head and said:

—The deuce knows, they always find some reason, rascals, to get money.

The reception started. He allowed stretching reluctantly an arm to one petitioner, in front of the other he stood up on his heels firmly and then sat down again with dignity, signed a piece of paper for somebody, refused severely to another one.

At some point Typan dropped in the office and bowing his forehead like gazelle he shook the Commissioner’s hand with his well-cared for, soft palm thoroughly and with devoted love:

—How are you? — and he smiled cautiously.

After all since last night some uncertainty has been lasting and it began to disturb him in the morning: maybe, influenced by alcohol he said something needless, behaved not properly...That is why he fussed an effort to please. Just in case he didn’t fail to puzzle:

—You’re reading a report today— and he offered a few sheets of paper.

Everything crashed down in Baltash up to rectum. Do you think he got afraid? Or he knew a poor appraisal of everything he’s worked? None. He’s given reports not once without prejudice to his chair. Besides, the important persons stood behind him. Just any report caused a work-related awe in our prominent employee. His ass doesn’t know peace until he speaks, shoots off, beats off. Oh, I’ll tell you, to make a report at the meeting isn’t easier than walking on a thin ice from hell to paradise.

Baltash orders:

—Prepare all materials in good and due form.

—                   Wilco, — he nodded and went out.

It seems the matter is at its rails but pre-report chaos bothers Baltash’s insides, raises up to his throat, asks for a tribune. Baltash’s face gets severe. A snub—nosed, bug-eyed fellow found him in such condition when entered the office. He said without a pause:

—How do you do, comrade? — and he stretched his hand above the table.

The Commissioner, struck with the official anxiety, didn’t like the physiognomy and abandonment with which the hand of this steppe Kazakh was stretched.

    Baltash, looking past him, pronounced:

—H-m-m...

The newcomer was Mukash.

Baltash knew the reason of Mukash’s appearance. No matter how remarkable the petitioner is, but the fact that he’s a petitioner already doesn’t make greatly disposed towards him. Besides, yesterday Akbala made it clear that they’ve got ahead to sort out and review with such people as Mukash. That is why Baltash neither offered him a seat nor drove him out at once. Mukash was bald enough to come up to the table and to sit down on the chair on his own. Baltash scratched with a look at him. Mukash, barrel-chested, ate the official with his eyes literally: here I’m, ready to struggle for the Soviet power. This view was followed by an obligate demand:

—                   Come on, comrade! What decision was made concerning me?

It was seen from the look in his eyes that he’s alredy known that the members of the bureau didn’t object to giving him a new position.

—                 What is it? Where do you want to serve?

—                 How is it, where to serve? We can only serve for the benefit of the people.

—                 Do you want to work among the aul masses or in the town?

—                 I have little education for the town. It would be right to serve among the aul people.

—                 And who do you want to be among the people?

—                 In these times everone wants to be the Head of volost. We also want to be at such position.

—                 Er-r, so then, you want to become the Head of volost?

—                 Why can’t I be him, if it’s within my depth? All Bais were the Heads of volost before...Now it’s our power and we have to be the Heads of volost, — and he smiled.

Baltash liked neither his words nor his assuredness. He asks:

—For what purpose have you joined the Party?

Mukash found the question a vivid attempt to get rid of him. There was the expression on his face: “What mountain have you fallen from to check me?” but the tongue turned softer:

—What purpose could it be? We joined to defend the poor and to promote them to the service, to take the cattle away from the rich and to give it to the poor. We’re oppressed. We also were farm laborers. We drew yoke on the neck, slaved for the rich. Hasn’t our day come today? — and he bulged out his eyes.

Baltash thought: “Doga was right. This rascal cares only to grab no matter where and from whom”. Such is his nature. Baltash sits in the party chair and weighs the situation: here he adds a plummet of the Party principles, there he detracts it. It hasn’t balanced somehow. He had to think aloud, what if he, rascal, suddenly babbles and determines his fate with his on hands:

—If the Party had known in advance about your purposes, it would have admitted you to the sight of masses... You’ve offended many people... — will he take a back seat or no?

But Mukash is known to be uneasily frightened. He asks standing up boldly:

—                       So, is there no position for me?

Baltash offered:

—                       Will you be a policeman?

Mukash shook his head:

—                       I won’t.

What a squirt!

 

—                     If you don’t, then go out of here, — and he waved with his hand.

—                     We’ll see! — Mukash slammed the door.

He went out, cursed Baltash, jumped up a saddle and turned his horse to the building of the Party bureau. In the familiar building he went to comrade Ivanov, a thin old Party member. Several peple drudged before the door of comrade Ivanov. Mukash pulled a handle of the door immediately but here with a touch to his shoulder he was stopped by the Russian with a childish face: “Get in line”. He had nothing to do, so folded up a whip and began to wait patiently. In front of him there was a teacher dressed in Tatar-style. How this teacher can know that there’s the future Head of volost before him! He sticks with a question:

—                     Comrade, what places are you from?

—                     What do you want? — Mukash jerked up his chin.

—                     I’ve just thought that if you’re from Torbagatay we could return together. I’m a teacher there...

Mukash found it needless to answer; he only clicked with his tongue and shook his head.

Still the miserable teacher went in front of him. At last his turn came. He entered the office cheerfully.

—                     Mukashka! — Ivanov cried and shook his hand.

Mukash, waving with the whip, began to tell the story how he hadn’t been given a post:

—                     Isn’t the Soviet power, as it was told about, for the poor? If it is, then I’m the poorest of the poor. Who more than me fought for the Soviet power? And what does this man make of himself? Why does this Baltash cock his nose? So what, that he studied, he doesn’t havet he right to send me so? He didn’t appoint me - there’ll be such who’ll appoint me!

—                     And what about him?

—                     He doesn’t want to hear at all. Looks like a sort of bourgeois.

—How’s it - bourgeois? — Ivanov cried, reached the handset and asked commutator to switch to comrade Baltash.

Mukash stood and listened.

“What material?...Leave it, do...know...mere words... leave it, please, it won’t do...”

He listened and didn’t understand where it had to be left and what won’t do. And yet he saw by a displeased expression of Ivanov’s face, by his gestures, that the secretary was for him.

Ivanov hung the handset up on the telephone with a bang and said:

—Wait. We’ll consider at the meeting tomorrow. You’ll be the Head of volost in Sartau.

Mukash said out of place: “wilcame¹”, shook his hand firmly and fearing that he overpressed Ivanov’s hand bones too heavily, went outside.

In the street he met his longtime acquaintance who had been an agent, a policeman and instructor. He speaks Russian better than Mukash, a real genuine guy. They fell into a talk:

—                  Congratulations! You’ve become the Head of volost!

—                  Who said it?

—                  The people of Sartau do.

—                  Not yet.

—Oibai! If so, then know— there are the people who are solidly behind you, they ask about you.

-Who are they?

The friend drew Mukash who immediately got limp, to Shiny into the hospital yard. The sick prisoner, waiting for Mukash long ago, hugged him and began to flatter him pattering and to lash all his enemies, Aben Matayin in the first place:

—Don’t you agree for the less than the post of the Head of volost! Whatever it be, we’ll put you the Head of volost in Sartau all the same. Only give a bloody nose to Bai’s leader, this Aben! If you need a smart advice — ask me without thinking! We’re with you and we’re all for you!

Shiny, who because of his “illness” had no right to go outside the hospital, ordered to the former instructor: “Host comrade Mukash as a guest at your house, do everything what he asks”. The latter took Mukash to the house of his acquaintance at the town outskirts, ordered to boil meat for the guest, gave him home-brew vodka to drink and didn’t forget to feed a horse. Mukash was also given a “soft one” into his pocket and a

¹ - wilcame – here he means “you’re welcome”

 

woman of easy virtue was found for him. Mukash stretched out his lips to her. Mukash was pleased - he is the Head of volost already! And he began to boast and build plans! Comrade Ivanov is a helpless pawn at his service. He’d drive all Aben’s cattle to the town meat markets – he’d put up sacks of money because he’s the power!

The next day he went to Ivanov again.

 

                                                                                          Part three

                                    YEARNING

There, it took five days since Akbilek returned home. Everything she was busy with was: under a black kerchief she met the women who came to her with sympathies, sobbing, sorrowful sighs and sobs; with tears running like water from kumgan¹ that she bent over the hands of these neighbors. She laid the tablecloth, treated them but herself squirmed and ate only perhaps a piece of flat cake. She strayed about the steppe aimlessly and again sat aside of everyone with her head lowered down for hours.

¹ - kumgan- a narrow-neck jug for water with a spout, lid and handle, used for washing face, hands.

² - kokpar (buzkashi as a version), a team sport originating in Central Asia, where the players, all on horseback, try to place an animal carcass into a goal

One thing kept tormenting her —father still avoided her. It seems it’s clear why but it’s unpleasant all the same. She poked to the corners, stood behind the door, and got used gradually to the current life. She began to farm, run the house as her mother had done before. What else she had to do, to die of pain?...

So why was Aqsaqal Mamyrbai cool to the daughter? What’s there on his mind? Let’s talk about this too.

Whatever you think, but reserved, stern-looking Aqsaqal Mamyrbai was notable for love to children. As it was said centuries ago by the legendary judge Edite— Edite Dauntless — to his newborn son:

                                  Who has no love for kids?

                                             You were born, my Nuraly -boy

                                              Food, drinks, songs - I set up a rich toy

                                               For the people to enjoy.

                                              In the family cradle he was put

                                         For my whitie to live in good

                                         Happily in peace to full

                                         So I’ll grow a great man

                                        To eat and sleep as sweet as can

                                        Lots gold and silver just to have.

 

Who of the ancient and loving now fathers haven’t wanted to dress their children in the most expensive fabric? Who hasn’t wanted his child to grow into a menacing as a lion, energetic as a tiger, wise as Plato and eloquent as Zhiren-she? Who hasn’t wanted his child to live to the snow of venerable age, gracious living and the herds and flocks in the steppe?

Mamyrbai, as is right and proper for the important person, wished his children only the best. In the meaning— everything as it should be.And his wishes were simple: he wanted them to be dressed as good as their peers, that there wouldn’t be any reasons for envy, that they would learn a trade – well, on the whole, as it should be in decent homes...He brought twelve-year-old Tolegen to the town. Tolegen studied there for six-seven years and was a prepared official. Father didn’t insist on his return to the aul. The hostess was right: what’s the use to cling to him? He’s become the man of quite another sphere. It’s no good for him to shove among the aul people, he’d better climb higher. Well then, it’s given to him! And if it’s given, let him have more happy days! — these were the dreams of the old mother. But the old man was already concerned about the daughter’s fate. He kissed the clean forehead of Akbilek and hung at her various gold and silver pendants, necklaces. He started to search a groom for her, after all she wasn’t a little child as the mother assured, and it was time to marry her off. Of course, Bekbolat fell short for the required person as he wasn’t so rich but the spoilt daughter liked him. What could he do but yield — he received matchmakers. He didn’t think about the younger children— it was early.

Although the eldest son has lived up to all his expectations Aqsaqal didn’t find it necessary to admire him especially. If you’re interested, here are his assessments: what’s the good of the fact that Tolegen is the town dweller and all that...well, he learned literacy, has had a post but he’s become Russified and got above himself. He’s unlikely able to live a summer among his people. He doesn’t show up for tenmonths. It’s wrong. The stored and increased belongings do not make any impression on him. Isn’t it a big disappointment for father? He may go to marry to some tribeless town girl without father’s blessing. He heard some rumors that his son gives time to a Nogai from Russia... The Nogais for Aqsaqal Mamyrbai are like a knife into his heart. He couldn’t forget how a mercer Nogai Nasyr played him a trick with a red horse.

Feeling that there appeared in Tolegen some allofness from the aul, fatherly love turned to sweet daughter Akbilek. She was his consolation, she was his only concern. Everything in her: both face and character touched him. She wasn’t a shallow thing but grew up tactful, clever. High dignity exhibited in her. If it weren’t for the laws of God he would never bestow her to marriage. That’s why he delayed as he could and didn’t accept Dower from the groom hoping to keep the daughter by side for another four, and maybe five, years, which was absolutely unreal. He’s delayed...Here’s how the destiny crumpled his Akbilek...

Earlier Aqsaqal hadn’t to take offence at his son but this time he insulted him! Just think, neither mother’s death nor returning of hardly survived Akbilek forced him to give up his town affairs and hurry to father to share his solitude with him, to dispel the darkness fallen on him. What a striking man he grew up! Who could even imagine that he wouldn’t come? They’ve been waiting for him — he hasn’tturned up. Even if he was able to help nothing, he should be by all means near the inconsolable parent. Then he can go to the four winds.Oh, what a nasty brat!

All those days Aqsaqal preferred to think his daughter dead. He understood in his mind — there was no life for her, but the heart didn’t agree with her death. It was only yesterday when she simply delighted his eyes, made him glad with her shrill laughter, amusing pranks, his sweet nightingale! Yes, the place of his gone wife was empty but the space occupied by Akbilek earlier was literally a gaping hole. The house collapsed and fell into a grave hillock. And it seems without Akbilek exactly the younger children became thinner lousy, as abandoned puppies. Nobody washed their faces or did the washing for them. If she were there, she wouldn’t allow them to go to waste when he gets married again and restores the full family, feels like the master to the utmost, as before. Can you trust all household to the relatives? Each of them takes care of himself only, pulls everything under his roof, you won’t see ...

But Akbilek was lost forever. It’s true, irretrievability covered all ambiguity of his position. However you slice it, the daughter didn’t just disappear, but...At least any one didn’t have the heart to say that the Russians passed her round. And when he heard that the Russians were captured he forgot everything in the world, about inevitable humiliating questions, about any honor. He couldn’t remember how he cried: “And where’s Akbilek?” and as if in fever sent riders to all sides to search for her.

She was found. She appeared before his eyes shaggy, bedraggled, with worn-out and beaten look. The thoughts fussed around in Aqsaqal’s head: it’s not her, not her! They debauched her! Depraved! She went about! She’s become wrong...There’s no former innocent child. The clean handkerchief is crumpled, blown into, burnt. She’s not a girl but half-woman.

The misery old man was a big owner. Even virginity of his daughter he considered his property. In his thinking his daughter should remain chaste even in the marriage. Now Akbilek isn’t his child. Whose she’s — not clear. Is that her at all? No, it’s not Akbilek beforehis eyes. She’s even not the Kazakh woman now...He was robbed, plundered, a girl was clapped on him... He would answer so immediately to those who began to wink at each other, like – have you seen Mamyrbai’s daughter, corrupt by the Russians? — this is not my daughter!

Such way Akbilek has become a burden to her father. She’s nullipara but all the same there’s such an impression that she’ll pull out unseen monkey and begin to spin with it in her arms, lulling it in her hands in front of the entire world of honor. And she stands on her feet, don’t move...Ugh-h!...She keeps herself so confidently...this confidence is like a slap in the old man’s face.

That’s the point that makes the old man turn his eyes out of Akbilek and in general avoid her. Fatherly love and jealousy, compassion and spite, loathing to both him and daughter — all tangled up and made him angry. She remained alive, of course, but has sat up here like a sore in the eye. Anyway, how can you cut off your hand? Maybe, because of this unbearable shame he has only to put a knife on his veins and to move to the skies? So Aqsaqal wanders back and forth tapping his stick as if by bones and listening to the pain in the guts as a wolf fed with poison.

Sometimes Aqsaqal sat aside and thought over for long, from time to time pitying the daughter: “What’s her fault, unhappy thing?”. He understands that he’s no right to blame her but when he remembers everything what happened, some force pushes him out of Akbilek and doesn’t allow to come near. Suddenly there appears the thought: “What if to get rid of her somehow as soon as possible?” But how? That groom doesn’t seem to hasten to take her. He would thrust her to his paws and that’s the end. However, there’s no need to hurryhere. His little children will stay without care again. First he has to marry some good woman and then to bother finally with Akbilek’s fate. This would be right. That was the last fruit of deep and long thoughts of Aqsaqal.

You can make up your mind but to find a wife isn’t easy for him. We should say, the age is advanced, look: he’s over fifty-four. In such age it’s not wise to divide the cattle into a Dower for somebody’s young daughter and then to bring her up on his own. And will such woman be able to raise his younger ones? Will she take care for the old husband? And what if she is a pale randy and begins to laugh and exchange smiles with unmarried guys. There’ll be no end to shame, it’s better to get to a grave at once. Supposing that it’ll be then: she’ll run from a cradle to the door — into the night. His heart isn’t in the divorced women either. They are unashamed and depraved by theirnature. If to take a widow, they have children. They also have obligations to the relatives of the dead, and then she’ll begin to steal his belongings to them. Yeah, how to find here a good-looking and prude, and strong in work woman? Oh, my God, ah! You’ll wish no one to lose his wife in the old age! Can you imagine greater misfortune? How to be with it? Disaster, that’s it! This problem has struck in Aqsaqal’s head so tightly that no matter how he thought it over and stroke but it has tied his hand and foot.

Mamyrbai hasn’t been the Bai who walk in golden slippers but he lacked nothing as well. He’s always lived comfortably. He kindly treated the guests with kumiss and lamb in summer and with the entire plates of fat meat in winter and accompanied to certainly with a conversation for fun. He’s been a force and much regarded among the county officials as well as his word has meant something for the Head of volost. There was the time when he was elected the People’s Judge, later he left litigious affairs and considered himself satisfied with being a figure among his kinsmen. His word has weighed more than the opinions of the other Aqsaqals. Along with this he’s never twaddled but he’s kept an eye at the people, workers. Every head is counted by him. He watched over both the stocks and the prices.

Winter came. The snow fell on the slopes of Karashash. The well-wishers with their pestering sympathy began to drop in rarely. Akbilek seemed to cope as the homemaker and Mamyrbai started to get involved slowly in household concerns. There are lots of domestic chores: here to take, there to give, to prepare meat stocks for winter, town cares and steppe ones.

In one of such days-circles one Aldekey, who used to stay at his place, came to him.

Aldekey is a trifling person but a big zinger who has never been tired to bring water in a sieve and to catch a mosquito at seven verst distance and in addition to this to go around everyone in the world. Just this time two respectable men have lost mares. One is with ashortened left nostril. It let sit upon it from the left side that had a branding “torse”. The other one was a white-mane red riding horsewith a white spot on its spine. These were Aldekey’s concern. He went around the auls, asked, looked over and on the way he dropped to his old acquaintance to speak about the past times and at the same time to express his regret and to bless the found daughter. But perhaps, it was late to look for another roof for the night. In any case, he did as he did.

Hearing that Aldekey came in to the yard, Mamybai threw: “What evil wind brought this tramp here?” However, he couldn’t neglect aconversation with Aldekey. Hadn’t certain events happened to him, he would find what to talk about with a guest all the same. He missed talks. There should certainly be such man to share the thoughts and cares. Otherwise why to keep silence with your own people? When only you talk to a neighbor or a relative about something important for you, immediately you’ll find them on your head, they’ll deprive you of peace and won’t let your cattle go freely, clutch at you like dogs at a wolf dog. They seem to be men but the heads are as a rule women’s. There’s no proportion, they long to move you from your place.

First of all Aldekey read three times “alip-lyam”and “kukual”presenting as surah from the Koran, greeted and then told a story how one eloquent judge chased away anguish of one Khan who dropped his brow because of sorrows. Only after that he expressed his regret to Aqsaqal appealing to take courage. He also quoted Abai’s words: “Meet the anguish resisting it!” In general this Aldekey was a whale on poetic wisdom, remembered all sorts of stories of the past by heart: “The Arabian nights”, “Forty viziers”, “Eighty delusions of the parrot”, “Six fingers”, and “Revengeful singers-dancers”. In his youth he went for a daring fellow, well-groomed gallant, wrestler, singer, musician, humorist but he fell from Bayshuak cliff and crashed heavily. All literature and arts flew out of his head except for his ability to put tobacco behind his lip skillfully, to joke, to tell tales and to give advice: “Do this way, act that way...” He is a gluttonous old man without front teeth who sits down with effort and when he sits down, he can’t stand up.

Aldekey sat comfortably and began to look over the pieces which he still remembered from the narration “Aron Rashid”. Then he changed to “Az Zhanibek”, “Orator Zhirenshe” and “Ruler of Lukman”. He extracted useful guidance from the heritage of these wise men with a strain, as his memory allowed him, and we should say his efforts weren’t in vain. Aqsaqal Mamyrbai, heartsick with his not a gaudy lot, lifted in his spirits, pried himself away from his odious being and brightened up so much that he ordered the servants decisively:

—Uh-ah, call that shepherd to me! Let him choose and slaughter a delicate lamb for such guest. The elderly people have their health and the meat should be up for their teeth.

Aldekey pulled a snuff box made of a horn for naswar out from a shabby boot-top. He shook the remnants from it on his palm and began to knead herb with his thumbnail. He put tobacco behind the lip — enough for one tooth only. No matter how you shake tobacco off the horn now you’ll get nothing. However, you may beat this thing out — beat at your pleasure.

—You’d better prepare naswar, why to throw ash outside for waste, — Aldekey gave the order to his old friend.

Of course, not only ash from the hearth makes up intoxicating blend for a mixture to put behind the lip. A perfect tobacco is needed here plus an ash from the burnt saksaul as well as two-three other things. Bring everything to Aldekey right here and now. But can he refuse to the man for whom he’s ready to slaughter even a lamb?

There aren’t so many people now for whom the hosts put such cattle under a knife if certainly not to count the policemen, the Cheka agents or the Heads of volost. Still we speak not about nuances of butchering but about Aldekey’s knack for something more important rather than meat and naswar. So Aldekey had all grounds to put on airs. Yesterday, truth be told, he was given stale dried meat in one home. His entire stomach was twisted. Luckily, he didn’t lose the gift of dirty swearing — he hardly managed to have cursed the death that clung to his guts.

Aldekey threw Mamyrbai’s grey fur coat trimmed with a dark solid fabric at the sleeves on his shoulders, pulled Mamyrbai’s fur hat on the head and tied ribbons under the chin and began to have tea at full pleasure. When Akbilek saw that the guest was treated with such respect she made tea of the best blend and put expensive sweets on the table. That was enough for vicious reflections of decrepit Aldekey: “Aqsaqal’s daughter turned out a sweet woman. It’s a pity the Russians used her!”

