The Dead Lake by Hamid Ismailov Read Free Book Online Page A

was now soaked right down to the very last hair on its short tail.
    The rain and the thunder carried on into the evening. There was inky blackness on all sides. And, of course, going home was completely out of the question. That night they missed their indispensable television viewing and stayed in Petko’s trailer.
    *
    Aisulu and Yerzhan shared a bed. The girl soon drifted off. The boy, on the other hand, couldn’t sleep. As midnight approached he heard the wind howling and the rain lashing at the little trailer. And then he sensed eyes in the darkness. He looked around frightened and saw Petko standing beside their bed. Although the night was as black as pitch, Yerzhan felt the full force of the man’s gaze and lay very still, more dead than alive, not knowing what to expect and more afraid for Aisulu than for himself. But Petko must have become aware of the boy staring back at him, because he awkwardly busied himself adjusting the blanket that had slipped off. Yerzhan’s heart pounded hollowly and Petko’s keen musical ear caught the echoing rhythm of childish fear. He sat down on the edge of the bed, stroked Yerzhan’s head and said, ‘Sleep. Don’t be afraid, I’m here…’ Then he added, ‘Would you like me to tell you a story about an Eternal Boy?’
    And without waiting for a reply he started whispering: ‘A long, long time ago there was a boy called Wolfgang. Do you know what that name means? Walking wolf.’ Yerzhan shuddered at that – perhaps it was cunning Petko who had sent the wolf into the steppe? ‘This boy was such a talented musician that he could play any instrument with his eyes blindfolded. One night, when Wolfgang couldn’t sleep and picked out notes for his music from among the stars, the silver-faced moon climbed down from the sky and started dancing, enticing him to follow her outside into the street, along the river, to the lake. The music ofthis dance was so entrancing that the boy followed the moon on and on, unable to gather his wits or resist. The moon walked across the water, luring him ever further with her song. The boy followed her, and where the moon left only a shimmering silvery trail, full of magical sounds, the boy sank deeper and deeper into the water. His weightless soul seemed to be flying after the moon, but his body walked as if it was chained to the earthly paths of the wolf. The music sounded duller and duller, the water grew deeper and deeper above and around him. And then, finally, the silvery thread of music broke off. The eternal silence of silt and the lake bottom filled the boy’s ears and all the spaces of his body, and with his final breath he howled like a wolf…
    ‘The boy was saved – maybe by people, maybe by water nymphs, maybe by elves. His body continued to live and grew, but his soul stayed there in that night, at that lake, enchanted for ever by the moon and her silvery trail, full of music and dancing… And you remind me of that eternal boy,’ Petko finished, or perhaps Yerzhan was already dreaming and it wasn’t Petko’s words, but the rustling of the silvery rain outside the window bringing this sweet and terrible tale to an end.
    The next morning the thunderstorm had ceased, but the rain kept on and on. And the steppe was so wet and muddy that no donkey could have gone even two steps. Petko’s work had also been brought to a standstill by the weather, so after eating breakfast they took up the violin again and worked on Bohm and Handel by turns.
    The day passed and evening came, but the rain didn’t stop. How could they know that all this time Grandad Daulet, who had left his son Kepek on the tracks, and Shaken, who was out of his mind with worry over his only daughter, were galloping – one on a horse and one on a camel – round the houses of Yerzhan’s and Aisulu’s classmates, and couldn’t find them anywhere.
    Yerzhan and Aisulu returned home on the third day in the guilty sunshine on the cheerful donkey that had caught up on