|
I
An old man was riding along on an old wagon. His pacer, Gyulsary, a golden chestnut horse, was old too. Very old.
The road winding up to the plateau was tediously long. In winter, the ground wind swirled incessantly among the bleak grey hills; in summer, it was scorching hot.
For Tanabai this climb had always been an ordeal. Slow riding irked him. In his youth, when he had frequently ridden to the district centre, he had always galloped his horse up this rise on the way back, whipping it on. If he hitched a ride on a wagon, especially an ox-drawn one, he would jump down without a word, pick up his coat and set off on foot. He would stride ahead furiously, as though rushing to the attack, and stop only when he had reached the plateau. Then, breathing hard, he would wait for the lumbering wagon crawling along down below. His heart beat fast and painfully from the rapid pace. No matter, it was better than dragging along in the wagon.
When Choro was alive he would often tease his friend about his odd ways, saying:
"Want to know why you're unlucky, Tanabai? It's because you're so impatient. Honestly. Everything has to be done fast to please you. You must have the world revolution this minute! Why talk about the revolution when you haven't even got the patience for an ordinary road like the climb from Alexandrovka. You can't drive quietly like other people, can you? No, you have to jump off and go racing up the hill as if wolves were after you. And what do you gain by it? Nothing. You still have to wait at the top for the others. And you can't rush into the world revolution alone, you know, you'll have to wait for everyone else."
But that was long ago. Very long ago.
Today Tanabai didn't even notice when they passed the Alexandrovka Rise. Age and its ways had become habit. He drove neither fast nor slowly. He let the horse go at its own pace. Now he always set out alone. The crowd that had once accompanied him in the thirties along the noisy road was gone. Some had been killed in the war, some had died, some never left their homes any more and were just living out their days. The young people drove around in cars now. No one would creep along with him behind a miserable nag.
The wheels bumped along the ancient road. They would bump along for many a mile yet. Before him lay the steppe, and beyond the canal was a stretch along the foothills.
He had noticed some time before that the horse was getting tired, his strength seemed to be failing. But, sunk in his own cheerless thoughts, he was not too disturbed. So what if a horse got tired on the road? Worse things had happened. He'd get home all right.
How was he to know that his old pacer Gyulsary, named so for his rare golden coat, had climbed the Alexandrovka Rise for the last time in his life and was marking off his last miles? How was he to know that the horse was dizzy, that the earth whirled in coloured circles before his dimmed eyes, tilting from side to side, touching the sky now with one edge, now with the other, that the ground before Gyulsary fell away into blackness from time to time and a reddish mist or fog swirled where the road ahead and the mountains should have been?
The horse's old, strained heart ached dully, the collar made breathing more difficult. The breeching had slipped and cut into his rump, something sharp kept pricking him under the collar on the left side. Perhaps it was a thorn, or the tip of a nail which had pierced the felt padding of the collar. The little wound on his old shoulder callus burned and throbbed unbearably. And his feet dragged heavily, as though he were plodding across a wet, ploughed field.
But the old horse strained onward, and old Tanabai encouraged him now and then with a word or a slap of the reins, while deep in his own thoughts. He had much to think about.
The wheels bumped along the ancient road. Gyulsary kept up his usual gait, that special pacing trot he had had from the time he first struggled to his feet and wobbled across the meadow after his mother, a big shaggy-maned mare.
Gyulsary was a natural pacer, his famous pacing gait had brought him many good days and many bad ones, too. There was a time when no one would have dreamed of harnessing him to a wagon, it would have been sacrilegious. But, as the saying goes, if trouble comes to a horse, he'll drink bridled, and if trouble strikes a man, he'll ford a river in his boots.
All this had been long ago, now it was only a memory. Now Gyulsary was struggling valiantly to reach his last finish line. Never before had he approached a finish line so slowly, never before had it rushed at him so quickly. The white line was always but a single step away.
The wheels bumped along the ancient road.
The feeling that the ground was shaky beneath his hooves aroused a vague memory in his dimming consciousness of far-off summer days, a soft wet meadow in the mountains, an amazing, incredible world in which the sun whinnied and leaped over the mountains and he, so young and foolish, would chase it across the meadow, across the stream and through the bushes until the herd's stallion, his ears laid back angrily, would overtake him and turn him round. In those far-off days the herds had seemed to move upside-down, like reflections in a lake, and his mother, the big shaggy-maned mare, would turn into a warm milky cloud. He loved the moment when she suddenly became a tender, snorting cloud. Her teats were firm and sweet, the milk frothed on his lips and he choked on its abundance and sweetness. He loved to stand thus, nuzzling his mother's belly. How intoxicating it was, that milk! The whole world--the sun, the earth, his mother--were contained in a single mouthful of milk. And even when sated, he could still take another gulp, and another, and another.
Alas, this all ended too soon. Soon everything changed. The sun ceased whinning and leaping over the mountains, it rose regularly in the east and proceeded due-west, the herds ceased moving upside-down, their hooves squelched across the trampled meadow, making it dark, or clacked on the stones in the shallows, cracking them. The big shaggy-maned mare turned out to be a strict mother, she bit him painfully on the withers when he pestered her too much. There was not enough milk any more. He had to eat grass. It was the beginning of a way of life that was to last for many long years and was now nearing its end.
In all his long life Gyulsary had never glimpsed that vanished summer again. He had carried a saddle, his hooves had traversed many a road under many a rider, and there had been no end to those roads. Only now, when the sun again leaped over the mountains and the ground heaved beneath his feet, when everything shimmered before his dimming eyes, the summer that had been lost for so long reappeared again. The mountains, the wet meadow, the herds, the big shaggy-maned mare, all now appeared in a strange haze. He strained forward, trying frantically to break away from the collar and shafts and re-enter that past world which had suddenly opened up before him. But the deceptive mirage always moved off, and that was torture. His mother whinnied softly, calling to him as she did long ago, the herds galloped by as before, their sides and tails grazing him, but he had not the strength to overcome the shimmering, whiling blackness. It whirled round him more furiously, lashing out at him with stinging tails, flinging snow in his eyes and nostrils. He sweated, yet shivered with cold, and that unattainable world sank silently, vanishing in the whirling blizzard. The mountains, the meadow, the stream were all gone, the herds had galloped away, only the vague shadow of his mother, the big shaggy-maned mare, still moved on ahead of him. She did not want to leave him. She called to him. He neighed loudly, it was a sob, but he did not hear his own voice. Then everything vanished, the blizzard, too, vanished. The wheels ceased to bump. The little wound under his collar ceased to sting.
Gyulsary stopped. He swayed. His eyes pained him. There was a strange droning in his ears.
Tanabai dropped the reins, climbed clumsily down, stretched his numb legs and went over to the horse glumly.
"Oh, hell," he cursed softly, looking at Gyulsary.
The horse stood there, his big head and long scraggy neck protruding from the collar. His ribs heaved, raising his skinny sides below his knobby spine. His coat, once golden, was now dark from sweat and dirt. Grey trickles of sweat left soapy lines from his bony haunches down to his belly, his legs, his hooves.
"I wasn't driving you that hard," Tanabai muttered as he busied himself with the horse. He slackened the girth, the collar, and took out the bit. It was covered with hot, sticky saliva. He wiped Gyulsary's nose and neck with his coat sleeve. Then he hurried back to the cart, to scrape up the last of the hay. Gathering an armful, he dropped it in front of the horse. But Gyulsary did not touch it, he was shivering violently.
"Here, eat it! What's the matter?" Tanabai said, offering him a handful.
The horse's lips twitched but they could not grasp the hay. Tanabai looked him in the eye and frowned. He could see nothing in the sunken eyes, half-closed by the naked folds of his eyelids. The light had gone out of them, they were as vacant as the windows of a deserted house.
Tanabai looked about helplessly. In the distance were the mountains, all around was the bare steppe, and not a soul in sight on the road. At this time of the year travellers were few and far between.
The old horse and the old man were alone on the deserted road.
It was the end of February. The snow had left the plains, only the hidden lairs of winter in the ravines and among the reeds still held the wolves' spines of late drifts. The wind carried a faint scent of old snow, the ground was still frozen, grey and dead. The stony steppe was bleak and depressing at the end of winter. The very look of it made Tanabai shudder.
His dishevelled grey beard jutted forth as his eyes gazed towards the west from under the worn sleeve of his sheepskin coat. The sun hung cradled in the clouds above the edge of the earth. A pale, misty sunset was spreading across the horizon. There were no indications of foul weather ahead, but there was a cold and eerie feeling in the air.
"If I'd only known I'd never have started out," Tanabai thought miserably. "Now there's no going either way, I'm stuck here in the middle of nowheres. And I'll do the horse in for nothing."
Indeed, he should have waited till morning. If anything happened on the way in the daytime there was hope of a traveller overtaking him. But he had started out in the afternoon. Was that a wise thing to do at this time of the year?
Tanabai climbed a small rise to see if there was a car or truck in sight. But the road was deserted in both directions. He trudged back to the wagon.
"I never should have started out," he repeated, blaming himself yet once again for his perpetual haste. He was vexed and angry at himself and at everything that had hastened his departure from his son's house. He certainly should have stayed the night and given the horse a rest. But no!
Tanabai sliced the air with his hand angrily. "No, I wouldn't have stayed for anything. Even if I had to walk! Is that the way to talk to her husband's father? Good or bad, I'm still his father. What was the use of me joining the Party if I never became, more than a shepherd or a herdsman and got kicked out anyway in my old age! The bitch! And my son's no better. Never opening his mouth, afraid to raise his eyes. If she'd tell him to disown his father, he'd do it. He's a dishrag that's what he is, but he wants to get ahead and be a big man. Ah, what's the use talking about it! They're a sorry breed of men nowadays, that's for sure."
Tanabai felt hot, he unbuttoned his shirt collar and began pacing round the wagon, breathing heavily, unmindful of the horse, the road and the approaching night. But he could not calm down. Back in his son's house he had restrained himself, feeling it beneath his dignity to bicker with his daughter-in-law. Yet now he suddenly seethed, now he could have told her everything he had been thinking of so bitterly on the way. "It wasn't you who admitted me to the Party, and it wasn't you who kicked me out. What do you know, woman, of what things were like then? It's easy to talk now. Now you've all got learning, you're respected and honoured. But we were held responsible for all our actions, and for those of our fathers, our mothers, our friends and enemies, and even our neighbour's dog, we were responsible for everything under the sun. And about me being expelled, that's not for you to talk about! That's my business. Don't you ever speak of it!"
"Don't you ever speak of it!" he repeated aloud, pacing back and forth. "Don't you speak of it!" he repeated again and again. And the worst of it, the most humiliating thing about it was that except for "don't you speak of it", he didn't seem to have anything else to say.
He kept walking round and round the wagon until he remembered that something ought to be done, he couldn't stay there all night.
Gyulsary still stood motionless in the harness, listless, hunched, hooves drawn close together. He seemed numb, dead.
"What is it, boy?" Tanabai went up to him and heard the horse's soft, drawn-out moan. "Were you dozing? Feeling bad, old fellow?" He ran his hand over the horse's cold ears quickly, he thrust his fingers into the mane. There, too, the animal's coat was cold and damp. But what alarmed Tanabai most was that he did not feel the accustomed weight of the horse's mane. "He's really old," he thought sadly, "his mane's thinned out, it's as light as, a feather. We're all getting old, there's one end awaiting all of us." He stood there undecided, not knowing what to do.
