Scull found in Acbalik

We were talking about Alex, whom I had once introduced to my friend Kolya in his studio.  Alex wasn’t my friend; he was the husband of Zhenka, a friend of my sister’s. I brought him to Kolya only once, but after that, he started showing up there on his own. He had this habit of making himself at home wherever he went. In this case, he got to know everyone in the state company, where Kolya worked as an artist and had a workshop in the basement. It all happened around a ping-pong table Kolya had set up there. During lunch breaks, employees—mostly pretty girls, whom Kolya favored—would come to play.

Alex quickly seduced the librarian and started meeting her in Kolya’s studio—at first with his permission, and later whenever he pleased, even when Kolya wasn’t there. The librarian knew how to get the key. They used a cozy cot hidden up on the mezzanine, which Kolya had built to store propaganda materials. Kolya didn’t like it, but Alex was shameless—nothing seemed to bother him.

- He comes, sits around, you can’t kick him out, gets in the way. The other day he picked up the skull and while talking, broke off all its teeth. I only noticed after he’d left. As if it were his own thing.

He was talking about a study skull model. The teeth were indeed broken out, and when put back, they didn’t hold well and stuck out awkwardly. Kolya and his fellow art students used that skull for drawing practice—he was studying at the art faculty back then.

At that time, I was getting ready for a hunting trip to Lake Balkhash. I invited my young coworker Vadim to come along. He was an avid hiker and agreed right away.

Compared to me, a forty-year-old at the time, Vadim was just a kid, fresh out of college. Now the age gap has evened out. In his Facebook photos, he has a gray, bristly beard. Though, of course, I don’t see myself from the outside either.

The route to the lagoon where we planned to hunt led through a little valley between dunes. Bones were scattered everywhere. The wind would cover them with sand, then uncover them again. The locals didn’t know where they came from, saying it had always been that way. For several years we had passed through those places without giving it much thought—until Vadim pointed out that the bones were human. Instantly, the idea came to me to bring Kolya a real skull.

There were countless bones there. You couldn’t even guess how many people lay buried beneath the sand. Most of the remains were surely hidden. Whoever seeks, finds. I searched for a skull and soon found two. One was in worse shape, but the other was perfect, complete with the lower jaw I found nearby. It still had all its teeth. I tried digging a bit in the surrounding sand with an aluminum plate, hoping to find some accompanying object, but finding nothing, I gave up. I wrapped the skull in newspaper, put it in my backpack, and off we went to the lagoon.

The hunt went well. The sun was shining, and the wind was mild. As soon as we pitched the tent, I bagged a couple of ducks just wandering off a bit to scout. Vadim, being the dedicated outdoorsman, immediately set off exploring, and after that, I hardly saw him. It wasn’t even discussed that he’d stay behind to mind the camp.

After the morning flight, I came back to camp expecting a mug of hot tea—but Vadim was asleep. I woke him, showed him the ducks, told him I’d go for another walk, and headed toward the point across the dunes. Suddenly, a partridge fluttered up from underfoot with a squeak. I shot it. A minute later, another one rose the same way. I hadn’t seen them here before. There was nothing special on the point, so I came back—but Vadim was still asleep. I woke him again.

- Look, two more partridges, - I said with mild reproach, as if to hint: see, while you sleep, others are working.

- I’ve still got two more dreams to finish, - he replied calmly.

There was nothing to do but make breakfast myself. Vadim showed up just as everything was ready.

He would disappear for the whole day. I’d fired him up with stories about Burlyu-Tobe—about a cemetery, piers, the ruins of a settlement and a barrack—and he resolved to get there. That was no short walk: at least twenty kilometers there and back over the dunes! He made it, but found none of what I’d described, and by then it was too late to search more. He returned in the dark.

As for me, after the morning hunt, I had my usual small drink and went to the shore with my gun. By that time there was nothing more to shoot—still, having the gun in hand made me feel better. Life buzzed all around. Overhead, a lone duck flew heavily, quacking anxiously. You could almost feel her turning her head, looking around. Nearby something splashed, dived. Bird chatter came from all directions. And all this under a black sky dusted with stars like flour.

At home, I examined the skull I’d brought back. The teeth weren’t worn—they were quite sharp and well-defined. Clearly, it belonged to a young person. It was delicate and small. In my mind, I covered it with flesh, and an image formed—of a teenage girl with braids, silver coin pendants woven into them.

I presented the skull to my friend Kolya, and it took an honorable place in his studio.

But I couldn’t get the skull—or that field of bones—out of my head. What had happened there? Where had all those remains come from? It was clearly not a cemetery. What massacre or calamity had left them? A plague epidemic? The Dzungars exterminating a Kazakh village? The Chinese wiping out a Dzungar camp? The traces of punitive measures by generals Skobelev’s or Chernyaev’s campaigns? Victims of the 1916 uprising? Or of the famine in the 1930s? I would never know.

That was in 1989. Two years later, the world that had seemed eternal began to crumble. Kolya’s studio was shut down. He left the country on a tourist visa and never came back. Now he lives in Canada. His children later joined him there. When I saw his son Gasha, who was the last to go, I asked him:
 
“What did you do with the skull?”

“The skull? Oh, right, there was one. We threw it out with the rest of the junk.”

By then I had already begun to realize that I had done wrong—disturbing the dead. After Sasha’s answer, I became completely certain of it. If only I could undo it… But nothing can be changed now.

Asking forgiveness is useless—and there’s no one left to ask.