The Visitor (22 page)

“Why, thank you!” Dr. Dorogomilov, pleased that his genius would finally be appreciated, shook Baron’s hand vigorously. “I leave it to you to name the new virus.” This was bestowing an honor on Baron, to let him name it, even though there could never be any publication of it.

Baron thought for a moment. “Tibet Restored.”

CHAPTER 15

The transaction completed, Baron and Tak stayed on the following day to attend the celebration of the annual Nauryz event that coincided by chance with their journey. It was held at a playing field near Stepnogorsk. Kariat, the nephew of the doctor’s deceased wife Karina, was their host.

The first event was the Kokpar. One of the several hundred horsemen, each wearing a black cape and black turbine, carrying a lance and shield, galloped toward the dead goat on the ground that was dropped by another. He then ran his lance through it, letting out a yell as he galloped off, carrying it toward the other side of the huge playing field. Several horsemen on the other side came at him head on, holding out their shields to ram him. There was a loud crashing of their shields, and he fell off his horse. There was scrambling around in circles by the attackers as well as the defenders who rushed in to lance the dead goat, and the man who fell off his mount was trampled. When the group moved out of that area, and the dust cleared slightly, it could be seen that the man on the ground was not moving and, without so much as stopping the game, an older man, formerly a competitor, accompanied by two young men, still too young to compete, ran in to pick up his body and take his horse off. The man was dead.

The horsemen, dressed in their traditional garments adorned with turbans, ignored the incident and frantically continued the chase for goat’s carcass, as though nothing had happened at all.

“What does the name of the game,
Kokpar
, mean?” Tak asked Kairat.

“It means ‘fighting for a goat’s carcass,’” he answered. “It comes from a Kazakh custom of sacrificing a goat to get rid of evil.”

“Do you believe it rids of evil?”

“Many do, but I’m not sure.”

After Kokpar, the large number of horses cleared the huge field. Then two mounted men came onto the field. “This is called ‘Audaryspak,’ which means wrestling on horseback,” Kairat explained.

The two strong men fought each other while on horseback until finally one knocked the other off his horse. The crowd erupted in cheer for the victor.

Following that short event was a game where a young man put a handkerchief out on the ground in the field, not far from the bleachers, with an old silver coin in it. A horseman came at it galloping at full speed and leaned over all the way to the ground, off the side of his horse, to try to pick it up. If he missed, he was out of the game.

“This was shown to Alexander the Great,” Kairat told her. “It is called
Kumis
Alu
, which means
pick up the coin
. Alexander was very impressed with this skill performed on horseback.”

Following that game, assistants set up for another. Appearing on the field were two teenagers on horseback, but one was a girl. This was the first female in the events. The horses had a woven blanket under the saddle and white lower leg wrappings, which looked very dressy. Both the girl and the boy wore traditional garb with head gear consisting of a white band two inches thick with a colored, round top of material with weaving. The girl wore a vest with a colorful woven pattern on the front. She also had a fearsome looking black whip in her hand.

“Is that female part of the game?” Tak asked.

“Oh yes!” Kairat said eagerly. “This game I have done myself. It is called ‘Kyzkuu,’ which means ‘overtake the girl.’ The boy and the girl start from the same spot, but the girl starts first. The boy then goes as fast as he can to try to overtake her. She can try to stop him by lashing him with her whip. If he can catch up to her, he will kiss her on her horse signifying a victory for him. If, by the time they reach the end of the course, he has failed to overtake her, she then turns around, follows him back before the crowd, and whips him all the way back as she does, signifying a victory for her and great loss of face for him.”

“And you say you have done it?” she asked.

He smiled proudly, his chest puffing up. “Oh yes, even last year. But I always won easily, and this year the girls who are competing all know me and refused to compete against me. They don’t want to be disgraced again.”

Their conversation was interrupted by the first two contestants. The girl took off first on her horse at a full run, followed by the boy just afterward in hot pursuit. The male contestant was faster than her and was soon about to overtake her on the right side as they crossed in front of the shouting crowd.

He caught up to her and kissed her while riding. He led her back to the crowd and was declared the winner by an official, also in traditional garb. The crowd hooted and cheered, delighted at the male victory.

The second pair got ready to compete and Tak’s interest mounted in the game. They galloped out and the chase was on! The boy worked his way toward the girl, gaining slowly as the crowd cheered them on. He overtook her and got his kiss. The crowd cheered wildly for the male victor once again.

A third pair competed and the results were similar to the first two.

Tak was now bored with the results of what did not appear to be a real contest. “They really are not very well matched. The males are much better at this than the females. I think I could do better.”

Kairat looked surprised at her comment and fanaticized that he might win a kiss from the beautiful, foreign woman in front of his friends. “Why don’t you and I compete?”

She wondered if she should dare to follow up on her assessment. “Oh, I don’t have a horse, and I don’t have the clothing. But thank you for asking.”

The idea of defeating her and getting a kiss in public from the gorgeous, red-haired Westerner with his friends looking on was beyond irresistible to Kairat. “I can borrow a horse as well as the outfit for you. You are supposed to wear the traditional costume in the game. Why don’t we?”

The opportunity of experiencing first hand this Earth sport was all too tempting. She looked to Baron for an answer to see if her Earth guide and husband would veto the idea.

