Y.T. Read online
Y.T.
Copyright © 2011 by Alexei Nikitin
Translation copyright © 2013 by Anne Marie Jackson
First published in Russia by Ad Marginem Press. First English-language edition published under the title Istemi by Peter Owen Publishers, 2013. This edition published by arrangement with Peter Owen Publishers, London.
First Melville House printing: April 2016
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Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
2004
1984
2004
1984
1983
1984
1984
2004
About the Author
2004
My e-mail address is [email protected]. Whenever I give it out over the telephone the other person is sure to ask ‘Is what?’ ‘Istemi is a name,’ I say and spell it out, ‘I-S-T-E—ISTEMI.’ An address such as [email protected] or [email protected] would suit me better—my name is Alexander Davidov—but when I was setting up the account those addresses were already taken, and I didn’t feel like messing around with numbers and coming up with something along the lines of davidov04. Then I thought of Istemi.
Istemi was the last sovereign ruler of the Khanate of Zaporozhye. He brought an end to the war with the Arab Caliphates, and during the Taman crisis he sacked Deputy Hetman Bagratuni and personally flew out to Tver to settle the dispute with Slovenorussia. Istemi wasn’t afraid of losing face in front of President Betancourt, and as a result he won. He didn’t win the war, no, but he won the peace. He was exacting towards the government and severe with the parliament. Sometimes I was afraid of him myself.
These days no one even remembers him. In the encyclopedia you can read about another Istemi, the younger brother of Bumin. Fifteen centuries ago, backed by fifty thousand mounted Oghuz Turks, the brothers’ tribe attacked the Rouran Khanate. The Rouran fell as readily as if it had been awaiting the brothers’ appearance … and there and then the Khanate was resurrected under a new name. The new khan was Bumin. A year later Bumin died. He was succeeded first by one son then another. Bumin’s offspring expanded the new empire in the east. They gained control over the Kyrgyz on the Yenisei, demanded tribute from the Northern Qi and the Northern Zhou and reached as far as the shores of the Yellow Sea. But, according to the law of the steppe, the heartland of the tribe remained with Bumin’s younger brother Istemi. Istemi didn’t quarrel with his nephews or struggle against them for power. He headed west, gathering tribes and states like windfall plums. He concluded a treaty with the Sassanid Emperor Anushirvan Khosrau—the Philosopher King—then attacked and routed the Confederacy of the Hephthalites to the east. Certain details of this war can be found in the Persian Book of Kings. Istemi’s daughter married Khosrau and gave birth to crown prince Hormizd. The title of Yabgu Khan, King of the Hephthalites, remains part of the title of Istemi’s descendants to this day. In alliance with Byzantium Istemi attacked Iran, then, without any allies, he attacked the Byzantine possessions along the Black Sea. Istemi reached as far as the Bosporus, invaded Crimea and laid siege to Khersones.
But Istemi did not take Khersones, and he soon left Crimea. His successors, however, remained in Eastern Europe from then on. The Khanate alternately expanded its borders—reaching as far as the shores of the Adriatic to the west and the Baltic marshes to the north—then retreated from the onslaught of its neighbors into a scarcely distinguishable strip of land along the shores of the Black Sea. More than once it fell into enemy hands, and five centuries ago it lost its historic shrine, the ancient capital of the khans at the mouth of the Itil, now called the Volga. The name of the Khanate changed through time: Khazaria, Cimmeria, Zaporozhye. I might be confusing the Zaporozhian Istemi with his namesake in the encyclopedia—to this day the history of the Zaporozhian Khanate is full of dark spots, which Russians euphemistically call ‘white spots.’ But no one is ever going to fill them in now.
The final ruler of the Khanate, Istemi, disappeared exactly twenty years ago. The Khanate’s archive went missing at the same time. The circumstances of Istemi’s disappearance were tragic for me and four other people. They led to serious upheavals for three of us, an incurable illness for the fourth, and the fifth seems to have perished. The mailbox [email protected] was opened in the name of Istemi, but I was the only one who used it.
