Zuleikha

by Guzel Yakhina

  Since all the illness, when Ignatov abolished the severe twice-daily outings into the forest, many of the exiles now stay in the house during the day – and so Izabella often relieves Zuleikha at the stove. Zuleikha can lie for a while without moving after she’s lowered her tired gaze to her sleeping son; she listens to his quiet, measured breathing. Yuzuf’s sleeping minutes have become a delight for her but they make the minutes when he wakes up and cries all the harsher and bitterer. Her little boy wants to eat all the time.

  She can’t wait for him to start walking. She shuts her eyes and imagines Yuzuf when he’s grown a little: after being bow-legged and skinny, his legs have become sturdy and are padded in resilient baby fat, round pink fingernails have grown out on his small fingers, his head is covered in dense, dark hair, and he stamps through the underground house to greet her. He picks up one little foot after the other and waddles like a duck – he’s walking. Will she live to see that? Will he?

  Zuleikha thinks so much about her son that she often forgets about her own groaning stomach and the weakness that sometimes overcomes her. She’s very afraid of getting sick. Who would look after Yuzuf then? Her past life – Yulbash’s open spaces, the threatening Murtaza, the nasty Vampire Hag, the long trip in the railroad car with the smells of hundreds of people – has slipped so far away, remaining behind such sharp turns, that it seems like a half-forgotten dream, a vague recollection. Did all that really happen to her? Her life now is catching the doctor’s calm gaze (“Everything’s fine with Yuzuf, don’t worry, Zuleikha …”), waiting for Ignatov to return from hunting and Lukka from fishing (“Meat! We’re going to eat meat today!”), and curling up on the bunk like a ring around her sleeping son and inhaling, inhaling his delicate smell.

  It’s quiet in the underground house. The exiles are already pressed up against one another, sleeping. After eating their fill of salty soup and embracing one another, Konstantin Arnoldovich and Izabella are wheezing a little, Ikonnikov is gently snoring, Gorelov is lost in a heavy, tense slumber, and Ignatov is lying on his separate bunk like a dead man, not moving.

  Yuzuf shudders and his little nose moves sleepily – he’s looking for Zuleikha. She’s recently stopped carrying him around and he’s been getting used to living on his own, without maternal warmth and scent surrounding him from all sides. As soon as she ends up alongside him, though, he seeks to press into her like before, worm his way in, and stick all his skin against her. As he does now. After his face has found his mother, he burrows himself in her chest, flattening his nose. He lies calmly for a minute or two then starts fidgeting away and his lips begin smacking. He’s sensed the smell of milk. He’ll wake up now.

  And he does. He grunts and moans a little, sobs a couple of times and bursts out in hungry, demanding wailing. Zuleikha shushes her son affectionately and takes him in her arms. Her fingers get tangled in the frayed fasteners on her smock as she hurriedly opens the collar. She takes out a soft, flimsy breast and places it in the baby’s hungry, wide-open mouth. Yuzuf hastily chews the limp nipple and spits – there’s no milk. He cries louder. One person coughs hoarsely in the depths of the bunks and another turns over with a groan, mumbling unintelligibly.

  Zuleikha shifts Yuzuf to her other arm and gives him her second breast. He goes silent for a moment, his toothless gums frantically yanking at the second nipple. It hurts so much, she notices with joyful amazement. Could it really be his first tooth? She doesn’t have time to think that through, though, because Yuzuf spits out her breast, which has deceived him with its familiar smell. Now he’s crying loudly, sobbing. His little face instantly floods with blood and his fists twist in the air.

  She leaps up and rocks Yuzuf, bending so she doesn’t hit her head on baskets, bunches of feathers, rolls of birch bark, bundles of pine cones, and other junk hanging from the ceiling.

  Sometimes he can be successfully rocked, settled down, convinced, and whispered to so he’ll fall asleep without even eating, giving Zuleikha the gift of a few more hours of precious silence. One time, she tried rocking Yuzuf in a cradle, a large basket hanging from the ceiling, but he completely refused to fall asleep by himself. He always wants to be in his mother’s arms.