If he abandoned the horse and wagon and headed home he'd make it to his cottage by midnight. He lived there with his wife near the water inspector's house which was a mile upstream. In summer Tanabai looked after the haying, in winter he kept an eye on the ricks and saw to it that the shepherds didn't start using the hay before the proper time.
The previous autumn he had been at the firm office and the new team-leader, a young agronomist from town. had said, "We've got a new horse for you. aksakal. He's a bit old, but he'll do for your work."
"Which one?" Tanabai had asked suspiciously. "Another bag of bones?"
"You'll see. He's sort of tawny. You ought to recoginse him, they say you used to ride him.",
Tanabai had gone off to the stable. The sight of the pacer in the yard wrenched his heart. "So we meet again." The words formed in his mind as he looked at the old nag. He had not the heart to refuse and had taken Gyulsary home.
His wife hardly recognised the pacer.
"It can't be the same Gyulsary!" she exclaimed.
"Sure he's the same," Tanabai muttered avoiding his wife's eyes.
It was better for them not to delve into memories that were associated with Gyulsary. Tanabai had been young at the time, and he had been wholly to blame. To avoid an undesirable turn to the talk he spoke roughly to her, saying:
"What are you standing there for? Heat us some dinner. I'm starved."
"I was just thinking. That's what age does to you. If you hadn't told me it was Gyulsary I'd never have recognised him."
"What's so strange about that? Do you think we look any better? Time doesn't spare anyone.
"That's what I meant." She shook her head thoughtfully and added with a good-natured laugh, "Will you be out riding your pacer at night, again? You have my permission."
"Not much chance." He waved the talk off awkwardly and turned his back on her. He should have answered the jest in like manner but he was so embarrassed he climbed up to the hayloft to get some hay and dallied there. He thought she'd forgotten but she hadn't.
Smoke poured from the chimney, his wife was warming his cold dinner for supper. Still, he fussed with the hay. She finally shouted from the doorway:
"Come down before the food gets cold again!"
She said no more about the past. It was no use.
All that autumn and winter Tanabai nursed the pacer, feeding him warm mash and chopped beets. Gyulsary's teeth were worn down to stumps. he thought he had put the horse back on his feet again, and then this had to happen. What was he to do now?
He hadn't the heart to abandon Gyulsary on the road. "What are we going to do, boy, just stand here like this'?" Tanabai said and shoved the horse gently. Gyulsary swayed and shifted his weight. "I know. Wait!"
He fished an empty sack in which he had brought his daughter-in-law potatoes up from the bottom of the wagon with his whip handle and took out a little bundle. His wife had baked him some buns for the road, but he had forgotten about them, he had had no thought of food. Tanabai broke off half a bun crumbled it in the skirt of his coat and offered the crumbs to the horse. Gyulsary breathed in the smell of bread noisily, but could not eat. Then Tanabai began to feed him. He pushed a few pieces into the horse's mouth and Gyulsary began to chew.
"Go on, eat it, maybe we'll make it home after all." Tanabai's spirits rose. "Easy does it. It'll be all right once we get home. We'll nurse you back, my old woman and me," he promised. Saliva dripped from the horse's lips onto his trembling hands, he was glad to feel that it was warmer.
Then he took hold of the bridle.
"Come on, let's go! It's no use standing here. Come on!" he said firmly.
The pacer moved off, the wagon creaked, the wheels bumped slowly along the road. They started slowly on their way, an old man and an old horse.
"He's got no strength left," thought Tanabai as he walked along the edge of the road. "How old are you, Gyulsary? Twenty, at least. No, you must be more than that."
2
They first met after the war.
Corporal Tanabai Bakasov had fought in the West and in the East and was demobilised after the capitulation of Japan. In all, he had seen almost six years of active service. His luck had held out and he got off easily; he had been shell-shocked once while serving in a supply column and another time had received a chest wound, but after two months in the hospital he had caught up with his old unit.
As he rode home the market women at the stations along the way addressed him as "old man". They didn't really mean it and Tanabai was not offended. He was no youngster, certainly, but he was not old, it was mostly a matter of looks. His face was weather-beaten and there was grey in his moustache, but body and heart were still strong. A year later his wife bore him a daughter, and then a second. Both were now married and had children of their own. They often came to visit in the summers. The elder one had married a truck-driver. He'd pack the family into the back of his truck and they'd be off to visit the old folks in the mountains. No, he and his wife had no complaints about their daughters and sons-in-law, but his son was a failure. However, that was another story.
Long ago, on his way home after victory had been won, he had felt that life was only just beginning. It had been a wonderful feeling. Brass bands had played for the troop train at all the big stations. His wife was waiting for him at home, their boy was seven and would soon be starting school. He felt as though he had been born anew, that everything that had happened until then did not matter any more. He wanted to forget it all, to think only of the future. His picture of that future was simple and clear: he would just live--bring up children, put everything in order, build a house--in a word, he would live. And nothing would interfere any more, because everything that had happened had really been to guarantee that now, at last, a real life would begin, the life which they had always striven for, the life they had died for and won the war for.
But it turned out that Tanabai had been in too much of a hurry, much too much of a hurry, for the future demanded new sacrifices, years and years of sacrifice.
At first he worked as a blacksmith's striker at the forge. He had once been skilled at the job and now, meeting the remembered challenge of the anvil, he swung lustily from morning till night, as the blacksmith barely managed to turn the glowing metal in time. Even now he could hear the measured ringing of their blows in the forge, drowning all cares and worry. There was a shortage of bread and clothes, the women wore rubbers on their bare feet, the children did not know the taste of sugar, the collective farm was in debt up to its ears, its bank account was blocked, but he brushed it all aside with his swinging hammer. He crashed his hammer down, the anvil rang, sending up blue showers of sparks. "Uh! Uh!" he grunted, swinging the hammer up and down, thinking: "Everything will turn out all right. The main thing is that we won the war! We won!" And the hammer repeated: "We won, we won, won-won-won!" He was not the only one who felt like this: in those days everyone was nourished by the air of victory, drawing strength from it as though it were bread.
Then Tanabai became a herdsman and left for the mountains. Choro had talked him into it. Choro, now long dead, was then chairman of the collective farm, as he had been all through the war. A bad heart had kept him out of the army. And though he had remained at home, he had aged. Tanabai had noticed it immediately.
No one else could have persuaded him to give up the forge for a herd. But Choro was an old friend. Together, as Komsomols so many years before, they had been the first to speak up for establishing a collective farm, together they had got rid of the kulaks. Tanabai had really been zealous about it. He had had no mercy for those on the list to be dispossessed.
Choro came to the forge to persuade him to change jobs and seemed very pleased when he succeeded.
"I was afraid you were stuck to your hammer and couldn't be pried loose," he said, smiling.
Choro was a sick man, painfully thin, with a scrawny neck and deep folds along his sunken cheeks. It was still warm, but even in summer Choro always wore the same old sweater.
They squatted to talk by an irrigation ditch near the forge. Tanabai remembered what Choro had been like as a young man. At the time he was a handsome youth, the most educated man in the village. Everyone liked him for his quiet ways and goodness. But Tanabai disliked that goodness of his. He would often jump up at a meeting and berate Choro for his intolerable leniency towards their class enemies. He sounded as good as a newspaper article. He learned everything he heard at the current events readings by heart. Sometimes he was frightened by his own words. But it sounded grand all the same.
"I was up in the mountains three days ago," Choro said. "The old men wanted to know whether all the soldiers were back. I said they were, those that had come back alive. 'And when will they start working?' I said they're all working already, some in the fields, some on construction jobs. 'We know that. But who's going to tend the horses? Are they going to wait till we die? We don't have much longer to go.' I really felt ashamed. You know what they mean. We sent the old men up into the mountains to tend the horses during the war. And they're still up there. It's no job for old men. It means being in the saddle day and night with no time off. And what about the winter nights? Remember Derbishbai? He froze to death on his horse. And they broke the horses in, too, when the army needed horses. You try riding a bucking devil over hill and dale when you're in your sixties. You'll be lucky if he doesn't break every bone in your body. We should be grateful to them for holding the fort. Now the men are back from the army and they're turning up their noses, they're so cultured after being abroad they don't want to be herdsmen any more. They don't see why they should waste their time in the mountains. That's how it goes. So it's up to you to help us out, Tanabai. If you go, we'll get others to go, too."
"All right, Choro. I'll talk it over with my wife," Tanabai replied, thinking: "We've seen so much happen in all these years, but you're still the same, Choro. Your kindness will be the end of you. Maybe that's right, though. After what we've seen in the war we should all be kinder. Maybe that's what really counts in life."
That was the end of their talk.
As Tanabai headed back to the forge, Choro called to him:
"Wait, Tanabai" He rode up on his horse, bent over the saddle to look into Tanabai's face. "You're not angry at me, are you?" he asked softly. "You know, I don't have any time to myself. I wanted to visit you and talk things over the way we used to. After all, we haven't seen each other for so long. I thought when the war ended everything would be easier, but it isn't. Sometimes I can't get to sleep, there's so much to worry about. I keep racking my brains wondering what to do to get the farm going again, feed the people and fulfil our quota. People have changed, they want to live better now."
They never did manage to sit down together and have that talk. Time passed, and then it was too late.
When Tanabai went up into the mountains as a herdsman soon after he first saw the eighteen-month-old golden chestnut colt in old Torgoi's herd.
"Is that all you're leaving me. aksakal? The herd's not much to look at, is it? Tanabai chided the old man after the horses had been counted and driven out of the paddock.
Torgoi was a scrawny old man with a hairless, wrinkled face, as small and thin as a boy. His large chaggy sheepskin hat perched on his head like a mushroom cap. Old men of this breed are usually wiry, loud-mouthed and sharp-tongued.
But Torgoi let it pass.
"Well, it's an ordinary herd," he replied calmly. "Nothing to brag about. You'll see after you've driven the horses a while."
"I was just joking," Tanabai said placatingly.
"There's a special one, though." Torgoi pushed his hat back from his eyes, stood up in his stirrups and pointed his whip handle. "That golden chestnut colt over there, the one that's grazing off to the right. He'll come to something."
"You mean the one that's as round as a ball? He looks too small, and his back is too short."
"He's a winter foal. He'll be all right. Give him time."
"What's so special about him?"
"He's a natural born pacer."
"So what?"
"I haven't seen many like him. In the old days he'd be worth a fortune. Men killed each other at the races for a horse like that."
"Let's see what he can do," Tanabai said.
They spurred their horses, rounded the edge of the herd, cut out the golden colt and drove him before them. The colt was all for a run. He tossed his forelock saucily, snorted and set off like clockwork at a fast pacing gait, tracing a large semi-circle that would bring him back to the herd. Tanabai was delighted.
"Oho! Look at him!"
"What'd I tell you!" the old man shouted back.
They cantered after the colt, shouting like children at the games. Their voices spurred him on, he kept quickening his pace, seemingly without effort and never once breaking into a gallop, but sailed along as easily as a bird in flight.
They finally had to gallop their horses, while the colt continued in the same even gait.
"See that, Tanabai!" Torgoi shouted, waving his hat. "He's as quick to your voice as a knife to your hand! Watch him! Kait, kait! Kait!"
When the colt finally returned to the herd they left him alone. But it was a long time before they themselves calmed down as they walked their heated horses.
"Thank you, Torgoi. That's a fine colt you've raised. It makes me feel good just to look at him."
