Authors: Chingiz Aitmatov
The boy on the mountain sighed heavily. Wouldn't it happen just today that he would let the calf out of his sight? Just on the day when he had got his schoolbag, when he was already dreaming of how he'd go to school?
The old woman went on and on. Continuing her scolding, she examined her chewed-up dress. Guldzhamal came out with her daughter to see what was amiss. Complaining to her, grandma got even more upset. She shook her fists in the direction of the mountain. Her bony, dark fist waved threateningly in front of the binoculars. "Found himself a game. A plague on that damned ship. May it go up in flames, may it go down to the bottom . . ."
The samovar was boiling in the yard. He could see through the binoculars the puffs of steam breaking out from under the lid. Aunt Bekey came out for the samovar. And the whole thing started all over. Grandma stuck her chewed-up dress under Bekey's nose. "Here, look at your nephew's doing!"
Aunt Bekey began to quiet her down, to defend him. The boy guessed what she was saying—probably the same things she had said before: "Calm down, mother. He's still young, he doesn't know. What can you ask of him? He's alone here, without friends. Why shout, why frighten the child?" To which grandma undoubtedly answered: "Don't you teach me. Try and bear some children yourself, then you'll know what you can ask of children. What's he hanging out on that mountain for? He's got no time to tie up the calf? What's he looking for? His no-good parents? The two who brought him into the world and then ran off in different directions? It's easy for you, a barren one . . ."
Even at this distance, the boy saw in his binoculars how Aunt Bekey's gaunt cheeks turned deathly gray, how all of her began to shake. He knew exactly what Aunt Bekey would shout back—she'd throw the words into her stepmother's face: "And what about you, old witch, how many sons and daughters did you bring up? What are you, I'd like to know!"
And then all bell broke loose. Grandma howled with anger. Guldzhamal tried to make peace between the women, she talked to the old woman, put her arm about her, trying to take her home, but grandma ranted on and on, rushing about the yard like a madwoman. Aunt Bekey snatched up the samovar, spilling the boiling water, and almost ran with it into her house. And grandma wearily sank onto a log and sobbed, complaining of her bitter fate. The boy was now forgotten. Now she raved against the Lord God himself and the whole world. "Is it me you're talking about? Is it me you're asking what I am?" grandma cried indignantly to her absent stepdaughter. "Why, if the Lord hadn't punished me, if He hadn't taken my five babies, if my only remaining son hadn't been struck down by a bullet in the war at the age of eighteen, if my old man, my darling Taygara, had not frozen to death during a snowstorm with his flock of sheep, would I ever be here among you forest people? Am I, then, like you, a barren one? Would I be living in my old age with your father, the half-witted Momun? For what sins, for what transgressions have you punished me, you damned, accursed God?"
The boy took the binoculars away from his eyes and his head drooped sadly. "How can we go home now?" he said quietly to the schoolbag. "It's all because of me, and because of that stupid calf. And because of you, too." He turned to the binoculars. "You're always calling me to look at the white ship. It's your fault, too."
He looked around him at the mountains, cliffs, rocks, and forests. Glistening streams fell silently from the glaciers in the heights. It was only here, below, that the water seemed at last to acquire a voice, to rush with constant, unceasing noise down the river. And the mountains were enormous and endless. The boy felt at that moment very small, and very lonely. Alone among the huge mountains rising on all sides.
The sun was already sinking toward sunset beyond the lake. It was growing cooler. The first, short shadows appeared on the eastern slopes. Now the sun would sink lower and lower, and the shadows would creep downward, to the foothills. The white ship usually appeared on Issyk-Kul Lake at this time of day.
The boy turned the binoculars to the farthest visible spot and held his breath. There it was! And everything was instantly forgotten. There, on the blue, blue edge of Issyk-Kul was the white ship. It had come. There it was! Long, powerful, splendid, with its row of tall smokestacks. It sailed in a straight line, steady and even. The boy quickly polished the lenses with the edge of his shirt and adjusted the focus again. The outlines of the ship became even sharper. Now he could see it rocking slightly on the waves, leaving a white, foaming wake behind it. His eyes glued to the glass, the boy stared with excited admiration at the white ship. If he could have his way, he would ask the ship to come nearer, to let him see the people on it. But the white ship didn't know his wish. It went slowly and majestically on its own way, who knows whence and who knows where.
For a long time the boy could see the passage of the ship, and thought again how he would turn into a fish and swim down the river, all the way to the white ship.
