The Devils' Dance

by Hamid Ismailov

  Tears that drop by bloody drop fall to my hem below.

  ‘“Grape-like”,’ remarked Nodira, her jealousy turning to anger at her husband’s clumsy turn of phrase.

  There is no loyalty to be had anywhere in this wide world

  It is elusive as the wind, a rare and precious pearl.

  Nodira recalled her own verse with tears in her eyes. A large drop fell on the piece of paper and the word “grape-like” was blotted, so that it was now illegible. Nodira quickly put the gown’s cuff over the ink blot, but the paper was irrevocably stained. Her lacklustre eyes, blurred with tears, hurt feelings, anger and jealousy, looked at a couplet of the poem.

  In this bright garden the Emir longs to see your face within it:

  You are my one and only destiny, oh my dear pomegranate!

  ‘One mistake after the other,’ Nodira sighed vindictively. But what did she mean by that? Grammatical mistakes or misspellings of Arabic words, or clumsy expressions, or her husband’s clumsy act of leaving his poems for her to find? Perhaps she was wrong to trust friends and relatives, and perhaps there was no faithfulness in this world; perhaps this life was just a series of accidents?

  Parted from your grape-ripe lips and your throat apple’s sweet flower,

  This earthly garden’s every fruit is tasteless now, or sour.

  —

  Though the dungeon lacked even a grille through which to glimpse a piece of the sky and its colours, Abdulla could tell intuitively that it was evening. After the evening prayers yesterday he had sat at his desk in his home, beneath the window which framed the twilit sky, and poured all his feelings onto paper: the tender and the melancholy. Cho’lpon had written a remarkable poem called ‘Evening Falls’, which Abdulla knew by heart.

  Little balconies, houses big and small,

  Roofs of red, of blue and green,

  And above, clouds, billowing and flowing

  Gathering in masses across the skies.

  The sun sinks and scatters as it falls

  Trampled tulips over the cloudy screen.

  But soon the fevered hues are fading

  And from the east the darkness flies.

  A quivering echo hangs in the air

  As the muezzin cries the evening prayer.

  Then comes the rain – briefly it seems –

  But the winding street’s awash with streams.

  To seek their fortune, young and old

  Spread into the world far and wide

  But now they’re coming back to the fold –

  A sluggish, weary incoming tide.

  And in the village, the children call

  As they play together before bed,

  But darkness soon embraces all

  With its heavy wings outspread.

  Lamps flicker, flicker listlessly,

  Dull and sad as the eyes of a djinn –

  And the rainwater spills on aimlessly

  Over the ground like a silvery skin.

  Yesterday, sitting by the window at his home in Samarkand, Abdulla looked at the roofs of the houses in Ko’kcha and fancied he heard the faint sound of a muezzin. Clouds, clouds, he had thought, where are you coming from, where are you going – you link the day to the night – what evidence are you whisking away to the past? If I can get through these blank hours, then I can write in the darkness, by candle-light. In the next room, the table was being laid for the New Year; Abdulla reckoned he could get two or three pages down before Rahbar called him in. But he had barely sat down when there was a knock at the door. ‘Daddy,’ he heard the children calling, ‘someone’s at the door.’ Throwing a gown over his shoulders, Abdulla went to answer it.

  Who could be visiting so late? he wondered. Surely everyone would be busy getting ready to celebrate, to sit down to feast with their families. Before sliding the wooden bar from across the door, he called out, ‘Who is it?’ From the other side a voice responded: ‘It’s me, sir, your concierge’. Even as he unbarred the door, Abdulla had misgivings. Why should the concierge, who never showed his face otherwise, have turned up then of all times? Then three men in black leather coats burst in, without a word of greeting or explanation.

  Through the open door Abdulla saw the Black Maria, and everything became clear. His children saw it all. As he was dragged off to the car, one of his daughters, Anis or Adiba, ran after him and tripped: she fell and cried out. She lay there, watching him with tears in her eyes. The eyes of the Tatar secret policeman flashed behind his lenses as he threw the girl a contemptuous glance.

