The Exile: A novel about Taras Shevchenko Read online

  The Exile

  A novel about Taras Shevchenko

  Zinaida Tulub

  Contents

  Copyright

  Part 1

  1. In the black yurt

  2. Arrival in Orenburg

  3. To the Jailiaou!

  4. The First Friends

  5. Kuljan

  6. The Visit to The Gerns

  7. On the Way to Orsk

  8. Barimta

  9. Private 3rd Company

  10. Where the Alatau Sleeps Under the Ice

  11. The Consolation

  12. The Taming

  13. Days and Thoughts

  14. A Visit to the Bai

  15. The Soul of the Steppe

  16. The Ups and Downs of Life

  17. Kozlovsky’s Advice

  18. The Battue

  Part 2

  19. To the Blue Sea

  20. From Orsk to Raïm

  21. The Schooner Constantine

  22. Lieutenant Butakov

  23. On Kosaral

  24. The Winterers

  25. Two Schemes

  26. The Raffle

  27. The Big Toi

  28. Thoughts, Conversations and Arguments

  29. An Unexpected Role

  30. Kuljan’s Wedding

  31. The Sailors’ Song

  32. Among Friends

  33. An Artist From the Capital

  34. The Polish Circle

  35. At the Turn of Two Years

  36. On the Outskirts of Orenburg

  37. The “Showdown”

  Glossary Of Kazakh Words Used In The Book

  The Exile

  A novel about Taras Shevchenko

  by Zinaida Tulub

  English translation by Anatole Bilenko

  Book created by Max Mendor

  © 2015, Glagoslav Publications, United Kingdom

  Glagoslav Publications Ltd

  88-90 Hatton Garden

  EC1N 8PN London

  United Kingdom

  www.glagoslav.com

  ISBN: 978-1-78437-963-6 (Ebook)

  This book is in copyright. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  Part I

  1

  In the black yurt

  Djantemir Bai had pitched the yurts of his aul in a valley several versts from the town of Orsk. It was a fine place for wintering, and it was not the first time Djaniemir had come here. A dense growth of reeds stretched along he banks of the river Or. The herds grazed on a rolling plain nearby, where the obliging wind swept away any extra snow so that the sheep and horses could help themselves to forage in winter. And when a snowstorm broke, they could hide in the valley where, apart from the yurts, stood Djantemir’s house and a number of sheds for his goods.

  When the frosts grew severe, Djantemir moved from his yurt into the house for three or four months, but as soon as the thaw set in he returned to his white yurt. The black yurts of his kith and kin, servants and tyulenguts were scattered along the slope of the valley in strict compliance with seniority and dependence on the bai: the newer the yurt was, the nearer it stood to the bai’s white yurts; while farther away, on the very edge of the aul, huddled the old, black yurts of the poor, the jataks, who for offal from his board and for old rags slaved for him from dawn to dusk. In the farthest corner, almost on the pasture ground, stood the black yurt of the herder Shakir, who was as old as his home, which barely withstood the thrust of the steppe winds assailing it on all sides through the threadbare felt, tunduk, and the poorly fitting entrance flap.

  Shakir was well over seventy years old. Nobody in the aul, however, knew his exact age. He was an outlander to them. For thirty years he had been grazing the bai’s sheep and horses, and now for the first time he had been visited by a prolonged illness.

  Just before the Russian Christmas, a snowstorm had suddenly broken out. The shepherds were late in driving the flock to the refuge of the valley. The frightened sheep burst headlong into the steppe, while the confused shepherds, pressed in between the animals, rushed about helplessly.

  When the flock stampeded past the herd of the white-bearded Shakir, the old herder immediately sized up the situation. Whistling to his dogs, he overtook the flock on horseback and met it with loud shouts, whiplashes and a vicious attack from his trained dogs. The flock was forced to a halt, turned in the right direction and headed away toward the valley with no losses.

  Old Shakir paid dearly for rescuing the flock. An acute attack of pneumonia brought him down three days later. His wife, Kumish, gave him hot tea with milk to drink, rubbed him with sheep fat, and put little bundles with hot sand all round him. Shakir pulled through, but he was not his healthy self anymore. He was so weak that he lay still for hours or was shaken by a hacking cough. And in the night he was drenched with a wearying, slimy sweat.

