The Chukchi Bible (41 page)

Mletkin liked him immensely, this rail-thin person, whom the villagers immediately nicknamed Kupylkyn, Skinny. He answered to this name as readily as to his own. He followed the local customs, and didn't criticize but accepted them as they had been laid down since ancient times.

“Customs ought to be respected!” Kupylkyn would utter as he ceremoniously pointed a crooked finger, with its thick, yellowing broken nail, to the sky.

He went hunting in the winter, and was lucky at it. Despite its size, his family was never in need; this was due in large part to its extended family, who had taken this strange Tangitan into their hearts.

 

In the spring of 1917, when the first flocks of duck took flight over Uelen's shingled beach, Ruptyn voluntarily departed from life. He had come to see Mletkin on the previous evening, quiet and withdrawn. He listened to his host play some banjo music and sing a few songs, then asked Mletkin to wind up the Victrola. As the sounds of an operatic aria died away, he suddenly began to speak:

“You know, I can remember what it was like to see. The fog that veiled my vision came on slowly, gradually. And I didn't even grieve much. Our life never changed, after all. Everything was the same from year to year, familiar. Only the people changed – first they were children, then they grew older, then old . . . But all my companions, I can only remember them as youths. A person's voice is the slowest to change, but it does change, in the end. Maybe he doesn't even realize it. But most of all, I miss not being able to see the new things. New weapons, new whaleboats, new ships, new implements. I've run my hands up and down this music box, yet I still don't know what it looks like as a whole. On the one hand, it's like a bird with a long, sleek neck, and then the neck widens, as though turning into a wide maw. Then there's the little bird's head with its needle beak, which scratches at the disc that goes round and round atop the box. But how the voice and the music are made, I can't even imagine, and it's the impossibility of seeing – of even
imagining – these new things, that gives me no peace . . . Look at what I've done to my hand.”

Mletkin saw a row of black dots on the skin of the blind man's right hand, between the thumb and the pointing finger.

“I was trying to figure out how a sewing machine works, and I stitched right through my hand. I circled Gemauge's wooden house, and that pole of his that he climbs up to look at the sea, but I still have no idea what any of it really looks like . . . Yesterday I was walking through Uelen and knocked into walls twice, first at Gemauge's house and then the corner of the school . . . It's as though I've become a stranger to Uelen. I never had a woman, because they were frightened of me, of my hands when I tried to see them. I could only know the world through touch and through sound.

“But I know I can see!” Ruptyn was shouting now, in his despair. “I could see as a child, I remember what the world looks like, I can feel light and I can see it. But it's as though a thick curtain of fog covers my eyes. And you refuse to rid my eyes of this curtain.”

For the umpteenth time, Mletkin began to explain to Ruptyn that he could easily ruin his eyes altogether, that an operation might cause Ruptyn to bleed uncontrollably, fatally.

“But the Tangitans perform this kind of operation!” Ruptyn continued to shout at him. “They told me so!”

“In that case you need to go to America,” said Mletkin.

It was strange to see tears seep from those white-veiled eyes, which so resembled melting spring snow. Mletkin's heart was breaking from pity and helplessness. The Bible spoke of Jesus curing the blind. But where was Jesus? Why was it necessary for the unfortunate man to convert specifically to the faith of Jesus Christ, the chief of Tangitan gods, before he could be
healed? If Jesus was all-knowing and all-powerful, why could he not show a mercy which cost him nothing? No, the Tangitans were a different race altogether. And their gods were different, too.

Ruptyn left for the clouds using the traditional, tested Chukchi method – he hung himself from a deer-sinew thong normally drawn through the top of a pair of nerpa-skin trousers. Mletkin performed the ritual of Asking, and ascertained that the dead man did not hold a grudge against anyone. As if to confirm this, the weather turned bright and sunny and stayed that for an unusually long time, right up to the melting of the snows.

The last days of the open sled road from Mariinsky Post brought news that the Sun Sovereign Tirkerym had vacated the Golden Throne. It turned out that he had a name, just like any ordinary Russian: Nikolai. Only, unlike the other bearers of this common name, his also had a number: the Second.

