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(Excerpt from Part One of the Book)
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
MAYER MEIR KALTENBRUNNER
LOVE IS STRONGER THAN DEATH
A Historical Novel
Kaltenbrunner Veritas Press
Oslo, Norway
2026
© 2026 Mayer Meir Kaltenbrunner
All rights reserved.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
This novel is a work of fiction created upon a historical foundation.
Woven into its narrative are authentic features of the period, geographical locations, historical processes, and elements of the life and customs of the peoples of Central Asia. At the same time, the destinies of the principal and secondary characters, their personalities, conversations, experiences, and a substantial part of the events described belong to the realm of literary fiction.
History preserves dates.
Memory preserves names.
But only the human heart can preserve that for which there is sometimes no place in chronicles or archives — love.
This is a book about such a love.
About a love that custom sought to subdue.
About a love that people tore apart.
About a love tested by distance, time, and history itself.
About a love that proved stronger than death.
Doctor of Philosophy
Mayer Meir Kaltenbrunner
“Love cannot be killed; it is stronger than death!..”
Abdulqadir Bedil
PART ONE BENEATH THE SKY OF KUGITANGTAU CHAPTER ONE
THE LAST RED TULIP
That day, not a single cloud appeared over Kugitangtau for a long while.
Spring was only beginning to claim the land, and the mountains had not yet lost that brief gentleness nature granted them between the cold of winter and the merciless heat of summer.
Young grass covered the stony slopes. Water glimmered in the crevices. Flowers pushed their way from beneath the grey rocks, and wherever the sun warmed the earth most generously, red tulips burned like little flames.
Far below lay the plain.
Beyond it, almost merging with the trembling horizon, flowed the Amu Darya.
From this height, the great river seemed peaceful.
But the old men said its tranquillity could never be trusted.
The Amu Darya could feed a man, and it could take everything from him. It could bring water to his fields, return a lost boat to the shore, join distant lands — and in a single night it could also destroy a riverbank, swallow a house, and carry a human being away to a place from which no one ever returned.
Selbi loved looking at the river from afar.
It seemed to her that another world began beyond the Amu Darya.
What kind of world it was, she did not know.
She had never travelled farther than the surrounding settlements and could not even imagine how many lands lay there, beyond the river, beyond the desert, beyond the mountains.
Yet sometimes she longed to know.
“Selbi!”
She turned around.
Shageldy stood higher up the slope.
In his hand was a red tulip.
“What are you doing up there?” she called.
“Looking for something!”
“For what?”
“I’m not telling you!”
Selbi laughed.
“Then stop looking!”
Shageldy called something back, but the wind carried his words away.
A few moments later, he began making his way down.
He moved quickly, lightly leaping from stone to stone. Several times he nearly slipped, yet each time he caught himself and continued his descent with the air of someone performing a feat of daring that Selbi absolutely had to witness.
She pretended not to be watching.
A small armful of tulips he had already brought her lay before her.
Selbi examined them one by one.
Red.
Another red one.
A little darker.
A tiny one.
She chose the most beautiful and raised it to her face.
“Here.”
Shageldy was already standing beside her.
He held out the flower.
“Another one?”
“This one is different.”
“They’re all the same.”
“No.”
“What makes this one better?”
Shageldy sat beside her.
“It’s the last one.”
Selbi looked at him.
“What do you mean, the last one?”
“Up there. I searched everywhere. There isn’t another one.”
“So you picked the last flower?”
“For you.”
Selbi frowned.
“Why?”
Shageldy was taken aback.
He had expected a smile, gratitude — anything but that question.
“To give it to you.”
“What if it wanted to keep growing?”
“What?”
“The tulip.”
Shageldy laughed.
“Flowers don’t want anything.”
“How do you know?”
“They aren’t people.”
“So you think that means they can’t feel pain?”
Now Shageldy looked at her quite seriously.
Selbi carefully took the flower from his hand.
“I feel sorry for it,” she said. “It stood there alone on the whole mountain. Maybe it liked looking down from above.”
“At what?”
“At everything.”
She gestured toward the plain.
“At Bazar-Tepe. At the river. At the mountains. At us.”
“A flower can’t see.”
“You understand nothing, Shageldy.”
He smiled.
“But you understand everything.”
“Of course.”
“Then tell me what it’s thinking now.”
Selbi looked at the tulip.
“It’s wondering why you picked it.”
They laughed.
It was easy for them to laugh.
They did not yet know how rare, in a human life, are the days when one can sit beneath a spring sky beside the person one loves and feel no fear of tomorrow morning.
They thought it would always be this way.
Shageldy was seventeen.
Selbi was fifteen.
They had known each other for almost as long as they could remember.
Once, he used to pull her braids.
She would throw little stones at him.
Later they herded goats together, searched for birds’ nests, raced each other to the stream, hid from the adults, and quarrelled over trifles with such fury that one might have thought the fate of the entire world depended upon the outcome of their disputes.
But something had changed during the previous winter.
No one had told them what had happened.
One day, Shageldy simply noticed that Selbi had become different.
Suddenly, he saw her eyes.
He had always known that they were large and dark.
Now, however, he discovered that it was impossible to look into them for very long.
Selbi, too, began noticing strange things.
Why did she want to know whether Shageldy would come to the mountains?
Why did she instinctively adjust her hair whenever she heard his voice?
Why, when he spoke to another girl, did an unpleasant feeling she had never known before appear somewhere deep inside her?
They did not speak about it.
And why should they?
At fifteen and seventeen, people believe that love simply exists by itself and requires neither permission nor explanation.
“Selbi…”
“What?”
Shageldy was silent for a moment.
“If you could leave here and go anywhere in the world, where would you go?”
She looked surprised.
“Why would I leave?”
“Just imagine.”
Selbi looked toward the plain.
“I don’t know.”
“To Bukhara?”
“I’ve never seen it.”
“That’s why I’m asking.”
“Maybe.”
“To Samarkand?”
“Maybe.”
“Beyond the Amu Darya?”
She thought for a moment.
“It’s frightening there.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know what’s there.”
Shageldy plucked a blade of grass.
“I’d like to see it.”
