The Last Quarter of the Moon

by Chi Zijian

  Ivan told Kunde that he wasn’t in the military any more. His personnel file – and thus responsibility for his livelihood – had been transferred to the local civilian authorities. Kunde asked if he’d been dishonourably discharged, but Ivan denied it.

  ‘I just couldn’t get used to the way everybody gathered round a table inside to eat, and at night they closed the door and windows so tight you couldn’t even hear the wind blow,’ he complained.

  And what’s more, the army kept trying to find him a wife, but those women might as well have been soaked in medicinal herbs. They weren’t at all attractive to him. ‘If I stayed there any longer, I’d have died before my time.’

  He’d recently been transferred to a work unit in Mengkui. He even received a salary there, a sum that was many times greater than the monthly ‘living allowance’ – a modest cash payment – that was made to hunters still earning their living in the mountains.

  Ivan told Valodya that he feared the mountain forests wouldn’t be so peaceful in the future because many workers had arrived in Mengkui, and they were going to chop down trees and develop the Greater Khingan Mountains. The railway company had also arrived, and they would construct railways and roads in the mountains to ship felled timber to the outside world.

  ‘Why do they chop down the trees?’ asked Viktor.

  ‘It’s getting crowded outside the mountains, and people want houses to live in,’ said Ivan. ‘How can you build houses without wood?’

  Everyone remained silent, for Ivan’s arrival brought us no cheer. But Ivan didn’t seem to sense our gloomy mood, and he rattled on about Wang Lu and Ludek, and also about Suzuki.

  Ivan said that although Wang Lu and Ludek weren’t executed, they were both sentenced to prison, one for ten years, and one for seven. When Ivan pronounced ‘ten’ and ‘seven’, he slurred his words a bit.

  The story about Suzuki went like this. Word had it that he was captured while fleeing and was taken to the Soviet Union with many other Japanese prisoners of war. They worked on the construction of the Siberian Railway alongside German prisoners. Suzuki missed his hometown and his aged mother, and wanted to go back to Japan. To obtain permission to go home, one day he intentionally allowed a railway sleeper to sever his leg. Now lame, he couldn’t work on the railway, so he was repatriated.

  Kunde sighed at the end of the tale of Suzuki’s misfortune. ‘He’ll be paying for the evil he did for the rest of his life!’

  ‘I’d never have thought he’d become a “cripple” like me!’ added Vladimir.

  Ivan stayed just three days with us and then went to Luni’s urireng.

  I became a grandmother that year. Lyusya gave birth to a strong and healthy boy and asked me to name him. When I remembered that the flower and tree names Nihau gave her children were so fragile, I simply named him ‘Youyin Biela’ – ‘September’ – since he was born in the ninth month of the year. I reckoned the Spirits could easily summon flowers and trees, but they couldn’t reclaim the months. Each year, good or bad, there are twelve months, and none can be omitted.

  What Ivan said turned out to be true. In 1957, forestry workers stationed themselves in the mountains. They were unfamiliar with the terrain and shouldering those building materials for their ‘station’ was hard work, so we not only acted as their guides, we also had to use our reindeer to transport their tents and other items. On three occasions Valodya led our urireng members to drive the reindeer hauling their goods. They were frequently away for two weeks at a stretch.

  Thus commenced the din of logging. Once the snowy season arrived, you could hear axes and saws at work. One after another, those thick and sturdy pine trees fell, and one road after another was opened up to transport timber.

  At the beginning horses were used to drag logs to the paved roads, but afterwards tractors roared in their place. They had more horsepower than horses themselves and could haul ten logs per trip. All the timber dragged from the deep forest was loaded onto long logging trucks and hauled to destinations beyond the mountains.

  We and the reindeer craved quiet, so from then on as soon as the logging season began, we relocated more frequently. We sought secluded spots, but not every secluded spot could serve as a campsite. It depended if there was sufficient ‘reindeer moss’, and if the surrounding area was good for hunting. We cherished the springtime more than ever, for it marked the end of the tree-harvesting season when the forest regained its former tranquillity.

  In 1959, the government built a few Russian-style wooden cabins for us in Uchiriovo. Some clansmen occasionally went there to live but never stayed long because they still preferred the mountain life. So those houses were generally vacant and only rarely did one spot smoke rising from their chimneys.

