The Tale of Aypi Page 13

  “My substance,” answered Aypi, staring coldly at the boy, “was sacrificed so men like you could lead your screw-off lives! Centuries ago! I’ve been lying at the bottom of the sea ever since.”

  His hair stood on end, and his laughter finally died. He asked with terrible apprehension, “Are you Aypi?”

  “What’s it to you?” Aypi answered sarcastically. “Answer for yourself, cur!” A white nightmare galloped towards them until, braying and rearing, it bridled up beside Aypi. “Get out of the car!” she commanded Kerem.

  Easily mounting the horse in one breath, she brought the whip that had just materialized in her hand straight down on the luckless boy’s head.

  “You want some fun? Here’s your fun! Enjoy!”

  The boy fled, his arms over his head for protection, but how can someone on foot escape a mounted pursuer? No matter where he ran, the whip still played at his back and shoulders. The woman wearing the ruby necklace rode her white horse after him into the desert, lashing away until he was drenched in blood and sweat.

  “Thank God I didn’t run into this devil at sea!” thought Kerem to himself, as he madly fled from the whip’s venom.

  “Come on, scum! Take that!”

  Finally, the boy’s leg’s buckled under the torture and he fell onto the sand. The woman gave up thrashing him, and rode to the top of a hill, where she surveyed the distance to town. When Kerem came to, in obedience to an imperious gesture from the rider on the horizon, he ran in the opposite direction, kicking up dust and going as fast he could to get back to the car and then the city.

  Once the white rider was alone, she roared and spurred the horse on towards the village. These men had also killed her!

  “Pah! I spit in your faces! Coward, who killed me in fright! If you’d had any real power you wouldn’t have murdered me, but defended me instead! Men won’t die from fear, or come to harm from a helpless woman! You turned my life to dust!”

  She whipped her horse on as she drew near the town, and charged straight into the group of old men gathered for gossip in the late afternoon. They saw her only as a white whirlwind, but her horse’s hoofs struck several of the old men square on the forehead, and they fell lifeless to the ground on the very spot.

  Those left alive couldn’t imagine what it all meant. “God in heaven,” they lamented, “we’ve heard about black sandstorms taking people, but we’ve never seen a white whirlwind take them. Now we’ve seen that too. If a man lives long enough, he’ll see every sort of thing!”

  As she whirled back and forth through the village, she whispered harsh council into the ears of every man:

  “If you need a wife, don’t make her carry your own burdens, let her be a woman! If you hold your own ground, she’ll hold hers too! But if you become women, what else can they do but become men? You’ve misunderstood everything! You even think that men choose women. What comedy! In truth, it’s the opposite. God help the man disfavoured by a woman! Another mistake: They track their wives’ every move, the wretches! Fools, don’t you understand that a woman can deceive a man every step of the way, if she wants? What’s so difficult about it? What’s more, men think they’re smarter than us. The rest of their transgressions are individual failings, and too many to count!”

  Aypi reared her horse and shouted at the top of her lungs:

  “So what then of these all-powerful men, they who think themselves the centre of earth and heaven?”

  Her question went unanswered though, and her voice, just like a bird’s feather, floated away with the wind and dissolved into nothing, while she and her white horse turned into a dissipating mist on the distant horizon. Way out there, where the sea meets the sky blue, the white clouds began to darken as the weather changed.

  19

  The islet had stood in the middle of the sea forever, just listening as the surf smashed into it. Waves big and small struck its foundations, boiling and frothy, then leapt up as if to fly away, but never managing to escape. When the waves did their worst to shake the island loose, it was almost lost among them, like a ship sailing without a destination. From its narrow side, Aypi’s Peak did look just like a prow.

  More than a few called the place Aypi’s Island. The fishermen had never liked it. The far flung accumulation of merciless glittering anthracite and the vague associations of terror put dread in the hearts of all who landed there. When the FishPreserve inspectors were on his heels though, Araz often hid there.

