Wild Tales

by Nikolai Haitov

  No, not flags, not yet awhile, my friend….!

  Just coming up to the bridge, we were, when some character with his jacket pulled over his head jumped out and started screaming at us.

  ‘Stop! One step further and I’ll blow your brains out!’

  There was a dirty great gun staring me in the face not ten paces away. And a bandaged head as well. Aha! I thought, her brother again. He must have known we’d be coming over the bridge into Dyovlen, so he’d been waiting for us by the river. My neighbour the bridegroom was walking along behind and when he saw what was up, in a flash he was over the hedge. That left me standing there in the middle of the road. One arm in a sling and my revolver right round the back where I couldn’t reach it. He’d blast me to kingdom come, that devil would, before I’d be able to get anywhere near it.

  ‘Stay where you are!’ he shouted, pointing his gun straight at me, and moving forward to grab his sister. And then, believe this if you will, that young sister of his, who we’d spent all night hauling through the bushes and tearing to shreds, went and jumped in between us! All on her own, with no help from me.

  With my good hand I grabbed her round the waist and called out to her brother:

  ‘One step further and we’ll be in the river, me and your sister!’

  Down below that old river was boiling away something terrible! He froze in his tracks. Backwards we went, step by step, me and his sister, across the bridge to the other side. I’d got her real tight – I wasn’t letting her go this time! And all he could do was stand there and gawp. No chase, no shooting, no nothing….! It was the first time in my life I’d seen a real live mummy. White as a sheet, all the blood gone out of his face, standing there like a lump of stone. Then he threw down his gun, put his hand over his eyes and began to blubber. I’d never seen a man blubber. That was the first time…. I felt like giving his sister back to him and moving out, but that wouldn’t have done no good. After all, what you want to do and what you can do is two different things – not the same at all, they aren’t….

  So in the end we got her to Dyovlen. We took her straight to the hodja to get her wed.

  ‘Woman,’ he says, ‘will you take this man to be your husband ?’

  ‘Him? Never!’

  Then the hodja too began cursing her. ‘Good God! You are a stubborn wench! You get yourself torn to shreds, and still you won’t say yes. Sheban, take her back to the forest and leave her there for a while. Maybe that will knock some sense into her head.’

  That scared her, and she gave in. They were wedded on the spot….

  Two months and a bit they stayed together, that’s all. One day round came Emine to see my old woman. ‘Why don’t you take me to the fields with you?’ she says. ‘So you can teach me to sow maize.’ Her husband had let her out. (It was the first time – he hadn’t let her out before.) So off she went with my old woman to learn how to sow maize. My old woman came back alone, without the lass from Nastan. She’d got across the river and cleared off back to her village.

  A short while later word came that she wanted to speak to me. I went to see her, and this is what she said :

  ‘Help me to get shot of that driveller, and I’ll give you whatever you want,’ she says. ‘What will you give me?’ I asks. ‘Two gold coins,’ she answers, ‘material enough for three pairs of leggings, and some leather for tsurvoulis…. That’s what she said she’d give me.

  ‘If that’s your offer,’ I says, ‘the job’s as good as done!’

  Then I went back to Dyovlen and had a word with my neighbour. ‘Why not throw her over and be done with it?’ I says to him. ‘Whatever you do, she’ll never come back of her own free will. If you want her back, we’ll have to go stealing her again, like we did last time.’ ‘Not on your life!’ he says. ‘I’m not going through all that again, even if I stay a bachelor the rest of my days.’ ‘If that’s how you feel,’ I says to him, ‘give her up as a bad job. We’ll see if we can’t steal you another – meek and mild – one you can get along with, like.’

  ‘And what will be your price this time?’

  ‘A hundred each for me and my two mates, and a couple of hundred for drink. Five hundred in all.’

  ‘Very well!’ he says. ‘And you can go and tell that wild beast in Nastan that I’m through with her.’

  ‘That you’ll have to do yourself,’ I tells him. ‘Come along to Nastan with me and get the hodja to divorce you. Then you can do what you please.’

  So we went back to Nastan, got him divorced, and later we fetched him another one. Money for jam, it was, not like the first time: a tug at her plaits and she was meek as a mouse….