After drinking tea and warming old-age ache in the bones, Aldekey started to amuse the widower with all sorts of tales – he had to work somehow the lamb sent to the slaughter. And while the meat was being boiled his mouth didn’t shut. He spoke particularly about the following:

—Aqsaqal, you’d better find a half for you for the sake of your kids so that they wouldn’t pine without maternal care.

Aqsaqal looked at Akbilek and said:

—Oh, Aldeke! What’s the use to take a woman late in life?

The afterword could be guessed in his reply: if I marry, then I’ll do it not in my own will but merely obeying the good advice of compassionate people, well, make a match for me and then I yield. To find a woman for myself is so embarrassing in the children eyes!

—Er, what are you talking about? You still stand firmly on your feet. Although I’m toothless, I sleep with my Salima only with our arms around each other. I’ll tell you, without a woman you live anyhow — and he started to talk the same incentive tales. — Who would you like most of all, ah? To take a girl is no good for you. A girl is like a bird, she enjoys fluttering. Some hardworking widow would be a perfect fit for you, — he began to sort over the names of the widowed women.

As if he guessed Aqsaqal’s secret thoughts.

After morning tea Aqasaqal cloistered with Aldekey in the corner of the shed and they talked about something for a long time. About whatwho knows? Aldekey’s horse saddled stood in front of the gates. Finally Aqsaqal ordered the servants:

— Hey, help Aldekey to sit down in a saddle.

Aldekey came and left but a miracle has occurred: Aqsaqal started treating his daughter as if nothing had happened. There appeared warm notes in his tone when he talked to her on domestic or other matters: “Dear, do this and that should be done such way!” Akbilek has come to life and father as if has risen from the dead for her. She eats as if for the future use now and her face has brightened.

                                         

                                                   * * *

 

Brittle twigs of rime are melting on a window pane and trickling in tear-droplets. Icy flies are floating in a puddle on a window sill. Winter sun has stretched with white rays to a prayer rug spread at the back of the room. Two young persons with their heads down are sitting at the window. They’re sewing and whispering secrets. One of them— Urkiya bit a blue shred and is pulling threads out of it. Akbilek laid out a small camisole on her laps and sews silver buttons to it. Behind them in the corner little shaggy Sarah is cutting out jerkily with scissors a dress for her doll. Akbilek turned to her and called: “Come up to me, dear!” Little sister came up and stood straight before her. Akbilek put the embroidered camisole on her, spread stretching a hem and flattened its chest. The kidling is glad to have the new camisole. And the elder sister is pleased with her sewing. They’re smiling to each other. Joy overfills the girl and she throws herself on the neck of the beautiful sister and hugs her very tightly. Akbilek kissed her on the cheek and ordered: “Dear, wear it neatly, don’t dirty it!” How the embroidered camisole matches her!

Only Urkiya’s face is impassive. She coughed. She looks at Sarah’s face, tender as a flower, and pain rises slowly in her chest and stirs. “Oh, this life! I need a little only; I need such shaggy little creature, what happiness it is! What else in the world can be sweeter and more precious than a baby? Damn life — I stick up here as a tree without any leaf. A piece of wood. No flower, no fruit. Why isn’t she given to sew such camisoles? She would ornament them with sparkling buttons and closings. She would cuddle, press to her chest, and love so much that she would just eat such birdie! When will her damn womb come to life, when will her wish be fulfilled? Oh, this delight of maternity, ah! Why do I have such fever, have I caught a cold?”

When the people speak about children in Urkiya’s presence she immediately gets sick, she can’t stand listening, a piece goes by her mouth. When she sees a pregnant woman her empty inside overswells to a break-off. “What else can a woman dream about?”— she thinks. Wealth and poverty, hunger and diseases, peace and joy matter nothing if you’re deprived of children. What on earth is dearer than a child? Nothing. When any mother hits her child in Urkiya’s presence, she gets cold: “What an animal! How could she shout, threaten with her hand, swear at the child, make him weep?”— she cant’ understand. Urkiya looks at the little fashionmonger and drowns in her pain deeper. Perhaps, no one has ever desired to live for the sake of children life. All her three hundred and sixty veins have dried out, blood overboiled out of passionate desire to give birth. Such maternal thirst has tortured her that her heart has cracked as a burnt jug. Even travelers lost in the desert haven’t such thirst. The whole world is a desert for him. She begs the God about a baby day and night. Whatever she undertook trying to get pregnant: she went to baksy¹-shamans, prayed together with pilgrims and Mullahs, spent nights near holy graves, wore an amulet on her neck, so many times she did donations... and everything in vain. Urkiya doesn’t fear that her husband will alienate her and decide to take the second wife. She is faithful to him and not once in especially agonizing minutes she suggested him to bring tokal² into childless home. At least she will sit with her children...

¹ - Baksy – shaman, healer

² - a second, junior wife when the first wife is alive

—Tomboy, my darling, come up nearer, please — Urkiya calls the girls. — Will you be my daughter? — and she laps her very tightly.

There’s the question in Sarah’s eyes addressed to Akbilek: “Does she speak seriously?”

—                     Oh, the Creator! Will a day come when we hug our own child too? — Urkiya sighs again.

—                     You’re still young. The God is kind. You’ll certainly hug.

Who knows! If only your wish fulfilled, auh! I want to believe you so much. I had a dream today. I dreamt that our aul rose to re-migrate. And I saw that two of us fell behind from the kosh and got lost. We went by a pass and in front of us there’s a rock in a vacuum between two mountains like on the God’s hand. And a black golden eagle sits on the top of that rock. Suddenly it darted off and flies straight at us. It flew up and took your away. “Oh-ah-ah! It’ll tear her to pieces!” — I stand and shout not knowing what to do. Your dress is fluttering under the golden eagle’s chest and it carries you just to the east. It flies carrying you away and soon I see you as a tiny bird. There, far away it began to fall down and down. “Now it’ll surely tear to pieces, eat, auh!” — and I run jumping from stone to stone... I run up and see that you’ve turned into a disheveled white nestling. There’s no golden eagle. You’re sitting on a cliff andgauk. I don’t know where he came from but I see: that very Duana Iskander, who you told me about, appeared behind you. he takes the nestling on his arms and goes further. I tell him: “Duana, halloo! Give me the nestling!” and he gives it to me. I cuddled the nestling with my arm and go...

—Oh, holy men, ah! The dream is very special! How to read it? My God, ah! Will someone draw me away again? — Akbilek’s eyes rounded with fear.

They interprete the dream this way, explain it the other way. both they mixed up never guessing the dream. Finally they began to comfort each other: “The dream means no more than fox droppings”.

Sarah ran to show her camisole to the neighbors and to collect sweets celebrating her new outfit. Urkiya and Akbilek took a jug with warm water went to sit aside the aul.

It’s windy. The mountains in snow-white garments hung over the aul. In the whiteness the sheep swarm like black flies. Higher shepherds stand like the birds of prey that raised their feathers. A thin snow layer of the southern slope clung to the soles. The cold burns through. A traveler goes putting both his legs apart and a staff widely from the deep and open to eyes ravine where the silhouettes of horses were seen.

Urkiya and Akbilek, wrapped in chapans, go hurriedly along a sunny mountain shelf.

—...there in that dream we left alone when got lost?

—                     It seems so, — Urkiya replied looking around.

—                     Oh, my God, it darted off at me from above like a bullet?

— Let’s remind: holy men, protect us!

Several days passed from the conversation about the mysterious terrible dream. Since her father stopped frowning Akbilek has began to remind her groom. Not long ago Urkiya told her that Bekbolat was wounded and stayed in the town hospital this time. Then Akbilek wasn’t inclined to ask about details. She watched father’s mood all the time. Now she’s in another mood. Besides, everyone who wanted to comfort her had already amused themselves and left her alone. Smuggles with Urkiya became longer. Although there were no more secrets... How couldn’t she talk about Bekbolat now? Urkiya understands her interest to him, lets her speak about him, she doesn’t mind: “Does he still love, Auntie, or no? Has he changed, you think?” they couldn’t solve this riddle too, had only guesses and hopes. They asked one guy who used to go to the town, to find out what and how Bekbolat is. Then they began to wait and look out in the steppe that lover to hang about the town. A man is seen from afar.

All recent days Akbilek thought about her groom constantly. She’s thought to burning in her chest.  Earlier she has never noticed such abnormal vehemence in herself. All men older her were only uncles or elder brothers for her, and the guys of her age were nobody at all. Now, when she sees a handsome man she feels an inexplicable attraction to him. He could stop and talk to her, touch her tenderly and she imagined how she would put her arms around him and caressed. Vague naked male figures were drawn in her imagination just in flesh. These pictures made her desperate. She tried to evoke aversion to them inside her but it was far from it. “Oh, holy me! What is itwith me? What a shame, auh! Am I really a corrupt?! Is that because I’m woman now?! — she was astonished with herself. — Do all women have this in their thoughts? I guess I’m one of such kind...” She wanted to talk about it with Urkiya but a fear that someone else will know about her shameful fantasies stopped her. Let her better think of me as of girl who grew before her eyes.

With each passing day, every night a desire to be in the arms of the groom grew more intolerable. When she recalls him — jumps up from a place, jigs up and down — whispers his name, but the name of this name is fornication. When she is home alone, she curls up here, stretch herself there, stretch and stretch so that her breasts erect... she closes her eyes and sees him in her dreams... Sheembraces, kisses... And the heat seemed to chill down a bit.  When she sees Urkiya, asks at once:

—                     Is there any news from the town? My God, why is he so long? — as if she swore to Bekbolat to wait for him so desperately.

—                    Nothing is heard... Who knows what they are doing there— Urkiya responds with suspicion.

But Akbilek doesn’t understand hints.

—Why doesn’t he let to hear from him?.. Why does he force to worry about him?.. After all we, girls, do care about something!

The night is falling. It’s still early to light a lamp but the house is already immersed in the twilight. Akbilek, all alone, lies on a small rug at the back of the room with her face nestled in the bent elbow.

—My beauty, halloo! — Urkiya, entering the house, called her. — Why did you lie down at inappropriate time? Why don’t you light the lamp?

Akbilek replied in a languishing and capricious voice:

—                    It’ll be li-i-it ...

—                    Where’s the lamp? I’ll light it...

—                    Auntie, why are you in such hurry? It’s early, — Akbilek said and rose turning her hip.

—                    Well, we’ll see how you cope without light now! — Urkiya said and, sitting down near her, stretched her compressed hand. — Well, what do I have in my hand? Guess.

—                    In your hand? Curd.

—                    No.

—                    Sugar.

—                    No.

—A coin.

—                    No.

—                    Then what? And how does it look?

—                    White.

—                    White, white... Is it soft? Solid?

— I won’t tell this. On the whole it’s a sweet thing.

—                    White, sweet— it’s sugar after all

—                     It’s not sugar but a very welcome thing.

—                     What is it, Auntie?

—                     It’s such a precious thing, the most interesting in it.

—                     Oh, holy men, ah! So what’s it?! Don’t spin it out, speak, Auntie!

—                     Here’s something you’ve been waiting for.

—                     Oh, nice, ah! It’s a letter!

—                     You’ve guessed, you’ve guessed... And I thought not to give it to you, — she teased her more for a while and gave Akbilek a small piece of paper folded in a sachet.

Akbilek who was indifferent to the light till this moment, jumped to her feet and it seemed with one touch of her hand she lit the lamp, then placed it on the floor before her and nearly swallowed the piece of paper full of notes. But she kissed it all for sure. How could she do the other way if this letter had such desired phrases with fashionable Tatar words:

“We sent innumerable greetings to dear Akbilekzhan                             with our full respect. If you’re interested how we’re doing, then please know that we’re alive and healthy. The wound was cured thanks to assistance of your elder brother Tolegen. And now we’re at falconry.

We heard about your safe rescue from the hands of the Kaffirs and we’re very glad...

The time of death of every person is at the skies. I’m sure that your late mother sends you mercy. Let us be grateful to death, let us be patient whatever troubles occur.

Eagerly we sent our friend Akbergen to know about your health and to express our every regret. Let it be clear: there’s nothing that can be called estrangement in our feelings. And we hope that there’s no estrangement in your feelings either. We wish you patience to survive short-lived days of sorrow. Whatever happens, be strong. Let all of us, you there, we here, be healthy.

 

Bekbolat, familiar to you, wrote in pen”.

 

Such a letter would make any woman dance with joy. Akbilek spluttered with laughter.

—Auntie! How good! — she cried turning the letter in her hands, spreading it and even without a thought to hide it into a pocket.

 — Well, what did I say?

 — And where’s Akbergen?

 — He’s sitting at our house.

— Won’t he come to me? — she asked and suddenly realized: — No, it’s impossible.

Akbilek developed a deep liking to Akbergen, sure thing! This is because he brought the letter from her betrothed. He wanted to see him very much but it would look at least frivolous in her situation.

—                    So what to do now?

—                    What to do? Write a letter too.

—                    And what to write?

—                    You know yourself, write what you feel. Are you ashamed?

—                    Oh, holy men, ah! What will I write?

—                    He’s leaving early in the morning. Write now. I’ll come to you again, — Urkiya said and went away.

Akbilek sat down at a handcrafted coffret with unpretentious red pencil “Aton” and several sheets of paper. She put the book “Kyz-Zhybek” under them, then lay down on her back and bites the pencil. It has written on its own:

“Dear..” and “if you want to know how we’re doing..” and of course, “.....”, and then— there are no words. If to be more precise, an anthill of words was whirling at the end of her tongue but she couldn’t choose the proper words. First she wanted to write about many things, then she decided to be reserved and laconic. Anyway, no matter how many sheets of paper she would fill with writing, all the same she couldn’t tell everything that had happened to her, everything she had felt and thought over. She licks pencil’s rod, pokes with it into paper and gets embarrassed again. After all she did write:

“We don’t have any feeling of estrangement either. When we received so long-expected letter we wish only for your soonest arrival. It’s written in a hurry, I beg your pardon. Akbilek”

Urkiya came soon and took away her letter with her.

The whole world has fallen asleep but only Akbilek is entirely in her dreams— she drowses of a beautiful bride’s appearing. The face is covered with veil and she’s wearing an airy wedding dress. Urkiya and Sarah are by her side. And now in complete silence she’s going out of a blooming garden and near the aul she is met like a wind by the girs and daughters-in-law dressed in red and green. Their laughter, bracelets and earrings are clinking tenderly. The women shower her with small coins and the aul children are straight in the way making noise...

A breeze is swaying the veil on her face but doesn’t dare to whip it off at all. Oh, it’s her, Akbilek with sparkling eyes who’s going among the girls and daughters-in-law. The world is waiting for beginning impatiently...humming...voices...

She is taken to the yurt of the newlyweds full of her dowry: carpets, trunk boxes, utensils and piles of blankets. Akbilek, still covered with the veil, sits down surrounded by friends. The elderly women come in: “We want to have a look at the bride. Somebody’s powerful voice is heard: “Open the face!”— and one of the girls raises the veil before standing Akbilek. Akbilek is as the face of the Moon, as the light of the Sun. the women are lost in admiration. “Good luck to you, dear! Take a seat, darling!”— Akbilek sits down again rustling ith the silk hem.

¹ - kyui – kind of music played on the national Kazakh instruments

The morning samovar is already boiling in the house of the parents but the sun hasn’t peeped in the yurt of the newly weds. Akbilek tries to let the sun beams jump down the silk screen but the spouse is in a hurry to cuddle her again, to caress. He makes her laugh and doesn’t let go. “Enough, my sun!”— Akbilek says and gets up. She dresses, takes a jug for washing and goes to the hills.

The colts are frisking keeping apace with each other. The children are holding foals while their mane mothers are milked The girls-maidens are picking kizyak in the aul outskirts... Akbilek looks at this picture and returns to her yurt without any hurry. She has already made her ablution and now she’s pouring water on the husband’s hands. She takes off an embroidered towel from the screen and stretches it to the spouse...

By the evening the husband returns on a pacer with ducks-geese strapped to a saddle and a falcon on his arm. She’s standing at the white yurt and looking at him waiting...

And now is the time of migration. Akbilek rolled up her sleeves, belted and is taking the yurt apart. The camping ground is going its own order. The girls and daughters-in-law have fallen behind a bit. They involve Akbilek riding on a grey horse into their risible circle. Here the jokes begin and competitions who’s better at singing. So they are riding in a singing and laughing flock. Their husbands are riding up to them; each of them has a falcon on his arm...

Akbilek has become the mother. She gave birth to a wonderful boy for her beloved. The husband is with his friend Akbergen at the falconry of course, and she kisses baby’s fingers spread apart before her at the cradle. She puts her hand on his delicate spine, lifts him up to her breast and breastfeeds. Daddy fixed guarding feathers of an eagle-owl at the head of son’s cradle before going hunting. Nowshe’s going with the son toward him.

She exclaims: “Daddy, look at your nestling!”— and the baby is already asleep snoring sweetly. Daddy raises little son high up and breathes up a baby’s smell of heir’s manhood...

In the morning when Urkiya dropped in Akbilek hurried to ask:

—                      Has he left?

—                      He has, — she replied.

Her haste was explained by the feeling of shame for the fact that she called her groom in the letter. She hoped she could get the letter back.

                                                     *  *  *

It seems another four-five days passed. The old man isn’t at home. Akbilek Akbilek is standing at the window holding Sarah’s hand. The shepherds are driving the cattle into the sheds, the milkmaids have begun milking. There’s a white spot over the shed’s roof. This is Urkiya’s kerchief.

Akbilek sent Sarah to call the brother.

—                  Give me your ear, — she started to whisper something to Kazheken.

—                  Really?

—                  What else?

—                  And what should we do?

—                  He’ll stay at our place...

—                  Won’t be it inconvenient in father’s eyes?

—                  No, it won’t, oh-ah! We won’t be together, so what’s bad about this?

—                  We’d better slaughter a lamb.

—                  Honey, ah! What are you talking about? Surely, we’ve always received him totally great.

Akbilek’s heart flies somewhere away and soars. She went into the rooms. She lit the lamp, then she began to make tea. She spread bunched edges of mats. Next she hung a prayer rug carefully. All the time she can’t find place for her: is everything arranged, tidied and if it’s clean in the corners. It looks like her happiness depends on the dust on the trunk boxes. It seems to her that the samovar is trite, Kazheken’s sleeves are muddy, milkmaids’ kerchieves are dirty and a tablecloth has fatty spots.

—Dear, auh! How you’ve dirtied the sleeves! If you can, don’t wipe your nose with a sleeve, don’t be like these ones!

She tried bawyrsaks fried by a cook and says to her:

— You’d better clean your face a bit, auh! —it seemed to her that a slut had a scruffy kerchief so she immediately gave her the kimeshek which covered mother’s head, it was worn not long time though.

She stuck to the shepherds too:

—Is it boring to pasture the sheep in the steppe all day long? The shepherds were struck dumb: “What is she about?”

— How is it boring? — they answered only.

Akbilek wants to help everybody, to warm everybody like unwise nestlings under her wings. She wants everyone to be happy as she is. She neither thinks bad of anybody, now wants to offend anyone. The shepherds’ answers “How is it boring?” she is ready to explain with the ignorance natural to them and thinks: “What else they, poor things, have to do if not to pasture and pasture these boring sheep without break in the clouds, without waiting to meet their love? They get tired and that’s all.”

Evening tea-drinking lasts and lasts and seems to be longer than the whole day. And little Sarah doesn’t feel sleepy. She stares into the darkness behind the window, hurries the clock on the wall. She cleared up the dishes, laid the beds for kids and went outside. Then she went into the kitchen and ordered the cook: “How is the meat? Has it boiled? We’ll go to bed early, feel sleepy.” When she returned, she bathed with a perfumed soap, washed the face, underarms and stomach thoroughly. It was a real ritual of purification. Hiding from Sarah’s black eyes which were following her, she fetched the newlywed’s dress, folded it into mother’s kerchief and put under her blanket.

While the meat was boiled Sarah fell asleep. Kazheken made himself by the shepherds and made them tell a fairy-tale about the witch with copper nails. The meat was served. Akbilek doesn’t want to eat. Still she never gets tired to ask the shepherds to have more food. By the end of supper Urkiya came.

—                      Auntie, have some meat!

Urkiya:

—                      I’ll only try it, — she tasted a piece as big as a petal.

¹ - dastarkhan – a festibe table, feast

siblings were asleep, agreed to come to Uncle’s house. After all she couldn’t have the night meeting at her house!

By this time Urkiya came in with a meat dish and put it onto the spread tablecloth in front of dear guests. They washed hands with waterfrom her kumgan. There’s half of a lamb on the dish—about a dozen of hefty pieces, there’s a brisket among them— treating which is served only to a groom.

Akbilek can’t sit down closer and higher to the groom. It seems to her somebody has already reclined widely between them. So she froze at the door. Akbergen took out his knife and looked at Bekbolat inquiring: “Shall I cut it?” He nodded.

—                      It’s for matchmaker, take! — Akbergen said wishing to pass first the lamb’s head, burnt and boiled to the state of jelly, to Uncle, who sat in the other room.

—                      Oibai, eat, dear! The groom is the first— it should be so, and then we’ll see! — Urkiya protested.

However, when she saw Bekbolat saying off vaguely, she brought the head to the husband, pinched off for him a piece for a tooth and returned the dish. They sat in four at the tablecloth and began eating. Urkiya repeated all the time looking at Akbilek:

—Dear! Sit closer! Why you are so embarrassed in Bekbolat’s presence. There’s no man closer than he is to you. The soul’s singing, isn’t it, dear? It’s singing so joyfully, isn’t it?

Akbilek swayed timidly and humbly. She made a look she moved a bit while she came closer neither to mouth-watering mutton nor to longed-for Bekbolat.

—That’s how you should sit nearby, side by side! There are no older people, who you should be ashamed of your feelings before.

Akbilek understood that the two wouldn’t get off back and moved a bit more. She did it so desperately that the edge of hem of her embroidered chapan touched Bekbolat’s knee.

