Tales of the New World: Stories

by Sabina Murray

  This Sobolev has told the story well. He looks at the picture of the woman, stern and not quite pretty, nailed there. “And who is she?” he asks.

  “Who else?” says Sobolev. “The wife, of course.”

  There’s a silence, during which both men look about the room.

  “Well,” says Sobolev, “more sights?”

  “What is there to see?”

  Later, fortified with some Japanese vodka purchased from a freeman, Sobolev and the doctor and the forms—none yet filled out today—zigzag across the main street in the town of Dooay on the island of Sakhalin. They have had a little bread and cheese, a little conversation, a little humor, which is salve in this plain place.

  “Sofia Blyushtein, better known as Golden Hand,” says Sobolev, “you be the judge of her beauty. She somehow convinced the guard in Smolensk to run away with her, and they ran here and there, and where they ran, money disappeared and people had their throats slit. But I don’t know how she ended up in a prison in Smolensk, only of her escape and subsequent crimes. Here, on Sakhalin, she is connected with parting Yurkovsky the Jew from 56,000 rubles. How? The money was gone and there she was, either guilty party or accomplice. It was never figured out. And it was also never figured out how Yurkovsky managed to acquire so much money. A look at his wife says that she didn’t help to earn it: for something of that nature to occur, she’d have to pay the entry fee herself! And trading timber to the Japanese, well, maybe some money, but not 56,000.”

  “It is a large sum of money,” he says.

  “Even to me, who has been accused of making it.”

  They stop before the tall door of the prison. The smell of urine and excrement stand here, blown—but not away—by the wind. He looks up at the door and feels that stiffness in the neck from holding his head at that angle. Anxiety. That is this feeling. Being a doctor has mostly worn that away. He has seen the death of children. He has been choked by his own blood. Still, here, looking to the top of the door—and that smell—has made his heart begin to pound. Sensing this, Sobolev thrusts the cheap bottle of vodka into his hand. He takes a mouthful. A beating on the door produces the guard, who—through a barred portal—looks down at the doctor and across at Sobolev. The door is unbolted.

  The guard steps aside. “This way,” says Sobolev. He follows.

  In the gloom of the long room, one can make out chains on what appears to be an enormous and low-slung table, but which he knows is a sleeping platform. In fact, at the far end, coughing and coughing, chained in place, a man is curled upon it. At first he wants to ask what this man is doing in the prisoners’ block all alone when the other men are out in the coal mines, but he—this is the doctor speaking—knows the man is dying.

  “Cells are this way,” says Sobolev.

  He follows through the narrow passage. There are cells on either side, and from one he hears a dry cough followed by the clink of fetters. Wind whistles through a gap between roof and wall. Sobolev pauses and peers into the grilled window of one of the cells. Sobolev shrugs and gestures with his head, in suggestion that he take a look. And so he peers inside and startles a man, heavily fettered, sitting on the side of his bed sipping tea; the man holds the cup delicately, and a saucer is balanced on his knee. The man nods politely and he nods back.

  “Come.” Sobolev marches down the hall with knowing strides, looks into one cell, turns, and leans against the door. “She’s in there. No great beauty now, but you can sort of see what the big deal was.”

  He is struck by the fact that Sobolev speaks as though she cannot hear him. He wonders if he should say something like, Still a great beauty! out of kindness, but would that just remind her of where her good looks have landed her? And how could she forget her surroundings? Should he say that he does not need to see the infamous Golden Hand, now fallen so low? That might be noble, but he is curious. He rises onto the balls of his feet to see inside. There she is, a small woman with keen blue eyes and a long face, her hair streaked with gray, her mouth crumpled slightly as though she is missing teeth. She meets his gaze with some look not altogether human, then returns to picking at the fabric of her skirt. She wears an iron collar and is chained about her ankles and wrists, and this is her only adornment. “Is she always alone?”

  “I doubt it,” says Sobolev. “That’s what goes for beauty around here, and with the guards—well, you know. Had enough?”

  “Yes,” he says. “For now.”

  Outside, Sobolev says, “I should go there more often.”

  “But why?”

  “Because it makes me feel lucky.”

  Over dinner, the governor asks him about his day, his impressions of the prisoners, his thoughts: his thoughts present themselves as a series of photographs that he views, one by one, until he reaches something worth remarking on.

  “I saw a man chained to a wheelbarrow.” This is the writer speaking. “He says he sleeps like that, eats like that. To be chained to a wheelbarrow,” this is the doctor speaking, “causes certain muscles to atrophy.”

  “I imagine it does,” says the governor.

  The obvious moment for this punishment to be explained passes in silence.

  “But why chain men to wheelbarrows?” he asks.

  “Because the wheelbarrows are inexpensive.”

  Although this must be a joke, he cannot find the correct laugh for it—even faked—and he nods.

  “These men chained to wheelbarrows would strangle you, strangle me, swim back to the mainland, rape and pillage their way through Siberia, tramp on to Moscow or Saint Petersburg, commit all sorts of malfeasance.”

  “But to chain them to a wheelbarrow—”

  “Do you have a sister?”

  He nods.