  And the first one, she gave me the two gold coins and the other things she said…. A fair number of women I’ve stolen in my time, my friend, but that little vixen left the rest standing. Really got under my skin, she did. A whole lot of woman whichever way you grabbed her!

  … Still I remember and regret the day I lost her. But as I said once before, what you want to do and what you can do is two different things – not the same at all, they aren’t….

  Retraining

  There I was the other day sitting out in the yard, sunning my knees, when down the road comes Yumer, Rassim’s son-in-law, the shepherd up at the co-operative farm.

  ‘Well, hello,’ he says, shaking his head.

  ‘Hello!’ I says. ‘But what’s the matter with you, shaking your head like that?’

  ‘A right mess we’re in up at the sheepfolds,’ he says. ‘We’re that stuck for helpers, we’d make them out of mud if we could ! And you just doze in the sun. Come and give me a hand – it’s more than I can manage by myself. I’ll pay you for it, and you’ll see how the artificial insemineration is done.’

  ‘What are you inseminerating – wheat or rye?’

  ‘Come off it! Sheep of course!’

  ‘But Yumer,’ I says, ‘haven’t you got rams to do that kind of thing for you?’

  ‘Well,’ he says, ‘we have and we haven’t. Come and see. And every evening I’ll cook up some maize with sheep’s milk.’

  Since spraining my ankle I hadn’t been up in the forest and I’d been feeling pretty low. In any case the weather was good – a nice spot of sunshine warming things up. So why shouldn’t I go up to the sheepfold with Yumer, I thought. Have a walk round and see how things were coming along.

  ‘Bring me my cloak!’ I shouts to my old woman. ‘And put some bread in the bag!’

  Yumer perked up when he saw he’d be having company. Laughed right down into his breeches, he did. He grabbed my cloak and the bag, and nearly heaved me over his shoulder as well! The old woman looked a bit sour, but I said I’d bring her some mushrooms and she gave us her blessing.

  Left-right, left-right …! Till we reached Crooked Hill, where the sheepfolds are. And it really is crooked too, that hill, all crooked and twisted, part sheltered, part in the sun, and what a view you get from the top! Right opposite there’s Mount Perelitsa, covered with dark firs, like a yashmak; and over to the left Mount Karluk with his head in the clouds, as if the pile of earth under him weren’t enough, and he’d gone pushing up into the sky, trying to find his mother and his father up there. And by his side one peak after another – green ones, yellow ones, some sharp and pointed like dog’s teeth and others all nice and round. What mountains! You could gaze at them for ever.

  ‘Enough of that gawping, Kanyo!’ Yumer called out. ‘Let’s get a bit done while the light holds. It’ll be dark very soon.’

  We went into the hut. Just the one room inside, nothing special – wooden floor, tiny window, a stove in one corner, and in the other a huge shaggy ram. His bloodshot eyes staring at me, head down and all set to charge over and skewer me on his twisty horns.

  ‘Yumer!’ I says, ‘watch out!’

  ‘Don’t panic!’ says Yumer. ‘It’s a couple of days since he’s seen a ewe, or even a lamb for that matter, so he’s getting a bit steamed up. But we’ll bring him a ewe, and he’ll cool down.
Bring one in, only make sure she’s white. He doesn’t care for black ones…. He’s a Russian Merino, see, so he’s more used to blondes….’

  I dragged in a ewe from outside, but when the ram saw me he suddenly lifted his head, took a step forwards, snorted, and froze.

  ‘Let her go,’ says Yumer. ‘And stand by the door.’

  I let the ewe go and stood by the door, but the ram didn’t look at her. He’d still got his eye on me.

  ‘He’s shy,’ says Yumer, ‘but he’ll get over it. The insemineration should be done by the technician really, but instead of doing his inseminerating here, he’s cleared off to Lyaskovo to sniff around the schoolmistress, so I’m having to manage on my own. And darned if I know whether to hold on to the ewe or catch the artificial semen from the ram.’