I check my e-mail twice a day. Early in the morning and in the evening. There’s no particular reason for this other than it just works for me. In the morning I have my breakfast half listening to the news on television and sifting through all the mail that has accumulated overnight. Usually it’s just spam and e-mails from friends now living in America. I get a lot of spam—I don’t know where it all comes from. But there isn’t much genuine mail. I discard the spam without looking at it, quickly read the mail and go to work. It’s late when I come back home, and before I go to bed I check my account again. In the evening I get mail from friends over here and even more spam. I take my time over my evening mail, then I glance at the morning mail once again and go to sleep shortly afterwards. Because in the evening, after work, all I can do is sleep. Nothing more. I answer my mail on Sundays, all at once. It’s just what’s easiest for me.
Work eats up all my time. I promote American fizzy drinks. It’s a tiresome, uninteresting job. I can’t imagine anyone actually liking it. Maybe that’s because I’m older than everyone else in our office. The young are gamblers—they see a career as a game. Bonuses, bonus points, career advancement … they’re like dogs chasing a mechanical hare. They’ll play along for five years or so, pursuing the hare, but then, like me, they’ll start scratching their heads and wondering what they’re wasting their time on. On helping a bunch of guys they’ve never even met to sell as many plastic bottles of sickly-sweet brown swill as possible—water with a bit of concentrate and masses of preservatives, flavorings and dyes … Wasting their time on that? Lots of people will start scratching their heads, but in the end it depends on the person. Most of them will sell fizzy drinks for the rest of their lives. The pay, mind you, is not to be sneezed at.
When I last checked my account there was an e-mail addressed to Istemi. Not to me but to him personally: for the attention of His Majesty, the Khan of the Khanate of Zaporozhye. The e-mail arrived in the morning, sent from a Hotmail address consisting of assorted letters and numbers which presumably made some sense to the account holder but which meant nothing to me. I was in a hurry to get to work, so I decided to wait until evening to read it. All day I regretted my decision, wondering who might have sent the e-mail and what was being proposed to His Majesty.
I read it in the evening:
Rome
9 March 2004
Your Majesty, my dear brother
In the spirit of friendship, I am forwarding to you herewith a copy of my ultimatum to Slovenorussia.
Please accept my warmest regards, etc., etc.
Karl
Attached to the e-mail was the ultimatum. I looked at it in astonishment, unable to believe I was seeing those words once more.
On Monday, the tenth of this month, the Imperial and Royal Government was compelled, through the offices of its Imperial and Royal Minister in Tver, to address the following to the Government of Slovenorussia:
Recent history has shown that there exists within Slovenorussia a revolutionary movement determined to detach fro
m the Holy Roman Empire a number of its territories.
This movement, which came into existence under the very eyes of the Slovenorussian Government, at long last has reached such proportions as to be manifest outside the borders of the Confederation in the shape of acts of terrorism—a series of murders and attempted murders. The Government of the Slovenorussian Confederation has undertaken no measures to suppress this movement.
It has tolerated the criminal activity of various societies and organizations against the Empire, the unrestrained zeal of the press, the participation of officers and officials in revolutionary activities, unwholesome propaganda in educational establishments and, in short, it has tolerated all manner of activity which may incite within the population of Slovenorussia hatred towards the Empire and contempt of its institutions.
The developments detailed above do not permit the Government of the Holy Roman Empire to henceforth maintain the patient and long-suffering stance which it has adopted for years in the face of events begun first in Tver and thence propagated throughout the territory of the Empire.
On the contrary, these circumstances compel it to bring to an end all such activities that threaten the peace within the Empire. Towards the achievement of these ends the Government of the Holy Roman Empire finds it necessary to demand that the Slovenorussian Government make an official statement to the effect that it condemns all propaganda directed against the Holy Roman Empire and that, as proof of the sincerity of this statement, it will withdraw all of its armed forces from the border of the Empire to the Marburg-Leibach-Trieste Line and return these cities, as well as the Istrian Peninsula, to the rightful possession of the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.
