Zuleikha

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Zuleikha Page 5

by Guzel Yakhina


  They hadn’t made an appearance in a long time now; Yulbash had calmed. During that period that had the peculiar name “New Economic Policy,” peasants were allowed to cultivate the land without worry and were even permitted to hire wage laborers. After listing so scarily, it seemed that life was leveling out again. Then last year Soviet power unexpectedly took on an appearance that was familiar to all the villagers and so wasn’t frightening: former wage laborer Mansur Shigabutdinov became the head of the rural council. He wasn’t born locally – he dragged his aging mother and the bachelor living with her after him, from the next canton, long ago. Malicious gossips joke that he hasn’t ever in his life had the honor of saving up bride-money for a good fiancée. They call him Mansurka-Burdock behind his back. Mansurka persuaded several people to join his own Party cell and meets with them in the evenings to discuss things. He organizes gatherings and enthusiastically summons villagers into an association with the scarily named kolkhoz, but hardly anyone listens to him on that collective farm: only those as needy as he is go to the gatherings.

  But now it has happened again, the signaling knock at night, like the nervous beating of an unhealthy heart. Zuleikha looks out the window. Lights are burning in the neighboring houses, so Yulbash isn’t sleeping; it’s preparing for the arrival of uninvited guests.

  So where should she hide those eggs? They’ll crack in the cold, so she can’t put them in the attic, the hallway, or the bathhouse. They need to be concealed in warmth. They can’t go in the men’s quarters because the Red Hordesmen will turn everything upside down there; that had already happened more than once. In the women’s quarters? Those tyrants won’t be shy; they’ll search everything there, too. Maybe with the Vampire Hag? The unbidden guests had often faltered under the old woman’s stern, unseeing gaze, so searches in her mother-in-law’s house were usually short and rushed.

  Zuleikha carefully grasps the bulky birch container and darts out to the hallway. There’s no time to mill around by the door asking permission to enter so she opens it and glances in. The Vampire Hag is sleeping, snoring loudly, her cleft chin directed at the ceiling, where light is cast in blossoms of whimsical flowers: the kerosene lamps are burning in case Murtaza gets the urge to look in on his mother this evening. Zuleikha steps over a fat log at the threshold and scampers into the area behind the stove.

  And what a nice stove it is! It’s as huge as a house, covered in smooth, almost glassy, decorative tiles (even on the women’s side) with two deep kettles that are never used: one’s for preparing food, the other’s for boiling water. If only Zuleikha had kettles like this. She’s been struggling along her whole life with just one. She places the container on a ledge and removes the lid from a kettle. Now she’ll pile the eggs inside, sprinkle them with straw, and bolt back to her own house. Nobody will even notice …

  The door opens with a squeak as Zuleikha piles on the last egg. Someone’s stepping heavily over the threshold; the floor-boards groan from the strain. Murtaza! Her hand cramps from the unexpectedness, the shell crunches very quietly, and the cold, slippery liquid slowly oozes through her fingers. Her heart turns into the same kind of thick goo as the egg that burst in her hand and it’s flowing along her ribs, to somewhere below, toward the chill in her belly.

  Should she leave now? And admit she intruded into her mother-in-law’s quarters without permission? Confess to the broken egg?

  “Eni.” She can hear Murtaza’s low voice.

  The old woman’s snore is stifled and stops right away. The bedsprings make an extended moan – the Vampire Hag is raising her large body as if she’s heard her son’s call.

  “My darling,” she says quietly, in a hoarse, half-awake voice. “Is that you?”

  Hanging in the long silence are the sounds of the old woman’s body cumbersomely settling and Murtaza’s heavy sigh.

  Without breathing, Zuleikha carefully uses the rim of the kettle to wipe the slippery egg from her hand. Hugging the stove and pausing after every movement, she takes several soundless steps to the side, leaning her cheek against the warm tiles and pulling back the folds of the curtain with her index finger. Now she sees them, mother and son, through the gap in the curtain. The Vampire Hag is sitting very straight on the bed as always, with her feet on the floor, but Murtaza is kneeling and his gleaming head is pressed into his mother’s belly, arms firmly clasping her large body. Zuleikha has never seen Murtaza genuflecting. He would not forgive her if she were to come out now.

