by Kanat Malim
Britney Spears, QazaQ Bride
Kanat Malim
Translated by E.S.
“Britney Spears, QazaQ Bride”
Written By Kanat Malim
Copyright © 2017 Kanat Malim
All rights reserved
Distributed by Babelcube, Inc.
www.babelcube.com
Translated by E.S.
Cover Design © 2017 Creator
“Babelcube Books” and “Babelcube” are trademarks of Babelcube Inc.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
1. Stranger from the sky
2. Saule - Sunshine
3. A sense of flying
4. Moments of joy
5. Anticipating a change
6. Memories
7. The path to Ataq’s heart
8. Dialogue
9. “Nauryz” — Qazaq wrestling
10. Singing Saule
11. “Qyz quu” — Without Ataq
12. Ataq’s memory returns
13. Britney Spears
14. Britney’s memory returns
15. Life without Britney
16. Ataq in America
1. Stranger from the sky
One winter day somewhere in the steppes of Qazaqstan, a man between 25 and 30 years old and his elderly mother were making their winter migration in a horse-drawn cart.
Everywhere it was white upon white; deep powdery snow lay all around.
Suddenly they noticed a woman lying in the snow with an open parachute nearby.
Upon coming closer, they see that she is alive, but with numerous bruises and her head is bleeding.
Not wanting to leave her to freeze to death, they take the woman with them.
Two or three days pass.
The young woman awakens and sees a frightening man leaning over her. He is a shaman who is circling around her, doing a magic ritual.
She tries to stand up and realizes that her right leg is broken. Her thoughts are confused; she tries to remember where she came from and how she ended up here...
In time it becomes apparent that the fall caused the young woman to lose her memory.
Out of all the things the strangers say to her, the only thing she understands is that the guy’s name is Ataq and the elderly woman is Aina Apa. She can’t even remember her own name.
Listening to her talk, Aina Apa and her son realize that she’s not Russian and speaks English.
Recognizing the desperation of her current situation, the girl obediently accepts food and drinks the milk that Aina Apa gives her with a smile.
A week passes and still she can’t remember anything.
She lies on an iron bed in a round room. All she is able to see here is a large qazan standing in the middle of the room, a washbasin, and a door that leads directly outside.
Although the room is warm, it isn’t soundproof, and at night the howling of a wolf can be heard coming from far away.
Gradually she starts to heal.
Aina Apa teaches her the Qazaq language with the help of a Qazaq-English dictionary.
She studies diligently, and by the end of a month the girl can at least speak with her hosts.
Now she knows why she is staying here but that doesn’t help her to remember who she is and where she’s from.
Ataq explains to the girl that the closest city can only be reached when spring comes. The nearest road is 200 miles away.
Vehicles can’t get here in the winter, so no one comes here during this time of year.
2. Saule - Sunshine
The days slip by. The girl no longer feels pain in her leg. She has even learned to ride, and her Qazaq vocabulary is increasing.
Aina Apa tells her the meaning of their names. It turns out that Aina means ‘mirror’ and Apa is ‘aunt.’ Ataq’s name means ‘fame, celebrity.’
Upon learning the meanings of their names, the girl asks Aina Apa for a Qazaq name. Without hesitation, Aina Apa calls her ‘Saule,’ which means ‘sunshine’ in Qazaq.
Saule already helps them with household chores. It should be noted that in Qazaqstan the shepherds graze their livestock even in winter, but only as long as the animals can nibble grass from under the snow.
Ataq now allows Saule to go with him when he hunts for foxes with his golden eagle, and sometimes they herd sheep together. Every evening they have to feed 600 sheep and 200 horses.
At first Aina Apa is amused watching Saule’s clumsy movements wearing Qazaq clothing from her wardrobe. But even funnier is when the girl tries to approach a mare to milk it.
Mare’s milk is fermented to make koumiss, a national drink containing a small amount of alcohol, similar to beer.
Saule only has Aina Apa to talk to, since no one lives in a 10 mile radius of them. Apa becomes both a mother and girlfriend to her.
It’s more difficult to chat with Ataq. All of her attempts to have a long conversation with him end in brusque, to the point answers. He seems closed off from her.
It’s true that he is stern with her, but he’s also very caring. If she had been able to remember the films Waterworld and Troy, she certainly would have found he resembled the Kevin Costner and Brad Pitt characters.
Despite his sharpness, she finds Ataq to be just, brave and hardworking.
His good-heartedness is apparent in his treatment of his horse, his golden eagle and his dog — all faithful assistants in his daily life. The same is true when he consults with his mother about how much they will share with other shepherds from neighboring farms.
Ataq always tries to finish whatever he starts, even if it takes all day.
He doesn’t lack courage, because in this region every day is accompanied by risks.