  A primary school opened there and the children of Evenki hunters could study for free. Valodya suggested sending Tatiana to school.

  Concerning education, Valodya and I were not of the same mind. He believed that children should go to a school to study, while it seemed to me that learning to recognise all sorts of plants and animals in the mountains, understanding how to get along with them harmoniously, and being able to understand the significance of changes in the wind, frost, snow and rain – all these were a kind of education.

  I’ve never believed that you can obtain a bright and happy world via book learning. But for his part, Valodya said that only a person who possesses knowledge would have the vision to perceive the brightness present in our world.

  But I felt that brightness was right there in the rock paintings next to the river, in the trees that mingled with one another, in the dewdrops on the flowers, in the stars at the tiptop of the shirangju, and in the reindeer’s antlers. If that isn’t brightness, what is?

  Tatiana didn’t go to school after all, but when he was free Valodya taught her and Maikan to read. Employing a branch as a writing utensil and the soil as paper, he traced hanzi on it and taught them how to pronounce them.

  Tatiana loved to learn the characters, but Maikan was no good at them. She studied and studied, and then she’d doze off. Vladimir felt sorry for his Maikan and didn’t insist she continue her studies.

  ‘Valodya got his hands on some ants, and now he’s stuffing them in Maikan’s brain,’ Vladimir said. ‘I won’t allow him to harm my darling daughter.’

  Late in the autumn of 1959, Luni suddenly came looking for me and invited us to attend my Andaur’s marriage ceremony.

  One of the people allotted to Luni’s group was a girl named Washia. A member of Valodya’s clan, she was three years older than Andaur and taller than him too. She was a chatty girl, quick with a smile, and she loved to dress up. But Luni said no one had imagined Andaur and Washia as a couple because she was already engaged.

  Early one summer morning three reindeer were missing from those that had just returned to the camp, so Luni mobilised the young members of the urireng to search for them. They left in the morning and returned in the afternoon, having located the reindeer but lost two people: now Andaur and Washia were missing.

  Just when they had separated from the others, no one was sure. Luni said he knew that Andaur was a good child and wouldn’t do anything improper, and Washia was already engaged to be married, so he reckoned that nothing would happen between them.

  The pair came back in the evening. Andaur looked a bit listless, and he had a few small cuts on his face. But when asked, he just said he’d run into a patch of thorns.

  As for Washia, she was very gay and resembled someone who had just drunk a bowl of deliciously cool spring water on a hot day. She told everyone that she and Andaur had taken the long way when the path forked, and that’s why they had arrived later.

  But a month or so later Washia began vomiting in the morning. People assumed she had something wrong with her digestion, and gathered wolf-tongue grass to make soup for her. By the autumn, however, her belly had grown big, and everyone recalled that day when Andaur and Washia came back alone.

  Washia’s father wen
t looking for Andaur. ‘Washia is already engaged,’ he said. ‘You’ve defiled my daughter! You might as well have pushed her off a cliff!’ He pummelled Andaur and left his face black and blue.

  Andaur didn’t comprehend what he’d done wrong. He said he hadn’t been keen to perform that stark-naked act, but Washia had said it was a thing of beauty. He even said that Washia had taken off her trousers and pulled him into her embrace.

  ‘I didn’t know what to do. Washia showed me,’ Andaur said. ‘She got so excited and happy that I thought she was going crazy. She shouted “Andaur! Andaur!” and grabbed at my face and scratched me until I bled!’

  ‘Washia told me, if anyone asks about the cuts on your face, just say thorns pricked you.’

  ‘But Washia told me a different story,’ Luni said to me. ‘She said she was forced. That Andaur raped her.’

  ‘No matter what,’ said Luni, ‘Washia is pregnant with Andaur’s child. Her earlier engagement is as good as broken, and Andaur must marry her.’

  This was a union neither party desired. Andaur said he didn’t want to marry a woman who fibbed, and Washia cried and said she didn’t want to marry an idiot.

  I went to Luni’s and asked Andaur: ‘Are you willing to live with Washia?’

  ‘No. When she’s excited she scratches you, and she even fibs.’