  “Ulym,” says the Vampire Hag, breaking the silence, “I sense something’s happened.”

  “Yes, Eni. Something’s happened,” says Murtaza, not tearing his face from his mother’s belly, muffling his voice. “And it’s been going on for a long time. If you only knew what’s been happening here …”

  “Tell your old mother everything, Murtaza, my boy. Even if I can’t hear or see, I feel everything and can console you.” The Vampire Hag is patting her son’s back, just as people stroke overexcited stallions after races to calm them.

  “How are we supposed to live, Eni? To live!” Murtaza rubs his forehead against his mother’s knees, as if burying it deeper. “They keep robbing, robbing, robbing. They’re seizing everything. When you’ve nothing left, and the only thing to do is to join the forefathers, they let you catch your breath. And when things begin to recover and you lift your head a little, they’re robbing you again. My strength is gone and my heart has no patience!”

  “Life is a complex road, ulym. Complex and long. Sometimes you want to sit down at the side of the road and stretch your legs, just let everything roll on past even if it’s to the netherworld itself; but sit down and stretch, that’s allowed! It’s why you came to me. Sit with me for a while, rest, take a breath.” The old woman is speaking slowly, drawing out her words, as if she’s singing or reading a prayer to the beat of the pendulum in the grandfather clock. “You’ll find the strength to stand later and get on your way. For now, though, I sense that you’re tired, sweetheart, you’re very tired.”

  “There were whispers today that something’s afoot again. I don’t know if I can even face getting out of bed tomorrow. People are thinking that they’re either going to start taking away land or cattle or both at the same time. The seed grain’s hidden but what’s the use if they take the land? Where would I sow it, the potato patch? I’ll die first. I’ll sink my teeth in and fight and I won’t give it up! Let them register us as kulaks, I won’t give it up! It’s mine!” He pounds his fist on the bed frame, and its high metallic voice sings plaintively in response.

  “I know you’ll think of something. You’ll sit now, talk with me, and think of something. You’re strong, Murtaza, my boy. Strong and smart, like I was.” The old woman’s voice is warming, sounding younger. “Oooh, I was something … When your father caught sight of me, he drooled all the way to his belt and forgot to wipe it up, that’s how much he wanted to mount me. Men like you, real men, are like rams. When you see someone who’s a little stronger than yourselves, you immediately want to start butting heads, trampling, and winning. What fools!”

  She smiles and the web of wrinkles on her face trembles, playing in the gentle kerosene light. Murtaza is breathing more evenly, more calmly.

  “I used to say to him: ‘You need to watch yourself biting into this apple, you skinny-legged thing. You’ll break off your teeth!’ And he says to me, ‘I have lots of teeth.’ And I tell him, ‘Life’s long, you might not have enough, be careful!’ Not a chance, I only excited the stud …” The Vampire Hag’s laugh is muffled, as if she’s coughing.

  “That summer when we were playing kyz-kuu, and all the boys were chasing after the girls, Shakirzyan only came after me, like a dog after a bitch in heat. I had the most beautiful pinafore in Yulbash for kyz-kuu: black velvet with beaded flowers that I embroidered all winter! And on my bosom” – the old woman presses a lumpy, long-fingered hand to her hollow chest – “a two-strand necklace. My father had given me his own three-year-old Argamak horse. I
jump in the saddle and the necklace starts jingling, gently and invitingly – the fellows only see me. Oh, my, my … Shakirzyan keeps galloping and galloping, and it’s making his horse lather, and he’s red himself from fury but he can’t catch me.

  “And as soon as I see the grove of nut trees in the distance, I hold the Argamak back a little, as if I’m giving way. And your father’s glad because he’s been chasing like a madman, so he thinks he’s about to catch up. And right at the grove, away I go, I bring my heels together and the Argamak is off like an arrow, and Shakirzyan just gets dust in his face. He’s sneezing but I’ve already turned around in the grove and taken a whip out of my boot. It’s my turn now! The whip is strong and braided and I’ve purposely tied a knot at the end to make it hurt more. So I’ll catch up to him, as usually happens, and give him a thorough lashing: You couldn’t reach the girl, so you’ll pay for it, here you go! I had a good laugh, a good yell – after all, he didn’t catch me once, not one single time!”

