The Dark Valley (6 page)

Then, one day, she felt something move under her bosom. She became afraid, pressed her hand against her heart, and calmed down. The feeling under her breast disappeared like a ripple in water. A few days later, however, she felt the movement again, and this time she suspected something.

Sandukht was to become a mother. Her body contracted all her muscles and collected all her water to adapt itself to her new condition. She resembled a small apple hanging from the branch of an apple tree which the sun had given a red color, but the thin branch had not been able to provide with any water for it to grow and ripen.

On her way to the well one day Sandukht met another young bride who taught her how to have a miscarriage. Sandukht was afraid at first, but later, when she bent over to put the pitcher on the ground and felt the movement under her bosom once again, a resoluteness came over her.

She did as the young bride had explained. She did not eat for two days and on the third day she drank the juice of a yellow flower. When she started feeling unbearable pains in her belly, she bit her lip, clenched her fist, ran to the barn without being seen, and closed the door. She now had to hit her belly with a stone to make the pain go away…

The cattle were driven back to the barn in the evening. When Ghazakh’s Ohan opened the barn door he saw blood by the door and an unconscious bride.

He carried Sandukht home. At dawn, however, Sandukht s final drop of blood flowed out her body with her last breath.

Shahan cried at her grave and at home.

That night, one of her hair-locks turned gray.

Peti would wake with the first cock’s crow, put on his moccasins, cup his hands once or twice in the narrow stream in front of his house, wash his face, wipe it with his hat, and stand at the edge of the village ready to let out the cows from the sheds and drive them to the mountain to graze.

“Zar’s sister, you have milked her too much! The poor thing has no body left,” Peti would say to the old wife, who had many children at home and owned one cow.

“I have no choice, Peti,” Zar’s sister would moan and hand over the cow.

Peti looked after the herd with care. He only needed to look back once to tell which of the cows had been restless and which one was starving.

And when the last of the cows were brought to him, he would swing his crook in the air and shriek:

“Hey, stag!”

Peti had been a cowherd for a long time. He had opened his eyes among cows. As a child he had looked after calves, and when he grew up, he was allowed to look after the village cattle.

He had no one. His mother died when he was barely a calf herd. Since her death, Peti had become a real orphan. The village took care of him: one day he stayed at one person’s house, the next day he slept in someone else’s barn or hayloft, until dawn, when he would get up and drive the cattle to the mountain again.

His old fatherly home was completely ruined. The roof had sunk in, the hanging beams were charred from smoke, and the sand and stone on the roof had fallen inside. Wild hemp had grown all around the ruins of the house, and the neighboring chickens lay in their shade after pecking the ground for food.

“Peti! Oh, childless man, when will you rebuild your father’s palace?” people would ask him.

Peti’s pockmarked face would smile and he would roll his sunken eyes, open his mouth, and shrug.

“The entire village is my home,” he would say, swinging his crook in the air.

Whenever his woolen overcoat would tear, the laces of his moccasins would break, or the old patches on his woolen trousers would wear out and expose his hairy legs, it was always Zar’s sister who scolded him and asked him why he wouldn’t get himself a wife and revive his father’s house.

“Peti, you good-for-nothing, who will take advantage of your abilities?”

Zar’s sister would scold him and, like a dried-up source, she would squint, take the woolen thread with her bony and shaky fingers, pass it through the eye of a needle, and sew Peti’s woolen trousers.

The village brides laughed at Peti, but it did not bother him. He would smile, and the row of white teeth in his mouth would glow through his thick lips.

There was one old girl in the village who was crippled and had a withered hand. She looked after the wheat and buttermilk that had been laid out on rooftops by the villagers to dry. The girls called her “Peti’s bride” and laughed, and the old girl, who was crippled and had a withered hand, would frown, get angry, curse, and then smile timidly.

Sometimes a thought, a wishful thought, drifted across the old girl’s quiet mind like a puff of white cloud in the light-blue summer sky:

“If only it were true and Peti would want me…”

As he lay on the fodder in the hayloft, Peti would suddenly recall the girls’ laughter and what Zar’s sister had said:

“Get yourself a wife, good-for-nothing.”

