The White Ship (15 page)

He put the boy down on the floor, on the rug, among the sleeping drivers, and lay down next to him, pulling him close and covering him with the flap of his army coat.

Early in the morning the boy was awakened by his grandfather.

"Get up," the old man said quietly. "Dress warmly. You'll help me. Get up."

The faint morning light was just beginning to filter in through the window. Everybody in the house was still fast asleep.

"Here, put on your felt boots," said Grandpa Momun. He smelled of fresh hay—he had already fed the horses. The boy stepped into his felt boots and they went out into the yard. There was a great deal of snow, but the wind had died down. Only from time to time some swirls of snow eddied across the ground.

"It's cold." The boy shivered.

"It's all right. Seems to be clearing," the old man mum-bled. "Just think of it! Such a blizzard, right off. Oh, well, so long as nobody was harmed . . ."

They entered the stall, where Momun kept his five sheep. The old man found the lantern on the post and lit it. The sheep looked up from the corner and stirred.

"Hold it," said Momun, handing the lantern to the boy. "We'll slaughter the black yearling. There is a houseful of guests—we must have the meat ready by the time they wake."

The boy held the lantern. The wind was whistling through the cracks. It was still cold and dark out in the yard. The old man threw an armful of clean hay by the entrance. He brought the black yearling to the spot and, before throwing her on her side and tying her feet, he crouched and thought awhile.

"Put down the lantern. Sit down, too," he said to the boy. Then he began to whisper, holding his open palms before him. "Oh, great progenitor, Horned Mother Deer. I sacrifice this black sheep to you. For saving our children in the hour of danger. For your white milk, which you fed to our forebears. For your kind heart and motherly eye. Do not abandon us on steep passes, on rough streams, on slippery paths. Do not abandon us ever on our land, we are your children. Amen!"

He passed his hands prayerfully down his face, from forehead to chin. The boy did the same. And then the old man, threw the sheep, tied its legs, and drew his old Asian knife from its sheath.

And the boy held the lantern for him.

At last the weather quieted down. The sun looked out, frightened, once or twice through rifts in the rushing clouds. The effects of the storm were all around: snowdrifts piled in all directions, broken bushes, young trees bent double under the weight of snow, old trees toppled by the wind. The forest across the river stood silent, hushed, somehow oppressed. And the river itself seemed to have shrunk, its banks, piled high with snow, grown steeper. Even the noise of the Water was muted.

The sun kept glancing out and disappearing. But nothing troubled or darkened the boy's heart. The perturbations of the night before were forgotten, the blizzard was forgotten, and the snow did not disturb him—in fact, it made things still more interesting. He dashed here and there, white powder scattering underfoot. He was happy because the house was full of people, because the fellows were talking loudly and laughing after a good night's sleep, because they ate the roast mutton with relish.

Meantime, the sun was also steadying itself. It brightened and came out for longer periods. The clouds were gradually dispersing, and it was turning warmer. The untimely snow began to settle, especially along the road and the pathways.

The boy became anxious only when the drivers and loaders prepared to leave. They went out into the yard, bade their hosts good-bye, and thanked them for the food and shelter. Grandpa Momun and Seidakhmat were going with them on horseback. Grandpa took along a large bundle of firewood, and Seidakhmat a zinc-lined cauldron to heat water for the frozen motors.

They started out from the yard.

"Ata." The boy ran up to his grandfather. "Take me with you, I want to come too."

"Don't you see I have the wood, and Seidakhmat has the cauldron? There's nobody to take you. And what do you want there? You'll just tire yourself out walking in the snow."

The boy was hurt. He sulked. Then Kulubek took him by the hand.

"Come with us," he said. "On the way back you'll go with grandpa."

They walked along the road to the spot where it branched off and ran to the Archa meadow. There was still a lot of snow. It wasn't as easy as the boy had thought to keep up with those strong young fellows. He began to tire.

"Come, get up on my back," Kulubek offered. With an agile movement, he lightly swung the boy up to his shoulders. And carried him as easily as if he did it every day.

"You're all right, Kulubek," said the driver who walked next to them.