  The Vampire Hag wipes little teardrops away from the corners of her eyes with the back of her hand.

  “Oh and I let him have it that summer! He reminded me of that for the rest of his life: he’d beat me hard, a lot, and with a whip, too. He’d tie a knot on it about the size of a fist and whack with it like it was a club while I’m laughing in his face: ‘What,’ I say, ‘you’re copying me? Think up something of your own. Don’t you have the brains?’ He’s madder, whipping harder, even panting and holding his heart, but he couldn’t ever break me like that. Well, and where is he now? Feeding the worms for half a century. And I’ve lived two of his lives and begun a third. Strength comes from above.”

  The Vampire Hag covers her white eye sockets.

  “You’re like me, ulym, my heart. You have my blood in your veins. My bones under your flesh.” She’s stroking the gray stubble on her son’s shaven head. “And the strength in you is mine: mean and undefeatable.”

  “Eni, Eni …” Murtaza is squeezing his mother’s body tightly, grasping, as a wrestler embraces an opponent or a lover embraces the body of a woman he desires.

  “Even the first time I looked at you – your little red body, wrinkled fingers, eyes still blind – I understood immediately that you were mine. Nobody else’s, just mine. I birthed ten for my husband but the last one for myself. There’s a reason the umbilical cord was as thick as an arm. Your grandmother could barely saw it with a knife. ‘Your little son,’ she said, ‘doesn’t want to be torn away from you.’ And you really didn’t want that: you stuck yourself to my breast, you grabbed at it like a tick. And you didn’t tear yourself away: you drank me for three years, like a calf. All that’s left of my breasts is sacks. And you slept with me. You were already huge and heavy, and you’d sprawl out on the sleeping bench like a star and your little hand went to my breast so it wouldn’t get away from you. You didn’t even let Shakirzyan near me – you screamed bloody murder. And he’d curse something awful, he was so jealous. But what would he have fed you during the famine if I hadn’t had milk in my breast then?”

  “Eni, Eni …” Murtaza repeats, muffled.

  “It was a scary time. You’re already three, you want to eat like an adult. You suck a breast dry – how much of that liquid milk is there? Not nearly enough food for you! And you’re kneading at it like mad, tearing with your teeth, I want more, more. But it’s already empty. Give me some bread, you ask. What do you mean, bread? By the end of the summer, we’d eaten all the straw off the roof, all the locusts in the area had been caught, and that weed, orache, was a real delicacy. Anyway, where could you find it – orache? People went crazy, reeling around the woods like forest spirits, ripping bark off trees with their teeth. Shakirzyan went to the city to earn money in the spring and I was alone with you four. At least you got the breast – the older ones got nothing …”

  Murtaza mumbles something unintelligible, pressing himself to his mother. The Vampire Hag takes his head in her hands, lifts it, and her unseeing eyes look sternly into her son’s face.

  “Don’t you dare even think about that, do you hear? I’ve told you a thousand times and I’ll tell you the thousand and first: I didn’t kill them. They died on their own. From hunger.”

  He’s silent, just breathing loudly, with a whistle.

  “It’s true I didn’t give them milk. I saved everything in me, to the last drop, for you. At first they tried to fight: they wanted to take the breast away from you by force. They were stronger than you. But I was stronger than them. And I wouldn’t let them harm you. Then their strength was gone and you grew stronger. And they died. All of them. There was nothing else.”

  The Vampire Hag presses a hand against her chin, scrunching up the wrinkles on her face; her other hand, shaking slightly, covers her eyes. Reflections of the kerosene lamps flash dimly among her gold rings.

  “And do you hear, ulym? We did not eat them. We buried them. Ourselves, without the mullah, at night. You were just small and forgot everything. No, they don’t have graves – my tongue’s tired from explaining to you that everybody was buried that summer without graves. Cannibals went around to the cemeteries in herds and as soon as they’d see a fresh grave, they’d dig it up and eat the deceased. So believe me – finally believe me – half a century later. The people who spread those foul rumors about you and me already became earth long ago themselves. But you and I are alive. There’s obviously a reason Allah sends us mercy like this, isn’t there?”

