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- Herausgeber: Tilted Axis Press
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Sprache: Englisch
Winner of an English PEN Translates Award "Baqytgul Sarmekova offers wry, darkly humorous portraits of ordinary Kazakh people held in the snare of patriarchy, cultural tradition, and postsocialist upheaval… Mirgul Kali deftly recreates the atmosphere of these everyday tensions as they quietly seethe just below the surface." ––PEN/Heim judges' citation Vivid, hilarious and unsettling, the tragicomic characters of To Hell With Poets reflect the inner discord of the modern Kazakh. The stories move between the city and the aul, postsocialist and capitalist worlds, tradition and modernity. Incisive and unapologetic, Sarmekova refuses to hold back, offering a sharp and honest rendering of daily life in Kazakhstan.
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Seitenzahl: 124
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024
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To Hell With Poets
To Hell With Poets
Title Page
The Black Colt
The Brown House and the White Zhiguli
Dognity
Monica
Möldir
The Night the Rose Wept
The Taming of Aqtory
Armangul
To Hell with Poets
To Hell with Poets, Part Two
To Hell with Singers
Boarbai
The Apricot Tree Blooms
Ice Cream
The Brown Ram Lamb
Superstitions
The Warmth
The Cobbler
One-day Marriage
In Search of a Character
Copyright
About Tilted Axis Press
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Landmarks
Cover
Table of Contents
Start of Content
To Hell With Poets
The Black Colt
Embarrassed of being deaf in one ear, he worried about missing out on conversations and had a habit of nodding and giggling whenever people as much as twitched their lips, prompting some to wonder if he was soft in the head. The harsh stare of a stranger’s eye made him uncomfortable, and he’d fidget and tousle his hair, sprinkled with gray strands that had crept in too early for his age. Especially when a woman came near him, Turar would begin to blink rapidly, get all red and sweaty, then turn white as a sheet, all the while grinning awkwardly and baring his tobacco-stained teeth. Some of the more brazen women in our rural aul had taken note of this and would tease him, pinching his side as they walked by or brushing up against him with their breasts, plump and quivering like intestines filled with sour cream. In those moments, one couldn’t help but feel pity for Turar.
It was this Turar that my grandfather had resolved to pluck out of the wicked women’s claws by introducing to Zharbagul, his wife’s younger sister. He instructed my grandmother to cook the salt-cured meat left over from the winter, mounted his three-wheeled motorcycle, and drove off into town to fetch Zharbagul. Turar grew very thoughtful, and we sensed the stirring of his heart as we watched the ash at the end of his cigarette slowly grow to the length of a finger.
Before long, my grandfather returned with Zharbagul, whose bucket-shaped head bobbed up and down in his sidecar as they rode along the bumpy road. This was the first time we had ever met our aunty whose huge head, dark, rough, trowel-shaped face, and stumpy legs were a strange match with her thin pigtails, wire earrings, and lacy, ruffled dress.
The grin didn’t leave Turar’s lips until the meal was over. He blinked and nodded to every word. Busy romping around the front yard, we nevertheless kept an eye on the proceedings, and some of us entertained ourselves by watching Turar’s every move. At one point in the afternoon, everyone streamed out of the house: my grandfather went to check on the cows, my grandmother hurried to drain the curd, and the women headed home to catch a movie. They dragged along their kids who had been playing with us out in the front yard.
When evening came, Zharbagul got ready to go home. My grandfather kicked the pedal, starting the motorcycle. As they rode away, Zharbagul’s twig-like pigtails slapped against her monstrous back. Still grinning, Turar squeezed a cigarette between his yellow-stained teeth and announced, “We’re going to have a toi!”
