‘Then they made their way back along the river, pitched camp and began a big hunt in the woods and reed-beds all around. There were several thousand hunting falcons in all. The Emir himself owned more than three hundred falcons for his personal use, and nine gyrfalcons. There were forty goshawks, big hunting peregrine falcons, about forty saker falcons for hunting gazelles, and two hundred hounds, two of which were Phoenix-headed dogs, gifts from Kazakh khans. Each dog had a gold and silver collar, and each a velvet coat.
‘The sortie into the reed-beds was magnificent. Umar sent in his hawks to flush out the game birds: so many soared up from the woods, the sky was blotted out. The hunt climaxed with calls of help from the reed beds. The Emir, his son Madali and nephew Hakim approached: they came face to face with a gigantic lion, the size of a calf, with two cubs. The lion’s roar made the earth and the heavens tremble!
‘“Don’t you dare!’ the Emir ordered the other hunters back. “Nobody touches the lion: anyone who does, forfeits all his property. I’ll shoot this lion myself.”
‘Umar owned a splendid rifle, a gift from the Sultan of Turkey: he loaded it, lay down in ambush, and ordered the reed-beds around the lion to be set on fire. While the reeds were burning, the lion roared so loud that the heavens seemed to collapse. Running into flames on all sides, it killed three men and six horses, wounding several more. It had no option but to dash off into the steppe. It was then that the Emir fired his rifle. Struck squarely between the eyes, the king of beasts was flung into the air, and then collapsed with such a horrible roar that the hawks all flopped to the ground. It was as if an earthquake had shaken the area. Then there was bawling and jumping for joy.
‘As the ground was strewn with the hawks and gyrfalcons, so the Emir was showered with paeans of praise. Umar then ordered two of the lion’s canines to be pulled out: he hung them round his neck as an amulet.’
—
The next morning, after a breakfast of flaked rice gruel, Abdulla was pondering how to end his story. ‘After that hunt, the Emir spent a few days enjoying himself with his wives before returning to Kokand.’
Seemingly bored with their game of knucklebones, Jur’at and Muborak were now not only listening to Abdulla, but staring him in the face.
‘After covering a considerable distance, they entered the city of Namangan.’
‘We’ve been to Namangan,’ Muborak interrupted. This time, Jur’at said nothing, simply silenced his companion by tugging at his sleeve: Muborak bit his tongue and didn’t utter another sound.
‘In Namangan there were more celebrations and hunts, more singers and musicians, more beautiful women.’ Abdulla played for time as he gathered his thoughts. Already, his mind was jumping ahead to his novel, and how he might incorporate Umar’s pleasure party.
‘Umar was a hunter to the marrow of his bones. He hunted not only game, big and small, but also women, as if they were quarry and he was a bird of prey. Apart from his three legitimate wives, he had dozens of pretty women, maidservants and slave-girls. Among them, whether he knew it or not, he had a nickname, ‘the predator’.
‘We have to say that Emir Umar’s first wife was a poet, and his youngest was an aristocrat, while the middle wife was a beauty without peer in the world. Any living soul setting eyes on her couldn’t help but be stunned by her beauty and enchanted by her elegance. Her eyes were especially magical: the sight of them made men’s thoughts turn to adultery, left women stricken with pangs of jealousy. All wondered whether they were awake or truly dreaming.
‘The predatory Emir had married them all by force, against their will. Their fathers had been a governor, a Xo’ja and a Sayid, respectively: each had submitted to the Emir’s will and sacrificed their daughters.
‘Umar had a son, Madali, by his first wife Nodira; Madali and Hakim, the Emir’s nephew, were both allowed access to the harem, and Madali had fallen passionately in love with his stepmother Oyxon. When Hakim found out about this, he tried to make his cousin see sense; when reason failed to have the desired effect, he threatened to tell Umar of his son’s incestuous passion. At this, Madali seemed to have dropped the idea, but appearances, as we know, can be deceiving.
‘But let’s leave them for now, and hear about Umar himself.