  “Eni, Eni.” Murtaza grasps her raised hand and begins kissing it.

  “So there you go.” The Vampire Hag leans toward her son, hovering over him. Two skinny white braids fall on top of Murtaza’s back, reaching to the floor. “You’re the strongest, Murtaza. Nobody can defeat or break you. And you yourself know that’s what yesterday’s dream was about. If anyone’s fated to leave this house or this world, it’s not you. Your small-toothed wife couldn’t bear you a son and will soon disappear into the netherworld. But you’re so young you could continue your family line. You’ll have a son yet. Don’t be afraid of anything. You and I will stay in this house, sweetheart, and we’ll live a long time yet. You because you’re young. And me because I can’t leave you on your own.”

  The slow, unrelenting beat of the squeaky mechanical heart in the huge grandfather clock is becoming distinctly audible.

  “Thank you, Eni.” Murtaza rises heavily from his knees. “I’m going.”

  He strokes his mother’s face and hair. He helps her into bed, plumps the pillows, and covers her with a blanket. He kisses both arms on the wrist, then the elbow. He turns down the wick and it darkens. The door slams behind him.

  The old woman soon starts wheezing drowsily, sailing back off to an illusory dreamland on a luxuriant bed of airy feather mattresses and blankets.

  Zuleikha presses her eggshell-covered hand to her chest, soundlessly steals toward the door, and slips outside.

  Murtaza is crouched by the stove, gloomily splitting kindling. The flame’s yellow reflections dart along the axe blade, up and down, up and down. Waddling like a duck, Zuleikha walks back and forth over the floorboards concealing their secret food supplies – do they squeak too much?

  “Stop.” Her husband’s voice is hoarse, as if it’s snapped.

  Frightened, Zuleikha leans against the trunks stacked up by the window, hastily straightening the lace kaplau with her hand (only guests and her husband, of course, are allowed to sit on these coverlets). Oh, but he’s mean today, irritable; it’s as if he’s been possessed by a demon. He went to see his mother but didn’t calm down. He’s waiting for the Red Horde. He’s afraid.

  “After fourteen years they’ll have learned all our hiding places by heart.” Murtaza’s axe cuts easily through the wood. “They’ll take the whole house apart if they want, one log at a time, and find what they need.”

  The mountain of white slivers is growing around Murtaza. Why does he need so much kindling? They wouldn’t use that much in a week.

  “All we can do i
s guess: will they take the cow or the horse?” Murtaza finally swings and drives the axe into a chunk of wood with all his might.

  “It’ll be time to plow soon,” Zuleikha sighs meekly. “It would be better if they took the cow.”

  “The cow?” Murtaza lurches back immediately, as if he’s burned himself.

  His breathing is rough and rapid, and it whistles. Like a bull before it rushes a rival.

  Without rising from his knees, Murtaza flings himself toward Zuleikha. She recoils in fear. May Allah protect us … Murtaza’s powerful shoulder easily moves the trunks aside. He picks up the groaning floorboard with his fingernails. He plunges his arm into a black hole that’s breathing damp cold and removes a flat metal box. The lid, chilled from the frosty air, clinks dully. Murtaza hurriedly stuffs a long squiggle of horsemeat sausage into his mouth and chews, frenzied.

  “I won’t give it up,” he murmurs, his mouth full. “I’m not giving up anything this time. I’m strong.”

  The aroma of horsemeat floats through the room. Zuleikha feels her mouth swell with sweet spittle. She hasn’t eaten kyzylyk since last year. She takes a fresh round loaf of bread from the stove ledge and extends it to Murtaza: Eat it with bread. He shakes his head. His jaws are working quickly and powerfully, like millstones. She can hear the tough horse sinews scraping under his sturdy teeth. Glistening strands of spittle fall from Murtaza’s open lips to the collar of his shirt.

  Without taking the sausage from his mouth, Murtaza’s hand fumbles around in the corners of the box. He pulls out a loaf of sugar that gleams a soft white in the duskiness then hits it with all his might using the butt of the axe – a large piece splits off and gleams, sparkling with blue where it broke – then he sticks his hand in one of the trunks and finds a faceted glass vial: it’s rat poison he brought from Kazan last year. He pours liquid from the vial on the piece of sugar.

 

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