The Devils' Dance

by Hamid Ismailov

  —

  In addition to the pain, which made it difficult to lie comfortably, the extract that Trigulov had read made it impossible for Abdulla to get a wink of sleep that night. Whether a novel or a story, Abdulla never wrote straight through from beginning to end. He would make an outline of the work’s essence, and often he would work out every detail of the denouement. Sometimes he would start a first draft before the final scenes were clear in his mind. After that he would make the story follow his outline. True, it was not impossible for the story to take unexpected turns as it developed, but its unity and form were more or less preserved, thanks to the structuring effect of the plan. The extract that Trigulov had read was one of the last episodes he had written, among the papers he had hidden in the summerhouse.

  In it, Abdulla had described how, after losing the battle for Kokand and hiding in a village in Andijan, Madali sent a letter to Oyxon. Trigulov had recited what Abdulla had written almost word-for-word: it was impossible that it could be a coincidence. The moment the interrogator pronounced the words, ‘wife who was hiding in the country’, Abdulla realised that this ‘authorial addition’ was a deliberate provocation, and the son of a whore had traced Rahbar to where she was hiding.

  Couldn’t he have left his wife in peace? Was there anything these devils were not capable of? If Sunnat turned up in the morning, he’d have to speak to him. Could he get another letter sent to Rahbar? Could he tell her, ‘Get away as far as you can, to Kazakhstan, or Bashkiria!’ Those places would be quieter for Uzbeks. Remembering the note from his son Habibullo, hot tears started to Abdulla’s eyes. What had he said? ‘I’m looking after the garden. Don’t worry.’ Now that his eldest son had recovered, was he able to attend his medical courses? Abdulla was proud of Habibullo; he had acquired his father’s quick wit and insight into people. When Abdulla was writing Obid the Pickaxe, he would get up from the low table to stretch his legs and call to Habibullo, who was doing his homework in the next room: ‘Now, sir, let’s hear something from you.’ His son would then recount interesting anecdotes, moments Abdulla himself had ignored. One day in the hottest time of summer, when Habibullo was watering the roses in the garden, their neighbour the mulla dropped by: watching the young lad at work, he asked, ‘Son, how far do you think the scent of those flowers can reach?’

  Habibullo didn’t understand what the mulla was getting at: he kept quiet. The mulla said: ‘At most, the smell of these roses will reach the end of the lane. But the flowers of paradise spread their scent as far as a man can walk in three years…’

  ‘He’s just like your character Kalvak-Maxsum,’ Habibullo then said; a perceptive remark.

  His garden. Fitrat had taken the handkerchief out of Abdulla’s pocket and tied it over Abdulla’s forehead, covering the wound made by Trigulov’s steel-tipped boot. When he worked in the garden, Abdulla used to tie a handkerchief round his head to protect it from the sun. How were the vines doing this spring? Had Habibullo spread and fanned the new shoots to the wooden hoops and stakes? One or two cross-ties for the new shoots were broken, the stakes had nothing on them. Would his son be able to cope with this? Had he found the tools?

  Now the vines would be bursting into leaf, the perfect time to make dolmas. The cherries, apricots and peaches would have set fruit, and the old women would be warning the children not to eat them when they were green, otherwise they would get goitre. Not that Josiyat or Rahbar could control the children. But Habibullo was a sharp lad: he wouldn’t let anyone break the branches with green fruit still on them.

  But what could they do with the orchard this year? Would they have the money to buy tomato seedlings? Radish seeds were cheaper, and there was some left over from last year in the shed. He hadn’t written about that. Well, as long as Habibullo wasn’t expelled from college. But what would they have to eat over the summer? Would they spend their time in the country? If their neighbour Yusuf hadn’t been arrested, couldn’t they borrow some seed potatoes from him? He needed to write to Habibullo about that. Should he take the risk of asking Vinokurov personally? He already had his head wound bandaged with Vinokurov’s handkerchief: thanks for that, but no more, Abdulla told himself. He had been writing books since his youth, he thought he knew people; now he realised that he had been mistaken.

