Zuleikha

by Guzel Yakhina

  The maternity patient raises herself slightly on her elbows, turns her face toward the fire with her eyes wide open, as if she’s searching for someone’s gaze, and falls on her back again. Why, it’s that very same nurse from the special train, the green-eyed one, the one in love! How did she end up here in the woods, surrounded by strange people? And Volf Karlovich himself, how did he land here? What nonsense. It’s time, time to return home to the egg.

  He’s already begun lifting the bulky edge of the merciful dome to duck inside when he has a sudden thought that her eyes have been searching for him! Leibe freezes with indecision then casts one more glance at the woman after all. And he feels himself beginning to anger.

  The maternity patient moans again, very quietly, wheezing slightly. Her feet are scraping along the ground as if they’re looking for something to prop against, and her belly is shuddering sharply – it’s large and overly broad at the bottom so the child is apparently lying sideways. She can’t give birth to that baby on her own.

  “What the devil!” Leibe cries out loudly and distinctly. “To a clinic, immediately! What, don’t you realize the full seriousness of the situation?”

  A dozen eyes are gawking at him with such surprise that it’s as if he’s speaking a foreign tongue or crowing like a rooster.

  “There’s nowhere to go,” says a tall man in a military uniform, uttering each syllable individually, gingerly, and cautiously. He bears a resemblance to the professor’s adjutant from inside the egg. “This is the clinic,” he says.

  This is the clinic? Well, this is just …

  Leibe stands and looks around, dissatisfied. The forlorn egg remains hanging in the air behind him. In his fit of indignation, the professor doesn’t notice.

  And what if this really is the clinic? He’s never once seen a clinic without walls or a ceiling. Where the medical staff are dressed in tatters and so muddle-headed they can’t lay the maternity patient down properly. Where the operating room is lighted by a campfire instead of a bright gas light. He’s spent so much time in the egg, though, that maybe customs have changed outside and people have become barbarous. It doesn’t appear that the high military officer is either joking or misleading him – this is not the time for that. The devil take it – this apparently really is the clinic, no matter how improbable that seemed at first glance.

  The egg floats up behind him and affectionately touches his back as if to say, “I’m here, I’m waiting.” The maternity patient mumbles quietly and lets her head drop to one side; a strand of saliva falls from her mouth. That is not good at all. Leibe abruptly pushes away the egg: A little later, I’m busy.

  “Why is it dark in the operating room?” he sternly asks the bearded old man in the torn shirt standing next to him.

  The people around him are quiet and continue staring at him with astounded eyes. Quite the medical staff. Who the devil knows what they are …

  “I asked for light in the operating room!” Volf Karlovich commands, a half a tone louder and harsher.

  Some elderly nurse with a high hairstyle hastily flings an armload of spruce branches on the fire. A sheaf of sparks soars up, and it becomes lighter and hotter. At least there’s one sensible worker to be found in this herd of blockheads. The professor hurriedly rolls up the sleeves of his uniform and addresses only the sensible nurse:

  “Hands.”

  Blinking in astonishment, she presents him with a bucket of warm water from the fire. People help her, lifting the bucket higher and painstakingly pouring water on the hands the professor has placed under it. Leibe frenziedly rubs his hands together. There’s neither soap nor lye; truly only the devil knows what this is.

  “Disinfection.”

  A murky liquid smelling sharply of alcohol pours out of a large, rounded bottle onto his hands.

  “Smelling salts.” He’s reciting things over his shoulder, carefully bathing his hands in the generous, strong-smelling stream. “Bandages, lots of bandages. Cotton wool. Warm and hot water. Scalpels and clamps, sterilized in flame. The maternity patient should be placed with her feet absolutely toward the light. Onlookers must leave the operating room.”

  What am I doing here? is the despairing thought rushing around somewhere at the edge of his consciousness. Operating room, maternity patient, bandages – what silliness. The egg is already tired of waiting over there; it’s shining impatiently, even shaking. It’s time, it’s time to go there. But Volf Karlovich is too occupied to listen to all his thoughts. When he’s standing by the operating table, he hears only the patient’s body. And his own hands.