He would then wander past the village households in his mind, trying to remember all the girls. For a moment he thought it a good idea to have a wife so that when he came home in the evenings there would be someone there to cook a warm meal and make his bed. But he couldn’t find a suitable girl. No one would ever give him a girl. There were many more men in the village who were much wealthier and better off than him.

His body was boiling hot and felt itchy. Sleepily, he would scratch all over his body with his sharp nails, like an ox does when it rubs its neck against a large rock or trunk. And then he would remember the crippled old girl. But, like a honeybee, his thoughts would fly to another flower and breathe a new fragrance.

And that’s how he stayed.

Years passed, and with the years, his youth passed. Like autumn grass, his secret thoughts of finding a wife and building a home dried out.

*  *  *

Spring was on its way. The snow was beginning to melt and its water was slowly dripping into narrow brooklets. The spring sun softly warmed up the ground, and the villagers who were tired of the long winter nights basked in the sun, sat under walls on pieces of dry log, and talked with each other.

Spring was on its way, and the cattle in the barns were becoming increasingly more irritated by the heat and showed signs of restlessness, looking impatiently at the door and lowing at the top of their lungs. The two-year-old female calves were mad, and the three-year-old male calves capered in the snow and locked horns with each other as they were driven along the fresh water. The bulls were fat with meaty legs. They hunted for pleasant fragrances in the warm air with their wet nostrils, lowing and digging their hooves in the half-melted, hard ground.

Peti too was restless.

The heat was also bothering him. His body itched more and he looked toward Mount Ayu more frequently. The mountain was his sign. The spring sun caused the snow on Mount Ayu to melt and, as a result, to bare its rocky slopes.

Sometimes he would go to the pasture by the village shoveling snow aside with his feet to observe how the green grass was starting to grow in the sun like stubble does into a beard.

Peti felt a sort of vibrant bliss at the beginning of spring. Like the brooklets that were formed from the melting snow, the blood in his veins seethed quicker, and he laughed, gurgling at the same time. He was no different than a horse neighing in delight when its stable is replenished with golden barley.

Peti was preparing for the spring. He sewed his moccasins, tightened the straps on his bag, and carried his worn-out rug on his shoulders to lay in the sun.

“Peti has laid his rug in the sun,” the villagers would say. That was a sign that the cattle were going to be driven to the pasture in a matter of days.

Like a caring mother, Peti would walk from barn to barn admonishing the owners to give their cows more to eat or to keep the barn warm. If someone wanted to know when a calf was to be born, they would ask Peti when the cow was last seen with a bull.

Peti knew which bull was the father of which calf and which cow gives difficult births. Whenever a cow was giving birth, Peti had to be there to help the cow’s owner.

And when the slimy calf would barely be able to open its wet eyes, it was Peti who massaged its nose and lips or caressed the cow.

“The cow was in much pain… But, look here! It’s that red bull’s calf.”

After the cow had given birth, it was usual for the owner to give Peti something in return for his services, such as an old coat, a dish with pudding, or a promise for a bushel of wheat for the threshing floor. Occasionally, a cow would give birth on the pasture. Peti would carry the calf home on his shoulders as he pulled the cattle along to the village. On days like these, the smile on Peti’s face was infinite. He knew that he was carrying a blessing on his shoulders and joy for the owner.

A few days before driving the cattle to the pasture, Peti warned the owners to be prepared. He gave them as much news as possible the first few days after returning to the village. The snow was melting and underneath it a skeleton was exposed. Peti approached, looked, and concluded that it was a sheep that a wolf had taken from the village.

The days were getting warmer, the grass was growing and flowers were blooming: blue, yellow, red. A thousand beetles and butterflies circled the air, birds built nests in the sweetbrier bush, and the cattle grazed the tasty grass with puffs and pants.

Spring always made Peti happy. Having looked after the cattle on the same pasture and mountain for so many years, Peti had become so familiar with the herbs and flowers that he could flawlessly point out which flower blooms early and which herb serves as a remedy against pain.