“Help yourself, eat”— what else can be said at the dastarkhan? Silence is understandable: while eating meat, even such chatterers as Aldeke grow dumb. Can anything be demanded from hiding Bekbolat who arrived in secret? Everything is done in dignified way,decently. Everybody is courteous, attentive, full of respect to table companion, to the max! Perhaps you’ve decided that they are eating meat? You’re mistaken, they are eating something known as “contentment”. This is a strange dish: neither satisfied nor beaten, you hide shame but pleased.

Bekbolat looked at the bride with the corner of his eye. He sees — Akbilek became more beautiful. The girlish angularity has disappeared, her shoulders have rounded, entire her is glowing. The heart pounded boastfully, a smile hides under moustache, such is his promised bride! Akbilek is shy a bit, her cheeks got rosy. She is embarrassed by the fact that his fingers remember the hands of Black-moustached. That puts the tin hat on it — it’s nothing but shame. Cracked reminiscences about those days in the ravine disturbed her like annoying autumn flies. It’s clear, Bekbolat fails to guess about them. “And what if he feels?” — anxious Akbilek sat back a bit smoothing the curl. She looked at Bekbolat, their eyes met. His eyes told: “I love only you”. Even in the twilight the undiminishing tenderness overturning into faint was seen in the inquisitive eyes. And Akbilek’s eyes replied: “I’m ready to give you all myself”. How the flash of love won’t blaze up in her black eyes as spark appears from a strike of flint against stone. And the light of undiminishing love filled them over...

After the feast Urkiya took the groom and bride to the doors and with humorous saying saw them off. The only thing they had to do was to go to Akbilek’s house immersed in the darkness. But the beloved didn’t even pass the sheds as their legs began to get tangled. They couldn’t make a step and stood up. The hand of loving man lay down the waist of loving woman. Akbilek threw back her head defiantly. The full moon shines with all its might. “If you want to kiss — kiss!” — the stars from the skies said smiling. And when blade-like moustache touched her honeysweet lips... no, we aren’t able to depict the entire picture better than the poet Abai did:

 

 

                                      Hot breath,

                                      Touch of shoulders,

                                       Fade of fingers,

                                       Vague desire,

                                       Faces in fire,

                                       Silent kiss,

                                       Drunkenness...

 

 

What about two lovers consumed with desire speak on the narrow bed? What do they conceive each other? It’s not us who write but they do— up till the very dawn they whisper: “hush-hush”. This whispering is the pen dashing off a novel, the sea of feelings is the ink, and the sky of caresses is the paper...

But we won’t listen to this whispering in the dark room like the old toadeaters. You’ll ask them what they whispered about later, if they tell you. Whatever happened there but Bekbolat was in the saddle in the morning twilight. Akbilek is by his stirrup. She’s wrapping herself in chapan and wishes him to have a good and safe journey.

After short meeting with Bekbolat the yearning began to finally lose its malicious sharpness. It’s understandable: everything that worries now is the most important of the important. She could only think about what she had in life and what there would be. She dreamt aboutthe soonest as possible return of Bekbolat. The life has been losing its colors and everything was black and white... Saying good bye she couldn’t tell him this in her embarrassment.

One day nausea came up... and in the heart anxiety has nested, that’s it. She felt like trying the bird eggs. She was astonished with herself. Is it the same like the pregnant women have? Urkiya heard from big-bellied women and then told about their ridiculous taste. Everything — long stay in bed and search for eggs, and her changed behaviour— showed that Akbilek was bearing a child inside. Onlyfive days passed from the night with Bekbolat. Akbilek complained Urkiya for her indisposition. She has only confirmed her guess:

—                       I’m afraid, dear, you’ve become heavy.

—                       Leave it, Auntie. How could I?

—                       Who knows.

—                       But we’ve only just been...

—                       How do I...

—                       Is it seen at once?

—                       When it’s not a month period.

—                       So then, it happened earlier...

—                       If so then there won't be an end to shame...

With each passing day Akbilek has been growing more and more conceived in her pregnancy. Both the tops of her boots became tight for her and the belly has rounded up... New worries, new anguishes. She’s not married, you know. She could say to no one that she had been with her groom. Besides, it depended on which way to look: was it from him... and what she had to do... Exchanges with confidences have increased. They started to find a way to get rid of an offspring. Urkiya began to ask half-dead old women how to cause a miscarriage. This turned out to be possible at a big frightening, at falling or abrupt motion. Urkiya tried to frighten Akbilek by lumping out of the dark corner: “Hop!” She made her jump, ride, and pushed her in the belly. It was all for nothing. Akbilek has only lost her appetite completely. She had weakness in legs, nausea has strengthened. So it was going on until Urkiya said:

—                     You know, my darling, auh! It seems to me I’m pregnant too. The taste of boiled onion has become disgusting to me, I feel nauseous, I’m everted... And smells...

—                     What’s for you! You want to have a child... You want to laugh at me, do you think it’s not enough for me... — Akbilek replied.

—                     What are you about, sweetie, auh! Will I do this!

Urkiya has invented nothing indeed. She sits among the women busy with needlework and sews too. Suddenly she jumps to her feet, dashes into the mudroom where she harfed. The women rush after her and there they told her happy news: it looks like you’ve been heavy finally. The God is merciful.

—                     Is it seen? — she only asked.

—                     The God will show his mercy, it’s not difficult, is it? — the friends assured sweetly the woman worn by expectation.

They wished her to be delivered successfully and immediately brought the news over the aul, no — around the entire county that Urkiya has got pregnant. The well-wishing women said: “Let her, poor thing, have it” while the people envious to Mamyrbai’s house said: “Our dead dog would rather have puppies than Urkiya would give the birth”. No matter how they talked but they kept a close watch on her. Watch or don’t do it — but her belly began to stick out in a month or two.

                                            

                                                        * * *

 

With time Aqsaqal stopped getting off the saddle. Concerns, matters, trips around the auls, meetings. And it’s no good for Aqsaqal to hide from people with a look of disconsolate widower, particularly when litigation and quarrelling among the kinsmen don’t only disappear but... it seems shaitan has put its hand to this when such things began to happen around! Besides, it’s impossible to keep your authority if you’re not constantly worried with your importance, if you don’t express your opinion here and won’t claim there: not yours truth is but the Most High God’s. Otherwise who would call you “Aqsaqal”? So, Mameken has to ride out.

What mission he performs— who knows; but this time he went to Aben’s aul accompanied by a man with a nickname Slipsole. The people don’t visit this aul without a weighty reason. And the current Aqsaqal’s trip to the aul was obviously no fluke. Before leaving he called up the aul barber to put the beard to a fair condition, and then he demanded a clean shirt from Akbilek. He folded a fragrant handkerchief eight times and put it into his pocket on the jacket’s chest. He also made a servant to polish the boots without sparing saliva. Akbilek hadn’t seen such preparations for quite a long time. It looked like the father was going to visit a very important place.

Aben Matayin’s aul is in thirty versts. The steppe-dwellers usually cover such distance without hurry making a stop at the relatives or acquaintances. On the whole they get to a place in about six days. But Aqsaqal Mamyrbai was none of the kind. It doesn’t fit him to drag like gelt ram. He rode the entire way to Aben’s winter aul, which he perhaps hadn’t visited for about two years, in one day march.

The houses of Aben’s wintering are built wall to wall in a hollow with a boiling spring. The bushes are around the spring. A forest surrounds the bushes. The approach to the hollow is hilly and behind it and the forest there are high white mountains. A reed lake is between the hills. Aben’s long house is just behind the spring. And there—a solitary dwelling with a flat roof of his relative the Hodge Satay stuck to the mountain range.

Mamyrbai passed the spring and approached Bai’s horse standing fenced off from the leeward side. The buildings are in quietness. Just behind the wide approach there’s a cattle-pen able to house not less than five hundred horses within its bounds. The buildings stretched along in a solid wall which contained a number of gates on the shadow side. All of them lead to the cowsheds set apart for sheep and cow calfs. Under a transverse roof there are horses. And the sunny wing is the dwelling of owners. There are the rooms of Bai, separate rooms for his two wives. His married children live in detached rooms. There are also rooms for guests, corners for workers and servants, a kitchen and a summer kitchen, a cold pantry for storing meat...

Approaches to the sheds are swept clean. Two horses with roped legs are roaming in a corral.

Aqsaqal tied his horse to a pole, slapped the top-boot with a whip and moved hawking to a narrow door that led to Bai’s mansion. Large-bodied Aqsaqal, deep in his difficult feelings and in addition to them burdened with inexhaustible slime in the throat, entered incredibly spacious corridor with smooth walls and stood motionless in amazement as a boy. The eyes of Slipsole who kept pace with him, rolled out like balls and mouth dropped open since he had never entered such building. They would have stood in amazement with the mouths open not knowing which of the numerous doors to poke in, but a young man from servants went out one of them, greeted them and invited them to follow him. Aqsaqal creaked with the threshold of the door opening before him and entered the living-room. As soon as he sat down, a servant ran up to him, bowed and pulled off his boots quickly. Slipsole remained aside motionless as a steppe balbal¹. My eyes —almost a room-size shoe closet for boots was found there! The floors in the house were intentionally made a level higher than in the corridor. The wooden ceiling was smooth roughcast and whitewashed. The bare planking at the door is planed and fitted perfectly, at the back of the room it’s already covered with felt mats, carpets and blankets. A fan hangs between two windows at the rear wall. Slipsole thought: is it a mill? In a niche at the Dutch oven there’s a forged poker, a basin shines with copper under the oven door. A red prayer rug and two towels for ablution hang from a crossbeam above the place of honor — tore².

Mamyrbai was placed in the central of three rooms for guests. The room to the left was already occupied too. Muffled voices wereheard.

Night was falling. A young servant lit seven lamps, brought in three long-legged chairs made of polished birch with carving and put it in the centre of the room. He left but returned a bit later with words:

— Bai is coming.

¹ - balbal – a stone woman

² - tore – from the Kazakh – the best

³ - batyr – , an athlete , a hero

 

tea: every fuss is excluded completely. The drink in each drinking bowl corresponds to the set level and quality. Each one has its address and comes across another one neither on the tray under the samovar’s nose nor floating in the air above dastarkhan. The hands of people who pour out tea are in sight, see: clean, diligent and open, have a look because it should be so. The people sitting at the head of the table were served with thick, dark-gold tea; the creams are put there from a separate source. Those sitting near Musiraly had bluish tea reminding city tea-drinking in Semipalatinsk. There are no shoppy people here, anyone will trick. Bawyrsaks are scattered only in parts in front of such people as Musiraly and it’s rather difficult to reach butter too. Bai noticed how our Slipsole chased bawyrsaks like a hungry wolf and ordered:

words mean?” Vizier answered: “When Khan asked about women’s pregnancy he wanted to find out about quantity of your population and when he took interest in abundancy of the droppings of your cattle he wanted to know the prosperity of your people. And he left us because he had decided that you were unable to understand his language”. And when the good Khan went away the bad Khan asked his vizier: “What did the good Khan tell about me?” The vizier replied: “He praised you”. The bad Khan said then: “Uh-ah, what a pity! Therope was pulled too early. I could have said something wiser!” Understand and take a pity on our Musiraly. It’s not his fault that he sayssilly things. His woman is at fault— she’s lazy.

—What does my woman have to do here? She’s not cleverer than me...

—I don’t know if she’s cleverer or not. But she was lazy to go with so no one can pull the rope in time.

The respectable society burst out laughing again. Was it true or wasn’t, but Musiraly became red in face and cried:

—What an egg-head you’re!

However Aldekey didn’t let the friend develop his so bold attack:

I happened to hear how one known to you Slambek decided to get to one man of God— the Hodge Zhanabil. All of you know him too. Slambek said the following: “Imam...They say at the Supreme Majlis one question was discussed and one of the learned Mullahs, the Hodge Bakhauddin pronounced during his speech a word from the Preserved Tablet like this: “Zulzhalal!” Another scholar, Taptazani, decided to correct him: “It’s not right to say “zulzhalal”, it’s better to say— zalzhalal”. Bakhauddin began to argue with him: “zulzhalal”is correct!” he was offended and suggested: “Let’s see how this word is written in the very al-Lawh Ahl-Mahfuz!” They looked, it was: “zulzhalal”. Then Taptazani grumbled against: “Oh, God! It’s “zalzhalal” indeed”! Do we have to correct it here now?” And the God replies to this: “You’re right, it certainly is: “zalzhalal”. But this Bakhauddin— is one of my most faithful slaves. I didn’t want to offput him, so then I changed zalzhalal to zulzhalal in the Tablet”. So, the Hodge, answer me: is the God able for a deception? The Hodge Zhanabil answered to Slambek in this way: “When Grandiloquent Kazybek Kaz dausty¹ died, holy Bek Mysyk came up and touched with his staff the body three times. He was going to to do this the fourth time but somebody gripped his arm: “Have you gone mad?” Then holy Bek Mysyk says: “You’ve stopped my arm in vain, auh! Now Kazybek-by’s wisdom will be passed only to three his generations. Unfortunately, our Slambek, although he was the descendant of Kazybek Kaz dausty, but he was born much later than those generations noted with the staff. He isn’t a wise guy as well as I’m but he isn’t known as a fool either. Our old man Musirali was also touched by the staff but mostly on his head and with all might so that his son and grandson were born with no brains at all...

The respectable society split their sides with laughter.

Cheeky, unscrupulous, worthless in the Party affairs in the first place because of his constant corruptibility, Musiraly is an ideal object for mockery. He came to Bai to ask him to make his matchmaker to return the runaway daughter-in-law to his son, the same fool like him.

Having played lark over Musirali, Bai cheered and ordered with a gesture to one of swarthy guys to take dombra. This doltish musician depicted a scene where the Kazakh and the Uzbek rehashed each other which brightened audience even more. Then, at Bai’s sign the meathead clutched corners of his chapan and swaying with hems, blowing cheeks and bulging his lips he began to portray a bird. He flew up to those people who sat below everyone, circled above them, made dabs and suddenly he put out above Musiraly that thing which hangs between legs of males. Here everyone caught breath with laughter. The meathead disappeared and returned dressed into big-bellied Russian woman. This “woman” began flirting with everyone talking nonsense, then set forth her back, pressed the hidden under the hem water bag and let water shower the guests. And again, those who sat close to the threshold caught this shower but certainly Musiraly got most abundancy of “women’s juice”. Aqsaqals who sat at the head of the table just waved from “the womanish christening” from afar helpless to say a word from laughter.

¹ - dausty – strong-voiced in Kazakh

cobwebs from mind: “Yeah, ah, it’s so funny, ah!”— they relieved themselves, stood for a while, discussed the weather and returned into the house. then catlicked their hands and rinsed mouths.

Meat was served in heaps, half of it will really lack eaters. But they weren’t going to send something form Bai’s table to neighbors who were all Bai’s workers — such was Bai’s routine. Stretching his hand to the dish with steaming meat, Aldekey said nearly rumbling: “As Ishan Toktar said: I have everything — what to eat-aha, what to honor-aha and where to sit with a girl-aha!” Although he was busy chatting but coped with putting the juicy pieces to his mouth not worse than the others who were tirelessly and appetizingly sinking their fingers into fat and grabbing meat. Maybe he couldn’t suck his fingers so often but that’s that — what a glutton is allowed the feast babbler isn’t. The most important was that with one tricky phrase he, with his mouth full, even managed to express general enthusiasm: “What to say: if there’s Bai then he’s Bai”.Table companions supported him chewing and puffing: “It’s impossible to compare! Yes, the Lord gave him!”

Yes... The Lord gave him!

 

                                                *  *  *

 

A gelding has a thin-hair tail, if you divide it equally— you’ll get two twigs. It looks like scorched. Whether it’s the reason or not but it always stands with downcast head. And the nature hasn’t endowed the animal with smooth chine either. When only you gape and slack bridle draw, the gelding immediately sits down and pulls its lips to any straw sticking even from a dunghill. The gelding is raw-boned meanwhile the belly hangs down massively between thin as sticks legs. Whether you feed it or not — it’s in vain: it’s the skin and bones. It seems cold blood runs in its veins. It hides its muzzle in something and dozes. Looking at its heartsick appearance people thought that poor thing was born with package on its back. But the gelding doesn’t care how dismally it looks. The main thing is to move hoofs. And what it has to do with a master on it and the master has a flock which wants to scamper about by all means? Unhurried step changes leisurely step — you won’t slip. Whatever it be ice or mud. And the shepherd in the gelding’s back as if stuck to it. The gelding didn’t remember how many years he hasn’t got off it. It also forgot that once, long long ago, it was a foal and grazed freely in a herd.

Give the gelding a whip— it seems it is licked; such is the impact of the habit to certainly catch a portion of strikes to its back from a regular rider while pokes to its muzzle are received from the aul women and boys. Don’t you wander anywhere! But it likes to roam behind the sheds and fences, to find a petiole in the weeds and to chew it. And it happens it goes the God knows where. When it’s allowed to stagger restless either its point or dogtrot, it strikes noone’s eye and you can pay no tax for it. When you sometimes force it move faster — the belly gurgles – guggles, it looks you’re about to fall in two too. It seems to go at a steady pace but the man sitting on it doesn’t like it that much. He’d rather jumble in a humpbacked araba cart that to gurgle with his gut together with the gelding. Once you saddle up a cow— you go after cows’ tails all the rest of your life.

The worst wish is known: I wish you a lazy wife, a gelding under your saddle and a blunt knife. However, the gelding has lived ever after. Perhaps, the shepherds like it exactly for its striking vitality, we won’t make guesses, but the gelding has gone under a saddle so far.

It’s not use to rack your brains why we have described a gelding for so long time. There’s a reason for this, an important one. As we know, the guests of Bai Aben are sitting at the dastarkhan and drinking tea. Just at this time a greenhorn Koyteke got onto the gelding and went to snowy steppe in search of camels.

We’re talking about the gelding all the time, however there’s something in people from hinnies. Judge yourself. The aul of livestock breeders by birth all of a sudden trusts to flock-masters to pasture camels. Those ones decided that camels won’t get lost and dragged their feet to sheep that had scattered to all sides, and now: where are camels and where are flockmasters? By the evening time they began to hold a council how to find camels. They should have sent some artful guy on a fast horse to skirt in the neighborhood, while they sat Koyteke on the gelding instead.

Who is he, you can ask me, Koyteke? He’s an orphan, father herded these flocks from adolescence to the very death, and mother milked Bai’s cows. Koyteke herded goats from nine to twelve years and when he was thirteen— he fostered cows. The shepherds kept this simple-minded boy as a pimp: get, set and run. Of course, Koyteke gets it pretty fair but he is a diligent person, besides he knows: if he disobeys, he’ll get beans from elder shepherds, so he rushes back and forth as is right and proper.

There’s a piece of felt under skinny Koyteke back and under the felt there’s bony chine of the gelding. In his hand there’s a rope whip with a ring on a whip handle. He has a short, bulging at the seams sheepskin on him and holed shoes made from rawhide on his feet. He wants to find out camels quicker so he jerks his feet and whips the gelding’s croup with all his might. But the gelding is hardnosed. Thewhips for it are like the walk of lice. Such is out gelding, auh!

“Oh, animal! It serves you right!..To your ear!.. Dog’s spawn!”— Koyteke cries and beats the animal both at its head and neck trying to fasten its moving at least a little bit. While the gelding with its castdown muzzle kept moving as if on its own: two steps — it gurgles with its milt, two steps — with liver, it’s a pacer and nothing else! It doesn’t care the boy turning on it, oh now he beats, there he’s angry, swears and curses and he pinches already in complete strengthlessness... The gelding doesn’t turn a hair. Having moved around and about Koyteke grew wet entirely, his arms and legs hang out for the count. But even now he doesn’t stop his chucks. Finally he rode up some hillock and saw about five black shaggy spots in the distance. He sent the gelding there by beating it at the back of its head and at eyes again. Still the gelding didn’t fasten its pace. Koyteke only broke the whip at its bones and had a fragment of whip handle in his hand. He got off the gelding and began looking for the whip’s rope that had flown away. He skirted there, looked in here but can you find the frayed rope among dried up grass?

A new era started for Koyteke and the gelding with the loss of the whip. The triumph of dock-tailed animal reigned finally in it. Importunate attempts at its sinewy sides have become ancient history. For a long time its skin won’t be touched by this things flickereing like a fly thing. Difficult times thundered for Koyteke. You can’t give a smash with a fragment of the whip handle at the horse body, a blow will be trifling. Meanwhile the gelding kept on slowing down its movement at the uneven steppe. With such pace it’s impossible to get to those seen dark silhouettes. The greenhorn jerked on the gelding’s chine and twisted his legs, he yelled and swore and beat and got angry – all was in vain: the gelding paid no attention. He had to go on foot. He was in such hurry that even didn’t notice that the black night started inevitably absorbing all space around.

Koyteke climbed up the hill here, rolled down the slope there to the hazy mountains. He went with difficulty but tried with all his might to make long steps. The roughly sewn shoes were loosely on his feet, soles slipped like in icy stones. Anyway, he went on without stop, climbed up and dragged himself along and further. He seemed to sweat. He took off tatter hat and carried it in his hand, untied the belt on his gaunt coat. The walk was quite the thing. It has warmed him up properly. The whole body was itching; prickly perspiration was dripping on his forehead. When he felt that his head was entirely wet he put on back an old malakhay on it. So he dragged himself along,moving his feet. You have nothing to do if your body and soul keep together. The snowstorm began. It was good of him not to take it into his head that the feet would have to go oodles, so he didn’t stray or get lost. A long way, oh, what a long way it was but none the less he came across a muzzle stretching to him on a long neck. He shrieked in surprise: “Get away, snoot, what a shock!”

“Where has this one come from?!”— camels felt alarm but then they saw it was only foot little man and splattered mockingly and in amazement: “Yzh— yzh!”— and after they turned away their necks they began to scatter around by leaps and bounds disturbed by a crunch of Koyteke’s trashy sheepskin. He had to bring them down in a pile. It was bad — there was no leader among the camels! Oh,what long-necked dogs! When you catch one humpbacked and begin to turn it— the other one has already run aside. They have run thelittle man so heavily that his soul has nearly kept together with his body. He brought a flock together and drove it: “Get you lost, the dog’s spawns!” We have to admit— he had the grounds to treat camels so unkindly.

