Once I met a shaman. Someone had given this shaman an Order of Malta, and he kept shoving photos of important government officials in my face and bragging that he could tell when someone was going to die just by taking a look at them. Naturally I raised an eyebrow and asked him when my time would be up. His answer was short and sweet: “You will sense it. One day you’ll wake up and tell yourself, ‘It’s going to happen today.’”

It’s going to happen today, I thought, the day I first met Irbis.

Kazakhstan was on fire, seething with revolution. My Auntie Lola had gotten instructions to put up some students in her house. She had always been the sympathetic type. She’d probably have taken in a troop of homeless guys, if that’s what they’d asked.

Lola worked hard to ignore the fact that her guests disgusted me.

“Let’s put it this way,” I told her dryly. “If anyone else moves in, I’m not coming to have dinner with you anymore.”

“Fine,” she said. “Don’t come.”

So I watched her house from my front window. I saw the silhouette of a man weighed down with suitcases. Immediately I hated every step he took, every breath. Lola was a traitor, just like all the rest. She’d ditched me. Self-pity took over so completely that all night I lay in bed staring at the ceiling, unable to sleep. The machine guns were even closer that night, and Lola’s house was right next to the road. If men with guns showed up, they’d catch her at her old-fashioned desk. She’d be shot up, along with all the works of Akutagawa and the meandering treatises of Weiniger, the subjects of her next lectures.

When I couldn’t stop picturing her insensate face riddled with bullet holes, I grabbed my coat and went over there. Just to make sure she was okay.

There was a light on in her conservatory. Through the window I could see the university student lounging in my chair, every inch the conquering demon. His whole body had taken my place. Lola was listening closely as he talked, occasionally glancing at the clock. Maybe she was still expecting me for dinner.

He looked about my age. A graduate student? He reached for the blanket I’d left draped over the back of the chair yesterday, when Lola and I had sat there, talking over our plans for the summer. She wanted to dig some new flower beds to fuel her ikebana habit—though, actually, what she wanted was to sip pear wine while I dug some new flower beds. This new guy was a lot tougher-looking than me. He could dig Lola whatever she wanted, before she even got through her first bottle. To hell with them.

I heard something howl while I was trudging back to my house through the damp fog. A few wild animals patrol this part of town—there’s the stray tomcat and the gang of foxes that keep the cat at a distance, and once, just for a second, I saw a lynx. But this didn’t sound like the howling of an animal. Back home, I sat down by the window with my own glass of pear wine, waiting for the sun to come up.

I woke to a rapping on the door. Thinking it would be awkward to face a bunch of militants in my bathrobe, I opened my bedroom closet instead, trying to think how best to present myself. In a silk shirt, even the Grim Reaper would look inoffensive. But I forgot to zip my fly before yanking the front door open.

The ordinary man standing there was not the person I’d expected to see. “Mark Sergeyevich?” he asked. “Come on, it’s time to go.” He turned impatiently, evidently planning to explain on the way.

“Are they already here? Is Lola all right? Where is she?” I reached out to stop him at the top of the front steps. “Careful, it’s slippery.”

“We have to go to a wake,” he said.

Then he seemed to realize I’d just woken up. He averted his eyes, followed me back to the doorway, and stepped inside the house.

That was alarming. Nobody had stepped through my door for a year. In Japan, they would call someone like me a hikki, short for hikikomori. The languages I knew pretended there was no such phenomenon.

“I’m sorry. I don’t like having strangers in my house.”

“You mean because I’m not from here?” he asked, offended. But he didn’t step back.

“No! Stay, look around if you want. For a minute. But it’s going to freak me out,” I warned him.

“Don’t worry, Mark Sergeyevich. We all have our foibles. And we’re already late, anyway.”

“Does anyone even want me at this wake?” I asked, still confused, as I combed my hair.

“What do you need, a special invitation? That’s not very neighborly.”

“Oh. Sure. I apologize. Which religion are we talking about?”

“It’s just a wake. No time for special rites. There’s a war on.”

“This is a war?”

“You must be the kind of person who wants a personal invitation to war too.”

He sounded disgusted, and I hurried to change the subject. “Who’s getting buried this time?”

“Your neighbor’s wife. The one who lives over there.” He pointed to the house that looked made of glass. “The guy’s a real hardass. You probably haven’t met him.”

It’s not easy to get dressed for a wake. You have to pretend that you were beside yourself with grief while you were getting ready and just put on whatever you could find. At the same time, there’s a strict rule against looking too sloppy. And don’t even think about wearing bright colors or anything life-affirming, because we only wear clothes like that when we’re happy, and you’re supposed to feel depressed at a wake.

I didn’t feel anything, to be honest. Not grief, not joy. No matter how hard I tried to pull myself together, it wasn’t working. A person had died, not even a stranger but a neighbor, and here I was posing before my mirror, trying to pick out shoes I wouldn’t freeze in, that wouldn’t make me look like an idiot. Not that anyone was asking my advice, but I wouldn’t want outsiders at my own wake, especially not people I’d never met.