“See what?”
“The world.”
Selbi smiled.
“You’ve barely seen Bazar-Tepe.”
“I have.”
“You go to the bazaar on Fridays and suddenly you’re a traveller?”
“You’ll see. One day I’ll go far away.”
Selbi stopped smiling.
“Alone?”
Shageldy looked at her.
The question had been spoken quietly, almost indifferently, yet he heard something in it that suddenly made his heart beat faster.
“No,” he said.
“Then with whom?”
He wanted to answer.
Perhaps it was at that very moment, for the first time in his life, that Shageldy was ready to tell Selbi what he had long known without words.
But thunder rolled over the mountains.
Both of them looked up.
Only moments earlier the sky had been clear, but now a heavy blue-black cloud had appeared above the distant peaks.
“Where did that come from?” Selbi asked in surprise.
Shageldy rose to his feet.
The wind grew stronger.
It swept down from the mountains without warning, bending the grass, stirring the bushes, and tearing one of the tulips from the girl’s hands.
The flower fell to the ground and rolled down the slope.
“Wait!”
Selbi ran after it.
“Leave it!” Shageldy shouted.
But she had already caught up with the flower.
She picked it up.
Pressed it to her breast.
Shageldy watched her and smiled.
“You said yourself it was already dead.”
“That’s exactly why it mustn’t be abandoned.”
The second peal of thunder was much closer.
The sun vanished.
The mountains changed at once.
A moment before they had seemed warm and gentle; now they became severe, almost black.
Selbi looked upward.
And for the first time that day, she felt uneasy.
Bazar-Tepe stood upon ancient ground.
None of its inhabitants could remember who had first settled upon that hill.
The old men told different stories.
Some said that a fortress had once stood there.
Others insisted that treasures belonging to ancient kings were hidden beneath the hill.
Still others told of armies that had passed through these lands long before their grandfathers and great-grandfathers were born.
The earth remembered more than people did.
It had seen the warriors of Alexander the Great.
It had seen caravans.
It had seen the conquerors of Genghis Khan.
It had seen the armies of Timur.
Some came believing themselves masters of the world; others fled from this place merely to save their lives.
Rulers changed.
States disappeared.
New ones arose.
The mountains remained.
The Amu Darya remained.
Human fear of the unknown remained.
And love remained.
By the end of the nineteenth century, Bazar-Tepe lived according to its ancient laws.
On Fridays, the square filled with merchants. Wool, carpets, salt, livestock, cloth, metal vessels, and countless objects that local people saw only at the bazaar were brought from distant places.
The mosque rose above the settlement.
Five times a day, the voice of the muezzin travelled over the flat roofs of houses, over yurts, courtyards, and livestock pens.
People stopped their work.
The men prayed.
Then life continued.
Women kindled fires in the tandyrs.
They baked churek.
They milked goats.
They wove carpets.
The men tended the herds, worked in the salt fields, traded, argued, and bargained.
Children grew.
Girls became brides.
Boys became men.
Everyone knew their place.
That was how things were done.
That was how their fathers had lived.
That was how their grandfathers had lived.
That was what custom demanded.
And in Bazar-Tepe, custom was sometimes stronger than a person’s wishes.
Stronger than a person’s voice.
Sometimes — stronger than the law.
And almost always — stronger than a woman.
Selbi did not yet know that her fate was already being discussed without her.
While she sat in the mountains beside Shageldy, protecting the last red tulip from the wind, her father’s household had, for the first time, seriously spoken the name of the man to whom they intended to give her in marriage.
Mullah Lupulla.
Selbi was fifteen years old.
She loved Shageldy.
But no one intended to ask her about love.
The hail came suddenly.
The first heavy drops had scarcely had time to soak into the dry earth when white pellets of ice began falling from the sky.
“Run!” Shageldy shouted.
Selbi covered her head with her hands.
“Where?”
“To the rocks!”
The goats bleated all around them.
Through the roar of the rain came the shouts of shepherds.
Thunder struck very close, and Selbi cried out.
Shageldy seized her hand.
“Don’t be afraid!”
They ran.
Selbi slipped several times. Once she nearly fell, but Shageldy caught her.
The rocky shelter was only a short distance away.
Hail struck their shoulders, backs, and heads.
“Faster!”
They reached the shelter almost at the same moment as the other children.
The goats crowded against the stone wall.
Someone was laughing.
Someone was cursing.
Someone was trying to catch an animal that had broken away.
Selbi leaned against the cold rock, breathing heavily.
Shageldy stood beside her.
Only then did she notice that she was still holding his hand.
She quickly withdrew her fingers.
Shageldy said nothing.
But he smiled.
“What are you smiling at?”
“Nothing.”
“Then don’t look.”
“Where?”
“At me.”
“Where am I supposed to look?”
“Over there.”
Selbi pointed toward the rain.
“You can’t see anything there.”
“Good.”
They smiled again.
Suddenly, lightning tore across the sky.
Selbi flinched and, without thinking, moved closer to Shageldy.
This time he did not smile.
He gently covered her hand with his own.
She did not pull it away.
Thunder rolled over Kugitangtau.
Water streamed down the rocks.
The wind hurled rain into the stone shelter.
There were people and animals all around them, and voices could be heard everywhere.
But for Shageldy, at that moment, only one thing existed — the hand resting in his palm.
And for Selbi — the warmth of his fingers.
“Selbi…”
She raised her eyes.
“What?”
Shageldy looked around.
No one was paying attention to them.
“I wanted to tell you…”
She waited.
For the first time, he became afraid of his own words.
“What?”
“I…”
Thunder crashed through the gorge.
And then something strange happened.
The rain began to weaken.
The hail stopped.
For several more moments, water continued streaming down the rocks; then sunlight appeared between the torn clouds.
One of the children shouted with joy.
The goats began moving out of the shelter.
“It’s over!” one of the boys said. “Let’s go!”
Selbi looked at Shageldy.
“What did you want to tell me?”
He hesitated.
“Later.”
“Why later?”
“I’ll tell you when we’re alone.”
She smiled.
“Then you’ll never tell me.”
“I will.”
“We’ll see.”