When he had first caught sight of the white ship from Outlook Mountain, his heart began to hammer wildly with all that beauty, and he instantly decided that his father—an Issyk-Kul sailor—sailed on that very ship. And he believed it because he was so anxious for it to be true.
He did not remember either his father or his mother. He never saw them. Neither had ever come to visit him. But the boy knew that his father was a sailor on Issyk-Kul, and his mother left her son with grandpa after the marriage broke up, and went to the city. She went, and disappeared—in a distant city beyond the mountains, the lake, and more mountains.
Old Momun had once gone to that city to sell potatoes. He was away a whole week and, on returning, he told Aunt Bekey and grandma over a cup of tea that he had seen his daughter, the boy's mother. She was working in some big factory as a weaver, and she had a new family—two girls whom she sent to nursery school and saw only once a week. She lived in a big house, but in a tiny room, so tiny you could not turn around. And in the yard nobody knew anybody else, as in a marketplace. And everybody out there lived like that: they would come into their room and lock the door at once. Sitting locked up as in a prison all the time. Her husband, she said, was a bus driver, ferrying people through the streets from four in the morning till late at night. A difficult job. His daughter, he said, kept crying and begging his forgiveness. They were on a waiting list for a new apartment, but nobody knew when they would get it. When they did, she'd take the boy to live with them, if her husband permitted. And she asked the old man to wait awhile. Grandpa Momun told her not to worry. The main thing was to live in peace and harmony with her husband, and the rest would take care of itself. As for the boy, she shouldn't cry. "As long as I'm alive, I won't let anybody take him. And if I die, God-will find a way for him—a living man will always find what's destined for him." Aunt Bekey and grandma listened to the old man, sighing, and even shedding a tear or two.
It was also then, over their tea, that they mentioned his father. Grandpa had heard that his former son-in-law was still working as a sailor on some ship and that he, too, had a new family, with two or maybe three children. They lived near the harbor. People said he had quit drinking. And his new wife came with the children to the pier each time to meet him. "That means," the boy thought, "they come to meet this ship . .
And meantime the ship sailed on, departing slowly. White and long, it slid over the smooth blue of the lake, puffing smoke from its smokestacks and never suspecting that the boy, who had turned into a boy-fish, was swimming toward it.
He dreamed of becoming a fish, so that everything about him would be fishlike—body, tail, fins, and scales—everything except his head, which would remain his own: large, round, with lop ears and a scratched nose. And his eyes would be the same as now. Naturally, not quite the same, for they would have to look like fish eyes.
The boy's lashes were long, like the calf's, and they kept blinking of their own will. Guldzhamal said she hoped her daughter would have such lashes, she'd grow up to be a beauty! But why does one have to be a beauty? Or handsome? Who needs it! For his part, he had no use for beautiful eyes; he needed eyes that could see under the water.
The transformation was to take place in grandpa's pond. One, two, and he was a fish. Then he would leap at once from the pond into the river, straight into the seething current, and swim downstream. And go on and on, leaping out from time to time to look around. It would not be interesting to swim underwater all the time. He would speed along the rushing torrent past the red clay precipice, across the rapids, through the foaming waves, past woods and mountains. He would say good-bye to his favorite boulders: "Good-bye, resting camel," "good-bye, wolf," "good-bye, saddle," "good-bye, tank." And when he swam past the forest station, he would jump out of the water and wave his fins to grandpa: "Good-bye, eta, I'll be back soon." And grandpa would be petrified with wonder at such a sight and wouldn't know what to do. And grandma, and Aunt Bekey, and Guldzhamal with her daughter would all stand gaping with open mouths. Who has ever seen a creature with a human head and the body of a fish! And he'd be waving his fin to them: "Good-bye, I'm off to Issyk-Kul, to the white ship. My father is a sailor on it." Baltek would run to follow him along the bank. But if he decided to plunge into the water to join him, he'd cry: "No, Baltek, don't, you'll drown!" And he would continue on; he'd dive under the cables of the suspension bridge, and past the coastal shrubs, and down through the roaring gorge straight into Issyk-Kul.