  ‘But you got her pregnant, so you have to marry her!’ Luni and I both told him.

  Andaur covered his face with his hands and cried silently. Watching the tears flow out from between his fingers, I thought my heart was going to shatter. But after he cried he nodded at me, and agreed to swallow the bitter fruit he had sown.

  When Nihau presided over the marriage, Andaur held his head down while Washia kicked her foot against the ground. Maria coughed and said to Washia: ‘Watch that foot of yours or you’ll lose your child.’

  I didn’t want Maria to let her mouth run because that would be even more awkward for Andaur, so I handed her a bowl of baijiu. Maria really had grown old. She sipped at the bowl several times but only managed to drink half of it, and her hand quivered like a flame caught in an icy wind.

  After Andaur’s marriage ceremony, I returned to my urireng. But just one month later, after the first snow had covered the forest in a silver-white headscarf, Luni summoned me again. This time it was to take part in a funeral.

  Maria was dead. As she lay dying, she held Zefirina’s hand tightly for the longest time until she exhaled one last, long breath, and then slowly released her hand. Even when she died she had not set eyes on the grandson for whom she had yearned. She departed with her eyes wide open.

  It was at that funeral that Luni told me that Nihau was pregnant again. When Luni pronounced those words, his lips quivered. For others, pregnancy was a joyful affair, but Luni and Nihau were shrouded in a deep sense of terror.

  ‘In the future, treat your own children like someone else’s, and treat other people’s children like yours, and everything will be fine,’ I advised Nihau.

  Nihau got my meaning. ‘But I can’t stand by and watch my own children suffer and do nothing,’ she said sadly.

  I understood that what she referred to as ‘my own children’ actually meant ‘other people’s children’.

  Maria ascended the Heavens. Meanwhile, Ivan descended the mountains to nurse the rheumatism he had contracted. His knees had become misshapen and he could hardly walk.

  Two families in Valodya’s clan who had been with Luni also left for Uchiriovo, leaving Luni’s urireng rather cheerless.

  ‘Maria is gone and her feud with Yveline has ended, so let’s come back together,’ I said to Luni. ‘I’m speaking for the good of Andaur too. Washia seems flirtatious and overbearing, and this doesn’t bode well for him. If Washia bullies Andaur, I can exercise my influence as her elder.’

  Luni and Nihau also agreed to reunite the two urireng because ever since Berna had lost her partners in play, she had become increasingly withdrawn.

  ‘Berna once caught a yellow butterfly,’ recounted Nihau, ‘and she said she was going to put it in her stomach and let it fly about and play with her. I thought it was just idle talk, but she really did so. Berna tossed the live butterfly in her mouth and closed it, squinted her eyes, and didn’t speak for several hours. Luni and I were almost scared to death!’

  When Luni led his urireng back to our camp, Yveline discovered that Maria and Ivan weren’t there, and Washia and Nihau were both big-bellied.

  ‘A pair departed and a pair set to arrive!’ She snorted.

  I explained that Ivan’s departure was different than Maria’s. Maria had ascended the Heavens to enjoy a happy life, while Ivan had left the mountains to recuperate.

  Yveline was stunned for a moment, but she quickly regained her wits: ‘Men who’ve lived off military rations are useless. They even get sick!’

  But after Yveline bad-mouthed Ivan, her eyes suddenly blurred with tears. Her mouth spoke of Ivan, but her heart thought of Maria. Her tears proved that.

  That evening, Kunde told me Yveline had not eaten.

  The second day, she still didn’t eat.

  On the third day, she could no longer walk unaided. Leaning on a wooden stick, she proceeded with difficulty over to Hase’s. ‘Did you give Maria a wind-burial or a land-burial?’

  Hase still despised Yveline. ‘Maria can see the sun and the moon without lifting her head. Young squirrels with pine cones in their claws jump about her. You tell me: is she in the wind or in the ground?’

  Yveline lowered her head. ‘In the wind is best. Yes, in the wind.’

  Yveline left Hase’s and suddenly threw down her stick, folded one hand over the other, and bowed three times towards the sky. When she finished bowing, she picked up her staff and returned, trembling, to her shirangju.