One day Saule let the herd of sheep go too far ahead and they ran into a pack of hungry wolves. If it weren’t for Ataq arriving just in time, Saule would have become their victim.
Instantly he jumped off his horse and attacked two of the wolves with a knife. While Ataq struggled with them, the remaining wolves chased the sheep.
Ataq, pinned on his back, thrust a knife into the throat of one of the wolves, while Saule shot the other with her rifle. At the sight of the wolves, she was shocked and had completely forgotten about her weapon.
The shot caused the wolves to scatter in different directions, but they still circled around the pasture where they had left mauled and bloodied sheep.
Ataq gathered the surviving sheep into a flock with difficulty, then sent them home shepherded by Saule. He remained to collect the wounded sheep that had succumbed to the wolf attack.
Saule looked back in Ataq’s direction and realized that he stayed to help the animals that had no chance of recovery to die painlessly. It seemed that he was in no hurry to leave the danger zone.
3. A sense of flying
As Saule got closer to the yurt with the flock, Ataq caught up with them. A dead wolf was hanging from the side of his horse.
At dinner, Ataq explained to his mother the reason for leaving dead sheep in the pasture:
“In nature the prey must stay with the hunter.”
His mother muttered something under her breath anyway, angry that out of 13 sheep her son didn’t bring back at least a couple of carcasses. She knew that sometimes he refused to eat meat. Ataq quietly continued to drink his tea.
The harsh winter was coming to an end. Around them the snow was beginning to melt, and it seemed as if the snowline was rising higher and higher into the mountains.
Saule was already hot in her fur coat that was made from fox skins sewn in native Qazaq style. She starting going out without a fur coat and a shawl which was always tied tightly around her head.
In
winter the yurt was so cold she even wore the shawl inside. Now she didn’t think the shawl was suitable.
The first days of March arrived.
Everything was repainted in bright colors: In some places red tulips appeared, turning the pasture red, and snowdrops covered parts of the steppe in yellow.
Mother Nature had unwittingly created the impression that a beautiful silk carpet had been unrolled.
The girl had not seen anything like it, although she had recently discovered that if she saw something from her past, she recognized it and knew what it was.
But that didn’t help her to regain the rest of her memory.
Discussing her memory improvement with Aina Apa, they both came to the conclusion that the more she saw familiar things, the better her chances were of recovering her memory!
Awareness of all this filled Saule with confidence that she would be able to remember her past after she visited the city. Now she was impatiently waiting for the full blooming of spring, because Ataq had promised to take her to the city then.
In the meantime, Saule marveled at everything around her: Spring changed not only the appearance of the steppe, but even the process of caring for livestock. Now they didn’t need to drive the sheep into a sheep barn every night to feed them, and the herd was released to roam freely along the steppe.
And when she raced on her horse, which she rode like a native...
...the only thing close to it was flying!
The horse itself was eager to gallop, as if he knew that she wanted to fly!
She also liked to ride around the other horses, which didn’t want to be overtaken, and in turn would run faster.
She only allowed herself to do this when Ataq was grazing the sheep behind high hills. Otherwise Ataq would forbid her to work with the herd permanently; his last warning was the sixth in a row.
After that, she promised herself for the tenth time not to repeat this.
4. Moments of joy
All this was just child’s play in comparison with her feelings one morning when, just as she was leaving the yurt, she saw a tiny lamb in front of her.
Curly and black, the ‘baby’ confused her with its mother and bleated at her, as if asking for affection.
She couldn’t hide her emotions, and with a loud shriek she rushed outside to embrace this wonderful creature.
Ataq was getting dressed and it seemed to him that she was screaming in terror. Afraid of seeing something terrible, he flew out of the yurt.
Saule sat hugging the helpless lamb on her lap with both hands as it tried to wriggle out of her gentle embrace. Looking in the direction of its biological mother, the lamb made a baby-like ‘baaah.’
The mother ewe watched in fright, afraid to come closer to the human.
Ataq, who didn’t have time to throw a shirt over himself, saw tear drops rolling down the girl’s cheeks like morning dew running off tulip petals.
But there was no sadness on her face, which shone with a mother’s smile.
Unintentionally, he smiled too. It was the first smile that Saule had seen from him.
And this was also the first time she saw him half-naked.
With the sun shining on Ataq’s back, his athletic frame was clearly emphasized, making him a beautiful silhouette as he was smiling at her.
“Let’s give it a name,” she exclaimed, taking advantage of the situation and wanting to get his approval, because Ataq never liked her taking the initiative. As usual, he was on the ‘anti’ side of things.
“Another 400 lambs will be born... there’s not enough time to hike along the steppes and yell for them by their names like an idiot,” he replied.
She realized that this smile was only a brief manifestation of tenderness, like the lamb that had jumped out of her embrace and moved away from her.