  Now he was in his refuge again and growing restless from sitting down too long. As the trim little FishPreserve cutter finally motored away from the island, he stood up from his cave in the rocks. Glancing around warily, he snuck over to Aypi’s Peak. Standing at the very edge of the drop, he stared into the water. Just now the surface was at rest, and he could see down to the bottom. Araz looked at the mottled blue-green depths until his eyes grew tired.

  As he turned away, he thought he saw something sparkle in the depths, just where that mysterious necklace from the legend was said to still be lying, and Araz shuddered. According to superstition, all who beheld it should expect an evil fate. Who from these parts hadn’t heard the story?

  Araz cast one more fearful glance into the depths where that accursed necklace rested, forever calling to misfortune, then turned and went back to his cave. There was an ache in the pit of his throat; from now on he wouldn’t come back here – devil take the place!

  A mechanical droning insisted on his attention: the FishPreserve cutter reappeared in the east and slowly sailed by. This time Araz could easily make out the raw young inspector scrutinizing the rocky isle as though he were passing it through a sieve. The pennant on the cutter’s prow whipped back and forth in the headwind, like the flapping of a tethered gull.

  Now the cutter buzzed around the island like one of those infuriating summer flies, one in no hurry to leave. Young as he was, the inspector had to know Araz’s skiff couldn’t outrun his own boat in the open sea, and must realize his prey was somewhere nearby – so there he was, circling the island. “Not such a rookie after all!” sighed Araz, grabbing up a large rock from close at hand, and flinging it with all his strength in the wake of the cutter. “Hoping to catch me?” he hissed, “I’m not here, I said, so that’s that! Move along, or are you not gonna make your quota today?”

  The cutter suddenly turned to face the open sea and began heading away from the island. Soon it was nothing but a black speck on the blue sea. “Could I get away before it comes back?” thought Araz. “Maybe I can.”

  He left his cover and began clambering down to his boat docked in a deep cove cut into the island, well hidden and invisible to strangers’ eyes. The form of the cove was terrible, as if some eldritch leviathan from Noah’s day had left an angry warning: “Not just you and yours, but we too, once lived in this world, and like you, we had teeth: Behold their power!” and so roaring, it had torn off a great slab of the island, then carried it down to the sea’s end.

  Araz reached the skiff ready to leave the hiding place, but the cutter, which he’d just seen shrink away, remained a disconcerting speck on the horizon. Now it was coming back again, so Araz reluctantly started back for his hiding place, muttering, “Whatever you say, he’s still the greenest of the green! I guess you just don’t want to go home. Fine then! See for yourself! Stick around…” he threatened the young inspector, “and wait for the storm!”

  When he let slip the words, he hadn’t yet noticed the changing weather, but he did now. If he’d had time to think about it, he would have supposed it to be the hereditary ability of those who made their living by the sea to sense an oncoming storm. In any case, he’d spoken the unspeakable, and he straightaway bit his tongue, glancing around apprehensively. His gaze lingered in the east, where an opaque, grey sky hung low.

  The water was still calm and purring like a lazy cat, though shuddering and frothing a little. The bigger waves crashed into the isla
nd and broke up like shipwrecks, tossing up salty tear-drop necklaces that glistened and played in the air.

  A tiny kernel of panic grew in Araz, like some predator stealing soft-pawed up to his pulsing heart, and trying to carry it out again through his mouth. He shivered with unease.

  He stared at the darkening horizon; though he couldn’t see it well, Araz knew danger was brewing, and it would soon come his way.

  A cool breeze blew over the water, but where was the pleasure in it, if it came from over there? The waves rushed onward as though pushed by some unhallowed force racing to the opposing coast coursing higher and higher. Yes, it was dire all right; conditions were changing by the moment. The horizon kept narrowing, and the weather moved purposefully, as if it were searching just for Aypi’s Island.

  The cutter cruised in from the southwest again at full throttle, and as it circled the island one last time, the officer on deck sprang up and yelled something or other through a megaphone. Alas, his words didn’t reach Araz; in an instant the salt water doused and scattered them to the winds, entirely lost.

