Silent Girl (7 page)

Eyes closed, Jyrgal recites, “Reaching with my right hand, I grasped the sun for myself.”

Kyal strains to place these words she knows in familiar context.

Slowly, as though time belongs to him, Jyrgal raises his right arm to the roof and snatches at the air. “Reaching with my left hand, I caught the moon for myself. My right hand held the sun. My left hand held the moon.”

He passes one arm in front of the other and Kyal remembers. It was in class. A reading from the Manas that brought her to tears.

“I took the sun and put it in place of the moon. I took the moon and put it in place of the sun. Together with the sun and moon, I flew high into the sky.” He stretches both arms to the side and opens his eyes to a hushed audience.

“How do you know those lines?” Kyal asks, grudgingly impressed.

“My grandfather is a
manaschi,
” he says, enunciating the words as though she were slow-witted. “I grew up with the Manas.”

“
Manaschi,
” Dimira whispers in reverence. “In the early Soviet days, before even I was born,
manaschi
disappeared like rabbits under tractors. Murdered or sent to Siberia. Later, when it wasn't so easy to make someone vanish without the world complaining, apprentices of the great
manaschi
came out of hiding. But they had to sing of a different Manas. No longer a warrior, but a working-class hero.”

“My grandfather knows of those days,” Jyrgal says to her.

“Did you meet him?” Dimira asks Usen.

Usen thrusts out his broad, flat chest and says, “I did.” Stands and slaps Jyrgal's back. “Imagine! The milk of your clan and ours, flowing into the same
chanach.
Ama, where is the vodka? We must toast to Jyrgal's and Kyal's happiness. May they have many children running in front and many horses behind.”

“I have neither received nor accepted a proposal,” Kyal says.

Jyrgal sits beside her on the women's side of the table and leans into his words. “My brother is eager to wed and I am eager to help him.”

“Do you exist only to serve your brother's whims?”

He straightens his back. “Helping a brother or sister is not a choice.”

She matches his posture. “It is not yet your place to lecture me.”

He narrows his eyes and says, “I'm reminded of hissing swans at Issyk Kul.” He stands, extends his hands to Usen and nods toward Dimira. “Thank you for your hospitality. I won't keep you longer.” Picking up his shoes at the entrance, he leaves.

Surprised at Jyrgal's sudden departure, Kyal doesn't notice Usen striding angrily toward her until his hand connects with her head.

“He has left the matter with me,” Dimira says later after Usen packs his saddlebags and rides into the mountains. “He'll be gone a while. He wants a decision from you when he returns.” She whispers because Aigul rests nearby. The reports of Kyal's recalcitrance have made her faint and nauseous.

“I have a say?”

“He was wrong to hit you. Anger and bitterness are gobbling him like cancer. But you don't appreciate what your ancestors endured to give you the luxury of speaking your mind.” She grabs a bucket with one hand and beckons Kyal with the other. “Come with me to the river.”

Outside, she says, “Before he left, your father told me you must agree to this match. He said he will not force you.”

She must agree
.
Kyal mouths the words, imagining Ata's face as he spoke them. She takes the bucket from her grandmother and swings it wildly. Relief rises up through her body and erupts in laughter. She will not have to sacrifice herself for Aigul. Then she remembers that her father wants to spend her university money on tourists. She walks to the river with her head down, loathing the way her toes turn in.

Jyrgal shows up the next afternoon dressed for
ulak tartysh
in tank cap, high leather boots, and cushioned jacket. A sheepskin blanket protects his horse.

“Heaven bless you, you didn't scare him away,” Aigul says.

He looks different to Kyal in the sun's heat. Almost attractive. But she'd rather make love to his horse. Ha! She is buoyant with audacity. When there wasn't the opportunity to decide, Jyrgal seemed as undesirable as any other villager. Now, she sees a tolerable possibility: marriage in exchange for a degree. She will convince Usen to forego any other bride price. He will persuade Jyrgal's family she'll be much more valuable property, later, when she commands a good salary and brings them prestige. “Our daughter-in-law, the ambassador.” She'll need to stay in Bishkek during the school year, so there's her room and meals to cover as well as tuition. If Jyrgal insists, she will visit him weekends provided he doesn't disturb her study times. She can suffer his body two nights a week.

She watches him wrestle her uncles and cousins for the sheep's torso. Usen should be there to see it. Jyrgal brings the others' play to a new level. She rides past him as she heads out with Almaz for
kesh kumay.
Soon he'll know that no woman rides as well as she. He'll appreciate it, too, as the scornful American student never could.

An uncle officiates at the starting line. Kyal gives Aisulu an extra spur and leans forward until her chin is on the mare's neck. She's conscious of the sun lighting her jacket and the wind lifting her skirt above her thighs, of Jyrgal's eyes on her as she leaves Almaz pitifully behind, his war cries feeble in the distance. Conscious seconds later of the sound of hooves and the panting of another horse and rider at her flank. She turns her head to see Jyrgal no farther away than the length of her whip.

“What are you doing?” she shouts.

He draws up, blows her a kiss, turns sharply away and rides back to the laughing, cheering camp.

“I'll never agree to marry that horse's ass,” she tells Aigul and Dimira later.

Aigul stamps her foot. “Selfish, selfish! Ama, what will I do?”

“Calm yourself, child,” Dimira says. “You can't afford to get sick.” She touches Aigul's head with an intimacy that pains Kyal. She no longer belongs to the world they so comfortably inhabit. Everything they do feels like a rebuke.

Dimira turns to her. “Before you make your decision, you will meet Jyrgal's family. We have been invited.”

“I'm not interested.”

“Then find a way to be. The grandfather will be there. You will accompany me to the
manaschi's
camp. I will not let you lose this opportunity.”