When Koyteke turned, only then he realized that way he had already made. His feet were beaten up and bleeding, every step hurt him. It’s dark and stormy. But there was no other way out as to limp on trying not to lose the shoes going up. A halt wasn’t going to happen while the legs grew icy and pattered as wooden ones. The ice from legs rose up to the entire body...

Shivering and clattering with his teeth Koyteke is driving camels to the aul.

Just at this time the respectable society was eating fat meat to their full at Bai’s warm house, they were scoffing at Musiraly and the dolt was running like a big-bellied woman with his vulgar scenes and the guests, relieving themselves under the awnings, praised Bai: “Yes, the Lord gave him!”

Koyteke brought camels home and entered, freeze solid, a stinking store room. A flock-master instead of sympathizing: “You’re frozen, poor thing!” ganged up on him with a shout:

—Where’s the gelding?

Koyteke wiped his white, whiter than white, face with unbending fingers could only reply through coughing:

—There... remained.

—Damn ragamuffin! Why did you leave it? What if the wolves eat it, what will you do? — the shepherd began to lash him with words roaring.

Koyteke only gasped in reply. Hopelessly he tried to warm up at least a bit and flaked out.

Grind the hard thing with a grindstone, and roll the soft thing with a palm— this would seem to be the simple true. But only his poor mother approaching the son followed it:

—Koyteke? Have you eaten? Why are you lying?

When she heard only a quiet whining and tap of teeth, mother hurried to lie down near her son and cuddled him as tender as she could.

The son nestled his face against her breast and began to sob brokenly. “Poor, poor you are, my poor son, my poor son!”— mother began to wail shuddering.

Koyteke didn’t get up any more.

In a week four workers dug out a grave in one of the four corners of an old entombment and buried the body of poor little man at dawn.

 

 

When Aqsaqal Mamyrbai went outside in the morning, he found Bai Aben standing in astrakhan coat with silver buttons and hurried to shake his hand. Bai was watching how three his guys were taking care of a crow stallion. A horseshoe went off so they were re-horseshoeing. Having shaken hands, Mamyrbai stood next to Bai and wondered:

— Did a horseshoe go off?

Bai, without taking his eyes off the stallion hooves, made only a sound:

—Er!.. — like, what don’t you see it yourself?

One of dzhigits was holding the stallion at its ear and bridle, another one was holding its bent leg, the third one — a master was removing fragments of nails from the hoof. He wanted to hammer one nail out but Bai didn’t allow:

—This won’t do. Draw with pliers.

The nail sat deeply but it was easily removed with pliers.

—There are nails for hoofs in the white box in the bottom drawer of the cabinet of the large room. Go and take six nails from the hostess! — Bai ordered to one of the guys.

In next to no time the dzhigit returned. As soon as they started to hammer nails the stallion began jerking and spinning on site. Bai got tired of bush-leaguers and had to finally take the matter in his hands. He bent to the hoof and pointed:

—Don’t hurt the joint! Don’t hammer in straight, fix the nail aslant!

So the cack-handed blacksmith acted not thinking to contradict to Bai. The rest two people held the stallion stroking it on its neck, croup: “Stay put, my animal, stay put!” — they tried to calm it down. The shod horse began kicking with hoofs, gave a start. “Careful! Watchwith your eyes!”— Bai huffed and puffed. While they were making a fuss around it, the stallion freed itself from hopples.

—Why did you untie it, you fool! — Bai yelled at the boy who was holding the stallion’s legs.

The dzhigit smacked his tongue in annoyance and rushed under the horse’s legs:

—                    The rope broke.

—                    What rope is it? Come on, show it!

Bai looked over a patch stretched to him and yelled:

—Whose rope is it? Rubbish! It’s not our leash!

The worker holding the head of the excited stallion explained that the proper rope was used for loop of uquruq¹ pole — quryq, and this one was the rope of the shepherds:

¹ - By (or Biy) – the judge sorting out dispute under customary law of the Kazakh

possible his well-turned, measured, warmed up information, to put “ready dish” before him. And there Bai decides whether to use it or to fry it more.

After breakfast especially close people went for a walk and to talk separately, some with Mamyrbai and the others with the Judge Imanbai. In two-three hours they came to common decision the essence of which was as follows:

1.   Mamyrbai terminates the marriage contract. The Dower given for Akbilek is returned to the matchmaker because he’s our enemy now. Akbilek is no more Bekbolat’s bride; she should be found another place.

2.                       Imanbai has to separate the widow Orik, who is under his auspices, with her two children, take her out of his aul and sell to Mamyrbai for six cows or horses. One animal is to be passed to Bai Aben for winter slaughter as a sign of gratitude.

3.                       The Dower cattle for the widow is to be divided. The half of cattle and two children to give to the realatives if such are found. The second half of the cattle let be shared by her well-doers.

4.                       Aqsaqal Mamyrbai’s offender — Mukash — will be punished by Bai (what punishment it’ll be, will be decided later).

Thus the time spent since last night hasn’t been wasted, everything has found its solution. The Lord gives it to Bai! As people say: “When the God gives — catch what you can”.

In vain wish the Kazakhs the oaths of matchmakers to be everlasting over sacrificial lamb. What eternity it is, if it’s possible just to refuse from the matchmaker? But all the same, they will carry on swearing and wishing because the oaths and wishes sound beautiful and hearful.

separate— when they nearly touched with their lips to creams of true love?

Where’s truth? Where’s justice? Where’s humaneness? Where’s the God? Where’s the judgement? Choose, innocent souls. The wolf doesn’t think.

Father of Slipsole who accompanied Aqsaqal Mamyrbai in his trip to Bai, was famous for herding sheep and he had a corresponding, doggish name — Itayak. And his father was called Bakyrash. And nobody remembered the name of Bakyrash’s parent. That is why Slipsole was considered to be a slave without kith or kin.

Slipsole is a swarthy man with little hair on his chin, his arms and legs are like sticks, he is a milk-toast by his nature. He herds horses, mows grass and doesn’t intrude a conversation of decent people waiting for meat served. He’s about forty or so but he’s still unmarried.The reason is simple. He hangs out between women in the kitchen so the fame has spread of him as of woman in the aul.

On the returning from Aben’s aul Urkiya and women began to ask Slipsole:

—What did the master do there? What did tey talk about? Slipsole started to tell thoroughly how fat meat was served, kazy¹ had four fingers, and it was so much of it that it was impossible to eat. Then in all details he told about funny “big-bellied woman”. At last women couldn’t stand it and began scolding him:

—                     What a milk-toast! An eagle! Do we ask you about big-bellied woman?

—                     What do you want from me? I tell what I saw... — Slipsole confused covering his head just to be safe.

It wasn’t on with Slipsole. They began staring at the master. Judging by his cheerful satisfied voice, there is an impression that he certainly huddled a big job through. And the next day it emerged that Aqsaqal intended to marry again about what he announced to the invited respectable men of the aul. The relatives expressed their joy and wished all the best. They hinted that they had wanted to tell him this wish long ago but somehow there hadn’t been an occasion.

¹ - kazy – abdominal or rib horse fat; it also is a gourmet dish like sausages from abdominal and rib parts of a horse carcass

Is it possible to hide from the women what the men heard? This conversation flew up to ears of Akbilek who hadn’t been in public at all. She was immediately hurt that the father didn’t even wait for the yearly commemoration of the mother’s death. But how can you object to the father? She began to calm herself down with the thoughts that it was conditioned by the care about orphans, that the house was without the hostess... if only new wife were a decent person. Though... anyway: mom won’t come back, why to suffer it particularly? Besides, when she has her own sorrow on her heart, does she care— when and who the father is going to marry?

In less than a week five distant relatives of widow Orik turned up for the Dower. The same old By Imanbai headed them. The sheep was slaughtered. They ate the proper for this ceremony black-and-white dish “kuyruk-baur¹” which symbolises a lot, we should say. The next day they went away taking three cows, a horse, one yearling and a camel. Mamyrbai sent Amir with three friends and his son Kazheken for the woman. In two days in the evening of the third the new mother was brought for Akbilek.

The aul women cleaned in the house, swept all corners, tidied the carpets, cooked shasha — tasty trifles. They went to meet her, saw off to the house, brought to the upper room and with wishes: “Let great happiness accompany you” showered her with coins and dry sweets.

The stepmother was seated next to Akbilek. She sat firmly as if she never got up from this place. Sarah settled on Akbilek’s laps, the father was sitting with men at the place of honor. The women pulling the kids behind them crowded the house.

Akbilek squinted eyes at her new mother. She was a swarthy woman with direct gaze from behind thin eyelids and curved eyebrows, nose is short. She’s sitting swelling, with flaunting air as if night and day she thinks of something out of reach for the rest. Akbilek’s heart grew cold. Sarah hid herself behind Akbilek and froze in an awkward pose as a little goat with bulged eyes. Kazheken returned with faraway look. He didn’t open his mouth, went up to the father and settled in front of him. Aqsaqal looked over children. What idea shot across his mind— isn’t known, he only ordered them:

—Don’t hover here, get out!

¹ - kuyruk-baur or Bauyr kuyryk – one of the most fabourite Kazakh dishes served on special occasions and certainly it’s necessarily served at weddings.

Having heard the said, the adopted mother stretched her hand to the girl and uttered:

—           Come up here.

Sarah shrank to herself, jumped away and hid behind Akbilek’s back. The women began to clamor with sympathy:

—And how not to understand the little girl? She was made an orphan! — and glanced at Mamyrbai.

Mamyrbai kept silent. Then the women began to test the newly neighbor and talked to her:

—She feels shy... just a kid... She will annoy with caresses then — you can’t tear her of you.

One of the old women either from pitiness to Sarah or because she forgot that came here not to mourn the deceased, wept holding a handkerchief at her eyes:

—E-e-h, for all’s the God’s will, ah!

Time is required for a strange person, who nobody had known and heard before, to get accustomed at the well-handled house. It’s impossible to foretell whether he will settle or not. And he also can get the former family members under him. The aul women don’t take this philosophy into account: they decided at once that it would be even easy for them to tame the newly arrived. Sarah obviously didn’t want to approach the new mother and that one also seemed not to hurry to show tender feelings. Even if she comes up to her then it’s seen at Sarah’s offended face that she will certainly take a firm stand, won’t yield and slack her lips.

Resentment filled the widow Orik’s eyes when she threw her glance at Aqsaqal. They as if told: “Why did you, the old goat, deprive me of my children, of everything gained, of my native place where everything was sweet and dear to me? And what do I have in return— this curled beard?” The local women didn’t strike her fancy either: “Of all things, what greedy and cruel eyes everyone has! They just stuck to me and are ready to hound me to death.” Then she thought: “I’d rather be amiable to then. What will they start with, what piece, what arm will they snatch at?”

After they took out their emotions proper for the first day, the aul women began to break up slowly. Several men and a couple of close-by neighbors left. And those who went home were discussing the arrival of the used daughter-in-law.

One said:

—Her eyes are bad as those of heathen, no, it won’t end well.

Another one echoed:

—                     She didn’t unclench her lips, sure thing, she’s fishwife.

The next one added:

—Listen, she frowned her eyebrows, it’s clear at once what a thing she’s. Well then, not a big bird, although she’s spiteful, it’s obvious.

Then they began to compare her to the deceased:

—                       It’s even impossible to compare... Cherished memory of her...

And when they estimated how the children would ive now, then said:

—                       Ah, this one is no good for the mother, she’s heartless female.

The women also noted that none of her clan took pains to accompany Orik with due respect to her new home.

—What does she make of her?

Urkiya poured tea and when she brought the drinking bowl to Orik, she closely followed her every movement. That one with dead-pan, moved knees together, began to drink tea, turning away from the present company. Urkiya didn’t like it. She wanted to say: “You’ve only stepped over the threshold. You could, dear, sit with your face to people but not with your side and play heaven knows who”. It didn’t come to her mind that she saw the woman who had recently lived through the husband’s death, who had been separated with her tow children. How the woman in the mourning should sit — only sidewise, let her get accustomed! Urkiya imagined that fresh-out-of-the-can daughter-in-law should certainly strive to please everyone, or in embarrassment offer herself in the role of the woman drinking tea, or at least sit and keep watch whose drinking bowl is empty, to whom it’s necessary to move a plate with butter, where to wipe with a cloth... you never know how many worries the new mistress has!

When all the guests left, the neighbors began to make bed for the newlyweds. The elderly matron started to fluff up downy feather bed of Akbilek’s mother, stroke it and pamper. Akbilek couldn’t stand this: the blood immediately boiled up with indignation. “Is it true that some disgusting woman will lie down to the pillows of her darling mother?! The mother would loath to wipe the floor with her. What is itwith you? You’re burying my mother again!” There was pain and yearning next to her heart from everything she had seen. After defilement of the mother’s couch it began to seem to Akbilek that this strange woman would encroach on her things by all means, would rob her— no ther way. And she understood that the enemy had penetrated into their home, the mother’s enemy, her enemy. Till thisinsolent night Akbilek went to bed with two children in habitual distant spacious room. Now there’s non-relative person here and she will go to sleep with the siblings to walk-through room. The thought that this outside woman has pushed everyone off their usual, slept-in beds became unbearable to her. And it led her to the vivid line: now she has lost her father forever.

Akbilek couldn’t close her eyes for long time. Soft steps of father in that room were heard like horse clatter on the ice. Here he lies down, coughs... Everything is heard — how necklaces of this woman clink, how water runs out of jug... She covered her head with a blanket but all the sounds reached her ears all the same. Earlier, when mom slept in that room, nothing disturbed her ears. Now every rustling, every whisper coming from there drew her attention reluctantly. What does this woman do with her father? What for do youwant to know? Why are you interested in it? Well, because I’m not a girl alredy and know for sure what they are busy with. Are the old men able for this too?

Father has always been father for her and nobody else. She couldn’t imagine that he like any other men... Some weird poses, worthy perhaps dirty animals, emerged in her mind, some movements of bodies... Father, it’s terrible, ah! Seemed as a lustful male not ashamed at anything, anybody... She began to drive these pictures away but the other ones replaced them. Those, where... in them she was in the arms of Black-moustached... then in Bekbolat’s arms and she herself wanted men’s caress. Passionately and right now. Strange to say but she was overtaken by the real womanly jealousy to her father that lay down with that woman. Loathsome and sticky desires buttered to her lips, to her breasts... She understood all their unnaturalness, felt deep aversion to herself, tossed about the bed and couldn’t imagine how she would live such woman. She suffocated not understanding completely the reasons of awakening of her feminity; her heart pounded... she was exhausted into oblivion, until she finally fell in either dream or faint.

In the morning the new sprung mother got up earlier than others apparently deliberately and began to drag about back and forth: she made the bed with loud claps, went out for the basin for the known needs of her and husband. She did everything smash, with rumble, showing off. At tea-drinking she sat down not next to Akbilek but settled at the mother’s place, near father. She put under her a blanket folded four times. Akbilek with her sister and brother were at the other side of the table. Father was as usual in the centre. However, it wasn’t clear from his face: whether he approved these replacements or not. Akbilek didn’t like everything — how she sits and how she gets up, and the fact that she began to play the hostess of the house, settling certainly at the father’s arm. Not having desire to address her: “mom”, Akbilek hasn’t decided how to name this woman yet. On the other hand, how she can’t call her but mother if she’s become the spouse of the father of her family. Evidently she’ll have to do it just to please... not her... of course but father. Anyway you slice it, the world considers this marriage quite an ordinary thing so well then she should consider it so too. It can’t be otherwise, now it isn’t her — Akbilek — who can onbject to anything or anybody. That was how the things were. And that was the consolation for Akbilek.

Orik turned out to be hard-working woman: without a pause she tied her belt and rolled up sleeves, got into cooking of horse sausages. She didn’t let any woman to lay hands on inner fat that poor workers got yesterday. The same happened to the most worthless scraps, with tendons and veins. She ordered to put everything to the master’s trough, even, milt and larynx:

— Bring everything here! — she made arrangements blowing off her nostrils.

The women looked at one another and, following her with scornful glances, protruded the lips:

— What a lunatic womb, who’s she!

Whatever the workers did— Orik is there keeping close eye how the carcasses are butchered, where each piece goes to, how guts are rinsed and how they are stuffed with any meat. However, no matter how fixedly and severely Orik watched the women’s work, they began stealing for her spite even the things which they hadn’t encroached before out of contrition.

Everything has changed. Cattlemen and servants — she pressed everyone, humiliated everybody by measuring, checking, re-checking, peeping into every pouch, shaking each hem. She found it necessary. Every shank, any crumb was counted. Orik has brought innovations into receiving guests too. Earlier in the days of winter slaughter the late hostess invited the entire aul to her house and treated them with tasty things generously to the full, nothing of the kind happened this year. At this point Orik and the aul started to drop away to different sides. And soon the emersed Orik’s unfriends began to mix up with Akbilek. Albilek trid to bother about two-three deprived neighbors:

—                  Mother, what are you doing? They used to take these things from us earlier.

—                  Stay out of the master’s business! Go and do your things!— she closed and turned away.

And the aul has made its acrid opinion: “The home wouldn’t be rich without her, beggar, auh! Let Mamyrbai be rich!”

All this caused even greater hostility to stepmother in Akbilek. Difficult offences have stored up in her soul. Once Sarah asked the stepmother to give her a candy but she refused. What made her do this unthinkable act— it wasn’t clear. The girl kept asking and Orik yelled at her:

—How long are you going to whimper here? Look what a girl are you! — and she slapped the girl on the back of her head.

Sarah burst into tears and ran to her elder sister. Akbilek kept silent. Soon stepmother pushed Sarah heavily for no reason saying that Sarah had dirtied a floor covering with her feet. Sarah burst out crying again. And again Akbilek kept silent. In a day Kazheken get to a lamp accidentally and it fell down scattering in glass. Orik hit him on the shoulder but she went an extra along with this:

—Featherhead! Oh, damn you! Have your eyes fallen out, you wooden-headed? Plague! — and she carried on cursing and swearing the youth with the most terrible words.

Here Akbilek, who has never ever before heard such nightmarish curses, boiled up and couldn’t stand it:

—What thing has he done? What has he done? How can you curse the child this way ... Aren’t you ashamed of neighbors?

At once Orik interrupted her with her yell:

— Shut up, witch! What do you care? Why have you got in here! You think, if he isn’t my son... I can curse, not only curse, I have the right to throw him into the fire and there’s no man who could stop me! Don’t ever dare to plead! Pfuff! Look, her brother! — and she carried on, went on.

—Oh-ah, auh! What a shame! The people will say the wife of such man... — Akbilek tried to say something else.

Orik chirped even harder:

—So what that I’m the wife? Do I disgrace him, do I start merrymaking? Do I lie to him? Thanks God, my right hand is clean and my mouth is as big as thimble! And if I’m here then not on my own will, by the will of the Lord. And what do you fancy of yourself, you are outworn-played out one. The God showed mercy on me and didn’t let become the Russian bedding like you, God forbid! — and so she dirtied with mud that if a white dog had got to her mouth — it would have come out the balck one.

Akbilek grew numb, sobbed and hurried to go far away from her. Shedding floods of tears she went to Urkiya dragging Sarah by her hand. Auntie Urkiya cuddled sisters and began to stroke and pity them.

—Stop it, sweetie! Well, stop at last. Why have you got through with this disaster? She saw nothing except for mud and crud — she tried to comfort her nieces.

But Akbilek heard nothing, remembered the late mother and cursed her orphan destiny, her shame, and her defencelessness. She repeated that such was her fate: to be insulted by everyone, outcast both by people and the groom...

—           Unhappy, unfortunate thing! Is there anyone unhappier than me? I wish I had died than to live this way! — she was agonizing in Antie’s arms.

Enchanted by running floods of tears, Urkiya began sobbing too. And they began to weep together to exhaustion and cried themselves out.

In the evening with the words: “Father will find out— it’ll be awkward” Urkiya brought Sarah and Akbilek with red eyes and swollen cheeks back home to the parent.

Didn’t father see how his children suffer being offended by destiny already? If he saw, then you’ll certainly think he became indifferent to them. Yes, in some way you’re right.

Do you often find a man at home? Mostly he’s at pastures, cattle and shepherds need thorough watch or care. Especially such masters as Mamyrbai are used to stamp with their feet more at the hayloft, in the corners of the sheds, at the dunghills than at floor boards of the house. And how’s wife, how are children — it’s not so importnat, they live somehow. There’s hostess at home and that’s enough. And the master should be with the workers. Since everything should be performed properly and timely. And he doesn’t have any time for any gossips and quarrels, even if they’re under his roof. And when a man notices something by chance, he pretends he understood and guessed nothing. Why? Because he thinks the words of wives and children are mere words and their pretensions are trifles. He’s sure that “woman will bark to her full and shut up, and children are children to sob”, such is a column of a fireside! The grown sons look at the fathers and imitate them. Clear thing, Kazheken also preferred not to deal with the stepmother. So Akbilek remained lonely.

Oh, sisters, ah! Don’t believe the men’s promises in the sublunary world. You’ll drive yourself to bonds! Oh, kids, ah! Let your mothers live long while you grow up and until you are firm on your feet! Sorrow will pour with your immature blood into the child’s heart. Oh, green shoots, youth, ah! Who gave you proud hot heart? Who breastfed you, nursed you, lulled, kissed, guarded and stood for? Mom... Mommy... Kind mother. If we’re able to live, if we have conscience and shame, then we, children, when recall father once, should remember mother ten times. Let’s bow low to our mothers that raised us! We wish many light years to mothers! Take care of yourselves, children .

When he heard one day how Orik shouts at the children, Aqsaqal noted:

— Woman, enough! What’s the necessity to scold children all the time?

But Orik didn’t stop in the side room as if she heard any menacing question of the master. “What will he say now?”— Akbilek thought with a timid hope and sent offended by stepmother sister weeping tears to father. But he said only:

—Hey, woman, ah! Damn you!.. — and he turned away carrying on his calculations and re-calculations.