  He’s already kneeling by the woman, who’s prostrate on the ground. His fingers are warming, filling with a taut, joyful keenness. His hands do everything on their own, even before he manages to mentally give them orders. They fall on the living, swaying mountain of her belly so that his right hand is on the hard bulge of the fetus’s head, the left on its trembling little feet. Transverse presentation, the devil with it. He’ll need to remove the fetus before the uterus tears. From somewhere the words surface, like a long-forgotten prayer: Do I have the right? I do not have the right not to attempt. Joy, some sort of youthful elation, suddenly grips him. Leibe pants a little and tears at his collar. And right then, like a bucketful of icy water: But I haven’t operated in a long time. How many years, five? Ten? So much time lost, mein Gott …

  Left without any attention, the egg is rubbing more insistently against his back. The professor just jerks his shoulder as if to say: Whoever’s there, I beseech you, not now. He casts back a heap of skirts and moves apart the maternity patient’s paper-white legs, which resist weakly. Just as I thought: the uterus is fully open. It’s ready to release the child and its large, dark hole is gaping like a wide-open mouth in the fire’s bright light. The child is writhing inside, though, incapable of turning around and coming out of the maternal womb.

  Leibe places his hand in the warm and slippery opening, first two fingers, then his entire hand. The woman moans. He’s putting her on his hand as if she were a puppet. He extends his hand inside the uterus, groping at something delicate, taut, and filled: the amniotic sac. It’s good luck that it’s intact, because that means the fetus is still in the water and still moving around. And now I need …

  He feels something poking, demanding and hard, at the base of his neck, between his shoulder blades, along his spine. He casts a sidelong glance over his shoulder: it’s the egg, blast it. He abruptly pushes it away with his shoulder: I told you, later! I need to lance the sac now. He bends his index finger and scratches the surface with a piercing motion. Warm fluid immediately surrounds his hand. It’s thick to the touch, the amniotic water. The sac has burst. Leibe’s fingers touch something velvety, slippery, and moving. The child. It’s time to take it out. So, my dear, where’s your little leg?

  Something envelops Volf Karlovich from behind, softly yet strongly. He turns around. The egg, which has lifted its dome over the ground and turned its base toward Leibe, has attached itself to his back like a huge pulsating sucker that wants to imbibe. His hands are occupied so he can’t pick it off himself and toss it further away. He jerks his back and shoulders heavily, as if he’s shaking off a predatory wild animal that’s grasped the nape of his neck. A faint, low-pitched humming floats from the egg; something inside it is shouting, whistling, and whimpering. I have time, thinks Leibe. I have time.

  So, where do we have that little foot? His fingers grope at a tiny paw with little splayed digits, four facing in one direction, the fifth facing in the other: it’s a small hand. Your foot, little one, give me your foot!

  Leibe feels the egg pulling him in, harder with every second. Its warm, slippery edges envelop his shoulders and neck, settling on the back of his head. All he has to do is manage to pull out the child. When the baby is fully liberated from the mother’s womb, even the most muddle-headed nurses can finish the job by cutting the umbilical cord and seeing that the placenta has been expelled. He needs only to succeed in pulling the
child out.

  Another paw. All five little digits on this one are facing in the same direction. Bravo, little one! Thank you. Now let’s verify if this is the upper or lower leg. I certainly need the upper one, so you don’t catch your chin on the pubic symphysis when I pull you outside.

  The edge of the egg is settling on Leibe’s forehead, creeping toward his eyes, and reaching his brows. He squeezes his eyes shut and works by feel after sensing the egg’s slippery mass engulf his eyes, forcing them shut. You stupid egg, you think my eyes are smarter than my hands?

  Leibe’s fingers creep up along the baby’s tiny leg and reach a rounded little belly. Meaning this leg’s the lower one after all. Give me the other leg, little one.

  The egg has now fully possessed Leibe’s head, after slipping itself on like a thick stocking. The professor feels warm slime in his mouth and a heavy, rotten smell in his nose; there’s an even chomping sound in his ears coming from the egg’s vibrating walls. He senses its edges creeping toward his neck. It’s decided to suffocate me, he belatedly understands, for betrayal.