They stepped out of the shelter.
After the storm, the world seemed new.
The stones gleamed.
Drops of water hung from every blade of grass.
The air had become colder and clearer.
Far above the plain, the sun appeared once more.
Selbi took several steps and stopped.
“Shageldy…”
There was something in her voice that immediately put him on alert.
“What?”
“Do you hear that?”
He listened.
At first, nothing.
Then a rumbling came from somewhere deep within the mountains.
Very distant.
Muffled.
But rapidly growing louder.
Shageldy frowned.
The children fell silent as well.
The rumbling grew stronger.
It sounded as though an enormous herd were rushing somewhere beyond the mountains.
Or thousands of horsemen were galloping toward them.
Someone screamed:
“Flood!”
Shageldy spun around.
From behind a bend in the gorge came water.
Not merely water — a moving wall of earth, stones, broken branches, and filthy foam.
It thundered downward as though the mountain itself were collapsing.
“Higher ground!” Shageldy shouted. “Everyone, climb!”
Panic erupted.
The goats scattered wildly.
The children rushed toward the slope.
Selbi stood motionless.
She had never seen anything like it.
“Selbi!”
Shageldy grabbed her.
The torrent was already close.
“Run!”
They began scrambling upward.
Stones crumbled beneath their feet.
Selbi fell.
Shageldy yanked her up by the hand.
Below them, the water burst into the place where they had been standing only moments before.
The muddy torrent swept away a goat.
Then another.
A tree slammed into a rock and broke apart.
Someone was screaming.
Selbi slipped again.
This time Shageldy wrapped an arm around her waist and practically dragged her onto a rocky ledge.
They collapsed beside each other.
For several moments, neither could speak.
Below them, the water roared.
Selbi lifted her head.
“Everyone…?”
“I don’t know.”
She saw the torrent carrying away a white goat.
“Ours!”
Selbi tried to rise.
Shageldy held her back.
“Stay here!”
“Let me go!”
“You’ll be killed!”
“The goat!”
“Selbi!”
She struggled against him.
Then he pulled her against himself.
“Let it carry away every goat in the world! I won’t let you go down there!”
She froze.
For the first time, they were so close to one another.
Selbi could hear his breathing.
She could feel how violently his heart was beating.
And suddenly she began to cry.
Not because of the goat.
Not because of the flood.
She herself did not know why.
Shageldy was frightened.
“Selbi…”
She covered her face with her hands.
“Don’t cry.”
He gently moved her hands away.
“Look at me.”
She did.
“I won’t let you die. Do you hear me?”
Selbi nodded.
“Never.”
“Don’t say that.”
“Why?”
“You mustn’t promise ‘never.’”
“Why not?”
She answered very quietly:
“Because no one knows their fate.”
Shageldy looked at her for a long time.
Then he said:
“Then let fate hear me.”
He took both her hands in his.
“Whatever happens, I will never abandon you.”
Selbi turned pale.
Perhaps it was at that very moment that she understood for the first time that she loved him.
Not with the affection of childhood.
Not from habit.
Not simply because they had grown up together.
But with the kind of love after which a person can never again be what they once were.
“And I love you,” she whispered.
Shageldy froze.
“What?”
Selbi lowered her eyes.
“Nothing.”
“No. Say it again.”
She shook her head.
“Selbi.”
“I won’t.”
“I heard you.”
“Then why are you asking?”
He smiled.
So did she.
And below them, the flood continued to roar.
The water carried stones, trees, and dead animals toward the plain and onward, toward the great river.
Above Kugitangtau, the blue sky was returning.
And among the flowers scattered across the wet earth lay a red tulip.
The same one.
The last one.
Selbi had lost it while running from the water.
Shageldy saw the flower first.
He climbed several steps down, picked it up, and returned.
Its stem was broken.
Its petals were bruised.
But the flower was still red.
Shageldy held it out to Selbi.
“Take it.”
She carefully placed the tulip in her palm.
“You see?” she said. “It’s still alive.”
Shageldy looked into her eyes.
“Then it will survive.”
Many years later, Selbi would remember those words.
She would forget some faces.
She would forget the voices of people she had once known.
She would forget days and years.
But she would never forget the rain-soaked slope of Kugitangtau, Shageldy’s hand, and the broken red tulip resting in her palm.
For it was on that day that the story began of a love destined to pass through separation, the violence of human will, foreign lands, wars, time, and death.
And yet not die.
PART ONE
BENEATH THE SKY OF KUGITANGTAU
CHAPTER TWO
WHEN OTHERS DECIDE YOUR FATE
By evening, Bazar-Tepe already knew what had happened in the mountains.
In a small settlement, news travels faster than the wind.
The shepherds had not yet brought back the surviving goats, the women had not yet counted the animals, and the men had not yet climbed into the gorge to see how much damage the sudden flood had caused, yet people were already saying that the water had swept away half the herd, destroyed the road, and nearly killed the children.
With every telling, the story grew more frightening.
They said a boy had died.
A few minutes later, there were three dead boys.
Then someone reported that the children were alive, but two girls were missing.
At last, the first shepherds appeared on the road, and people began coming out to meet them.
Selbi walked at the very end.
Her clothes were wet and stained with mud. Strands of hair had escaped from beneath her headscarf. A dark scratch marked her right palm, though she had not even noticed it.
But what frightened her most was not what her father might say.
She was afraid of losing the flower.
She had hidden the broken red tulip beneath her clothes, and several times along the way she had cautiously touched it to make sure it was still there.
It was.
And so, for the moment, nothing else seemed quite as important.
Her mother was already waiting outside the house.
When she saw her daughter, she froze for an instant, then hurried toward her and seized her by the shoulders.
“Where have you been?”
“In the mountains.”
“I know you were in the mountains! What happened?”
“There was a flood.”
“I’ve heard about the flood!”
Her mother examined her face, her hands, her clothes.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“Show me your hands.”
“Mother, I’m all right.”
Her mother pulled her close.
Only for a moment.
Then she released her, almost as though ashamed of having revealed her fear.
“Go inside. Change your clothes. Your father has already asked about you.”
At those last words, Selbi became wary.
