“Ulym,” says the Vampire Hag, breaking the silence, “I sense something’s happened.”
“Yes, Eni. Something’s happened,” says Murtaza, not tearing his face from his mother’s belly, muffling his voice. “And it’s been going on for a long time. If you only knew what’s been happening here…”
“Tell your old mother everything, Murtaza, my boy. Even if I can’t hear or see, I feel everything and can console you.” The Vampire Hag is patting her son’s back, just as people stroke overexcited stallions after races to calm them.
“How are we supposed to live, Eni? To live!” Murtaza rubs his forehead against his mother’s knees, as if burying it deeper. “They keep robbing, robbing, robbing. They’re seizing everything. When you’ve nothing left, and the only thing to do is to join the forefathers, they let you catch your breath. And when things begin to recover and you lift your head a little, they’re robbing you again. My strength is gone and my heart has no patience!”
“Life is a complex road, ulym. Complex and long. Sometimes you want to sit down at the side of the road and stretch your legs, just let everything roll on past even if it’s to the netherworld itself; but sit down and stretch, that’s allowed! It’s why you came to me. Sit with me for a while, rest, take a breath.” The old woman is speaking slowly, drawing out her words, as if she’s singing or reading a prayer to the beat of the pendulum in the grandfather clock. “You’ll find the strength to stand later and get on your way. For now, though, I sense that you’re tired, sweetheart, you’re very tired.”
“There were whispers today that something’s afoot again. I don’t know if I can even face getting out of bed tomorrow. People are thinking that they’re either going to start taking away land or cattle or both at the same time. The seed grain’s hidden but what’s the use if they take the land? Where would I sow it, the potato patch? I’ll die first. I’ll sink my teeth in and fight and I won’t give it up! Let them register us as kulaks, I won’t give it up! It’s mine!” He pounds his fist on the bed frame, and its high metallic voice sings plaintively in response.
“I know you’ll think of something. You’ll sit now, talk with me, and think of something. You’re strong, Murtaza, my boy. Strong and smart, like I was.” The old woman’s voice is warming, sounding younger. “Oooh, I was something… When your father caught sight of me, he drooled all the way to his belt and forgot to wipe it up, that’s how much he wanted to mount me. Men like you, real men, are like rams. When you see someone who’s a little stronger than yourselves, you immediately want to start butting heads, trampling, and winning. What fools!”
She smiles and the web of wrinkles on her face trembles, playing in the gentle kerosene light. Murtaza is breathing more evenly, more calmly.
“I used to say to him: ‘You need to watch yourself biting into this apple, you skinny-legged thing. You’ll break off your teeth!’ And he says to me, ‘I have lots of teeth.’ And I tell him, ‘Life’s long, you might not have enough, be careful!’ Not a chance, I only excited the stud…” The Vampire Hag’s laugh is muffled, as if she’s coughing.
“That summer when we were playing kyz-kuu, and all the boys were chasing after the girls, Shakirzyan only came after me, like a dog after a bitch in heat. I had the most beautiful pinafore in Yulbash for kyz-kuu: black velvet with beaded flowers that I embroidered all winter! And on my bosom” – the old woman presses a lumpy, long-fingered hand to her hollow chest – “a two-strand necklace. My father had given me his own three-year-old Argamak horse. I jump in the saddle and the necklace starts jingling, gently and invitingly – the fellows only see me. Oh, my, my… Shakirzyan keeps galloping and galloping, and it’s making his horse lather, and he’s red himself from fury but he can’t catch me.
“And as soon as I see the grove of nut trees in the distance, I hold the Argamak back a little, as if I’m giving way. And your father’s glad because he’s been chasing like a madman, so he thinks he’s about to catch up. And right at the grove, away I go, I bring my heels together and the Argamak is off like an arrow, and Shakirzyan just gets dust in his face. He’s sneezing but I’ve already turned around in the grove and taken a whip out of my boot. It’s my turn now! The whip is strong and braided and I’ve purposely tied a knot at the end to make it hurt more. So I’ll catch up to him, as usually happens, and give him a thorough lashing: You couldn’t reach the girl, so you’ll pay for it, here you go! I had a good laugh, a good yell – after all, he didn’t catch me once, not one single time!”
The Vampire Hag wipes little teardrops away from the corners of her eyes with the back of her hand.
“Oh and I let him have it that summer! He reminded me of that for the rest of his life: he’d beat me hard, a lot, and with a whip, too. He’d tie a knot on it about the size of a fist and whack with it like it was a club while I’m laughing in his face: ‘What,’ I say, ‘you’re copying me? Think up something of your own. Don’t you have the brains?’ He’s madder, whipping harder, even panting and holding his heart, but he couldn’t ever break me like that. Well, and where is he now? Feeding the worms for half a century. And I’ve lived two of his lives and begun a third. Strength comes from above.”
The Vampire Hag covers her white eye sockets.
“You’re like me, ulym, my heart. You have my blood in your veins. My bones under your flesh.” She’s stroking the gray stubble on her son’s shaven head. “And the strength in you is mine: mean and undefeatable.”
“Eni, Eni…” Murtaza is squeezing his mother’s body tightly, grasping, as a wrestler embraces an opponent or a lover embraces the body of a woman he desires.
“Even the first time I looked at you – your little red body, wrinkled fingers, eyes still blind – I understood immediately that you were mine. Nobody else’s, just mine. I birthed ten for my husband but the last one for myself. There’s a reason the umbilical cord was as thick as an arm. Your grandmother could barely saw it with a knife. ‘Your little son,’ she said, ‘doesn’t want to be torn away from you.’ And you really didn’t want that: you stuck yourself to my breast, you grabbed at it like a tick. And you didn’t tear yourself away: you drank me for three years, like a calf. All that’s left of my breasts is sacks. And you slept with me. You were already huge and heavy, and you’d sprawl out on the sleeping bench like a star and your little hand went to my breast so it wouldn’t get away from you. You didn’t even let Shakirzyan near me – you screamed bloody murder. And he’d curse something awful, he was so jealous. But what would he have fed you during the famine if I hadn’t had milk in my breast then?”
“Eni, Eni…” Murtaza repeats, muffled.
“It was a scary time. You’re already three, you want to eat like an adult. You suck a breast dry – how much of that liquid milk is there? Not nearly enough food for you! And you’re kneading at it like mad, tearing with your teeth, I want more, more. But it’s already empty. Give me some bread, you ask. What do you mean, bread? By the end of the summer, we’d eaten all the straw off the roof, all the locusts in the area had been caught, and that weed, orache, was a real delicacy. Anyway, where could you find it – orache? People went crazy, reeling around the woods like forest spirits, ripping bark off trees with their teeth. Shakirzyan went to the city to earn money in the spring and I was alone with you four. At least you got the breast – the older ones got nothing…”