“As you wish,” he said.

She gave in to temptation. “I’ll try it!”

Kairat led her to the area behind the bleachers and to a yurta, an Arabic tent used, in this case, for changing clothes. He called inside to someone in Kazakh, and a young woman came out. Kairat spoke to her and the arrangements were made.

“She will lend you clothes for the event,” he said to Tak. “I’ll go change and come back.”

Kairat returned in a traditional outfit, wide-legged red pants, brown boots, a brown shirt, and a brown leather jacket. He wore one of the hats that the other contestants had, a dome-looking affair with a white band of cloth about the bottom and the top in a red cloth with weaving.

Tak exited in a traditional, bright yellow outfit of loose pants held up by a woven multi-colored sash, the legs of which were tucked in high-topped riding boots. She wore a black sweater, a matching yellow vest with weaving in blue and red on the front, and a black and yellow hat similar in shape to his.

“You look Kazakh,” he told her, intending the statement to be a compliment.

“Good. I’m ready.”

At the staging area, Kairat was recognized by the horse handlers, from his previous competitions, as a very good horseman. Kairat spoke to the handler, who smiled and agreed to what he wanted, a horse for the less-than-competitive-female that he would compete against.

The handler got a fast, healthy horse for Kairat, and then selected a smaller horse for Tak as though she needed an economy version as a female.

“No, not that one,” Tak dictated to him. She looked around at the horses and saw a frisky black stallion that was standing alone on the far side. She pointed. “That one.”

The handler understood from the pointing but doubted that she could handle the big fellow. He spoke to Kairat in Kazakh, who interpreted, “He says that the big one you pointed to is not safe for you.”

“I want the black one.”

Kairat assumed that this upstart, infidel female would fall right off such a beast and then decided to approve it for her, notwithstanding the fact that he was supposed to return her unharmed that day.

The handler reluctantly went to the black one and tried to get hold of its leather bridle. The horse reared up to stomp on him, and he jumped back just barely out of the way. He then went around from the side, came up, grabbed the bridle, and put his arms around the neck. The big horse pulled its head up and raised the handler two feet off the ground, but the handler would not let go. After several yanks up into the air, the frisky horse finally stopped and let the handler control him. The man then put on the traditional blanket and saddle.

Kairat and Tak walked their horses to the staging area and got in line behind a pair of contestants. Kairat mounted his horse.

The handler held the stirrup for Tak. She put a foot in it but, in the anticipation and excitement, she forgot her additional strength in this lower gravity and jumped up on the horse in a single movement from the ground. Kairat was not sure if he saw her correctly and rubbed his eyes to take another look but, when he did, Tak was already sitting on her horse, smiling.

The assistant handed Tak a whip. Seven feet in length, light, and thin at the end, it was intimidating.

They moved up in line until it was their turn. The crowd was cheering at the victor of the round before them, the boy having again won as usual, and being kissed by the inferior female contestant.

Tak’s mount, although not quiet, seemed to her to be worth the experience as weighed against the risk. After all, she told herself, she was here to experience the natives and their ways.

Her mount moved as though he knew that he was about to be on stage in the competition. His breaths were loud and he made more loud noises with his lips as he waited restlessly in the staging area. His bridle was held tightly by a large man who started the competition in the age-old manner of simply letting go of the horse. Another held the bridle of Kairat’s mount and would let it go shortly after Tak was away. The men looked at Tak and Kairat and saw that they were ready. Tak leaned forward, in a ready-to-go position, and held the reins tightly in her left hand, the whip in her right hand on the side where Kairat would be riding.

Kairat was somewhat calmer about the competition, assuming he would have no difficulty in beating the completely inexperienced Tak, and was already anticipating the public kiss from the foreigner, which would give him great face.

The man let go of her horse, and off she went! The horse went into a full run on its own. Tak was startled, but leaned over and did her best.

Then Kairat came up just behind her. Tak’s high-spirited horse put nearly two lengths on Kairat’s mount, as he followed in hot pursuit. He closed the gap, but not enough to catch her before the finish line.

She was then entitled to follow him back to the crowd--whipping him all the way. As they rode back, she whipped him strongly with her whip, Kairat crying out in pain with each stroke.

Kairat tried to ignore the pain and dug his heels into his horse’s belly, but she was still there with her whip, continuing the strokes. They came to the area in front of the crowd, and she continued the whipping.

The crowd cheered, but much more subdued than the last couple, not wanting to see an inferior female win. They mumbled among themselves about how it could happen, as the female almost never won.

Kairat gathered up his composure as best he could in front of the crowd, stood, and began to walk, back toward the tents, vanquished, totally humiliated in front of people he knew well. Tak and Kairat walked back, not together, each to their respective changing yurta.

Kairat began to boil. He had never lost any such event, and now, in front of all of friends, he was reduced to nothing, disgraced, and by an infidel and inferior woman. He concluded it would do justice for Allah to kill that infidel bitch, who did not have the decency to cover her harlot head with a Hijab.

He followed her back, unseen, to her yurta, and looked about outside. No one was watching. As part of his traditional garb, he sported a traditional hunting knife in his belt, an ornate knife with a Damascus blade and wooden handle with jeweled trim, encased in a jeweled sheath. He took out the weapon and opened her yurta, murder in his mind.