"He is good," the old man agreed. "Only mind," he said with sudden sternness, scratching the back of his head, "protect him from the evil eye. Don't let on about him yet. A good pacer's like a pretty girl, there's plenty who'd like to get their hands on him. You know how it is, a girl falls into good hands and she'll blossom and be a joy to everyone, but if she falls into bad hands, it'll break your heart to look at her. And there's not a thing you can do about it. It's the same with a good horse. It's easy enough to ruin him. His kind will drop in his tracks."
"Don't worry, aksakal, I know a good horse when I see one.
"Good. His name's Gyulsary. Don't forget it."
"Gyulsary?"
"Yes. My granddaughter was visiting me here last summer. She named him. He was still a foal then, he was her pet. Don't forget: Gyulsary."
Torgoi turned out to be a talkative old man. He sat up all night giving Tanabai reams of advice. And Tanabai listened patiently.
He accompanied Torgoi and his wife part of the way when they left the camp. He and his family would move into their empty felt tent. There was another tent for his assistant. But no assistant had been found yet. He would carry on alone for the present.
Before parting, Torgoi had one more reminder for him.
"Leave the colt be. And don't trust him to anyone. Break him in yourself next spring. And be careful about it. Don't drive him hard at first or he'll break his gait and you'll ruin him. And see he doesn't drink too much the first few days. When you've broken him in come and show him to me if I'm still around."
And Torgoi and his old woman rode off, leaving him the herd, the tent and the mountains and taking along the camel loaded with their possessions.
If Gyulsary could have only known how much talk there was about him, how much there would yet be, and what the outcome was to be!
He ran freely with the herd as before. Nothing had changed, neither the mountains, nor the grasses, nor the streams. But instead of the old man another master herded them now. This one wore an army greatcoat and a soldier's fur hat. The new master's voice was hoarse but loud and stern. The herd soon got used to him. They didn't mind him galloping round them if he wanted to.
Then it began to snow. It snowed often and the snow lay on the ground a long time. The horses pawed the snow to get at the grass. The master's face became haggard, his hands were coarse from the wind. Now he wore felt boots and a sheepskin coat. Gyulsary grew a long coat, but still he was cold, especially at night. On frosty nights the herd pressed close together in a sheltered spot, standing motionless until sunrise, turning white from hoar-frost. The master was beside them on his horse, beating his mittened hands together and rubbing his face. He would disappear from time to time and then return. They felt more secure when he was there. He would shout or cough from the cold and the horses would lift their heads and prick up their ears, but seeing that he was nearby they would doze again to the rustling and moaning of the night wind. From that winter on Gyulsary learned to recognise Tanabai's voice and never forgot it.
One night there was a blizzard in the mountains. Sharp, stinging snow clung to the horses' manes, it made their tails heavy and hurt their eyes. The herd was restless. The horses huddled close together, trembling. The old mares snorted nervously and drove the foals into the middle of the herd. They pushed Gyulsary to the very edge and he couldn't get back inside the huddle. He began to kick, to push, then found himself outside altogether and finally got into trouble with the herd stallion who had been circling round for some time, ploughing up the snow with his strong hooves, driving the herd into a tight cluster. At times he would gallop off, his head lowered threateningly, his ears laid back, disappearing in the darkness until they could barely make out his snorting, then he would return, terrible in his anger. When he saw Gyulsary standing alone he flew at him, swung round and kicked him in the side with terrible force. Gyulsary choked with pain. Something exploded inside him, he squealed and nearly toppled over. He made no more attempts to be independent but stood there meekly, pressed against the outer edge of the herd, a grinding pain in his side and hurt in his heart at the brutal treatment.
The horses were quiet. Then Gyulsary heard a long, distant howl. He had never heard a wolf howl before. For an instant everything within him stopped, froze. The herd started, tensed, listened. Everything was very still. It was an uncanny stillness. The snow kept falling, clinging to Gyulsary's raised head with a rustling sound. Where was the master? How they needed him then, if they could only hear his voice or breathe in the smoky smell of his coat. But he was not there. Gyulsary rolled his eyes and went numb with fear. A shadow slid by, slinking over the snow in the darkness. Gyulsary jumped backwards, the herd shied and was off. Whinnying and neighing wildly, the horses thundered into the blackness of the night. No power on earth could have stopped them. They raced onward, carrying one another along like stones pouring down a mountain in a landslide. Gyulsary understood nothing, but he rushed on in this mad, hot race. Suddenly, a shot rang out, then another. The galloping horses heard their master's furious shouting. It was coming from aside, then it cut across, now it was coming from up front. They raced on to catch up with the persistent voice. The master was with them. He was galloping in front of them, risking a fall off a cliff at every step. His voice was weaker now, then became hoarse, but still he continued to shout "Kait, kait, kait", and they followed him, fleeing from the terror that pursued them.
By dawn Tanabai had led the herd back to the hollow. There the horses stopped. Steam rose from them in a thick cloud, their sides heaved, they still trembled from fright. 'their hot lips snatched up clumps of snow. Tanabai, too, ate the snow. He squatted to scoop up cold white handfuls of it. Then he buried his face in his hands and remained thus, motionless. Still, the snow fell softly, melting on the horses' hot backs, rolling down their sides in dirty yellow drops.
The deep snow melted, the earth was bared, it turned green, and Gyulsary began filling out rapidly. The herd shedded, their new coats gleamed. Winter and hard times seemed unreal now. The horses did not remember them, but the man did. He remembered the cold and the nights filled with wolves' howling, he remembered how numb he was in the saddle, biting his lips at times to keep from crying, warming his frozen hands and feet by a campfire, he remembered the ice in spring that locked the earth under a leaden crust, he remembered how the weakest horses died and how, at the farm office, eyes downcast, he had signed the report stating his losses and then, exploding in a rage, banging his fist on the chairman's desk, how he had shouted:
"Don't you look at me like that! I'm no nazi! Where are the barns for the herds, where's the fodder and the oats, where's the salt? We've got nothing but the wind to hold us up! Is that how we're supposed to look after the farm? Look at the rags we're wearing! Look at our tents, come and see how I live! We never even have enough bread. It was a hundred times better in the trenches. And here you are, looking at me as if I killed those horses with my own hands!"
He remembered the chairman's terrible silence, his ashen face. He remembered how ashamed he was of his outburst and how he had tried to apologise.
"Never mind, forget it. I was just blowing off steam," he muttered.
"It's you who should forgive me," Choro said.
He had become still more embarrassed when the chairman had called the store-keeper and said:
"Issue him five kilos of flour."
"But what about the nursery school?"
"Which nursery school? Can't you ever get anything straight! I said issue him five kilos."
Tanabai wanted to refuse flatly, to say that soon they'd be milking the mares and they'd have kumiss, but when he looked at the chairman and guessed the bitter lie he forced himself to be silent. Each time he ate noodles made from that flour they scorched his mouth. He would throw down his spoon, saying:
"What do you want to do, burn me to death?"
"Blow on them, you're not a baby," his wife would calmly reply.
Yes, he remembered it all.
But now it was May. The young stallions whinnied, their bodies clashing as they threw themselves against each other angrily. They stole young mares from other herds. The herdsmen rode up and down furiously, separating the fighters, cursing each other, coming to blows at times, too, lashing at one another with their whips.
Gyulsary could not have cared less. The sun shone between showers, green grass pushed up from underfoot. The meadows were a dazzling green, the snow-capped mountains a dazzling white above them. That spring the golden chestnut pacer embarked upon the most wonderful period of his youth. The shaggy, round-rumped yearling had turned into a slim, strong colt. He grew taller, his body lost its plumpness and was taking on a triangular shape, with a broad chest and narrow quarters. His head was now that of a true pacer: lean, bony, with a bowed nose, wide-set eyes and firm lips. But he could not have cared less about that, either. A single passion possessed him, causing his master no little bother, and this was his passion for racing. He would entice the other colts to follow him and streak along like a yellow comet. An unknown force drove him ever on, up hill and down dale, along the stony river banks, over steep paths and into the gorges. Late at night, as he fell asleep beneath the starry sky, he dreamed that the ground was still rushing by, under his hooves, that the wind was whistling in his mane and his ears and his hooves were clacking and ringing.
His attitude towards his master was similar to everything else that did not directly concern him: he neither
liked him especially nor felt any hostility towards him, for his master never hampered him in any way. At most, Tanabai cursed the colts when they had gone too far and he had to chase after them. Sometimes his master smacked the golden pacer on the rump with his looped pole. This made Gyulsary shudder, but more from surprise than from pain, and it always made him quicken his pace. The faster he ran when returning to the herd, the more it pleased his master, who galloped alongside, his looped pole balanced on his arm. The pacer would hear his encouraging shouts, he would hear him begin to sing, and at times such as those he liked his master, he liked to trot along to the sound of his singing. Later on he came to know those songs well. There were various songs: happy and sad, long and short, songs with words to them and songs without words. He also liked the times his master gave the herd salt. Tanabai would toss lumps of it into the long wooden troughs. The herd would fall on it, for salt was a great treat. Licking salt proved to be Gyulsary's undoing.
One day his master beat a tattoo on an empty pail, calling po, po, po! to the horses. They came running, heading for the troughs. Gyulsary was licking the salt, standing among the other horses and was not troubled in the least when his master and a helper began closing in with their looped poles. That had nothing to do with him. They used the poles to catch the saddle horses and the milking mares but never him. He was free. Suddenly, a horsehair loop slipped over his head and settled around his neck. Gyulsary did not know what it was all about as yet, the loop did not frighten him, and so he continued licking the salt. Other horses would pull and rear when the loop was thrown over their heads, but Gyulsary did not move a muscle. Finally, he became thirsty and wanted to go to the river to drink. He began nosing out from among the other horses. The loop drew tight around his neck, bringing him up with a start. Nothing of the kind had ever happened to him before. Gyulsary pulled back, snorted, rolled his eyes and reared. The other horses scattered. Now he found himself face to face with the men who had trapped him. His master stood in front of him, the helper behind. All around them were the other herdsmen's youngsters, recently arrived at the camp but already a nuisance, boys who kept galloping round and round the herd all day.
The pacer became terrified. He reared up again and again, the sun whirled in front of him, falling apart into burning circles, the mountains, the earth and the people kept falling, tumbling over, a terrible, frightening blackness enveloped him and he tried to beat it back with his forelegs.
But no matter how he struggled, the loop drew tighter and tighter, and instead of pulling away from the men, the choking pacer threw himself upon them. They scattered, the loop slackened momentarily, and he dragged his captors after him along the ground. The women screamed as they chased the boys back to the tents. However, the men managed to scramble to their feet. and once again the loop tightened around Gyulsary's neck. This time it was so tight he could not breathe. And so he stopped, faint from dizziness and suffocation.
His master took up the slack, approaching him from the side. Gyulsary rolled his eye at him. His master's clothes were torn, his face was bruised, but his eyes were not angry. He was panting, clucking his bruised lips, saying softly, soothingly:
"Easy now, Gyulsary. Don't be afraid, boy."
His helper followed him cautiously, keeping a tight hold on the rope. Finally, the master reached out his hand and patted the pacer's head, saying shortly, without turning:
"The bridle."
The helper handed him the bridle.
"Steady, boy, steady," his master said. He covered the pacer's eyes with his hand and slipped the bridle over his head.
It now remained to put the bit in his mouth and saddle him. As soon as the bridle was over his head, Gyulsary snorted and tried to jerk away. But his master managed to grab hold of his upper lip.
