The Chukchi Bible (25 page)

Early that morning, Mletkin equipped himself with hunting gear and walked out to the fast ice. The crimson stripe of dawn was barely visible over the dark crags of Cape Chenliukvin. Striding forcefully along the fresh ice,
Mletkin struggled to exorcise a feeling of guilt toward the one he had left behind in Rentyrgin's camp. Was she waiting for him still?

Yet the time had not come for him to tie himself with the bonds of marriage.

He wanted to know the world. At the very least the world that surrounded him, that continued beyond the horizon – whence the ships, each like a wooden island teeming with people, had come. Or perhaps destiny would give him the opportunity to visit the warm green country of Veyip, the Writing Man, who had been exiled to the lands of snow and frost by the Sun Sovereign. His own paucity of knowledge about the greater world and its inhabitants preyed constantly on Mletkin's mind, like thirst on the open sea when you are surrounded by undrinkable water. Each time he gazed at the horizon he a felt desperate desire to break through that boundary, to fling open the door to another world, lift up the veil of heaven like a fur-lined polog curtain. He was suffocating in the closeness of the world he inhabited. He wanted to go to where they built the giant ships, stitched sails like the wings of gigantic birds, constructed the mighty machines capable of propelling these islet-sized ships, where people gained wisdom from many books, not just the Holy Book of the Tangitans which he himself had studied so keenly, marveling at the miracles performed by the carpenter's son who turned out to be the Son of God. A different, unfathomable life called out to him from the blue haze of the craggy shores beyond Imeklin and Inetlin Islands, and like a young bird his heart leapt and strained to fly away from here. Veyip had told him of lands where people had never seen snow, of places whose summer came just as winter descended on Chukotka, and yet other places, whose inhabitants had skins white as snow or black as an old walrus's.

These were the thoughts that assailed him as he walked toward the Senlun crag under a paling sky, then turned toward the sea. Finding a melthole, Mletkin would usually build himself a hide from flat sheets of ice and wait for a nerpa to emerge. He had few bullets and was obliged to make sure of each shot he took.

He made the journey back weighed down with his kill. The dead nerpa slid easily across the ice behind him, freezing bit by bit, and Mletkin could return to his brooding daydreams.

Barely had Mletkin stepped onto the shore that he became aware of an unusual commotion in the village. People flitted busily among the yarangas and several sleds were parked near his father's yaranga. He could hear the dogs barking from afar.

Before all else, however, he performed the ancient ritual of “greeting the kill”: receiving a wooden ladle filled with water from his waiting mother's hand, he poured some water over the nerpa's head, took a few sips, and then flung the remainder toward the sea.

One of the newcomers was quite obviously a Tangitan. He was dressed and shod as a Luoravetlan, but despite his swarthy, wind-chapped, frostbitten face, it was easy to tell that the man was of a different race. If nothing else, there was the prolific facial hair and the gleam of glacially pale eyes. The visitors shuffled timidly from foot to foot and threw keen glances at the yaranga, their whole demeanor signaling how much they wanted to get inside its enveloping warmth as soon as possible.

As was customary, no one questioned the guests until they had been warmed and fed. A guest polog had been erected for them.

Once their limbs had thawed, once they had been sated on fresh seal meat and had drunk their fill of tea, the visitors divested themselves of their outer
layer of clothing. Now you could really see what they looked like. One was a Russian Tangitan who introduced himself as Father Veniamin, the other was Dyakov, his interpreter, and a descendant of the Russian Cossacks who had settled at the mouth of the Anadyr river. They were thoroughly surprised to hear Russian speech from Mletkin's lips.

“We are the representatives of the Russian God,” Dyakov had said. “My name is Vassily, and my companion is Father Veniamin.”

On learning how Mletkin had come by his knowledge of Russian, Father Veniamin spoke up:

“I've heard of Bogoraz. He is Tirkerym's enemy, and was exiled here to serve out his punishment.”

“I'll say, though, that he didn't suffer too much. Mostly he suffered from curiosity. He learned our language, our customs . . . He seemed to me a good, kind person.”