The next day, someone brought over a colt and tied him to a tree in our front yard. It was Turar’s gift to my grandfather for helping him find the love of his life, Zharbagul. My grandfather who’d been a cowherd all his life was ecstatic about owning a horse. All of a sudden, he was bustling about brushing the colt’s mane and braiding a lucky red string into it, ordering horse tack and sackfuls of oats from town. Cows were all he’d ever known, but now, whenever he got together with the other old men, he chatted about the care and training of horses. He began to sound like someone who owned hundreds of them. “Did you make sure there’s enough water?” “Have you checked the hobble?” “See to it that the mice don’t chew through the oat bags,” he’d insert in the middle of a conversation. “By fall, he’ll be old enough to saddle up and take out for a ride,” he said and began counting the days. The colt was indeed a beautiful animal, and we couldn’t help but stare at him in awe, though he’d whinny when we approached and look askance at us, his nostrils flared, his ears flicking, his forelock flying in the breeze. We named him Qarager.
After Zharbagul visited a few more times, the preparations for the wedding toi began in earnest. My grandmother started beating fleece for new körpe mats for Zharbagul’s dowry, and the women scoured local markets for fabric to decorate them with. Turar’s family got busy sprucing up their house and repainting the windows and doors.
Then, one wet summer day, while driving his sheep toward the aul, Turar stepped carelessly on the broken end of a downed power line and died, his body burned to a crisp. The adults who had gone to look at his body said, “He was grinning ear to ear when he passed on to the Great Beyond.” No one knew if he was beaming at the thought of his beloved Zharbagul or grimacing in pain when the fatal charge struck.
It wasn’t in the cards for the thirty-year-old Zharbagul after all to sing the bride’s farewell to her family. She came by to pay her respects, whimpering quietly as translucent tears left wet traces on her rough-hewn face.
When the commotion caused by Turar’s death quieted down, his brother Sailau showed up in our front yard with a rope in his hand.
“I’ve come to take the colt, Qabeke!” he said. He must have been preparing for this moment because his voice came out rather loud and firm.
“Which colt?” my grandfather stared at him with the look of a man whose pastures were teeming with herds of horses. His hat tilted back disdainfully along with his head as he looked up at Sailau.
“The colt is ours. I never heard Turar say that he was giving it to you,” Sailau said, spitting loudly to the side.
The startled old man stared at the frothy spittle on the ground, then back at Sailau.
“I’m not giving Qarager back,” he said bluntly.
“Then I’ll see you in court,” Sailau shot back.
After that, my grandfather fell into the habit of sighing wearily whenever he stroked Qarager’s mane with the red string woven into it. By then, the colt had put on some weight and turned into a shapely, long-limbed horse.
When a court summons came, my grandfather started his motorcycle and rode into town, the brim of his hat bending defiantly backwards in the wind.
No notes or gift deeds had been exchanged between him and the colt’s owner Turar, who must have been grinning down upon Qabeke from heaven. Finding himself backed into a corner at the court hearing, my grandfather defended himself: “I spared no expense in raising this colt. I bought feed, I spent time with it, I exerted myself to care for it. He was a foal when I got him, and now he’s a yearling colt with a fine mane and tail. I want my expenses paid.”
“The colt goes to Sailau, and Qabeke’s expenses are to be tallied up and reimbursed,” said the judge, bringing the gavel down with a bang.
Back at home, the sullen old man tried to comfort himself by reminding us, “The judge himself said to pay Qabeke’s expenses back.” Sitting at the dinner table, he drawled the words in a singsong manner, and they did seem to cheer him up.
With the court order in one hand and a rope in the other, Sailau came striding into our front yard again. The front brim of my grandfather’s brown hat didn’t rise this time. He lowered his eyes and didn’t say a word.
Qarager’s mane and tail rustled in the wind and his hoofs clattered on the dry, white ground as Sailau led him away. Only when the sound of hoofbeats faded did my grandfather lift his head and murmur, “If we could have taken him to the ambler race next year, he would have won a prize.”
Soon enough, Sailau showed up again, holding the same piece of paper in one hand and leading Qarager by the rope with the other. My grandfather’s hat tilted up as he stared at him in astonishment. Sailau proceeded to remove four bags of feed from the colt’s back and, raising a cloud of dust, dropped them by the door.