¹ - mushel – (ethnic) – ancient enumeration of age in twelve-year cycle 

Not completely sure in her suspicion Orik got up at dawn, sneaked to Akbilek’s bed and lifted the blanket a bit. Akbilek felt somebody’s cold fingers touch her belly. she woke up frightened and cried:

—                    Ah... ah... What... who’s that? — and she jumped up.

Orik hastened to comfort her:

—                    You’ve opened up, so I just tucked in.

It’s clear! Here’s the girl! No doubt, the women told that right!

Why does a humiliated, cornered woman persecute another one, upwards of unhappy than she’s, with an incredible abandon? What did Akbilek take away from Orik, what did she deprive her of? Everything seems to remain in her hands, the Dower was paid off. What? Just the fact that she was sold and the person who bought her and separated with two children, was no other than Akbilek’s father. Everything inside her broke when she saw two junior kids of Aqsaqal thought about her children: “What is it going to them now?”

A bandog works off its malice scratching everything it’s able to reach and Akbilek to her dismay happened to be at Orik’s hand.

But we won’t depict Orik as an irretrievably rabid damn wretch. Little by little expensive Bai’s belongings she owned shielded from Oriksilhouettes of her far-away children. To keep an eye for wealth, to multiply it has become a new, exciting sense of life for her. the original reason for retribution lost its significance day by day and soon revenge in Orik came off from Aqsaqal and as a self-sufficient feeling has become an art— occupation for the soul when she has a spare hour. What a pleasure it is to push a falling person! Nothing can be compared to this sensation, a real beauty!

A man is a beast among the animals. What a delight two-legged animal feels having found an entangled victim! He doesn’t tear it pieces at once but swaggers. He likes to torment by a band for everone to see and to gloat and to praise, like – that’s how you made him! And then, with a heel against the top of the head to tread him in the ground leaving no traces. It’s particularly pleasant to spifficate with a person who excites general exclusive admiration with his pure, noble life. Such are organically hard to bear, aren’t they? Agree with this, why have you become confused? Why on earth any person makes himself as a perfect man? We should stain him to a state of our kind so that he wouldn’t stand out.

At the end of winter Orik considered that Aqsaqal had completely come done to her side. She decided to finally do away with Akbilek and she informed him about daughter’s pregnancy. Aqsaqal was scared so much as if he saw a grinning bear that reared at its back legs in front of him:

—Ah! Oh!.. Leave... Leave! Oh!.. Oh!.. — he kept only saying.

But there’s no way for him to wave side! The woman made him believe in all her words and at the end as if it wasn’t enough for him, finished off him saying that the time was ripe to deliver. Aqsaqal was at a loss, he broke into a cold sweat and shrank into himself. Besides the fact that he hadn’t got rid of feeling of disgust to his own daughter yet which had appeared in him since the very first day of her return, and no such news falls down on his head!

The other day he visited Bai Aben and once again confirmed that he wouldn’t give Akbilek as the wife for Bekbolat and then he visited the right aul and there agreed quite right with a new matchmaker. However, there was no counter move from this another place. “I can neither edge her out there nor leave her here. She’s just a burden”— he thought and preferred even not to call the daughter by name. “If she managed to become pregnant, she could have aborted a bastard in time. He’s from the Russian. It doesn’t matter that from the Russian, even if it were the Kazakh, it’s such a great shame all the same— to deliver a bastard! — Whoever heard of such a thing? What else can be more shameful?”— he said and spit. Holy men, ah! How to get rid of this one? Where to shove away so that his eyes would’t see her? Do the people choke such ones? To beat her to death with stones— let her know what he feels! To bind her hand and foot — and to throw into water, what will she say then?

Acrimonious desperation has corroded Aqsaqal’s soul. He can’t eat food. He sits in the shed like a bump in a log. His will has sanded and here his woman turns up and says:

—Your daughter has labor pains!

Mamyrbai’s eyes have become bloodshot and he began to husk: —Drive, Drive her away... shit! Let her begone, sinner! I don’t want to see her, don’t want to see! — he was only able to say.

His yell was really short, but what a yell it was! It was able to tear an owl off a branch. Urkiya turned to be this owl that rushed to Akbilek:

—He drives you away! He wants you to get out of home! Father! Get up quicker! Go away! Go away to your man. There are eyewitnesses, they saw him arriving and leaving. What will we do with you? You don’t kill yourself, do you?.. Noone will clean your afterbirth here.

It’s impossible to describe how these words echoed in the heart of Akbilek who had already burnt out and suffered. Nevertheless, she plucked up her courage and, tramping heavily and holding her belly up with her arms, she toddled away from her own home.

The spring has loosened snowdrifts with a gold shovel. The ground beneath them floated in puddles with snowy medley. Where are you?Hold on! It’s ordinary evening. Goatlings and baa lambs bleat in a fuss and rush to the teats of their mothers which don’t keep silence either. A mess!

Akbilek is laboring among this rumpus and melting like spring snow. She has reached the fence where Urkiya was bustling among her sheep.

—                      Oibai, ah! Where are you? You can’t! There are outside people at our home!

—                      If so, Auntie, take me aside and choke here, kill! I’m dead all the same! — Akbilek burst out sobbing.

—                      Leave it, don’t say it so bad, — Urkiya began to calm her down but what could she do?

She took her by arm and brought to a rickety, flattened dugout of Barnet. So the young women called the old woman living in it. She gave birth to a lot of children during her life but only one of them has lived to mature years. Now he pastures Mamyrbai’s herd. She is known as a decent old woman of soul. She sits in her tiny and dark as grave room and embroiders and sews ornaments at felt mats as well she weaves threads for the whole aul. There are no presentable blankets in her dwelling. On the floor there’s wickerwork of cheegrass and every sort of lumber. Urkiya took Akbilek into this hovel and began to explain the occurred events into the old woman’s ear.

—Oibai-ih! And what will you tell me to do now?!— Barnet exclaimed and started to settle a bed of an old mat, shabby floor coverings and torn blankets at the stove Then she went out and returned with cuts of different fabric, started to sew it into one patch. Meanwhile Akbilek’s pains lull here and grow there. She isn’t able to sit and it’s intolerable to lay. She moans and whines with distorted face.

—eh-hey, dear, ah! Be patient, be! Only a bottom of patience you need — pure gold, trust Fatima, holy Fatima— the old womanwhispered her spells, she powdered birthing mother with ash, sprinkled water at her and stroke her belly relentlessly. When her labor pains are getting unbearable Akbilek under her breath through gritted teeth begs:

—Fatima, Holy Fatima! Don’t torture my soul!

When Akbilek tries to slide to bare floor, Urkiya puts arms around her from behind and drags back. But the old woman sends her away:

—Oibai, you should keep away from this! If you hang about here, you’ll be accused too. What if someone is looking for you and will come in here? — and she saw her off home.

Weak Akbilek, who has never bothered herself with unskilled labor, has agonizing and long delivery. It seems someone tears with a blunt saw her back and underbelly either pulls to rupture or twists and presses. Her body burns beyond all bearing and falls into flaming pieces. In the minutes of pains her every bone aches and crumbles, all muscles and veins split. It seems all torments of the world are only a sneeze in comparison to her pain.

No. We men can’t know what a birthing mother experiences. We can only guess that not for nothing the heavy-with-child-women say that they have stepped one foot into a grave. Hanging between life and death and seeing soul, almost flying away from her, a woman can only think: “I’d rather be dead than suffer so much”. So, dying Akbilek falls in a grave clinging with her glance only at a flickering light of bare bulb in dappled shade. She asks and pleads Holy Fatima for protection. In a minute a choking loop on her neck pulls her up and she cries out the name of the Prophet’s daughter, auh, Fatima!.. There’s only the old woman near. At midnight, when both sweaty Akbilek and the old midwife have become completely exhausted, when time has flown into eternity, a triumphant baby’s cry sounds. Akbilek has fainted...

...and when she opens her eyes the old woman has already managed to cut the umbilical cord, and to do up the baby into clean cloths, and to sprinkle his face; and now she is guarding his short life. Holding her eyelids tensely Akbilek asked in hoarse voice:

—Where’s the baby?

—Here he’s, dear! He’s quite a strong boy! — the old woman replied and raised tattered fur-coat where she put the boy.

—Get rid of him, mother!

—I will, honey, I will! Here, drink some! — the old woman replies and holding the baby on the bent of one arm, with the other one offers Akbilek  an old yellow chippy cup.

Akbilek drinks sour milk and says a few words indistinctly.

The old woman goes out pressing to herself a ragged bundle with the baby. When she returns to the hut the old woman assures Akbilek that her child has gone forever. Then she makes new mother drink a cup with melted butter. Akbilek drinks it, goes quiet and her eyes close.

The same night Urkiya, who has been waiting for a child for so long time, has emptied too. She has given birth to a boy — beloved one.

Akbilek, wrapped up to the waist, not seeing the light of the day, lay in the junk of Korkembai’s old woman more than a week. Urkiya has brought her food, Sarah seldom ran to her, she cuddled her and weeped. Akbilek’s breasts, which hadn’t been touched by the baby, were swollen up and ready to blow up from an overabundance of breast milk. Then they grew stony, the nipples got swollen wet, cracked which brought her new intolerable, never-ending for a moment pains. She came down to a fever and had it several days. The old woman has seen a good deal in her long life and tried to ease her sufferings as she could. She washed her breasts with icy water, put over them oily cloths, tighted as strong as possible. All these efforts were not wasted, milk disappeared.

While breast milk was tearing Akbilek off, Urkiya was going with empty ones and nearly starved the baby to death until they found one neighbor, who had delivered recent days, and agreed to breast-feed her little son too. They say such things happen. The milk doesn’t appear at the women who don’t give birth for a long time...

One afternoon Urkiya dropped in to visit Akbilek. She hadn’t appeared for a week before. Akbilek hadn’t fully recovered from the breast rebel yet but still she found strength to wish happiness to Auntie kindly.

—Now I’m also a kind of feeling better, I can walk, — Urkiya replied, took out of her sleeve a folded sheet of paper and stretched it to Akbilek.

Akbilek unfolded the paper, it turned out— it was a letter from Bekbolat. She read the message and began to sob. Urkiya got scared:

— Oibai, auh! What has happened? I knew nothing...

—Nothing, a trifle, — Akbilek answered continuing to shed tears.

And the crux of the matter was the following. After Mamyrbai announced that he wouldn’t give his daughter to Bekbolat, his parents refused from the agreement too. However, Bekbolat didn’t agree with his father’s decision and wrote a couple of letters to Akbilek intending to marry her by all means. Akbilek also let him know that she still thought of him but she hesitated consumed by heartfelt yearning. Who knows how fate will order? By that time rumors of Akbilek’s pregnancy had reached Bekbolat.

A conversation behind a felt mat in one aul is heard by all the Kazakhs from Altai to Karkaraly. Not daring to believe and to disbelieve, Bekbolat wrote this last letter to Akbilek where he asked: “Is it true? If so, than I disavow at once, otherwise...”

How wouldn’t Akbilek cry now? Although after the secret delivery it seems she hadn’t ever delivered but all the same she couldn’t tell him a lie and assure: “No, I have never been pregnant”. Everything will reveal anyway. You can’t think it seriously that nobody has known about her long stay in the house of Korkembai’s old woman. The tongue of the other person isn’t necessary here. Mother Orik has informed everything to everyone. She can’t prove it, to her chagrin: there’s no baby.

One yearning comes in on another one.Again the black mist has covered over Akbilek who nearly began to console herself. Again shestarted thinking that she’d better die. No one needs her in the whole world. She is out of place, an exile pursued by dogs that has only todrag along a stony way for the rest of her life, beating her feet to blood. Her heart pressed to her throat chokingly and her eyes as overflowing lakes shed and shed tears...

 

 

Part four

 

 

LOVE

 

Five years passed.

The Irtysh is the great river. The source has hung over mointaneous China as the light.

Two of the Irtysh banks are thick sown with free towns and villages. There are plenty of various people. In the heart of the Irtysh world there’s — Seven chambers— Semey, Semipalatinsk, the city of knowledge and arts, really!

Like the century-old shanyrak¹ rose up the city. The steamboats, coughing with smoke, moor to it with the goods. The locomotives with cars roll to it. Revenues!

Semey is the brain of the province. You can find a solution for all of your problems in Semey. Shelter and food is found for everyone here.

Semey is the heart of the province. When only Semey stirs — all the province people move. Semey smiles — the entire steppe laughs.

Semey is on the right bank, on the left bank there’s Alash-town. There’s West in the east and in the west there’s East. Between them the Irtysh-river tosses and turns like a camel on its side. And a lonely island uprose from its waves like a hump. The left part of the island is overgrown with thick forest.

¹ - shanyrak – the circular top of the dome of the Turkic yurts.

        ² - sarnay – one of the oldest types of the Chuvash bagpipes.

Friday. Have you got money? Lets’ go to the island! Row the oars! Come on! Take dombra to your hands! Where’s Amir? Call him here! Let him sing his “Ardak”! Let him make the whole island ring!  Ah, get it, blankety-blank! Let the song fly to reach the very top of Semey! Ah-hay, my green island! Yeah, those were the days of fun. I wonder is everything the same there? It’s been a long time we were there, many years passed. We miss the island, auh. We miss Semey, Almaty!..

At the edge of the island backwater beneath a high mossy oak a young white-faced woman is sitting with a light capote thrown over her shoulders. With her face to Altash-town she looks at slightly boiling water flow. Holy men, auh, the island public roam drinking vodka and kumiss in search of entertainment. Why is she alone, who’s she and what made her seek retiracy? It’s no accident obviously.

She’s sitting and talking to herself like:

— ...and what grasses are in the summer pastures of our aul! You can’t see calfs through then! And what fragrant smell, especially when we have just fixed up yurts, head is swimming! And what a lake is near the mountains! A smooth one. You watch at it as if in the mirror! The little people from the entire aul gather and run to the lake. We splash and pick up stones – “snake heads” and “buttons”. My dear, ah! My native land ah! How I miss you...can’t do anything about it...

At that moment a woman in the urban trendy dress came up to water. She stopped not far and listened to the monologue that sounded. When she heard a familiar voice she approached the oak and looking in the face of the yearnful young woman paused:

—                 Holy men, auh! If I’m not mistaken... I know you. You’re Kamilya, aren’t you? — and she sympathetically took a step towards her.

—                 Yes, — Kamilya replied and quickly drew her legs up, looking at a townswoman in surprise.

And that one not taking her eyes from the young woman, hugged her passionately and exclaimed heartily:

—Little sister... my dear! I couldn’t think I would ever see you again!

The tears came up to Kamilya’s eyes and slided down cheeks. The young women cuddled and staring at each other tenderly sat down with crossed legs:

—                 How do you happen to be here?

—                 Where are you from here? — they exclaimed with one voice.

—                 No, tell me first!

 

—                 No, you first! — the townswoman pulled Kamilya’s arm and snuggled up to her.

—                 Well then, if so, — the sad person started her story. — Lord! Nothing can be done! — she listened to herself and went on: — I couldn’t even imagine that I would meet you... it’s been so many years since you came to visit us with your mother at zhaylau¹... we were the kids with you then ... Holy men, auh! We haven’t seen since then, have we?

—Noone knows who you are to part with and who you are to meet— whether it be at the home nest, or at crossroads...

—Yeah, you can say that again! It all went bad! Nothing remained from those days. We would have lived peacefully, quietly but this Rakymzhan appeared...

—I don’t remember him.

—But he remembered everybody. He stirred everone up. He gathered soldiers from the Kazakhs and led to fight the Reds... Has the world gone mad, or what?! What terrible things would happen, if there were no one to fight? Then he came and declared: “The Bolsheviks have won! They’ll take the cattle away and make women common. Until it’s late, migrate to China”. The elder people went to the town, returned: “We are migrating!” What did we have to do but to collect things and migrate abroad? All yurts rose. We could only take thelight things and clothes. So many trunk boxes with kerchiefs and trunks with silk were left! And I pity chintz. We moved all days and nights through, drove the cattle and could hardly shake off the pursuit. I don’t remember how many days we were going but we reached the Chinese Kazakhs in China at last.

—Yes, we heard that you managed to escape.

 

¹ - zhaylau – to spend summer at summer pastures, to settle there for summer, summer place of living

We did, but we happened among nasty and uncurbed people. They had their own laws, incomprehensible to us. Everyone interpreted laws to his interests. They took all our cattle away. One local official bore particular malice: he took all cattle away from our father, we were left with nothing. No cattle, no home, no relatives, no close people. We lived in a hut. I wouldn’t wish such life to the last dog. They wanted to steal me but the Lord has spared. We had nothing to do. We scraped somehow through winter, were on the verge of dying from hunger. In summer we limped on foot back to our people. We returned to our aul but all our buildings and land were appropriated by a skint bum from neighbors. He didn’t let us to our own house. The father went to the elder people and to the Head of volost — all was for nothing. How could it be the other way! After all it was the Head of volost who gave our house away. Father tried to find way out and wrote a complaint for the Head of volost. He thought everything would be as before. But the times had changed.How could he know? One day two policemen with guns came to our aul, caught father and took him away. He asked them: “Where’s my fault?”— and they told him: “You’ are runaway, bourgeous”. They took father to the town and locked up in a jail. There he sat and they didn’t let him go. We had Uncle Akan, you saw him. He rushed with his requests everywhere. He couldn’t help to release father. My father wasn’t the only one to whom such trouble happened. I was left alone. My mom is dead long ago, what to do here...

—What’s going on in the world! My uncle was very fond of you.

—Er, how can’t he love his only daughter? He didn’t let the Chinese Kazakh marry me and brought me back. I was still a child, I wasonly fifteen. I grieved greatly when he was in prison. Almost a month passed. Uncle Akan managed to finall draw him out of there. Wewere glad. With father’s release they returned us all our buildings and pastures.

—How wonderfully it ended!

—                 Yes, damn this end! Nothing wonderful. In a week or maybe less than in a week three people from the town, so important people, visited us in the evening... They were taken to the guest room and seated onto atlas blankets. The lamb was slaughtered. Fatherjust ran his feet off. I sat and guessed: who were they? The women began to gather from all sides. They asked each other: “Have you seen a groom?” My heart grew cold. I asked: “What groom?” “Oibai, auh! Don’t you know that your groom has come?” I didn’t know what to say. Only tears started dropping from the eyes. Stepmother saw me crying and said: “Why are you crying? You aren’t a kid.Aren’t you going to get married at all? There’s nothing to think about. He’s your equal — a young gentleman, he studied. Enough, don’t cry!” but I couldn’t calm down. I turned away, curled up and shedded floods of tears. I was still young and had no desire in my mind to get married... I was told nothing, any word and when I was announced all of a sudden: “your groom has arrived”...

—                 Oh, remember Allah, ah!

—                 I didn’t eat, lay almost unconscious. Uncle Akan came up. He raised me, stroked on the head and began to teach sense to me: “We didn’t want to marry you. We agreed with someone to save your father. Now this agreement has stuck up in the throat. The times are bad: if we don’t become relatives with such person in power, we’ll be guilty forever. You’re considered fugitives. You are like thorn in the flesh”. Something of Uncle’s words reached me. Anyway I couldn’t agree without complaint, didn’t want to. What a horror, just at once, without rhyme or reason to marry someone! I had walked happy that my father had been freed. My daring head, it turned out I had been sold for his freedom.

—                 Well, and then?

—Then? After supper, aunts, paying no attention to my reluctance, dragged me to join hands with this groom. They took me to theroom. The light hardly flickered there. And something huge, black as a bear, hulked up under the window. Awfully huge. He puffs clouds of smoke from the jaws.

—Oh, holy men, ah!

—Here I got scared indeed. I thought this huge humpbacked animal would swallow me.

Aunts put me in front of him and said: “Why are you afraid? Haven’t you seen a man? Don’t be a kid. You’ll get accustomed little by little —they seated me down next to him, and left taking the lamp away. I shrank into myself trembling, afraid to raise eyes. This bear stopped smoking and moved to me, took my hand. I had my heart in the heels. His hand was like iron one. He pulled me to him and said: “Why are you sitting? Sit closer!” The heart was pounding. He pressed me to his side and stuck with fleshy lips to my face, scratched with moustache. He sweated so nasty. He gritted my waist and pulled under him. I weeped and begged to spare, and whined as I could. He seemed not to hear anything. He broke my whole body with iron fingers. What’s this... I went through the pains of hell, my sister, suffered, he tortured me all, I cursed everything in the world.

—                      It’s not your fault here... So, what was next?

—                      He left in the morning. In about ten days Uncle Akan with stepmother brought me together with the dowry on the Araba cart to the town. Several courteous men and a woman met us and took into the house. The entrance-room was small, the other two were larger. Wooden floor was bare, covered with nothing. In one corner there was an iron bed. Stepmother and I sat on that bed. The men sat on the chairs around a Russian-style table that stood in the middle. They spoke of something incomprehensible and smoked cigarettes. I didn’t know where to put myself and what to do.

—                      Yes, it’s true. They, townsmen, do so at the first meeting. Then?

—                      Then the guests were invited to come in the evening. The bed for me was curtained. Stepmother had a headache so she lay down in the entrance-room. The guests began to gather. They greeted so politely. They sat at the dish with meat and started knocking glasses against each other, drinking vodka and shouting: “To bride’s health!” Uncle Akan didn’t drink but they sticked to him and kept up until he drank. And I was sitting, stretched out, alone behind the curtain. I was sitting and pitying Uncle... They became too drunk. One fellow seemed to drink less so they ganged up on him too. My husband buzzed particularly heavily, he insisted: “Drink, why don’t you drink?” They were being calmed down— didn’t hear, and this one, my husband talked down thickly, shouted: “I’ll shoot!”— and rushed to a gun.

—                       Lord, ah! Save!