“He had called for Tirkerym's death,” said Father Veniamin.

“Well, he won't reach Tirkerym from here.” Mletkin grinned.

Tynemlen was watching his grandson in frank admiration. He listened closely to Mletkin's Tangitan accent, noting differences between his Russian and that of the Russian God's representative. His son's Russian was far better than that of Vassily, who was from the Anadyr tribe of the Chuvan, who had long-standing ties to the Russian Tangitans.

“We travel the length and breadth of your land to bring you the Word of God, to baptize you and bring you to our Orthodox faith,” Father Veniamin informed them.

“We've already had a messenger from God visit,” Mletkin replied. “He came together with Veyip, Father Venedikt. But our people did not turn to the Russian faith.”

Father Veniamin requested that the dogs be removed from inside the yaranga.

“Your yaranga is going to become a kind of church, there's no place for mangy dogs in a temple of God.”

The curious began to stream inside, eager to see the Tangitan shaman turn a Chukchi dwelling into a holy house. The portable altar was erected and opened, revealing the dark faces of the saints, almost invisible in the gloom. Even the many candles were not sufficient to brighten the chottagin.

The Russian shaman's aide placed a large metal vessel not unlike a cauldron atop a whale vertebra that faced the images of the Russian gods, which were bathed in flickering light.

It was well that the yaranga's mistress had filled the large bucket that stood inside the warm polog with finely chopped ice the night before, so there was a supply of fresh water.

Father Veniamin and his helper put on their ceremonial vestments.

Mletkin's head teemed with contradictory thoughts. Was he committing a great sin by allowing the Russian shaman to perform a ritual that was alien to the local gods? If they were to take offense or grow angry, would they not punish the entire village rather than just him, the one Inspired from Above? What were they like, these Tangitan gods? From their images, barely visible in the weak, unsteady candle light, they appeared to have more or less human features, looking quite like the hairmouths and similarly adorned with money-metal ornaments. One of these was a woman – and according to Dyakov, she was God's Mother. Over their heads each had that peculiar rainbow that comes with the autumn fog, when a sudden warm gust blows in from the tundra and briefly chases off the cold, damp sea air. Yet the
divine faces were not happy ones; indeed they were sad, especially that of the woman. Mletkin had read in the Russians' holy book that the Tangitan God, before he ascended to the sky, had suffered tortures from some evil, earthbound men and had even had to hang awhile on a wooden cross. But then the chief Tangitan Father-God saved him, brought him back to life and up to the sky.

His readings from the Bible had long ago convinced Mletkin that the image of a god was no more than the image of the men who had created that god.

“Let them come!” Father Veniamin announced solemnly, flapping the wide sleeves of his shaman's garb as a crane flaps his wings. “Call them all here.”

“Women and children too?” asked Mletkin.

“Women, children, the old and the sick, everybody!”

The people had in fact been waiting to be called forth. The spacious chottagin was soon filled. First Father Veniamin made a speech about the Tangitan God and the Word of God, with a brief summary of the contents of the Holy Book. Mletkin found himself comparing the version he was hearing with what he had read for himself.

“When you worship the Spirits and Kel'eht, your idols and pagan gods, you doom yourselves to eternal tortures after you die. But those of you who come to this new faith, after death will ascend to the sky and live in a cool place, with no work to do, having your fill of enormous sweet berries that grow on tall trees. And those who cleave to the old ways will suffer in intolerable heat, suffer for all eternity . . .”

Dyakov must have recited all this many times already and, as Mletkin could not help but notice, his translation often ran ahead of the priest's
speech. In the story of Christ's earthly life the Russian shaman emphasized his healing powers – the healing of the lame and the blind, the turning of plain water into wine, and the walking on water as though it were solid land.

“Let those who wish to receive the new faith come to me!” Father Veniamin announced in ringing tones.

A deep silence fell over the yaranga. Those nearest the exit began to edge out gingerly, trying hard to be inconspicuous.

“Those who are baptized in the Orthodox Faith will receive gifts – a shirt and a metal crucifix,” Father Veniamin promised.

