Текст книги "Gia Tortladze Stories"

A FRAGMENT

Gio was delirious all night through. His face was covered with big round drops. The drops got together and ran down his face onto the pillow. He could feel nothing. Only his body convulsed strangely at times. Someone changed the bottle on his drip twice at night. The drops disappeared in turns in the plastic drain.

It was rather stuffy in the room. The windows didn’t open and there was an odd smell in the whole building.

He didn’t remember anything. He had been wounded in the evening and was operated on late at night. Another youth had been wounded on the way to the hospital too, but nothing serious was the matter with him.

The city was bombed in the dark. Only the explosions lit up the streets, and the skeletons of the ruined buildings were horrible to look at.

Gio could understand nothing. There were black circles under his eyes, and he could breathe with difficulty.

At times he even stopped breathing, as if forgetting to take the air in. Then he took in the air in quick succession and his respiration became steady and deep again.

Out of the four operations performed that night two were in vain.

The sound of the exploding shells was heard in the distance, but sometimes it came too close. One of the shells fell so near the hospital that several windows broke at once. The corridors were dimly lit, and it was too silent there. A few young soldiers were standing at the wall, smoking cigarettes. One of them was sitting on the floor, tapping at his cigarette with the index finger nervously every now and then, as if trying to knock the ashes down onto the floor. Their boots and guns were muddy all over.

They hardly spoke at all.

***

“Where is Tolika? I can’t see him anywhere.”

“He’s all right. He stayed behind.”

The tall one, with an unshaven face, put his machine-gun down, took off his bulletproof jacket and sat on the floor with great difficulty.

“I think, they have bitten me all over,” he said.

“It’s not insects, it must be the scabies. You shouldn’t scratch,” his friend adviced.

They heard footsteps at the other end of the corridor. Then there came the clicking sound of the stretcher. Three men were pushing it, accompanied by a tired-looking doctor with the dried up blood stains on his overall. They turned round the corner and disappeared behind the huge, heavy, banging iron door.

***

When the day broke, the bombing ceased. It was very foggy in the city, and it was freezing. The place looked hollow and deserted. A vehicle drove into the hospital yard and stopped near the wall. Two men got out. One of them was lamed. They entered the building. The young soldiers were asleep sitting on the floor and leaning against the wall.

Those two neared the sleeping soldiers. The tall one was first to wake up.

“How is he?”

“Sleeping. Doesn’t feel any pain.”

“We must take him away.”

“How?”

“The ‘Comet’ is leaving in an hour.”

“How are things back there?”

“As usual.”

“Who’s going to attend him?”

“I’m staying here.”

“So am I.”

The sun was rising. The bombing would start again soon.

2005.

SAMDO

Samdo is a village in West Nepal. It’s the last village in the Guri-kandak gorge, near the Tibetan border.

High up in the gorge several villages are inhabited by Tibetans. The gorge is pretty long. It may take six to seven days to walk from one end to the other. There is no transport there at all.

The locals mostly go in for cattle-farming; some of them grow potatoes too. The people are all poor, but there are slight differences as well. My host, Tsowang Yurmi, has a guesthouse. He lives there with his family, and he can take in ten people at a time. His wife, Kumri, is in the kitchen all day long, cooking vegetable dal-bat[7] for her visitors.

Tsowang and Kumri have three daughters. Nevertheless, they have no family yet. According to the local Tibetan tradition, the family should have a son to be considered a real family. So poor Yurmi is not considered to be a real man.

I have visited Samdo for the fourth time already with an interval of two or three years. Every time I arrive here, I stop at Tsowang Yurmi’s nameless guesthouse. The couple are praying for all their spare time; they are extremely worried for not having a son.

“They even don’t invite me to the village authorities’ session, for they don’t consider me to be a real man,” Tsowang complains to me. I try to cheer him up, but I can’t manage it well. It seems, I’ve started to think like Tibetans myself.

“I’m praying nights through, but the Almighty doesn’t take a pity to me,” the poor man says.