Sometimes, when he caught sight of a beautiful beetle or a colorful butterfly, or when he watched how ants worked on rebuilding their last year’s nest, Peti would shake his head and say to himself:

“Bless you, good Lord, who has created such wonderful things…”

* * *

And then one summer a plague spread among the cattle. One of the cows began to trail behind the rest of the herd on its morning drives to the pasture. She would stand still in the middle of the road and low at the top of her lungs. Peti got angry and hit her with his crook once, but the cow didn’t even make it to the foot of the mountain.

Peti watched how her legs shook and how she collapsed, lowing loudly, and did not get up again. Pus, mixed with blood, ran out of her nostrils. Her belly was bloated, and the sick cow, whose eyes showed grief, looked at Peti.

Peti was taken aback.

“What has happened to her? She wasn’t given any medicago, was she?”

He took out his knife to draw blood, cutting a bit of the cow’s earlobe. The cow writhed her head in pain, attempted to get up, but her legs shook too much. The warm blood flowed onto the grass, but when the blood coagulated, the cow did not feel any better.

Peti went to a nearby source to drink some water and then pick up the lying cow in the valley. But when he returned, the cow had already died. The bloody pus had run out of her nose, her tongue was blue, her gums were cold, and her belly was bloated like a stretched out drum.

Only then did Peti realize that this was “cattle plague.” That evening no one in the village talked about anything else but that. There was sadness on everyone’s face—people asked each other where the plague had come from, and instantly they grabbed their oil lamps and went into the barns to examine their livestock.

Peti felt as though someone had poured cold water on his head. He had lost himself and was confused. A thousand thoughts ran through his head, including why the plague had come.

Zar’s sister added fuel to the fire by saying:

“Peti, the plague was sent from above. A misfortune is going to befall the village.”

Peti thought about the “misfortune,” but he was actually more afraid of the veterinarian who had come to the village once years before during the last cattle plague.

Two more cows died the next day. News arrived that cows had also died in a neighboring village. In the evening, the messenger announced from the rooftops that the cattle doctor was to come to the village the next day.

Peti was standing with his back against the barn, leaning on his crook, and listening to the messenger. He remembered Zar’s sister’s words:

“A misfortune is going to befall the village, Peti.”

That evening Peti did not even put a small piece of bread in his mouth. He wrapped himself in his rug and lay down on the hay. The next morning Peti was like a lost soul. His daily routine had been disrupted by the sudden outbreak of the plague. He had only very rarely been in the village at that hour and he was feeling out of place. He walked from barn to barn, examining the livestock. The tied-up cattle were lowing in front of the barn for fresh grass. And each time the cattle lowed, Peti felt a pang in his heart.

It was noon when the veterinarian got to the village with two watchmen. Peti saw him sitting on a horse wearing glistening spectacles and a bright cockade on his white hat.

Peti saw him and recognized him.

The cattle were driven higher up in the village to a spacious threshing floor and tied to stakes that had been hammered into the floor in preparation. The cattle were bothered by the heat and lowed for the fresh grass on the mountain. The cow owners stood by their cows with lowered heads and hands on their hearts.

The veterinarian arrived and ordered the watchmen to search the barns for hidden livestock. The watchmen followed orders and entered the barns sniffing like hunting dogs.

One of the watchmen, who had a ten-inch long mouth, saw a fat cock pecking the dirty ground with its claws as he opened the door of one of the barns. The watchman drooled from his ten-inch long mouth when he saw the cock and ripped off one of its wings with a piece of wood. He grabbed the bleeding cock and shoved it into his woolen sack.

The landlord called after him, pleaded with him, but the watchman threatened to tell the veterinarian that the landlord had hidden his livestock in another village and he shook his terrifying fist under the landlord’s nose.

In another barn a cow was found hidden behind large baskets of fodder. It was the only cow the poor household owned and it had been hidden in the dark corner of the barn for fear of the veterinarian.