"The twister!" he shouted to his helper. The man ran up, put the rawhide twister on his mouth and began twisting it with a stick like a windlass.
The pacer sat back on his haunches from pain and resisted no more. The cold iron bit clattered against his teeth and was jammed into the corners of his mouth. Something was being put onto his back and pulled tight, his chest was being crushed in jerks by straps, he was thrown from side to side. But this was of no consequence now. The all-consuming, unbearable pain in his mouth obscured everything else. His eyes bulged from their sockets. He could neither move nor breathe. He did not even notice how or when his master sprang into the saddle, coming to his senses only when the twister was removed.
For a moment or two he stood there in a daze, strapped in and weighted down, then he rolled his eye backward and saw a man sitting on his back. He tried to flee in terror, but the bit tore at his mouth and the man's heels dug into his sides. The pacer reared and plunged, neighing indignantly, enraged, he thrashed about, kicking out his hind legs, he tensed, trying to throw off the weight, and pranced aside, but the helper, who had now mounted another horse. was holding the end of the rope and would not let him have his head. Then Gyulsary began trotting around in a circle, hoping that the circle would end and he could gallop off. But the circle did not end, he kept on running around, and around, and around. This was exactly what the men wanted him to do. His master spurred him on. In all, Gyulsary managed to throw him twice, but each time he got up and remounted.
This went on forever. The horse's head spun, the earth spun around him, the tents were spinning, the horses grazing in the distance were spinning, the mountains were spinning, the clouds in the sky were spinning. Then he became tired and slowed down to a walk. He was terribly thirsty.
But they would not let him drink. They did not unsaddle him in the evening, they merely loosened the girth and tethered him to cool him out. The reins were wound tightly around the saddle horn, making him hold his head up, preventing him from lying down, the stirrups were folded back and looped over the horn. Thus he stood all through the night. He stood quietly, overwhelmed by all the impossible things that had happened to him that day. The bit still bothered him, the slightest movement of his head brought on a shooting pain and the taste of iron in his mouth was terrible. The swollen corners of his mouth were bruised. The bruises caused by the straps on his sides burned. His battered back ached under the pad. He was dying of thirst. He could hear the gurgling of the river and this made his thirst unbearable. As always, the herds were now grazing across the river. He could hear the sound of their hooves, of their neighing, and the night herdsmen shouting. People were sitting around the campfires outside their tents, resting. The boys were teasing the dogs and barking at them. There he stood, forgotten by all.
The moon rose. The mountains floated out of the darkness, and began to sway softly, illumined by the yellow moon. The stars burned brighter and brighter as they moved closer to earth. He stood there docilely, rooted to the spot, while someone searched for him. He could hear the nickering of the small chestnut filly, the one he had grown up with, the one he had never been separated from before. She had a white star on her forehead. She liked to race with him. The stallions had begun chasing her, but she always escaped together with him. She was not yet fully grown, while he, too, had not yet reached the age to do what the other stallions attempted to.
He heard her nicker close by. Yes, it was she. He recognised her voice. He wanted to reply, but was afraid to open his tortured, swollen mouth. The pain was too terrible. Finally, she found him. She came running up lightly, the white star on her forehead flashing in the moonlight. Her tail and legs were wet. She had crossed the river, bringing with her the cold smell of water. She nuzzled him, her firm warm lips touching his coat. She snorted gently, inviting him to follow her. But he could not move. Then she rested her head on his neck and began nibbling at his mane. He should have put his head on her neck and done the same. But he could not return her caresses. He could not move. He was very thirsty. If only she could bring him something to drink! When she ran off he gazed after her until her shadow dissolved in the darkness beyond the river. She had come and gone. Tears fell from his eyes. They ran down his cheeks in large drops, falling silently to his feet. Gyulsary wept for the first time in his life.
Early the next morning his master came to him. Tanabai looked at the mountains awakened to spring, he stretched, smiled and groaned, for every bone in his body ached.
"Well, boy, you really gave me a ride yesterday. Are you cold? Oh, yes, you look frozen."
He patted the pacer's neck and when he spoke his voice was kind and gentle. How was Gyulsary to know what the man was saying? Tanabai said:
"Don't be angry at me, boy. After all, you can't run around loose all your life. Things'll look up as soon as you get used to it. I'm sorry you had to be hurt, but there's no other way to do it. That's life for you, fellow. It makes you step lively. But after the worst is over you'll be able to take anything in your stride. Thirsty, aren't you? And hungry, too."
He led the horse to the river. There he took off the bridle, removing the bit carefully from Gyulsary's tender mouth. A shiver went through the pacer as he fell upon the water greedily, the coldness of it made him dizzy. Oh, how wonderful the water was, how thankful he was to his master for it!
And so it went. Soon he was so used to the saddle it practically made no difference to him at all. He began to enjoy having a rider to take about. His master always kept him in check, though he would have liked to race on headlong, up and down the roads, his hooves beating out the steady, even tattoo of a pacer. He learned to carry a rider so swiftly and smoothly it made people gasp to watch him.
"If you set a pail of water on him he won't spill a drop!
"Thank you for breaking him in so well," said old Torgoi, the former herdsman. "Just watch your pacer's star rise."
3
The old wagon wheels creaked slowly along the deserted road. From time to time the creaking stopped. That meant the pacer had stopped from exhaustion. In the dead silence that followed he would hear the dull thudding of his heart echoing in his ears: thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump.
Old Tanabai gave him a chance to rest, then picked up the reins again.
"Come on, Gyulsary. Come on, boy, it's getting late."
They dragged on like that for an hour and a half until, finally, the pacer came to a halt. He was unable to pull the wagon any farther. Tanabai became alarmed.
"What's the matter, Gyulsary? Look, it's nearly dark!"
But the horse did not understand him. He stood there in harness, shaking his head which had become too heavy for his neck, swaying on wobbly legs, his thundering heart pounding in his ears: thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump.
"Forgive me, old boy," Tanabai said. "I should have thought of it sooner. I don't give a damn for the wagon or the harness as long as I get you home."
He threw off his sheepskin coat and began unharnessing the horse quickly. He led him out of the shafts, pulled the collar over his head and threw the harness into the wagon.
"There," he said, putting his coat back on. He looked at the pacer. The horse stood there like a ghost in the middle of the cold evening steppe, without his collar, without his harness, his head too big for his body. "My God, look what's become of you, Gyulsary," Tanabai whispered. "If Torgoi could see you now he'd turn in his grave."
He pulled at the reins and they trudged off along the road. An old horse and an old man. Behind them was the abandoned wagon, ahead of them in the west a deep purple darkness was descending upon the road. Night was spreading silently across the steppe, enveloping the mountains, obliterating the horizon.
As Tanabai walked along he recalled everything associated with the pacer over the years, thinking bitterly of his fellow men: "We're all like that. We think of each other towards the end of our lives, when someone becomes fatally ill or dies. That's when we suddenly realise what a fine person we've lost, how good he was, how much he did for others. So who's to remember a dumb animal? Think of all the men Gyulsary carried on his back. And now, when he's old, they've all forgotten him. Look at him, he can barely drag his feet along. And what a fine racer he was!"
And once again his memories took him back, once again he was surprised that he had not thought of the past for such a long time. Everything that had happened came back to him. It seemed that nothing was ever forgotten. He had rarely thought of the past, or, rather, he had not permitted himself to think of it, but now, after that fateful conversation with his son and daughter-in-law, as he trudged along the dark road leading a dying horse, he looked back with pain and sadness on the years that had gone by, and all of them rose up before him. Thus he walked along, deep in thought, while the pacer stumbled on behind him, dragging ever harder on the reins. When the old man's arm would go numb he would throw the end of the reins over his other shoulder and continue pulling the horse along. Then he became tired and let the horse rest. After a moment's thought he slipped the bridle off.
"Go on at your own pace, I'll follow you. Don't worry, I'll be right behind you," he said. "Take your time, boy."
Now the pacer led the way, while Tanabai followed, the bridle thrown over his shoulder. He would never discard it. Whenever Gyulsary stopped, Tanabai would wait for him to catch his breath, then they trudged on again. An old horse and an old man.
Tanabai smiled sadly as he recalled the times when Gyulsary had sped down this very road, raising a trail of dust. the shepherds said they could recognise the pacer's gait for miles by that trail of dust. It would rise as a white line from under his hooves, streaking across the steppe and hanging over the road on a windless day like the trail left by a jet. A shepherd would shield his eyes from the sun and say: "That's him, it's Gyulsary!" He would think enviously of the lucky man who at that very moment was flying along on that grand horse, the hot wind burning his face. It was a great honour for a Kirghiz to ride such a pacer.
Gyulsary had outlasted many a collective-farm chairman, and there had been all kinds: smart and stupid, honest and dishonest, but every one of them had rode the pacer from his first to last day in office. "Where are they now? Do they ever think of Gyulsary, who carried them back and forth from dawn to dusk?" Tanabai wondered.
They finally reached the bridge across the ravine. Here they stopped again. The pacer began bending his knees to lie down, but Tanabai could not let this happen: nothing would raise him again.
"Get up, get up!" he shouted, and smacked the reins across the horse's head. Angry at himself for having hit Gyulsary, he continued shouting: "Don't you understand? Do you want to die? I won't let you! I won't let you do it! Come on, get up! Get up!" He pulled the horse up by its mane.
Gyulsary straightened his legs with an effort and moaned. Though it was dark, Tanabai did not dare look him in the eye. He patted him, felt his left side and then pressed his ear against it. There, inside the horse's chest, his heart spluttered and splashed like a mill-wheel entangled in water plants. Tanabai stood doubled over beside the horse so long that his back began to ache. Then he straightened up, shook his head, sighed, and decided he would have to risk it and turn off the road beyond the bridge and onto the path along the ravine. The path led into the mountains, it was the shortest way home. True, it was easy to get lost at night, but Tanabai relied on his memory, he knew these parts well. If only the horse could make it.
While the old man was pondering over this the headlights of a truck came into view behind them. They appeared out of the blackness suddenly as a pair of bright circles, approaching rapidly, their long, wavering beams like feelers on the road. Tanabai and the pacer stood by the bridge. The truck was of no use to them, but still Tanabai awaited its approach. He did not know why he waited for it. "At last, there's one at last," he thought, relieved at the knowledge of other human beings on the road. The headlights slashed across his eyes in a blinding sheaf, bringing his hand up to shield them.
The two men in the truck looked wonderingly at the old man and the awful nag beside him that had neither saddle nor bridle, as if it were not a horse at all but a dog that had tagged along behind its master. For a split second the direct beam of light turned the old man and the horse into eerie white shapes.
"I wonder what he's doing here in the middle of the night?" the lanky youth in the fur hat said to the driver.
"It must've been his wagon we saw," the driver said, pulling up. "What's the matter, old fellow?" he shouted, sticking his head out of the window. "Was that your wagon on the road back away?"
"Yes," Tanabai replied.
"I thought so. We saw the old wreck. And not a soul in sight. We thought we might pick up a harness, but it wasn't worth a damn."
Tanabai said nothing.
The driver climbed down, walked over and began urinating on the road. The old man caught the foul smell of vodka on his breath.
"What's the matter?" the man asked.
"It was too much for the horse. He's sick and he's old."
"Hm. Where are you going?"
"Home. To the Sarygousy Gorge."