  Lamps flicker, flicker listlessly,

  Dull and sad as the eyes of a djinn –

  And the rainwater spills on aimlessly

  Over the ground like a silvery skin.

  An entire day had passed.

  —

  Once it had passed, Nodira was ashamed of the doubts she had entertained the previous day. All that because of one or two words which seemed suspect? After all, it is possible that I myself recited Uvaysiy’s pomegranate riddle to my sultan…

  The same had happened not so long ago with the following couplet by Uvaysiy:

  To openly ask my beloved to meet me is like dying; not to ask is also death.

  If I build love’s house for grief’s people, that is death; not to ask is also death.

  On hearing these lines, she had herself that very night feverishly recited it to Umar, ‘the Emir of all Muslims’ as he was now called, hoping to stir his jealousy.

  She was even tempted, for a moment to swap the pen name ‘Uvaysiy’ for her own ‘Nodira’ in the following lines:

  Mine is shame, disgrace and suffering, this life departs from an ephemeral world,

  Poor Nodira, if I turn yellow, this is death; if I don’t, I die.

  All the same, these lines applied much more closely to Nodira than to Uvaysiy.

  Uvaysiy’s character, in any case, was odd in every way. Nodira had tried a thousand times to get close to her, singling her out in the palace harem, showing her respect, omitting to mention her own lyrics, making it clear that she regarded Uvaysiy’s poems beyond compare. But she couldn’t get to grips with the other woman’s thoughts. She couldn’t figure out what Uvaysiy’s heart was hiding. Take her latest lyric:

  You who have come from Kokand city, my shoe’s missing, do you have it?

  You know my soul’s in jeopardy, my shoe’s missing, do you have it?

  What did that lyric say about her? What was it about?

  There’s no comfort in this misery, my face is wet, I have lost it

  You’re soul’s balm Kukabibi, my shoe’s missing, do you have it?

  What shoe was she talking about?

  You’re my soul, I’m a body, now my yearning’s all that’s left to me.

  God my judge, hear my plea, my shoe’s missing, do you have it?

  Nodira was intelligent enough not assume that every single word in the lyric referred to herself; but still, this was one enigma buried under another, as if mocking the sense of the poem. Unable to suppress her shrieks and sighs along the way, when Nodira got to the final couplet, she didn’t know how to react:

  May the prince be aware, my wail’s echoed through nine heavens.

  Errant Uvaysiy, say a prayer, my shoe’s missing, do you have it?

  No, no, she wasn’t calling on any earthly Prince, Nodira had no cause for jealousy. Uvaysiy was appealing to the almighty King of Heaven. Could Nodira be jealous of something a beloved was forced to say to a heavenly King? Too overwrought to make her own pen compose a response, Nodira was forced to recall the poet Fuzuli:

  Show mercy, my lordly King,

  Now is the time for magnanimity.

  —

  For evening prayers Abdulla read aloud the Surats As-Shams and Ad Dhuha. Halfway through the prayer the door scraped open, and
supper was brought in: pickled cabbage soup with a piece of black bread. The acrid smell of sour cabbage filled the cell. Interrupting his prayer, Abdulla took the food from the hands of the soldier-cook. He recalled his eldest son: whenever cabbage was served at home, Habibullo would start singing in a low voice, ‘Please can I have some cabbage…’ When he was arrested, the lad had been ill in bed. And Abdulla hadn’t been able to say goodbye.

  Something about the soldier who had brought in supper – a certain gentleness about the way he proffered the food in its metal bowl – put Abdulla at ease. If he hadn’t been in the middle of his prayers, Abdulla would have talked to him, could have tried to get some news of Cho’lpon and G’ozi Yunus. Finishing his prayers, Abdulla tried the food. The taste of the sour pickled cabbage in his mouth was revolting. He set it aside, telling himself that he could eat it later, if need be, and turned to the bread. As evening fell, his bones started aching again. Every time he chewed, the pain in his jaws spread to both shoulder blades, then from his shoulder blades to his ribs, and from his ribs to his waist and his legs. Though it was agony to eat, the bread left a pleasant taste in his mouth. He wouldn’t spoil that with the acrid cabbage.