“Is he angry?”
“Go.”
That was enough.
She entered the courtyard.
Everything there was exactly as she had left it that morning.
Large clay vessels filled with water stood against the wall. Dry branches lay beside the tandyr. Clothes hung from a rope to dry. Chickens scratched about in the far corner of the yard.
An ordinary house.
An ordinary evening.
Only Selbi was no longer the same girl who had walked through those gates that morning.
That morning, she had not yet known whether Shageldy loved her.
Now she knew.
And she herself had told him what she had never before dared to say, even when she was alone.
“And I love you.”
Three words.
She repeated them silently.
And smiled.
“What are you smiling about?”
Selbi started.
Her grandmother was sitting by the wall.
The old woman was sorting wool and seemed not to be looking at her granddaughter at all.
But very little ever escaped her eyes.
“Nothing.”
“People don’t smile for no reason.”
“I do.”
“Then there is a reason.”
Selbi said nothing.
Her grandmother raised her head.
For several moments she studied the girl carefully.
“Come here.”
Selbi approached.
“Closer.”
She took another step.
The old woman took her by the chin and turned her face toward the light.
“Your eyes are different.”
Selbi felt her cheeks grow hot.
“Different how?”
“A girl has eyes like that for only two reasons.”
“What reasons?”
“Either she has been crying a great deal…”
Her grandmother paused.
“Or she has fallen deeply in love.”
Selbi pulled away.
“Grandmother!”
The old woman laughed.
“So it’s the second.”
“It doesn’t mean anything.”
“Of course not.”
“Really!”
“I believe you.”
But her face made it perfectly clear that she did not believe a single word.
Selbi hurried into the house.
The small room was cool.
She closed the door behind her, removed her wet clothes, and only then took out the tulip.
The flower looked pitiful.
Its stem was almost broken in two. One petal had fallen away. The others had darkened with water.
Selbi carefully laid it on a piece of cloth.
She remembered Shageldy’s voice:
“Then let fate hear me.”
Once again she felt his hands.
She remembered how he had held her close while the water roared below them.
And his words:
“Whatever happens, I will never abandon you.”
Selbi closed her eyes.
She was fifteen years old and did not yet know how merciless the words “whatever happens” could be.
To her, they meant only one thing:
Shageldy would be there.
Tomorrow.
A week from now.
A year from now.
Always.
She found a small piece of clean cloth, wrapped the flower in it, and hid it among her belongings.
Then she thought better of it and took it out again.
No.
Her mother might find it there.
Selbi looked around.
Near her bed, there was a small crack between the clay bricks of the wall.
Carefully, she slipped the little bundle inside.
Now no one would see it.
It was her first secret.
And she did not yet know that very soon secrets would become the only things that truly belonged to her.
When the sun sank behind the mountains, the air quickly grew colder.
Smoke from the evening hearths rose above Bazar-Tepe.
The air smelled of bread, dung, smoke, and boiled meat.
Somewhere a child was crying.
Women called to one another across the courtyards.
Dogs barked.
From the far end of the settlement came the sound of a hammer striking.
Life was returning to its familiar order, as though the mountains had not tried that very afternoon to remind people how fragile everything they believed eternal truly was.
Shageldy sat outside his house, staring at the road.
His mother called him twice to supper.
He did not hear her.
Or pretended not to.
Two words echoed in his mind.
“And I.”
He smiled at them.
Repeated them.
Wondered whether he had truly heard them.
Then he remembered Selbi’s face and knew that he had.
The world had suddenly become astonishingly simple.
He felt that now he could do anything.
Earn money.
Build a house.
Buy livestock.
Become a man whose proposal of marriage would be received not with ridicule, but with respect.
He did not yet know exactly how he would accomplish any of it.
But at seventeen, the unknown does not frighten a person as it does at forty.
At seventeen, it is called the future.
Shageldy picked up a small stone and tossed it into the dust.
Tomorrow he would see Selbi.
He only had to find a place where no one would disturb them.
And then, at last, he would tell her everything.
Not half of it.
Not in hints.
But plainly.
That he loved her.
That he wanted to marry her.
That one day he would go to her father as a man capable of answering for his own words.
The thought filled him with fear and happiness at once.
“Why are you sitting there?”
Shageldy turned.
His father stood before him.
“Nothing.”
“When a man sits staring at the ground and smiling, he has either found gold or lost his mind.”
Shageldy grinned.
“I haven’t found any gold.”
“Then it must be the second.”
His father sat beside him.
For a while, neither of them spoke.
“They say the flood was strong today.”
“It was.”
“Was anyone hurt?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Livestock?”
“A few goats were swept away.”
“You?”
Shageldy looked at his father.
“What about me?”
“It didn’t sweep you away?”
“As you can see.”
His father nodded.
“Good.”
And fell silent again.
In their world, men rarely told one another that they had been afraid of losing a son.
There were other words for that.
Sometimes one was enough:
“Good.”
At that same hour, men had gathered in Selbi’s house.
She discovered it by accident.
Her mother told her to carry tea into the large room.
“Who has come?” Selbi asked.
“Guests.”
“What guests?”
“None of your concern.”
The answer was ordinary.
But her mother’s voice was not.
Selbi sensed it immediately.
She placed the tea bowls on a tray.
“Is Father there?”
“Yes.”
“Who else?”
Her mother looked sharply at her.
“Selbi.”
The girl lowered her eyes.
“I only asked.”
“Do not ask about men’s conversations.”
Selbi picked up the tray.
As she approached the door, someone inside was speaking.
The voice was unfamiliar.
Low.
Calm.
Selbi entered.
The men were seated on the carpet.
Her father sat against the wall.
Beside him were two relatives whom Selbi knew well.
Opposite them sat a man of about forty, perhaps a little older.
She had seen him before.
Of course she had.
Everyone in Bazar-Tepe knew Mullah Lupulla.
He was dressed considerably better than most of the men in the settlement. His beard was neatly trimmed. A ring with a dark stone gleamed on his finger.
He spoke quietly.
He did not need to raise his voice to make others fall silent.
When Selbi entered, the conversation stopped.