  She presses her lips to his small head, which is very warm and damp from sweat. She mumbles half-forgotten lullabies in his tender little ear and whispers, casting a spell. She rocks him, first gently and evenly, then harder, more abruptly, and swinging more. She puts a homemade fabric pacifier in his tiny mouth but he spits it out and continues screaming. Between lips that are wide open and already covered with a slight nervous blueness she can see his tiny dark pink gums, glistening with spittle and completely smooth: there’s no first tooth on them. Yuzuf is already almost six months old but his teeth haven’t grown in.

  Zuleikha jiggles his tense, arched little body. His crying is so shrill and loud that it hurts the ears. People roll over on their bunks, sighing, but continuing to sleep. They’re used to this.

  She takes someone’s spoon left from supper and scrapes the bottom of the pot for a couple of drops of salty soup and places that in Yuzuf’s mouth. He makes an offended face, spits, and chokes from crying so hard. His voice is already tired and a little hoarse, and the soft spot on his head pulses frequently and heavily, as if it wants to explode.

  Zuleikha’s back aches and she places Yuzuf’s bellowing little body on the bunk and sits beside him. She lowers her head to her knees and plugs her ears, but it’s no quieter because it’s as if her son’s crying has settled in her head. In moments like these, Zuleikha sometimes thinks it would have been easier for Yuzuf if he had departed during childbirth.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she notices a slight motion in the middle of the underground house. It’s as if a breeze has wafted, making the long shadows that extend from the stove door give a start, sway, and begin fidgeting. Zuleikha raises her head. The Vampire Hag is sitting right by the stove, on a gnarled wooden block made from a piece of an old pine stump, her elbows leaning into sharp knees set far apart.

  Yellow specks of light from the fire tremble on her parchment-like forehead, streaming over hilly cheeks and flowing away into the hollows of her mouth and eye sockets. Her braids hang down toward the earthen floor like gaunt, shaggy ropes. Crescent-shaped earrings of dulled gold swing ever so slightly in her droopy, wrinkled earlobes, splashing light on the dark walls, the bunks, and human bodies sleepily tossing and turning.

  The Vampire Hag stirs the remainder of the salty soup for a long time, then taps the spoon thoroughly and places it on the edge of the pot.

  “My son never cried that hard,” she calmly says. “Never cried that hard.”

  White drops of salty soup flow from the shell spoon and fall back in the pot, plinking. Surprised, Zuleikha wonders how she can hear it through the crying.

  Yuzuf is still bellowing and wheezing beside her. A fine spasm runs through his twisted little body and his lips are rapidly turning a rich blue.

  Large, hefty drops continue falling from the spoon into the pot. Each is like a hammer striking. They’re no longer plinking but thundering. So loudly they muffle her son’s voice.

  Zuleikha walks over to the kettle and takes the spoon. She grasps the handle in her fist and hits the sharp side of the pearlescent shell exactly at the center of the middle finger on her other hand. The small but deep semicircular gash is like a crescent and it spurts out something thick, dark, and ruby red. She returns to the bunk and places her finger in her son’s mouth. She feels his hot gums squeeze right away, biting and seizing at her fingernail. Yuzuf sucks greedily, groaning and gradually calming. His breathing is still rapid and his little hands still shudder from time to time. But now he’s not crying: he’s busily feeding and he grunts every now and then, as he used to when he drank milk. Zuleikha watches the blueness leave his tiny lips, his cheeks grow pink, and his eyes eventually close from exhaustion and satisfaction. Taut red bubbles swell in the corners of his tiny mouth from time to time, bursting and running
to his chin in little winding streams.

  It’s not painful at all.

  She looks up but now there’s nobody at the stove.

  Spring arrives suddenly, unexpectedly – it’s loud, booming, and strong-smelling. All morning, rambunctious bird chirps have been bursting through the pieces of rags that stop up the house’s little windows. The chirping is a teasing invitation that finally turns into the heavy, distinct thought that Ignatov has to go hunting.

  His eyelids open. His body has lightened of late; it’s as if it lacks bones, though for some reason it’s difficult to carry. It’s even become hard to think. His head is empty, as if it’s flat and made of paper. His thoughts are somehow weightless and fleeting, too, like shadows or smells, so if you don’t seize them, you won’t fully think them through. That’s why this morning’s thoughts are unwieldy, stirring in his skull like a lazy fish, and seeming so important and necessary. He has to get up and go hunting.