“It’s good you are praying,” I say, “But prayers alone won’t help.”

He agrees.

Trip from Samdo to Tibet takes a day’s ride on a horse-back. Tsowang often goes on that trip. He takes there sacks of potatoes and brings back rice and other products.

At the end of the month my wife and I will go to Tibet and walk round the Holy Mount Kailash. We’ll spend there the whole month praying. We shall pray a lot! We’ll leave our girls in Zimtag with my wife’s sisters.

In the morning I say good-buy to the couple and feel that we are not going to meet for the several following years.

***

I have to go back to Samdo only four years later. We arrive in the city of Beshishapar after a tiring seven-day trip across the Larkia range. From there I leave for Samdo and visit my old friend. I’m too tired and need a good rest. I don’t know exactly how long I have been sleeping, when some noise wakes me up. Someone snatches my hat from my head too, and I sit up in my bed swiftly, feeling a bit giddy. In the end, when I come to myself at last, I see two little boys standing in front of me. They look alike and both are wearing Tibetan gowns. They have Tibetan daggers in their belts and are holding wooden swords in their hands. They stand still, smiling at me. One of them is holding my hat in his tiny fingers.

I gesture at them, asking them to come up to my bed, but they shake their heads in refusal and continue to scrutinize me. I search for some sweets in my pockets, find a few and offer them to the boys. They are still hesitant, but in the end they take the sweets and rush out into the yard.

Some time later, Tsowang Yurmi, sitting by the Tibetan fireplace, tells me how happy he is now and how proudly he walks in the village. The Almighty gave him two sons instead of one! He watches his sons running about with the eyes full of affection. His wife, with a kind, round, happy and smiling face, is silently baking something.

The warmth makes me weak again and I fall asleep once more.

It’s four in the morning, and it’s quite dark when I’m leaving the village. I try to go out silently, not to wake up my hosts, but I already hear Tsowang Yurmi’s prayer:

“Ium, mane padme hum.”

– Great is thy name, O Lord!

KARAKUM

Agsar lived in Tezebazaar, in a small, flat-roofed, mud brick house inherited from his grandfather. The house was fenced with a mud brick fence running round a tiny yard. The majority of the houses in Tezebazaar were one-storey buildings, all looking alike. Only a few of them were plastered with the mixture of clay and straw, and had two floors, the first decorated with wooden balconies.

From the mount Karatau, which Agsar frequented in his childhood, one could get a wonderful view of Tezebazaar and Berun. The world view of the local children was limited to these two villages. From the top of the mount they used to see the flat roofs of the square buildings that looked alike. In the distance though, wrapped in the yellow mist, they could also see the Karakum. All of them were terribly afraid even of this word, for they had heard a lot of terrible stories about the desert: nightly storms, enormous burning ball of the sun, hot golden sands, low, dry plants covered with thorns, the hole of Akjakar and the Kara Kurt – a huge deadly spider.

Agsar was fourteen when his grandfather took him to Khiva, the wonder of the Asian architecture, for the first time. There he saw the real mosque with colored minarets, spacious squares full of people, buzzing narrow streets where people could hardly move. But most of all he was impressed by the Khivan bazaar. What not could be seen here: colored fabrics, silk, jewels, horse decorations and saddles, and the stocks of different arms. The piles of fruit were too impressive as well. It was here that he tasted the Asian watermelon of unforgettable taste.

They spent the night in a tea-house. They lay down on the wooden dais on the embankment. Agsar couldn’t sleep till dawn, for he was extremely excited.

In the morning grandfather bought everything he wanted, put his purchases into the sacks, loaded his dark blue, obedient donkey with them, and only after that he woke his grandson up:

“Wake up, Agsar. We have a long way ahead us.