  Yveline resumed eating, but henceforth she couldn’t manage without a walking stick.

  Valodya and Hase came back from the supply cooperative in Uchiriovo where they traded for grain, and they told us that famine was ravaging the world outside. Grain supply was tight, so they only got four bags of flour and a bag of salt. For our entire urireng, such a small amount of grain was negligible. Since grain was insufficient, distilling liquor was also a problem, and the cost of baijiu rose. All the drinkers among us were listless.

  But we had abundant stores of jerky and dried vegetables, and with an assured supply of ammunition, we could get our food by hunting. So no one panicked. We allotted the flour mainly to Luni and Andaur because their partners were pregnant.

  After Washia and Andaur married, he stopped smiling. He didn’t sleep with her and she found this intolerable. One time she came to complain. ‘I have a bitter life,’ she sobbed. ‘Andaur doesn’t even know how to sleep with a woman. He’s truly the Number One Idiot under the sky!’

  ‘You say Andaur doesn’t know how to sleep with a woman.’ I replied. ‘Does that mean the thing swelling your belly was drummed up by the wind?’

  Washia cried more fiercely. ‘I have rotten luck. Andaur did that thing to me just once, and now I’m pregnant with his little monster.’

  ‘You’re pregnant, so for the safety of the child, you should refrain from sex. If the first child is aborted, you might turn out like Zefirina who has found it hard to get pregnant again.’

  That set Washia jumping. ‘I don’t believe it!’ she yelled. ‘Three years ago my first foetus miscarried, but I got pregnant again this time, didn’t I? Why do I have such rotten luck?’

  When she finished her outburst, Washia realised she had misspoken. She covered her mouth but the horror and regret in her eyes betrayed her, and she said nothing more. I realised she had lost her innocence long before she met Andaur. Whom she had coupled with she didn’t mention, and I didn’t ask.

  But after this, Washia was better behaved. In front of me, she stopped cursing Andaur for being an idiot, but she was still unhappy with her lot. When she saw women, her eyes were colourless like a dead fish’s, but her eyelashes fluttered and eyebr
ows arched at the very sight of an adult male’s silhouette. But men never paid her intimations any heed.

  Once Valodya asked Andaur: ‘Doesn’t Washia please you?’

  Andaur repeated his old reply. ‘I despise her. When she’s excited she scratches your face. Her hands are like an eagle’s claws. She likes to fib, but nice girls don’t tell lies.’

  ‘And you don’t care for the child she’s carrying for you?’ continued Valodya.

  ‘The child hasn’t come out yet. How do I know if it will be loveable?’ Andaur’s answer made me laugh.

  In June of the following year, Washia gave birth to a boy in a meadow, and Valodya named him An’tsaur.

  An’tsaur’s arrival brought the shadow of a smile to Andaur’s face. But Washia didn’t care for An’tsaur. She didn’t dare call Andaur an idiot again, but she married this appellation off to An’tsaur. ‘My Little Idiot, drink your milk!’ she said when she nursed him. And when she cleaned faeces from her baby’s rump, she said angrily: ‘How can this Little Idiot’s shit stink so bad?’

  After Washia gave birth to An’tsaur, she assumed that since Andaur was content with the child he’d naturally feel gratitude and tenderness towards her, and seek pleasure with her. But he still didn’t sleep with her. ‘You Little Idiot, you’re ruining my life!’ she moaned, venting her frustration on An’tsaur.

  ‘Other people’s children are their darlings. Why do you call your child an “idiot” from morning to night?’ Vladimir reproached her. ‘Even if he isn’t an idiot, you’ll end up talking him into one!’

  ‘His Ama is one, so naturally he’ll be an idiot too! Isn’t that so? Except for useless men like you who don’t know how marvellous a woman can be, what kind of man doesn’t enjoy women? Only an idiot!’

  Washia’s words deeply stung Vladimir and the heart of every member of our urireng. From then on, no one was willing to converse with her. I hadn’t imagined she could be so shameless, and I didn’t want my Andaur to spend his life with her. It wasn’t fair to him.

  I discussed the matter with Valodya with an eye to dissolving their marriage. Valodya agreed. We brought Andaur over and told him our intention, but surprisingly he rejected it immediately.