  He didn’t go anywhere yesterday; he lay on his bunk the whole day, resting. Now the persistent chirruping has woken him, stirred him up, and forced him to hope again. What if he manages to kill one of those birds? He has to get up now and go hunting.

  Ignatov throws his feet off the bunk and an icy crust crunches on the floor; the water’s been running for a long time, ever since the snow started melting a little. He finds his revolver at the head of the bed and rummages around in the sack for a long time, groping for a cartridge. It’s the last one. What did Kuznets say when he was leaving? Enough for all the wild beasts in the taiga? It’s ended up not being enough. But that’s funny, so he should laugh, laugh to his heart’s content at what turned out to be Kuznets’s hilarious practical joke, though he somehow lacks the strength. He’ll have a laugh later, when he gets back from hunting. He just can’t let himself forget it, that joke. Ignatov flings the empty sack away, has trouble opening the drum, and inserts the cartridge. Coping with the revolver has also become difficult of late; it’s too heavy. Just like the obsessive thought in his head that he absolutely has to go hunting and bring something back.

  He leans his hands against the edge of the bunk and comes to his feet. His head spins and the air disappears from his lungs. Ignatov is standing with his hands propped against a vertical support log and he’s waiting for the walls to stop rocking. He adjusts his vision and breathing, then walks toward the door.

  The exiles are lying on the bunks in tight bunches, embracing. They’re not moving. Maybe they’re sleeping. He ordered those on watch to check people in the mornings. If there’s a corpse, bring it outside immediately. They should probably make the checks more frequently, twice a day.

  A small mound of tatters stirs weakly by the stove: it’s Gorelov. He spits, occasionally tossing firewood into the stove. He’s on watch today. There’s not much firewood, only enough for a half-day, and that’s all that remains of the magnificent woodpile stacks that were once so tall. They’ve been heating frugally lately, a little at a time, and supplementing the firewood with woven baskets and snowshoes. They’ve burned everything they wove in the autumn, even Ikonnikov’s Suprematism, after cleaning off the soft birch bark, which they pounded, boiled, and drank beforehand. The firewood went quickly even so; it practically melted away. The indifferent thought that flashes is: We’ll freeze to death at night.

  Konstantin Arnoldovich’s invention, the sawed calendar, is on the log by the door. Half of August, September, October, November, December, January, and even February were applied by a firm, stubborn hand. In March, the marks became irregular, uneven, and not very noticeable, and by April they completely went missing. It doesn’t matter now since April is probably over.

  Ignatov makes his way under the elk hide, which is as rigid as tree bark and has been mercilessly slashed by a knife. They cut leather off many places and boiled it for a long time but couldn’t eat it anyway because it was too tough. They ate both bast curtains, though, and needles from the boughs they’d used to cover their bunks for softness. As well as the medicinal herbs Leibe had prepared.

  Ignatov rests the top of his head against the outside door, pushes, and crawls outside: fresh air and the pattering thaw splash through the gap that’s opened up. The clearing is in front of him. It’s spacious and bundled in snow in some spots but already breathing reddish brown earth in others, and there are black circles made of river rocks, the remnants of the foundations for the woodpiles. The forest is quiet and transparent in the distance, with delicately gray trunks of spruces that have frayed over the winter, occasional black-and-white birch trees with branches like thin hair, and the brittle, reddish lace of juniper bushes.

  The earth’s thick, fusty fragrance makes his head spin again. Still crouching by the entrance to the house, Ignatov rests and scrutinizes the darkening Angara below through his half-closed eyes. The river frightened them all winter, making its way toward the knoll with its ice standing on end. Then it began glimmering in places, large gray spots appeared, and the river started sparkling in the sun. A few days ago it suddenly thundered, breaking into angular pieces of blindingly white ice that floated away. You tried, but you could not defeat me, Ignatov thought then, observing the rapid, menacing flow of ice chunks along the swelled river. Now it has already calmed, darkened, and eaten up all the ice. It’s as blue and shining as last summer.