  His hand has already found the second leg, though. This is the one we need, the upper one. This is the one we’ll pull. Leibe places his thumb along the baby’s thigh and his four fingers around it. And now we’ll pull and pull. Come on, little one, work, turn around so the back of your head faces up. Come out …

  The edges of the egg extend to the professor’s Adam’s apple and suddenly tense, filling with strength, and hardening as if they want to rip Leibe’s head from his body. Just a few seconds more …

  One baby leg is already outside, tightly clasped in Leibe’s hand. The second is coming out on its own, right into the professor’s other hand. A sharp turn and a downward motion, pulling the baby out to the corners of the shoulder blades. One arm, a second arm. And a small head.

  His throat feels tight, his eyes go dark, and some kind of light bulbs flare and extinguish in his brain, one after another. And that’s that, thinks Volf Karlovich, squeezing the baby’s slippery little body in his hands. I made it.

  The newborn opens its mouth and screams for the first time, at the very moment the edges of the egg begin quickly and implacably tightening. The baby screams so hard that even the professor can hear it in the egg’s innards, though he’s weakened and half-choked. The scream swells, resounding and filling with strength, and then the egg suddenly bursts on Leibe’s head like an overfilled balloon. Shards of the shell, scraps of membrane, pieces of slime, and heavy spray fly everywhere. Volf Karlovich coughs and wheezes, inhaling air with a whistle. His lungs are breathing again, his eyes see, and his ears hear. After recovering his breath, he looks around, seeking out the remnants of the exploded egg, but there aren’t any.

  A bright-pink baby is bellowing in his arms.

  Later, Leibe goes down to the Angara. The inky sky to the east is tinged a delicate blue and pale pink. Dawn is near. A black wave splashes as quietly as a whisper. It’s delightfully empty and clear inside his head, and his body is light and young. His ears are like a wild animal’s, discerning the slightest sounds: the murmur of stones under his feet, a fish tail hitting somewhere in the middle of the river, the noise of spruces in the forest, and the high squeak of a bat. And all kinds of smells – a large body of water, wet grass, earth – swarm in his nostrils.

  Leibe sits down by the water and bathes his hands. Either his sharpened vision is noticing or he’s imagining thick, dark blood washing from his fingers and going into the opaque water. He rubs his hands hard until they’re icy-white, until the joints crack. There’s a rustling close by, and it’s the commandant, sitting on the rocks next to him.

  “So what happened there?” he asks.

  “It turned out to be a boy!” Leibe says emphatically, raising a sharp, long finger.

  Ignatov exhales with a gasp and pulls his peaked cap over his face.

  “Imagine,” says Leibe, speaking cheerfully, quickly, and freely. “Baby Yuzuf! Just think about that, here, in this damned backwood – Zuleikha and Yuzuf. How about that, eh!”

  He looks at the commandant’s hat-covered face and grunts, flustered.

  “Tell me,” Ignatov says, taking off the hat and pointing his face into the faintest breath of a breeze. “Without you, would she have … ? I mean, she wouldn’t …”

  A wolverine yelps, muted, on the other shore.

  “Do you often think about the ‘what ifs’?” Leibe shakes off his hands and an unseen sprinkle flies from his fingers into water as black as tar.

  “No.”

  “And that’s the right thing.” Leibe stands and looks at his own hands, so white in the darkness. “There’s only what there is. Only what there is.”

  He walks back to the camp. He stops on the slope and turns to say, “We left you some soup. Eat.”

  Only the fire sentry is dozing when Ignatov climbs up to the knoll. Everyone else has dispersed to the shelters to sleep. He takes the gray folder from a pile of things and opens it, not even noticing the smell of meat coming from the pot, which is still warm. On an empty corner he writes with the charcoal in large, crooked, slanting letters: “Yuzuf.”

  THE FIRST WINTER

  Ignatov wakes up an hour later with the thought that they should dig an underground house. Everyone’s still asleep and sounds of snoring and someone’s groans carry from the shelters. Impatient birds expecting daybreak occasionally call out in the thicket and a wave splashes lazily at the shore. Realizing that sleep has left him for good, Ignatov decides to go down to the river to wash.