  Had he managed to remember what he had written down? Alas, had it all now merged into a meaningless mass? If he could set it down on paper he would never confuse Umar’s Kokand palace with Nasrullo’s fortress in Bukhara, especially as the events were not one year apart, but ten. If he wanted to draw out the parallels, then he needed to think more about Emir Haydar and his story. Why had he jumped straight to Nasrullo? And wasn’t his interpretation of Nodira’s actions somewhat unusual? What was happening in Abdulla’s brain? Had a so-called devil managed to worm its way inside?

  He made an effort to try and forget all these things. Cho’lpon had written:

  Night is fear, night is torment,

  At night, old or new,

  All thoughts are a mirage.

  Now he would have happily exchanged all his dark thoughts to finish reading the Book of Fables, which he had been enjoying so much before he was taken away. He hadn’t yet figured out how to work it into his novel.

  ‘Storytellers tell the tale as follows: for time immemorial there have been in the lands of Fergana the ruins of an ancient city founded by the horseman king Kaykubod. The air there was fresh and pleasant. In early spring, when the greenery came to life and the wild flowers bloomed, everything was as brightly coloured as a peacock’s tail. Near the city, in a dense wood, the Screech Owl lived in its ancestral home. And his neighbour the Tawny Owl had a daughter of indescribable beauty.

  Her face make the sun and the moon abashed,

  Her words make the Shah’s sugar tasteless,

  Her harvest and life are so rich,

  This moon-like creature’s name? Gunashbon.

  But this was just like the story of Emir Umar’s marriage to Oyxon! Why hadn’t Abdulla seen the parallel before now? Excellent!

  Repeating each word with pleasure, Abdulla triumphantly confirmed his discovery. Remembering how the Screech Owl had sent the Scops Owl as a matchmaker, he couldn’t help likening this episode to a similar historical event described by Hakim-to’ra – the same Hakim who went to win Oyxon for his uncle Umar – in his History of the Elect:

  ‘“The Tawny Owl has a beautiful daughter. Go and ask for her hand on my behalf. No matter how great the bride price.”

  ‘But the Scops Owl quoted a popular proverb: “Boasts from haves are accepted, boasts from have-nots are dismissed.” The Tawny Owl’s response came: “My daughter’s bride price is a thousand houses”. For in the reign and times of our king his Majesty Sayid Umar-xon, Emir of the Muslims, the rulers and the ruled alike are joyful. All the family households are made of coral, we would be ashamed if there were a single deserted house. People say, “A lying fable doesn’t last long”, “Disgrace is more cruel than death”. Again it is said: “Once bent, a wormwood bush is broken; once disgraced, a young man is dead”.’

  Didn’t Abdulla know that the original author of this fable was the poet Gulxaniy, who had also lived in the Tajik part of the Fergana valley? What a pity he hadn’t investigated further. Gulxaniy may have been a relative or at least a pupil of G’ozi-xo’ja. Those lines about Emir Umar were surely sarcastic.

  Furthermore, it is known that Gulxaniy was a soldier in Umar’s service. Who knows: the Emir may have sent this well-built man together with Hakim to ask G’ozi-xo’ja for his daughter’s hand. True, Hakim never wrote about what passed between father and daughter, but in his Book of Fables Gulxaniy gave a very full account indeed!

  ‘Then the Tawny Owl said, “Shame on me, my daughter is grown up. Before I give you an answer I have to ask her if she agrees.” He went to her and said, “My child, the son of the Screech Owl, the king of the birds, is so excited by your beauty that he has sent matchmakers. What is your answer?”

  ‘So the young lady, being an exemplary well-brought up girl, rises to the occasion: in accordance with the saying “Silence is a sign of consent,” she merely sat there, head bowed. The Tawny Owl understood his daughter’s secret wishes, and said, “This child seems to want to get married”. No sooner had he said this, than the girl suddenly spoke up: “Hey, you ridiculous old man, is saying nothing an answer? Does someone who speaks of doing something good shout about it?’

