Authors: Chingiz Aitmatov
"O great river Enesai! If a mountain should be cast into your depth, the mountain will sink like a small stone. If a century-old pine should be cast down, it will be carried off like a small twig. Take, then, into your waters two grains of sand, two human children. There is no room for them on earth. Am I to tell you, Enesai? If the stars became men, the sky would not be wide enough for them. If the fish became men, the rivers and the seas would not suffice for them. Am I to tell you, Enesai? Take them and carry them away. Let them leave our weary world in childhood, with pure souls, with a child's conscience, unstained by evil thoughts and evil deeds, so they will never know human pain or cause suffering to others. Take them, take them, great Enesai . . ."
The boy and the girl wept and sobbed. They neither heard nor understood the old woman's words. Just looking down from the height filled them with terror. And down below the wild waves raged, rolling over one another.
"Embrace now, little children, for the last time, say good-bye to one another," said the Pockmarked Lame Old Woman. She folded up her sleeves to make it easier to push them down the cliff. And then she said: "Forgive me children. This must be your destiny—yet it is not of my own will that I shall do this deed, but for your own good. . . ."
But just as she had spoken, a voice was heard:
"Wait, big wise woman, do not kill the innocent children."
The Pockmarked Lame Old Woman turned, looked, and wondered: before her stood a deer, a mother deer. Her eyes were huge and filled with sorrow and reproach. She was as white as the first milk of a young doe. Her belly was covered with soft brown fur like a young camel's. Her horns were of rare beauty, spreading wide like the branches of a tree in autumn. And her udders were as pure and smooth as the breasts of a nursing woman.
"Who are you? Why do you speak in the human tongue?" asked the Pockmarked Lame Old Woman.
"I am the Mother Deer," she answered. "And I speak in human words because you will not understand me and will not obey me otherwise."
"What do you wish, Mother Deer?"
"Let the children go, big wise woman. I beg you, give them to me."
"What do you want them for?"
"Men killed my twins, my two fawns. I am looking for children."
'You wish to nurse and rear them?"
'Yes, big wise woman.''
"Have you thought properly about it, Mother Deer?" laughed the Pockmarked Lame Old Woman. "They are human children. They will grow up and kill your fawns."
"When they grow up they will not kill my fawns," re-plied the Mother Deer. "I shall be their mother, and they, my children. Will they kill, then, their own sisters and brothers?"
"Oh, you can't tell, Mother Deer, you do not know men." The Pockmarked Lame Old Woman shook her head. "They have no pity for one another, and you talk of forest animals. I would give you these orphans, so you might learn the truth of my words yourself, but even these children will be killed by people. Why do you need all that grief?"
"I shall lead the children away into a distant land where nobody will find them. Spare the children, big wise woman, let them go. I shall be a faithful mother to them. My udder is full. My milk is crying out for children. It is begging for children."
"Well, if that is so," said the Pockmarked Lame Old Woman after thinking a while, "take them, and lead them away from here as fast as you can go. Take the orphans to your distant land. But if they perish on the long journey, if robbers kill them, if your human children repay you with black ingratitude, blame it on yourself."
The Mother Deer thanked the Pockmarked Lame Old Woman. And to the boy and the girl she said:
"Now I am your mother, you are my children. I shall lead you to a distant land, where a hot sea, Issyk-Kul, lies in the midst of snowy mountains."
Happily, the boy and the girl ran after the Horned Mother Deer. But soon they tired and weakened, and the way was long—from one end of the world to another. They would not have gone far but for the Horned Mother Deer: she fed them her milk and warmed them with her body at night. And so they walked and walked. Their old homeland, Enesai, was farther and farther behind them, but their new home, Issyk¬Kul, was still a long way off. A summer and a winter, a spring and a summer and an autumn, and yet another winter and another spring and summer and autumn they journeyed through dense forest and parched steppe, over shifting sands, across high mountains and rushing streams. They were pursued by packs of wolves, but the Horned Mother Deer would take the children on her back and carry them away from the ravening beasts. Hunters with bows and arrows galloped after them on their horses, shouting: "A deer has stolen human children! Hold it! Catch it!" And they sent arrows flying at them. The Horned Mother Deer carried the children away from them, too, from those unbidden saviors. She ran faster than an arrow and only whispered, "Hold on to me tightly, my children, we are being chased."
