Fish- a History of One Migration

by Peter Aleshkovsky

  He had romantic dreams of his own, and Galya and I did not dissuade him.

  In the evenings, the young archaeologists went to the orchard, drank cheap Chashma port and sang along to someone playing the guitar; occasionally Nar procured weed, and they furtively passed around a joint. They offered it to me, too, but I refused: in my mind I pictured the faces of the totem-like figures at the teahouse.

  However, those who did smoke did not freeze into a stupor, but instead thought every word spoken was utterly hilarious and couldn’t stop laughing. I watched and saw only a silly emptiness in their faces. I stopped going to the orchard with them. I would read a fairy tale to Karim and then run home to Mom, so that I could return at half past five the next morning and do the job I loved. I quit socializing with my classmates altogether, and it didn’t seem to make any difference to them or to me. I counted the days, knowing that soon my “cotton-picking” month would be over and that school would start. I was genuinely saddened. When I complained to Mom, she only shook her head; we did not see much of each other during August and September of that year.

  . 8 .

  The Kul-Tepe burial ground dates back to the early Muslim era. The dead were supposed to face Mecca, but in those times, before the invention of the compass, people relied on the sun. The buried shared a common faith, but Galya found three different types of pottery which suggested separate ethnic groups—the valley was inhabited by a multinational, multilingual community. The ancient cemetery was discovered by accident when the local farmers were digging an irrigation aryk. They turned up old skulls and pottery fragments and immediately contacted the archaeologists—the expedition that made Panjakent world-famous had also taught the locals to respect what the earth had preserved.

  We had already opened eleven tombs, and there was no end in sight. Nar, the muscle of our operation, worked on the crusty top layer of dirt with a broad hoe. Asya, Galya and I then cleaned the skeletons off with scoops, brushes and dull knives. We didn’t find many artifacts except pots with funeral meals—traces of paganism that survived here for centuries, far from Mecca and Medina. Occasionally we’d discover a coin or a dagger that had turned into oxidized wads and crumbled to dust when touched; sometimes there would be a string of beads—the community wasn’t wealthy, neither in Soviet nor in the ancient times.

  Dehkani[16] farmers often visited us on their trips from mountain villages to town, since the road passed within a couple hundred feet of the dig. They materialized as if from nowhere and climbed the mound of the excavated dirt. Men crouched and silently watched us uncover the graves. Women—wrapped in shawls, and always bunched up in a separate group—did not approach the men, and looked on disapprovingly. The sight of our tanned, swimsuit-clad bodies had on them the effect of a red rag on a bull. More than once in the presence of such shame a mother covered her daughter’s eyes and led the girl away to their donkey cart; everything about our place was, in their opinion, satanic and unworthy, and for that reason both disturbing and attractive.

  Soon we got used to our visitors, greeted them with a “ Salam Aleichem ,” but did not engage in conversation. On the very first day, I managed to distinguish myself. When asked what we were digging up, I simply answered “Muslims” and showed ten fingers for the tenth century. The old man who had asked me smiled excitedly, clicked his tongue, shook his head, uttered a short word and drew his hand across his throat. That’s when Asya, who spoke Tajik, broke out in a hurried explanation. The faces of the old man and his two companions immediately grew serious, then they nodded, and the old man even spat on our dirt as if to seal an accord. They sat around for a while longer, and then, slapping themselves on the knees with the customary “hop-maili!” stood up, bowed, hands pressed against their hearts, and departed full of dignity and satisfied that they had understood everything correctly.

  As soon as they were out of sight, Asya turned on me.

  “Are you insane? Muslims?! If they get the drift that this is a Muslim burial ground, we’re done for. He showed you how they’d slit our throats. We are lucky that these days they bury according to the compass and not the sun. They could see the difference, so they believed these are pagans. And there are things in the graves, which the Quran prohibits. I told him you made a mistake, meant to say ‘pre-Muslim,’ but didn’t know the word.”

  She laughed.

  “In the future, you’d better keep quiet or you’ll end up on a spit.”