She felt the men’s eyes upon her.
One pair in particular.
Lupulla was looking at her.
Not for long.
Only for a few moments.
But for some reason, Selbi felt uncomfortable.
She set down the tea.
Her father said:
“Go.”
Selbi left.
Just as she was closing the door, she heard:
“A good girl.”
She stopped.
The voice belonged to Lupulla.
Her father answered something.
Selbi could not make it out.
She took one step.
Then another.
And suddenly she heard a word that made her stop again.
“Kalym…”
Selbi froze.
Her heart beat harder.
She leaned against the wall.
Voices came from inside the room, but now the men were speaking more quietly.
She could no longer distinguish individual words.
Selbi stood motionless.
Kalym.
Why were they talking about a bride-price?
She already knew the answer.
But sometimes a person asks a question not because they do not know the answer.
They ask because they are afraid to say the answer aloud, even to themselves.
Lupulla’s voice came from the room again.
“I am in no hurry.”
A pause.
“But a good girl is not left without suitors for long.”
Someone laughed.
Selbi felt cold.
She quickly moved away from the door.
In the courtyard, her mother saw her face.
“What happened?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re pale.”
“I’m cold.”
Her mother looked at her.
And Selbi understood.
She knew.
Her mother knew everything.
“Mother…”
The woman turned away.
“Go and help your grandmother.”
“Mother, why did Mullah Lupulla come?”
“I told you: go to your grandmother.”
“They were talking about kalym.”
Her mother remained silent.
“Mother.”
“Not now.”
“Is it about me?”
The woman turned sharply.
For an instant, something resembling pain appeared in her eyes.
Only for an instant.
“Go.”
“Tell me.”
“Selbi!”
“Is it about me?”
Her mother stepped closer.
“Quiet.”
“Why?”
“Because your father will hear you.”
“Let him hear.”
Her mother seized her by the arm.
“Never speak like that again.”
Selbi stared at her.
“They want to give me to him?”
The woman did not answer.
And that silence became the answer.
“I don’t want to.”
“Quiet.”
“I won’t marry him.”
“Be silent.”
“I won’t!”
Her mother covered her mouth with her hand.
“Do you want them to hear you?”
Tears appeared in Selbi’s eyes.
Her mother removed her hand.
For several moments, the two women looked at each other.
One already knew what it meant to live according to someone else’s decision.
The other was only beginning to understand.
“Listen to me,” her mother said quietly. “Do not say anything now. To anyone. Especially not to your father.”
“But…”
“Nothing.”
“Why?”
Her mother glanced toward the door of the room where the men were sitting.
“Because sometimes silence gives a person time.”
“For what?”
Her mother looked at her daughter.
“To understand what to do next.”
It was the first ray of hope.
Small.
Almost invisible.
But Selbi seized upon it.
“Will you help me?”
Her mother did not answer for a long time.
“Go to your grandmother.”
“Mother…”
“Go.”
She walked away.
Selbi remained alone.
The men talked for a long time.
Selbi lay beside the wall and listened to their voices.
She could no longer make out the words.
Only voices.
Sometimes laughter.
Sometimes coughing.
Sometimes silence fell.
Then the conversation began again.
Her grandmother had long since fallen asleep.
Her mother moved through the house almost without a sound.
Selbi waited.
When the guests finally left, she heard her father’s voice.
Then her mother’s.
They were speaking quietly.
Selbi rose.
Went to the wall.
Listened.
“He is a respected man,” her father was saying.
Her mother answered something.
“What do you mean, older? A man should be older than his wife.”
Another quiet reply.
“She will get used to it.”
Selbi covered her mouth with her hand.
Her father continued:
“She is fifteen. What does she understand?”
A pause.
“We know better what is good for her.”
Selbi slowly lowered herself onto her bed.
Those words were more frightening than a shout.
“We know better what is good for her.”
She stared into the darkness.
Only a few hours earlier, Shageldy had told her:
“Whatever happens, I will never abandon you.”
And now her father was saying:
“She will get used to it.”
Two men.
Two wills.
Two utterly different futures.
And between them — her.
Selbi reached toward the crack in the wall.
She took out the little bundle.
Unwrapped the cloth.
In the darkness, the red colour was barely visible.
She gently touched the broken stem.
“Shageldy…” she whispered.
Beyond the wall, her father continued discussing her life.
The house.
Lupulla’s family.
The bride-price.
The timing.
Selbi no longer heard the words.
She pressed the tulip to her breast.
She wanted to cry.
But she did not.
For some reason, she felt that if she cried now, it would mean accepting that everything had already been decided.
And she did not accept it.
Not yet.
She closed her eyes.
Once again she saw the mountains after the rain.
The wet stones.
The blue sky.
Shageldy.
His hand.
His eyes.
“Then let fate hear me.”
Selbi whispered:
“Then let it hear me too.”
She did not know to whom she was speaking.
To God.
To the mountains.
To the Amu Darya.
To fate.
Or to the boy who was only a few hundred paces away and who, at that very moment, perhaps was not sleeping either.
“I will not give you up,” she whispered.
And she herself was frightened by her own words.
Because for the first time in her life, she had said not what others expected of her.
But what she herself wanted.
Beyond the wall, the men were deciding her fate.
They were talking about the bride-price.
She was thinking about love.
And none of them yet knew that on that night, something was born for the first time within the fifteen-year-old girl that would one day prove stronger than fear.
Will.
And far beyond Bazar-Tepe, the Amu Darya flowed through the darkness.
It carried its waters past riverbanks, settlements, and ancient ruins.
It was indifferent to human agreements.
It did not know what a bride-price was.
It did not know Lupulla’s name.
It did not know Selbi’s name.
It did not know Shageldy’s name.
It simply flowed.
Just as it had flowed before they were born.
Just as it would flow after they were dead.
But very soon, this great river would enter their fate.
It would carry one of them far from home.
It would leave the other behind to wait.
And between them would lie years, roads, and an entire age.
For now, however, only a few hundred paces separated them.
Shageldy fell asleep happy.
Selbi lay awake with her eyes open.
He believed that tomorrow their love would begin.
She already knew:
tomorrow, the struggle for it would begin.