At last the Horned Mother Deer brought her children to Issyk-Kul. They stood on a high mountain and marveled. All around them were snowy mountain ranges, and below, amid mountains covered with green forests, stretched the lake, as far as the eye could see. Whitecapped waves rolled over the blue water, winds drove them from afar and drove them far away. It was impossible to tell where Issyk-Kul began and where it ended. The sun was rising on one side, and on the other it was still night. It was impossible to count the mountains around Issyk-Kul, or guess how many snowy mountains lay beyond them.
"This is your new homeland," said the Horned Mother Deer. "You will live here, plow the land, catch fish, and breed cattle. Live here in peace for a thousand years. May your tribe last and increase. May your descendants remember the tongue you have brought with you, and may it be sweet for them to speak and sing in this tongue. Live as is proper for human beings. And I shall be with you and with your children's children for all time . . ."
This was how the boy and the girl, the last of the Kirghiz tribe, found a new homeland on the banks of the blessed and eternal Issyk-Kul.
Time flowed quickly. The boy became a strong man, and the girl, a grown woman. They married and lived as man and wife. And the Horned Mother Deer had not left Issyk-Kul; she lived in the surrounding woods.
One day at dawn, a storm swept Issyk-Kul. It roared and crashed upon the banks. The woman went into labor, about to give birth to a child. She was in great pain. And the man was frightened. He ran up the mountainside and called loudly:
"Where are you, Horned Mother Deer? Do you hear the noise of Issyk-Kul? Your daughter is giving birth. Come quickly, Horned Mother Deer, help us."
And then he heard a distant tinkling, as of a caravan bell. It grew louder and louder. The Horned Mother Deer came running. Upon her horns she carried a cradle—a beshik. It was made of white birch, and a silver bell was fastened at its head. This bell still rings on the beshiks of Issyk-Kul babies. The mother rocks the cradle, and the silver bell tinkles, as though the Horned Mother Deer were running from afar, hurrying, bringing a birchwood cradle on her horns.
As soon as the Horned Mother Deer appeared, the woman bore her child.
"This cradle," said the Horned Mother Deer, "is for your firstborn. You shall have many children—seven sons and seven daughters."
The mother and the father rejoiced. They named their firstborn Bugubai, in honor of the Horned Mother Deer. Bugubai grew up and took a beauty of the Kipchak tribe as his wife. And the clan of Bugu, of the Horned Mother Deer, began to multiply. The Bugan clan on Issyk-Kul increased in strength and numbers, and the Bugans revered the Horned Mother Deer. Over the entrance to their yurts, the Bugans embroidered the horns of a deer, so that all who approached would know that the yurt belonged to the Bugan clan. When Bugans repulsed invading enemies, when they competed in races, the cry "Bugu!" rang out, and always the Bugans were the winners. And in the forests around Issyk-Kul wandered white horned deer whose beauty was envied by the stars in heaven. They were the children of the Horned Mother Deer. No one touched them, everyone protected them. When a Bugan met a deer, he would dismount and yield the way to it. The beauty of a beloved girl was compared to the beauty of a white deer.
So it was until the death of a certain very rich, very important Bugan. He had owned a thousand thousand sheep, a thousand thousand horses, and all the people around were his shepherds. His sons arranged a great funeral feast. They invited to the feast the most famous men from all ends of the earth. A thousand yurts were set up for the guests along the bank of Issyk-Kul. No one knows how many animals were slaughtered, how much koumyss was drunk, how many platters of fine delicacies were served. The rich man's sons went about with their heads high: let people know what wealthy and generous heirs remained after the dead, how much they honored their father and his memory. . . . (Ah, my son, it's bad when men seek to distinguish themselves not by their wisdom, but their wealth!)
And singers, mounted on stallions presented to them by the dead man's sons, resplendent in their gift sable hats and silk robes, vied with each other in praising the dead and his heirs:
"Where under the sun will you see such a happy life, such a splendid funeral feast?" sang one.