‘As if at the throw of a die, his majesty called a halt to the feasting and celebrating and decided to undertake a journey, sending his wives and womenfolk ahead of him by cart from Namangan to Axsikent; he himself set off afterwards, accompanied by six trusted servants and forty guards. On their way there was a mighty act of God: sand and dust rose up and instantly turned the sky black; the wind was as strong as a hurricane. Their mouths and noses became filled with rough soil, their eyes bloodshot from the dust. The world around them was pitch dark, neither they nor their horses could see the road. They proceeded in single file, each clutching the harness of the horse in front, blindly following the Emir. When the sandstorm dropped they found themselves on the open steppe, back where they had started.
‘The day was over, with only the cold wind blowing and the ravenous wolves howling: all their senses told them that night was falling, but their journey was nowhere near its end. One soldier called out to another, “Devils have surrounded us,” and everyone was gripped by fear. First of all, four of the guards let the reins drop, and slipped away to find shelter to wait out the night. Another few followed suit, and after that a few more. By midnight the Emir had nobody left by his side, except for his six trusted servants. There was no light nor habitation in sight. As Shah Babur once said:
“Our parting made the night woeful.
There was no way I could find you again in that place.
Woe is me, thanks to the tears in my eyes,
The road was too muddy and the evening too dark.”’
When Abdulla’s story reached this point, a prison warder, with the same cockerel’s voice, sarcastically announced in Russian ‘Bed time’. Jur’at stopped listening to and looking at Abdulla, and reluctantly ordered the men in the cell, ‘Bed time! Lie down on your right sides!’ Abdulla and Muborak found their places, tripping over other men’s legs in the process. Too caught up in his tale, Abdulla hadn’t been able to empty his bladder or wash as his faith required. He had to lie down on his quilt as he was.
That evening, Abdulla was still awake as midnight approached; in the darkness he drafted a letter to Rahbar, before finally obeying the cell elder’s orders and turning over like all the others in his row, to lie on his right side. ‘I have lain down on my side,’ he prayed silently, ‘let me rise up in my faith.’
Chapter 3
Cricket
‘The English have a game they call kir-ket: it’s like our game of tip-cat,’ said Muborak when he began chatting the next morning. Muborak spoke the drawling Bukhara dialect, replacing all his ‘i’s with ‘e’s, and whenever he spoke, his statements sounded more like questions. ‘I myself saw it whenever I went out, at night or early morning,’ he explained.
Abdulla, who had been holding back his bladder all through the night, could finally relieve himself and savour the pleasure of washing his face and hands. Now he waited for his sympathiser – the soldier from Qumloq – to appear. Had he said what his name was? Of course: as they say, eat the grapes, don’t ask about the vineyard. Abdulla suppressed a laugh. He’d caught Jur’at the cell elder’s way of talking. If you stick close to the cooking pot, your clothes turn black.
‘I saw that game of cricket when we were in London…’ Muborak pronounced it kir-ket, Uzbek for ‘enter-go’.
‘You’re telling me you’ve visited London?’ Abdulla was amazed.
‘If you call a three-year stay a visit! That’s why I’m in here, charged with spying.’ But Muborak wasn’t going to say more on this topic, and he went on to talk about kir-ket. Abdulla made a mental note that he would have to question Muborak about his life in London: he thought that ‘kir-ket’ must in fact b
e the well-known English game of cricket.
‘The English stand on thick green grass in special white clothes and hit a small ball with a stick. Just like our tip-cat… If you hit it or, worse, it hits something behind you, someone else takes your place. That’s why it’s called enter-go.’
Muborak was about to launch into the details of the game when the cell door opened and two soldiers appeared. What a relief: one of them was Sunnat from Qumloq. ‘Breakfast!’ yelled the other, a Russian.
How many days had Abdulla been here? Would it be a whole week by this evening? Abdulla recalled the dawn he had seen seven days ago at home. A different life, a different era! After prayers at dawn that morning he had sat writing in his room; when he glanced through the window it was fully light. In fact everything was pure white and black: the summerhouse roof, the walls, the branches of the trees. There was just a hint of yellow or red in the sky. It was like the purple colour you see in New Year postcards, a colour deeper than red. In winter, the country-girls’ cheeks took on that colour, as Abdulla remembered from his youth.
