DERVISH [1]
And again long-legged white bird roamed about autumn ploughed field below dark-gray cloud. Her eyes wandered between the emptiness of the heavens and the absence of human beings. Either she strayed from the herd or lost her way, or had never known any path. She looked for a guide or a haven among mown cornfields and meadows outside the village with its dust and noise being suppressed by drizzling rain. Dervish had no patience to cross the courtyard and go out of the gates. As soon as he saw the white bird, he seized a short stick put to tendir,[2] leaped over a wattle-fence, came out into the street, jumped over a spring and stealing his "weapon began coming up to the bird over a damped cornfield. He approached the bird at a distance of five-six steps and threw the stick at the bird. The stick fell on the soil in an inch from the bird. The bird gave a reproachful glance at the hunter: encroachment of this pathetic specimen touched her and though she did not want to flee, she not hurriedly spread her wing, flew up and scornfully turning up her beak disappeared in the drizzling shroud.
He did not want to kill the bird, neither hankered after her as a profit, he just wanted to catch the bird and fly with her. He did not fly away, miles and miles away, he just wanted to fly over the village, circle above wattle-fences, roofs, trees, to look at everybody from heavens sit down on any roof and any tree to follow with his eyes a neighboring girl from the thick of gardens or from a nest. The girl, together with her mother, made her way to the spring, and he dreamt of admiring her day and night, remaining unnoticed.
He tried to fly and tied his legs and arms with numerous feathers; he climbed up a tree, then jumped down and plopped with his home-made plumage. He again tried in a windy day to climb on a stack but fell down into the cavity, swinging his arms and finally came to himself under the stack. Despite his injures and bruises, he did not renounce his dream. Now he dreamt to capture this living aircraft. However, he failed, and the bird flew away.
In the morning his grandmother dressed him with new clothes and saw him off into the street. And now he was returning smudged with dirt on his legs. As soon as he entered a wicket-gate, he classed with his grandmother and the grandmother exclaimed:
- Ah, puppy, I am tired of cleaning you! When your mother comes, I'll give you to her, naughty child!
Meanwhile, dervish was languishing in the city. The city smelt of medical drugs, fruits on trees were poisonous, sun-yellowish, land-yellow and sick, faces – gray, voices – faded like asphalt. Clouds in the sky were rusty and black like prison gates, wind – angry and biting. It tore leaves from tries and linen from ropes. Sweepings rose up to the skies, birds were knocked down.
Jointly with his neighbor girl, dervish was engaged in erecting a house in the courtyard. He tried his palace to look like his village home.
He over came winter, but when spring came he strived to go to the village. He dreamt of village free spaces and felt a smell of cornfield but this delusion was suppressed by stuffy urban smell permeated with burning.
At the moment, he was busy with erecting a sort of village house with coaching inn, fences and gates. He hoped this building would remind him of the village smell and there would be neighbors and here the same girl with wheaten hairs and this girl would in the dawn walk together with her mother straight to the spring. One room in this house would look to the unbounded field with a lonely weeping willow where the white long-legged bird took a seat.
Dervish told his city neighbor about the village girl with wheaten hairs but could not recall her face, he just remembered a golden fluorescence that came from her. Suddenly this "Sari Tel"[3] stirred up his soul with inexplicable wave and manifested itself with gusty words:
- Do you want me to take you to our village?
- Yes, I do, - swarthy girl said. – But where can we take money for the trip?
- We shall go without money, on foot. Have you seen a railway which crosses the settlement? If we go along this railway, we shall reach the village. Don't be afraid. I know how to get to the village.
- They took hands and bent there way for the railway, walking roadside. Yellow flowers rose above the road side and their corollas shed juices of spring sun. They tore off flowers and went on walking; they merrily chattered and laughed, they fled away from city missing. Trains lumbered, but they did not try to stop the train: dervish convinced the swarthy girl that they would get the village quicker on foot.
Meanwhile, alarmed parents together with neighbors and policemen tried to find them. Finally, fugitives were discovered a railway station and were returned home. Mother and father of dervish were so glad that did not even try to tell their son off. From now on, they did not let the swarthy girl nearer dervish.