PART ONE
BENEATH THE SKY OF KUGITANGTAU
CHAPTER THREE
THE WORD THAT CHANGED EVERYTHING
Morning came to Bazar-Tepe as though nothing had happened the day before.
The sun rose above the mountains.
Women appeared on the flat rooftops of the houses. The first hearth fires were lit in the courtyards. Somewhere, a child woke crying. Wooden buckets clattered. Beyond the gates, goats wandered lazily along.
From afar came the voice of the muezzin.
The settlement was awakening.
Only Selbi had barely slept.
She lay with her eyes closed, hearing every sound.
Her mother’s footsteps.
Her father’s cough.
The rustle of clothing.
The creak of a door.
Voices in the courtyard.
Several times during the night, everything she had heard seemed like a dream.
Perhaps she would open her eyes now, reach into the crack in the wall, take out the red tulip, and once again become the Selbi who had gone into the mountains yesterday morning.
But the moment she remembered one name, the dream vanished.
Lupulla.
The name now seemed to inhabit the house.
No one spoke it, yet Selbi felt its presence everywhere.
In her mother’s silence.
In her grandmother’s gaze.
In her father’s unusual severity.
Even breakfast felt different that morning.
Her father ate in silence.
Her mother scarcely raised her eyes.
Her grandmother slowly drank her tea.
Selbi sat beside the wall.
At last, her father set down his tea bowl.
“You will not go into the mountains today.”
Selbi raised her head.
“Why?”
He looked at her.
“Because I said so.”
“But the goats…”
“They will manage without you.”
She wanted to ask again, but caught her mother’s gaze.
Be silent.
Yesterday her mother had told her that sometimes silence gives a person time.
Selbi lowered her eyes.
“All right.”
Her father rose and left.
Only when the door had closed behind him did Selbi look at her mother.
“So now I’m not allowed to go outside?”
“He did not say that.”
“But I’m not allowed into the mountains.”
“After yesterday’s flood, that is understandable.”
“This isn’t about the flood.”
Her mother continued clearing away the dishes.
“You don’t know that.”
“I do.”
“Selbi…”
“Is he afraid I’ll meet Shageldy?”
Her mother’s hand stopped.
Only for a moment.
But that moment was enough.
Selbi felt a chill inside her.
“Does he know?”
“Quiet.”
“How?”
“I didn’t say that he knows.”
“But you were frightened.”
Her mother turned sharply toward her.
“You must learn not only how to speak, but also how to understand when you must not speak.”
Selbi looked at her.
“I love him.”
The room became very still.
Her grandmother stopped drinking her tea.
Her mother closed her eyes.
Selbi herself was startled by how simply she had said the words.
Yesterday they had belonged only to her and Shageldy.
Now another person had heard them.
Then another.
Her grandmother set down her tea bowl.
“For long?”
Selbi looked at her.
“I don’t know.”
“That is a poor answer.”
“I have no other.”
Her grandmother nodded.
“Then it has been a long time.”
Her mother looked angrily at the old woman.
“Don’t.”
“Why?”
“Because this is not the time.”
Her grandmother gave a faint smile.
“There is never a convenient time for love.”
She rose.
Age had bent her back, but her movements remained steady.
As she passed Selbi, she said quietly:
“But misfortune always finds the time.”
And she went out into the courtyard.
Selbi looked at her mother.
“What did she mean?”
“Nothing.”
“Everyone in this house says ‘nothing’ when they know more than I do.”
Her mother sighed heavily.
“Because sometimes knowing is harder than not knowing.”
Shageldy awoke happy.
At once he remembered the day before.
Selbi.
Her eyes.
Her voice.
“And I love you.”
He lay for several moments staring at the ceiling and smiling.
Then he sprang up.
He wanted to finish his morning tasks as quickly as possible and leave.
Where?
He had not yet decided.
But he was certain he would meet Selbi.
It had always happened that way.
Whenever he wanted desperately to see her, somehow she appeared.
At the well.
Beside the road.
At the bazaar.
At the foot of the mountains.
He did not yet understand that childhood had ended precisely yesterday.
Until yesterday, they had never needed to explain why they were talking to one another.
Today they did.
Shageldy went out into the courtyard.
His father was repairing an old leather harness.
“I’ll go to the herd,” Shageldy said.
“Don’t.”
“Why?”
“There are others to watch it.”
“Then I’ll go to the bazaar.”
His father looked up.
“Today isn’t Friday.”
“I know.”
“Then what do you have to do there?”
Shageldy shrugged.
“I’ll look around.”
His father studied his son for several moments.
“Look for work, not a road.”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
Shageldy grinned.
For some reason, all the adults were speaking in riddles today.
He walked through the gate.
The sun was already high enough in the sky.
After yesterday’s rain, the earth still held moisture, and the air seemed unusually clear.
Shageldy took the road that led toward Selbi’s house.
Not directly.
He did not even want to admit to himself that this was where he was going.
First he turned toward the well.
Then he stopped beside a familiar house.
Greeted an old man.
Helped a boy lift a fallen basket.
Only then did he find himself on the street where Selbi lived.
He slowed his pace.
The gate was closed.
Shageldy walked past.
No one.
He reached the end of the street.
Waited.
Then walked back.
The gate remained closed.
“Foolishness,” he told himself.
She might be busy.
She might be helping her mother.
She might have gone to visit relatives.
He decided to return later.
“Shageldy!”
He turned.
Berdy was hurrying toward him — a boy a year older, with whom he sometimes tended livestock.
“Where are you going?”
“Nowhere.”
“I see. You’ve already walked past the same house twice.”
Shageldy frowned.
“What house?”
Berdy laughed.
“So there won’t be a third time?”
“Go your own way.”
“I am. But you seem to be looking for someone else’s.”
Shageldy was about to answer, but Berdy suddenly stopped smiling.
“You really don’t know?”
“Know what?”
“About Selbi.”
Something tightened inside Shageldy.
“What about her?”
Berdy looked around.
“Her father had guests last night.”
“So?”
“Lupulla came.”
Shageldy said nothing.
He knew the name.
“Why?”