—                       I nearly wetted myself from fright. Everyone jumped up, all dishes, floor, the table were broken, everything rattled and was turned over. I jumped to my feet horrified and peeped out from the curtain, look — two fellows held my husband. His eyes popped out, grew squint. Only then I noticed that he was squint-eyed, he wasn’t humpbacked though. He had a gun in his hand and he tried to raise the barrel. I was so upset, fear of him clang straight into my bones. His character, my sister, turned out to be very nasty. The guests managed to quieten both somehow and began to leave. Everywhere there was destruction: there were broken glasses and bottles, vodka puddles, the furniture was turned over. Frightened with the fight I got up and rushed screaming to the entrance-room. I felt terribly sick.But who could help? The husband saw the guests off and, swaying on his feet, came up to me, hugged and began to kiss again. Vodka smelled unbearable. He cursed the fellow he had had the fight with, reached the bed, fell down onto it dressed and began to snore.

—                       Oh, holy men, ah! What a husband you have! Bad one...

—                       Bad? I’m only about to speak about bad...

—                       And what did you do?

—                       I cried for some time. With my last effort I spread a blanket on the floor at the bed, lay down and only at the dawn I closed eyes. Since that day there hasn’t been any quiet day. He comes from the service and drinks vodka. Then, drunk, he swears words at everyone, nothing to add or take. He doesn’t exchange a word with me as if I’m a heartless thing. He only knows to climb up on me, do his business and that’s all. I have only to curl up and freeze then. In a week the husband was dismissed from the work. The Party or somebody else has decided so. He was caught on a bribe, fought to all comrades, on the whole showed himself up to the hilt. After that he decided to return with me to home grounds. One Kazakh woman popped in to us. A chatty one with glib tongue. Once she came and said: “Don’t stick to your stupid husband, he’ll go to prison. Besides, he has nothing. He won’t pay off. And don’t go with him either. Stay here! We’ll find you a good husband...” She tempted with sorts of things, I didn’t understand everything clearly. Of course, I told everything to the husband when he retuned. How could I divorce him when I only had got married him not so long ago? And the husband said: “These are my enemies. They all lie. Don’t worry”. And he brought me here.

—                    So then, he’s from Semey?

—                    Yes, he had a poorish house here. But he didn’t take me there. He settled me at his friend’s place which he rented. His wife isthe Tatar woman. They have two children, so white and shaggy...We put on tea. Then we drank tea with the host’s family. Suddenly a freckled Russian woman appeared. She was entirely pale and out of breath, lips were trembling. Everyone stopped talking and lowered eyes. But silence didn’t last long, the freckled one stared at me with hatred and said:

—                    Are you his new wife? I’m his wife too. He left me with a little son. And I have no money to feed him. Take him to you! — and she cried without taking her eyes off me. I kept silence astonished. Later the host explained to me everything. It turned out my husband had been married to the Russian woman. And he concealed it from me.

—                    Oibai, what a shame!

—                     A terrible shame indeed! I sat and understood nothing. Whether it was in reality or I dreamt all— I couldn’t get. I sat crying,the husband came. That woman had already left. The husband was sitting, drinking tea and told:

—I won’t take the kid.

His friends answered:

—As you know, — they said so, although said nothing but there was felt some kind of their disgust towards him.

Here I blushed and said:

—Why won’t you? He’ll beome Russian with the Russian mother. Take him to you!

What I had to do... so I said. I was hurt heavily by his lie and cruelty again. How could he refuse from the child, after all he was his son, and the son of my husband is my son. And I can’t understand her, that woman. How is it possible to leave your child? The husbanddidn’t listen to me. That his first wife left his small house and went away somewhere. We moved in there. The poorish house, like the one for the junior wife. And the child left by the husband from time to time came to us. Nice boy of five-six years. I’ve never felt sorry that my husband is his father. He spoke the Kazakh. I pitied poor him. I asked:

—                       Will you be my son?

—                       I will, — replied.

And when the husband appeared he started at once:

—Go away to your place, don’t ever come! — and he sent him away. But where could he go? So he begged in the streets. Once he met my husband— his own father. He stretched his hand to him but that one gave nothing. What a callous man, I don’t know... — the young woman said and paused.

—And where’s your husband now?

—He went on business to the other town, he says — service. Two months passed but no news from him.

—Did you give birth?

—There was one miscarriage. We’ve lost another child.

—                    And how is your husband’s name?

—                    I’ve told so much about him...

—You’ve told nothing bad, sister. We’ve just talked. What are you afraid of, just tell his name and that’s all.

—                    What is there on horse’s neck?

—                    Horse collar.

 

—                      No, higher

—                      Duga¹?

—                      That’s his name.

 

—                      What a strange name. Aren’t you sick? Why are so thin?

—                      How not to grow thin here? Even a goose grows stunted in solitude... I’m sick a bit... indeed. I’m coughing.

—                      Hey, dear Kamilya, ah! Poor you, what have you gone through, what have you suffered...

—Well, why are we about me ... you’d rather tell about you!

When she heard a request to share her reminescenes, the townswoman thought over and a succession of recent years spread itself before her eyes again.

Readers of the novel perhaps, have already guessed that we’re talking about Akbilek. And the young woman Kamilya is her cousin, thedaughter of her mother’s brother. In his time he was the Head of volost. Well, then we’d rather return to Akbilek’s story.

In summer of that tragic for her year her elder brother Tolegen came to the aul to carry out surplus appropriation system. He foundAkbilek hiding in Urkiya’s house. Having lived for about a month and a half in the aul, Tolegen reconciled the father with everything that had happened to his daughter and brought Akbilek home. How she dragged herself along the aul with burning face, auh, it’s better not to remember.

Tolegen said he was ready to take the sister with him to the town. The father kept silence. He was surely glad to get rid of her.

¹- Duga – Engl.- Arc

with a generous nature. And the sister-in-law was fine, tall with blacky-black eyes. Evidently they had their reasons to move to Kazakhstan. Perhaps, they were connected with the fact that there in their Motherland they belonged to nobility.

The wedding of brother and Marisha amazed Akbilek. There was neither match-making nor anything set by the century-old traditions. Noone joined arms of the newlyweds. There were no aunts who had to bring the bride to the bed and make it. Noone brushed her hair.The dowry wasn’t hung over. The match-makers weren’t presented with chapans. Marisha just entered the house without a wedding dress but with open face. She came in, bowing and expressing her respect to nobody. And nobody met her with the song “Zhar-zhar”. Everything was done in one block— that’s all toy. The guests were, it’s true. The sister-in-law made preparations for meals, sat next to brother and spoke freely to the guests.

Akbilek immediately loved sister-in-law. Marisha began to mean for her perhaps, even more than her elder brother. She was so sweet-voiced, with mild nature. She believed everything she was told. She neither knew about Tolegen’s affairs nor did she try to interfere in them. She could speak clearly and pleasantly to each person. It was because she was educated, Akbilek decided. She opened Akbilek’s eyes to many things, otherwise...

Soon Tolegen was transferred to Semipalatinsk on service. They received a spacious flat and lived in abundance. Brother signed Akbilek up to the courses.

Another five girls except Akbilek studied at school. Most of them were adult girls. Even if they could write and read before in Kazakh, it was really nothing comparing to what they had to know. You can accept it like — they didn’t study. At first Akbilek understood nothing. She was taught literacy at the father’s home by the aged Mullah. And here the men, dressed in urban suits, stood in front of her and wrote on the black board with chalk such words that the head didn’t house at one time. However, then they explained what they wrote. For the first time she heard about arithmetic and geography. Akbilek recorded diligently into a copy-book everything she was taught. When she came home she asked sister-in-law or brother to explain those places she didn’t understand. They explained. Akbilek studied at the courses for six months. At home she helped sister-in-law about the house. She put on an apron and peeled potatoes, cut noodles. She learned culinary secrets of cooking pies, samosa, meat pockets, and cutlets. And she began to dress differently. After their coming to Semipalatinsk brother and daughter-in-law ordered urban dresses in the latest style for her.

Sometimes Akbilek with brother and Marisha went to the theatre to watch moving pictures. She was surprised: “How these flat figures move? Do they have hearts, aha?”— she kept asking sister-in-law. It turned out — they only seemed alive, there was a special technical method.

Then Tolegen received in the Department of Education the assignment for his sister to the worker’s faculty in Orenburg. She went there with one girl.With Azhar. We shoud say she was a light-minded girl. Urban one.  Azhar behaved like a capricious child. She either did a make up on her face and ran over trifles or she lay in bed for days.

That was the first time Akbilek got on train. She heard about a railway and an iron horse but it was quite another thing to go by train. At night brother and Marisha took her on a cart to a railway station. There was a crowd of people, everyone rushed somewhere, bustled. A steam engine roared. The brother cared to buy the ticket in advance and they took them without queueing.

Sitting in the carriage Akbilek speeded past four cities. Once she had to spend a night with her travel companion at a railway station when they made a change to another train. There Azhar gor acquainted with one guy which turned to their interest in some way. He was handy to queue firmly and he bought tickets for them. They saw various and wonderful places. They went by enormous lakes and along high bridges. Here the mountains and there the forests were stretching behind the windows. Akbilek was afraid for the train not to crash into some rock or not to get stuck in the thicket. No, it ran slipping artfully through stones and tree trunks. And how it ran! It flew like awhirlwind!

When they arrived to Orenburg, they took a cart and got to Azhar’s acquaintances. Orenburg was far more decent place thanSemipalatinsk. The streets were paved and they liked the cart. It wasn’t very big except it swayed a bit.

In the morning they went to school with the papers. They were shown a big house. It was full of young people. They found an office and showed their assignments. They were accepted without spare word.

The girl commune was situated in a separate building. Akbilek and Azhar were given separate beds. They brought beddings and settled.The girls around were all Russians. Only five-six Kazakh girls were among them.

It was difficult to learn here, not the same like in Semipalatinsk. In Semey the teachers were the Kazakhs and the books were in Kazakh. The amount of Russian lessons was almost to nothing. And here studying was in Russian. And the teachers were the Russians too except for two-three Kazakhs. Akbilek learned some Russian words and expressions from brother and sister-in-law but was it a science?

What was good— there were many Russian girls around, the conversations with them brought more use than all lessons of Russian. If it hadn’t been for her Russian friends to whom she didn’t want to yield, Akbilek wouldn’t have studied so successfully.

Of course, there were such girls who were rushing and jumping like goats that escaped from out the fence. Having looked at them the Kazakh girls began to jump like crazy. Especially our Azhar and another girl. They disappeared at nights. In the commune they got to the darkest corners and hugged with the men. Azhar had jumped till the end — in mid-winter she left the worker’s faculty. They said she had got pregnant. It could be so, who knows?

The guys made court to Akbilek if it could be called courtship. But she carefully avoided the meetings with them. It was more interesting for her to spend time with modest Russian girls-friends. Still guys kept up: “Let’s go for a walk. Let’s go dancing. Let’s have a talk.” But she resisted such blandishments.She had lived enough. Had she suffered a little from men? Soon she earned a reputation of a too arrogant girl; Bai’s daughter, hot-shot. They affirmed that she was in correspondence with a real heap of fellows. And all of the letters, they said, were love letters and they weren’t limited by only letters. They tossed her notes with vile suggestions and threatenings. One dark evening they simply beat her, knocked her down. They stole her copy-books, books, handkerchiefs. But that was a mug game, damn them all! The fellows weren’t the biggest problem though. In two-three days there were meetings necessarily. It was odious. She couldn’t believe how everyone made his best to bad-mouth each other, to trample upon his neighbor, humiliate, and frighten. But if only you tried not to come to them — they would inform immediately. Our Kazakhs were especially diligent in this. Akbilek didn’t understand: what they needed, what they lacked?

About five hundred people lived in the hostel commune. They lived close and cold. Whether they washed or not, that was, you know, a personal matter — it was difficult to understand. But stench stood horrible. In some way such atmosphere was inevitable. When they opened a small window— it was cold, when they closed it — there was no air to breathe but you could catch a cold easily. Besides, it was hard with food. Years ofhunger. For a day they had half of a pound of dark bread and thin soup with potatoes. In the eveing it was a mug of boiling water.

It was easier to die of hunger than to understand a lecture. How many young creatures disappeared after they had fallen ill! There were really dead among them. By the end of winter Akbilek had come up to complete exhaustion too. In spring with two-three her fellow students she returned to Semipalatinsk. Akbilek was astonished how she managed to live through in Orenburg but she knew for sure: you’ll never become weaker from studying.

Akbilek’s brother had already worked at the reputable position in the province committee. Immediately he hired a childless teacher of Russian for four months for her so that she wouldn’t get bored for lack of occupation. It was her who taught Akbilek to write and speak in Russian correctly. It was such time then — it was necessary. You wouldn’t live as the Kazakhs went on living: in soot, stench and with lice. The wealth is in knowledge.

—Let it be soot, let it be lice but together with my people, among them. I miss the aul so much, the faces of relatives! It seems I would give anything in the world just to be among them!

Akbilek studied for three years in Orenburg. The city didn’t look strange to her any more. The students decided to stage a play “Baibishe— tokal” and Akbilek played a role in it. They staged the play at the scene of the Club named after Sverdlov. The tickets were distributed and sold among the students. The play was a success and Akbilek was pleased with her performance as well. They were presented flowers. One of the teachers invited her to tea-drinking just after the performance. At the table she was introduced to two comrades: Akbala and Baltash. They offered her to drink beer but she refused. The men didn’t insist.

She used to see Akbala in the streets of the city before. He was said to be an eloquent and knowing a lot person. He was of average height but his forehead was high and face was white. Indeed, when he talked — you would listen spellbound to him. That evening Akbala talked most of all. The rest were listening to him and laughing at his jokes. He addressed to Akbilek asking her about studying, about her life. He didn’t take his eyes off her. Baltash sat next to Akbilek. He made court to her and offered to taste this or that. Saying good-bye he mentioned politely:

—If there are any problems, please, contact us. We need such cadres and we simply have to support you in anything.

Akbilek didn’t seek for the meeings with new comrades, she studied.

Once she read in the newspapaer that comrade Akbala was preparing a report. She didn’t know why but she had s desire to listen to what he would be talking about. The arms stretched to a comb on their own, the legs carried her to mirror. She didn’t remember how she put on coat and ran out.

The big meeting. Akbilek sat at the last row of chairs. After the speech of one Russian comrade the chairman announced: “Now I see comrade Akbala”. Akbilek’ heart shook.

Akbala came up the scene with a sure step. He put a bag on a table, looked over the hall closely. Akbilek hoped he noticed her. No, it seemed he didn’t, or did he?

Akbala began his speech. He spoke slowly, loudly in good voice. And Akbilek just gazed at him. He spoke of some big state issue. Whatabout — Akbilek couldn’t get. She could only see his face; she only heard his baritone. He spoke passionately clenching the fist of right arm and casting it down the tribune as a blacksmith bumps his hammer down anvil. With each word spoken he grew more and more excited, his voice grew firm. The passion of his speech infected Akbilek too. Every sound coming off his tongue sounded like patter of hoofs. And he finished his address throwing his head in the air like a stallion that rode swiftly from bandits. The audience burst with applauds. Akbilek clapped her palms without sparing them too.

After Akbala’s speech the word was given to his opponents. A few remarks and criticizing comments were told to his address. Akbilek burnt each such critic through with a scathing look. She didn’t like that people who had been just applauding to the orator were criticizing him now. Akbala sorted his papers out calmly, then came up and answered in detail to every criticism. He thanked someone for estimation, didn’t agree with another one, and literally destroed the others with his arguments, auh!

It went dark. After the meeting was over Akbilek left the building. While she was looking around in search of a companion with whom she could return to the hostel safely, somebody came up to her from behind and touched her shoulder. She looked— it was Akbala. He was smiling:

— Good evening.

She got confused. Perhaps she even blushed. She got scared that he could notice the deceitful face color.

—I was going to return to the hostel.

 —A-ah, come on, I’ll give you a ride.

She felt ashamed. Earlier she didn’t happen to go in the Commissioner’s cart. But the maiden shame could already change nothing. Anyway, it was flattering to take a ride with the Commisioner in his araba.

Akbala helped her to get to the cart, sat next to her and brought her straight to the school building. Aon the way he asked:

—                   Have you heard my report?

—                   Yes, I have.

—                   And how did you like it?

—                   It was good report.

His question about the report, his desire to know her opinion, his hand on her wrist, his urge to sit closer to her, a warm gleam of his eyes in the light of rare lanterns — all of this was more than enough for Akbilek. Saying good-bye Akbala offered:

—                   What if we go to the theater tomorrow?

—                   I agree.

That night out of a clear sky Akbilek saw Akbala in her dream. Perhaps, it was a feeling of liking towards him? Akbilek didn’t think particularly about this. The following day at the set hour she came up to the theatre. Akbala had already been watching out for her. They entered the auditorium, sat side by side. They spoke about many things. He began to talk about educated women, about love. When he said something he asked: whether she agreed with him or not. Akbilek was at a loss. She certainly wanted to say him something pleasant, even it be far away from truth but she didn’t manage to — she said what she thought. He, in his turn, said: “I like your opinion”. Heasked her about her parents, relatives. Then he brought her home on the cart again. He shook her hand softly stroking it again and again. Sometimes hands of a man in love speak instead of his numb tongue.

That night Baltash was at the theater too. He sat in the other row but came up in the intermission and didn’t leave them afterwords. Akbala and Baltash were exchanging comments on something strolling together with Akbilek in the crush-room. Akbilek was pleased to go between two clever men. She was just soaring as if she had wings on her both sides. Alikbek found Baltash as a competent polite man who neither fancied himself too much nor he did he seek for her attention. And if he asked a question it was like this one:

—You started to visit theaters. And how... did you like the play?

The vivacity with which the Commissioners talked cheered up Akbilek’s mood too. And it did not for a bit but sky-high. It seemed to her that they were showing off for her sake and she herself wanted to shine.

Once she met Baltash in the street. He stopped, went by her side speaking of something. He wasn’t as voluble as Akbala, repeated his words, hesitated, and mumbled. He spoke mostly about studying, life and spring. It was seen that he wasn’t a whale to speak to girls. In parting he held Akbilek’s hand for a while and said:

—                      I wanted to talk to you. Will you find time for me?

—                      I will, — Akbilek replied. She liked that he was embarrassed. She waited for him to say more. What woman will refuse herself in such kind of pleasure?

In three days Baltash sent a letter via one student:

“Comrade Akbilek! I ask you, if you have free time, to come to the park named after Comrade Karl Marx. Please, pass your reply via this student. Baltash”.

Akbilek liked Akbala but here Baltash began making court to her, funny. It was no good to ignore the meeting. She thought what if he would take offence? There’s such strangeness in women behaviour. Besides — it was early summer. So she went at the appointed time.She came but he wasn’t there. She waited — he wasn’t still there; waited — no sight of him. She was aggrieved and about to leave. Here he ran out of breath as if he was dashing from the Ural’s bank. Akbilek waited for him. He ran up and greeted.

—                      Have I kept you long? — he apologized.

It emerged that he delayed on one business. He paused for long time not daring to continue the conversation. And suddenly he declared:

—                      It passes for normal when a man is married. I’m also looking for a life partner.

—                      I wish you to find what you look for— Akbilek wished with a smile.

He tried to speak of unrelated matters and then returned to heart affairs again:

— I like you.

Akbilek couldn’t but admit that Baltash wasn’t as wise as Solomon. You see, it turned out one of the teachers praised her! Akbilek avoided the direct answer mentioning the need to consult the relatives. He considered such approach to marriage to be correct. They walked for a while, he saw her off to the hostel. Featherheaded he was. He even couldn’t take tenderly her arm as Akbala could.

The next day there was a letter from Akbala. He wrote sorts of nice words. He mentioned that he was burning passionately with an obvious feeling to her: “I’m writing to you because I can’t help but write to you. You are an ideal for me, I love you. Without you my life looses any sense. Please, reply to me”.

Joyful feelings descended upon Akbilek when she read the letter. Could she think that he would offer her his hand? She thought he just decided to have fun and nothing else. She was even taken aback. All hearty thoughts were about Akbala. Balrtash seemed plain and lightweight in his light. She replied to Akbala: “Your words please me. I like you too. But I have to speak to my relatives. Soon I’ll give you a definite reply. Be patient, don’t be offended”.

Then it remained to chill down Baltash’s feelings so that he wouldn’t bother himself. She met with him in the garden near the building of serai.

—There’s the man whom I promised to marry — and she waited for his reaction.

Baltash darkened and asked:

—Who’s he?

She didn’t reply. He didn’t give up. Seeing that he couldn’t calm down Akbilek called the name. Baltash said:

—I thought of him too. He’s always excited women’s admiration. But he’s never been fond of students. Apparently he’s developed a passion somehow... if he’s not given anything else.

Akbilek was full of romantic feelings but she was replied with a prose of life. Baltash left offended. And she didn’t see him for long time.

It can’t be worse than when two fellows who are in love with one girl come across each other, Akbilek thought. In the beginning everything looks amusing but then it turns into a gall for one of them. She didn’t find any special pleasure in the fact that she had to tell: “You’re worse than he’s, I don’t love you”. Everyone can say the same about him.

In two-three days Alikbek met with Akbala. It emerged that her words about the people she had to consult with weren’t up to his heart. “Isn’t an educated woman a master of her heart?”— he stated with some degree of arrogance. And after her assurances that both her brother and sister-in-law would willingly give their consent to the marriage and accept him, he calmed down. And her words that she would refuse him in no case fully restored trust-based relations between them. He began to kiss her with words: “Honey... my love... darling”. He was the groom and she was the bride, what did they have to be ashamed of? Joy overfilled Akbilek. She was unable to sit at a place. She talked to everyone she came across and laughed at any silly thing. She lived through these days as if being slightly crazy.

So a month passed. It was time to return home. A letter from brother arrived: “If he promised to marry — marry him”.

She was happy. There and then, the way she was she ran to Akbala’s office. She knew the road; she had already dropped in to him. She showed brother’s letter. He put the letter aside, closed the door and began to kiss cuddling her. Both were swimming in happiness. In the evening they went to a cinematograph and sat to a remote box. As soon as the lights went off they started kissing and hugging again. They didn’t look at the screen. Akbala decided to arrange the weding in a week and to bring Akbilek and her belongings to his place.

The following day Akbilek received a letter from Baltash:

“I have to meet you on a very important matter. It’s connected with your nearest future. I beg you to meet me in any case”.