"Oh, I've carried my brothers and sisters all my life," Kulubek boasted. "I'm the eldest, and there were six of us. Mother worked in the field, father, too. By now my sisters have their own kids. I came back from the army, still unmarried, still without a job. And then my sister, the eldest one, says 'Come and live with us—you're a good nurse."Oh, no,' I said to her, 'I've had enough. I'll carry my own now . .

And so they walked, talking of this and that. The boy felt happy and secure riding on Kulubek's strong back.

"If only I had a brother like him," he dreamed to himself. "I'd never be afraid of anybody. If Orozkul wanted to shout at grandpa or touch anyone, he'd think twice at just a glance from Kulubek."

The trucks with the hay, left on the road the previous night, were nearly two kilometers from the fork. Heaped with snow, they looked like winter stacks in the field. It seemed that nobody would ever move them from the spot.

But the men built a fire and heated water. They began to crank the first motor by hand; it came to life and started sneezing. The rest was easier. Each following truck was started by towing, and so it went till all the motors worked.

When all the trucks were working, two of them towed up the one that had toppled over into the gully the previous night. Everybody helped to get it back onto the road. Even the boy found a spot at the edge and helped the men. All the time he was afraid that somebody would say, "Run off, stop tangling underfoot." But nobody said it to him, nobody chased him away. Perhaps because Kulubek had allowed him to help. And he was the strongest, they all respected him.

The drivers said good-bye again. The trucks started, first slowly, then faster. And the caravan went off along the road between the snow-covered mountains. The sons of the sons of the Horned Mother Deer were gone. They did not know that in the child's imagination, the Horned Mother Deer ran invisibly before them. With long, fast leaps she raced before the column. She protected them from trouble and mishaps on the difficult journey. From landfalls, avalanches, blizzards, fog, and other misfortunes the Kirghiz people had endured throughout their many centuries of nomadic existence. Wasn't this what Grandpa Momun had prayed for to the Horned Mother Deer when he had sacrificed the black ewe to her at dawn?

They were gone. And the boy was also going with them. In his mind he sat in the cabin next to Kulubek. "Uncle Kulubek," he was saying to him, "the Horned Mother Deer is running ahead of us along the road." "You don't say!" "It's true. Honest to God. There she is!"

"What are you thinking of?" Grandpa Momun broke into his thoughts. "Don't stand there. Climb up, time to go home." He bent down from the horse and lifted the boy into the saddle. "You're not cold?" asked the old man, wrapping the flaps of his robe closely around his grandson.

In those days the boy was not yet going to school.

And this evening, awakening now and then from heavy sleep, he thought anxiously: "How will I go to school tomorrow? I'm sick, I feel so bad . . ." Then he'd drop off again. It seemed to him that he was copying in his book the words written by the teacher on the blackboard: "At. Ata. Taka." With these first-grade words he was filling the entire copybook, page after page. "At. Ata. Taka. At. Ata. Taka."[note: "Horse. Father. Horseshoe."] He grew tired, the letters jumped before his eyes and he felt hot, very hot. The boy threw off the coverings. And when he lay uncovered and froze, all sorts of visions came to him again. Now he swam as a fish in the chilly river, trying to reach the white ship and never reaching it. Now he found himself in a snowstorm. In a cold, misty hurricane, trucks filled with hay were skidding on the steep road up the mountain. The trucks sobbed like people, and skidded without moving from the spot. The wheels turned madly, became fiery red. They burned and sent up tongues of flame. Pressing her horns into the body of the truck, the Horned Mother Deer pushed the truckload of hay up the mountain. The boy helped her, straining every muscle. Hot sweat poured down his body. Then suddenly the truck turned into a child's cradle. The

Horned Mother Deer said to the boy: "Come, let's hurry, we'll take the cradle to Aunt Bekey and Uncle Orozkul." And they began to run. The boy fell back. But ahead of him, the cradle bell rang and rang. The boy followed its call.

He woke when steps were heard on the porch and the door creaked. Grandpa Momun and grandma returned, seemingly a little less upset. The arrival of strangers at the post had evidently forced Orozkul and Aunt Bekey to quiet down. Or, perhaps Orozkul had tired of guzzling and had finally fallen asleep. There was no longer any shouting or cursing in the yard.