  While Yumer was talking I still had my eye on the ram. And what a fine fellow he was! Well worth hobbling halfway up the mountain to look at. I suppose he was more like one of them two-hundred-litre barrels than a ram – all covered with streamers of wool right down to the ground, if you can imagine such a thing. And what a lovely warm wind when he moved! Our other rams look at you like angels, but when this fellow peered up at you, with his eyes half hidden by that white curtain of his, it was like a knife cutting into you. And that’s forgetting his twisty horns, like a couple of turbans on top of his head. ‘An old dragon like him, he’ll fair flatten the ewe if he so much as touches her,’ I says to myself. ‘And if he goes at her with his horns, then God help her, he’ll tear her to shreds!’

  But while all this was passing through my mind the ram lost his shyness and went over to the ewe. He walked up to her, stopped, stretched out his neck and with his nose touching hers, he gave her a kiss! She stood quite B still. The ram turned, went round to her backside, made sure her udder was still in the right place, and then came back to the front and began licking her head. From her mouth to her ears he licked her, like he was combing out her wool. When he got to her ears he gave a snort, and the ewe moved away.

  ‘Hold her!’ I shouted to Yumer. ‘She’ll get out!’

  ‘Don’t panic,’ Yumer answered, ‘he’ll bring her round. She’s a woman, so she can’t but pretend. There’s time for a fag, if you want. These Caucasian Merinos have their own way of doing things. All I want you to do when he gets steamed up and about to mount her is to grab her by the ears and hold her steady. So I can fix this stand behind her and get done with the technical side. But we’ve still got time. He hasn’t got to his dance yet. Once the dance is over, though, be ready!’

  Just as Yumer said ‘dance’, the ram started pawing and scraping at the ground like he was digging a hole…. He put his head down, beat the ground first with one hoof then with the other, and then threw back his head, gave a snort and belted round the ewe three or four times, tassels of wool streaming out behind him. Then he stopped, beat the ground with his hooves, and started up all over again….

  Whether this was just a game, or whether he wanted to befuddle and bemuddle the old girl with a show of strength, I couldn’t really say. It was quite a sight though, I can tell you, him charging about, tassels of wool streaming out behind, hooves beating the wooden floor, and him snorting and getting so steamed up he started to froth and foam at the mouth. By this time he was pretty much out of breath, and went nuzzling up to the ewe again. She nuzzled him back…. And after giving her a quick nuzzle from head to tail he made to mount her.

  ‘Grab her ears!’ shouts Yumer.

  ‘Grab ‘em yourself!’ I tells him. ‘I’ll fix the stand.’

  So while he grabbed the ewe by the ears, I didn’t use the stand like it was meant, but kicked it to one side, and the old Merino mounted the ewe like nature intended.

  … It didn’t seem right, somehow, all those nuzzlings and caressings going to waste like that….

  Poor old Yumer wasn’t pleased, though.

  ‘You mad or something?’ he yelled. ‘Or is this your idea of a joke? We could have done fifty sheep with a jump like that!’

  ‘He’ll do it again,’ I says.

  ‘Aye, but he’ll have to get up steam again first, and it’ll be dark very soon.’

  ‘Don’t you worry about him,’ I says. ‘Maybe you can’t get up steam, but the ram certainly can!’

  That hit him where it hurt, I can tell you…. ‘And what do you mean by that?’ he says. ‘Come on, out with it!’

  ‘Sit down,’ I tells him, ‘and there’s no need to stare at me like that. Give me a fag and I’ll tell you what I mean…. But keep an eye on the ram, mind!’

  ‘Not much point now – no use locking the door after the horse has bolted!’

  ‘That’s just where you’re wrong,’ I says. ‘Now’s just the time to look. Tell me, what’s the ram doing now?’

  ‘He’s licking her.’

  ‘You see! If that were you, you’d be snoring your head off by now. He’s a gentleman, though, and he’s licking her to say thank you.’

  Yumer laughed. ‘Now what’s going through that little head of yours?’ he asked.

  ‘Well, don’t you think about anything while you’re watching the sheep making love all day?’ I said.

  ‘Of course I do,’ he says, ‘about lots of things.’

  ‘I know the kind of things you think of. Huh! And he calls that thinking…. But come on now, we’d best be organizing some more jumps. It’ll be dark before long. And keep your eyes open, think less about yourself and take a lesson from the ram. Watch how he goes about things!’