  I didn’t talk to the locals anymore, and they did not ask any more questions either; the old man must have told everyone that we were studying pagan graves, which was not considered a sin. In the eyes of the faithful, a kofir, a non-Muslim, is just another stranger with no bearing on the life of the local community. Kofirs live according to their own rules, whether they are Orthodox and worship Isa and Mariam, or Jewish with their devotions to the wise Solomon. Allah, through his prophet Mohammed, had commanded respect for believers of other faiths who had yet to attain the Truth. That made what we did science, a curious and respectful pastime, and a far cry removed from the sin of desecrating ancestors’ graves. The locals still stopped by the dig, mostly in the morning and in late afternoon, on their way someplace else. They had to have been talking about it behind our backs and certainly disapproved, but they didn’t interfere, and if they talked in our presence, they did so only in whispers. Science and all things scientific are highly respected in Asia and inspire an almost worshipful reverence in uneducated people. Sometimes they left a flatbread or a cantaloupe for us as a sign of respect, but Dolzhanskaya firmly prohibited inviting the locals to tea.

  “We’d never get rid of them if we start. Let them take offense if they want,” she said.

  And, indeed, the locals’ practice of leaving us gifts abruptly ceased. As far as their disapproval went, no one ever said anything to anyone’s face. Galya explained this, too: she was Karim-boi’ s mother, which meant there was a father, and he was the one that was supposed to teach her, the woman, her manners. Asya fawned over Nar, so he was recognized as her boyfriend. As far as I was concerned, I was young and Russian, and thus the locals expected me to be rude. Further, they knew that we were protected not by family and kin but by the Criminal Code, which they despised more than feared.

  The guest that one day arrived on a black stallion was different. Asya noted at once that he was an Uzbek. The rider, too, instantly recognized her as a Tatar, and after greeting everyone in Russian, chattered in his own language. Asya responded, apparently having taken offense, and he switched back to Russian, which he spoke relatively well.

  I did not look at him, but at his horse. It was lean, black, with a white star on his forehead and white socks over his hocks, the signs of good breeding.[17] The tack was new, with shiny copper studs, but the saddle was that of a collective farmer, and the saddlebags were made from colorful, mass-produced fabric. The horse stood on the mound of dirt, his intelligent eyes looking, it seemed, straight at me. I couldn’t hold myself back and climbed the dirt to stroke his warm, flat cheek. He shook his head a few times, nickered softly, and playfully hunted for my palm with his teeth.

  The Uzbek was an old man in his fifties or sixties, with a beard dyed raven-black. He wore canvas boots and a padded brown robe tied with a sash. From his side hung the requisite dagger in its scabbard. He dismounted easily, handed me the reins and carried his saddlebags to our little campground under the lean-to.

  “Mind the horse, he’s quiet,” he said over his shoulder.

  He had brought us grapes. He spilled a whole mountain of them out onto the table and gave Karim-boi a slap on the shoulder. Then he crouched in the shade, clearly expecting a continuation of our interaction. He knew what he was doing: he invaded our little world on his own terms and therefore expected attention and respect. We had no choice but to offer him tea and feed him flatbreads with jam.

  Galya, Asya and Nar gathered around the table. The guest’s name was Nasrulló; he was the caretaker of the kolkhoz vineyards and came to reach a
neighborly understanding. I only half-listened to their negotiations—the splendid steed had captured my attention. He stood quietly, with the dignity of a mature creature, and only his sly eye followed me. It took all I had to resist stroking him; I kept touching his neck tenderly with my finger, secretly, so that no one could see.

  Nasrulló was asking us not to steal the grapes.

  “Why should you steal? Come to me, I’ll give you good grapes, sweet, we’ll be friends, like neighbors should.”

  Galya served him a cup of tea; he slurped it loudly, straightened his broad shoulders and shifted into a more comfortable position as if he expected to share the long lunch break with us. Suddenly he looked me in the eye, and winked.

  “Drop the reins, come here, let the horse eat, too.”

  I only clutched the reins tighter in my hand.

  “Can I ride?” The question popped out all by itself; I didn’t even have a chance to be shocked with my own insolence.

  “You want ride? Ride ahead, it’s a good horse,” he said with a serious nod.

  Galya for some reason gave me a stern look, but I didn’t care any longer. I jumped into the saddle and pinned the horse’s sides with my heels. The horse leapt forward and cantered. Standing in the stirrups, my left hand gripping the saddle, I was speechless with awe. My body fell into his rhythm right away. I’d never ridden such an eager horse before, but we seemed to have understood each other without words. He ran along the burned-out flat, now in full gallop, and I almost let go of the reins. Twice he flew over some ditches and I nearly fell, yet managed to hold on and shouted with the joy that was washing over me. I was galloping on a strong black horse, and he was taking me somewhere far, toward the mountains, and the wind blew into my face, furious and hot.