"Whew!" the driver whistled. "That high up? Too bad you're not going my way. If you want to you can get in the back and I'll drop you off at the state farm. You can start back home from there tomorrow."
"No, thanks. I can't leave my horse."
"This bag of bones? To hell with it. Dump him in the ravine and you'll have him off your neck. Want a hand?"
"Get going," Tanabai muttered angrily.
"Don't say I didn't offer," the driver chuckled. He slammed the door. "The old man's out of his head," he said to the youth beside him.
They drove off, disappearing in a foggy cloud of light. The bridge creaked heavily over the ravine, lighted up by the ruby-red tail-lights.
"Why'd you make fun of him? What if that had happened to you?" the boy said after they had crossed the bridge.
"That's nothing," the driver replied, yawning and taking a curve. "I've been in all sorts of fixes. That was some good advice I gave him. What's so special about an old nag? It's something out of the past. Technology is what counts these days, my boy. Machines are up front everywhere. It was like that during the war, too. It's curtains for old wrecks and nags like them."
"You really are mean, aren't you?" the boy said.
"What a thing to worry your head about."
When the truck had disappeared, when night had once again closed in on him, when his eyes had once again become accustomed to the dark, Tanabai said:
"Come on, boy, let's go. Come on, old fellow!"
After they had crossed the bridge he led Gyulsary off the highway. They moved slowly along the path that was barely visible in the dark above the ravine. The moon was just peeping out from behind the mountains. The stars awaited it, glittering coldly in a cold sky.
4
The year that Gyulsary was broken in the herds stayed on in the autumn pastures much later than usual. It was an unusually long autumn, the winter was mild with frequent snowfalls that soon melted, there was sufficient grazing. In spring the herds descended to the foothills again, and as soon as the steppe began to flower they moved downwards. This was probably the best time of Tanabai's life in all the post-war years. Old age, that grey steed, was still beyond the pass, though not too far away, and Tanabai could still ride the young golden pacer. If Gyulsary had entered his life several years later he most probably would not have experienced the same feeling of happiness, of manly exhilaration that riding the pacer gave him. Indeed, Tanabai was not beyond showing off on occasion. It was difficult to refrain from doing so astride a racing pacer. Gyulsary was fully aware of this. Especially when Tanabai headed for the village across the fields and they met groups of women on their way to work. When still quite a distance from the women, Tanabai would sit up in the saddle, every muscle in his body tensed, his excitement transmitted to the horse. Gyulsary would raise his tail until it was nearly in a line with his back, his mane flowed in the wind. He would snort, his hooves skimmed over the road as he carried his rider lightly. The women in their red and white kerchiefs would move to the sides of the road where they stood knee-deep in green wheat. They would stand there transfixed, their heads turning as one, their faces flashing by, revealing shining eyes and gleaming teeth.
"Hey! Stop!" They would laugh and shout. "Wait till we catch you!"
There were times when they really did catch him, holding hands and standing in a line across the road. That was really fun! Women like to fool around and tease. They'd drag Tanabai off the horse, laugh and giggle as they tried to pull the whip from his hands.
"When will you bring us some kumiss?"
"All you do is ride around on a pacer while we break our backs in the fields!"
"What's keeping you there? You can all be herdsmen. But tell your husbands to find themselves some other women. You'll freeze in the mountains and be as cold as icicles!"
"That's what you say!" And they would begin pushing and shoving again.
But never once had Tanabai permitted anyone to mount the pacer. Not even the woman who made his heart pound when he met her on the road and pulled up beside her. Not even she had ridden his horse. But perhaps she did not want to ride him.
That year Tanabai was elected to the auditing commission. He would often have to go to the village on business. He met the woman nearly every time. Many were the times he left the farm office in a black mood. Gyulsary sensed it by his eyes, his voice, the movements of his hands. But whenever Tanabai met her his spirits rose.
"Easy does it! Whoa, boy!" he would whisper, soothing the hot-tempered pacer. Drawing abreast of the woman he would slow down to a walk.
They talked in low voices, at times they simply continued on in silence. Gyulsary felt the weight dropping from his master's heart as his voice gained warmth and his hands became gentle. That is why he was always pleased if they happened to come upon the woman on the road.
How was the horse to know that things were going very badly on the collective farm, that the farmers were hardly earning anything, and that Tanabai Bakasov, a member of the auditing commission, wanted the chairman to tell him why things were as they were, and when the good life would finally begin, when they met their commitments to the state and enough was left over so that they did not work for nothing.
They had taken in a very poor crop the year before, this year they had had to sell grain and cattle to the state above their own quota to make up for their neighbours and keep the region out of the red. No one knew what lay ahead, or what the collective farmers could hope for. Time was marching on, the war was becoming a memory, yet the people lived as before on what they could grow in their own small vegetable plots and on whatever they managed to steal from the farm fields. There was no money in the farm treasury, either; everything they sold to the state was at a loss to themselves: grain, milk and meat. The flocks flourished in the summers, but everything turned to naught in the winters, when the animals died from exposure and starvation. They needed sheds, barns and silos, but there were no building materials to be got, nor did anyone promise them any. And what were their houses like after the long war years? The only new houses were put up by those who spent their time selling potatoes and sheep at the open markets. These people seemed able to find whatever building materials they needed.
"Something is very wrong, comrades, this is not the way things ought to be. We're doing something wrong," Tanabai would say. "I can't believe that this is how things should be. Either we've forgotten how to work well or we're not being directed properly."
"What's wrong? What's incorrect?" the book-keeper asked, shoving a sheaf of papers at him. "Here, look at the plan, this is what we've received, this is what we've sold, here's the debit, here's the credit, here's the balance. There are no profits, nothing but losses. Find out what it's all about before you start accusing people. Do you think you're the only Communist here and we're all enemies of the people?"
Others would join the conversation, which soon turned into a heated, noisy argument. Tanabai sat there, pressing his hands to his head, despairing of ever understanding what was happening. He suffered for the collective farm, not only because he worked on it, but for other, very special reasons. There were men there with whom Tanabai had old scores to settle. He knew they were laughing behind his back; they stared at him insolently when they met him, as if to say: "See how things turned out? Do you want to dispossess us as kulaks again? It'll be small pickings this time. Too bad you didn't get it in the guts during the war!"
And his eyes alone would reply: "Just wait, you rats, we'll come out on top yet!"
And these were not strangers, these people were kin. There was his half-brother Kulubai. He was an old man now, but he had spent seven years in Siberia before the war. His sons all took after their father, they hated Tanabai like poison. And why should they have liked him? Perhaps their children, too, would hate all of Tanabai's descendants. There was good reason for it. It was all past history, but people have a long memory for ills. Had he been right in treating Kulubai as he had? Perhaps Kulubai had simply been a good farmer, what they called a middle peasant. He could not disavow their kinship--Kulubai was the son of his father's elder wife, while he was the son of the younger wife, but among the Kirghizes such brothers are considered as born of the same womb. That meant he had raised his hand against his own brother. The talk there had been at the time! Now, looking back. one might judge differently. But not then. Had he not done what he had for the sake of the collective farm? But had it actually been necessary? He had never had any doubts before, yet after the war he would sometimes wonder. Had he not earned himself and the collective farm unnecessary enemies?
"Wake up, Tanabai! What's the matter?" the others would say, drawing him back into the conversation. And they'd start all over again: the manure had to be taken out to the fields during the winter, it had to be collected from each household. There were no wheels for the wagons, that meant they'd have to buy wood and iron for the rims, but where would the money come from, and would they be able to get credit, and what would they use for security? The bank would not take their word for it. They had to repair the old irrigation ditches and dig new ones, it was an enormous job. The people wouldn't do it in winter, the ground was frozen hard, you couldn't drive a pick into it. There'd be no time in spring either, what with the sowing, lambing-time, the weeding and then the harvesting. And what about the flocks? Where were the sheds for the lambs? Things were no better at the dairy farm. The roof had rotted, there was no fodder and nobody wanted to work as milkmaids. What had they to show for all the long hours they put in at the dairy? There were so many other problems and shortages it was frightening to think of them.
And yet, they would muster their courage and discuss the questions again at the Party meeting and the farm board meeting. Choro was the chairman. Tanabai did not really come to appreciate him until much later. It was simpler to criticise. While Tanabai was responsible for a single herd of horses, Choro was responsible for one and all on the collective farm. Yes, Choro had been a strong man. When everything seemed to be going to the dogs, when the officials in the district centre berated him and the people on the farm were at his throat he had never lost heart. If Tanabai were he, he would have either gone mad or committed suicide. But Choro kept the farm going to the last, until his heart gave out; still, he stayed on as Party organiser for two more years. Choro had a way of reasoning with people. That is why Tanabai always left with renewed faith after speaking with him, knowing that everything would turn out well and would eventually be as they had all dreamed it would at the very beginning. Once only did his faith in Choro waver, but he was mostly to blame for that.
Gyulsary did not know what thoughts tormented Tanabai when he emerged from the farm office in a black mood, brows drawn together, flung himself into the saddle and jerked at the reins angrily. But he sensed that his master was very unhappy. Though Tanabai had never raised his hand against him, the horse feared his master at moments like this. If they happened to come upon that woman on the road he knew the master's mood would change, that he would become kinder, that he would rein him in and talk softly to her, while she patted Gyulsary's mane and stroked his neck.
No other person had hands as gentle as hers. They were wonderful hands, as firm and gentle as the lips of the chestnut filly with the star on her forehead. And no one else in the world had eyes like hers. As Tanabai spoke to her, leaning sideways out of the saddle, she smiled or frowned or shook her head in disagreement, and her eyes changed from dark to light, to dark again, like stones on the bottom of a swift stream in moonlight. When she walked off she would look back and shake her head again.
Tanabai would continue on his way, deep in thought. He would drop the reins, letting the horse proceed at his own pace, which was usually an easy trot. Tanabai did not even seem to be in the saddle, it was as if he and the horse were each riding along by themselves. Then a song would take shape, as if by itself, too. Tanabai would sing softly, slurring over the words, in rhythm to the even trotting of his pacer. He sang of the sufferings of people long forgotten. His horse followed a familiar path, taking him across the river, to the herds in the steppe.
Gyulsary was pleased when his master was in such a mood. In his own way he liked the woman. He recognised her figure, her gait, and his keen nostrils associated her with the strange and wonderful aroma of an unfamiliar grass. It was the smell of cloves, for she wore beads of cloves.
"See how he likes you. Biubiujan," Tanabai would say to her. "Go on, pat him again. Look at him waggle his ears, just like a calf. But he's wild when he's back in the herd. If he had his way, he'd be fighting with the stallions like a dog. That's why I keep him saddled and ride him most of the time. I'm afraid they'll hurt him. He's still too young."
"I know he loves me," she replied, her thoughts elsewhere.
"Meaning that others don't."
"That's not what I meant. Our time for loving has passed. I don't want to have to feel sorry for you."
"But why?"
"Because you're different. Because you'll suffer."
"What about you?"
"What do I care? I'm a war widow. But you. . . ."
"And I'm a member of the auditing commission. I just happened to meet you and I'm getting some things straight," Tanabai said, attempting to make light of it.
"You've been stopping to get things straight quite often, haven't you? Be careful."
"What have I to be careful about? I happen to be passing along here and so are you."
"I take a different road. This is where we part. Goodbye. I've no time to talk."
"Wait, Biubiujan!"
"What is it? Don't stop me, Tanabai. What's the use? You're a clever man. Things are hard enough for me as it is."