The Government of the Holy Roman Empire expects the answer of the Government of the Slovenorussian Confederation no later than six o’clock on Thursday evening, the eleventh of March of the current year.
I knew these words only too well. There was a time when I had read them repeatedly and knew them by heart. I had kept the yellowed sheets of writing paper on which the ultimatum was printed at our dacha, between pages 44 and 45 of an ancient issue of Youth, coverless and thick with dust.
The letter and appendix stayed hidden in the magazine for almost seven years. All that time I was afraid someone would find it, someone who was looking specifically for the ultimatum, or else that, one fine summer evening as darkness fell, the last remaining document connected to Istemi, Khan of Zaporozhye, would be used to kindle the family campfire—vodka, potatoes, the mournful strains of ‘Black Raven’ and the buzz of mosquitoes here for the warm season.
But nothing happened to the ultimatum at the dacha. I brought it home again in the early 1990s—by then it was no longer dangerous. But at home I lost it. There’s no point describing just how hard I searched for it. Words are insufficient. Soon I moved to a new apartment, then another. The ultimatum—sent by Karl XX, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, to the President of the Sloveno-russian Confederation, Stefan Betancourt, and copied to the President of the United Islamic Caliphates, Caliph Al-Ali, the Lama of Mongolia, Undur Gegen, the Khan of the Khanate of Zaporozhye, Istemi—the last and only remaining document, in my safekeeping, that referred to the history of those states had disappeared.
But evidently someone still had a copy. Who? I rang Kurochkin. Kurochkin didn’t answer.
1984
Getting arrested, it seemed, was a bit of a laugh. At first. As long as the serious, remarkably similar faces that had suddenly surrounded me remained unfamiliar, as long as my grasp of the absurdity of the situation did not give way to an uneasy sense of reality, hard and irrefutable as stone, as long as I was freely able to feel and think, it was fun.
They began by searching the house. The search lasted twenty hours, even though all the Khanate documents they were looking for—diplomatic correspondence, reconnaissance reports, extracts from the government’s annual report—were lying on the window ledge in three messy heaps and in a folder on my desk. All they had to do was neatly gather the papers together, put them in special canvas bags, and seal the bags. It would have taken thirty minutes. Half an hour. As for the remaining nineteen and a half hours, they could have had some beer, or vodka if they wanted it. Mama would have boiled some potatoes, sliced up some sausage and got out a jar of pickled gherkins. My mother made the most wonderful pickled gherkins, with garlic and dill, cherry leaves on occasion, sometimes even black currant leaves. So, instead of wallowing in the dust under the sofa, rapping at the walls and the floor, moving bookcases and taking down shelves without putting them back again, disturbing my books and underwear and old notebooks, instead of all that they could have munched on gherkins and burnt the tips of their fingers and tongues on tasty hot potatoes, drunk some beer and had a laugh. Afterwards they might have had a little nap. And all the while the sacks with the Khanate documents would just have been lying there, safely sealed and in the corner of the room. Then they would have woken up and gone off happily to work. Taking me with them.
They certainly took me with them. But they went away feeling bad-tempered, hungry and sleep-deprived. And I went with them feeling bad-tempered, hungry and confused. I didn’t understand what was happening.
The interrogations began several days later. Major Sinevusov, round and sallow pink, alternately oozed oil and venom. Once he finished with formalities he asked me to draw him a map of the Zaporozhye Khanate. He handed me a light-blue topographic map, the kind used in schools, and a red marker, bright and moist.
‘Roughly like this,’ I said a few minutes later and handed the map back to him.