  Ignatov strides into the taiga to hunt, shuffling his feet in boots that have fallen apart and lost all form, and holding his revolver in his outstretched hand. From their stakes, the skulls bare their teeth behind him – there are his old comrades the elk and the lynx, a couple of toothy wolverines, and a badger with a flat forehead.

  And there’s the chirping, up above. Something’s ringing, singing, and murmuring where thin branches swollen with buds and shabby spruce boughs cross. Ignatov looks up as spots of light blue, reddish-brown, and shades of yellow swing, hop, and fly. The birds are so high he can’t discern or reach them. He’ll need to tear off the buds on his way back, though, for supper.

  Ignatov slowly pushes forward, into the depths of the forest, holding onto tree trunks and branches as he walks around puddles with motionless black water and snowdrifts that have melted a little on the sides. His feet are leading him somewhere on their own, and he’s submitting to them, walking. He makes his way across a brook that recently thawed and now jangles deafeningly on the rocks. He walks up along gray land with lumps from last year’s pine cones and between pine trunks that burn with reddish fire. The taiga beckons. Soon, soon there will be prey.

  He leans his back against a tall old larch, breathing loudly. His chest is heaving and his legs are buckling, folding in half because he’s unaccustomed to walking so much now. And he’s gone a long way. Will he make it back? Ignatov closes his eyes partway and there’s an unbearable ringing in his ears from the babbling birds. Apparently the taiga is deceiving and enticing him, not allowing him to go back.

  There’s a sudden rustling beside him. A squirrel is on a branch right next to Ignatov’s face: it’s thin, dirty gray, with scanty white fluff, yellow cheeks, and long scampish tassels for ears. Meat! A shining brown eye darts and – zoom! – it’s up the tree trunk. Ignatov’s shaking hand reaches upward with the revolver but it’s instantly way too heavy to hold. A shabby tail like a miniature broom flashes mockingly up above, teasing as it blends in with brush-like branches, layers of bark, and needly sunbeams, before disappearing. The sky suddenly starts spinning faster and faster, and then everything’s spinning, the treetops, the clouds …

  Ignatov shuts his eyes tightly and his head droops. Turn back? The birds call up ahead, chirping and promising. Ignatov walks forward, half-squinting, lowering his gaze, and not looking at the sky gone mad. He stumbles on a pine root and falls. Why hadn’t he figured out before that crawling is easier? He moves ahead on all fours, looking only at the ground.

  A delicate little pink back flashes and a pair of curious eyes sparkle very close, between knotty pine roots: a large jay is busily hopping somewhere. So that’
s who’s been singing the whole time! That’s who lured him here! Ignatov aims an uncertain hand at the jay. Whoosh! It’s flown away. Ignatov’s gaze follows but quickly looks down after seeing the spinning firmament again.

  He suddenly understands he’s been making his way up the cliff this whole time. He hasn’t been here in a long while, since autumn. And there’s only a little further to the top. If only the damned sky would stop spinning for just a second. Ignatov gathers his strength and crawls up.

  Even from a distance, he notices there are blindingly green shoots of fresh grass with bright yellow, star-shaped flowers at the very top, on a shred of earth that’s warmed by the sun between some rocks. He contracts his muscles, darts forward like a snake, falls face-first on the grass, tears it with his teeth, and chews. He mumbles from enjoyment as a wonderful fresh taste fills his mouth, spreads through his veins, and rushes to his head like young wine. Happiness! His stomach shudders hard and relentlessly. Poorly chewed emerald greens with little yellow flowers sprinkled in, mixed with mucus and gastric juices, spill out on the grass. Ignatov howls and coughs convulsively, pounding his revolver on the ground. He’s puked it all up, to the last blade of grass. His breathing is labored and his face drops in the grime, into the grass his innards rejected, and he understands. This is the end, he won’t make it home, he has no strength.

  He didn’t keep the exiles alive. Didn’t save them.

  Exerting himself, he brings the revolver’s cold, heavy body to his face and sticks the long barrel in his mouth: his teeth chatter against the metal and the sharp front sight scratches the roof of his mouth. Bastards, is the last thought that flashes through his mind.