  —

  After re-harnessing the horses to the guns, Abdusamad and his gunners were the last to enter Khojent. When Emir Nasrullo took the keys to the city from its elders, he ordered, ‘There is to be no looting in the city’. Because of this, the people of the city gave their blessings, praising him for ridding them of Madali’s infidel tyranny. The banks of the Syr-Darya were crowded: those who had feared the city would be looted now returned to their quarters, while those who had hidden in their houses ventured outside, some to make plov, some slaughtering sheep, some bringing basketfuls of bread, some bringing beer and wine out of their cellars, all in gratitude to the newly arrived victors.

  The night passed in games and laughter around bonfires, to the sound of drums and shamus. At first light, Khojent’s Sheikh led morning prayers in the mosque, and Nasrullo moved his vanguard off toward Kokand. In no time at all, the soldiers remaining in Khojent had looted so much that the inhabitants weren’t left with even a piece of cloth to cover their loins. Abdusamad set his gunners loose in the jewellers’ quarter, where they filled an entire cannon barrel with gold: necklaces and bracelets, medallions and earrings, turban jewels and nose pieces. Then they stuffed a rag down the mouth of the barrel to cork it, and Abdusamad positioned himself close behind it as he finally left the city.

  —

  The next morning, neither of the soldiers who brought breakfast was Sunnat. Abdulla had thought it was his turn, but that was wishful thinking; there was no set timetable, no use pinning your hopes on probabilities. The bruises and swellings from yesterday’s kicking now began to throb painfully. Everything looked black to Abdulla, and Sunnat’s failure to appear left him in despair. He didn’t get up for breakfast; in fact, he couldn’t get up. Rather clumsily, Muborak fed him oatmeal gruel with a spoon, despite Abdulla insisting that he eat his first.

  ‘Eat well, brother, and you’ll get your strength back,’ Muborak said.

  ‘For now, you shouldn’t try to talk; I’ll tell you a story while you have your tea.’ Abdulla tried to listen, but his aching body and grim thoughts broke his concentration, so the story was like a watercolour soaked in water: its forms were unrecognisable, changed to such a degree that they began to resemble some fabulous account, the kind that wouldn’t have been out of place in A Thousand and One Nights.

  In Bukhara, something unexpected happened to Abdusamad: he fell in love. The story’s heroine was Rohila, daughter of the widowed Jewish silk trader Ilyos. Rohila was as beautiful as the moon, the mere sight of her smile was enough to leave a man bewitched, mind and soul. Her arched eyebrows seemed to shoot arrows, killing any man in front of her, her face was a pink as a tulip, her mouth was as tiny as a ring for a little finger, her navel could hold a cupful of oil, her buttocks were like two heavy bags of sand, just the shadow of her eyelashes falling over her breast was enough to enthral even a blind man to her beauty and begin to tell black from white.

  At first Abdusamad decided to intimidate Ilyos, and threatened to have him locked up. But Ilyos, who supplied the Emir’s harem with the best silk, and was in favour with Nasrullo, threatened to beat Abdusamad at his own game. As for money, Ilyos had more than he could count; as for rank, whether by underhand means or not, he had so much that any higher would only make him dizzy: would an Israelite lag behind a Shi’a? Abdusamad was ablaze with frustrated desire; never had he imagined such a disgraceful defeat. Nothing would make an impression. In his dreams, he pounded Ilyos’ fortress with an endless barrage of cannon fire, but this was nothing to the onslaught which the idea and image of Rohila was having on his own fevered mind.

  Finally, Abdusamad decided that he would win Rohila’s ha
nd by means of a trick. Weren’t the two Englishmen staying in his country house? Ilyos would dearly love to establish a trade with their country. Abdusamad spread the rumour that the two men were back in favour with the Emir, and that he would soon release them, allowing them to return to England. Abdusamad announced that he was giving a feast in their honour, and invited Ilyos, suggesting that the two men might like some silks to take back with them.

  Ilyos and all his family turned up at Abdusamad’s country manor in their string belts. And what a magnificent banquet Abdusamad laid on! But Ilyos, like a growling guard dog, refused to move an inch from his daughter’s side. Abdusamad had his butler mix cannabis seed with the spices in the guests’ plov. At midnight, when the Israelites were moaning in their sleep, he achieved his aim; the beautiful Jewess was in his arms.