  On learning about the rescue of his flock, the delighted Djantemir became generous and gave Shakir, apart from two sheep, a thin-legged colt from one of the herd’s best mares. The colt was pathetically weak, because Djantemir’s son Iskhak had been riding the pregnant mare so hard the previous year that her newborn could not get on its feet for three days and was already marked for the butch­er’s knife, when the children tearfully begged to have it spared.

  Shakir was not a fine herdsman for nothing. He realized at once that a handsome horse would grow out of this little weak colt, and when the bai sent him the present, the old man’s heart missed a beat for joy; he ordered his wife to crush two handfuls of millet and cook porridge for the colt every day.

  “Shakir, my dear, you would have been better off if you cared more for yourself,” old Kumish pleaded with him. “There’s only the skin and bones left of you, while you refuse to eat horse meat! You’re sick. You must get well. Nobody is going to work for us, and without work we’ll die of hunger.”

  “Never mind! I’ll be all right. Mark my words — he’ll grow up into a horse that’ll win any baiga,” Shakir per­sisted, breathless for his shattering cough. “We won’t have to feed him long; the snow is melting already — and that means spring is on its way. We’ll go to the jailiaou, and there he’ll fend for himself.”

  Kumish, swallowing her tears, meekly crushed the millet in a large wooden mortar, and added dung to the fire to keep it going.

  While Shakir was ill, his son, Jaisak, tended the bai’s herd. The first few days the old man explained lengthily to his son what to do under this or that circumstance, but eventually he realized that Jaisak understood everything quite well himself and there was no need to worry about him.

  With the advent of spring, the wolf packs became ag­gressive and sneaked up closer and closer to human dwell­ings. From his herders Djantemir started receiving ever increasing reports of a couple of fat-tailed rams or sheep having disappeared in the night, and at times a baby camel or colt was missing. Djantemir left for the Orsk Fortress to ask its commandant, General Isaiev, to stage a grand wolf hunt. But the general replied that a part of his gar­rison had marched off to fight the bands of the rebel Kenessary Kasimov, while the remaining troops had never hunted for wolves. But taking to heart the bai’s predica­ment, the general presented him a fine hunting rifle and two pistols. Back home, Djantemir gave the rifle to his son Iskhak, who was always sent to lend a hand to the herders when the wolves’ howls were heard too close to the pastures.

  Isk
hak was still a youth and a general favorite of the entire family. He complied with Djantemir’s orders re­luctantly, holding that his father had enough of his own herders and shepherds. Once he got the rifle, however, he was eager to become a good marksman as fast as pos­sible so he could distinguish himself at some great toi. On learning that his friend, also a bai’s son, was getting mar­ried in the neighboring aul, Iskhak diligently practiced shooting for several days, after which he mounted his horse, and without so much as saying a word to anyone, galloped off to the wedding, leaving Jaisak alone to look after the herd.

  That night a pack of wolves sneaked up to the herd much closer than it had at any other time before. The fright­ened horses nervously pricked their ears, listening intently to the wolves’ howls. And when the green dots of wolf eyes glittered in the dark, the horses stopped grazing alto­gether and gathered in a huddle: the colts and mares in the middle, the stallions in a tight circle around them to hoof off the attacking beasts.

  The sky was curtained with heavy, black clouds hiding the moon. Everything around was gloomy, the color of lead-gray. Six dogs growled furiously and tore at their leashes. Jaisak felt his mount tremble as it tried to move to one side, while the wolves leaped about quite near, their glit­tering eyes flashing against the rippling snow here and there. They looked like weightless and silent apparitions flit­ting amid the snowdrifts. Suddenly a huge wolf the size of a six-month-old calf came over the nearest snowdrift in a high bound and landed right in front of Jaisak. The young man did not lose his wits: his sling went into a whining whirl over his head, and the heavy stone hit the wolf’s ribs with a crunch. The animal jumped into the air, yelped from pain, and then melted into the murk like a lifeless shadow.

  That instant, at the other end of the herd, a piercing scream of agony rent the air. Jaisak unleashed the wolf­hounds and rushed in the direction of the scream.