Another week had passed since then, another lifetime.
He went to get his millet porridge, which was dispensed from a ladle by the Russian soldier. As Sunnat poured the tea, he gave Abdulla a momentary look, and Abdulla responded with a gesture. Sunnat seemed to grasp his meaning. You can’t go wrong with the right sign, Abdulla thought, happily returning to his place. Not letting the others distract him with their talk, he gulped down the unappetising gruel as though it were some delicious dish. To go up alone would be conspicuous; he waited a little.
‘Who wants seconds?’ the Russian yelled.
Abdulla’s heart pounded. He got to his feet, holding his flattened piece of paper against the bottom of his bowl and went up to Sunnat. ‘Here,’ he said as he handed Sunnat the bowl and the scrap of paper, simultaneously holding his tea mug out to the Russian.
‘What’s this, you fucker?’ the latter growled. ‘Why are you shoving that mug in my face? If you want tea, he’s the one to ask. Blockhead.’ As if to show him contempt, or perhaps simply because he could, the young Russian soldier spat in Abdulla’s face. It took every ounce of Abdulla’s control for him to think of his letter, only his letter, and to turn calmly to Sunnat.
‘You couldn’t pour me some more tea, brother, could you?’
Even when he sat back down again, Abdulla’s heart raced like an unbridled horse. Shame, anger that had no outlet, and fear coursed through his veins, because in prison an insult is not merely an insult, but a reminder of your position.
Abdulla didn’t even hear the soldiers banging and clanging as they left, let alone Muborak’s memories of England. He tried to console himself with thoughts of his letter, but even that seemed like a vain hope now; he was a desperate man clutching at straws. The world seemed to him to be utterly dark.
A few hours later Jur’at came up to him.
‘I heard everything. You feel hard done by, but don’t let it get to you, I’ll teach that arrogant Russian a lesson myself. You’d best come with me, we’ll have a little chat. A neighbour of ours has had a parcel delivered, so we can smoke to our heart’s content.’ Jur’at carefully led Abdulla by the hand to the far side of the cell, gesturing to Muborak, ‘Ethnic minority, you can come with us.’
The cigarette calmed Abdulla: he drew on the tobacco as if he was smoking hashish, his lungs filling with the hot smoke, which seemed to penetrate even the tensed muscles of his mind.
‘Lies don’t work, so tell it straight,’ Jur’at grumbled.
Now feeling more relaxed, Abdulla didn’t need much urging. He continued his story from the day before.
‘Well, my dear friends,’ he began. ‘In that dark night, with just six servants, Emir Umar was blundering about. He’d abandoned all hope, resigned himself to fate and to the devil’s work. Then he appealed to Allah to make short work of the devil, by accompanying him in reciting “La hawla, There is no power and no strength except with Allah.”.
‘Thanks to God’s providence, they finally heard something that was not the piteous howling of wolves or the wind, but the distinct bark of a dog coming towards them. This sound was so sweet to their ears that they eagerly spurred their horses towards it, and saw, squinting in the darkness, not the devil’s lights but the lamps of Axsikent. They entered the city in time for dawn prayers, at the hour just before daybreak. As the Emir and his entourage rode up to the harem’s tent, it was the turn of the beggars in the street to shrink back in fear and recite La hawla, believing that they were seeing the devil. The elderly harem servants, barely recognising them in their dishevelled headgear, met them with sobbing and weeping; the younger concubines giggled as they hurried to bring tea for the Emir. When the seven men looked at each other in the light of the camp fire and flares, they couldn’t recognise one face from another. There were three Ethiopian pages in the palace, but Umar and his attendants were now blacker still.
‘They were helpless with laughter, a kind of manic relief at having escaped with their lives.
‘After they found water and washed their hands and faces, they looked more human and were able to relax. Over the course of the day, the guards who had lagged behind or got lost trickled into the city in dribs and drabs. They too were the subject of great merriment.
