The Good Angel of Death

by Andrey Kurkov

  I looked out.

  Jamshed was sitting by the fire, with a heap of dry feather grass and some kind of brushwood on his left. His daughters were sitting facing him, with their backs to me, and there were two camels standing about ten metres behind them close to the tent. The camels were standing quite still, so that at first they seemed like a single camel with multiple humps, blocking off part of the evening horizon and the sky. But one of them suddenly shook its head and my vision was immediately replaced by reality. Then the other camel took a step backwards and lowered its muzzle to the sand.

  ‘Ah! Come over!’ Jamshed called to me. ‘If not for Khatema, you would have been done for.’

  ‘Who’s Khatema?’ I asked, looking round at the girls, whose names I already knew. Jamshed nodded towards the camels.

  ‘Khatema noticed a piece of tarpaulin and went over and started pulling it . . . We shouted and shouted for her, then went over and saw too. So we got you out . . . Not everyone is that lucky . . .’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said and cast a glance at the camels, to one of which I owed my life.

  ‘Where were you going?’ Jamshed asked.

  ‘Fort Shevchenko.’

  ‘But why on foot?’

  I shrugged.

  ‘A traveller?’

  I sighed. ‘I make a lousy traveller,’ I said with feeling after a long pause.

  ‘Why?’ Jamshed objected. ‘You got here, so already you’re a traveller. But why alone, with no woman?’

  ‘I don’t have a woman . . .’

  Jamshed pondered on that, then turned and looked at his camels.

  ‘But why you want Fort Shevchenko?’ he asked, looking at me again.

  The fire crackled, rapidly consuming more and more of the sprigs of uprooted brushwood that Jamshed fed to it without looking. And his daughters sat there quietly without moving, as if they weren’t listening to the conversation.

  ‘I’ve come from Kiev,’ I began slowly, trying to answer without deceiving them, but also without revealing the purpose of my journey completely. ‘I wanted to take a look at the places where Shevchenko served . . .’

  ‘You Ukrainian?’ Jamshed asked in surprise.

  ‘No, Russian. But I’ve lived in Kiev all my life.’

  Jamshed nodded. ‘It would be good for you to meet Akyrbai,’ he said, nodding his head thoughtfully. ‘Akyrbai knows a lot about akin Shevchenko. He was friends with his kinfolk.’

  ‘With what kinfolk?’ I asked in amazement.

  ‘With his Kazakh kinfolk . . . With his great-great-greatgrandson, until he got lost in Karatau. There’s nowhere to get lost there, but he went and disappeared . . .’

  ‘But he didn’t have any sons or grandsons,’ I said rather sharply.

  ‘Well, he couldn’t marry, of course. Soldiers weren’t allowed to. But a Kazakh woman, a shepherd’s daughter, had a son by him . . . The line continued after that, and all the men in it were good akins. And the last one, who disappeared in Karatau, was a fine akin too. A very good akin, he was . . . back in Soviet times he could retell any article from Pravda in verse as he read it. What an akin he was! I’ve never heard another one like him, before or since!’

  Meanwhile, Jamshed’s daughters went on sitting there as motionless and silent as sphinxes, and that made me feel awkward. Even the camels moved, snorting and making other sounds, but there wasn’t a single sigh or a breath from Gulya and Natasha. And I suddenly wanted very much to hear a woman’s voice. Especially since I had heard them talking to their father while I was lying in the yurt.

  ‘Jamshed,’ I asked, casting aside my reserve, ‘why don’t they say anything?’ I nodded at the girls.

  ‘The men are talking,’ Jamshed explained calmly.

  Then he smiled, as if he had guessed what I wanted. He said something to his daughters in Kazakh. Natasha went into the yurt and came back with some kind of musical instrument that looked like a mandolin. And she started singing, plucking at the strings with her fingers.