"The like of this has not been seen from the day of creation!" sang another.
"Nowhere except among us are parents revered so greatly. Nowhere do sons render so much honor to their fathers' memories and their holy names," sang a third.
"Hey, singers, makers of verse, what's all this idle noise? What words are great enough to equal such bounty? What words are bright enough to tell the dead man's glory?" sang a fourth.
And so they went on day and night. (Ah, my son, it's bad when poets compete in singing praises—they turn from singers into enemies of song!)
The famous funeral feast went on and on, as though it were a celebration of some holy day. The vain sons of the rich man wanted to outdo all others, to put all others in the shade, to send their own fame ringing throughout the land. And then they took it into their heads to set the horns of a deer over their father's grave, to make it known to everyone that this was the resting place of their glorious parent, who belonged to the clan of the Horned Mother Deer. (Ah, my son, even in olden times it was said that riches lead to pride, and pride to madness.)
The sons of the rich man decided to do their father this unheard-of honor, and nothing could hold them back. They did as they said. They sent out hunters. The hunters killed a deer and chopped off his horns. And the horns were wide as the wings of a soaring eagle. The sons liked the horns. They had eighteen branches each—that meant the deer was eighteen years old. A pair of great, magnificent horns! The sons com¬manded craftsmen to set the horns upon their father's grave.
The old men of the clan were angered:
"By what right was a deer brought down? Who dared to raise a hand against the children of the Horned Mother Deer?"
But the rich man's heirs replied:
"The deer was killed on our land. And everything that walks, or crawls, or flies on our possessions, from a camel to a fly, is ours. We know ourselves how to dispose of what is ours. Get you hence!"
The servants of the rich sons lashed the old men with whips, set them upon their horses, back to front, and drove them out in disgrace.
And that was the beginning. Great trouble came to the descendants of the Horned Mother Deer. Almost everyone began to hunt the white deer in the forests. Every Bugan deemed it his duty to set deer's horns on his ancestors' graves. This came to be considered a good thing, a token of respect for the memory of the dead. And those who were unable to procure the horns, were now looked down on and held to be unworthy. People began to trade in deer horns, to stock them up for the future. There were even some men of the clan of the Horned Mother Deer who made it their livelihood to kill deer for their horns and sell them for money. (Ah, my son, where money enters, there is no room for a kind word, no room for beauty.)
It was an evil time for the deer in the Issyk-Kul forests. There was no mercy for them. The deer ran up the steepest cliffs, but even there they found no safety. Packs of hunting dogs were set loose to drive them straight toward hunters hiding in the bushes, and the hunters struck them down with never a bullet going astray. The deer were killed in herds, in droves. People laid wagers as to who would get more horns, or finer ones, with the largest number of branches on them.
And there were no more deer. The mountains became deserted. There was no sound of deer at midnight or at dawn. No longer could men see, in woods or clearings, deer grazing, leaping with their horns thrown back, crossing abysses like flying birds. Men were born who had never seen a deer in all their lives. They only heard old tales about them and saw the horns on ancient graves.
And what became of the Horned Mother Deer?
She took offense, she took grievous offense at people. It is said that when the deer no longer could find safety any-where from bullets and hunting dogs, when so few deer were left that you could count them on your fingers, the Horned Mother Deer went up onto the highest mountain, said goodbye to Issyk-Kul, and led away her last remaining children over the great pass, to other regions and other mountains.
Such are the things that happen on earth. And this is the tale. Believe it or don't believe it, as you will.
And when the Horned Mother Deer was leaving, she said that she would never return . . .
5
It was autumn again in the mountains. Again, after a noisy summer, everything was still. The dust had settled after the cattle had been driven away. The fires were out. The herds were gone for the winter. The men were gone. The mountains were deserted.
The eagles were already flying singly, sending out their throaty, guttural cries. The noise of the river was muted: the river had grown used to its bed during the summer, had scraped it smoother, had grown shallower. Grass ceased to grow and began to wither on the root. The leaves, wearied of clinging to the branches, began to drop.