Berdy shrugged.
“They say he came to ask for her hand.”
Shageldy laughed.
Too loudly.
“Whose?”
Berdy looked at him as though the question were absurd.
“Selbi’s.”
The laughter stopped.
For several moments Shageldy simply stared at his friend.
“Don’t talk nonsense.”
“I’m not. People are talking.”
“People are always talking.”
“It’s true.”
“Who told you?”
“My uncle was at their house last night.”
Shageldy stepped toward him.
“What do you mean, he was there?”
“He sat with the men.”
“And?”
Berdy shrugged.
“They were discussing the kalym.”
The world around them did not change.
A donkey carrying two sacks continued down the road.
A woman carried a jug.
Two children chased a wooden wheel with a stick.
Smoke rose above the houses.
But suddenly Shageldy saw none of it.
He heard only one word.
Kalym.
“No,” he said.
Berdy did not answer.
“No.”
Louder this time.
“She’s fifteen.”
“Girls younger than that are married here.”
“She doesn’t want him.”
Berdy looked at him carefully.
“How do you know?”
Shageldy realized he had said too much.
“I know.”
“Shageldy…”
“What?”
Berdy moved closer.
“Just don’t do anything foolish.”
“Like what?”
“Something after which there will be no road back.”
Shageldy gave a bitter smile.
“What are you now, an old man?”
“No. That’s why I understand.”
“Understand what?”
“Lupulla isn’t a shepherd. And he isn’t some boy you can fight beside an irrigation ditch.”
Shageldy clenched his fists.
“I’m not afraid of him.”
“That is exactly what worries me.”
Selbi did not leave the house before noon.
Then her mother told her to fetch water.
“Alone?”
Selbi could not hide her surprise.
Her mother looked at her.
“With whom else?”
The girl said nothing.
She took the jug.
At the gate, her mother stopped her.
“Selbi.”
She turned.
“Don’t be long.”
“All right.”
“And don’t speak to anyone.”
Now everything was clear.
“Even if someone speaks to me?”
“Especially then.”
Selbi stepped outside.
Her heart was beating as though her mother had not sent her for water, but had allowed her to escape.
She walked quickly.
The well was not far away.
Two women stood beside it.
Selbi greeted them.
Lowered her jug.
Filled it with water.
Raised it again.
No one.
She herself did not know whom she had hoped to see.
Of course she knew.
But Shageldy was not there.
Selbi picked up the jug and started back.
“Selbi.”
She stopped.
The voice came from very near.
Shageldy stood behind the clay wall of a neighbouring courtyard.
She felt joy and fear at the same time.
“What are you doing here?”
“Waiting for you.”
“Why?”
He looked at her.
“Really?”
She lowered her eyes.
“I’m not allowed to talk.”
“Who said so?”
“Mother.”
“Why?”
Selbi was silent.
Shageldy stepped closer.
“I know.”
She looked up sharply.
“What?”
“About Lupulla.”
For several seconds they stared at one another.
There was no longer any need to hide anything between them.
“Who told you?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Shageldy…”
“Is it true?”
Selbi turned away.
“He came yesterday.”
“Why?”
She looked at him.
“You know why.”
Shageldy felt the blood rush to his face.
“And your father?”
“They talked.”
“About what?”
“The kalym.”
He turned away.
Selbi had never seen him like this before.
Not cheerful.
Not embarrassed.
Not frightened.
Angry.
“Shageldy.”
He remained silent.
“Look at me.”
“I’m going to your father.”
Selbi turned pale.
“No.”
“Why?”
“Don’t you dare.”
“I’ll tell him.”
“What?”
“That I love you.”
“And then what?”
Shageldy fell silent.
“You’ll tell him you love me. And he’ll ask how much livestock you own. How much land. What kind of house you have. What you can offer for a bride.”
“I’ll earn it.”
“When?”
He did not answer.
“In a year? Two?”
“If I have to.”
“They won’t wait.”
For the first time, those words made him understand what Selbi had understood during the night.
Time no longer belonged to them.
“Then what are we going to do?”
Selbi looked at him.
She was fifteen.
He was seventeen.
They stood beside a clay wall with a jug of water between them, trying to solve a problem that even grown people sometimes fail to solve.
How do you protect love from a world that does not consider love reason enough?
“I don’t know,” Selbi said.
Shageldy took her hand.
“I won’t give you up to him.”
She flinched.
She had whispered those same words during the night.
But Shageldy could not have heard her then.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“You said something.”
“I said the same thing last night.”
Shageldy looked at her.
“About me?”
She nodded.
For a moment, the anxiety disappeared.
They smiled at one another.
But only for a moment.
“I have to go,” Selbi said.
“When will I see you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Tomorrow?”
“I don’t know.”
“In the mountains?”
“Father forbade me.”
“Then here.”
“Mother will be watching.”
Shageldy thought for a moment.
“The old mulberry tree.”
Selbi understood at once.
Beyond the edge of Bazar-Tepe stood an old mulberry tree. Nearby were the ruins of a house abandoned long ago.
As children, they had often played there.
Almost no one went there now.
“When?”
“After the evening prayer.”
Selbi shook her head.
“I won’t be able to get out.”
“Try.”
“If Father finds out…”
“He won’t.”
“You don’t know my father.”
“And you don’t know me.”
She looked at him.
Yesterday that sentence would have made her laugh.
Today it did not.
“I’ll try.”
Shageldy released her hand.
Selbi lifted the jug.
She took several steps.
“Selbi.”
She turned.
“What?”
“I still won’t give you up.”
She said nothing.
She only looked at him.
Then she walked home.
Shageldy remained beside the wall for a long time.
For the first time in his life, he felt poor.
Until that day, poverty had simply been part of the order of the world.
One man had ten sheep.
Another had fifty.
Someone had a good house.
Someone else a poor one.
Some ate meat often.
Others only on feast days.
That was simply how things were.
He had never asked himself why one person was given more and another less.
But today poverty had acquired a face.
Lupulla’s face.
Lupulla’s house.
His livestock.
His money.
His age.
His standing.
Everything Shageldy did not have.
Love could not be laid before Selbi’s father in place of the kalym.