  I don’t know how long we were gone. Later Galya said it was no more than half an hour. But they had to entertain akó Nasrulló for that half-hour, which was not the easiest job in the world. The Uzbek smiled with his whole face, smacked his lips and kept trying to switch to his native language, but his pride prevented him from doing so—when visiting, it was the custom to speak the language of the host who set the table. They had little to talk about, however, and kept drinking tea and waiting for me, silently cursing my carelessness.

  When I came back, no one scolded me—I was so radiant with joy, they couldn’t bring themselves to spoil it. Catching my breath, I handled the reins back to the Uzbek and exhaled, “Thank you.”

  Nasrulló jumped into the saddle with an ease that did not match his age, wheeled the horse around, made him prance, stopped him sharply and said something guttural to him—the stallion just twitched his ears, absolutely obedient to his master. Nasrulló raised his hand:

  “Come ride, come tomorrow, I’ll give you grapes!”

  “Yes, yes, thank you!”

  “Thank you for the tea, neighbors always welcome!”

  He shifted slightly in the saddle and the horse took off at a gallop, as if he hadn’t just raced with me for half-an-hour. Nasrulló became one with the horse, and they flew above the earth until they disappeared behind a tall hill.

  . 9 .

  I spent the following day devising a plan to slip away and ride the Uzbek’s steed—Dolzhanskaya strictly prohibited any contact with Nasrulló; she did not like the caretaker. Leaving work was out of the question. I was helped by an accident.

  Little Karim got a headache, and when Ahror came in the middle of the day to drive us to lunch, Galya took the child to the base camp. The three of us said we would eat at the dig. As soon as Galya was gone, Nar and Asya dove into the stuffy storage tent. I knew their trick: the tent stood a hundred and fifty feet away from our overhang and the table, they closed the flap behind them, but opened the one on the other side of the tent, facing the mountains. This way, they had shelter with a breeze from the mountains and only the appearance of a closed tent. I also knew what they did there—Asya spared me no detail.

  As soon as I was alone, I grabbed a pail for the grapes and set out for the vineyard. The heat was truly hellish, and I threw a long terry cloth towel over my shoulders—I would wet it in the aryk, and it would keep me cooler at least for a little while.

  I came to the aryk on the path we’d beaten. There, I drew water with my pail and poured it over myself. The water felt like tepid soup. The vines lined the other side of the aryk as if standing honor guard. The air trembled with invisible vapors; there was neither sound nor whisper nor movement anywhere. I faced straight lines of blood-red grapes that hung like aiguillettes down the steel rods that propped up the vines. I took off my clothes and slowly stepped into the aryk, looking down into the clear water. The clay under my feet instantly bellowed up like smoke, but the slow current pulled the mud away. I sat down as if in a bathtub, so that the water covered me up to my chin, and stayed there for a long time, motionless. A snake-like movement caught my eye. Not too far from me a fat, revolting leech was moving along the far side of the canal. Thank goodness, it couldn’t care less for me.

  The water was cleansing my body, blue sky reflected in its surface. Two large fish swam past me, side-by-side, giving me a lazy once-over. I held my breath and followed them with my eyes. They nestled close by on the bottom and released a few bubbles. Taking it as a kind of fish greeting, I blinked in return, but the beasts were quiet; they must have fallen asleep.

  Then I jumped up with a squeal and scampered up the shore; when I looked back, the fish were gone. It was as if I had imagined seeing them. I soaked the towel, arranged it into a turban on my head, and, pail in hand, marched down the path that ran along the edge of the vineyard. Here and there in the gray dust I could see the hoof prints of my longed-for steed: his master had already completed his daily rounds. Nasrulló’s own tent had to be somewhere close.

  Soon I saw it: a wooden frame covered with weather-beaten, bleached canvas, an old sheepskin on a pallet, and a sooty kettle over a fire under a lonesome tree. The old man kneeled beside the fire, feeding it with twigs. The horse, tied to the other side of the tree, was calmly eating barley from a crude wooden bowl.

  When he saw me, the Uzbek began to fuss, got up, stepped forward to meet me, spreading his arms and looking at me solicitously.