  She sang in Kazakh. Her pretty voice was enchanting, melodic as though designed to encourage you to sing along. But although the melody was not complicated, I didn’t even try to hum. And I suddenly noticed that while Natasha sang, Gulya was watching me intently and very frankly. I felt myself melt under the gaze of her eyes, which seemed to glow in the brand-new night that was lit only by the campfire and the deep blue sky. Frightened, I turned my eyes to Jamshed and saw the fixed smile in his eyes, only now that smile seemed to have come to life. But Natasha’s song went on and on, and I had the idea that their attentive gazes were connected in some way with the words of this song that I couldn’t understand.

  And surprisingly enough, I was quite right.

  ‘This is a song about a traveller who is saved by a she-camel and brought to a house where two girls live,’ Jamshed told me when it was quiet again.

  I was stunned. At first I didn’t know what to say. But then I asked: ‘And what happens afterwards to this traveller in the song?’

  ‘The girls’ father tells him to choose one of the girls in order to continue his journey with her. One of the daughters is beautiful, the other is not. One will never love him, the other will love him and remember him forever. But he chooses the one who will not love him and leaves with her . . .’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘She did not finish the song,’ Jamshed said with a sigh. I turned my eyes to Natasha. She was sitting there in silence, having put her instrument down on the sand beside her. I looked at Gulya and met her intent gaze again. And I immediately turned my eyes away, still perturbed by the words of the song.

  ‘Do you have any water?’ I asked in order to distract myself from my thoughts. Jamshed looked at Gulya. She went into the yurt and came back with a large cup in her hand. She held out the cup to me. I took a gulp – it was something like kefir again.

  ‘Don’t you drink pure water?’

  ‘We do,’ Jamshed replied. ‘When there’s nothing else . . .’

  I stopped talking and finished the kefir. Then put the cup down on the sand.

  I looked at Natasha. ‘Excuse me, but do you know how the words of that song go on?’ I asked her.

  She looked at her father in fright, as if she expected him to help her.

  ‘You know, she was making it up as she went along . . . She is an akin too, but you must not tell anyone. Women are not supposed to be akins. If they find out, no one will take her as a wife . . .and she did not finish it because every complete story ends badly . . . A good akin never finishes even a well-known song with a bad ending . . .’

  My mouth had gone dry again, and I asked for another drink. Gulya went into the yurt again and refilled my cup.

  ‘Which of my daughters do you like?’ Jamshed suddenly asked.

  I gaped at him, stunned. But he used his eyes to direct my gaze in the direction of the girls.

  ‘Gulya,’ I confessed.

  He nodded with an air as if he had known beforehand what my answer would be. It wasn’t really that hard to guess, although a little later I did think how good it would be if Gulya had Natasha’s voice . . .

  26

  WHEN I WOKE up in the morning, Gulya was sitting on my rucksack on the carpet in the yurt and looking at me. The canister was standing beside her, full of water.

  I realised that I had been ‘packed’ for the road. I remembered the strange conversation of the night before and Natasha’s unfinished song.

  I looked around for Jamshed, but he wasn’t in the yurt. He was sitting on the sand. The sun was not yet hot and he was thinking about something, gazing wistfully at the sand. I walked over to him.

  ‘Good morning.’

  ‘Hello,’ he replied, looking up.

  ‘Jamshed,’ I said, addressing him in a gentle, polite voice, ‘where do I go from here? Which is the best way to get to Fort Shevchenko?’

  ‘Gulya knows the way,’ he replied.

  ‘Are you letting her go with me?’ I asked in amazement, still un
able to believe what was happening.

  ‘Listen,’ said Jamshed, looking me in the eye, ‘you were saved by my she-camel, and now you have to do as I wish . . . you chose Gulya yourself . . .’

  ‘Yes, but . . . does she want to go?’

  ‘When a father travels with two daughters, they think bad things about him. It means that no one wants to take them for wives.’

  ‘Yes, but you don’t know me!’ I went on, still not entirely grasping the situation, although even to me it seemed stupid to continue the conversation, especially since I really did find Gulya attractive.

  ‘My she-camel saved you,’ Jamshed repeated wearily. ‘You smell of cinnamon, that means you are a good man, filled with a spirit that will survive you and preserve the memory of you in another . . .’

  I said nothing more, standing there between the yurt and Jamshed. What was there to argue about? Why on earth would I try to persuade the old man not to let his beautiful daughter go with me?