In a rusty pick-up that transports their yurts from pasture to pasture, Usen's oldest brother drives Kyal and Dimira for several hours to reach Jyrgal's
jailoo
. It has only a few yurts, each made of white felt, not the humbler grey that suffices for Kyal's family. Satellite dishes rest on the ground. Here is a family of means, they shout.

Emil and Jyrgal stand outside in pressed slacks and sports jackets. Two men next to them wear ceremonial vests and
kalpaks.
One, an older version of Emil, must be the father; the other, with Jyrgal's long and narrow face, the
manaschi.
A white beard puffing like smoke from his chin makes him look mad. Was he initiated into his calling through a vision as it is said true
manaschi
must be? Kyal doesn't believe in divine intervention, but, sometimes, it scares her to think her destiny is in her hands alone.

As Dimira and Kyal step from the truck, half a dozen women surround them and hustle them past the men to the largest yurt where a well-fed, ruddy-faced woman waits between richly embroidered doorway flaps. She bows to Dimira and says in a voice as smooth as yak butter, “Welcome, Mother. I am Batigul,” drawing out the last syllable as though her tongue is stuck. Taking Kyal's hand, she says, “Come, Daughter.” Daughter? The other women follow them into the yurt where Aigul, a white scarf on her head, sits bent over on a carpeted platform, looking like a thief caught stealing the last of the winter hay. She does not raise her head when Kyal calls out to her in surprise. Spread on the floor in front of Aigul is a large cloth with loaves of round and layered bread, sour cream, dried fruits, and sweets Kyal has seen only on festival days. The strong, sweet smell of the bread makes her hungry. Is Jyrgal's family so wealthy they can go to this expense for all visitors? Batigul introduces Jyrgal's aunts and female cousins. “They've been baking and cooking for days,” she says. “The men slaughtered a mare for the feast.” She hands Dimira a white scarf like the one Aigul wears. “As we have no grandmother in our camp,” she says, “the honour is yours.”

Dimira spreads the scarf with her fingers and drapes it over Kyal's head. She kisses Kyal on both cheeks, but doesn't look in her eyes.

“Sounds of joy want to leap from my throat!” Batigul says. “Has anyone else ever been blessed with two beautiful new daughters on the same day?”

The yurt begins to feel small. The
shirdaks
on the walls press in on Kyal, their lurid colours screaming: Run! The scarf is a
jooluk,
a wedding scarf. She rips it off and throws it to the ground. Who are these women who conspire against one of their own? She stares at them and they stare back.

“She doesn't want to stay,” says one. “She would rather be cursed.”

“She will stay,” Batigul says. “She knows it's an honour for a woman to be chosen this way. It's just that she is a virtuous girl whose duty it is to resist. Let us give her some time alone with her grandmother.”

“My father will not permit this,” Kyal says when all but Dimira have left. Her heart pounds and her stomach churns as though she were in the final stretch of a race. She steadies herself with deep breaths. She will talk her way out of this.

“He is not here,” Dimira says. “The decision is mine.”

“I won't stay.”

“I'll tell you a story,” Dimira says. She lowers herself onto a cushion and gestures for Kyal to join her. Kyal remains standing. Dimira sighs heavily and begins:

Once upon a time, not too many years before you were born, a girl of indescribable beauty was betrothed to a handsome young man.

Ideas scratch around in Kyal's mind like burrowing shrews. Dimira is in the path to the door, but she presents no challenge if Kyal chooses the right moment. By the time her grandmother struggles up from the floor, Kyal will be gone.

The young man worked long hours each day on a collective, saving for the girl's bride price, because she longed for a traditional, fairytale wedding. Not for her a Communist Youth Wedding! While he worked, he lost himself in reveries about the day his countrymen would be free to own horses again.

Lost in her own reverie, Dimira closes her eyes. Does she assume Kyal will stand still as a stick? An aluminum can sits by the stove – a large one likely holding milk or cooking oil. Kyal sidles over and nudges it with her toe. Full. She's lifted cans that weight before. She'll use it as a battering ram against anyone who tries to stop her.

The girl was assigned to a different collective. One day a hooligan she worked with kidnapped her, took her to his family's house and consummated a marriage with her by force. Later, when his parents relaxed their guard over her, she escaped, running for hours in bare feet to her home. Her parents refused to let her in.

‘You have dishonoured tradition,' they said. ‘Go back to your husband's home.' The girl was a woman now, spoiled, but she said she'd rather die. The young man who loved her took pity and married her. But it was too late for them. The women in the hooligan's family had cursed her when she ran away.

Kyal glances at Dimira, listens more carefully.

She gave birth to two sons who never drew a breath. Then a daughter arrived and lived. The couple thought the curse had lost its power. But when she delivered the next daughter, the beautiful young mother died.

Tears gather in great knots of pain in Kyal's throat. Two sons. Two brothers. Never a word about them, yet it is their absence as much as her mother's that hovers over her family like a thundercloud aching to break. It comes to her like a blow to the chest. She and Aigul were never enough.

The man blamed himself. If he had kidnapped her instead of indulging her foolish wedding dream, she would be alive today. He would have sons to help with his herds, to sit with him on the honoured side of the table.

Dimira opens her eyes and gets to her feet with a grunt. “You have been claimed by a good man, Kyal. His name means gladness. Don't try to change your fate. You've crossed the threshold and worn the scarf. You are married to Jyrgal.”

“You stupid old woman,” Kyal says, not caring how much it will hurt. Forgetting the makeshift battering ram, she runs to the door where a wall of women blocks the exit. “Jyrgal!” she shouts at their backs. “Where are you, you coward?”

“Here,” he says, as though dropped from a cloud. He bursts through the women, piercing the yurt, palms flat on his chest in apology. Dimira bows to him and leaves.