  A key creaked in the lock, the door banged open, and Vinokurov came into the cell. ‘Did you think you’d dig yourself in here to celebrate New Year, you bourgeois-nationalist rat?’ Just as Gulxaniy said, ‘What came of the trumpeter’s blast? A puff of wind,’ Vinokurov managed to give Abdulla’s whole face a beating and a kicking before leaving.

  —

  Covered in blood, regaining consciousness with great pain, Abdulla bitterly regretted this episode. Why had he let himself be carried away by pointless thoughts instead of steeling himself for a likely attack? Although his hand wasn’t strong enough to grab Vinokurov by the throat, he could at least have sunk his teeth into him; even if he’d been shot on the spot for doing so, wouldn’t that be a thousand times better than lying there? There was no going back now. If he got his strength back, the moment he set eyes on that creature, he’d leap at him, bite him, strangle him, kill him.

  He spent the whole night obsessed with vain thoughts, thinking only of avenging himself. He felt no pain, the clots of blood didn’t bother him: vengeance burned in his heart. He forgot about the night-time prayer. Only after midnight did he fleetingly remember it, but the word for prayer, namaz, recalled in some corner of his brain a historical figure with a similar name: Namoz the Robber. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Namoz had escaped from a Russian prison and started robbing the rich in the Samarkand province. Betrayed by his rich victims, Namoz the Bold was thrown back into prison, where he murdered five or six soldiers who tried to assault him. After that nobody dared enter his murky cell alone: soldiers went in only in groups of ten or a dozen, their rifles at the ready.

  Namoz’s men seem to have been very enterprising: two or three committed petty thefts and got themselves put into the same prison as their leader. They found out which cell Namoz was in, and communicated with him by tapping the bars with a stone, or singing a song in which they inserted the words of their message. In the end, some of them took their punishment of about fifty lashes and started digging as soon as they were out of prison, all the way into Namoz’s cell. But merely escaping would have been too easy for Namoz. Concealing the hole, he banged on his cell door early one morning. He woke the soldiers and ten of them rushed in, rifles cocked. In the murk they could not see their prisoner: they fired a couple of times into the air, and ran about the cell. It was sheer chaos. But Namoz was clinging by his elbows and knees to a ceiling joist all that time: he then leapt down straight onto one of the soldiers, knocked him to the ground, grabbed his rifle and vanished down the tunnel…

  About fifteen or so other prisoners
then took the opportunity to escape.

  Having recalled this scene, Abdulla intended to work it into his novel. But what had made it come to him just then? Wasn’t this incident an event for a different novel, about different times? If Abdulla wanted to repeat Namoz’s actions, he had neither the men to do it, nor any way of smashing the concrete floor of his cell. There weren’t even any joists in the ceiling, only a metal grid around the lamp, but Abdulla had nothing to attach to it, since they’d taken away his belt, his waistband and his shoelaces.

  All the same, he would grab Vinokurov by the throat! Whatever happened.

  No sooner had he made that wish than Abdulla fell into a deep pit of dreamless sleep.

  —

  Awoken early by the creak of the door, Abdulla was in just as much pain as when he had fallen asleep. Alert to the prospect of another attack, he clenched his fists, but the man entering the cell was the same awkward Uzbek soldier as the day before. God has preserved me, Abdulla told himself. As a Muslim, he didn’t want to show his face to this young man before he had washed, so he moved aside and hurriedly started cleaning the congealed blood from his forehead, his swollen cheeks and eyelids, his aching chin.

  The young soldier was the first to make a greeting, albeit in a whisper. His words ‘Good morning, boss,’ were in the Tashkent style. Drying his face on the hem of his gown, Abdulla responded in kind.

  ‘I’ve brought you bread and tea, boss.’

  As he had the day before, Abdulla accepted the gruel and the mug of tea with a bow; he then asked quietly: ‘Are you from Tashkent? Which district are you from?’

  The soldier rattled the crockery to drown out his voice: ‘From Qumloq. My name is Sunnat. If there’s anything you need, let me know.’

  Abdulla likewise rattled the mug against his plate as he spoke, ‘All right, I’ll see.’ Then he turned round to face the little soldier, who was now leaving, and said: ‘Cho’lpon and the man they call G’ozi Yunus: which cell might they be in?’