It could not buy sheep.
A house could not be built from it.
A family could not be fed on it.
For the first time, Shageldy understood something cruel:
a person may possess the most precious thing he has ever known — and still be too poor to protect it.
Slowly, he walked home.
An old man sat by the roadside repairing a sandal.
Shageldy passed him.
“Hey, boy.”
He stopped.
“What?”
The old man pointed at the ground.
“You dropped something.”
Shageldy looked down.
A small copper coin lay near his foot.
He picked it up.
It must have fallen from his pocket.
“Thank you.”
The old man returned to repairing his sandal.
Shageldy looked at the coin.
A small circle of metal.
Almost nothing.
He closed his fist around it.
And suddenly he thought:
“I need money.”
Not tomorrow.
Not someday.
Now.
The thought was simple.
But it was from that thought that the road began which would one day lead him away from Bazar-Tepe.
First to the Amu Darya.
Then farther still.
To places where there would be other cities, other people, another language.
Where he would see Russian sailors and steamships.
Where he would learn the price of labour, money, human cruelty, and human kindness.
Where, many times, he would believe that returning home was impossible.
And all of it began with a single small copper coin lying in the palm of his hand.
That evening, Selbi waited for a long time.
Her father was at home.
Then a neighbour came.
The two men talked in the courtyard.
Her mother prepared the meal.
Her grandmother sat by the wall.
Selbi understood that leaving was impossible.
The sun went down.
The call to prayer sounded.
The sky darkened.
Somewhere beyond the edge of the settlement, beside the old mulberry tree, Shageldy was waiting for her.
She imagined him standing there.
At first certain that she would come.
Then beginning to watch the road.
Then waiting.
Then understanding.
“You seem restless today,” her grandmother said.
“No.”
“That’s the third time you’ve looked at the gate.”
Selbi started.
“For no reason.”
“Again, ‘for no reason.’”
Her grandmother looked at Selbi’s mother.
Her mother pretended not to notice.
A little more time passed.
Her father and the neighbour went inside.
Her mother carried tea to them.
Her grandmother rose.
“Selbi.”
“What?”
“I need you to bring me some herbs for my legs.”
“Now?”
“Now.”
Selbi looked surprised.
“What kind?”
Her grandmother named a plant.
“It grows beyond the edge of the settlement.”
Selbi looked at her.
The old woman continued calmly:
“Near the old mulberry tree.”
Selbi stopped breathing.
Her grandmother did not even smile.
“Just don’t be too long. I’m old. My legs hurt.”
Her mother stood with her back to them beside the hearth.
She said nothing.
Selbi looked at her.
Her mother continued stirring the food.
Then she gave the slightest nod.
Once.
Selbi threw a shawl over her shoulders.
“I’ll be quick.”
“Don’t hurry too much,” her grandmother said. “You can fall in the dark.”
Shageldy had already decided that she was not coming.
He sat beneath the old mulberry tree.
In the darkness, the ruins of the house looked like the remains of an ancient fortress.
The wind stirred the leaves.
Time passed unbearably slowly.
He stood.
Sat down again.
Walked out toward the road.
Returned.
“She won’t be able to come.”
He understood that.
But still he waited.
Then he heard footsteps.
Shageldy rose.
“Selbi?”
“Quiet!”
She appeared out of the darkness.
He wanted to rush toward her, but she raised her hand.
“Don’t come closer.”
“Why?”
“I have to go back quickly.”
“How did you get out?”
“Grandmother needed herbs.”
Shageldy looked at her.
Then he understood.
“Really?”
For the first time that day, Selbi laughed.
“She needed them very badly.”
They stood facing one another.
“I thought you weren’t coming.”
“So did I.”
“What are we going to do?”
Selbi looked toward the settlement.
“I don’t know.”
“I’ll find the money.”
“Where?”
“I’ll find it.”
“Shageldy…”
“I mean it.”
He took out the copper coin.
Selbi stared at it in surprise.
“Is that all?”
“For now.”
She could not help smiling.
“Then you have hardly anything left to find for the kalym.”
Shageldy laughed too.
And that brief laughter suddenly restored to both of them something of the day before.
As though nothing terrible had happened.
As though they were once again sitting among the tulips.
But now they knew the value of such a moment.
Shageldy put the coin away.
“I’ll think of something.”
“Don’t do anything foolish.”
“Everyone keeps telling me the same thing today.”
“Then perhaps you should listen.”
“I love you.”
Selbi fell silent.
In the darkness, she could barely make out his face.
“Say it again.”
“I love you.”
“Again.”
“Selbi…”
“Say it.”
“I love you.”
She stepped closer.
“Now I’ll remember.”
“Why?”
Selbi did not answer at once.
Then she said:
“In case they don’t let us see each other for a long time.”
Shageldy wanted to object.
But he did not.
He held out his hand.
She placed hers in it.
And for several moments they simply stood beneath the old tree.
Without promises.
Without plans.
Without the words of adults.
Two children whom life was forcing to grow up far too soon.
“I have to go.”
“Wait.”
“I can’t.”
“Tomorrow?”
“I don’t know.”
“The day after tomorrow?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then when?”
Selbi squeezed his hand.
“Wait for me.”
“How long?”
She looked into his eyes.
“As long as it takes.”
Then she pulled her hand away and ran toward the road.
Shageldy remained beneath the mulberry tree.
He listened to her retreating footsteps until they disappeared entirely.
Only then did he look at his palm.
The copper coin lay there.
He closed his fist around it.
Somewhere far away in the night, the Amu Darya murmured.
Shageldy had not yet seen a great steamship.
He did not know the name of its captain.
He did not know the people he was destined to meet.
He did not know how many roads would one day separate him from this tree.
But for the first time in his life, he knew something else:
he would have to leave so that one day he might be able to return.
And meanwhile, Selbi was running home.
Beneath her clothes, close to her heart, lay the broken red tulip.
Now each of them had a symbol of their own.
For her — the flower.
For him — the coin.
One reminded them of love.
The other — of the price the world would demand for the right to preserve that love.
And above them both, invisible in the darkness, history was beginning its journey.