"What do you think I am, your enemy?"
"You're your own worst enemy."
"Why?"
"Because."
And she walked off. Tanabai rode down the village streets as if on business, turning in at the mill, or at the school and, circling round, he would return again to watch from a distance as she left her mother-in-law's house. He would see her come out of the house where she had left her daughter for the day and head for her own house at the edge of the village, leading the child by the hand. Everything about her was dear to him: the way she walked, trying not to look in his direction, her pale face framed by a dark shawl, her little girl and the mongrel pup that ran beside them.
She would finally disappear behind her gate. Then he would continue on his way, seeing her open the door of the empty house in his mind's eye, throw off her old quilted jacket, run out to the well in a cotton dress, make the fire, wash and feed the child, then go to meet her cow when the herd returned; late into the night she would lie alone in the dark silent house, trying to convince both herself and him that they could not love each other, that he was a family man, that it was foolish to fall in love at his age, that there was a time for everything in life, that his wife was a good woman and did not deserve to be hurt.
These thoughts depressed Tanabai. "Fate is against us," he would say, staring into the haze beyond the river, singing an old song, forgetting everything else in the world, the business at hand, the collective farm, clothes and shoes for the children, his friends and enemies, his half-brother Kulubai who had not spoken to him in years, the war, which ever so often would come back to him in his dreams, making him break out in a cold sweat, he would forget everything that was reality. He was unaware that his horse had crossed the river, that they were continuing on their way on the other side and would only come out of his trance when the pacer caught wind of the herd and started off at a canter.
"Whoa, Gyulsary! Easy, boy!" Tanabai would say, coming up with a start and pulling at the reins.
5
Nevertheless, it was a wonderful time, both for him and for Gyulsary. A pacer's fame is similar to that of a football player. A boy who was kicking a ball around only yesterday today suddenly becomes the public's darling, a topic of discussion for the experts, the idol of the crowds. His fame continues to grow as long as he scores goals. Then gradually it dies away until one day he is completely forgotten. Those who praised him most are usually the first to forget him. A new star takes the place of the once-famous player. Such is the path of glory of a racing horse, too. He is famous as long as he can win races. Perhaps the only difference is that no one envies a horse. Horses do not know the meaning of envy, while people have luckily not yet learned to envy horses.
Old Torgoi's prediction came true. The pacer's star rose quickly that spring. Young and old, everyone knew of him. "Gyulsary!", "Tanabai's pacer", "the glory of the village" was how they referred to him.
Barefoot boys of three and four galloped up and down the dusty street, imitating the pacer's gait, shouting: "I'm Gyulsary!", "No, I'm Gyulsary!", "Mamma, tell him I'm Gyulsary! Come on, boy! I'm Gyulsary!"
The pacer learned the meaning of glory and the great power it wielded at his very first big race. It was on May Day. The games began on the large meadow by the river after the mass meeting ended. People had arrived from far and wide, from the neighbouring state farm, from the mountains, and even from Kazakhstan. The Kazakhs were racing their own horses.
It was said that this was the biggest gathering since the war had ended.
When Tanabai saddled his horse early that morning, more careful than ever in adjusting the girth and stirrups, the excited glitter in his eyes and the slight tremor of his hands told the pacer that something unusual was afoot.
"Don't let me down, Gyulsary," Tanabai whispered, combing the horse's mane and forelock. "Don't bring shame on yourself. Hear me? We have no right to do that!"
There was a feeling of expectation in the air, in the excited voices, in the commotion and noise. Herdsmen were saddling their horses in the mountain pastures, boys galloped up and down, then the herdsmen gathered together and started out for the river in a body.
Gyulsary was dazed by the sight of so many people and horses on the meadow. The air over the river, over the meadow, over the hills along the floodlands was alive with noise. He was dazzled by the bright shawls and dresses, by the red flags and the women's white turbans. The horses had on fancy harnesses. Stirrups jingled, bits and silver breastplate pendants clanged.
The horses stamped impatiently, crowded together by their riders, raring to go, pawing the ground. The old men in charge of the games pranced about on their horses within the wide ring.
Gyulsary could feel his muscles tense, he could feel his strength welling up within him. A fiery demon was coursing through his veins, and the only way he could rid himself of it was by rushing into the ring and streaking off as fast as he could.
When the master of the games signaled to them and Tanabai slackened his hold on the reins the pacer carried him into the middle of the ring and spun about, unsure of which way to go. Word passed through the crowd: "Gyulsary! It's Gyulsary!"
Everyone who wanted to take part in the big race now entered the ring. There were about fifty riders in all.
"Ask the people to bless you!" the master of the games intoned solemnly.
The riders with bands tied round their shaven heads moved along the rows, their arms raised, their fingers spread apart. Oomin, rose the murmur over the crowd as hundreds of hands were raised to touch their foreheads and then slid down their faces like streams of water.
Then the riders galloped off towards the starting line which was in a field six miles away.
Meanwhile, the games began in the ring with wrestlers on foot and on horseback, riders picking coins off the ground, and many others. All these were merely preliminaries, the main event was to begin where the riders were.
Gyulsary chaffed at the bit. He could not understand why his master kept him in check. Horses were prancing and bucking to all sides of him. The very fact that there were so many of them and that all of them were straining at their reins angered him, making him shiver impatiently.
Finally, they lined up in a row, nose to nose, at the starting line. The master of the games rode down the line from one end to the other, stopped and raised a white handkerchief. They all froze, excited, alert. The handkerchief fluttered. The horses lunged forward and Gyulsary, caught up by the single thrust, surged on ahead. The ground trembled beneath their thundering hooves, a cloud of dust rose behind them. Urged on by the shouting of their riders, the horses spread out in a mad gallop. Gyulsary alone, who did not know how to gallop, fell into his pacing gait. Therein lay his weakness and his strength.
At first they all crowded together, but a few minutes later they began stringing out. Gyulsary did not notice this. All he saw was the fast racers overtaking him and reaching the road. Hot pebbles and lumps of dry clay flew up from under their hooves, hitting his head, while horses galloped to the left and right of him, their riders shouting, whips cracking in the air and dust rolling. The dust cloud grew bigger and bigger, spreading over the ground. There was an acrid smell of sweat, flint and trampled young wormwood.
This continued until they had covered half of the distance. Ten horses had broken away and were out in front, galloping along at a speed the pacer could never attain. The noise of the race began to die down, those in back dropped behind, but the very fact that there were still others ahead of him and that the reins were being held in check enraged him. His eyes grew dark from anger and the wind, the road flashed by beneath his hooves, the sun, falling from the sky in a fiery ball, seemed to be rolling towards him. He broke out in a hot sweat and the more he sweated the lighter he felt.
Finally, there came a moment when the galloping horses began to tire and to gradually slow down, while the pacer's reserves were still untapped. "Come on, boy!" he heard his master shout, and the sun began rolling towards him ever faster. Then the furious faces of the other riders flashed by one after another as he overtook them and left them behind--the cracking whips, the bared teeth and gaping mouths of the other horses. Suddenly the reins were no longer held in check, suddenly Gyulsary no longer felt the weight of the saddle or the rider, while the fiery spirit of the chase roared in his veins.
There were still two horses racing side by side ahead of him, an iron-grey and a chestnut. Neither would concede an inch to the other as they raced onward, spurred on by the shouts and whips of their riders. They were excellent horses. Gyulsary was a long time in overtaking them. but he finally left them behind on a rise in the road. He flew up the hillock as if it were the crest of a giant wave and for a split second he seemed to be suspended and weightless in the air. It took his breath away. The sun pouring into his eyes was more dazzling than ever as he raced down the road. However, he soon heard the thunder of hoofbeats behind them. The grey and the chestnut were catching up. They approached him from both sides and stayed with him.
Thus they continued onward three-abreast, moving as a single body. Gyulsary imagined that they were no longer running, that they had all frozen in a strange and silent torpor. He could even see the expression in the other two horses' eyes, their straining heads, their teeth, clamped on the bits, the bridles. The grey was stubborn and enraged, while the chestnut seemed nervous as he glanced uncertainly about. Then the chestnut fell behind. First his guilty, wandering eye disappeared from sight, then his flaring nostrils and he was no more. The grey was a long time in falling behind. It was a painful process, quite as if he were dying on his feet, his eyes becoming glassy from helpless rage. Thus he disappeared, unwilling to accept defeat.
As soon as his rivals had fallen behind, Gyulsary breathed easier. He could see the silvery bend of the river ahead, the green meadow, he could hear the distant roar of many voices. The most avid fans had ridden out and were now racing along to both sides, shouting and whooping. All of a sudden the pacer began to feel weak. The distance had been too much for him. He did not know what was happening behind him, whether the others were catching up or not. His strength was quickly ebbing, he knew he could not go on.
But there, ahead of him, a great crowd stirred and roared, riders and people on foot were moving towards him like two enticing arms, and the shouting was becoming ever louder. He heard them clearly now: "Gyulsary! Gyulsary! Gyulsary!" Drinking in the shouting and whoops, his lungs filling with them as with air, he lunged forward with renewed strength. Oh, people! How great is your power!
Gyulsary raced along the human corridor to the sound of their exultant shouting. Then, slowing his pace, he circled the meadow.
But this was not all. Neither he nor Tanabai were their own masters now. As soon as Gyulsary caught his breath and calmed down, the people moved aside to form the winner's ring. Once again a shout went up: "Gyulsary!
Gyulsary! Gyulsary!" They were also shouting the name of his master: "Tanabai! Tanabai! Tanabai!"
And once again the effect they had on the pacer was miraculous. He entered the arena as a proud victor, his head high, his eyes ablaze. Dizzy from the very air of glory, Gyulsary began prancing and strutting as though ready to take off again. He knew he was beautiful, powerful and famous.
Tanabai rode up and down along the rows, his hands spread wide as a signal of victory. Once again the sigh of benediction, Oomin, swept over the crowd. Once again hundreds of hands touched their foreheads and then slipped down their faces like streams of water.
Then, among the many faces, the pacer suddenly recognised a familiar one. It was the woman. He recognised her the moment her palms slipped away from her face, though now she had on a white shawl instead of a dark one. She stood in the front row radiant with joy, her shining eyes, like the stones in a sun-flecked stream, never leaving them. Gyulsary wanted to get closer, to stand by her, so that his master could talk to her while she patted his mane and stroked his neck with those wondrous hands, as firm and gentle as the lips of the chestnut filly with the star on her forehead. But for some strange reason Tanabai kept pulling the reins the other way, while the pacer pranced about, trying to reach her, puzzled by his master's behaviour. Couldn't he see that the woman he had to talk to was standing right there?
The following day, May second, was another glorious day for Gyulsary. The goat-snatching, a game somewhat like polo in which the beheaded carcass of a goat was used instead of a ball, would be held at noon in the steppe. A goat's hair is long and coarse, making it easy for the players to snatch it up.
Once again the ancient cry rose over the steppe, once again the earth thundered. A crowd of fans on horseback shouted and whooped as they galloped round the players. Once again Gyulsary was the hero of the day. This time. having already gained fame, he immediately became the strongest horse in the game. However, Tanabai was keeping him in check until the last spurt, the alaman-baiga. When the master of the games would call out the signal for the free-for-all and the nimblest and quickest of them all would carry the goat off to his village. Everyone awaited the alaman-baiga, for this was the great moment of the contest; besides, any horseman had the right to join. Each man wanted to try his luck.