  I simply nodded. And went back into the yurt.

  Gulya was doing something with my bed of rags, turning layers over and folding them, as if she were changing bedclothes.

  When she heard my breathing, she looked round and smiled at me timidly. She was wearing white trousers again, this time peeping out from under a long blue shirt-dress with a short standing collar.

  ‘Well, shall we go?’ I asked, thinking that I hadn’t even heard her voice yet.

  ‘Yes,’ she answered. ‘We just have to wait for Natasha – she went to get some cheese.’

  ‘Where from?’ I asked, thinking that there couldn’t be a market or a grocery store anywhere close.

  ‘Marat is camped nearby, my father’s nephew. He has lots of goats – he makes cheese . . . Do you want some tea?’

  I nodded. Then I realised that apart from their kefir I hadn’t eaten anything for the last few days, but I still didn’t have any appetite. But my lips were feeling dry.

  Gulya went out of the yurt and came back with a small bowl of unsweetened tea.

  I sat on the carpet, trying to fold my legs in the same way as Jamshed did when he sat down. I managed to get down, but as I did my knees cracked so loudly that Gulya looked away. I somehow felt guilty, without understanding where the feeling had come from.

  I sat there, slowly drinking green tea, using it to pass the time. Eventually Natasha came back. After exchanging a few words in Kazakh with her father, she walked into the yurt, holding a small linen sack in her hands. She handed it to Gulya with just a faint nod, saying nothing. Gulya took hold of the bag, took out several small white balls, chose the smallest one and popped it into her mouth. I could see her rolling it about on her tongue, as if she was examining its taste intently. A light smile of satisfaction appeared on her beautiful face. She rolled the ball against her teeth with her tongue, then took it in her fingers and held it out to me. I put the ball of cheese in my mouth.

  After the green tea, the salty-bitter taste of the cheese, with a slightly acid bite, filled my mouth. It was a pleasantly cool sensation. And the air I breathed in seemed to be enriched with this taste, transporting it into my lungs, so that the pleasing coolness filtered inside me, bringing with it a kind of physical tranquillity.

  Tranquillity of the body, not the soul. But my soul was also at peace. I wasn’t thinking about what Jamshed had said any more. Life was simpler than words: the wait for the cheese had been replaced by the taste of the cheese. The taste of the cheese had been transferred to my breath. My breath, imbued with this taste, had brought me a pleasurable sensation of tranquil certainty. The wait for the journey was just about to be replaced by the journey.

  Half an hour later Jamshed helped me to throw the rucksack and canister of water, tied together, across the back of the she-camel Khatema. We also threw up a double bundle of Gulya’s things.

  ‘Go as far as the hills,’ Jamshed said, ‘and then let Khatema go. She will come back here.’

  I didn’t know how to say goodbye to Jamshed. If he had been Russian, I would simply have given him a hug. But if he had been Russian, he wouldn’t have let his daughter go with me. And if he had let her go, I would have had to call him ‘Dad’ and have a drink with him for the road.

  While I was thinking, Jamshed himself came up to me, put a white pointed felt cap on my head and held out his hand.

  ‘Pleasant journey,’ he said. ‘If you’re going to beat her’ – he nodded in Gulya’s direction – ‘don’t beat her on the face!’

  I nodded automatically, although after a while, walking beside the she-camel, these final words of Jamshed’s seemed a bit harsh to me.

  But before I thought about that, I felt a desire to repay him somehow for his gift. I pulled the tarpaulin tent out of the rucksack and presented it to him.

  We walked towards the hills that could be seen in the distance. The sun was already heating up the sand.

  The yurt had been left behind.

  Walking on my left was the she-camel, carrying our baggage. Walking on my right was Gulya.

  ‘Your father told me you know the way,’ I said, simply in order to start talking to her.

  ‘I do,’ she replied. ‘We used to walk there, but we never went as far as the fort. There was no need . . .’

  The sun was scorching and if not for Jamshed’s present of the felt cap, my brains would have been boiling in my head already. But even so, I didn’t know how to continue the conversation. I didn’t say anything. And Gulya didn’t say anything either. We walked on like that, side by side. I kept looking at her, admiring her profile – vivacious, proud and feminine all at the same time.