The red line demarcating the territory of the Khanate from adjacent states ran along the southern and western borders of Bulgaria, cut across Romania and Ukraine and headed east just north of the small border town of Kiev. From the confluence of the Voronezh and the Don, the line followed the Don until it emptied into the Sea of Azov.
‘Roughly like this, then … roughly like this …’ The pores of Sinevusov’s face were glistening with oil. He took a handkerchief and mopped his forehead, cheeks and neck. ‘So that’s the Khanate of Zaporozhye?’
I nodded.
‘What about the capital? Why haven’t you shown the capital?’
‘The capital is Uman.’
‘Uman?’
‘Two million two hundred thousand inhabitants, according to the 1980 census. Uman.’
‘Uh-huh,’ the major snorted. ‘Put it on the map?’
I shrugged. ‘Sure.’
‘Uman—Two million two hundred thousand … So what else can you tell me? Pretend I’ve never heard anything about this state … which, in fact, I haven’t. Tell me more.’
‘What do you want me to say?’ I asked uncertainly. ‘That’s all there is to the entire state.’
‘Take your time,’ he said. ‘There’s no hurry, right? Be thorough. Give me details. Let’s begin with the way it’s organized. What’s the socio-political system?’
‘Constitutional monarchy.’
‘Excellent. A constitutional monarchy. Like Britain?’
‘Not quite. Everyone knows that the British queen reigns but doesn’t rule. The khan, however, wields real power, and his power is handed down by succession.’
‘What an old-fashioned form of government you have in your Khanate,’ said Sinevusov, not quite asking but without drawing a conclusion either.
I wasn’t going to argue, but I added, ‘The prime minister is appointed by the khan but approved by the parliament. The laws are ratified by the parliament but approved by the khan.’
‘Like I was saying,’ Sinevusov nodded, ‘an old-fashioned form of government. Very nineteenth century. Who’s looking after the interests of the working class? Or the laboring peasantry? Hmm? Enough. We can discuss that later. Carry on. Population size? Key branches of industry?’
‘The population is 118 million—’
‘According to the 1980 census?’
‘Yes.’
‘Brilliant. Carry on.’
>
‘It has a territory of one million one hundred thousand square kilometers. The state language is Zaporozhian—’
‘Even its own language …’
‘The monetary unit is the grivna. The state religion is Judaism.’
‘You’ve got Jews living there?’
‘No, Zaporozhians.’
‘And the religion is Judaism?’
‘Yes.’
The major exhaled heavily and wiped oil from his brow.
‘Very well … Your Zaporozhians go to the synagogue and settle their debts in grivnas …’
‘Actually religion and state are separate in the Khanate, although history has brought about precisely the situation you describe. Most Zaporozhians are Jews. You can’t rewrite history.’
‘Really?’ said the major with far more emphasis than necessary. ‘You’re telling me?’
I looked around. ‘Is there someone else here?’
‘Stick to the subject,’ said the major, disregarding my question. ‘Back to the Zaporozhians. There’s so much you can learn in the course of an ordinary interrogation. Now tell me about the Khanate’s army. And its foreign policy.’
‘The Khanate of Zaporozhye is economically and industrially developed. Per capita income is slightly higher than thirty thousand grivnas … I can’t remember the exact figures, but they’re in the papers somewhere.’
‘Indeed.’ The major nodded. ‘How much is that in roubles?’
‘I don’t know.’ I shrugged. ‘We didn’t value them in roubles.’
‘What currency did you value them in?’ There was a metallic edge to his voice, and the pores of his neck and brow oozed oil and venom at the same time. ‘Dollars? Marks? Israeli shekels?’
‘The Zaporozhian grivna is a hard currency. Other states can use grivnas to value their income and budgets. You’re interrupting me a great deal.’
Sinevusov nodded and said drily, ‘Carry on.’
‘The Khanate of Zaporozhye has a strong economy and solid industry,’ I repeated out of spite. ‘Machine building, instrument design, chemicals and agriculture are all well developed. The army is one million strong.’
Y.T.