Issyk-Kul is as big as a sea. He would swim across the waves, from wave to wave to wave—and then the white ship would appear before him. "Hello, white ship," he'd say to it, "it's I! I'm the one who always watched you through my binoculars." The people on the ship would come running and stare in wonder. And then he'd say to his father, the sailor: "Hello, papa, I am your son. I've come to you." "What kind of a son are you—half-man, half-fish?" "Just take me up on board, and I'll become your ordinary son." "Isn't that something! Well, let me try." And his father would cast a net and catch him, and pull him up on deck. And he would turn back into himself. And then, and then . . .
Then the white ship would sail on. The boy would tell his father all he knew, all about his life. About the mountains where he lived, about his stones, about the river and the forest preserve, about grandpa's pond where he had learned to swim like a fish, with open eyes . . .
He'd tell him what it was like, living with Grandpa Momun. His father mustn't think that, just because a man is nicknamed Obliging Momun, it means that he's a bad man. There is no other grandpa like him anywhere, he is the best grandpa in the world. But he isn't sly, and that's why everybody laughs at him. Because he isn't sly at all. And Uncle Orozkul shouts at him, at the old man! Sometimes before strangers, too. And grandpa, instead of standing up for himself, forgives him, and even does his work in the woods and around the house. But that's not all! When Uncle Orozkul comes home drunk, instead of spitting into his shameless eyes, grandpa runs up to him, helps him down from the horse, takes him home, and puts him to bed. He even covers him with the coat so he won't get chilled or get a headache, and then he unsaddles the horse and cleans and feeds him. And all because Aunt Bekey is childless. Why is it like this, papa? Wouldn't it be better if people had children if they wanted to, and didn't if they didn't want to? It's a pity to watch grandpa when Uncle Orozkul starts beating Aunt Bekey. It might be easier if he hit grandpa instead. He cannot bear to hear her screams. But what can he do? If he wants to rush out to help his daughter, grandma doesn't let him: "Keep out of it," she says. "They'll settle it themselves. Why should you butt in? She's not your wife. Sit still." "But she's my daughter!" And grandma: "And what if you were living somewhere far away instead of next door? You'd gallop here on horseback every time to separate them? And who'd keep your daughter as a wife after that?"
The grandma I'm talking about isn't the one that used to be. You probably don't even know her, papa. This is another grandma. My own grandma died when I was little, then this one came. We often have queer weather—you can't make it out: one moment it's bright, then it gets cloudy, one moment it rains, the next it hails. This grandma is just like that, you never understand her. Now she's good, now angry, and now nothing at all. When she is sore, she'll nag you to death. Grandpa and I keep silent. She's always saying that a stranger, no matter how much you feed him and care for him, will bring you no good. But I'm not a stranger here, papa. I've always lived with grandpa. She's the stranger, she came afterward. And then began to call me a stranger.
You know, papa, in wintertime the snow gets so high, it's up to m3r neck. If you want to go into the woods, you can get there only on the gray horse, Alabash. He pushes through the snowdrifts with his chest. And the winds! You can't stay on your feet. When the waves rise on the lake, when your ship begins to roll from side to side, it is our San-Tash wind that rocks the lake. Grandpa told me that a long, long time ago enemy armies were coming to take this land. Then such a wind blew from our San-Tash Mountains that the warriors could not stay in the saddle. They climbed down from their horses, but they could not walk, either. The wind slashed at their faces till they bled. And when they turned from the wind, it drove and drove them from the back so that they could not even glance around, until it drove them all from Issyk-Kul. That's what happened. But we live in this wind. It starts from our place. All winter long the forest across the river creaks and hums and moans in the wind. Sometimes I'm frightened to hear it.
In wintertime there isn't much work in the woods. There are no people around at all—it isn't like the summer, when the herds come. I love it when people stop for the night in the big meadow in summertime, with their flocks of sheep or droves of horses. In the morning they go on into the mountains, but it's good when they come all the same. Their children and women come in trucks. The yurts and things are also carried by truck. When they settle down a bit, grandpa and I go out to greet them. He shakes every man's hand. I do too. Grandpa says younger people must always offer their hand to older ones. If you don't offer your hand, it means you have no respect for them. Grandpa also says that out of every seven men one might be a prophet. A prophet is a very good and clever man. And he who shakes his hand will be lucky all his life. But I say—if that is so, then why doesn't this prophet say that he's a prophet, and then everybody would shake his hand. Grandpa laughs: that's just the point, he says —the prophet doesn't know himself that he's a prophet; he is a simple man. Only a robber knows that he is a robber. I don't really understand this, but I always shake people's hands, although sometimes I feel very shy.