‘“That damned lion made us lose our way,” Umar concluded, eyeing the two teeth hanging round his neck.
‘Again there was feasting, hunting and shooting, again games of knucklebones, and when they’d had enough of all this, they got up and set off for Kokand.
‘As everyone knows, the Syr-Darya is not far from Axsikent. That spring the river had flooded so severely that the opposite shore was out of sight. Fortunately there were now boats and ferrymen approaching the banks. Waiting for the ferrymen, the Emir ordered his officials and servants to board a ship and cross to the other side. There was one frail vessel still left on the bank, but it had no one to steer it across. Emir Umar was stubborn, and would not wait for the other boat to return from the opposite shore: he ordered the twenty women in his harem onto the frailer boat and then boarded it himself with his son Madali and his nephew Hakim, as well as the man who had organised the crossing, Mirzo Rahim, Keeper of the Seals.
‘Mirzo got down on his knees to plead: “I swear by Allah, Your Regal Majesty, this river thirsts for human blood. We are helpless as prisoners if we entrust our families to someone who has never in his life steered a boat. Trying to cross in this boat without a steersman is a waste of effort. It would be best if we wait for the other boats to come back!”
‘But the Emir was not one to go back on his word. If need be, he would himself be captain. Four men harnessed their four horses to the boat, and sent it into the river. The horses had never in their lives seen water: they panicked and started pulling the boat in all directions, putting everyone in mortal danger. The people in the boat yelled out, the women cried for help. In this dreadful time of doom, the horse that Hakim was holding on to broke free of its reins and swam for the shore, and the boat started to spin in the middle of the river.
‘Then Mirzo Rahim moved to the middle of the boat, fastened his belt as tight as he could, rolled up his sleeves, slapped his own face and started tearing at his beard. Everyone stared at him, stunned. He cried out: “Everyone who is in the same boat shares the same soul! Now, listen to me!” The boat was being swamped by waves and tossed about, now one way, now the other. Hakim, who had lost his horse, was preparing to jump into the river. He had stripped off his clothes, but stopped at Mirzo’s order: “Your highness, take hold of the horse and turn it to your right!” He then ordered Madali and one particularly strong-willed woman to rush forward and help him, “You turn your horse round to the left!” Mirzo himself, with his experience, mercilessly whipped the middle horse. In a very short time all three were subdued by his courage and began swimming in the same direction.
‘The boat very quickly got back on course. Soon everyone who was travelling in it was safely delivered to the far shore. Emir Umar took his sable-trimmed coat off his own shoulders and presented it to Mirzo Rahim. Mirzo Rahim expressed his gratitude by placing a little bag containing around four hundred grams of tobacco before the Emir. They smoked a hookah that day, desperately needing to calm their nerves.
‘After that they returned to Kokand, when, thinking he had attained his desired goal, Umar was suddenly taken ill; despite a thousand efforts by famous doctors, the Emir was at death’s door. Among the doctors attending to the Emir was the Bukhara poet Hoziq, who later spoke of Umar’s last moments. The Emir told Hoziq of the grief and pain he suffered, while Hoziq tried to raise his spirits:
‘“What use is treatment, your reverence? My time is over…”
‘“My Emir, you will recover; despair is the devil’s work.”
‘Then Umar rubbed his neck, smiled, and recited the following couplet:
Early morning among the flowers I heard it,
This magnanimous edict: all creatures are finite…
And with these words he drew his last breath. The washers removed from around his neck a strange amulet made from two lion’s canine teeth. When they examined his body further, they saw teeth marks in several places.
‘Some people said, “It was a lion’s tooth that poisoned Umar.” Others whispered that it was some sort of spell cast by the descendants of the Prophet, in revenge for the deceased Emir’s impious marriages.
‘The day that Emir Umar was committed to the earth, his son Madali was made to stand on a piece of red felt, and then enthroned as Khan of Kokand. The twelve-year-old Emir chose not to wear the lion’s teeth he had inherited from his father: he wrapped them up in muslin, and kept them far from his body.’
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