  How good it is if the two of us can have a tryst in your garden,

  If my hand can be on your neck, my mouth on your ear.

  —

  Like a man who had eaten cannabis, Abdulla was unable to distinguish dream from reality. Whether it was Muborak telling this story, or whether he had concocted something pleasant from odd phrases Muborak had uttered, what difference did it make? In prison every man longed for a woman, that was why the story had taken such a turn. Even if he called Fitrat to hear this story, the latter would only recite his famous lines:

  My darling one, may God preserve you

  From the evil eye, may he ever save you.

  You’re so lovely may nothing depress you.

  My crimson flower, my shining star,

  Linger a while, let me see you.

  Are you the cure for my soul in grief?

  The throne of my heart? My belief?

  My goddess, is that what you are?

  My goddess, is that what you are?

  By what name should my heart address you?

  Anqaboy never so much as glanced at Abdulla. And yet they had been close friends, they used to go together to Abdulla’s house in the country. Why was he keeping his distance? Surely his nose wasn’t still out of joint from that article?

  In the mid-1920s Abdulla had published a humorous article titled ‘A Wish’ in the newspaper Turkestan. In it he wrote ‘For our poets and prose-writers today: fairness for Fitrat, inspiration for Elbek, madness for Cho’lpon, patience for G’ozi, idleness for Sanjar, new secrets to emerge in Samarkand for Hoji Muin, sobering up after intoxication with Halima for G’ulom Zafariy, “Bukhara’s Executioners” for Sadriddin Ayni, an idea not excluded by the Party for Mirmuhsin.’ Anqaboy took considerable offence: ‘Why didn’t you include me in that list?’

  In actual fact, as Fitrat then told Abdulla, ‘if resentment was flying past in the air, Anqaboy would jump up and grab it.’ Ah well, everyone’s nature was God-given.

  An Uzbek’s wits are holistic, accumulative. From childhood, it was drilled into our minds together with our mother tongue: if you start an idea, take it to the finish line! This is because the Uzbek language’s structure is such that until you get to the end of a verbal phrase, in order not to miss the meaning of the verb, whether the sentence is a question, a supposition or an exclamation, or a sizeable exposition, you won’t know what it means. This was the motive power running through Abdulla’s novel. But Muborak, in his disordered way, had confused everything with his intervention. A verb – an action that was being kept for the end – had been uttered too early. Abdulla had allowed himself to be seduced by details of his account, and now the whole structure of his carefully planned novel was threatening to burst apart.

  Abdulla had to get back to his Uzbek way of doing things.

  Madali had lost Khojent, but he still ruled Kokand, though Nasrullo was moving his troops in that direction. Abdusamad might well be sick of war, but he would go on following his Emir’s troops, safe in the rearguard with his cannon full of gold.

  Not far from Kokand, Nasrullo pitched camp. Madali sent his son Madamin with two senior clergy to meet him, together with the treaty that had been signed the previous year. Nasrullo summoned his counsellors. At this conference, Abdusamad was the only one to have lost all appetite for war; cautiously, he addressed the Emir: ‘Let me say a few words, if your majesty does not find them tedious.’ The Emir responded, ‘What words? Speak!’ And Abdusamad said, ‘Khojent has been taken, and that is good, but Fergana is a bigger state; think how many soldiers, how much state money would have to be expended on its conquest. Now Russia’s intervention is a local danger, as the Englishman Conolly has already warned. If you show mercy, and get Madali to repent of his infidel ways, let him rule Khojent, making him subject to Bukhara: a single, united Emirate would be a shield against any enemy.’ But this speech was not to Nasrullo’s taste; in front of all his other counsellors, the Emir kicked the kneeling Abdusamad in the mouth. ‘You want to run away without finishing the job, you tanned fox!’ Privately, he thought: once your cannons have done their work and Kokand is ours, I will deal with you and your Englishmen together.

  With Madali’s envoys as hostages, including his son prince Madamin, Nasrullo advanced his troops to Kokand.

  —

  Abdulla’s bruises and swellings were fading now; he had listened to another dozen or so of Muborak’s endless stories, but there was no news from Sunnat. When he and Fitrat sat down to talk that morning, breakfast was brought by a Russian and an Armenian. Inquiring after Sunnat might arouse their suspicions; they might well report him to the prison chief. Sunnat was Abdulla’s only link with the outside world; it would be better to treasure this link by keeping it secret.

