The New Dominion

The following is a serial translation of Abdurehim Ötkür’s 1985 historical novel Oyghanghan Zemin, Chapter Two, pp. 29-33. 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 Two, Part One, we witnessed the further interrogation of Fan Yaonan’s carriage driver. Part Two has, one might say, a certain resonance with life in Xinjiang today…

2

The atmosphere of peace and order that appeared as a result of Yang Zengxin’s “prudent” policies for administering Xinjiang had made Ürümchi seem like one dozing with his eyes half-closed under opium’s sweet high, silent, preoccupied. In black-doored courtyards, in low rooms, , flighty wives with their shameless laughter accompanied, on dap and dutar , spirited street songs that stripped the self-important sons of rich men like a young camel who will lose his fur in spring, in only a few months’ time; on the supas[1] of houses with blue curtains half-open, burning sheshä smoke and, from houses on crooked streets, the smells of näshä; the sounds of the clattering dice day and night in the gambling houses and the sound of someone saying “All in!” on a casino game of knuckle bones; in the many restaurants and taverns, people’s ceaselessly-hollered “gaoxing, gaoxing” and the shouts of “xanläylun” – these things made some people’s ears deaf and eyes blind. Not only did people seem as free as ants, raising and consuming their own daily bread, their hearts were divided half into their cradles, and they slept in a careless semi-consciousness. It was as though they had forever forfeited the greatest bestowal that nature has given humanity – feeling and sense, consciousness and reason…

The pandemonium that started with the sounds of a few bullets fired from the pistols of Fan Yaonan’s party suddenly shattered this “tranquility”. Then the city of Ürümchi was shocked like one suddenly frightened awake from a deep sleep by an earthquake. Over the course of three days of martial law, the city’s doors were locked, and all stores large and small, restaurants, and taverns were shut down. Rifle-wielding soldiers patrolled the streets. Horsemen, their sabers unsheathed, exited the city center and galloped about. Hundreds were taken prisoner. These things placed a terrible fear on the people’s soul. Everyone was worried for themselves, as old maids worry for a husband, and all people began to think about their own today and tomorrow.

The tall, hairless-faced owner of the opium store, a man named Wang Biao, who opened for business with the end of martial law, lowered his brows and spoke to his first customer thus:

“Hey, it’s gotten bad, hasn’t it, my sister. So if this new General puts restrictions on opium, my store will get sluggish, and I’ll be finished! General Yang was really broad-minded. As a result, wealth was getting abundant, and the times were getting easy.”

“You’ll have no trouble, Your Excellency,” said a thin, small-footed grandma, dividing up the opium, wrapped in yellow paper, and putting it in her pockets. “From what I hear, the new General’s a heavy smoker, himself. Didn’t the ancient wise men say, ‘That which you do not see fit for yourself, you should not see fit for others?’ Bye, then, I’m off, I’ve got a terrible craving.”

* * *

The bespectacled owner of a stylish shop in the city of Ürümchi located on the corner of an intersection wrapped pile after pile of paper money in cloths and slowly whispered to the white-capped young man who stood politely before him:

“Be quick, my child. Change these bills into gold and come back. Let’s not end up biting our lips again, holding onto General Yang’s bills…”

“Instead of getting gold, couldn’t we just get some textiles, Dad?” said the young man, buttoning under his armpit his long, collarless blue silk shirt, the tails of which kept falling to his ankles.

“Hey, you youths think so very simply. As they say, when the king changes, the world changes. Gold is what doesn’t burn in fire, what doesn’t tarnish in water. In the panic of the world, textiles are a burden to people. Starting today, if the price goes up just a little, all the textiles in the world will yet have to be changed to gold!”

* * *

“Take a listen to what I say,” said black-bearded, great-bellied Mamut Dokar, causing Turdi Alighay, who sat before him with his legs folded underneath his chair, to straighten up nervously. “Starting today, don’t even sell a grain of wheat. Take this money here. Tell some of those guys of yours, starting tomorrow, they should block all of the roads to Changji, Turpan, and Guchung and buy all of the grain that comes through. You yourself hire two day laborers and build the granaries.”

“Even if it’s barley or corn, should we buy it?”

“Hey, stupid, what am I saying? Even if it’s millet, buy it. Tomorrow or the next day, the price will multiply by ten. The times when ‘barley and wheat are rice, and pearls are rocks’ seem to be returning. Got it?!”

* * *

That day, after the midday prayer, as two men with the countenance of mullahs sat resting on the resting supa of the Könchi[2] neighborhood’s mosque, discussing some topic with interest, one of them, cleaning his turban which had gotten dirty, spoke thus to his nearby companion:

“Truly, sir, truly. Whomever your older brother marries, it seems she will be your sister-in-law. So Yang left us, so Jin came to us. Whoever is emperor, they will be emperor, and to people like us, the communities of the Way[3], it is all the same. In short, if there is no trouble to our mosques and xaniqas[4], no disturbance of the judgments of shari’a, if we can do our peaceful worship in this evanescent world and then gather our sins for the immortal world, we will be thankful for this.”

“Insha’alla, may that it be as he says, my master. According to some holy stories that lighted upon his humble servant’s ears, that gentleman who shot General Yang may have perhaps had some support for the heretic Jadids.”

“The Jadids?”

“Yes, the Jadids.”

“Ya’alla, generous God himself, it seems, has protected us! If those devils had achieved their goals, the Jadidist gentlemen would have made a lucky roll and opened ‘scientific’ schools, and we’d have obeyed them in enticing our children from religion! Hey, hey, hey. General Yang was an outstanding figure, wasn’t he. He was especially good to people like us from the communities of the Way, so concerned about our mosques and xaniqas.”

>> Read Chapter 2, Part 3…