Murtaza mumbles something unintelligible, pressing himself to his mother. The Vampire Hag takes his head in her hands, lifts it, and her unseeing eyes look sternly into her son’s face.
“Don’t you dare even think about that, do you hear? I’ve told you a thousand times and I’ll tell you the thousand and first: I didn’t kill them. They died on their own. From hunger.”
He’s silent, just breathing loudly, with a whistle.
“It’s true I didn’t give them milk. I saved everything in me, to the last drop, for you. At first they tried to fight: they wanted to take the breast away from you by force. They were stronger than you. But I was stronger than them. And I wouldn’t let them harm you. Then their strength was gone and you grew stronger. And they died. All of them. There was nothing else.”
The Vampire Hag presses a hand against her chin, scrunching up the wrinkles on her face; her other hand, shaking slightly, covers her eyes. Reflections of the kerosene lamps flash dimly among her gold rings.
“And do you hear, ulym? We did not eat them. We buried them. Ourselves, without the mullah, at night. You were just small and forgot everything. No, they don’t have graves – my tongue’s tired from explaining to you that everybody was buried that summer without graves. Cannibals went around to the cemeteries in herds and as soon as they’d see a fresh grave, they’d dig it up and eat the deceased. So believe me – finally believe me – half a century later. The people who spread those foul rumors about you and me already became earth long ago themselves. But you and I are alive. There’s obviously a reason Allah sends us mercy like this, isn’t there?”
“Eni, Eni.” Murtaza grasps her raised hand and begins kissing it.
“So there you go.” The Vampire Hag leans toward her son, hovering over him. Two skinny white braids fall on top of Murtaza’s back, reaching to the floor. “You’re the strongest, Murtaza. Nobody can defeat or break you. And you yourself know that’s what yesterday’s dream was about. If anyone’s fated to leave this house or this world, it’s not you. Your small-toothed wife couldn’t bear you a son and will soon disappear into the netherworld. But you’re so young you could continue your family line. You’ll have a son yet. Don’t be afraid of anything. You and I will stay in this house, sweetheart, and we’ll live a long time yet. You because you’re young. And me because I can’t leave you on your own.”
The slow, unrelenting beat of the squeaky mechanical heart in the huge grandfather clock is becoming distinctly audible.
“Thank you, Eni.” Murtaza rises heavily from his knees. “I’m going.”
He strokes his mother’s face and hair. He helps her into bed, plumps the pillows, and covers her with a blanket. He kisses both arms on the wrist, then the elbow. He turns down the wick and it darkens. The door slams behind him.
The old woman soon starts wheezing drowsily, sailing back off to an illusory dreamland on a luxuriant bed of airy feather mattresses and blankets.
Zuleikha presses her eggshell-covered hand to her chest, soundlessly steals toward the door, and slips outside.
Murtaza is crouched by the stove, gloomily splitting kindling. The flame’s yellow reflections dart along the axe blade, up and down, up and down. Waddling like a duck, Zuleikha walks back and forth over the floorboards concealing their secret food supplies – do they squeak too much?
“Stop.” Her husband’s voice is hoarse, as if it’s snapped.
Frightened, Zuleikha leans against the trunks stacked up by the window, hastily straightening the lace kaplau with her hand (only guests and her husband, of course, are allowed to sit on these coverlets). Oh, but he’s mean today, irritable; it’s as if he’s been possessed by a demon. He went to see his mother but didn’t calm down. He’s waiting for the Red Horde. He’s afraid.
“After fourteen years they’ll have learned all our hiding places by heart.” Murtaza’s axe cuts easily through the wood. “They’ll take the whole house apart if they want, one log at a time, and find what they need.”
The mountain of white slivers is growing around Murtaza. Why does he need so much kindling? They wouldn’t use that much in a week.
“All we can do is guess: will they take the cow or the horse?” Murtaza finally swings and drives the axe into a chunk of wood with all his might.
“It’ll be time to plow soon,” Zuleikha sighs meekly. “It would be better if they took the cow.”
“The cow?” Murtaza lurches back immediately, as if he’s burned himself.
His breathing is rough and rapid, and it whistles. Like a bull before it rushes a rival.
Without rising from his knees, Murtaza flings himself toward Zuleikha. She recoils in fear. May Allah protect us… Murtaza’s powerful shoulder easily moves the trunks aside. He picks up the groaning floorboard with his fingernails. He plunges his arm into a black hole that’s breathing damp cold and removes a flat metal box. The lid, chilled from the frosty air, clinks dully. Murtaza hurriedly stuffs a long squiggle of horsemeat sausage into his mouth and chews, frenzied.
“I won’t give it up,” he murmurs, his mouth full. “I’m not giving up anything this time. I’m strong.”
The aroma of horsemeat floats through the room. Zuleikha feels her mouth swell with sweet spittle. She hasn’t eaten kyzylyk since last year. She takes a fresh round loaf of bread from the stove ledge and extends it to Murtaza: Eat it with bread. He shakes his head. His jaws are working quickly and powerfully, like millstones. She can hear the tough horse sinews scraping under his sturdy teeth. Glistening strands of spittle fall from Murtaza’s open lips to the collar of his shirt.
Without taking the sausage from his mouth, Murtaza’s hand fumbles around in the corners of the box. He pulls out a loaf of sugar that gleams a soft white in the duskiness then hits it with all his might using the butt of the axe – a large piece splits off and gleams, sparkling with blue where it broke – then he sticks his hand in one of the trunks and finds a faceted glass viaclass="underline" it’s rat poison he brought from Kazan last year. He pours liquid from the vial on the piece of sugar.
“Understand, woman?” He laughs loudly.
Zuleikha backs toward the wall, frightened. Murtaza places the oozing sugar on the windowsill and wipes his wet hands on his belly. He admires it and throws his head back, laughing, with the kyzylyk sticking out of his mouth.
“If they come for the livestock and I’m not here, give it to the cow and horse. Understand?”
Zuleikha gives the barest of nods, pressing her back against the wall’s bulging logs.
“Understand?” Murtaza hasn’t heard a response, so grasps her by the braids and jabs her face at the windowsill, where the sugar is drying in a bitter-smelling puddle and looks a lot like a large piece of ice melting slightly in the warmth.
“Yes, Murtaza! Yes!”
He lets her go, laughing with satisfaction. Sitting on the floor, he chops off pieces of the kyzylyk with the axe and stuffs them in his mouth.
“Nothing…” he mutters through his even chomping. “I won’t give it up… I’m strong… Nobody can defeat or break me…”
So, Allah, this is what fear does to my husband. Zuleikha looks around warily and moves the faceted vial of liquid death as far away as possible. She replaces the floorboard and pushes the trunks over it. As she’s adjusting the folds of the patterned kaplau over the trunks, neatly arranging everything back in its usual place, window glass explodes into smithereens. Something small and heavy flies in from outside, thudding against the floor.