—                     Akbilek was surprised but she forced her to go to this meeting— after all it was improper to refuse to such comrade. She wentwith some annoyance. They met, said hello. And he said, just imagine:

—                     Akbala is no match for you

—                     Why?

—                    He’s been in love with such girls before you. And then he left them, you see, he didn’t like them anymore!

—                    I’m not interested in it — Akbilek replied understanding that he wanted to set her by the ears with Akbala.

—                    If you don’t believe, here’s his diary — Baltash insisted and taking a notebook out from the inner jacket pocket, stretched it to Akbilek.

 

—                    Where have you taken it?

—      We’re friends, so I took it.

 

—                    Aren’t you ashamed to steal the friend’s diary? — Akbilek lost her temper feeling how blood flew to her face.

—                    I know it’s shameful. It contains notes about his meetings with one girl. I want exactly you to read them. Don’t you want to know who your groom really is?

—No, I don’t.

Baltash began to assure that these Akbala’s love affairs were very interesting. He stuck like bur:

—                    Let me read.

—                    If you want to — read.

The diary related to the time when Akbala for some reason, apparently due to blunder in work, was transferred from rather high position to the county. Anyway, there was such a practice— staff turnover

 

 

“February 5, Monday.

...Kulyan came up to me near school. I made efforts not to meet her. I thought she wanted to tell me something. She spoke bout Abiken’s wife. I let her see I can’t stand gossiping. She laughed but in her eyes I saw she wanted to speak about the other things.

February 6.

On the way home I saw Kulyan and Zhanyl coming towards me. They were chatting about something and laughing. Yesterday I saw how one fellow met Kulyan and went to see her off home. The same guy was waiting for her today.

February 9.

The Committee secretary was caught at taking a large bribe, Seksembayev released him on bail.

February 11.

What I need in this life is the passion of life, something of the kind. If I had a beloved then I would just dedicate the entire my life to her. I care not a snap for career and this deed of labor. And now I go as if I’ve lost something, I was deprived of something, as if there left a half of me...

Yesterday I was asked to a party. Kulyan was there too. All men tried to talk to her. I didn’t enter a conversation, sat aside. She was wearing a nice red jacket. Her hair was curly, perhaps it was done somehow. She talked to me first. I answered laconically and a bit coldly. I asked her to return my letters. She obviously felt my estrangement and laughed without missing a beat. She asked whether my desire to return letter was connected to the events that had happened in the town X. I answered I wanted to remember none of this town. She asked: “And the girls too?” I replied: “The girls too”.  She didn’t expect for such reply and was surprised. Recently I had seen one of such in the street. I had walked past without saying hello.

February 12.

Kulyan made it a manner to walk in the park with two-three guys. She goes with them under arm, laughs and talks to them about something. Today she didn’t appear. She didn’t leave her class. Perhaps she’s busy with her lessons. Or she has no mood. She isn’t that kind of woman who has feelings written on the face though.

February 14.

The fellows of the second degree organized a circle and began a work. The work went wrong, they re-elected the leader. And those who left with the first one bought home-brew vodka from Russian guys and got drunk on the occasion of their leader’s birthday. They put up a fight. The former oneseems to be Bai’s son. How can the good people go out of such ones?

February 16

The people from the town X came. They began to praise me, affirmed they really lacked me very much. They called me back. My friend Kapay startedsaying that now I can use them how I want. Whatever the Kazakhs do! You can’t understand who’s right and who’s not. Whose side to take? I sit, feel sorry for them, it’s uncomfortable to send them away. And then it’s interesting to know what they’ve planned there. Otherwise I wouldn’t listen to them.If I get involved in all the Kazakh squabbles, I won’t achieve my stated objectives. And I don’t want their going hither and thither to do harm me. The people will look who comes to me and start talking sorts of things. From the other hand, whatever they are, either bad or good, all the same they are my people. If you avoid your people, it won’t take you long to become Russified.

February 17.

The citizens of the town X have one feature — everything is wrong with them. Nobody wants to go deeply into the core of matter. They believe only to those who hold the position and this doesn’t benefit to state service. This reason is already enough to keep away from them. They wrote to me a letter asking to assist with the release of a few guys that had studied well in their times. What a mess!

February 27.

I received a letter from Kulyan’s sister-in-law with invitation to visit. I went there with Kapay. We sat late with the budget and were free only at eleven. We came and Kulyan was there. She cooked samosa, poured tea. She got red, sat arranging her hair. There was a lamp between us on the table. Shemoved the lamp aside. So her face was in samovar’s shade and mine left in the light of the lamp. She put the plate with sweet oatmeal in butter to the lamp’s place. Closer to us. I made up three conclusions out of this: 1) she deliberately hid herself in the shade of high samovar; 2) she wanted the plate with sweeties to be by my side, otherwise... 3) she decided to put away the lamp as a barrier between us. Anyway, the oatmeal has nothing to do here. She certainly wants to get back together with me. If so, then it’s the best variant.

March 10.

One idea came into my head when I lay in bed in the morning. I need to know whether Kulyan really likes me. I need clearness. I have to find a way to get out some movement. Otherwise I’ll simply die out of expectations. I consulted Kapay. He offered to speak to Kulyan’s sister-in-law. We swore to keep everything a secret.

March 12.

Last night Kapay went to this her relative. As I thought it was of no result. He couldn’t talk face to face.

At eleven in the morning we with company went for a walk in the mountains. Kapay rode by Kulyan’s side and I rode with one Russian paramedic. Imanaged to speak to Kulyan. She laughed and joked again in her manner... This, that and the other, she said nothing definite. I thought herfeelings to me weren’t strong. Far and by, she wasn’t inflamed with passion. Be a woman even the most educated, well-bred and thecleverest, all the same the most important thing in her is sensuality. A woman without feelings is like a flower without fragrance. What ideas are these: “I’ll study”, “Marriage will interrupt my study”! Studying is the voice of reason. Love is the voice of feelings. And she neither loves nor feels... too much well-minded! She doesn’t allow herself to say: “I love”. She doesn’t want to change her plans. She dedicates everything to her studying no matter how difficult it’s given to her. Shouldn’t love win everything in the world? I don’t understand. I have to write a letter and finally explain ourselves.

In the evening some elderly Kazakh woman dragged herself to my place, mother of a policeman. She claimed that unfamiliar to me Bai’s daughter, whose elder brother works here as a teacher, fancies me and wants to marry me. And she began describing what a beauty she is...with big eyes and as fast as a fawn...I guess this teacher has sent the matchmaker to me. I sit and don’t know whether to believe this old woman or not. I wish it weren’t a joker of the known to me specimen from the town X. I asked to bring me a letter from this girl.

March 13.

Today I wrote the letter to Kulyan. If I don’t get a refuse— she’s mine... in my mind I see that trip to the mountains out of the town, so wonderful and dear to heart pictures. I spent in bed the whole morning imagining that trip again and again...

... mountains. Slay-ride runs file between the trees and in the distances it seems to hug the waists of birches. Up, down. The rocks... forest is around...white crisp snow. The paramedic has frozen to the saddle. The urban coat doesn’t warm him, but ridges. He doesn’t dare to whip the horse, tries all the time to. Kulyan is dressed in a fine hare Kazakh fur coat. On her head she has foxy malakhay. She sits in the saddle as a real dzhigit, roars with laughter, shoots ahead and teases with her entire fresh complexion...

In the evening I went with Kapay to watch a play. It was a one-act drama about slavery. Kulyan appeared with her sister-in-law in the theatre. From time to time I found her with my eyes. I hope she didn’t remain indifferent either. She looked in my direction fluttering heavy eyelashes. She definitely counted that we would see them home after the performance. And indeed, they were standing at the entrance. Kapay ran rusty and pulled me home.And Kulyan with her sister-in-law went home with the paramedic. I don’t understand these games of her sister-in-law with the Russian paramedic! Her husband is in the other town and she walks out with this man here. No, women can’t be trusted.

March 15.

I went out to take a breath in meal period. And this time Kulyan appeared from the next door. She smiled at me and called me up with her finger. I came up. She said she perhaps had written a letter to me but she hadn’t it with her. And she added that she didn’t like to read and suggested better to have a talk. We agreed on a place. She promised to tell time of meeting.

March 16.

I saw Kulyan in my dream, we talked about something. I hugged her and kissed. Science states that a man dreams the things he thought of much and long time. Consequently, my dream reflects my true wishes. I scold myself for this weakness. I called myself so many various names. I try to stopmyself. I’ve fallen in love in vain. Everything is a lie and this passion won’t bring me anything good. I’ve decided to find drawbacks in her so that to arouse hostile feelings to her. I should also consider my life in order so began recalling my mean deeds. I’ve realized that family happiness will hardly wait for me if I marry an educated girl. No, nothing works. I still think of her. I’m reeling off as a crow on a branch. She’s tied my hand and foot and holds as if in a leash. I’m in the trap and the name of this trap is Kulyan.

When did I see her in a dream: today? Or have I seen her during a year? I remember, for the first time I dreamt her in summer after arrival to the town. Iremember her dress, laces on it. She went past as if cut me with a razor. I dreamt her in Orenburg too and in this dream she talked to me with her eyes reverted. I tried to console myself with the thought that a man hunts for a woman and nothing more. No, it turns out to be some empty consolation, now I understand this.

I’ve just romanced that I can meet with her and explain myself. I’ve invented some unreal life with her, happy days expecting us... everything is blank. I feel my blood is about to boil in me. I’m sinful, sinful! I can’t please but I’ve just got bites.

March 17.

I was at school. She stood with one teacher. I greeted with a nod and said in my mind: “I’m yours”. She looked at me either with vexation or with tenderness. What eyes she has: warm and sweet. One of sparks of her shining eyes has burnt my heart. Magic rays of her glance literally make my heart pant and fill the soul with bliss! No, I take my words back! They neither fill heart with anything nor warm my soul but hit and then disappear mysteriously. A sound is like one touch of a fiddle bow to kobyz’s strings: it’s wonderful, excites but is full of sorrow and only promises a melody of love. It folds my heart to her breast. The radiance of her eyes floods me and plunges to eternity. They ripple like waves, whisper something...

She promised to meet me at six. I looked at the watch constantly. I sent one boy to look out for her. With every minute the heart beats faster. There’s stilla half of an hour. How time keeps jogging on! I don’t know what to occupy myself with, sat to write a diary. It seems to be a limit of happiness if she comes in a twenty minutes, smiles and says with her tender voice: “Good evening”. I can’t think of anything else... Thoughts gallop. I sit and don’tknow how to console myself. She’ll come! She’ll come if nothing happens. Or she won’t? It’s possible too. What is she busy with now?Is she dressing? Is she adorning herself with fine clothes and looking into the mirror? Or... or... I have to look at time! Eighteen minutes left. Hold on, I have to leave, what if I run out of time, what if her watch is fast...

12 midnight.

I was waiting for her at the corner of the street. I saw how my watcher was going, waited with impatience and gave way, met him half-way. He said: “She left home”. I hurried. She came up to Commissariat from one side and I approached from the other one. We met in the lobby. Some Russian man came up to us and asked for a ticket. There’ll be a performance right here tomorrow. I could hardly wait for him to leave off. The two of us stood together. A few students appeared in the street, they entered Commissariat...She got embarrassed and went behind the stage. They study together with her and she was afraid of gossips. We went outside through another door.

We talked about nothing. Gossips of the town X, local gossips, who said what and who heard. I told my opinion of the girls who study. One of the reasons of my desire to meet with her is the same: I want to make our relationship clear. We agreed: it’s time to drop the curtains. We had to seclude ourselves for a long talk. We’ve decided that some day she’ll come to me. But she warned me that she wants the fellows that live with me to keep dark about this. It seemed we talked a lot but again we didn’t tell the needful, we couldn’t. Only our eyes told the most important words. She repeated all the time that it was time for her to return. I didn’t notice how we were at her home.

March 18.

We were at the performance. She came. She sat at her previous place behind our row. I kept turning around to look at her until I was made a remark. I changed the place. The attraction to her was so strong that I looked at her more than at the stage. She looked at me too. I was waiting for an intermission impatiently but four students spoiled everything. They stood around her and talked to her. One of them, the red-haired one, was familiar for me. I saw him once when he saw her home. I don’t know what they were talking about there but I saw that she was talking unwillingly.

I can’t stand these men from the town X. Kulyan assured she didn’t like them either. There are perhaps no worse townsmen than they are.

When she returned to her place she asked her sister-in-law something quietly but her request evidently didn’t hit the taste of the latter. Nevertheless, soon I changed places with her relative and was by her side...

We saw our companions home together with Kapay.

All the way that red-haired student was flocking about us. He either went ahead or dragged behind us. He jumped out from somewhere aside, went straight before us and puffed with his cigarette so heavily that sparks flew apart. I mentioned: “In such a way he’ll burn himself”. She responded to this: “Why are you raging so much? Can’t you be more lenient towards people?” Her mood seemed to have spoiled. It turned out that these students blabbed that she had been at my apartment which wasn’t true. They were going to celebrate Nowruz and invited Kulyan to the spring holiday.

Kulyan doesn’t want to break with them referring to the fact that they study together. And the fact that they talk nonsense about her – well then such things happen in the friendly company. You may think that they don’t shoot off mouths without any friendship. Now she couldn’t imagine how she would be able to come to me. What’s that?! Why doesn’t she leave them?!

March 19.

The watches of the local townspeople never keep time. Someone certainly sticks like glue in the street: “What time is it?” and he sets hands at his watch.

Local students are completely immoral. Two guys are standing and you can hear: “Will there be a performance today? Let’s go with fawns? (or with the old women?)”— without ceremony they speak about the girls (they refer to them familiar girls and Kulyan is among them).

March 21.

I stayed out. We drank kumiss. It wasn’t very interesting. Kulyan with her friend Zhakim went to celebrate Nowruz with fellow mates. Kulyan doesn’t like them, she spoke of them unflatteringly. If it’s really so, then why did she go with them?

Another pair of shoes is if she treated them with respect, if she hadn’t given them such unflattering characteristics... Is such girl worth to be trusted? Either she does it for my spite, or with any other purpose? Is she afraid to be condemned by them? A man should definitely distinguish bad things from good ones and not to wag on the life journey. And is this woman that I take for my angel of such kind? Yearning... it seems it can’t be more depressing. I wonder, how will she try to justify herself? We’ll see.

March 22.

Yesterday called in to Kulyan’s sister-in-law’s home. We talked about Nowruz. The sister-in-law supported me and spoke disapprovingly of this her trip out of town. Kulyan admitted that she did the wrong thing. Kulyan’s sister-in-law sat down to talk to Kapay deliberately. And we went to a stove and had a talk standing there. I asked her to come to my apartment again. She said again she was afraid of gossips. She told: “When we leave the town”.

March 24.

At six I came up to school to a meeting. Noone came. I stood at the doors for a while. Zhakim turned up leading a little child by the hand. She is about 19—20. She was really told terrible things about. I heard she touched base with one teacher. She was not only with him. She skipped classes. When she saw me she said to the kid loudly: “Tell there’ll be both Kulyan and Malina” — and sent him somewhere. This was evidently counted for me...

Russian girls walking with guys speak loudly, feel free to hug with them and roar with laughter for the whole street. This Zhakim is exactly the same.Rotten-hearted girls are all as like as two peas, have the same manners. To sell their goods to men tradeswomen flirt with them, hint that they can count to have more. The girls, who laugh affectedly and roar, are of the same tribe with them. Are educated girls all like this indeed? Aren’t there remained well-bred girls any more?

March 26.

Yesterday at six Kulyan came to me. We shut the door and spoke from our hearts. We discussed everything: our relations and our characters and the things which blabbers speak about us, our plans for future and, of course, love. Then we began kissing. She said she studied at the insistence of her father and she didn’t want his work to be a waste. And she added that she would leave study. I answered that this wasn’t the matter. The most important for me is her declaration in love to me. And she became yielding. Although she blushed in my arms, still she got hot. Pleasant, sweetimpression has remained.

I received “The working Kazakh”. It has the mourning message that famous Berniyaz shot himself with his girlfriend. The sad event. It’s a pity, he was atalented poet!.. What an awful thing to happen! Suicides among the Kazakhs have become a rarity. It’s unthinkable thing! Was it because of drinking or love, or a lie? Has the way of life or enemies seized him?.. Whatever it was, apparently it came sorely to him. Yes, life... ane — and itbroke!

March 28.

It seems as yet Belinsky wrote: “Imaginary love is harder, more dangerous than true love. Love dreams fall a heavy stone on heart, they are constraining, painful, poisonous”. I believe it’s true. The heartache was severe as if it was burnt through.

March 29.

I spent evening with Kulyan. The moon shone to the utmost, it was warm. She can’t ever dare. It’s all the same: “What will Princess Maria Alexeyevna say?” and what will uncles-aunts say! What kind of person she is: neither here nor there! And what is the difference between educated and uneducated girls then? I’ve been keeping fast with zealous prayers for the whole winter and everything seems to be in vain.

April 4.

Kapay said Kulyan had told him that there were some letters which I had written to his girlfriend who he was going to marry. I assured him that I hadn’t written and wasn’t going to. Let her show if there are such letters. Kapay is my friend and I have hidden nothing from him. Why has shedone this? To cause trouble between us? I haven’t expected that Kulyan is able to lie as everyone else.

April 6.

Now, I return to the letters again. Kapay is the Chairman of the town Executive Committee. And it was no trouble for him to find the man who Kulyan read my letters addressed to her. This man turned out to be that red-haired student who showed the letters to his friends mockingly. They said she spent a night with this student at her licentious friend Zhakima – at the house near the market a month ago.

Unhappy my head! How I deceived myself! How I was deceived! I starved to drink pure water from an uncracked cup but it was lapped up by a mangy dog. A man in love is like a blind man, it’s stated right. How could I be so mistaken?! No, I won’t believe any word of an educated woman! Everything is buried: my sacrificial heart and inspiration for her sake, and readiness to give her all my heart!

April 8.

I wrote a letter to Kulyan with polite request but solicitation to return all my letters to me. And I said goodbye forever drily. I wrote onlythree phrases. She replied to me: “All your letters I tore up and threw away. Believe me”.

The diary hasn’t made the impression that comrade Baltash had expected. Akbilek considered the girl Kulyan to be at fault in this tawdry tale. Comrade Baltash insisted on Akbala’s fault. And the more he spoke about nasty traits of his friend the stronger anger has boiled in Akbilek. She wanted to hear nothing; it seemed the only one desire remained in her: go away, go away from me!

—And what is so special about this? Everything can happen to everyone.

No! He still insisted and kept saying that Akbala wasn’t the man she imagined... Being finally lost, she said something she didn’t expect herself to do:

—What to do here? And I’m not the one... maiden. I’m worse, I gave birth without husband!

And no mistake — she surprised comrade Baltash but still she couldn’t get rid of him. He didn’t leave her off, but, on the contrary began asking about the thing she let it slip out. He listened to her patiently and with words: “You did it right that told me everything” finally went away.

In a day Akbala sent a note to Akbilek with request to come to the park named after Marx. She came. Akbala, who appeared to the meeting, frowned and spoke through clenched teeth:

—You don’t want to tell me anything about your past, do you?

—No, I don’t — Akbilek replied being taken aback.

—Don’t bluff your way. After all you shared it with Baltash. I want to hear the truth. The thing that you told about you — is it true?

—It’s true — Akbilek replied.

—          If it’s so, then our ways have broken apart. I considered you to be a maiden. — and he moved away along culturally arranged park path.

Akbilek remained sitting alone on the wooden bench. She sat and couldn’t realize what had happened.

 

 

 

 

“The dawn of Zaysan” screamed twice. Fashionably dressed women went off the steamboat hurriedly. A slim woman with white face, black eyes, dressed in a beautifully tailored frock and white silk Panama hat on her head, stood on the deck leaning on the rails and watched the people bustling on the quay.

There was the last steamboat whistle. The woman went up to an open illuminator of the first-class cabin and said something. Those,whom she addressed to, went out the deck without delay. One of them was Baltash. His two travel companions worked with him once, studied with him somewhere. The friends from Semipalatinsk had already received Baltash with his spouse for three days. They took them to the island, strolled around the city, and now they spoke friendly talks on the steamboat lingering farewell. Baltash, as a true traveler, treated friends with beer and kept speaking with enthusiasm. He went with them to the nose of the steamboat.

The citizens of Semipalatinsk had solid reasons to express every sort of respect to the guest. After all, Baltash occupied one of Commissioner’s positions in the capital of Republic. It’s clear and excusable for province people to drag after the capital visitor as the kids after father who came from the market with bags full of presents.

Baltash is the prominent Communist, who is able to answer any political question. He’s experienced employee who prepares resolutions.Baltash is young but we won’t exaggerate if we call him a patriarch of the Soviet service while his friends still have to walk those stepswhich he has already passed climbing up. He served in Akmola and Semipalatinsk, and in Uralsk and in Bukey province. He’s familiar toall office intricacies, personnel matters. He mixes up with people of name without ceremonies, so we may say, the entire world lies at his feet. And although he isn’t related to the first Party leaders, his bossy chair is propped from all sides — it won’t reel. He can criticize the right person competently and refer to the appropriate authority in time, he can also defend his opinion at any meeting, and on the whole he is a statesman. Comrade Baltash is notable for respect to independent point of view. He likes to highlight: comrades, although comrade K. doesn’t march in step but goes his own way, I welcome him. He’s man of principle and always points comrades at their mistakes. Ifcomrades don’t react he can decide for the most radical making the break. But he also can be a friend.

Friends wondered:

—And how is Akbala there?

—What will happen to him? Akbala is safe and sound. He lives by his dreams. He takes as usual for any inconceivable issues and goes ahead posthaste. He discourses hobnob as before— and he smiled.

—And how is that one there?..

—Wah, forget about him! He considers himself as a great cunning fellow who is able to hose everone in the world. But where can you find fools in our times? He has just foxed himself. He isn’t up-and-coming comrade.

Here, Baltash has his own opinion of every man.