These tidings had no measurable effect on the lives of the Luoravetlan, but all the Tangitans – especially the merchant traders – were abuzz with discussions of events in the distant capital of the Russian Empire and speculation as to what might happen next. Swenson had brought a stack of American newspapers along with his yearly shipment of trade goods. Carpenter spent several days studying the printed news from Russia, waving them in front of Mletkin and wringing his hands:

“I can't make it out! What is this Interim Government? Are they going to elect a Russian president, as we do in America, or will they have a new tsar?”

Mletkin was sorry about one thing only: once again, the arrival of the schoolteacher would be delayed, and the schoolhouse, empty for several years, would remain so.

His sons were growing up. Already they were a help to their father – taking care of the sled dog harnesses, carrying fresh water from the stream in summer and ice in winter, even occasionally accompanying Mletkin on a day's hunting. In the summers, they fished. But most of all they liked to play. They played at being adults. One of the brothers – usually Kmol' – would play the part of a deer-person, while Giveu was an Ankalin, a sea hunter. The deer-person Kmol' would fashion “reindeer” from bunches of dry tundra grass, while Giveu caught little crabs and tiny fish, which represented, respectively, nerpa and walrus.

From time to time Atyk joined them in play. He played the role of “Carpenter” and “traded” with Kmol' and Giveu.

Mletkin's heart filled with joy to see his sons. He never thought of Kmol' as anything other than his own child now. No, he had not forgotten killing the boy's father. But he had killed the man in a fair fight, according to ancient custom. Everyone in Uelen knew this, though no one spoke of it. Mletkin never spoke of it either, never asked his wife about the time she had been Yanko's wife, never chided her for having married another instead of continuing to wait for his, Mletkin's, return. He treated his sons equally. Of course one was the elder and the other the younger, but this was to the good. The older brother looked after the younger one, taught him, kept him out of harm's way. And Giveu followed in Kmol's footsteps almost despite himself, trying to be like his brother in everything.

The winter of 1918 saw the return of Mahomet Dobriev from a long sojourn along the southern shore of the Chukotka Peninsula back home to Nuvuken. He had an excellent team of sled dogs, possibly the best in the region, and he knew how to care for his dogs, feeding them well and not exhausting them unnecessarily. He transported trade goods for Carpenter,
and was now returning from Keniskun with a heavily laden sled of goods he'd earned from the American. Only after feeding and tying up the dogs outside did he walk into the chottagin and dust the snow off his clothes, paying special attention to his torbasses. For his hostess, he had a brick of tea, a lump of sugar and a can of molasses; he also brought a sugar lollipop for each of the children, and two steel traps for Mletkin.

Once inside the polog, their guest divested himself of all his clothing, including his fur-lined, fawn-skin trousers. Givivneu handed him a scrap of deer hide to cover his nether parts; both she and the children found it difficult not to gawk openly at Mahomet Dobriev's strange body. He was a perfect embodiment of his Chukchi moniker Kupylkyn. Yet it was not his thinness that made them stare, but the lavish growth of hair all over his person. His chest was especially hairy, while his legs might as well have been covered by kamusses still! What a battle against fleas he must have had to wage!

Having done full honors to the kopal'khen and the dish of crushed, frozen walrus livers, Mahomet picked up his coffee mug. Carpenter and Dobriev were the only two men to whom Mletkin would offer a treat so rare in Uelen.

“Great coffee!” praised Mahomet. “A wonderful beverage. How can the Russians and the Chukchi prefer tea?”

“I couldn't say,” said Mletkin, patiently waiting for his guest to get to the heart of their conversation, to the news he had brought with him.

“There's been a revolution in Russia, you know,” Mahomet informed him.

“Yes, I did hear that the tsar has left his golden seat,” said Mletkin.

“That's old news,” scoffed his guest. “There's a new tribe in Russia, they're called Bolsheviks.”

“What, giants?” said Mletkin.

“That's what I thought too, at first . . . But no, it's just a name. Actually they're normal height. But very poor! And their chieftain is called Lenin.”