  “Hello. Come in, sit down,” he said, pointing to the sheepskin.

  I greeted him too, put my pail down and sat—it was awkward to ask for a favor right away.

  “You’d like to ride?” asked Nasrulló, gleaming.

  I simply nodded.

  “Good girl, pretty girl,” he petted my shoulder. I didn’t like his touch—his palm was grainy like sandpaper.

  “No worry, we’ll have tea in a minute.”

  He took the kettle off the fire, raised it to his face and inhaled the smell deeply: stems of some plant floated in the liquid.

  “Good, good, you came right on time,” he giggled and looked to the side.

  Following his eyes, I suddenly realized that from the hill where he had pitched his tent, Nasrulló had a clear view of the whole vineyard, and—oh, the shame!—of the aryk where I had bathed naked. From the fidgety movements that betrayed his embarrassment, I deduced that Nasrulló had seen me. Blushing, I tried to jump to my feet, but heavy hands pressed me back onto the pallet. Nasrulló held out a cup filled with brownish-green brew.

  “No worry, no worry,” he kept saying. “Have some tea, then we’ll ride.”

  So I had to take a sip of the stuff. That it was not tea I realized instantly—the hot liquid smelled of hay. The roof of my mouth and my tongue went strangely numb as soon as it touched them.

  “Is this mint?” I asked, and took a cube of sugar from a plate wanting to cover up the bitter taste of the brew.

  Nasrulló left my question without an answer, instead concentrating on his own cup. He took his sip like a part of a secret ritual, closing his eyes and rolling his head slightly backward.

  “Oof!” he exhaled. Then he ran his hand against his sweaty forehead and added something in Uzbek.

&nb
sp; I finished my cup, and he quickly refilled it. I would have been rude to refuse, and this way he practically forced me to drink three cups of his “tea.”

  At first, I did not understand the change that was overtaking me. The “tea” flowed through my veins, making my body light and foreign, as if I had floated outside and above it. My self and my body separated and continued to exist without one another. I was seeing myself from outside my body, but also I still perceived myself to be the person sitting there with a cup in her hand. I felt good; a warm current ran down my arms and legs. The world suddenly filled with sounds. I heard each distinct crunch that my horse made as he ground his barley; I heard the ting of his tack when he reached down to the bowl; I heard the buzz and hum of the flies that clouded around his head. I could even hear the rustling of the fabric—sheepskin rubbing against felt—when the man came very close to me, put his hands on my shoulders, and carefully unwound the towel from my head. His hands did not seem repulsive any longer; they were warm, and I could even feel his pulse beating in them—so confidently, with such persistent malevolent force.

  Suddenly, I found the color of his watch’s wristband—two red stripes on a black background—unbearably funny. It was a funereal ribbon, but on seeing it I laughed out loud and fell onto my back. Nasrulló also laughed, while his hands undressed me with a new boldness, and I helped him, turning around to make it easier to undo my bikini bra. The clothes constrained my body and it seemed right to be rid of them.

  And then he was everywhere—his fingers, his hands stroked my skin, tickled me and made me laugh. We chattered in Uzbek non-stop; I did not understand a word, but I was speaking it. Nasrulló was laughing, and only the small black pupils of his oiled-over eyes remained still.

  I became dizzy with the flood of words; then hot, then chilly. I felt feverish and wanted to lie down, curl up, and fall asleep right there on the sheepskin under the open skies. But I could not sleep—this I understood suddenly and clearly. The prickly wool of the sheepskin bit into my naked flesh, and the discomfort that it caused kept me awake, in touch with reality. The “tea” had robbed me of my will but not of the ability to reason, and it kept spreading its monstrous tentacles inside my body; I had to, I needed to and wanted to escape its grip, but I could not. It was a terrible sensation. I had long since been reunited with my body. I could not recall how and when it had happened, but I understood that I was myself again, except that I had no command over my body. The Uzbek now materialized as a horrendous giant, whose massive shoulders had blocked out all light. He smelled, like his horse, sweetly of sweat—that masculine odor that drove me crazy, simultaneously seductive and revolting. I saw him bend over me as if in a fog, and I mumbled something about the grapes, asked for something. He was like a mountain, completely naked, with the gleaming body of a fish, and I could see that he was covered in scales up to his chin, to the very edge of his blue beard. I had no strength to scream, fight back, or even to move. I became a doll in his enormous hands.