  They’ll get by for a week in the shelters. They won’t just melt away, he convinces himself, sitting on stones at the riverside and furiously wiping his face with icy Angara water. And then when Kuznets comes, they can even put up two-story wooden mansions if they want. Without me!

  And if they have to get by for two weeks? Or longer? After all, nature here knows no calendar and winter could even descend in September.

  He looks at the Angara’s flawlessly smooth, mirror-like surface breathing with an almost invisible morning fog. A transparent blue sky gleams to the east, waiting for the sun. It will be a hot day, sultry. There’s such quiet that the sound of drops falling from Ignatov’s face are audible. He looks down. A gloomy, unshaven face with black circles under the eyes gazes out of the water. His beard will soon grow out, as the exiles’ have, and they’ll become indistinguishable. Ignatov slaps his palm at his reflection, which shatters into small pieces and disperses in circles.

  Ignatov takes his peaked hat, which he’d set aside on the rocks, and puts it on. They’ll start digging an underground house today. They can’t sit around the whole week with nothing to do.

  His exacting gaze examines their site as if he’s looking for the first time. The Angara takes a smooth bend at the place where they landed and the shore seems to jut out, forming a broad, gently sloping promontory. The earth by the water is dense and clayey, with lots of large and small rocks mixed in. It spreads low, then flares up into the spacious knoll where they’ve now made their camp. A good place, the proper one. Not right next to the water (where the river’s coolness would chill their shelters) but still close enough to the Angara that it’s not far to run for water. It’s inconvenient, though, since the descent from the knoll is steep and crumbly. Ignatov decides they’ll need to make steps out of rocks.

  The knoll itself is so wide that an entire village could fit on it. It faces the river and a dense line of spruce trees borders its back. Jagged spruce tops rise upward, forming a wall; the forest is clambering up the high hill. The cliff from which Ignatov observed his surroundings yesterday protrudes somewhere there, too, up high, but it’s not visible from the shore. Several lanky, broad-boughed spruces are scattered along the knoll, which is covered with bushes and waist-high grass. It’s as if the trees ran out of the forest toward the river but just froze there. The tattered shelters stand like large, green nestled haystacks under three of them. Two shelters are already tipping to one side, their s
haggy roofs a little disheveled; but one still stands evenly and tidily. Ignatov notices it’s the shelter that one-armed Avdei built.

  The tools and other items Kuznets left are lying in a messy heap by the fire. Kuznets had apparently scraped together everything that was on the boat, either the remains of his own supplies or surplus from someone else’s stockpile of goods. There’s a sizable but depleted box of matches (they need to be used sparingly; being left without fire would be trouble); a sack and a half of salt (they could salt all the animals in the taiga and then all the fish in the Angara on top of that); a scruffy clump of nets all tangled up with hooks, ropes, floats, and wires whose intended uses Ignatov doesn’t understand; a generous armful of thin, flimsy one-handed saws (Kuznets should be forced to saw firewood with those himself!); a couple of sturdy fisherman’s knives and kettles blackened with soot; several buckets and ropes rolled into coils; the half-empty bottle of home brew; and a bulky sack with revolver cartridges. That’s all. Well then, thank you for that. Ignatov pulls his cap a little lower, right down to his eyebrows.

  They need a large, spacious underground house that holds everybody. It will be crowded, but it will be warm. And for him to have everyone in sight will make things easier. He’ll appoint Avdei head of building and Gorelov to keep order. The majority of them will be busy with construction and the rest will be sent into the forest once a day to prepare firewood. They’ll always have one person in charge of the fire, not allowing it to go out under any circumstances. Everyone is to work, men and women, with no exceptions for age. Rest strictly during breaks. Unauthorized absences in the forest forbidden. Criticism, complaints, and other troublemaking conversations to be cut short immediately. All violations of procedures will be punished with loss of food privileges. Ignatov himself will go hunting again and bag as many black grouse as he can. He’ll examine the taiga more carefully as he does. He’ll take the sack of cartridges with him – he’s decided to hide it in the forest so none of the exiles get any nasty ideas into their heads.