  ‘Maybe this evening, when we make a halt, we’ll get talking,’ I thought hopefully.

  27

  WE STOPPED FOR a halt when the sun had just turned white, as if it had been cooled by the cold wind that had suddenly blown up. It was still hanging high, but in the sunset half of the sky. There was a long way to go to the hills. They didn’t seem to have come any closer, although we had been moving towards them for eight hours or even longer, only stopping once to take a rest and feed Khatema.

  ‘Gulya, is the sea a long way from here?’ I asked, recalling the soothing coolness of the Caspian shoreline.

  ‘Yes, a long way,’ Gulya replied, looking at me with her brown eyes.

  I started thinking, wondering how we had ended up so far from the Caspian.

  ‘Do you like the sea?’ I asked Gulya, who was taking her bundle off the camel.

  ‘No,’ she replied. ‘It’s cold.’

  I shrugged. Then I helped her lower the double bundle on to the sand. She took out a striped linen bed mat, then another one. She laid one on top of the other.

  When the sun was lying on the distant sands and its cooled fire had seeped down and away, like water, it became chilly in the desert. The air was instantly colder than the sand. We lay side by side on one mat, covered up to our chests with the other. We looked at the sky. Every now and then the she-camel, tied to the strap of my rucksack with a short rein, sighed huskily.

  ‘Gulya,’ I said, ‘doesn’t it seem funny to you that the two of us are here together?’

  ‘No,’ Gulya replied, so decisively that I lost my train of thought and now I just wanted to talk to her about anything at all. I wanted to learn something about her, so that the distance between our eyes and our thoughts would be reduced. I wanted to understand her and I wanted her to understand me.

  ‘She already understands you anyway’ – the thought came to me unexpectedly.

  I started musing again, looking up at the sky and trying to find the reflection of her eyes, which were also looking up to where the seeds of the stars were sprouting on the blue inverted ground of the sky. They were emerging rapidly and chaotically, as if they had been scattered by a sower in love who was not thinking at all about what he was doing. And there was a satellite creeping between them like some lazy heavenly tractor. Its movement caught my eye and, squinting sideways at Gulya, I thought that she w
as watching that satellite now too – a person’s gaze always searches for movement. A person’s gaze is a curious investigator and loves to follow what is going on.

  As the celestial field sprouted above us, we both watched this everyday miracle. I didn’t even want to talk any more – our shared observation seemed to bring us close without any words.

  As the sand cooled, the sky moved lower and the stars became clearer.

  I wanted to hear Gulya’s voice again and turned towards her. But she was already sleeping, with her eyes closed. Her gentle, regular breathing warmed the silence of the night and I listened it to it with secret delight, as if it were something forbidden, and therefore even more greatly desired.

  The satellite-tractor dipped behind some celestial hillside and was hidden from view, leaving the stars behind. I was falling asleep to the delicate music of Gulya’s breathing. The still air seemed to be listening to her breathing as well. And in that silence I felt something creeping across the thick striped material covering my legs.

  I froze, listening to the movement with my skin, until I saw either a scorpion or a lizard on my chest, posing beautifully with its fantastical profile thrust up into the sky.

  ‘Don’t move,’ I told myself. And so I didn’t, and neither did this nocturnal denizen of the desert until I fell asleep.

  28

  THE SHE-CAMEL’S SNORT woke me so abruptly that after I opened my eyes I lay there for several minutes, waiting for my body to wake up. The sun was barely on the rise, which meant I hadn’t slept for long. Finally I turned my head to look at Gulya, but she wasn’t there beside me.

  I was overcome by a sudden, obscure fear when I felt an alien weight on the striped cover on my chest. I looked and saw a chameleon wearing the same stripes sitting there with his head held high, entirely motionless except for his round little eyes, which seemed to move together with their slightly protruding sockets. Catching my gaze on his, he froze likewise.

  Khatema snorted and sniffed again. I looked round at her – the she-camel was clearly uneasy about something. She was stepping from one foot to another and looking towards me.