  We took out the first ewe and brought in another. ‘This will be the ram’s second go today,’ I thought, ‘so he’ll hurry things along a little.’ Don’t you believe it! The same love-play, the same kissings and combings, the same friskings and bowings and dancing about.

  He had a third go and a fourth, and by the end we’d collected enough material to inseminerate not fifty ewes, but five hundred. Then I turned to Yumer:

  ‘Let’s give the ram something to eat and turn in for the night,’ I says.

  ‘What about the maize porridge I promised you?’

  ‘Forget it. Let’s get some sleep.’

  We settled the animals and lay down. It was stuffy in the hut, so we bedded down outside with only the sky about us, as the saying goes. And what a sky it was that night! The stars had opened their eyes wide and were sparkling away like they was washed with dew – some timid and shy, blinking all the while, but others, the serious ones, they didn’t fidget about: they shone straight at you, boring into your eyes and asking questions:

  ‘Well, Uncle Kanyo, how are things?’

  ‘Fine, just fine….’

  ‘But they could be better, couldn’t they now? You just think!’

  ‘I’ve done enough thinking. I want to get some sleep.’

  ‘You may want to, but you can’t,’ answered the biggest and brightest star, cutting into my eyes. ‘You’ve got a guilty conscience, that’s the trouble! Forty years you’ve been married, and have you ever done a dance for your wife? Come on now, have you? Or stroked her? Or whispered a word of love in her ear like the ram did with the ewe?’

  ‘Hey, Yumer!’ I says, ‘you got a match? I’m going to light the fire. I can’t get to sleep.’

  ‘That’s funny,’ he says, ‘nor can I.’

  ‘What’s the trouble?’

  ‘The ground’s too hard,’ he says, ‘I should have used more hay.’

  ‘Fetch some, then,’ I says. ‘Not that it’ll do any good, mind, even if you fetch the whole haystack. Because the hardness what’s causing the trouble comes from inside not outside! Am I right, or aren’t I?’

  Yumer kept quiet. He didn’t say a word, but he stood up. We got the fire going. The sparks flew up, the stars went out and us two were left eyeball to eyeball.

  ‘That’s where it hurts,’ he says, ‘here, inside.’

  ‘That’s not where the ram butted you, is it?’

  ‘It was you that butted me! With what you said. And it was such a thump, I�
��m still trying to get my breath back.’

  For a quiet one like Yumer to say so much in one go was a sure sign the thump had hurt.

  ‘I suppose you didn’t hear what the stars were telling me a short while back,’ I says.

  ‘I didn’t hear no stars. All I can hear is a cricket chirruping away : ‘Crude! Crude! Crude!’ I’ve been listening to him a good while. How can a little fellow like that know what I’m thinking?’

  ‘And the stars too,’ I says, ‘how can they know what’s troubling me? The things they were saying …!’ And I told him word for word everything the stars had said.

  Yumer’s eyes opened wider and wider.

  ‘That’s enough, stop ! I don’t want to hear about it!’

  ‘Don’t want to hear about what? Get it off your chest, man – you’ll feel better for it. No one can hear you out here. Look, the stars have gone in, and the cricket has stopped, so you can forget about him as well.’

  ‘You know, Uncle Kanyo,’ Yumer began, ‘you know, there’s so much filth sticking to me, if you made all the sheep into tallow, and made all the tallow into soap, there still wouldn’t be enough to wash off all the dirt! Many’s the time,’ he went on, ‘I’ve got home drunk, and when my wife hasn’t wanted to sleep with me I’ve tied her to the bed with a rope!’

  ‘No need to feel so bad about that,’ I says, ‘I’ve done it too. Only sometimes I didn’t even use a rope : I just had her!’

  ‘That’s enough!’ he says. ‘Stop! Some animal or other will hear us and spread it all round the forest.’

  We warmed ourselves over the fire and said nothing. Then Yumer started up again.

  ‘Go on!’ he begged. ‘Say something!’

  ‘What is there to say? My life’s finished. Remorse is all I’m left with. But you’re only thirty-three. You watch the ram, do what he does and you’ll see what happens.’

  ‘All right, all right!’ says Yumer, ‘but do you expect me to do a dance? We may be relatives, you and me, but I’m a Muslim first and foremost, and I’ll be the laughing stock of the whole village if I start dancing like that!’