The Awakened Land – Chapter One, Part Three
The following is a serial translation of Abdurehim Ötkür’s 1985 historical novel Oyghanghan Zemin, Chapter One, pp. 14-20. New readers are encouraged to start from the beginning, Chapter One, Part One. This translation is presented for information and entertainment purposes only. It is also a work in progress — comments are welcome, especially on the (questionable) quality of the translation.
In Chapter One, Part Two, the progressive official Fan Yaonan and his co-conspirator Zhang Zhongshi set their plan to assassinate Yang Zengxin in motion. When we last left Fan Yaonan, he was admiring his friend Tahirbäg’s library.
Having viewed the books and journals, Fan Yaonan briefly investigated those in languages with which he was unfamiliar and said, finally:
“This library of yours has gotten quite rich. It seems one could sit in this room and see a large part of the world. If libraries like this became more plentiful in Xinjiang, it would be as though rays of sun had scattered here, and it would slowly begin to be enlightened.”
“At that time,” laughed Mäxsut Muhiti, “it’ll be rough for ignorant bats like General Yang, and for them mouse holes will seem as palaces.”
Everyone laughed. A short while later, Fan Yaonan begged his leave, and Tahirbäg and the others saw him off at the gate.
“Oh, I wanted to say, hasn’t anyone seen Mr. Burhan?” asked Fan Yaonan, stopping before the door. Tahirbäg said that he was preparing to go to Turpan the next morning, having received an important order from General Yang.
“Farewell,” said Fan Yaonan, getting into his carriage. “See you tomorrow. I’ll call you all tomorrow to the General’s yamen.”
Regret for the past, dissatisfaction with the present, hope for tomorrow – this is a sort of rational formula that interminably governs human life. Usually, however, humanity’s tomorrow is accompanied by unexpected events. Perhaps for this reason, despite their having been together for so long that day, Fan Yaonan’s “I’ll call you all tomorrow” rather surprised Tahirbäg and the others. As though their souls sensed something, they began to worry.
“Why would he call us tomorrow?” asked Tahirbäg, whispering slowly.
“Hey, I dunno, I didn’t understand anything,” said Mäxsut Muhiti, shaking his head.
2
Just as he had said, the next day in Ürümchi, an entirely unexpected incident came to pass.
Although this day was a Sunday, as the sun moved through the vapor from its apex, the carriages of military and government officials had begun to flow en masse towards a luxurious courtyard house that stood in view of the Buddhist temple standing upright on a mound of earth by Ürümchi’s North Gate. As the Teknikum of Russian Governmental Law, in those days considered Xinjiang’s place of highest learning, was located in just this courtyard, as we said above, the graduation ceremony of the first class of students was to be held there that day. In a long hall decorated with red and green banners, more than a hundred people were sitting quietly, all waiting for someone or other.
Right at the moment when tea was being served, among the melodious sounds of the military orchestra, a striking man with a high collar, a colorful ribbon under a short white military jacket, and all kinds of shiny medals pinned to his chest appeared on stage with a small group of others. In response to thunderous applause, this man straightened his gold-embroidered, white-tasseled peaked cap, smiled and waved at the people in the hall, and took a seat in deepest part of the stage. This was Yang Zengxin. The Soviet Consul, Kawlof, also took his seat with the high-level officials in this party.
The attention of everyone in the hall was on Yang Zengxin. It was as though they were looking for the first time at this pleasant, talented, intelligent, and respect-worthy elder statesman. They did not move their eyes from him. He, himself, sat among his loyal followers, smiling evenly with kindness to everyone, a compassionate elder sheikh. Only the Consul Kawlof alone, expelling light blue rings with the tobacco in his mouth, sat as though entirely unconcerned, holding himself upright.
