Зинаида Лонгортова - Khon Yush. Way From the Ob

«Fish. Eat!» Pointing to people and fish, the elderly Khanty tried to explain his arrival. The guards, looking at the bag with a fresh catch, began to talk:

«I'm really hungry. Maybe we should take it?»

«But why did they bring the fish? With what intent? Maybe they want to report on us?»

«They are always naive, meet everyone, treat them to tea!»

«Let's take the fish. I'm sick of these canned foods!»

«Let's give kulaks the remains. They should eat something hot. It's been a month without hot water!» Without further ado, the fair-haired guard pulled out a bag of fish from the old man, apparently their leader, and dumped the contents onto the grass. Fish, still alive, especially pike, moved their gills heavily without life-giving moisture. Returning the empty bag, he quickly pushed the old man to the shore:

«Get out of here, old man! You have nothing to do here. Or you will be taken to jail on a barge!»

No longer burdened with luggage, the man calmly, pleased that the guests would be full, walked to the boat without any fuss. Not knowing the Russian language, he could not understand that he was threatened. He had to put the networks in order, so there was no time for this talkative man in uniform. The could talk next time over a cup of tea.

Rowan and bird cherry trees with small, beaded northern fruits decorated the colorful autumn forest along the coast. The cheerful colors of a foreign land did not please, but soothed the souls of the guests. On the shore, the women who had left the barge the day before rattled with boilers and teapots. Some became bolder, and went along the sandy stretch to the Ob to collect water.

They stuffed teapots with lingonberry leaves, and collected rowen bursting at the edge of the forest like flames. The children stretched their hands to the branches of cherry bird berries. Finally, a fragrant life-giving drink would boil and the forces would return to people again. The pregnant Tatar, bent over, hugging the unborn child with her whole thin body, remained lying on the wide rosemary tubercle, dotted with the burgundy lingonberries she had taken overnight. The earth warmed her, attracting and hugging. She couldn't get up in the morning, although on a cold barge she tried to be on her feet all the way. Iron sucked heat from her body to the last drop, and only her heart and her baby, who sometimes pushed inside, reminded her that she was still alive.

Soon, the women not only boiled tea, but also made soup from the fish given by old people who were still standing on the shore, straightening nets for new fishing. The guards put large pieces of boiled fish in aluminum bowls, and sent it to their mouth with pleasure. The soup went to the kulaks. They had hot food for the first time in many days. Having counted all the people, women handed everyone a piece of boiled pike. One of the women came up to the Tatar and brought her a mug full of soup:

«Drink soup, eat fish, girl. Eat yourself and feed the baby, so that the baby is born strong.»

The young woman took a mug with a hot soup, made a sip and gratefully looked into the kind eyes of her fellow traveler. Many times during cold September nights on a barge, when the girl seemed that her breath would stop from the Ob cold night fog, this thin woman hugged her and warmed her stiff fingers with her breath to help her fight for life and for her child.

But before the pregnant woman started eating, her contractions began. After some time, the fading yellow leaves of the birch under the woman in labor startled as they heard the last breath of a dying woman. A little later, they heard a weak squeak of a newborn. Confused women stood near the young girl who had faded away at the beginning of her motherhood. Someone automatically took a cooled kettle, and began to wash the child. The orphaned baby was wrapped in rags left after the dead mother.

«What shall we do with the baby?» Exclaimed the woman who helped to give birth. «It'll die!»

«She couldn't even put it on her chest. She gave her last strength to give birth to this child. What shall we do with a baby in a deep forest, without breast milk?»

The confused guards jumped from the grass, shrugging their shoulders in bewilderment.

«Give the child to kulaks, and let them mess around. If it dies, so be it. We have nothing to do with this! This child is not on our lists» said the senior guard.

«After all, it was born alive. You can't bury it with his mother. It will suffer without milk,» said the second, dark-haired young guy, looking at the woman who had passed away in labor. Pulled out of the warm maternal house, he still could not get used to his new life. He saw many deaths along the long road, the grief of the settlers, and he was almost used to it. The endless tragedy raging across the earth touched the kind guard to the very heart, but he couldn't help anyone – he had no right to do so.

«Right. Why do we care?» their chief replied angrily.

«It's unaccounted. Maybe they won't ask about it. Let's give the baby to the old people that brought the fish,» one of the subordinates said quietly, as if convincing. They did not talk for a while. The chief was in a hopeless situation: he couldn't kill the child, and he was not devoid of human feelings. He had his own children waiting for him at home. He was tired of guarding innocent people who, overwhelmed by the grief in the loss of their home, did not even resist, as they were afraid to incur greater trouble. Soon a disgruntled shout was heard.

«Hey, Khanty people! Where are you? Still here?» they called the old people.

Husband and wife stood at the boat, bewildered. From the side of the river which had seen a lot as it quickly carried its waters, they looked at the unfolding tragedy.

«Hey, old man! Go ashore. Bring your wife here!»

With their eyes full of tears, women gave the newborn baby to the approaching fishermen. The little lump, wrapped in rags, was silent.