The quiet exodus by the opening stalled. There was a moment of tense silence.

“So can the Tangitan God restore my sight?” Old Ruptyn's voice carried clearly across the yaranga. He made his way forward, holding out his cane until it hit the traveling altar.

“Don't you push that dirty stick into the face of God!” The tone of Father Veniamin's shouting was not at all godly.

Ruptyn turned his face to the sound. His filmy eyes were stark against his wide face.

“It says so in the Holy writ, doesn't it – Christ healed the blind while he was on earth, and now he's in the sky,” Dyakov explained. “Now shove off and don't interrupt the service!”

“So let him heal me from the sky. That's all right with me,” Ruptyn insisted. “It would be so easy for him, if he's as powerful as you say.”

Ruptyn had admitted to Mletkin that he could sense the source of light still, and believed that if the white film was scraped from his eyes he'd see again. Ruptyn had had perfect sight in his childhood and youth, the fog
advancing across his eyes gradually as he grew older. He had begged the late Kalyantagrau to scrape the cloudy white veils across his eyes away with a sharp knife, but the old shaman had not dared perform such an operation.

Mletkin knew that a shamanic trance would not help, and among the many herbal brews and remedies of his repertoire there was nothing that would cure poor Ruptyn. Only a miracle would do.

“Maybe I should accept the Tangitan faith?” Ruptyn pleaded to Mletkin.

“You must decide that for yourself.”

“He's saying, the Russian shaman, that the Son of God healed the lame and the blind . . .”

“Then you'll have to wait for his coming,” Mletkin replied. “Since he's gone up to the sky.”

“Oh!” Ruptyn exclaimed forlornly, raising his white, sightless eyes to the smokehole. “Why did you have to fly up?”

He paused, then firmly announced: “All right! I've decided: I'll accept the Tangitan faith. Come what may.”

He moved closer to the basin and Father Veniamin, guided by the flickering candles.

“I baptize you the Lord's servant . . . What was your name?”

Dyakov was quick to render the question.

Ruptyn's reply was bold and clear:

“Ruptyn!”

With a pressure on the blind man's head that made him bend down, Father Veniamin wetted the top of his head with water from the holy vessel.

Ruptyn tarried for a little while, shuffling from foot to foot. His face was a study of deep concentration, as though he alone was hearing divine voices.

“Well, can you see anything?” In the tense stillness Gal'mo's question was startlingly loud.

Ruptyn did not reply at once. He blinked his lashless eyes several times, then muttered gloomily: “No, I still can't see a thing.”

“We've explained to you, haven't we,” the Russian shaman's aide clearly felt displeased and insulted, “there won't be an instantaneous miracle. Only God Himself can heal.”

“So let him do it!” A sob caught in Ruptyn's throat. “What can it be to him, to make one small miracle?”

Dyakov thought of a snag.

“Maybe you've sinned a lot in your life,” he said. “Until the Lord has forgiven your sins there won't be any miracle.”

“What sins could I have committed? Tell me, good people!” And Ruptyn turned his wall-eyes to the assembly.

In truth there was not a body in Uelen to say a word against the blind man. On the contrary, Ruptyn was a person of rare kindness and readiness to help. He knew the village better than any sighted man and could get around without any help, and still worked harder than anyone else. He could mend any piece of hunting gear by touch, sharpen a harpoon point, or even make clothing from an outer kukhlianka to a woman's kerkher. For his character alone, his humanity and willingness to help, his kindness, he deserved a divine miracle.

“Ruptyn,” Mletkin informed the visitors, “hasn't done a thing in his life to deserve losing God's good will.”

“He may have forgotten something,” Dyakov hinted darkly, before translating the transpiring conversation for the Russian shaman.

Father Veniamin then said:

“The miracle will happen in the fullness of time. The main thing is that he's accepted the faith; now let him wait patiently.”

“How long do I wait?” Ruptyn moaned. “I've been waiting all my life. Tell your God that I'll pray to him for the rest of my life, sacrifice all my kills to him, wrap his image in the softest, warmest furs. What could it cost him to make a little miracle happen?”