  “Then you should understand. This is the duty of the governing forces in Sakhalin: to isolate the criminal element. To contain them with whatever resources we have.”

  He imagines convicts chained to oxen and small trees, bottles of vodka and prostitutes, as such are the resources on Sakhalin.

  “It is to keep the sisters of this world safe. We are responsible for all innocents.” The governor’s face is perfectly composed in an attitude of patient tolerance.

  He nods the nod of the patiently tolerated, and cuts another piece of the large and overcooked and oversalted cutlet. He’s known a lot of people’s sisters in ways that surely remove them from the realm of innocents.

  “Doctor,” says the governor, “is Sakhalin what you had hoped for?”

  The stench of the prison enters his memory, replaced by the dog’s tail thumping on the wooden boards of the verandah. “I wished to execute a census,” he replies. He manages a smile. “And there are plenty of people for me to count.”

  Which is as good a reason as any, and what else could he possibly say? That he has come because there is something intriguing about the ends of the earth, because he was feeling stagnant? What good reason could there be for the journey across Siberia—seven weeks of bouncing along the muddy ruts of the Kozulka, the limited pleasure of a few well-traveled prostitutes, endless bowls of duck skilly reflecting his reluctant face—and on to Sakhalin? He has offered one reason: to complete a census for his medical thesis in place of a dissertation. And people have offered reasons back: to gather material for his stories, to escape a broken heart, to kill himself, since surely the tuberculosis will finish him off, because he is in thrall to the beliefs of Tolstoy, because he is no longer in thrall to the beliefs of Tolstoy. To this he adds Kolia’s death.

  “Do you know of Przhevalsky?” asks the governor.

  “The explorer?” he says. “Yes, of course. I admire him. After his death, I wrote a piece about him for the New Times. We need more men like that, like Henry Morton Stanley, like Przhevalsky. These should be our heroes.”

  “Yes. Przhevalsky.” The governor swats at a mosquito tempted by the flushed skin above his collar. “I too am an admirer. Out across Mongolia he went, on his horse, alone. And he returned—which is the mark o
f a truly skilled explorer. Anyone can go, but not anyone can come back—can bring back these bits of unknown worlds, these things that we paper our minds with, as people here paper their cabins with the labels peeled from bottles and sweet jars.” The governor’s thoughts turn inward. “But it seems that even the unknown is populated. Like here, there was the possibility of great wealth. But how to get at it, eh? How to settle it with these bands of marauding savages . . . marauding?” The governor pinches the top of his nose, perhaps to unblock the sinuses. “Przhevalsky meant to exterminate them all, all the Mongols.”

  “An extreme policy,” he says.

  “Most are,” the governor agrees.

  “What is the policy on the natives here?”

  “Ah, we each are left to make our own. But if you have an anthropological bent, you should speak to our Major Botkin.”

  “Is he,” he says, swallowing a well-chewed piece of meat with aid of wine, “an anthropologist?”

  “Of course not,” says the governor, “he’s a major.”

  Major Petr Vasilievich Botkin lives five miles from the governor’s house, not a difficult walk, but the governor is aware of some delivery being made in that general direction, and so it is arranged that he ride with a settled exile who is bringing a sack of flour, some planks, and two boxes of nails to the major’s neighbor. As he makes his way north, sitting stiffly on the hard bench seat beside the driver, rocked and tossed as the wheels bounce into the hard ruts, he sees, wading through the underbrush, a group of Gilyak headed in the opposite direction. It is as if he is rolling on to the future and they—two men, an elderly woman wrapped in a carpet, two younger women, three small children of indeterminate sex, and two thin yet happy dogs—are moving further into the past.

  “Why don’t they walk on the road?” he asks.

  “They never walk on the road,” the driver answers. “They never had roads before and they see no need for them now.”

  Soon the cart draws to a halt and the driver points and says, “The major lives there.”

  He thanks the driver for his time and company—which was calming in its lack of conversation—and gives him some kopecks. As he makes his way to the house, a backward glance reveals the driver biting the coin and finding it acceptable.

  The major is waiting for him on the doorstep, plainly sizing him up, and so he returns the favor. Major Botkin is a lean man with coiled energy and darting gray eyes. The major nods agreeably as he makes his way to him and clears his throat as prelude to something.

  “I’ve been waiting for you to pay me a visit,” says the major. “I’ve been saying, ‘Where has the good doctor been this day?’ But I knew, eventually, you’d find your way here. And look where your census has taken you!”

  “Petr Vasilievich,” he declares, surprising himself with the miracle of having recalled the major’s name, “I’ve been told I could count on your hospitality.” Although no one said anything to support or refute this. “I was hoping to learn something of the Gilyak. I’ve heard you’re the local expert.”

  “I have my eyes open. And if your eyes are open, you see the Gilyak. And if you see the Gilyak, you notice them.” The major looks purposefully one way, then turns and does the same in the opposite direction to illustrate, one assumes, his superior gifts of observation.

  “To look around will be a privilege. I’ve done a little reading,” he says. “It seems their population is dwindling.”

  “How can that be? One sees them everywhere,” says the major.