“The dawn of Zaysan” screamed for the third time. Baltash with the company came up to the owner of white Panama hat who was still standing at the rails. Have you guessed? It’s Akbilek.

—                    Good bye, comrades!.. So act this way! — Baltash gave a tight handshake to comrades.

—                    Good bye! Good bye! — Baltash’ friends said goodbye to Akbilek too and hurried to come off gangway to the quay.

“Bye-e!.. Bye-e!.. Bye-e!” — the steamboat tried to repeat people.

Seers-off with smiles and tears stared covetous eyes towards sailing passengers of the steamboat and shouted something indistinctive behind the leaving feeding-stuffs. The hearts beat high. The steamboat clapped wheel paddles on water like an old dog licked with its tongue on a thin soup. In the air over the quay the hats fluttered as crows and silk kerchiefs flitted as butterflies. The heads drooped and the tears ran down the cheeks. The passengers crowded at the back feeding-stuffs of the steamboat in such poses as: “We don’t want to part with you either”.

A military brass band thundered at the deck of the boat: copper pipes, drum and kettledrum played a cheerful march. Akbilek’s pulse became more rapid. Her soul reeled with free waves. She also waved with a white handkerchief. The heat squeezed as if she said goodbye to a very dear person to her, feeling endlessly sorry for her. The person dear to her was of course Kamilya.

“Poor Kamilya couldn’t come to the quay. If nothing terrible happened to her, all the same she has to live as a wrecked bird in a cage!” — Akbilek thought of her recalling the day spent on the Irtysh island. She remembered another day as well. It was the day of her marriage with Baltash.

The Registry Office — such offices appeared. They went to register marriage. The registrar was a black-moustached man. As soon as Akbilek’s name was told he put up his eyes on her and literally eyed her face keenly. Akbilek immediately recognized him. It was Black-moustached!

Auh! Holy men, ah!

Fearing that Baltash would suspect something Akbilek squinted at him. No, he stood happy.

Going out of the Registry Office Akbilek turned back to look at Black-moustached. He was looking behind her and did it as it seemed to her with warmth. Saying goodbye she faintly nodded him. He ran his fingers through hair and clenched a fist. Either he regretted orrepented... who knows.

The deck swayed. The tears welled from Akbilek’s eyes. Baltash hurried to embrace her shoulders:

— What’s the matter?

—                        Just... so... I feel sorry for poor Kamilya... How can I help her? Dark, unanswered... what is waiting for her? Gravedarkness... — Akbilek said with deep sorrow.

—                        Why are you upset over nothing? You can’t change everything in one day. Socialism is coming and has already brought equality, hasn’t it? Remember yourself — Baltash cheered up the spouse.

—It’s hard all the same... — Akbilek replied still breathing with anguish and loneliness of her sister that was left there... at the bank.

It is a July day with whitish sun on the Irtysh. Green banks. Comrade Baltash with the spouse are strolling along the deck breathing chestful of refreshing and winy wind like beaten kumiss. How can’t she believe his words about the equality that has come — which were said weightily by the executive official? Who but him should know everything? And Akbilek calmed down.

When they breathed fresh air to the full, they entered a saloon, shining with mirrors. The blonde woman with incredibly straight backperformed some piece of music on the piano at the stage between two columns. Four people with long noses sat at the small table in the corner to the right and played preference: “Go by...Go by...”. Their white collars and manners helped to guess they were the specimen from trade.

Baltash and Akbilek listening to performance of the slim pianist sat at the large table covered with snow-white tablecloth. Looking over the menu they began to make an order to a waitress who came up to them in a white lace apron. Baltash started reading the list of dishes asking: “Do you want?”

—And what will you eat?

—I know nothing of these steaks, I want some lamb.

The husband’s choice seemed very funny to Akbilek and she burst out laughing. When one of traders heard inextinguishable laughter, he took his eyes off cards and looked at laughing woman with curiosity. Since that moment he kept throwing obscene glance at Akbilek from time to time.

When she finished laughing Akbilek told:

—I’ll, perhaps, eat some partridge.

The spouses ate, after that they drank a couple of bottles of beer “Zhiguli” and having nice mood they went to their clean double cabin. They lay at springy bed and looking at the magazine “Laugh maker” roared with laughter.

—          Laughter is very useful for the digestive system— 
Baltash stated with an air of authority.

Life is pleasant, life is funny! Everything seems funny for the newly-weds. Akbilek became the lover to play tricks over husband. Andit’s nothing. He endures and has no shadow of offence.

—                   Have you noticed how this tradesman ate you with his eyes?

—                   Yes? And I hoped you didn’t notice it!

 

—                   You, my darling, be careful. These sharkers are dangerous— Baltash warns.

—                   And you, dear, be on guard. Today one commander picked up my handkerchief that had fallen on the deck.

Baltash is calm, after all what should he do?  He’s chosen and stuck to Akbilek himself. He’s calm because first of all he knew that Akbilek kept nothing a secret from him. She told everything what happened to her. When she came home from work at tea she told him all their conversations with colleagues and visitors. She trusted him all her thoughts, doubts and even dreams. Baltash also often shared his problems with her. It’s a secret but we’ll tell you: it was her who helped him write reports and lectures. She showed such talent. Shewrites wonderfully, accurately and with paragraphs. He should only make hot tea for her in time if she sits late after midnight.

On the third day the young spouses arrived at Zaysan. Tolegen with his wife and little daughter met them at the quay. They received state telegram “Wait”. The meeting was with ahs and ohs. There were hugs and kisses.

Baltash had been familiar with Akbilek’s elder brother before. Earlier he addressed him: “Comrade Tolegen” —and today he greeted him cordially as a relative: “Dear, how are you?”— and kissed on the lips. He kissed Tolegen’s spouse on the cheek.

Tolegen always considered Baltash to be a narrow-minded person. Now he doesn’t remember about this. Now Baltash is his brother-in-law. Besides, he works in the centre. What narrow-mindedness can be there in the new situation? He wouldn’t swagger, and that’s enough.

Two road carts were waiting. Tolegen holding the women’s arms placed the guests on soft seats and the carts rushed dashingly lifting clouds of dust through the streets of the town straight to his apartment.

They prepared the room for young couple. It had a carpet on the floor and the bed was lain with fresh linen. The festive table, heapedwith food, was set in the living-room. There was a variety of dishes there! Bawyrsaks and pies paramish, and samosa, and sweets and fruit drops, and roasted sunflower seeds, and pistachio, and biscuits baked with walnuts and every thing— was heaped on dishes... the bottles with red, blue and golden heads ganged at the buffet edge. They stretched their necks as swans on the pond with pleading call: “When, when will you cling to us!..”

Tolegen considered that vodka didn’t correspond to his brother-in-law’s bossy status and he bought a bottle of champaign for him for 25 roubles.

When the county under-Commissioners heard that the capital Commissioner arrived, they hurried to Tolegen’s home as faithful people to Mecca. They were wearing trousers bubbling on the knees and chewed up jackets. Halfpenny singers that run to the smell of cauldron and in-service flatterers and pleasers accustomed to toy as hens to millet happened to be there and then.

“Congratulations!”, “Come on!”, the movement there and here, creaking chairs, clatter of dishes, clang of knives and forks, clinking of wine glasses — altogether it made not home but fair whirlwind. The wine glasses made ting-a-ling, bubbling champaigne stroke noses with sweet wine spirit, vodka sloped over, and they began singing. The company started up, sure thing! Akbilek and Baltash are from the capital, isn’t it a reason to celebrate in grand style? Is there any weightier reason for joy?! “Pour vodka! Raise a glass! Start singing! Eh,have fun, people! Burn! Come on!”

In the excitement of celebration the company got drunk soon and in concert. The heads hung loose, legs were rubber, the walls of the room were swimming to the sky and when only the table began swaying, the guests clinging to one another started to leave. Akbilek pulled irresponsive husband to the bed and began to clear up from the table with her sister-in-law. The host of the feast also lay somewhere thanking Allah for the fact that everything had passed so well.

In two-three days Akbilek and Baltash being tired with invitations to visit and town ceremonies, moved further to the aul native world.

You can’t go up the mountains in the road carts but only in a saddle. But it’s not a trouble. Aren’t they the Kazakhs after all? They made fast and wise choice of reliably broke horses for the trip of honorable brother-in-law.

Tolegen’s wife with the child got onto grey dapple mare. She also arranged a folded blanket under her back. Tolegen sat on a chestnutstallion. Akbilek got quiet light ash-grey horse. Baltash rode on a night-crow horse. Local comrade that accompanied the guests also went not on foot.

They left early in the morning. Akbilek smiled watching her sister-in-law, who wasn’t used to riding, fidget on the horse. She held a saddlebow with her one hand and with another one she either drew bridle over or lost it. Tolegen had to settle his little daughter in front of him.

It was a warm sunny day. At midday the travelers stopped to have a rest in an aul that nestled on the mountain slope. They ate lamb, drank kumiss and got onto saddles again. Now they didn’t move so quick as they did in the morning hours. The sister-in-law suffered, hardly holding on her mare. And Akbilek pinched her horse cheerfully with light touches of a whip. The girl dozed airily nodding her head. They rode her by turns.

By the evening the women began complaining for thirst and riders turned to an aul at the bank of a lake. In the centre of the settlement there was a large house. A dozen of foals were hanging around it. A white yurt was fixed up to the right from the house. The travelers stopped at this yurt. They called up a teenager that appeared at the doors and asked about a host. The youngster answered that the farm belonged to Bekbolat. When Akbilek heard this name her heart pounded down and collapsed. The first impulse was to run away from here as far as as possible despite everything but desire to see her might-have-been groom got the better and she waited for his arrival silently.

The greenhorn disappeared and instead of him Bekbolat came having a foxy treukh shifted aside. Chapan was thrown over one shoulder. Looking frowningly at the unexpected guests he moved half-way and as a token of greeting he took the bridle of Baltash’s horse. When he met Akbilek’s eyes he got pale but greeted both her and her brother as old kith. He hurried to bring the guests into the yurt.

A young swarthy snub woman was sitting in front of a pile of blankets busy with sewing. Her figure stroke Akbilek’s eyes at once. Young hostess also first of all looked over the women with displeasure. She obviously didn’t like that the women without turning an eyelash came in and sat next to the men, nearly knee to knee! Her glance was struck with one thought: “Look at them! They are dressedout in such a way! What do they fancy themselves? Ah, damn you!..”

Bekbolat immediately sent the youngster to the large house to bring kumiss. He himself spread a table cloth before the guests and then began to churn the refreshing drink which appeared in a big bowl. He didn’t dare to look at Akbilek any more. He was timid as if some fault before her had lain upon him. On the contrary, his wife with her short nose in the air left the yurt showing that she shouldn’t have any thought to wheedle to any sort of the townspeople, like – you spin as you wish, ragged clown, auh! Bekbolat looked behind her with hatred.

A guest can drop in for a minute and see the entire life. Akbilek thought that Bekbolat didn’t love his spouse and she felt sorry for him. Her several meetings with him came alive again in her mind but this time they weren’t so vivid to worry her as before. And in the next breath they became a thing of the past irretrievably without any shadow of regret. What are former dreams of a girl? They are like sand under woman’s feet. She walks without sinking in it but breathing with new desires. And Bekbolat wasn’t the same either — he’s become heavy, a beard has grown to the moustache. There were wrinkles at the mouth and he seemed to be shorter in height. And what about conversation?

— Er, well then, you go to your relatives... What’s in the wind in the town?..We’ll slaughter a lamb, be our guests! — that’s all he said.

Fearing that Baltash could guess about her close although old relations with Bekbolat as well as worthless now feelings might revive in Bekbolat all of a sudden, Akbilek said in Russian: “Let’s go!” Paying no attention to the continuous requests to stay, everybody stood up and went to still saddled horses.

They rode in silence for a while. Akbilek looked at her brother from time to time but due to his impenetrable face it was impossible to understand what he was thinking about. He was busy with the choice of topic for conversation which would be able to arouse interlocutors to any memories by no means. When he finally talked to the sister he made sure with relief that she had understood his prudent plan.

Five horsemen and horsewomen on the mountain slope are like nothing more than ants. They weren’t even seen in the mighty grasses of Altai highland at all. They passed a ravine eaten by the caves, went past the rocks hanging over them as camel humps, rode around the boulders polished by the winds as giantesses’ breasts... Here, at the very peaks of Altai Akbilek has realized like never before this hour that the murder of her mother and violence over her, and the stepmother’s bullying, the hours in the darkness in the hut of old Barnet remained there — far beneath — and would never disturb her any more. She brought her heart up to the seven heavens. There in space she washed it in the golden bowl and was born again— pure, different.

 

 

 

 

Altai is the entire world— Akbilek, stretching out as a string, sees in the sunset rays: the horses rush with neigh and roar throwing up manes along the crystal waves of Markakol; the mares fuff the foals and involve them to the mountain meadows; the foxy treukhs of herdsmen burn red; on the slope closer to the bank the almond women heads in patterned kerchiefs flicker; the green dresses outline the curves of bodies; and everything is seen like through the spectacles with yellow glass. It has golden light and floats.

The dog barking and sheep bleat is heard in the corrals of the near aul. The goatlings call their horny mothers with plaintive voices. The lark rings in the sky. And the swifts fly near the ground and guard people. Three girls that go to bring water begin singing rolling:

 

                 The line of reeds hid an earring,

                For the sister an unexpected stranger arrived.

               Fingers are cut with double rings,

               I feel sorry for her to heartache at time...

 

God knows from where from a boy flew out on the stallion with wavering tail. He saw Akbilek with companions and turned back to dash to the aul.

Aqsaqal Mamyrbai’s dream was to see the daughter-in-law. Before Tolegen’s rare arrivals he fixed up the white yurt for the newly-weds hoping that this time he would certainly bring his wife. It rose up near Aqsaqal’s house this time too — the old man had been expecting.

The boy shouted straight from the horse:

—Uncles are coming! And Akbilek is with them!

When Aqsaqal heard long-awaited news he gave a start and began dangling around the rooms in a fuss exclaiming:

—Eh! What is he crying there!

He hadn’t seen Akbilek since the day she left with brother. He heard she studied but only frowned with displeasure without any word: “What a girl can learn?” She seemed to have disappeared from the face of the earth for him. He only remembered that he had suchdaughter. He didn’t think of her and didn’t imagine that he would ever see her again. What should he do now? Will he have to stay at home? Or to meet half-way. How to greet? It’s impossible to sit as if nothing happens. Will she ask forgiveness? Such bad break has fallen upon him.

Nothing comes across the mind but the woman at the window started cackling:

—Here, they appeared! Four people! No... five... two women... I suppose one is the daughter-in-law...

When Aqsaqal heard about the daughter-in-law he wasn’t able to sit at the place as if he was pushed to his side. Remembering the famous saying that even six-year old child is met when he comes from far away, the old man has to go towards and greet him first, Aqsaqal Mamyrbai dared to leave the house and meet guests as is right and proper.

The same minute he went out they arrived en masse. A woman in white dress looked at him from a light ash grey horse. Sarah settled in front of her. While he was lost in guesses: “How can it be” — Urkiya was alredy hugging her and kissing on the forehead. She turned out to be Akbilek. To his surprise she was the first who both men and the elders of the aul approached to. Seeing that everyone treated her with respectful attention, Aqsaqal decided to change his hostility to daughter.

Tolegen came up, greeted and, pointing at Baltash who followed, him introduced him:

—Here’s your son-in-law. His name is Baltash.

—Er, how do you do, dear? — Aqsaqal said dumbfounded.

And he couldn’t grasp what to say else, only awkward words were spinning on the tip of his tongue: “Congratulations!” Akbilek, leading Sarah by the hand, came up to father after her brother. She stretched her arm to him.

—Is that you, Akbilek, dear? — Aqsaqal voice trembled and the eyes got wet. He could hardly choke back his tears after he had taken a deep breath.

Akbilek stood sad without raising her eyes.

—How are you? Are you healthy, dear? — Aqsaqal asked her.

In the meantime the aul women took the daughter-in-law to the yurt for newly-weds, they walked around it and brought her in there. The aul people began to approach greeting. After Aqsaqal shook hands with everybody, he ordered:

—Enough, make way for them! Let them come in the house!

The guests came into the rooms. Aqsaqal was with them too. The women rushed to look for a veil for daughter-in-law but Aqsaqal stopped their bustling:

—Leave it, don’t rush here! — And he said to daughter-in-law: —Don’t be shy, darling! You can do without it! Any ceremonies are out of place now.

Meanwhile the latter one didn’t even think to be shy. And the women kept making noise:

—Eh, Aqsaqal, what the old man he is! Children have arrived! Gracious living! Well, are you pleased? And this fellow is the son-in-law then! We wish the young couple to live long and love! The blessing to all your children!

Aqsaqal was very pleased indeed.

They brought in traveling things, housed in. Aqsaqal went outside and butchered a lamb together with workers in the moonlight and asked the brother:

—What clan is the son-in-law from? Have you found out?

Amir, who had already learned everything about Baltash from Tolegen, could hardly wait to gossip about the son-in-law.

—He’s from Semey, from the Tobykty people. He’s occupied a big position, a gentleman! He’s at the state service in Orenburg! — he praised.

Aqsaqal’s former feelings disappeared into a thin air, his mood lifted — he was glad insufferably.

When in the morning he looked at Akbilek and Marisha returning from the walk out of the aul he thought rather pleased: “Son has well-deserved wife — she’s stout, white and walks smoothly”. He was told she wasn’t the Kazakh but from the Estek people but he decided the Estek to be certainly some Kazakh clan. When Aqsaqal saw Sarah who raised Tolegen’s little daughter on her arms and she was going to go out, he said:

—Give her to me, honey! — and he smelled the kid’s neck tenderly, kissed her on the face.

The mood was so nice that the heart was already singing.

—Hey, thank to the God, forgive us!

Tolegen and Baltash were about to go out too. They put on storm coats and had hats slant a bit. Aqsaqal saw them off with the glance and thought: “I guess time belongs to such people”. And he wanted to live long having such gentlemen as relatives.

While the young people were walking and drinking tea at their place, Aqsaqal dropped in to the stable and ordered to beat up milk of all seven mares, returned and checked strictly how the rooms had been swept and cleaned. He ordered the wife to spread the especially thick blanket for Akbilek.

He waited patiently for an hour and sent his brother to bring the youth. He invited Tolegen and Baltash who appeared at the entrance to sit at the dastarkhan’s head and seated Akbilek with Marisha to his right hand.

The stepmother began to pour kumiss into red drinking bowls. She did it generously and thoroughly not depriving even neighbors and children. And she simply stuck to Marisha:

—Drink, honey, drink! Let me pour some more for you!

And she didn’t ever dare to look at Akbilek’s face, only bent stretching to reach her drinking bowl. Aqsaqal was never tired to treat the son-in-law:

—Why don’t you drink? What a great kumiss!

—I’ve drunk enough! — Baltash replied.

Aqsaqal responded to this thoughtfully and sadly:

—The urban life leaves nothing from man’s stomach.

Aqsaqal sat pretty: what great son he had! What great son-in law! What great daughter-in-law! What daughter! Who else could boast his life is such a success present times?! If he spitted over the threshold this time— he was sure: his spit would hit just dog’s nose exactly.

Well, it goes without saying, Mamyrbai organized the toy! He wanted to slaughter a mare- three-year old one but Tolegen insisted on a yearling. Furthermore, ten kindred houses slaughtered a lamb each. Five Markakol auls celebrated Aqsaqal Mamyrbai’s holiday! The cauldron couldn’t house the meat, kumiss was flooding almost to the lake, the wrestlers played with their shoulders, the riders seized in kokpar, and singers didn’t leave dombra off...

It took some doing to celebrate. Akbilek with her sister-in-law hung over the yurt a red fabric and began teaching women reading and writing. The men — Tolegen and Baltash — took higher: they led the men to the heights of political awareness.

Akbilek was soft, talkative and quiet to father. Mamyrbai couldn’t imagine what else about to speak to Akbilek if not about forgiveness. He noted:

—Akbilek, dear, auh! Why to bother yourself so much? Have a rest. Is it worth to teach women to read?

—                    Father, it’s such a time now.

—                    They can’t be like you all the same!

Akbilek didn’t argue. Her thoughts were occupied with Sarah. Sister was twelve; she was already wearing long dresses. It was time to go to school for her. She would certainly take her to the town. But it was more complicated with the brother. Kazheken upset her with the fact that during the years of her absence at home he had become deceitful and revengeful. Gloomy and restless fellow— he aggrieved her and disturbed her. Well, then let Tolegen take care of him.

Akbilek often went to the lake bank with Urkiya who kept treating her with the same tenderness. One of such days an unhurried conversation somehow made Akbilek ask about the man who pointed the Russians at her:

—Auntie, what happened to this... Mukash?

—Haven’t you heard? That winter he went out of his wintering and disappeared.

—                    How could he disappear?

—                    Who knows? Perhaps someone killed him.

—                    He brought much evil to the people.

—                    So does evil return.

Well, how could they know that one known to us day the sentence had been passed upon him by Aben Matayin and it had been executed by his people as well.

The women sank into a reverie for a while and were silently watching Sarah playing with Tolegen’s daughter on the bank sand. A conversation about girls seemed to suggest itself but Urkiya could only talk about her sweet son — Iskander. Iskander is a handsome boy with an attitude.

She loved him madly. According to the mother he was clever and wise: he composed songs and knew time for play, he could look for sheep and hold a calf. Except for he was hot-tempered. If he didn’t like something then he got back up and agreed not for anything — he would lay about himself until his arms were caught, and if he was knocked down, he would fight back with legs and his head.

And this time he rushed to fight with a boy who made his urban sister cry. That boy was older and larger him but he was taken aback and ran away. Urkiya got scared and waved with her arms. And Akbilek said with enthusiasm:

—Iskander, come to me, darling! My brother, aynalaiyn¹! — and she gave him a very tight hug and kissed.

Iskander writhed himself free and ran to water. Akbilek without taking eyes off him asked:

—Auntie, why is he Iskander? In Russian it’s Alexander.

Urkiya answered quietly:

¹ - aynalaiyn – dear, sweet, honey - addressing the younger people with affection,