“Is he poor, too?”

“He doesn't seem to be, but he is very clever. Here's what he thought up. He noticed that there were very many poor people in Russia . . .”

Mletkin thought of the Russians who came to Chukotka. You could not call them poor. They always had plenty of goods to trade.

“These poor people,” Mahomet went on, “were always envious of those who had more. And so, this Lenin decided: why not help the unfortunate ones? Take from the rich and give to the poor! They say there's a great big fight among the Russians over this now. They're all shooting at each other.”

There were several poor families in Uelen. Lonlyh, who had lost his deer herd during the worst of the icy frost, had set his yaranga at the farthest end of the lagoon's shingled spit. He had four daughters. He did not want to hunt on the open sea, or perhaps didn't know how. His sharp-eyed daughters kept a lookout for hunters coming home with their kill. Then they would go and visit him, a leather satchel in hand. If several hunters came back successful, all of the daughters would go visiting. No one ever thought of refusing them. This was the custom – everyone was to be helped. If anyone starved in Uelen, everyone starved. Lonlyh was considered one of Uelen's poorest men, despite the fact that his uveran was always full, and his barrels crammed with seal and walrus blubber. The family of Vuskineh was poor:
her husband had been washed away to sea on an ice floe, leaving her alone with three children. Every villager knew it was his duty to help the widow and her children. When the roof of her yaranga wore out, a new walus hide would be provided for her – and so, from the outside, Vuskineh's yaranga was ndistinguishable from all the others. There was also Yev'yak. But he was simply a layabout and a great lover of fire-water. He'd get drunk and wander from one yaranga to another spouting nonsense. Yet he somehow managed to memorize a handful of Russian and English words and got a reputation as someone who knew Tangitan speech.

“We couldn't have that here,” Mletkin said firmly.

“And what if the new Russians come and say: here is the new law!” Mahomet cocked his right eye.

“Well, that wouldn't be our law, but theirs,” Mletkin objected.

“There's no understanding those Tangitans!” Mahomet peevishly summed up.

Mletkin smiled to himself: so the Caucasus man saw himself as an Eskimo now, separate from the Tangitans.

That night, Mletkin dreamed a terrible dream: Yev'yak had come into his yaranga. He cast a proprietorial look over the chottagin, then shouldered the Winchester and all the hunting gear, and took the barometer down from the wall. Then the daughters of Lonlyh showed up. They carried enormous leathers sacks slung over their shoulders, which they filled with the contents of Mletkin's store barrels – meat, blubber, pieces ofitgil'gyn, and bundles of dried reindeer flesh. As he gave the robbers chase, he saw Lonlyh untying Mletkin's sled team outside the yaranga. The dogs strained to break out of their harness, unwilling to go to a new master. The lead dog ran to Mletkin with a whine and licked and licked his face.

Mletkin discovered, as he came to, that he had half rolled clear out of the polog. And the lead dog was indeed licking his face. An earsplitting wind raged outside; this was the cruel spring blizzard, the last snowstorm of the deparing winter.

Mahomet Dobriev was forced to stay with Mletkin for several days. Their long evening talks revolved around the new Bolshevik custom.

“There are very rich people in Russia,” Mahomet mused dreamily. “They own lands, palaces, vast herds of cattle, huge workshops where they make different goods and machinery. They live in enormous houses, which could fit all the people of Uelen and still have room for Nuvuken. If you took a bit from them, they wouldn't be badly off. But you probably shouldn't take everything.”

“If they start to take things away,” Mletkin conjectured, “they'll take the whole lot.”

Mahomet was silent, lost in thought.

“Will these Tangitans really stick their noses down here, with their new laws?” Abruptly, he broke out of his reverie. “They should just leave us alone!”

But it seemed that the wave of the revolution would roll inexorably to the farthest reaches of the Russian empire. There were violent clashes between the Bolsheviks and the bureaucrats of the Interim Government as near as Mariinsky Post, the official capital of Chukotka District. There were stories of human blood spilled in the snow, blood which the hungry dogs of the settlement licked from the frozen snowdrifts.