Winter night. Thick fogs. Silence. Like huge eyes with no pupils and lashes, solitude had fixed its eyes upon me. My patience gave way.
I put my coat and shoes on and went out. In the thick fog I could easily get off the road and fall down into a ditch or bump into a tree. Waking carefully on the crunching snow, I made my way to Salima"s house.
I had liked fogs and winter nights since my childhood. I remembered when I was a boy my school friend Uktam would drop at my place in his tiger skin-like striped caftan and a worn out cap with ear-flaps. We would go to school together. Leaving the first footsteps on the morning snow and, hardly struggling forward, we would advance admiring the high silver mountains where a snow-slip hanged by a thread. We would kick the tall maple-trees and look up to see the clouds of snow with silver coating come down on us, like snow- slips. We would feel a joyful and pleasant dread for the moment. In other words, we would get a big portion of hormone secreted by the adrenal medulla. When it was over we would laugh noisily shaking off with our caps the snow from our striped caftans.
In winter, when it snowed, I often recalled that friend of mine. He was gone. He had died from a heart attack.
Thinking about that I insensibly came up to the house where Salima and I had lived together. I entered the yard. The dim yellow light coming from the dear windows was illuminating the porch.
Stepping quietly, trying not to make the snow crunch, I went up to the windows like a ninja spy intrudes into the emperor"s residence attempting to crush him with his sword. Looking inside through the window I saw the Granny Frost Hasil who was sitting on the sofa, with his legs crossed. Judging by the way he looked and moved he was obviously drunk. He was talking to Genghiskhan:
- You thought I was dead didn"t you? No-oo-o, Genghis, I am Koschei the Deathless.
Even if they throw me into the barrel of the mill, binding my hands and feet, I will get out safe and sound with a sack of flour on my shoulders. You got it? Having a father like I am, you hired some other father? And your mom? She has trampled down the honor of our family. She told me you needed father"s hand to bring you up. Nonsense! She didn"t need his hand but some other part of him.
Salima cried:
- Shame on you! How can you say such things in the presence of your son?!
- What? - the Jack Frost Hasi jumped up from his seat - Shame on me did you say? You bitch! And you? Aren"t you ashamed, you bloody whore, to bring your lovers to the holy bed? Well, did you like New Year gift? That"s it! I will come from where you don"t expect me! Ye-ee-s, Genghiskhan"s stepfather liked the gift.
Genghiskhan said:
- Father, don"t say that! He is not my father!
- Why did you let him enter our house? - Granny Frost Hasil shouted - Are you a man or a woman? Why didn"t you pierce his throat with a pitchfork? Why didn"t cut him into pieces with an axe?
He opened his eyes wide like Othello. Then he started beating himself:
- Disgrace! Oh, what a disgrace! Why didn"t I stab him? No-o-o, I won"t let it pass! I will make him toe the line! I"ll make him eat shit! I"ll bring an action against him! I will tell the court: "Gentlemen, do your laws defend people or are they on the side of beasts that take the lawful spouses of from honest men by force? It"s rape, that"s what it is! I believe in the state and in the court of justice!" That"s precisely what I am going to say! Then he will be sent to a strict-security camp under the most severe article. The prisoners hate such men. They regard them as girls. Men will take turns in marrying him.
Saying this Granny Frost Hasil poured out vodka and gave one of pialas to Genghiskhan:
- Drink it!
- I don"t drink - said Genghiskhan.
- How can you? - Salima interfered - instead of...
- Don"t pry, you bitch, you whore, you slut! - Granny Frost Hasil shouted. Then he went on:
- We are cheating Genghiskhan"s new father.
Hasil still had the piala with vodka in his hand. He started screaming again:
- Take it! Don"t disobey your father! Or else I will damn you!.. If only my father could rise from the dead and come out of the grave, if only he gave me a cup of vodka telling me to drink it! I would drain it! Oh my, I"ve lost such a father! I was his boon companion. Before leaving for school he would take out a bottle of vodka and pour some for me. Then we would exchange toasts, clink the cups and drain them like intimate friends do. We would drink without having a snack. I would drink two hundred or two hundred and fifty grams and walk slightly staggering to school. All my cell mates... dash!... all my classmates envied me. My teachers did not praise me for that, of course. On the contrary, they would sometimes put me to guardroom, well, you know, punishment cell sort of, the so called zindan , that is a deep trench.
And you should see the way we dressed! Our school was a specialized one, and our uniform was in line with it. Well, how should I explain it to you... We had a striped uniform, you see? And we had numbers on them. They were designed to make it easier to catch those schoolboys who tried to break away. Outside, behind the bars, fierce dogs were barking, and the guards armed with hunting rifles watched the school campus fenced with barbed wire. The school was equipped with a powerful signaling system and a searchlight. The windows had grates on them. From time to time they would search the cells. The teachers conducted lessons shield in hand and wore body armor and a protective helmet. My father would always help me out and free me from zindan by bribing the headmaster Gemalayev Dogmat Doratkagazovich. Come on, sonny, take the cup and let us drink to the bright memory of my father, that is to your grandfather. May he rest in peace!
Genghiskhan took the cup and drained it in one gulp.
- That"s a good boy! That"s another pair of shoes! Go ahead, have a snack now - Granny Frost Hasil said stretching him a pickle.
Looking at Granny Frost with contempt Salima cried:
- Why are you staring in such a way, you damned wretch! - he shouted. Shall I pour you some vodka? Have a drink, you"ll be better...
Then he got up and went up to the door. I hid myself in the larder. Hasim went out and, without putting his shoes on made his way to the toilet. When he closed the door behind him, I went out of the larder, looked around and saw a brick near the hen-house. I picked it and hurled it with all might towards the toilet. Hitting the door the brick pieces dispersed like shell fragments. Like a ninja agent, I disappeared in the thick fog and started watching the scene. Granny Frost Hasil went out of the toilet looking around in fear and dashed headlong to the house. His trousers were wet. He must have let half of the water out in the wrong direction.
I didn"t go up to the windows any more. I hated to hurt the woman who found herself in an
awkward situation. I realized that my actions were illegal. But I hadn"t forced he to marry me for I knew that love was above the law. I found out that love was a misery. A physicist by the name of Karim Ibn Tolib cited the following proverb: "Why should we love and suffer if all roads lead to bed". If love ended in bed I wouldn"t have suffered so badly. I wouldn"t have been attached to Salima so strongly. Now I will go and never come back...
Stumbling in the snow I walked in the thick quiet fog. Tears came to my eyes. I wept through clenched teeth in silence.
I had liked thick fogs since my childhood. For in the fog you don"t see anybody, and nobody can see your tears.
Koschei (the deathless) - in Russian folklore a bony, emaciated old man, rich and wicked, who knows the secret of eternal life
Zindan - traditional Central Asian prison, usually underground