He came to school and was promised: if you study well, you will be allowed to go to the countryside in summer. That's why dervish did his best and became excellent pupil. Teachers cited him as example, second formers tried to please him and girls got him round. He did not change his place in the classroom. Even better, he could choose his class-mate, and usually it proved to be a class beauty. If he quarreled with her, he immediately chose another prima donna. No his class mates dared to offend her. Girls, his class mates, who sat aside, could not regard themselves as beauties.
However, dervish felt miserable again. He was tired of sweating over textbooks and manuals; yet, he worked hard not to yield the palm. During breaks, he was standing in the corridor near a window, watching fruitless, nameless, bitterly smelling tries and birds above. There was not a single bird to call him to the skies: just carrion-crows which pottered about dumps, as well as impertinent sparrows. It seemed that these birds would never want to fly.
Boys noticed that dervish was lost in contemplation, but they failed to understand what he was dreaming of. Dervish told them about the white bird with the same height of one and the same as he had. Dervish added that he flew on this bird over the village. But nobody believed him.
Dervish insisted:
- You do not believe me? Let's go to the village after lessons, and I'll show you how I can fly.
Girls wanted to accompany boys as well as saying: - take us with you?
- I invite all of view, there is place in my home for everyone, - excellent pupil stressed.
Dervish told the truth: the white bird did exist and this bird was taller when he saw her first. But now the white bird is up to his waist. In his imagination he repeatedly watched the universe from the bird's height, and he believed that he was telling truth.
After classes they started their way. They agreed to misinform their parents, however, girls opposed this idea and boys agreed with them as saying that you can tell your parents, where we are going to. On their way to the village, one of boys pretended that he should go home to eat. A little later other boys, under various pretexts, escaped. Upon reaching a sandy hill in the outskirts, dervish found himself with the only fellow-traveler but the latter was chilly and went home to warm themselves.
Dervish found a room on the top of a hill and began waiting. He knew very well that his chilly comrade would never come, yet he kept on waiting. He watched a road in the evening twilight. Then the night came, and the city turned into the sea of twinkling fires. Dervish shook dust off his panties and rushed into this twinkling sea.
Having finished a school, dervish went to the village by a new red bus. To while away his time, he took a book with him but quickly realized that he looked through the pages, going into no heart of its contents. He imagined himself standing on highroad, and a girl sitting near him in a red dress and lips painted, watched closely the book in the arms of the excellent pupil. And she seemed to get into contact with him. Finally, she asked the book, turned over the pages, started a conversation, first about the book and then about herself. She informed that she was a student and was going to return to her native village to work there, marry and give birth to children, until the death calls her. She knew all of what expected her in this world.
- Now tell me about you, - she asked. – Who are you and whom are you going to become?
- I've just finished a school.
- So, you are at the crossroads, and all ways are open to you. You must choose your way, otherwise the way will choose you.
- …
- Have you made your decision? Whom are you going to become in future?
- God.
- She threw her eyebrows up twisting her lips.
- Whom do you want to demonstrate your divine power? Do you want to rise above human race?
- No, I would like to see the being with one glance and at once. There is a white bird and I want to catch her.
- She looked at dervish like one watches an endless road to change her destiny.
- The bus stopped at the fork where an unmetalled road leading to the village started. Dervish got off the bus and made his way on the dusty road. The student hailed him from the bus window and waved her hand.
- Don't forget me! Do you hear me?
- He stopped and kept on waving the girl until the bus disappeared.
- Don't worry, I shan't forget you…
Houses settled down the earth, posts became lower, doors looked like toys, grandmother looked like an ancient old women. Instead of old squeaking wicket-gates there were roaring iron gates, fences of prickly bushes changed into stone fences. Wheat formed ears on previous cotton fields. The road to the spring remained untouched, while a seedling near spring grew tall like a plane tree.