  “Ait! Ait!” he shouted to the dogs, spurring his horse and reaching for his soyil.

  One of the wolves had crept up to the herd very close, and the moment a barely perceptible chink appeared be­tween the cruppers of two stallions, he jumped through it and sank his fangs into the side of one stallion. Seized with unbearable pain, the stallion reared and froze for an instant like a motionless statue, the wolf still hanging on to the horse’s side and tearing pieces of blood-dripping flesh out of the defenseless belly.

  “Ait! Ait!” Jaisak shouted, rushing to the rescue.

  But the stallion had dropped to the ground by then and was writhing in the throes of death. Half a dozen wolves attacked him at once, the wolfhounds pounced on them, and seconds later everything turned into a confused, blood-mad, viciously growling and teeth-snapping mass. Chunks of hair and flesh, splashes of blood flew on all sides, more and more wolves leaped from behind the snowdrifts and pounced on the scuffling heap or on the herd which in­stantly backed away and gathered in a tight huddle again. The horses neighed, snorted, kicked furiously and trampled the wolves. The vapor hovering over the fighting animals reeked of blood.

  Jaisak killed two wolves with powerful blows of his soyil. One of the wolfhounds was lying with a ripped throat in a puddle of blood, and two wolves finished him off in a flash. Jaisak kept twisting on his horse like a gudgeon, dealing mortal blows to the wolves when suddenly the shaft of his soyil cracked and broke to pieces. Jaisak threw it away and swiftly grabbed his heavy shakpar; although it was not set with steel spikes like the ancient Russian blud­geons, its heavy blows cracked the wolves’ ribs and skulls. Jaisak felt that victory was already close at hand when a young wolf suddenly jumped onto his hack and started to tear at his sheepskin coat furiously. Casting aside the shak­par, Jaisak drew his knife and hit the wolf’s throat, chest, and any other place he could reach. The wolf’s fangs snapped by his ear like scissors. At last the fangs reached Jaisak’s flesh. Blood streamed down his shoulder and side. His eyes went dim from pain, but he kept hitting the wolf with the knife until the animal dropped into the snow. Mad with fright and free of the restraint of the bridle, Jaisak’s horse carried him at a gallop to the aul.

  Jaisak was more dead than alive when he was taken out of the saddle. The aul’s young men rode to the rescue of the herd which, unresponsive to the human voices, beat off the attacks of the depleted wolf pack together with the wolfhounds. On the snow lay six dead wolves and two hounds, and a third hound was at the point of death as he frantically pawed the snow. Two she-wolves were also bleeding profusely and crawling behind the snowdrifts when the jigits arrived from the ail and killed them; the rest of the wolves growled and snarled at people as they finished eating the dead horse and tore at the flesh of a still living mare, as its agonized neighing carried through the night.

  It was only before dawn that the jigits brought together the whole herd, in which one more horse and colt were missing. On learning that Iskhak had gone to the toi with the rifle and left the herd in charge of Jaisak only, Djantemir flew into a rage and sent two axakals to Iskhak with strict orders that he return to the aul at once. He then took away the rifle, and personally gave his son a whipping, as though Iskhak were only a small boy. Djantemir had old Abdullah sent to Jaisak to have a look at his wounds and heal them, and he ordered that his daughter Kuljan take food to Jaisak and Shakir every day.

  Time dragged. Shakir and Jaisak were lying side by side, covered with all the rugs and worn clothes that could be found in their black yurt. The first days Jaisak felt so bad he could neither speak nor think, and Shakir only sighed sadly, listening to him moaning, while old Kumish started to moan to herself against her will as she swayed from side to side, tears of pity and fear for her only son trickling down her swarthy age-furrowed cheeks.

  As the sun climbed higher and higher over the steppe, the snow melted and turned gray. The mounds of snow, thawed as they were on the southern side, took on the peculiar shapes of white wolves sitting on their haunches. At midday their pointed muzzles dwindled as water dripped from them onto the ground. On one slope of the valley the earth had pushed out of the snow, and the first snow­drop burst into bloom. On her way from the river with a full water skin, Kuljan plucked the snowdrop and took it to the black yurt of old Shakir as she carried food there.