After Fan Yaonan had come to the podium and finished joyously announcing the commencement of the ceremony, and once he had finished declaring “My deep gratitude for His Excellency General Yang’s honoring us with his presence,” he invited the Chief of the Bureau of Education to speak. After that, with Fan Yaonan’s invitation, among the sounds of joyful applause, Yang Zengxin crossed over to the podium. Despite his having aged, he held his massive frame erect and spoke spiritedly in a booming voice. Finally, he concluded his long-drawn-out speech with these words:
“I don’t have a lot to say to you all. To sum up, I only have one sentence to say: You are all Xinjiangese, just tomorrow you will enter society, don’t mess up this place’s business. You should keep in mind: if, in the positions to which you will go, there happens to be any kind of activity that talks of ‘Revolution, revolution,’ my sword will play first upon your heads…”
As he spoke, the Chief of the Bureau of Administrative Work, Jin Shuren, succumbed to a craving for opium and sat yawning deeply. Finally, he curled up and held his belly and, just when Yang Zengxin’s speech had ended, asked for and received his permission to leave.
After the student representative Yunusbäg’s words, the ceremony concluded, and the guests were invited to a banquet.
Some soft chairs had been placed in a smallish hall in the interior of the courtyard. Yang Zengxin was placed at a table in the middle with some high-ranking officials. At the next table, the Consul Kawlof, in a grey suit and trousers, sat with his pretty wife, dressed in a white hat and a white blouse. Fan Yaonan and several other chief officials sat at this table, as well. In his capacity as this teknikum’s Chief Invigilator, he too sat in the manner of a master of his house. The rest of the tables were likewise filled with officials. Commonly-dressed footmen stood fanning the guests with large fans made of birds’ wings. Workers with white aprons spread under their blue shirts, perspiring, shuttled back and forth between the kitchen and the middle of the hall. Yang Zengxin’s eight personal bodyguards and those of other officials were being treated as guests in separate houses in the exterior courtyard.
Yang Zengxin would sort of shake his massive frame and dexterously extend his fat fingers to sit and joke, “Gaoxing,” with the official sitting next to him and win over his own enemies, cackling in a booming voice. At the other tables, as well, the sound of laughter rang out, “Gaoxing, gaoxing.”
In the meantime, the Teknikum’s Headmaster, Zhang Zhongshi, pushed the bottle standing before him towards Fan Yaonan.
“Ready?” said Fan Yaonan, looking at him.
“Hm,” said Headmaster Zhang Zhongshi, suddenly glancing at the short servant holding a fan next to the table where Yang Zengxin was sitting.
Fan Yaonan filled the glasses with alcohol, stood up, and invited Consul Kawlof to make a toast. Simultaneously with the invitation, that short, fan-holding servant pulled a pistol from his bosom and pulled the trigger. Like kernels of corn, two pieces of lead, like flower buds, made Yang Zengxin’s massive form shudder. This man, who had drunk the blood of some tens of heroes like Tömür Xälpä, who had been the death of stars of learning and knowledge like Abduqadir Damolla, and who had lived happily sitting on the despotic throne for seventeen years, continuing the darkness of the Middle Ages in the environment of the twentieth century, screamed loudly and, lost for words, with the third shot, fired by Fan Yaonan, fell to the ground on his face. That military official who had enjoyed himself with him, gaoxing – he, too, ate fire with another companion of his and became free of life.
In the hall, filled with whitish smoke from the pistols of Fan Yaonan’s party, a terror like that of the Day of Judgment was prevailing. The sound of rifles pervaded the outer courtyard, as well. One of Yang Zengxin’s half-drunk bodyguards who was still left alive was kneeling at the base of a wall, prostrating himself, begging someone for his life. When another one, quite possibly the leader of the bodyguards, resolutely resisting Fan Yaonan’s party, came to the threshold of the inner hall, a bullet sent him tumbling. Someone took his Mauser, lying on the ground, and clamped it to his belt. At that moment, as Yang Zengxin’s corpse was being thrown around, the eye of Fan Yaonan, who had seized the key from Yang’s pocket, came to rest on Consul Kawlof. Kawlof was leading his wife, whose face had turned as pale as a wall, hurriedly out the side door.
“You’re in no danger at all!” Fan Yaonan shouted, his Russian pronunciation a little broken.
Fan Yaonan, who up until this moment had been known to people as a schoolboy, had finally, like a commander of the front lines waving his hands, expertly given orders to his own companions and thus got his own troop of twenty or so men behind him and headed, running, towards the General’s yamen.
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