Agsar jumped up. He was a bit ashamed to be sleeping while his grandpa was awake. He ran to the river, washed his face and hands, then ran up to the grandpa’s donkey, saddled it, and tied its bridle to the saddle of the loaded donkey. Grandpa was sitting on the dais with his eyes closed and his legs crossed, and sipped his tea. At times he glanced at his grandson with satisfaction, and closed his wrinkled eyes again. “I’ve bought salt at good price today”, he thought and a memory of something forgotten, faded and broken into small fragments came to his mind.

The camels were walking lazily in a long row. They were led by the guide walking ahead. The camels were mainly loaded by salt purchased in Chelekend. They traveled from the seashore across the desert. The desert was divided into two parts – the Karakum of Zaunguz and the main Karakum.

The caravan consisted of forty camels and about twenty guides. The trip took them about two months. Crossing the Karakum, they could stop at the only inhabited place, Darvaz. They filled their waterskins with water and proceeded their way.

The Karakum is a real wonder with its contrasts: an incredible heat in the daytime and sandstorms at night. The travelers solved the problem of clothes long ago – they wear heavy clothes both in the daytime and at night: warm Asian gowns with huge cloth belts wrapped around their waists several times, heavy trousers; high, woolen boots – paipaks – and white, woolen, embroidered hats.

They put kerchiefs round their faces at night, not to be bothered by the sandstorms. They travel eight or ten hours a day, and stop only once to relax. In the evening they put up rough woolen tents and sleep in small groups.

Caravan-guides are highly respected everywhere; Everyone knows how hard it is to cross the Karakum.

They rode camels till Chelekend, and they went back on foot, leading the loaded camels. It was extremely difficult. The way was not only tiring, but also very dangerous. The local inhabitants were too dangerous as well, especially the spider Kara Kurt.

As if startled by something, the grandpa opened his eyes. They were ready to set off. He glanced at his grandson:

“This journey is a trifle compared with the journey in the Karakum. I have gone to and fro some six-times at least. Now they take a different way to carry the salt; They go through Ashgabat and Bayram Ali. Everybody avoids the Karakum. They must be scared,” the old man giggled, “I never was. Once I crossed it all alone with the caravan of eight camels, and came back to Khiva alone, too. Nobody has ever dared to do it. But I did, thank Allah, great is his name! I mean it, kid; don’t think I’m simply boasting.”

“I can do it too, I’m not scared. You will see it! I’ll do it when I grow up”, Agsar said proudly, leading his grandpa’s donkey hastily.

“He takes after me! I wish his poor father were alive to see him,” the old man thought riding his donkey. In a moment he fell into a sweet slumber.

***

Time passed. Agsar’s grandfather died and Agsar had been in Khiva many a time already, but his first impression and the grandfather’s story of the Karakum were still unforgettable for him. He made several attempts to assure his friends from Tezebazaar or Beruna to go with him to the desert, but all in vain. Even his closest friends, Ali and Abdul, didn’t want to hear anything about the Karakum.

He often thought about his grandpa when he visited the tea-house. He even saw his smiling face and heard his voice telling him: “They are afraid of the Karakum, but I wasn’t.”

Agsar worked by the riverside, near his house. He had a small business of his own there. He made bricks. He lived alone. For some unknown reasons he couldn’t manage to marry anyone yet. He didn’t worry about not having a wife, but he wanted to have children very much.

Ramadan had just started and Agsar wasn’t working. He went to the tea-house and drank several cups of tea, listening to the men talking. When he got bored of their hollow talk, he left. He walked down the lane thoughtlessly. After a while he realized that he was heading to the mount Karatau. It wasn’t hard for him to climb it, but he did it more slowly than before. He looked in the direction of Tezebazaar and Berun. He gazed at the settlements for some time, but then he looked in the direction of the yellow mist, where the desert lay. Grandpa’s words were ringing in his ears: “The desert frightens them.”

Grandpa was right. Agsar was afraid of the Karakum.

That night he searched the whole house. He found the old man’s water-skins, put them into the water and kept them there for two days. The water-skins softened well enough to keep fresh water. He mended the old tent too.