  The inspectors headed towards the coast and soon vanished. Araz’s sensitive ears could distinguish the receding sound of the engine amidst the growing sea rumble – it was gone for good this time. “Finally,” he shouted with joy, “I thought you’d never leave!” though his reproach went unheeded.

  Once again he ran down to the cove and his skiff. In haste he would slip and almost fall onto the black rocks, but each time, like a bat, pressing his whole body against the bluff face he’d remain upright. Instead, a skull-sized rock at his feet would go tumbling down to the jagged stone teeth at the water’s edge.

  When he reached the bottom, Araz tugged the skiff into the water and attached the motor, then dragged over the fuel canister he’d hidden. He filled up the motor’s tank, and tossed the empty can to the bottom of the boat where big, gape-mouthed sturgeon lay with open mouths eating air.

  Nowadays, it was forbidden by law to take sturgeon in these waters. The fishermen had gradually submitted to this, and stopped trolling for red sturgeon. Araz wasn’t unaware that they were beginning to forget their own profession; After all, the skiffs and canoes were getting old, the tools were rusting away, the nets rotting and even making lures was difficult for most of them now. They had lost the accumulated experience of their ancestors and were now directing their abilities in new directions; seeing who could find work in the city and who could get farthest from the village. With time, the fishermen had adjusted to their new occupations and few now cared to go out to sea by themselves. If they did occasionally take their dinghies out, the biggest thing they caught was roach or herring. Since only a small number of men worked at the state-run fishery department, the earnings of the rest were tied to dry land.

  Needless to say, the villagers didn’t stop eating caviar, nor did anyone want to give up sturgeon pilaf: it was impossible to throw a party without it, but you didn’t need to go out to sea to find it. After they’d put aside angling for themselves, they found other ways to obtain red sturgeon. The men from the fishery would get it cheap, bring it to the village, and sell it for a fine profit, so of course the village didn’t go without fish. If you could grab up sturgeon for the price of herring, wouldn’t you do the same? Sometimes they benefited from Araz’s services as well. In short, even if they’d lost their traditional fish-catching ways, they didn’t appear to be losing their traditional fish-eating ways.

  Depending on the season, Araz would place either longlines of snoods, or small handmade drift nets. Today he had woken up at the crack of dawn to go and check his nets from the night before. Since it was Sunday, he hadn’t expected to see the inspectors; the weather had been better than he dared dream, and the sea peaceful. He started to check the nets – a line of them running parallel to the coast – by following the floating corks. As he’d guessed, it was a good catch, and there would be plenty of caviar too. The spawning season of the sturgeon wasn’t up yet, so if you had any luck, obviously you wouldn’t miss caviar. Truly, the sea is the proper domain for a fisherman; what business does he have on land? Araz had been in a fine mood and he felt like humming a tune, and if he’d had time, he would have. Unfortunately, everything had gone sour when the unexpected but well-known FishPreserve cutter had appeared suddenly on the horizon.

  At any rate, now the bad part was over, and he’d be able to return home uneventfully. At first he considered the gale lucky for chasing away the dogged, young inspector and was grateful. He didn’t have time to take much pleasure in it though – there was trouble enough: He needed to get home quick before the winds came into their full strength. Ay-Bebek would be waiting, one eye on the road and one on the sea, worried as ever.

  Araz started the engine and sped off from the island’s east side headed to the coast. It was a pity he hadn’t been able to check all the nets; who would have stopped him now? “Too bad about that,” he consoled himself, “but I’ll check them later,” though as he well knew, after this storm it would be a miracle to find even the nets.

  He covered a considerable distance with such thoughts, and the island’s silhouette vanished behind him. Suddenly the tenor of the engine abruptly changed and fell silent. The boat kept on a little ways, but not far before it began to pitch and sway in the swell. The shore was still far away. He tried to restart the motor – nothing; and again – nothing. He continued to pull the cord to no avail.