  When he’d eaten his portion of millet porridge, Abdulla turned to Fitrat. ‘There’s something I’ve always wanted to ask you, Professor: why, when you’ve written about several of our classic poets – Yassaviy, Mashrab, Turdi – have you never set pen to paper about Nodira and Uvaysiy?’

  Fitrat thought for a while.

  ‘You’re right,’ he said. I’ve never written anything about our women poets. For one thing, I’ve read them mainly in anthologies. I’ve never found a single lyric by Nodira that’s any good. Uvaysiy is much stronger, but if one starts writing about her, then you can’t leave out Nodira, and life’s too short to write about all of them.’

  ‘In my opinion, Professor, you’re too dismissive of Nodira. She’s quite equal to our other poets. And then look at her life, so full of tragedies.’

  ‘Yes, good for you!’ said Fitrat. ‘Here you’ve hit the nail on the head. “Her life full of tragedies,” you say. But none of these tragedies can be detected in the verse itself. It’s all unhappy love, grief and separation; the classic themes, in other words, nothing concrete from her own life. With Uvaysiy, on the other hand, you see it all right there on the page: the heartbreak of losing a child, the struggles of making a living, of old age as a woman. Speaking to God, she says:

  Perhaps this message will reach the Prince, and my cry will pass through nine heavens,

  Say a prayer, erring Uvaysiy, my shoe is missing, have you got it?

  In another lyric, she said:

  Today, left by the beloved, Uvaysiy, abandon noise and scandal,

  It is better for you to make a row when God is the Judge.

  Look at her daring: she talks to God as an equal!

  Abdulla agreed with Fitrat on some points, but insisted that Nodira not be discounted. ‘She was also a poet of considerable daring. Think of these lines:

  Whoever as a slave decreed, oh King of the world,

  The probability of Nodira refusing Your way?’

  ‘All right,’ said Fitrat, ‘daring aside, this is what I want to say: you can’t find a single poem of hers that is based on her own life’s tragedies. Tragedies like, for example, her two sons, Madali and Mahmud, opposing one another, like Mahmud getting married in a foreign city and writing to his elder brother asking for money, only for Madali to say, “He’s not worth the expe
nse.” If historians can write about this, why can’t Nodira?’

  ‘She kept it all hidden,’ Abdulla said in her defence.

  ‘Keeping one’s troubles to oneself is praiseworthy for a mother. But we weren’t talking about the real woman Mohlaroyim, were we, but about Nodira, as she called herself?’

  Fitrat had been an eager debater ever since his youth; he was now riding his hobby horse, ready for a contest, making his snorting horse break into a gallop.

  ‘Or take Emir Nasrullo’s second campaign against Kokand, after he had conquered Khojent: Mahmud betrayed him by switching to his elder brother Madali’s side. When Mahmud arrived in Kokand with his troops, Madali, who hadn’t cared tuppence for his younger brother, now clutched him to his chest. Nodira, too, embraced her son, kissed his face and forehead and wept her fill. The very next day, one son renounced the throne, and the other stepped up to take it. A Shakespearean tragedy! But will you find a hint of such tragedy in Nodira’s collected works? It’s all:

  Oh, cypress-slim beauty, rare are your thoughts,

  The soul is burnt by a promise of a tryst with you.

  ‘But that is a splendid poem,’ Abdulla laughed.

  ‘You’re a writer, you’re no critic: your weapon is not your mind, but your feelings, your trade involves finding nobility even in a scoundrel,’ Fitrat said, waving his hand half in jest.

  —

  There was one secret that Abdulla kept deep in his heart, away from Fitrat or anyone else, that he didn’t trust even himself with. Yet it held the kernel of the impulse to write this novel.

  It had happened when he visited the Fergana valley to gather material for The Scorpion under the Altar: in the town of Shahrixon he came across an old man who possessed an anthology of poems from the Khanate period. The poems it contained were of varying quality, but one line bewitched him: ‘Hassan, bereft of Husain.’ When he asked after its author, the hint came that it was Oyxon, the pride and glory of Shahrixon.