The neighbor girl became a fiancée and now she walked alone without her mother. Her is hair is sparkling, eyes radial, tongue talkative. She does not look, she sees; she does not listen, she hears; but when she casts a glance, one's soul is wounded. Heavenly angels are in the soul and eyes, and her gait personified the nature itself. Her traces are scattered about the dusty path, and souls of village lads lie there as well. Two principles combined in her nature and around her.
She deprived peace and tranquility from young people. She spared dervish only, endured his everyday peepings, admirations, and she did not become angry with him. She just waited when he would be courage enough to take a veil off. However, dervish did not mean to break silence; he spoke to her, his angel, in his thoughts. She felt anxious and had to dash around between the two worlds where two horned Aries clashed. Finally, she did not endure and locked at him steadily as asking angrily:
- What do you want?
- Dervish came to himself, tried to decline from honest answer, but he could not act against his own conscience and confessed frankly:
- I want you to go to the spring while the world does exist and I would like to admire you. I want to see you at every turn of the road, I would like you to open door when I knock.
- Though this confession tickled her hard, her arrogance became agitated like window glasses broken by a stone with splinters flown asunder like bitter words:
- You are scoffing at me, aren’t you? I do not want to see you any longer
A wedding was celebrated by neighbors. A golden-haired fiancée was brought to the house of another chosen one. The whole village came to the wedding, kids came up to gape at the festivities. Steam from of stew-pans mixed with smoke, mist in light-headed minds with scraps of mist on the top of trees.
Dervish loudly congratulated fiancé's people, jested, ate and danced till one drops. Young women clapped their hands and exchanged glances as if saying: "She who has got him, got him worked up"!
In his cups he forgot to pay "nemer"[4] and he was at his wit's end, stood up stumbling at every step and finally came up to the house of the neighboring girl. Dashing aside, he tried to get into the closest house but failed. He turned the corner and clashed with a line of cars carrying a fiancée to the fiancé's house. Embellished cars drove opposite him under the uproar of running kids. He took a pole out of the wattle-fence he clang to, and stood in the mid-road barring way to the car with the fiancée. The line stopped, signals off, kids quieted down. Somebody cried:
- Such a big fellow and partitioned off the road!
An elder in the front car, near a driver, looked out of the door:
- Well, tell what you want – money, cattle or present.
He came up nearer and said so that the fiancée could hear his words: I want the fiancée to get off the car and dance with me "vakzaly".[5]
The driver and the elder looked at each other and opened a door. Daring guys darted out of other cards. And they beat dervish to blood.
When he came to himself, he saw his grand mother who bent over the head of the bed. The old woman lamented and grieved to the death:
- What do you want from this yellow monster? I want her wedding to turn into disaster!
Dervish racked his brains over revenge. He could not forgive them; to forgive he must be stronger than they are. He wanted to convince people that he was stronger of everyone. He wanted people to apply to him for help. All day long he hanged about the city, imagining that he was ruler of the destinies and showed mercy or intolerance to those guilty. Unburdening his hart, he felt that he relaxed, softened. Instead he tried to burn himself with anger, stir himself up.
He ruled the justice all day long, he punished guilty and forgave innocent. In the end of the day, tired and exhausted, he went to "meyhana".
In the meanwhile, his grandmother tried to find a fiancée for the grandson in revenge for those who considered dervish to be worthless of the yellow monster. She slipped shawl on her shoulders and started seeking in marriage. However, everyone, as if agreed, drove her away as saying: - your grandson is crazy, twaddler, no one would agree to marry him. In reply, the old woman behaved properly but upon return home she was nearly dead.
Dervish heard this sad news in "meyhana". He stood rigid fixing his eyes on the white tablecloth with yet-undrunk bottle, and a plate of "dovga". Then he took a napkin, a pen and wrote a note to his grandmother: "Do not haunt people's threshold, I shan't marry". And added: "Addressed to the village. My grandmother".
When he came out of "meyhana", he tore off the letter and through scraps away. It was too late and he was arrested due to the curfew. A patrol stopped him and demanded documents. "Here are my documents! – he exclaimed showing snatches of the napkin.