  “That’s for you, Shakir Ata, the first flower. See how warm it is outdoors: snowdrops are blooming in the steppe,” she said, smiling kindly at the old herder. “Soon we’ll move to the jailiaou, but this year it’ll be a long trek, right to the river Illi where the mountains rise over the clouds and there are lots of berries and nuts and the grass is green and fresh the whole summer long.”

  The girl wanted to cheer up the old man, but unwittingly she touched upon a secret and painful thought that had been troubling Shakir for a long time now. Since Shakir was not working, Djantemir would not give him either a horse, camel or even a scrawny gray donkey. Shakir’s old camel could barely carry the yurt, while his two-year-old colt had not been broken in yet, and there was no one to do it now. Traveling on foot was now out of the question for Shakir. How then would he get to the jailiaou? His strength was waning drop by drop every day. Besides, Jai­sak was still bad. A month and a half he had been lying motionless, the wound would not heal, although old Ab­dullah had set the bones pretty well and frequently rubbed the wound with a rust-red concoction of algae taken from the Aral Sea to disinfect it and make it heal faster. So where would he and his family go during the long and blistering hot summer in the steppe? Shakir thought with despair. Would they have to stay behind at the kistau as jataks to watch over Djantemir’s house and sheds and sow millet on the virgin lands?

  Shakir fell to brooding as his toothless gums slowly chewed the mutton the girl had brought, and a heavy gloom gripped his heart. He realized that he was dying: not without reason had his mouth been suddenly filled with salty blood several times already, without him coughing or feeling any pain. At first he spat it out and covered the little red blotch with earth, but then he started swallowing the blood. Kumish, however, saw quite well that her
hus­band was wasting away, and whenever the aul women inquired about his health she only sighed sadly.

  After eating the last piece of mutton, Shakir wiped the bowl clean with his fingers, licked each finger, and gave the empty bowl back to Kuljan.

  “Thank you, girl. Let your life be as bright and sunny as this first day of spring. Give my thanks to the bai for not forgetting an old man.”

  Kuljan smiled in response, and taking the other bowl from Jaisak, slipped out of the yurt.

  “A fine girl,” Shakir said musingly. “I wish you had such a wife, Jaisak. But the bai would hardly marry her to a beggar.”

  “She is already engaged, ata. Soon her wedding will be held, I suppose. To tell you the truth, though, nothing’s been heard of her betrothed, as if he didn’t exist at all.”

  The old man did not say anything in reply. He lay there and listened intently to the wheezing of his disease-ravaged chest, and recalled the years of long ago.

  “You know, Jaisak,” he spoke suddenly, “there was a time when we were not that poor. I was born here, in the Great Steppe, and then moved to the Bukei’s Horde beyond the Urals. Djantemir would not have dared make me work for him then. I had a white yurt, big and fine. And I had two thousand sheep, a whole herd of camels, and two wives, older than your mother. It was a big family I had…”

  “Yes, I know,” Jaisak remarked. “Apa told me about it. I even remember how we crossed a big, big river on sheaves of reed one dark night. And then,” Jaisak added uncer­tainly, “I seem to have had brothers. Yes, two brothers and a little sister with red ribbons in her plaits.” He looked inquiringly at his father.

  Shakir kept silent.

  “Yes, you had,” he said in a dull voice, at length, and propped himself up on his elbows with an effort, fastening the ragged robe at his chest. “I’ll tell you everything. You must know the truth.”

  “In this steppe,” he began, frequently falling silent to regain his breath, “the pastures are poorer and drier than on the right bank of the Ural. The wet meadows there are quite rich, the grass juicy and dense, and along the Ahtub and the Caspian Sea there are boundless expanses of reed. Just the land to enjoy living in and growing prosperous. But wherever there is grass and reeds in plenty there are a lot of rich men with hordes of servants and tyulenguts, and even more cattle. They seize the best lands and pas­tures by force. When I was as young as you, we freely crossed the Ural to winter on the far bank, and came back here in spring. But with time the Russian czar prohibited the auls from the Great Steppe from moving to the right bank of the Ural.