Zuleikha

His back is gloomily silent. Sandugach’s hooves thump into the snow. Magpies mockingly jabber somewhere in the forest. Murtaza takes the shaggy fur hat from his head and rubs his glistening, bumpy scalp; barely visible steam rises from his smooth pink skin.

The conversation is over. Zuleikha turns. She has never in her life been left on her own. Who will tell her what to do and what not to do? Scold her for poor work? Protect her from the Red Horde? Feed her, too? And what about the Vampire Hag? Did she make a mistake? Will the old woman stay in a house without her beloved son but with her despised daughter-in-law? And Allah, what is this all for?

The singing overtakes them as suddenly as a gust of wind, replacing the sad squeaking sound of sledge runners with a confident male voice. There it is, beautiful and deep, somewhere far in the woods. The words are Russian, the melody unfamiliar. Zuleikha wants to listen but for some reason Murtaza’s bustling along, urging on Sandugach.

We won’t rely on other powers,
No god, no swell, no tsar.
We’ll claim the freedom that is ours,
They’ll know whose hands these are.

Zuleikha’s Russian isn’t bad. She understands that the words in the song are good, about freedom and salvation.

“Hide the spades,” Murtaza tells her through his teeth.

Zuleikha hastily wraps the spades in sacks, covering them with her skirts.

Sandugach is trotting quickly but still not fast enough – she’s been adjusting to the foal’s uneven run. And the voice is coming closer, overtaking them.

We’ll fight the tyrant and dethrone him,
These hands of ours must do.
We’ll break the manacles we owe him
While the iron’s hot and true.

The song of a working person, Zuleikha decides, a blacksmith or smelter. It’s already clear this person is riding behind them along the forest road and will soon catch up to them, out from the trees. How old is he? Probably young: there’s a lot of strength, a lot of hope, in his voice.

For this will be the war to settle,
Our fate for good and all;
It’s time for humankind’s last battle
And the Internationale.

In the distance, dark silhouettes are flickering swiftly between the trees. Now a small cavalry detachment appears on the road, too. At the front is a man with an easy, straight posture, and it’s clear from afar that he’s neither a blacksmith nor a smelter but a warrior. When he rides closer, the broad green stripes on his gray military overcoat become visible; on his head there’s a pointed, coarse hat with a reddish-brown star. A Red Hordesman. He’s the one singing.

It’s up to us, the laboring masses
Of the world to rise and fight;
The rule of landlords surely passes
And we’ll seize what’s ours by right.

Allah endowed Zuleikha with excellent vision. In the bright sunlight, she discerns the Red Hordesman’s face, which is uncommonly smooth for a man: it’s really like a girl’s, with neither mustache nor beard. His eyes seem dark under the brim, and his even white teeth look like they’re made of sugar.

And once that mighty lightning flashes
To strike the proud and cruel,
The sun will blaze down on their ashes
When the proletariat rule.

The Red Hordesman is already very close. When he squints from the sun, crows’ feet at the corners of his eyes run under the long, coarse fabric earflaps of his pointy hat. He’s shameless, openly smiling at Zuleikha. She lowers her eyes as a married woman should and buries her chin deeper in her shawl.

“Hey, boss, is it far to Yulbash?” the Red Hordesman asks, riding right up to the sledge and not taking his eyes off Zuleikha. She senses the hot, salty smell of his horse.

Murtaza doesn’t turn; he keeps urging on Sandugach.

“Gone deaf or something?” The rider presses his horse’s sides lightly with his heels and overtakes the sledge in two bounds.

Murtaza suddenly slaps Sandugach’s back with the reins. She leaps abruptly forward, knocking her chest into the soldier’s horse, so that it neighs with alarm, stumbles off the road, catches its back legs in a snowdrift on the roadside, and flounders in the snow.

“Or gone blind?” The Red Hordesman’s voice is ringing with rage.

“The little man’s scared. He’s hurrying home to hide under Mama’s skirts.” The cavalry detachment has caught up to the sledge, and a swarthy little man, whose upper lip is raised in amusement, revealing a bright gold tooth, brashly eyes the sledge. “They’re a nervous bunch!”

How many of them are there, anyway? No more than you could count on all your fingers. The men are solid, sturdy. Some are in military overcoats, some just in sheepskin coats pulled in at the waist with a broad reddish belt. Each has a rifle on his back. The bayonets glisten in the sun; it’s dazzling.

And one’s a woman. Lips like bilberries, cheeks like apples. She sits squarely in the saddle, head raised high, bosom pushed forward, allowing herself to be admired. Even under the sheepskin it’s obvious that chest would be enough for three. A picture of wholesomeness.

The horse that was forced off the road finally makes its way back and its rider grabs Sandugach by the bridle. The sledge stops and Murtaza tosses aside the reins. He hides his sullen expression and doesn’t look at the cavalrymen.

“Well?” the soldier asks, threatening.

“Oh, they don’t speak a word of Russian here, comrade Ignatov,” calls out an elderly soldier with a long scar across half his face. The scar is white and very even, like a stretched rope. From a saber, Zuleikha guesses.

“Not a word. So then…” Ignatov attentively examines the horse, the colt hiding under her belly, and Murtaza himself.

Murtaza is silent. His shaggy fur hat is pulled over his forehead, screening his eyes. Curly little clouds of dense steam float out of his whitened nostrils, covering his mustache with a raggedy frost.

“Well, you are a gloomy one, brother,” utters Ignatov, pensive.

“His wife gave him a talking-to!” The swarthy soldier with the gleaming gold tooth winks at Zuleikha, first with one eye, then the other. The whites of his eyes are as murky as the liquid in oatmeal and his pupils are small nuggets. The members of the detachment laugh. “Tatar women, oh, but they are harsh! You won’t get away with anything! Isn’t that right, Green Eyes?”

Her father called her Green Eyes when she was a child. That was a long time ago. Zuleikha no longer thinks about the color of her eyes.

The detachment laughs louder. Ten pairs of audacious and mocking eyes scrutinize her intently. She uses the edge of her shawl to cover her cheeks, which are burning.

“They’re harsh but not especially pretty,” the busty cavalry-woman adds lazily, turning away.

“How could they compare to you, Nastasya!” whoop the Red Hordesmen.

Zuleikha hears how hoarse and labored her husband’s breathing is behind her back.

“As you were!” Ignatov resumes scrutinizing Murtaza. “So where’d you go so bright and early, boss? And with your wife, too. I see you weren’t chopping up any wood. What’d you lose in the forest? Come on, don’t look away. I see you understand everything.”

The horses stamp their hooves and snort loudly in the quiet. Zuleikha senses but doesn’t see that the furrow on Murtaza’s forehead is deepening, cutting into his skull, and the dimple in his chin is trembling, like a bobber over a fish caught on a hook.