Meanwhile, the May sun was sinking heavily in the distant Kazakh side. It was a thick yellow, like the yolk of an egg. You could look at it with your naked eye.
Kirghiz and Kazakh riders raced up and down, hanging out of their saddles, grabbing up the carcass on a gallop, snatching it from each other, coming together in a shouting crowd and scattering with whoops again across the field.
When long, motley shadows raced across the steppe the master of the games finally called for the alaman-baiga. The carcass was thrown into the ring to the shout of "alaman!"
It was immediately surrounded by riders who jostled and shoved each other in their attempt to grab it. This was not an easy feat, considering the press. The horses spun around madly, their teeth bared, biting each other. Gyulsary was perishing in the stampede, he yearned for the open spaces, but Tanabai could not manage to grab the goat. Suddenly, a shrill cry went up: "Get them! The Kazakhs have it!" A young Kazakh in a ripped army shirt, riding a rearing bay stallion, broke away from the milling horses. He raced off, pulling the goat's carcass up under his leg, under the stirrup leather.
"Get him! It's the bay!" they shouted, heading him off. "You're the only one who can get him, Tanabai!"
The Kazakh on the bay stallion was heading straight for the setting sun, the carcass bobbing up and down under his leg. It seemed that at any moment he would fly into that flaming disc and go up in a puff of red smoke.
Gyulsary could not understand why Tanabai was holding him back. But his master knew that he had to give the Kazakh rider a chance to break away from the swarm of pursuers, and the crowd of kinsmen hurrying to his aid. As soon as they formed a covering detachment around the bay stallion the prize would never be regained. The only hope for success lay in single combat.
Tanabai waited for his chance, then let the pacer go. Gyulsary pressed close to the earth that was rushing towards the sun, the hoofbeats and voices behind him began falling away, they grew dimmer, while the distance between him and the bay stallion grew shorter. The stallion was carrying a heavy load, it was not too difficult to overtake him. Tanabai was heading Gyulsary over to the bay's off side. The carcass, held firm by the rider's leg, hung there. Gyulsary was now abreast of him. Tanabai leaned over the saddle to grab one of the goat's legs, but the Kazakh quickly shifted his prize to the left side. The horses were still galloping towards the sun. Now Tanabai had to fall behind to get around to the left and overtake his rival once again. It was hard to pull the pacer away from the bay, but he finally succeeded. Once again the Kazakh in the ripped army shirt managed to shift the carcass to the off side.
"Good for you!" Tanabai shouted excitedly.
And the horses raced on into the sun.
Tanabai could not risk the manoeuvre again. He pressed Gyulsary close to the bay stallion and threw himself across his neighbour's saddle. The rider tried to break away, but Tanabai would not let him. Gyulsary's speed and litheness made it possible for Tanabai to practically lie across the bay stallion's neck. Finally, he got his hands on the carcass and began pulling it towards himself. It was easier for him to reach from the right, besides, both his hands were free. He had practically got half of it over to his side.
"Watch out, brother Kazakh!" Tanabai shouted.
"No, you don't, neighbour! You won't get it!" the other shouted back.
And so the struggle began at a dead gallop. They were locked together like eagles fighting over prey, shouting at the tops of their voices, grunting and snarling like animals, bullying each other, their arms like steel bands, their nails bleeding. And the horses, united in their riders' struggle, carried them onward angrily, speeding to catch up with the flaming sun.
Blessed be our ancestors who handed down these fierce games of courage to us!
The goat's carcass now hung suspended between the racing horses. The end of the contest was in sight. Silently, teeth clenched, straining every muscle, the men tugged at it, each trying to get a leg over it in order to suddenly pull away, and break free. The Kazakh was strong. He had large, sinewy arms, and he was much younger than Tanabai. But experience means a lot. Tanabai suddenly kicked off his right stirrup and pressed his foot against the bay stallion's loins. While pulling the carcass towards himself he was also pushing his rival's horse away, and the other man's fingers finally, uncurled.
"Hang on!" the vanquished foe managed to shout in warning.
Tanabai nearly flew out of his saddle from the jolt, but he kept his seat. A wild yell of triumph escaped front his lips. Spinning his pacer around he fled his pursuer, pressing the prize he had won in honest combat under his stirrup leather. A horde of shouting riders was galloping towards him.
"Gyulsary! Gyulsary got it!"
"Catch him! Get Tanabai!" A group of Kazakhs rode out to intercept him.
He had to avoid interception at all costs and give his fellow-villagers a chance to form a covering detachment around him.
Once again he spun his pacer around, heading away, front his pursuers. "Good boy! Thank you, Gyulsary!" he said gratefully as the horse, sensitive to his slightest movement, spun and turned, avoiding the riders.
The pacer all but flattened himself against the ground in pivoting, then headed straight off. At that moment Tanabai's comrades reached him, surrounded him, and together they galloped off. However, their pursuers were out to intercept them again. Once again they had to turn and flee. The hordes of riders were like flocks of swift birds careening in flight from one wing to another as they raced across the vast steppe, some fleeing, others pursuing. The air was thick with dust, voices rang out, a horse and rider would fall, a man would go tumbling head over heels, another would limp after his horse, but one and all were caught up in the spirit and the fever of the contest. No one is to blame for anything that happens in a game. Courage and risk are born of the same mother.
But a slim edge of the sun remained, twilight was descending, yet the alaman-baiga still rolled on through the blue coolness of the evening, making the earth shudder under the horses' hooves. No one shouted any more, no one pursued anyone else, still, they all continued the race, caught up by the passion of movement. The avalanche spread out along the steppe, rolling up one hill and down another like a dark wave, governed by the rhythm and the music of the race. Was this not why the faces of the riders were intent and silent, had this rhythm not given birth to the twanging music of the Kazakh dombra and the Kirghiz komuz?
They were nearing the river. It gleamed dully beyond the dark thickets ahead of them. There was just a little way to go now. The game would end beyond the river, at the village. Tanabai and his comrades still rode in a body. Gyulsary was in the centre, a flagship surrounded by its escort.
But he was tired, dead tired. The day had been too much for him. He was near collapse. The riders to the left and right of him each had a hand on his bridle, they were pulling him along and would not let him falter. The others protected Tanabai from the sides and the rear. He was prostrated on the carcass that was now thrown across his saddle. Tanabai's head bobbed up and down, he could barely keep his seat. If not for the escort neither he nor his pacer would have been able to move. Thus, probably, did riders of yore carry off their prey, thus, probably, were wounded warriors rescued from the enemy.
Here was the river, here was the meadow and the broad, pebbly ford. They could still make it out in the darkness.
The riders splashed through the water. The river foamed and churned. Through fountains of spray to the deafening clatter of hooves the pacer was dragged onto the other bank. They had made it! They had won!
Someone removed the carcass from Tanabai's saddle and rode ahead into the village.
The Kazakhs remained on the other side.
"Thank you for the game!" the Kirghiz riders shouted.
"Good-bye! We'll meet again in the autumn!" the Kazakhs replied and turned their horses back.
It was very dark. Tanabai was a guest in another man's house, his pacer was tied up with the other horses outside. Never before had Gyulsary been so tired, perhaps only on the day he had been broken in. But then, by comparison, he had been a mere slip of a thing. Inside the house they were speaking of him.
"Let's drink to Gyulsary, Tanabai. If not for him we'd never have won the prize.'
"You're right. The bay stallion was as strong as a lion. And that boy is powerful. He'll make a name for himself one day."
"Yes. I can still see Gyulsary racing away from the Kazakhs. He was so close to the ground it made my heart stop."
"Right you are. In olden times warriors would have taken him on their raids. He's a regular Duldul!"
"When will you let him out to stud, Tanabai?"
"He's been chasing the mares already, but he's still too young. Next spring will be about right. I'll let him graze free this autumn, so he can put on weight."
The men sat over their drinks far into the night, discussing various aspects of the alaman-baiga and the pacer's fine points, while the subject of their discussion stood outside, chewing his bit as the sweat dried on him. He had a long hungry night of cooling out ahead of him. But it was not hunger that bothered him. His shoulders ached. His legs were leaden, his hooves burned and his head swam from the noise of the alaman-baiga. He could still hear the shouting of his pursuers. He would shudder and snort from time to time, pricking up his cars. Gyulsary would have liked to roll in the grass, shake himself and wander about with the horses in the pasture. But his master seemed to be detained.
He soon emerged, however, swaying slightly in the darkness, giving off a strong, acrid smell. This happened very rarely. The following year, the pacer would have a new master, one who always reeked of this smell. And he would come to hate the man and the foul smell.
Tanabai walked over to his horse, ran his fingers through his forelock and stuck his hand under the pad.
"Cooled off a bit? Are you tired? I'm dead tired, too. Never mind looking at me like that. So what if I had a few drinks? I was drinking to you. After all, it's been quite a day. And I didn't have much. I know how much I can take. I've always known that, even in the trenches. Come on, Gyulsary, stop looking at me like that. Let's go back to the herd and rest up."
His master tightened the girth, spoke to the people who had come out of the house, then they all mounted their horses and each one went his way.
Tanabai rode down the sleeping village streets. It was very still. The windows were dark. A tractor chugged softly in the distance. The moon had risen above the mountains, the blossoming apple trees foamed white in the orchards, somewheres a nightingale was singing. Strangely, only one nightingale was singing in the whole village. He would sing his song, then fall silent, as if listening to himself, then begin trilling again.
Tanabai reined in his horse.
"How beautiful everything is!" he said aloud. "And how quiet. Nothing but the nightingale singing. Do you know what I mean, Gyulsary? Of course you don't. All you want to do is get back to the herd. But I...."
They passed the smithy and should have gone down the last street to the river and there turn off to the herds. However for some reason or other his master pulled him over to a side, they rode down the middle street and stopped outside the gate of the woman's house. The mongrel that often accompanied her little girl ran out, barked, then stopped and began wagging its tail. Tanabai sat silently in the saddle, mulling over something, then sighed and took up the reins uncertainly.
The pacer continued on his way. Tanabai turned towards the river. When he reached the road he spurred the horse on. Gyulsary was also in a hurry to get back to the pasture. They crossed the meadow. Here was the river, his shoes clacked along the bank. The water was ice-cold. When they had reached the middle of the crossing his master suddenly pulled him up and turned him around sharply. Gyulsary shook his head, thinking it was a mistake. They were not supposed to be going back. After all, how much riding could they do in a day? His master brought his whip down on his flank. Gyulsary did not like to be whipped. He chewed the bit angrily, and turned grudgingly. Once again they crossed the meadow, once again they rode down the road, once again they approached the house.
When they reached it his master fidgeted in the saddle, pulling the reins now this way, now that, as if he didn't know what he wanted. They stopped by the double gate. Actually, all that was left of it were two crooked posts, the gate itself was gone. Once again the mongrel ran out, barked and fell silent, wagging its tail. The house was dark and still.
Tanabai dismounted and crossed the yard, leading his pacer. He went over to a window and tapped on the pane.
"Who's there?" a voice inside asked.
"It's me, Biubiujan. Open the door. It's me!"
A tiny light went on inside and was reflected dimly in the window.
"What's the matter? Where were you so late? Biubiujan said, appearing in the doorway. She had on a white dress that was open at the throat and her dark hair lay on her shoulders. She smelled sweet and warm, and there was that strange and wonderful aroma of an unfamiliar grass about her.