«Take it. It might survive. If no, who would ask?»

«Now go away! Yes, faster!» With a sigh of relief, the dark-haired guy hastily nudged the old men who did not understand anything – away from the place of the tragedy. The woman, lifting the hem of the upper dress, silently wrapped the newborn. Not knowing Russian, but realizing that the baby didn't have a place there and was their child now, she quickly walked to the boat, just in case the angry boss changed his mind and took it back. Her husband hurried to follow her.

Later, sitting in a sack, Anshem Iki asked his wife:

«Who is it, a girl or a boy?»

«I don't know! It's small, a newborn.»

Then, glancing up to heaven, she finally smiled, rejoicing at the unexpected gift, feeling a surge of motherhood from the small warm lump, like in her youth. She kissed the baby:

«Heia! Great Turam! What have we done so well that the goddess Kaltashch gave us a baby?»

«Who knows the deeds of the gods?»

«Heia!» Levne sighed bitterly. «You row faster. Hurry up! The child will freeze. It didn't have time to be put to his mother's breast!»

«We'll be there soon!» Anshem iki hastily rowed towards the stream, lifting oars with colored ocher lobes. «They gave us the child. What are we going to do with a hungry baby?»

«I'll go to Khutline now. Maybe she still has some milk?»

«What a grief she has. Any mother can lose her milk after things like yesterday.»

«Then it will appear. Not only is she in trouble, this baby also has grief- it is left without its mother. Her husband is alive. He's been taken for a while, but he will be back. And this orphan was born on damp earth. We are its closest people now!»

Anshem iki quickly went through the oars. In his little boat he carried the fate of someone else's baby, who had just breathed the autumn air on the land of his ancestors, in spite of the mighty, high-water river Ob. Native, lanthan, Khulan As, who had been prayed by his ancestors for centuries and brought a bloody sacrifice in the spring before the ice drift for feeding them, giving life, did not always favor people. The price for the survival of an entire nation was enormous: more than one victim in a year was taken by the river.

The boat landed, and the woman rushed to the neighbor's house, shouting to her husband on the run:

«Heat the water. Get granddaughter's cradle from the crib!»

Levne was already aging, but was still fast. She did not know how to think with her feet, like many of her slow neighbors. She walked as if someone was rushing her. Nature awarded her not only a quick gait, a sharp mind, but also a sympathetic heart. She gave birth to eleven daughters and only one son. All daughters were well-married, and the last one stayed with her. Her son was not lucky. During the birth his wife was taken by the Underground God, and only little Tatya pleased all the family members who loved this growing, cheerful little girl.

She hastily approached the house of the young shaman. There wasn't a single thin stream of smoke since yesterday.

Levne cleared her throat loudly, notifying that she wanted to enter as a guest, and threw back the entrance canopy of the dwelling. In the female place, she saw the mistress swaying lifelessly from side to side, while her rich, sonorous braids made plaintive sounds. Sometimes the woman began to howl. Children sat on deer skin beds silently, with their eyes full of tears. Hungry since yesterday, they stared at their mother. Levne went up to Khutline, crouching on one knee, stroking the destitute neighbor left without a husband, and showed her the child:

«They gave us a newborn child, from people abandoned yesterday on the shore. The exiles. The young Tatar gave birth and left for another world right away. It needs milk. Feed it, dear.»

«My milk is gone,» Khutline howled.

«That's fine. Put the orphan to your chest, and the goddess Kaltashch will help. Milk will appear. For some reason, the Mother of Heavenly Child gave us other blood, maybe we can grow it? You must help me with breast milk. Its hands and legs will get stronger, and it will run. And your daughter is also silent from hunger. Feed her too».

«I can't. I have no strength!» The hostess said, leaning her head back from the overwhelming grief, without tears, with dry sore eyes, slowly swaying.

«Take it, take it, and I'll put things in order here.»

Levne handed the baby into woman's hands, rose from her knee, went to the fire and fanned it with dry birch bark and slivers. She hung the kettle over the fire, and looked out of the house, carefully glancing toward the river. A fisherman approached the shore.

«Son, run to the boats,» she turned to the eldest son of Khutline, «it seems like Uncle Yuhur came from fishing. Tell him Aunt Levne is asking for some fish,» and hung a boiler with water over the fire. Khutline stared blankly at the strange child. Then, realizing what was required of her, she tried to feed the newborn.

«Looks like milk has appeared!» She soon said.

«Have our gods ever left an orphan?»

Khutline's son returned to the house, with a large whitefish hooked in his fingers. Silently glancing at his mother, he laid the fish on the mat. Following him, Yuhur came in and dumped his catch from the bag at the entrance to the same grassy mat.

«It's fresh. I caught it this morning, so you can make a narkhul. The whitefish rises to spawn, it's full of roe. I should go. My family has already woken up and kindled a fire in the hearth. I can see smoke rising from my house.»

«They're waiting with hot tea. You've got a good soulmate, khilyem!»

They heard the hostess weeping in the house.

«So now everyone is going to help me?» Cried Khutline.