Guzel Yakhina
ZULEIKHA
Translated from the Russian
by Lisa C. Hayden
PART ONE
THE PITIFUL HEN
ONE DAY
Zuleikha opens her eyes. It’s as dark as a cellar. Geese sigh sleepily behind a thin curtain. A month-old foal smacks his lips, searching for his mother’s udder. A January blizzard moans, muffled, outside the window by the head of the bed. Thanks to Murtaza, though, no draft comes through the cracks. He sealed up the windows before the cold weather set in. Murtaza is a good master of the house. And a good husband. His snoring booms and rumbles in the men’s quarters. Sleep soundly: the deepest sleep is just before dawn.
It’s time. All-powerful Allah, may what has been envisioned be fulfilled. May nobody awaken.
Zuleikha noiselessly lowers one bare foot then the other to the floor, leans against the stove, and stands. The stove went out during the night, its warmth is gone, and the cold floor burns the soles of her feet. She can’t put on shoes. She wouldn’t be able to make her way silently in her little felt boots; some floorboard or other would surely creak. Fine, Zuleikha will manage. Holding the rough side of the stove with her hand, she feels her way out of the women’s quarters. It’s narrow and cramped in here but she remembers every corner, every little shelf: for half her life she’s been slipping back and forth like a pendulum, carrying full, hot bowls from the big kettle to the men’s quarters, then empty, cold bowls back from the men’s quarters.
How many years has she been married? Fifteen of her thirty? Is that half? It’s probably even more than that. She’ll have to ask Murtaza when he’s in a good mood – let him count it.
Don’t stumble on the rug. Don’t hit a bare foot on the trunk with the metal trim, to the right, by the wall. Step over the squeaky board where the stove curves. Scurry soundlessly behind the printed cotton curtain separating the women’s quarters of the log house from the men’s… It’s not far to the door now.
Murtaza’s snores are closer. Sleep, sleep, for Allah’s sake. A wife shouldn’t hide anything from her husband, but sometimes she must, there’s no helping it.
The main thing now is not to wake the animals. They usually sleep in the winter shed but Murtaza orders the birds and young animals to be brought inside during cold snaps. The geese aren’t stirring but the foal taps his hoof and shakes his head; he’s awake, the imp. He’s sharp: he’ll be a good horse. Zuleikha stretches her hand through the curtain and touches his velvety muzzle: Calm down, you know me. His nostrils snuffle gratefully into her palm, recognizing her. Zuleikha wipes her damp fingers on her night-shirt and lightly pushes the door with her shoulder. Thick and padded with felt for the winter, the door gives way heavily, and a frosty, biting cloud flies in through the crack. She takes a big step over the high threshold so as not to jinx anything – treading on it now and disturbing the evil spirits would be all she needs – and then she’s in the entrance hall. She closes the door and leans her back against it.
Glory be to Allah, part of the journey has been made.
It’s as cold in the hallway as outside, nipping at Zuleikha’s skin so her nightshirt doesn’t warm her. Streams of icy air beat at the soles of her feet through cracks in the floor. This isn’t what troubles her, though.
What troubles her is behind the door opposite.
Ubyrly Karchyk – the Vampire Hag. That’s what Zuleikha calls her, to herself. She thanks the Almighty that they don’t live in the same house as her mother-in-law. Murtaza’s home is spacious, two houses connected by a common entrance hall. On the day forty-five-year-old Murtaza brought fifteen-year-old Zuleikha into the house, the Vampire Hag – her face a picture of martyred grief – dragged her own numerous trunks, bundles, and dishes into the guest house, and occupied the whole place. “Don’t touch!” she shouted menacingly at her son when he tried to help her move. Then she didn’t speak to him for two months. That same year, she quickly and hopelessly began to go blind, and then, shortly thereafter, to lose her hearing. A couple of years later, she was as blind and deaf as a rock. She now talks constantly and can’t be stopped.
Nobody knows how old she really is. She herself insists she’s a hundred. Murtaza sat down to count recently, and he sat for a long time before announcing: “Mama’s right, she truly is around a hundred.” He was a late child and is already almost an old man himself.
The Vampire Hag usually wakes up before everyone else and carries her carefully guarded treasure to the entrance halclass="underline" an elegant milky-white porcelain chamber pot with a fanciful lid and delicate blue cornflowers on the side. Murtaza brought it back from Kazan as a gift at one time or other. Zuleikha is supposed to jump at her mother-in-law’s call, then empty and carefully wash out the precious vessel first thing, before she stokes the fire in the stove, makes the dough, and takes the cow out to the herd. Woe unto Zuleikha if she sleeps through the morning wake-up call. It’s happened twice in fifteen years and she doesn’t allow herself to recall the consequences.
For now, it’s quiet behind the door. Go on, Zuleikha, you pitiful hen, hurry up. It was the Vampire Hag who first called her zhebegyan tavyk – pitiful hen. Zuleikha started calling herself this after a while, too, without even noticing.
She steals into the depths of the hallway, toward the attic staircase. She gropes at the smooth banister. The steps are steep; the frozen boards occasionally groan just enough to be heard. Scents of chilly wood, frozen dust, dried herbs, and a barely noticeable aroma of salted goose waft down from above. Zuleikha goes up: the blizzard’s din is closer, and the wind pounds at the roof and howls at the corners.
She decides to go on all fours across the attic because were she to walk, the boards would creak right over the sleeping Murtaza’s head. If she crawls, though, she can scurry through. She weighs so little that Murtaza can lift her with one hand, as if she were a young ram. She pulls her nightshirt to her chest so it won’t get all dusty, twists it, takes the end in her teeth, and gropes her way between boxes, crates, and wooden tools, cautiously crawling over the crossbeams. Her forehead knocks into the wall. Finally.
She raises herself up a little and peers out of the small attic window. She can hardly make out the houses of her native Yulbash, all drifted in snow, through the dark, gray gloom just before morning. Murtaza once counted, reaching a total of more than a hundred and twenty homesteads. A large village, that’s for sure. A village road smoothly curves and flows off toward the horizon, like a river. Windows are already lighting in some houses. Quickly, Zuleikha.
She stands and reaches up. Something heavy and smooth, with large bumps, settles into her hands: salted goose. Her stomach jolts, growling in demand. No, she can’t take the goose. She lets go of the bird and searches further. Here! Hanging to the left of the attic window are large, heavy sheets of paste that have hardened in the cold but give off a slight fruity smell. Apple pastila. The confection was painstakingly cooked in the oven, neatly rolled out on wide boards, and dried with care on the roof, soaking up hot August sun and cool September winds. You can bite off a tiny bit and dissolve it for a long time, rolling the rough, sour little piece along the roof of your mouth, or you can cram a lot in, chewing and chewing the resilient wad and spitting occasional seeds into your palm. Your mouth waters right away.