"Forgive me," Tanabai said softly, "but the alaman ended very late. I'm very tired. And my horse is all in. He has to cool out, but you know how far it is to the herds."
Biubiujan said nothing.
Her eyes lit up and went out like the stones on the bottom of a moonlit stream. The pacer expected her to come over and stroke his neck, but she did not.
"It's cold out here," Biubiujan said and shivered. "What are you standing there for? You might as well come in. You certainly thought of a good excuse," she added and laughed softly. "I thought you'd never make up your mind, stamping around out there on your horse. You're just like a little boy."
"I'll be right in. I'll tie Gyulsary up first."
"Put him over there in the corner by the open hearth."
Never before had his master's hands shaken so. He hurried as he took out the bit and fussed unnecessarily long with the girth, loosening one strap and forgetting about the other.
Tanabai disappeared into the house with the woman. Soon the light in the window went out.
The pacer felt odd in this strange yard.
The moon was shining brightly. When Gyulsary raised his eyes he saw the mountains towering in a milky-white haze. His sensitive ears twitched as he listened to every sound. The water gurgled in the irrigation ditch. The same tractor chugged in the distance and the same solitary nightingale sang his song in the orchard.
White apple blossoms fell silently onto the horse's head and mane from a nearby tree. The night was becoming lighter. The pacer stood there, shifting his weight from one foot to another, waiting patiently for his master. he did not know that he was to stand there many a time, waiting for the night to pass.
Tanabai came out at dawn. His hands were warm as he put the bit into Gyulsary's mouth. Now his hands, too, had that strange and wonderful aroma of an unfamiliar grass about them.
Biubiujan came out to see Tanabai off. She pressed close to him and he kissed her again and again.
"Your moustache is prickly," she whispered. "Hurry, see how light it is." She turned back to enter the house.
Come here, Biubiu," he called. "Come and pat him," Tanabai added, nodding towards the horse. "Don't neglect him."
"Oh my! I forgot all about him," she replied and laughed. "Look, he's covered with apple blossoms." Murmuring softly, she stroked the horse with her wonderful hands, as firm and gentle as the lips of the chestnut filly with the star on her forehead.
When they had crossed the river Tanabai began to sing. Gyulsary was happy to trot along to the sound of the song. He was anxious to reach the herds and the green pasture.
Luck was with Tanabai on those May nights. It was his turn to tend the herds at night. A strange night life began for the pacer, too. He would graze in the daytime, then, as soon as his master had taken the herd to the dell at night, they would race back to that house and that yard.
At the crack of dawn they would speed away like thieves along the barely visible paths through the steppe, back to the horses that had been left in the dell. His master would round them up, count them, and finally calm down. It was a hard life for Gyulsary. His master was in a hurry both ways, and it was not easy to race over open country in the dead of night. But that was as his master wished it to be.
Gyulsary wished it to be otherwise. If it were up to him, he would never leave the herd. The male animal in him was raising its head. For the time being Gyulsary was able to get along with the herd's stallion, but with each passing day they would clash more often over some mare. More and more often now Gyulsary would arch his neck and tail, preening himself in front of the herd. He would neigh loudly, prance about and nip the mares' flanks. They seemed to like this and pressed against him, provoking the jealousy of the herd's stallion. The pacer was often hurt, for the stallion was an old and fierce fighter. However, Gyulsary preferred the excitement and the stallion's wrath to being tied up in the yard all night. He yearned for the mares. He would stamp his feet, paw the ground and finally calm down. Who knows how long those nocturnal journeys would have lasted if not for a fateful incident.
On that night the pacer was standing in the yard as usual, yearning for the herd, waiting for his master. He was just about to doze off. The reins were tied to one of the rafters. This kept him from lying down, for each time his head nodded the bit cut into the corners of his mouth. Still, he was about to doze off. The air was heavy, clouds darkened the sky.
Gyulsary was half-asleep when he heard the trees suddenly rustle, as if someone had attacked them, shaking the tops and bending them over. A gust of wind tore across the yard, overturning an empty milk pail that rolled off clattering, tearing the clothes from the line and carrying them away. The dog whined and scurried about, not knowing where to hide. The pacer snorted angrily, then stood very still, pricking up his ears. Raising his head, he gazed intently towards the steppe, from where something dark and terrible and roaring was approaching. The very next instant the night cracked like falling trees, thunder rolled across the sky, flashes of lightning streaked through the clouds. The rain came down in torrents. Gyulsary yanked at the tether as if he had been slashed with a whip and neighed frantically, fearful for the safety of his herd. The primeval instinct to protect his own kind from danger had awakened in him. This instinct called him thither, to the rescue. Crazed, he mutinied against the tether, against the bridle and the bit, against everything that bound him to the spot. He began to thrash about, pawing the ground, neighing incessantly in the hope of hearing a response from the herd. But the only sounds were the howling and the whistling of the storm. If only he had been able to break loose that night!
His master dashed out in his long-sleeved white undershirt and the woman, also in white, rushed out after him. The next moment their clothes became dark from the rain. A blue flash washed over their wet faces and frightened eyes, plucking a corner of the house and the door swinging in the wind from the darkness.
"Wait! Hold still!" Tanabai shouted as he tried to untie the horse. But Gyulsary did not recognise him. He attacked his master viciously, the hearth caved in under his hooves as he tore at his tether. Pressing close to the wall, Tanabai crept up on him, lunged, covering his head with his arms, and seized hold of the bridle, pulling at it with all his weight.
"Quick! Untie him!" he shouted to the woman.
She had barely managed to do so when the pacer began dragging Tanabai across the yard.
"Get my whip!"
Biubiujan snatched it up.
"Hold still! I'll murder you!" Tanabai shouted, lashing the horse on the head in a frenzy. He had to get into the saddle, he should have been out with the herd that very moment. What was happening to it? Where had the storm driven the horses?
But the pacer had to get back to the herd, too, immediately, that very moment, back to where the great power that was instinct summoned him in this hour of danger. That was why he neighed and reared, that was why he bad fought to break loose. Meanwhile, the rain poured down, the storm raged and the night shuddered, rent by flashes and thunderclaps.
"Hold him!" Tanabai shouted, and when Biubiujan grabbed the bridle he jumped into the saddle. He had not yet got his seat and was hanging on to Gyulsary's mane when the horse dashed across the yard, knocking over the woman and dragging her through a puddle.
No longer submissive to the bit or the whip or his master's voice, Gyulsary raced through the storm-swept night, through the slashing rain, finding his way by some sixth sense alone. He carried his rider, no longer his master, across the foaming river, through the crashing of thunder and water, through thickets, over ditches and across ravines, ever onward. Never before, neither at the big race, nor at the alaman-baiga, had Gyulsary run as fast as he did that stormy night.
Tanabai did not know where the frenzied horse was taking him. The rain whipped across his face and body like scorching tongues of fire. A single thought pummelled his brain: "How is the herd? Where are the horses? God forbid if they've gone down into the valley, to the railroad tracks. There'll be a wreck! Allah, help me! Arbaki help me! Where are you? Don't fall, Gyulsary, don't fall! Take me out to the steppe, to the herd!"
White flashes of lightning rolled over the steppe, blinding the night with white fire. Then once again darkness would be absolute, as the storm raged and the wind whipped at the rain.
There was blinding light, then darkness, then light, then darkness again.
The pacer reared up and neighed, his mouth gaping. He was calling, he was entreating, he was searching, he was yearning. "Where are you? Where are you? Answer me!" The sky thundered in reply, and once again he was off, searching again, back into the heart of the storm.
There was blinding light, then darkness. then light, then darkness again.
The storm did not subside until dawn. Gradually the clouds dispersed, though the thunder still rolled in the east, rumbling, growling and stretching. The ravaged earth smoked.
Several herdsmen galloped across the steppe, rounding up horses that had strayed from their herds.
Tanabai's wife was looking for him. Rather, she was waiting for him. She and the neighbours had dashed out on horseback during the night to help him. They had located the herd and had kept it in the dell. Tanabai was not there.
They thought he had lost his way. But she knew he had not. And when the neighbour's boy had shouted excitedly:
"There he is, Jaidar, there he is!" and had galloped off to meet him, Jaidar did not move. She sat silently in the saddle, watching her erring husband return.
Tanabai was sullen. He was terrible to look at in his wet undershirt, hatless, astride a limping horse.
We've been looking for you!" the boy shouted happily. "Jaidar was beginning to worry."
Oh, child, you should have kept your place.
"I got lost," Tanabai mumbled.
Thus he and his wife met. Not a word was spoken. When the boy left to lead the horses out of the dell she said softly:
"Didn't you even have time to dress? It's a good thing you have your pants and boots on. Aren't you ashamed of yourself? You're not a youngster any more, you know. Your children are nearly grown, and look at you.
Tanabai said nothing. What could he say?
Meanwhile, the boy drove the herd back. None of the horses or colts had strayed.
"Let's go home, Altyke," Jaidar called to him. "We'll all have our hands full today. The wind toppled over the tents. Let's go and set them up again."
Speaking in an undertone, she said to Tanabai:
"You stay here. I'll bring you some food and some clothes. You can't show your face to the neighbours like this."
"I'll be down below," Tanabai replied.
They rode off. Tanabai drove the horses towards the pasture. It was a long way to go. The sun was out, the air had become warm. The steppe steamed, coming to life. Everything smelled of rain and young grass.
The horses trotted across the shallows and across a ravine and came out on a hillock. Here a new world opened up before Tanabai's eyes. The horizon, spotted by white clouds, seemed very far away. The sky was tremendous, clear and high. A train crawled across the steppe in the distance.
Tanabai dismounted and walked through the grass. A skylark fluttered out from underfoot and rose twittering into the air. He trudged along, his head lowered, then suddenly fell headlong to the ground.
Never before had Gyulsary seen his master thus. He lay face down, his body racked by sobs. He wept from shame and grief, knowing that he had lost the happiness that had come to him for the last time in his life. And the skylark kept on trilling.
The next day the herds started out for the mountains. They would not return until early spring of the following year. The camp was moving along the river, past the village. There were flocks of sheep and herds of cows and horses. There were pack horses and camels. Women and children rode on horseback. Shaggy dogs accompanied them. The air was filled with shouting, neighing and bleating.
Tanabai drove his herd across the big meadow, up the rise where the crowds had so recently gathered for the games, trying hard not to look in the direction of the village. When Gyulsary suddenly edged towards the house on the outskirts he was whipped for his efforts. They did not stop off at the house of the woman with the wonderful hands, as firm and gentle as the lips of the chestnut filly with the star on its forehead.
The herd moved on at a lively pace.
Gyulsary wanted his master to sing, but he did not. Now the village was behind them. Good-bye, village. The mountains lay ahead. Good-bye, steppe, until we meet again next spring. The mountains lay ahead.
6
It would soon be midnight. Gyulsary could not go any farther. He had managed to stumble as far as the ravine, stopping to rest time and time again, but he could never make it across. Old Tanabai realised that he had no right to demand anything more of his horse. Gyulsary was moaning in agony, moaning like a human being. When he tried to lie down again Tanabai did not stop him.
Lying there on the cold ground, the pacer continued to moan, tossing his head from side to side. He was cold, he shivered uncontrollably. Tanabai took off his sheepskin coat and covered the horse's back.
"It's really bad, isn't it, boy? See how cold you are, Gyulsary. You never used to mind the cold, did you?"
Tanabai went on muttering, but the pacer no longer heard anything. His hear |