  The sparkplugs, he thought. He took them out, cleaned them, and put them back in place, but it was futile. His spirit trembled and, while he struggled with a powerful, metastasising panic, he took out and reassembled various parts of the motor. Wiping the sweat from his brow, he prayed to God, and yanked on the cord – but the machine made no sound. What to do? Grimacing, Araz turned to face into the wind. Just like a seven-headed, fire-breathing hydra from old tales, the storm front grew bigger and bigger. From some uncertain mnemonic wellspring, a terrible recollection came to him, and he pounced towards the jumbled, empty tank in the bottom of the boat. He unscrewed the cap and poured the dregs into his hand. He nearly swooned: On top of the filmy liquid in his palm rolled sweaty drops of water.

  Then he seemed to remember seeing the children playing a few days ago and, if he wasn’t mistaken, one of them had the tank, even the cap (God help him) in hand. The kids had filled the empty tank with water, no doubt about it. Araz, thinking it was filled with gas, had brought water out here instead. The real gas tank was probably arrogantly sticking its neck up in the shed right now. Enraged at his own deceitful tank, he threw it so forcefully that the skiff nearly capsized.

  He sighed. It must’ve been the kids. Or somebody else? How to know? Only a few days ago, it now occurred to him, he’d been returning home late. As he had approached the house hadn’t the receding back of an unknown person appeared for a moment in the darkness? He hadn’t paid any attention then; people were always wandering by night and there was no keeping the young at home. Now he shook his head wistfully. Nothing was ever as simple as it seemed, was it?

  He looked around uncertainly. For a moment he wavered, completely hopeless. Every moment was gold though, and he had to find a solution quickly. The black storm waved its giant, dark wings at him, and advanced. He grabbed the oars, fit them into their locks, and gathered all the strength of his arms to escape from the disaster bearing down on him. He began to row.

  20

  Clouds of downy pollen blown by the scorching wind landed on the hills and mixed with the sand, turning the entire area as grey as wolf pelt. It was hot beyond all endurance, and a bitter, heavy-smelling breeze blew from the sea. People found no relief: First they ran out of their simple homes, then they ran back inside. The old and the infirm had it worst of all. They tried to overcome the horrible searing heat by drinking tea and worried lest conditions grew even worse, but what was the use?

  When the sun did its worst, the sand got so hot it began to stir and whir
l over the hills, moving towards the sea. The searing dust twisted in the air as it blew over the village, down to the beach, and finally into the sea to temper the heat. The sea made its own depredations, sending water surging and boiling towards the houses, as it sought after a distant coolness only hinted at on the grey horizon.

  In the afternoon, an oppressive silence settled over the coast. Earth and Heaven vibrated in expectation of uncertain danger. Creatures of all kinds retreated to their homes: bird to nest, beast to den. Only the gulls gathered up and flew low over the dark waters, squawking away to secret redoubts.

  To the east and the west, where the battle between earth and sea was most pitched, grey cliffs drew back in trepidation as the sea mounted an offensive against them. The sea threw itself forward to escape from the scorching sun, head-butted the coast like a ram, and then retreated once more to recover strength from the replenishing depths until it could hit back even harder. At times, the water made inroads farther up the beach, scalding its extremities on the hot sand, hissing like a cobra. It would spit white froth as it rushed forward, then moan and draw back its amorphous fringes, licking wounds like an animal. A moment later, with that fervour of a cornered predator, it would throw itself towards the coast again.

  At the high water mark, it seemed like the eternal conflict between land and sea might finally be resolved.

  The sun didn’t set, but drowned in the steaming, black mists, leaving behind it little hope of ever rising again. In its wake, the rumbling sky cracked open and dissolved into a swathe of black.

  The villagers regarded these meteorological omens with dread. Old men with beards as white as their eyes sighed that they couldn’t recall an equal calamity in all their days. “Tonight the sea’ll certainly be a guest; there’ll be no sleep, lest it catch us unawares.”

  As always, people thought of Aypi, and some even prophesied that the storm corresponded with the foreigners from the legend. As a result, the faded old tale received a new infusion of life, and people grew even more frightened.