  “It does seem that way. But fifty years ago”—he produces his notebook from his pocket—“there were over three thousand, according to,” he consults his notes, “Boshnyak. Fifteen years later, Mitzul says there are half as many. And now the governor tells me there are three hundred and twenty.”

  “And all of them living upwind of me!” says the major. “Have you been to one of their villages? The reek of it—split fish lying in the sun, to dry, of course, but the smell of it! And you know they don’t wash, never! Who knows what soap and water would reveal? A complexion light as mine, maybe. And they live with their dogs, for their dogs. As dogs.” Here the major laughs heartily. “And it’s time for lunch!”

  To underscore this shift, the major pounds him on his right shoulder and he lets forth a dry cough.

  “So, good friend, lunch first, and then I’ll take you to their village. Although it’s more of a—I don’t know—reminds me of nothing so much as a bunch of peasants gathered around waiting for a train. Only there’s not a train. And they’re not waiting. Ha!”

  He tries to think of some response, watching a convict limp down the street, his fetters clinking. “Maybe they are,” he says finally.

  “They’re what?” says the major.

  “Waiting,” he replies.

  “Ah!” says the major. Initial concern is replaced by a wide smile, the planes of his face wrinkle happily. “A joke! And for lunch I imagine you want nothing but caviar and champagne! But there’s none to be had, so we’ll make do. Make do. There is—will be—fresh fish and,” the major leans in, although what he has to say is no secret and is predictable as wind and prisoners on this island, “vodka!”

  “Count me there,” he says, and realizes that he is there, has been, since he reached this island, and somehow here is far from him. He is idling in there.

  The major is talking with such enthusiasm about G——, has been for the last hour, that he is convinced it is the only novel the major has ever read. And somehow the conversation has been continuing with great enthusiasm—energy!—although he himself has never read G——. Finally, there is a lull, during which even the major is out of words to bring to the book. “More vodka?”

  He smiles and indicates about an inch worth with his thumb and forefinger, a suggestion he knows will be ignored. He says, “I saw a woman among the Gilyak. She had a mark around her mouth—black—like a monstrous smile. At first I thought I was mistaken. It could be charcoal. As you say, these people do not wash, but there was something about it.”

  “Ainu,” said the major. “A different tribe than the Gilyak. And that grotesque smile was permanent. The Ainu tattoo all their women, and it’s always the same: a black clown smile.” The vodka splashes into the glass.

  “Do the Ainu and the Gilyak intermarry?”

  “They don’t marry at all, even among themselves. That Ainu you saw was most likely traded to the Gilyak for a dog or some vodka. That’s the true sign of the savage.” The major nods and corks his vodka. “That treatment—to treat women like that, like animals, as though they have no need of tenderness.”

  Tenderness? Is this the vodka talking?

  “As if a woman could be—” The major screws up his mouth so that it disappears beneath his mustache. “Well, traded! They think of women as slaves!”

  “One might say much the same of Strindberg,” he replies. Strindberg? Is this the vodka talking?

  “Not the same at all!” says the major.

  Who knows nothing of Strindberg, other than the fact that the holder of such a name must be from some civilized tribe.

  “What womenfolk need is kindness,” says the major.

  “Petr Vasilievich, do you find women so simple?”

  “Knowledge about women comes with knowledge of women, and I know you for a bachelor,” says the major.

  Here, he can only smile: he knows much of women, and this is precisely what has kept him from marrying.

  After lunch, the two men saunter into the street. At first the blast of cold air feels cruel, but soon is bracing—something to argue with the vodka and his postprandial stupor.

  “Just a little look,” says Botkin. “Well, that’s about all you can take, for there’s not much to look at.”

  The Gilyak encampment is a mere mile or two down the road—enough movement to help him understand the influence of the vodka, enough fresh air to make him regret drinking as much as he has. He excuses himself for a moment and finds a convenient place to ur
inate. As he empties, he thinks it’s some essential part of self puddling into that hard ground and knows he hasn’t had this thought since he was a child. He buttons up his pants and sees the major ahead, his walk almost a march—although unsteady—as though Botkin is parodying marching or, perhaps, civilization.

  “Where are you?” Botkin calls out, apparently having forgotten. And then the major searches through his coat. He watches, amused. Does the major think he has misplaced his guest, put him in a pocket? But no. A flask is produced, and the major invites him to this new toxin, although, upon drinking it, it seems much the same as the previous.

  “We’re close now,” says Botkin. “Can you smell it?”

  A deep inhalation introduces the scent of rotting fish. “I smell the fish,” he says.

  “Then you smell the camp.” Botkin wrinkles his nose. His eyes turn introspective. “But many things smell like fish.”

  Is this the same major with tender words for women? Or is it he himself whose mind drifts easily to the carnal?

  And then, to his right and in front of him, he sees the dogs. There are six, some skinny—maybe the presence of worms—and others thick-furred and strong. These dogs are baring their teeth, although not growling. Their tails wag cautiously. He wonders if these dogs—with their lips pulled back and teeth on display—are smiling. He wants to ask, because such knowledge would be useful. Instead, he says, “Do they bite?”