“These are for your material expenses, and the rest is here,” he said as he handed my grandfather a carefully sealed envelope retrieved from his shirt pocket. Then he walked away with the unburdened Qarager. When the old man’s brown hat began convulsing as he abruptly stood up, we thought he’d take off in a sprint after Sailau, lash him with a whip, jump on Qarager, and gallop away across the barren steppe. But we were wrong. He went over to his wife, whose white headscarf blended with the gray smoke from the outdoor cook stove where she was busying herself, pushed her away, and threw Sailau’s envelope onto the glowing dung embers. He then walked over to the bags with feed and after gazing at them thoughtfully for a moment, said: “Take them to the cow shed.” Then he went into the house.
2018
The Brown House and the White Zhiguli
Roughcast with mud and straw, the brown adobe house never failed to attract swallows. They must have found the house, with its beefy posts, bolt-upright walls, and proud demeanor, tall enough to build their nests on: every spring, they lined the edge of the roof, their fuzzy red-orange necks shimmering in the sunlight.
The inhabitants of the house were equally imposing. Every morning, little old Khabes would throw open its heavy hardwood door and stand out front, the flaps of his brown trench coat pulled back and his hands tucked in his pants’ pockets. His black boots were as spotless as his wife’s headscarf, and their buttery leather looked even lusher in the sun. Even their dog had an imperious air about him, never growling or sniffing at the hunched mongrels who were always sneaking about the aul in search of food scraps. With his tail pointing straight up, the dog would emerge from his wooden kennel lined with the white goat pelt and stand beside his owner, gazing out in the same direction. You’d never see him disheveled or sulking. He was always alert, always confident.
Sporting thick, carefully brushed hair without so much as a single strand of gray, the seventy-year-old Khabes ambled around his house and, occasionally rumpling and smoothing his low forehead with two long, deep lines, pressed his lean hands against each post and examined the spots where the plaster had fallen off. As soon as he sighted an unsteady post, he’d race in his shiny boots toward the shed where he kept his tools and instruments. He’d emerge dragging along a shovel and an axe and set to work immediately, as if the house was on the verge of collapsing.
“I bought this house from the famous merchant Shughayip for eight oxen. Eight oxen!” he’d exclaim, folding his thumbs down and raising his hands to show the number. “The beams are made of red oak. That’s right! Red, not white. They say it took him, the gracious soul, a whole summer and fall to have it hauled a-a-a-all the way from Russia,” he said, drawing the sound out as if wishing to reach that faraway land where the wood had come from. If a visitor happened to take an interest in the house, the floodgates would open and Khabes would recount its entire history. Meanwhile, his elderly wife bustled about making tea for the guests, her white headscarf glimmering amid the gray smoke billowing from the samovar.
Next to Khabes’s stately home, a handful of nearby saddlebag-style houses, made up of two rooms separated by a narrow corridor, looked rather shabby. Whether intimidated by Khabes himself or by his house, the old men in the neighborhood always deferred to him and were the first to greet him, bowing down and offering both their hands. Even when his dog opened his enormous jaws to give a bark, they neither chased him nor scolded him with the usual “Get lost!”
But one dreary fall awash with nippy, drizzling showers accompanied with whistling, piercing winds, Khabes tripped over his threshold and fell. His compact body went down lightly and neatly, as though he’d been anticipating the fall. His wife’s meek, passive eyes grew wide with panic beneath her white headscarf, and she scampered toward the neighboring houses. Dispatches were sent to Khabes’s only son and the doctor in the nearby town. The doctor arrived first, his medical bag clattering and clanging with medical tools and glass vials.
Aqsandyq looked suspiciously at her husband’s tense, motionless body and tightly-closed eyes, wondering if he was just being obstinate. But the doctor shook his head, prompting a group of neighbors that had gathered round to lower their eyes. Aqsandyq stared in bewilderment. Her eyes filled with tears, and her gaze wandered toward the immaculately clean windows, where the road leading to town was visible. She seemed to be waiting for her son to come and rescue her from this sudden calamity.
It was still raining when he finally arrived, wearing a water-stained leather jacket that was too small for his large body.
