The Dead Lake

This story began in the most prosaic fashion possible. I was travelling across the boundless steppes of Kazakhstan on a train. The journey had already taken four nights. Trackmen at remote way stations tapped on the wheels with their hammers, swearing in Kazakh. I felt myself swell with a secret pride that I could understand them. During the day the platforms and corridors of the carriages were awash with women’s and children’s versions of the same tongue. At every way station the train was boarded by ever more vendors – all women – peddling camel wool, sun-dried fish or simply pellets of dried sour milk.

Of course, that was a long time ago. Perhaps nowadays things have changed. Although somehow I doubt it.

Anyway, I was standing at one end of the carriage, gazing out – for the fourth day already – at the dreary, monotonous steppe, when a ten- or twelve-year-old boy appeared at the other end. He held a violin and suddenly started playing with such incredible dexterity and panache that at once all the compartment doors slid open and passengers’ drowsy faces appeared. What they heard wasn’t some flamboyant Gypsy refrain, or even a distinctive local melody; no, the boy played Brahms, one of the famous Hungarian Dances. He played as he walked, coming towards me. Then, just as he had the entire carriage gaping after him open-mouthed, he broke off in mid-note. He slung the violin back over his shoulder like a rifle. ‘Wholesome local beverage – entirely organic!’ he exclaimed in a thick, adult voice. He swung a canvas sack down off his other shoulder and pulled out an immense plastic bottle of a yoghurt drink, either ayran or kumis. I approached him, without even knowing why.

‘Young lad,’ I said, ‘how much is your kumis?’

‘In the first place, it’s not my kumis but the mare’s, and in the second place, it’s not kumis but ayran, and finally, I’m not a young lad!’ the urchin replied defiantly in perfect Russian.

‘You’re not a little girl though, are you?’ I clumsily attempted to smooth things over.

‘I’m not a woman, I’m a man! Like to try me? Drop your breeches!’ the youngster snarled back, loud enough for the whole carriage to hear.

I didn’t know whether to be angry or to try to soothe him. But after all, this was his land and I was the visitor here, so I softened my own tone of voice to ask, ‘Have I insulted you in some way? If I have, I’m sorry… But you play Brahms like a god…’

‘There’s no point insulting me. I’ll do any insulting there is to be done… I’m no young lad. Never mind my size, I’m twenty-seven. Got that?’ he asked in a voice lowered to a half-whisper.

Now that staggered me.

So that’s the beginning of the story. As I’ve already said, he looked like a perfectly normal ten- or twelve-year-old boy. No anomalous features marked him out as a midget or a dwarf, no disproportionate limbs, no wrinkles on the face or anything of the kind.

Naturally, I didn’t believe him at first, and it was obvious from my expression.

‘Right, here, take a look at my passport,’ he said, tugging the document out of his inside pocket with a well-practised movement.

While he sold his ayran to women who fussed over him delightedly (‘Where did you learn to play like that?’ ‘Can you play “Dark Eyes”? How about “Katyusha”?’), I stood there like a fool, my eyes wandering between the official document and his face. Everything matched. Looking out at me from the photo was the unspoilt face of a child.

‘What’s your name?’ I asked.

‘Yerzhan,’ he replied curtly, jabbing his finger at the passport.

‘Can I buy… some of your… I mean some ayran?’ I gabbled in a rather ludicrous, apologetic tone.

Taking back his passport, he replied, ‘Brahms, you say? The last bottle, take it. I’ve sold the lot…’

We went into my compartment to fetch the money, and since the old man in the place opposite mine was sound asleep, I asked Yerzhan to take a seat, adding that it made no sense to stand when we could sit…

‘Does anything make any sense?’ he retorted, suddenly prickly again, and his question seemed to be addressed, not to me, but to this train galloping across the steppe, to this blazing steppe spread out across the earth, to this earth, adrift between light and darkness, to this darkness, which…