The White Ship by Chingiz Aitmatov Read Free Book Online Page B

your feet. When the waves rise on the lake, when your ship begins to roll from side to side, it is our San-Tash wind that rocks the lake. Grandpa told me that a long, long time ago enemy armies were coming to take this land. Then such a wind blew from our San-Tash Mountains that the warriors could not stay in the saddle. They climbed down from their horses, but they could not walk, either. The wind slashed at their faces till they bled. And when they turned from the wind, it drove and drove them from the back so that they could not even glance around, until it drove them all from Issyk-Kul. That's what happened. But we live in this wind. It starts from our place. All winter long the forest across the river creaks and hums and moans in the wind. Sometimes I'm frightened to hear it.
    In wintertime there isn't much work in the woods. There are no people around at all—it isn't like the summer, when the herds come. I love it when people stop for the night in the big meadow in summertime, with their flocks of sheep or droves of horses. In the morning they go on into the mountains, but it's good when they come all the same. Their children and women come in trucks. The yurts and things are also carried by truck. When they settle down a bit, grandpa and I go out to greet them. He shakes every man's hand. I do too. Grandpa says younger people must always offer their hand to older ones. If you don't offer your hand, it means you have no respect for them. Grandpa also says that out of every seven men one might be a prophet. A prophet is a very good and clever man. And he who shakes his hand will be lucky all his life. But I say—if that is so, then why doesn't this prophet say that he's a prophet, and then everybody would shake his hand. Grandpa laughs: that's just the point, he says —the prophet doesn't know himself that he's a prophet; he is a simple man. Only a robber knows that he is a robber. I don't really understand this, but I always shake people's hands, although sometimes I feel very shy.
    But when grandpa and I go to the meadow, I don't feel shy.
    "Welcome to the summer pastures of our fathers and grandfathers! Is all well with the cattle and the folk? Are the children well?" That's what grandpa says. I only shake hands. Everybody knows grandpa, and he knows everybody. He has his own conversations with the visitors. He asks them questions, and he tells them about our lives. And I don't know what to talk about with the children. But then we start playing hide and seek, or war, and I get so excited I don't want to leave. If only it were summer all the time, then I could always play with the children in the meadow!
    While we are playing, the men light fires. Do you think, papa, that the fires light up the whole meadow? They don't. The light is only near the fire, but outside the circle it gets darker than before. And we play war, we hide and attack in the dark, and it's like being in a movie. If you are the commander, everybody obeys you. It's probably nice for a commander to be a commander.
    Then the moon comes up over the mountains. It's even more fun to play in the moonlight, but grandpa takes me home. We walk across the meadow, through shrubbery. The sheep lie quietly. The horses are grazing all around. We walk and hear someone start a song—a young shepherd, or maybe an old one. Grandpa stops me: "Listen. You won't often hear such songs." We stand, listening. Grandpa sighs and nods to the song.
    Grandpa says that in olden times a khan was captured in battle by another khan. And this other khan said to his captive: "If you wish, you can live with me as my slave. If not, I will fulfill your most cherished desire, and then I'll kill you." The other thought a moment, and said: "I will not live as a slave. Better kill me. But first call here a shepherd from my land, the first you meet." "What do you want him for?" "I want to hear him sing before I die." Grandpa says people would give their lives for a song of their homeland.