When Ramadan was over, he built a caravan of six camels and left early in the morning. On his way he recollected the fragments of his grandpa’s story: “When we left the village, the sun was rising on the right, and it set on our left. Those who ignored this rule, had been lost in the Karakum forever.”

He was wearing the same clothes as his grandpa used to. At first it was very hard for him, but on the third day he got used to them. He felt neither hot nor cold, and he slept well at night too.

“We took a lot of kurti[8] with us. It gave us energy and killed our thirst. We drank water only in the evening or while we relaxed.” Grandpa was not laughing at him any more. He was giving pieces of advice with a very serious air.

After five days’ walk, his feet began to swallow. It was difficult for him to put on his paipaks. He couldn’t get used to walking in the sands. He often thought he was walking around the same places again and again. He lost the count of the days as well; he was not sure whether he had been walking for eight days or nine, but he already guessed that he had missed Darvaza.

In the morning, two of the camels couldn’t get up. He somehow managed to redistribute their load onto the rest of the animals and went on walking. The distance he could walk decreased every day. He was not able to take off his paipaks at night, and his spine hurt awfully while sleeping. It was a real torture to start walking in the morning. He walked with great difficulty, and the camels lay down to rest much more frequently. The only thing he could still manage properly was the direction of the sunset – the sun always set at his left hand side.

He lost the count of the days thoroughly. He had no idea how many days had passed. For several days he could not eat anything. But he drank water all the time – in the morning, while relaxing, while walking and at night.

One morning he heard a hissing sound in his ears. He could hear the same terrible sound even in his sleep. He went blind several times a day and he felt giddy. At such moments he stopped for a while, and then continued his way with an unsteady gait. Once he even fell down. He stopped putting up his tent at night. It was too much for him now. He simply lay down on his baggage. He couldn’t remember when he had taken off his gown; he simply noticed that he had lost his gown and hat somewhere.

He recalled Khiva, its bazaar and the unforgettable taste of the watermelon. He saw his grandpa, but he didn’t give him advice any more. One morning he discovered that his camels escaped at night. He walked all day long. He heard a terrible hiss in his ears. His mouth was dry. His body was hot and the skin on his hands had dried up.

The sun had set and it was nearly dark when he saw a light ahead. He couldn’t reach it; he fell on the sand face down.

***

It was a high morning when a terrible pain woke him up. He opened his eyes and saw some moving figures in the distance.

He felt that his hand hurt terribly. He looked at it and saw a huge Kara Kurt on it. He tried to recall what his grandpa said about its bite and its remedy, but he couldn’t remember anything. His legs felt dead. Neither could he feel his fingers. His eyelids became too heavy, too.

He fell asleep.

In his dream he saw his grandpa. It was hard for him to talk but he managed to utter a sentence:

“I have crossed the Karakum, grandpa, and I wasn’t afraid!”

2005.

ONCE UPON A TIME

“Give me some water,” Bakur said with great difficulty and rose on his elbows. His grandson put a bowl full of water to his lips. The old man took a sip and lay back pretty exhausted.

He touched the scar on his chin with a sinewy hand. It was a long scar, running from the cheekbone down to the chin. He had two more deep scars on the forehead.

Bakur was lying in a cool, half dark room. He was lying and waiting for death. His arms were feeble, his chest was lean and hollow, and he could hardly breathe. His aquiline nose now seemed crooked; his dark blue eyes were fallen, but they still expressed an incredible sternness, felt in his gaze. He was lying in a wooden bed. He was well over eighty, but he didn’t know for sure how old he was.

“I’m leaving my weapons to you. You should grease the swords and daggers well, and don’t forget to clean the flintlock gun as well, don’t let it rust,” he said, giving a challenging look at his grandson. He paused for a while and then went on: “You will be the only man in the family now. Nobody knows when your dad is going to come back from the war. You shouldn’t obey the women’s will. Be the decision-maker. Meet your kin and enemies as they deserve it. And look after the livestock. Take a special care of the horses; don’t let them get fat.