At midnight the moon rose over the mountains. Its misty disk hung over the highest icy summit. The mountain, locked in eternal ice, loomed in the dark, glinting with its ghostly, uneven planes. And all around, the foothills, the cliffs, the black motionless forests stood utterly hushed, while the river boiled and tumbled over the rocks below.

The wavering light of the moon flowed in a slanting stream into the window. The light disturbed the boy. He turned from side to side, closing his eyes more tightly. He wanted to ask grandma to curtain the window, but he didn't: grandma was angry at grandpa.

"Fool," she whispered, settling down to sleep. "If you don't know how to live with people, you'd better hold your tongue and listen to others. Don't you know you're in his hands? He pays you, even if it's only kopeks. But you get them every month. And what are you without the pay? Lived all those years, and learned no sense. . .”

The old man did not answer. Grandma fell silent. Then suddenly she said aloud:

“If a man's pay is taken from him, he's no longer a man. He's nothing."

Again the old man did not answer.

And the boy could not fall asleep. His head ached, and his thoughts were confused. He worried about school. He had never missed a single day, and could not imagine how it would be if he was unable to go to school in Dzhelesai tomorrow. He also thought that, if Orozkul dismissed grandpa from his job, grandma would eat him up alive. What would they do then?

Why did people live like that? Why were some good, and some bad? Why were some happy, and others unhappy? Why were there people who made everybody afraid of them, and others of whom no one was afraid? Why did some have children, and others not? Why could some people refuse to pay others their wages? The most respected people, he thought, must be those who get the biggest pay. But grandpa got very little, and so everybody hurt and insulted him. What could he do to make grandpa get more pay, too? Maybe then Orozkul would also begin to respect him.

These thoughts made the boy's head ache even more. Again he remembered the deer he had seen the previous evening at the ford. How were they doing out there at night? They were alone in the cold, stony mountains, in the pitch black forest. They must be frightened. What if wolves attacked them? Who would bring Aunt Bekey the magic cradle in her horns?

He fell into a troubled sleep and, as he drifted off, he prayed to the Horned Mother Deer to bring the birchwood cradle to Orozkul and Aunt Bekey. "Let them have children, let them have children," he pleaded with the Horned Mother Deer. And he heard the distant tinkling of the cradle bell. The Horned Mother Deer was hurrying with the miraculous cradle in her horns.

7

Early in the morning the boy awakened from the touch of a hand. Grandpa's hand was cold, from the outside. The boy shrank a little.

"Lie, lie there." The old man blew on his hands to warm them and felt the boy's forehead. Then he put his palm on his chest and stomach. "I'm afraid you're sick," he said anxiously. "You have a fever. And I was wondering—why is he lying in bed when it's time for school?"

"I'll get up, right away." The boy raised his head. Everything began to turn before his eyes, and there was a noise in his ears.

"Don't even think of it." The old man settled the boy back on the pillow. "Who's going to take you to school when you're sick? Let's see your tongue."

The boy tried to insist:

"The teacher will scold. She hates it when anybody misses school."

"She won't scold. I'll tell her myself. Come on, show your tongue."

The grandfather carefully examined the boy's tongue and throat. For a long time he tried to find his pulse. Callused and rough from years of hard work, the old man's fingers managed miraculously to catch the heartbeats in the boy's hot, sweaty wrist. Then he said reassuringly:

"God is kind. You've simply caught a chill. The frost got into you. You'll stay in bed today, and at night I'll rub your feet and chest with hot mutton fat. You'll sweat it out, and, God willing, you will get up in the morning strong as a wild ass.”

As he recalled the previous day and Orozkul and all that still awaited him, Momun's face darkened. He sighed, sitting at his grandson's bed, lost in thought.

"Well, what can you do with the man?" he whispered, and turned to the boy. "When did you get sick? Why didn't you say anything? Was it last night?"

"Yes, in the evening. When I saw the deer across the river. I ran to tell you. Then I got very cold."

The old man said in a guilty voice:

"All right. . . . Lie here, I have to go."

He stood up, but the boy stopped him:

"Ate, isn't that the Horned Mother Deer herself? The one that's white as milk, with eyes like that . . . looking like a human being . . ."