The New Dominion

The following is a serial translation of Abdurehim Ötkür’s 1985 historical novel Oyghanghan Zemin, Chapter Two, pp. 33-38. New readers are encouraged to start from the beginning, Chapter One, Part One. This translation is presented for information and entertainment purposes only. New sections will be posted every Sunday, pending their completion and the satisfaction of the translator. It is also a work in progress - comments are welcome, especially on the (questionable) quality of the translation.

In Chapter Two, Part Two, as the strictures of martial law eased, life in Ürümchi began to return to a certain normalcy…

3

As this conversation was going on, Mr. Häydär, in his elevated courtyard house’s spacious living room, with its windows opened to the road, was sitting with Tahirbäg and Mäxsut Muhiti, drinking koumiss and conversing gravely. These days, this slender Tatar teacher who had with his own hands put Tömür Xälpä in the ground came at last to appear a little hunched. The thick dust on the turning wheels of Heaven had alighted heavily, too, on his yellowish curly hair and short moustache.

“That day, looking at how Mr. Fan said, ‘I’ll call you all tomorrow to the General’s yamen,’” said Mäxsut Muhiti, fixing his day-dreamer eyes on the fluttering window curtain, “he seems to have really believed in himself. He must have thought that, if he saw Yang Zengxin off to the next world, it would all be over. Usually, when you kill a snake, crushing its head is sufficient. But the snake that was entangling the people of Xinjiang was not a one-headed snake; its whole body had to be crushed away.”

Mr. Häydär gazed at Mäxsut Muhiti with a curious ihtiras as though looking at him for the first time. Of course, Mäxsut Muhiti had taken a seat in the deepest part of his soul’s house, and every time he looked at him, his home - the beautiful city of Ufa, the childhood times passed there, his youth spent in the ancient city of Qazan and masters like Rizayidin binni Päxirdin who had cast the light of learning on his heart, and the days spent with the poet Abdulla Toqay, who had shone like a star in the heavens of Tatar literature, would come to his memory. The things Mäxsut Muhiti had said, when he had gone from the foothills of the Heavenly Mountains to distant Tatarstan, about the pitiable life of his people in benightedness and the mists of ignorance, still seemed to ring in the bases of his ears, and the young shoots that had grown up, after he had, with the invitation of this Uyghur educator, come from Qazan to the Junghar-Turpan Depression, in the long years passed with some comrades-in-arms in front of a blackboard, swallowing chalk dust, were as clear as a row of kariz trees before his eyes. Remembering days devoted to passing the spring of youth with hopeful labor and those comrades-in-arms who were with him in those days offered some comfort, as though with some miracle his graceful youth had returned.

As Mr. Häydär was coming to life with just these fine feelings, Tahirbäg added to Mäxsut Muhiti’s words thus:

“It seems that we have escaped from this vow and become bound to an oath of blood. Looking at Jin Shuren’s manner, he doesn’t seem to rely, like Yang Zengxin, on trickery, but on swords. In the twinkle of an eye, he’s linked more than ten men to Mr. Fan and executed them. He’s tossed over a hundred in prison under suspicion.”

“What will be the fate of Yunus Bäg?” said Mr. Häydär, worried.

“You could say that, with Mäxsut Muhiti’s gold, we’ve kept him out of mortal danger, for now. However, Mr. Burhan will be necessary to get him out of prison.”

“You’ve thought this out,” said Mr. Häydär, cheering up a little. “Mr. Burhan’s reputation in the yamen may finally come to use. According to his family, he should return from Turpan in one or two days.”

“In our homeland,” said Tahirbäg, beginning to speak again, his voice a little louder, “the lives of some people who possessed grand ideas have, in the end, turned to tragedy. Looking at the situation, it seems that the heavy-handed rule of Jin Shuren will cause the heroes of this tragedy to increase.”

Mäxsut Muhiti, lowering his koumiss-filled cup, said:

“If this heavy-handed rule goes on, the common people will wake up more quickly, I believe. As a child is lulled, it will fall fast asleep; if you shout out loudly, it will assuredly wake right up. Just as the sermons the priests give in the name of the Prophet Jesus put Russia to sleep for quite some time, the whip of the Four Emperors woke the Russian people up just the same. In my time in Moscow eight years ago, I heard words with precisely this meaning from a Russian person.”

At that time, a young child around the age of fifteen, wearing an old velvet doppa on his head, a white homespun shirt, black sateen leather trousers, and patched leather shoes enter the courtyard and slowly knocked on the half-open door. Mr. Häydär poked his head out of the living room’s window that faced the courtyard and said, in a soft voice, “Ah, are you Tursun? Come on in, boy, come on in.”

The child entered the living room through the corridor and politely greeted them. As though in awe of the guests, he ended up standing just inside the threshold, offering his hands. The fog of some deep affliction seemed to be piled up on his apple-round face and smiling bright dark blue eyes. Mr. Häydär said to his guests, “This is my student Tursun. His father is master Häsän axun, or Häsän Dolan, who drove Mr. Fan’s carriage,” and asked Tursun after Häsän axun.

Tears welled up in the child’s eyes, and he told how, some days before, his father had vanished; how they certainly couldn’t have come looking for his father because of the martial law; how, that morning, two soldiers had put his father in a four-wheeled cart and brought him home, half-dead; and how, in a moment of clarity, he had thought, “I should say goodbye to my teacher, if only he would come to me” and sent himself to this place. He turned away to hide his tears. Tahirbäg and Mäxsut Muhiti, suddenly recalling that yellow-bearded man, came almost simultaneously to Tursun’s side. Mr. Häydär stroked Tursun’s head and told him, “Don’t cry, boy, don’t cry! We’ll hear some news.”

“We’ll go, too,” said Mäxsut Muhiti, doing up his suit’s buttons.

The child left the room and ran as though he flew. Their house was in an ugly apartment block located on the narrow road across from the Soviet consulate. Häsän Dolan lay with his head bandaged on a resting platform in a dried-up low room. His wife Sarixan was waiting in front of the door for Mr. Häydär and the others with tears in her eyes. Häsän Dolan saw them and wanted to raise his head from the pillow, but lacked the strength. The guests sat close to him and began to ask him how he was. Häsän Dolan, as though listening with difficulty, thanked them and said, in the end:

“It seems like they have crushed my bones; at last there is no hope for this soul. I have given my only son, Tursun, to God, and otherwise to all of you. It would not be strange if he grew up under the patronage of education.”

Mr. Häydär spoke some comforting words to the ill man, muttering, “Could someone possibly have done this just to know where Mr. Fan’s car had been driven?” Everyone remaining there understood that this had been the reason for his arrest and for his torture. As for Häsän Dolan, since he did not want to tell them that they had done this because, under questioning, he had not said their names, he simply said, moaning, “The intentions of the new General remain evil; please be careful.” At that moment, his eyes, lightless as the dim stars that flicker among the clouds, seemed as though about to close.

Mäxsut Muhiti said, “No matter what, I’ll be back with a doctor,” and walked hurriedly outside. A silence fell over the interior of the room. Only the slow weeping of Sarixan and Tursun could be heard from the hallway.

>> Read Chapter 2, Part 4…