He was detained and taken to the commandant's office. For violation of the curfew and misbehavior with servicemen he was locked in a cold cell till morning. From now on he dreamt to get even with soldiers and their commander who locked him up. While at the cell, he imagined to be a commandant of the city to roam about streets freely.
And he chose the military walk of life. He finished a military college, rose to high ranks and thus attained his goal. All roads and doors were open to him in the city. However, he did not want to enjoy festive gatherings, since he worked even at night.
His grandmother abandoned this transitory world and she failed to see armed soldiers subordinated to her grandson. However, dervish to settle down and arrange family. He kept his promise given to his grandmother in his unsent massage. He had no desire to marry and rear children. Motherland was his home, and army his sons.
He gained glory and enjoyed great authority in the city, regions, however, it did not entice him. He realized that he lived this life to be free, to fulfill his dream of the white bird, to admire the chosen one near the spring, admire until the world exists. He would build a nest in a place where the white bird could bring in to land even despite a few days left for him to live. Regardless of time, of seven, eight, nine tens of years for him to live, he is sure to take his golden-haired from her husband and bring her home as fiancée.
Rumors about famous fellow-countryman reached the native village. There was no person in the village who did not come to see him for help. Some of them wanted to find a job for their children, others thought of their sons-conscripts, third sought to save their relatives from court. Sometimes people came to him to ask for free medical examination of their relatives; others came to help settle disputes around purchase of housing – all of them expected their countryman to assist in solving their problems. And every time he inquired about his neighboring girl. In the words of villagers, she felt good, was in easy circumstances, cared for family hearth. And she reared a daughter which looked like her very much, and this daughter went to the spring together with her mother to get water.
He helped all suppliants, gave them money, and in doing so he took vengeance on his offenders.
He finished his military service and retired, packed up his belongings and savings and moved to the village to live the rest of his days. In the twilight of his life the time was ripe to collect stones. It was necessary to find the lost and, first of all, find himself and get out of depleted gray hair, wrinkled skin of obese body.
He did not recognize the village. Previous houses were re-built and or reconstructed, courtyards were distributed among new tenants. The field where the white bird flew over was occupied by a second hand market. The remaining part was used as a feeling station with freshly painted posts and uniformed personnel. A car-service was very close to the feeling station.
Dervish came to the market and asked traders, if the white bird flew into this land. However, nobody saw this bird.
No traces left from previous houses; instead, there were private residential houses enclosed with high fences.
There were no trees either. Just a tall branchy plane tree rose above the spring. But the path to the spring disappeared under the impact of a new mil enclosed with an iron fence. No people came here to get water from the spring: water flowed via pipes to the courtyards and houses.
Dervish did not need to persuade the beauty with wheaten hair from her lord-and-master: he died.
Dervish returned to the city.
He was dying. Relatives and friends came to see him off. Mullah was offering prayers.
He tried to express his last will but tongue failed him. He collected all his strength and moved his lips:
- I want to be buried under a plane tree near the spring.
His people embarrassedly looked at each other and had to apply to mullah. The latter was angry:
- You are impious men! A dead man should be buried at the cemetery. If everyone was buried where he wants, there would be no place on earth to live on! Let's suppose that I agree to bury him near the spring. But what will an owner of the mil say when he hears about it? I consider it to be disgraceful to eat a meat of a ram which pastured on the cemetery. And you ask me to bury a dead man on the land where we grow our bread.
Mullah saw the dead man off in his last way to eternity. Dervish's memory lay inside a wooden ark being carried by bearded men. The flesh reached its dream: to get rid of the hardest burden in the world. Now he will be buried near his late grandmother, and nobody will never part him with his grandmother. From now on, dervish will be of the same age with his foremother stay with her for ever.
Dervish waved his hands to those who accompanied him. In doing so, he blessed his mortal remains:
- May peace be upon you, my brother. I tormented you too long, farewell and forgive me!
The bird rushed about in a black-gray cloud, which stood in sun's light:
- Do you recognize me? – the bird asked. – Did you? I want to fly away too, - the bird would say. – Take me with you, do take!
Gyandja, February 2006
Translated by Ali Efendiyev