With each passing day there were more happy moments.
She experienced great joy at the sight of a foal, struggling to follow in the long strides of its mother.
Scenes like this always touched her.
5. Anticipating a change
She had more free time: Now the well-fed sheep and horses did more resting than roaming.
She found a project to keep her busy: when she caught another lamb, she cleaned blades of grass from its curly wool.
Ataq liked watching her. Sometimes he would get up close and just watch what she was doing...
But if he caught the girl’s gaze, he immediately looked at the sky, as if he were estimating the time of day from the sun.
The girl had already carefully studied the sequence of his actions and so she never took her eyes off him, waiting for his second glance.
And as she expected, he quietly lowered his eyes to his watch, which was always in the right pocket of his old trousers... and then he turned slightly in her direction.
Catching her gaze, he immediately would nudge his horse so that he turned away quickly, or if he was walking he’d start to pull some plant from the ground, as if it didn’t belong there.
It made her laugh.
Now more often he seemed ridiculous to her.
Sometimes it seemed to her that he behaved like a cute foal that was always getting into ridiculous situations.
How she wanted this ‘colt’ to understand the meaning of the word ‘fool,’ as she called him, laughing out loud.
Today seemed special to Saule.
Everything in nature was abundant: She managed to ride next to the herd for a long distance, she was able to clean the backs of several lambs, and four times she caught Ataq’s glance.
Thinking about all this and concealing a smile with difficulty, she placed several different dishes of native food on the table.
Their dining table was low, only 12 inches high, designed for eating while sitting on the floor. After a meal it was easy to stand it on its end in a corner of the yurt.
Aina Apa and Ataq were surprised by the richly laid table. Everyone was in a good mood.
Ataq sat down at the table, singing a melody.
The girl had never seen him like this before.
This was all extraordinary, and seemed to foreshadow something good.
Aina Apa started the conversation:
She said that no lambs had died of disease this year, and the number of ewes that gave birth had more than doubled since last year.
After that they talked about the fact that today was special. Ataq even told a funny story about a female sheep that chased after two rams in succession.
Everyone laughed.
Saule laughed not because of the story, but because of Ataq’s good mood.
“It’s probably the beginning of the end of the world when the female is chasing the male,” added Ataq smiling, as he lay down on his left side and pressed a pillow under his left arm.
Aina Apa suddenly remembered that their regular customers from a nearby village had visited them in a jeep a few hours ago.
She had learned from them that they would be making several trips to the village to bring a number of mini power stations to their pastures.
The first trip would come the day after tomorrow, and Aina Apa had asked them to take Ataq and Saule back with them.
The girl immediately understood why they were supposed to go with them. A chill ran through her entire body.
The time for her to part from the steppes was approaching, perhaps forever.
Everyone was silent.
You could hear the crackling of the logs smoldering in the burning fire.
There was no trace of the previous joyful atmosphere.
6. Memories
I guess I should explain. It’s difficult to think about, and I won’t go into too much detail.
Aina Apa had noticed the good changes in her son, and she tried to persuade Saule to stay with them, until her son had fully recovered.
“Recovered from what?”
Aina Apa told her the story:
“Five years ago we lived in the city of Almaty; it’s 300 miles from
here. We lived like a modern urban family.
“Ataq was working in the construction business, and his company was engaged in building high-rises. His business was going well.
“But in the last two years he had problems involving a dispute over the purchase of some land in the city center. As I remember it, there was a lawsuit.
“One time he went to his summer dacha in the country and didn’t return. Not being able to reach him, I left with his driver to look for him in that general direction.
“We discovered his body at the foot of a high mountain where his dacha was built.
“Praise be to Allah, he was alive!
“I think this somehow was connected with that piece of land.
“After two weeks in a coma, he regained consciousness. But, just like you, he didn’t remember anything.
“Trying to make himself remember something, he began to beat his head. Doctors couldn’t diagnose the problem. In a specialized clinic, our turn would have come in two months.
“It was dangerous for us to stay in Almaty, so I decided that we would go to stay with a friend in another city.
“After a month, his seizures became more frequent.
“I tried everything that people recommended.
“I put my last hopes on a famous shaman, who, incidentally, also treated you for three days until you woke up.
“The shaman lives near here. He knew us well.
“We come from this area — Ataq’s great-grandfather was a shepherd.
“Our livestock was passed from father to son, until Ataq’s father disappeared.
“At that time Ataq was only 10 years old and he went to school in a nearby village. During the summer holidays he would come home to us.
“Since my son was so young, we were unable to get by on the farm.
“There was no news from my husband and he was never here.
“In order not to destroy all the livestock, and there were quite a few of them — 3000 sheep and 600 horses — we had to sell all of it before the onset of winter.