As we walked over to the house where the deceased was waiting, I saw groups of people whispering together, right there on the street, despite the freezing weather. None were groups I wanted to join, so I walked into the house and up to the second floor, past a lavish library. Lola would have liked it there.

I had the feeling that nobody living was left in the house. I kept moving, listening for sounds of mourning, conversation, even nasty whispers about the family’s bad taste. Soon I came to a half-open door. A woman stood by a window, posed majestically, arms spread wide. When I came in, she turned and beckoned me closer. I thought she might be a sister of the deceased. She looked very similar to the photographs, draped in black silk, that I’d seen around the house.

We looked at each other without speaking, and then she approached me and let her head fall onto my shoulder. She was crying. I was supposed to put my arms around her—that helps to ward off fear and anxiety.

I did not let go of her until she allowed me to me step away. Then I sat down in a chair and stared at my feet.

“I’m sorry. Who are you?” she asked me quietly.

“I’m a neighbor. The green house on the other side of the hill.”

“I didn’t know there was a house over there. What do you think? It’s not my fault, is it?”

I didn’t understand the question, but when someone is stunned with grief, it doesn’t matter what you talk about. She wouldn’t remember any of this, anyway. “No, you didn’t do anything wrong,” I made myself say, smiling stupidly.

“That’s very nice of you. But I can’t help it—I’m sorry it wasn’t you who died.”

“Me too. Forgive me.”

She put her head in her hands and started to cry.

I hesitated. When someone wishes to your face that you were dead, you’re probably supposed to bow out, just leave. First, though, I squatted down before her and handed her my handkerchief, hoping it was clean. Then I left her to weep.

I walked downstairs and out of the house. I didn’t see Lola in the crowd, but I noticed her student boarder right away. He caught my eye and walked over.

“Got a light?” he asked quietly.

“Sure.” I flicked my lighter, but a gust of wind put out the flame so quickly that it was just a flash of amber on the guy’s face. I clicked again. This time, not even a spark.

He cupped my fist with his hands to protect the lighter from the wind, told me to try again, and finally came away with a lit cigarette held carefully between his fingers.

I asked him for one too, and handed him my lighter reluctantly. He handled it better than I did. I took a drag. Saliva rushed to my mouth, and I felt my stomach heave.

“Do you know how she died?” he asked.

“No.” I didn’t feel like getting acquainted, so I turned to look up at the house. The woman was back at the window upstairs. Our eyes met, and she dabbed at her tears with my handkerchief.

“You know, I—”

He was touching me, and looked surprised when I jerked away. “Don’t,” I told him firmly. “I have to go. Say hi to Lola for me.”

On my way home, I thought about the fact that our eyes never see the tip of our nose, even though it’s hanging out right there in front of them. The body refuses to feel the dampness of its own bones. Even the process of digesting food is so repulsive that we try not to think about it; otherwise, we’d be sick to our stomachs. I tried to armor myself in those thoughts, but still, again and again, I returned to the words from the woman by the window: I’m sorry it wasn’t you who died.

Like the tulip she was named for, Lola only looked up, never down, so she was always tripping over things. Still, she had learned to navigate the trail between our two houses. When the snow started melting, I had to escort her until she knew where all the little streams were. She knew I didn’t like visitors, but she came anyway.

I hadn’t run into her at the wake, so the next day, when I heard her slipping on the front stairs and cursing, I smiled and put on the tea kettle.

“I’d like you to go around to all the neighbors and find out who has what supplies,” she declared before she even came inside.

“You think anyone’s going to share with us? Anyway, I still haven’t forgiven you for taking in that new guy.”

“That young man isn’t bothering anybody. He hardly comes out of his bedroom. If you hadn’t known he was staying with me, you’d never have noticed him. I still have some groceries, but I’m worried about the neighbors.”

“They’re not going to share,” I told her. “And you know it.”

“We ought to be helping one another. We ought to share.”

“Listen to you, bringing back communism! You have a bunch of guns. What about giving me one?”

“You don’t even know how to shoot. Just like my late husband.” Lola laughed. She never went hunting, but she was in no rush to sell her rifles. She was always promising me that, someday, she’d teach me to hunt and we’d go north to murder some ducks.

“They’ll all say the same thing.”

“All right. I’ll go myself.” Lola knew I wouldn’t let her hike through the mud and slush and dislocate a hip.

“Can’t your student do it, to repay you for your hospitality? Have him go.”

“He doesn’t know anyone here. Once things quiet down—or once the shooting stops, at least—he’ll head back to the city. He just needs somewhere to wait it out.”

“I don’t know anyone here either. And it wouldn’t bother me if I die that way.”

“You can’t be alone forever. What if something happens? You won’t know where to turn.”

“Nothing like that ever happens to me.”

“Life happens to all of us. Every day is different. The sun might rise six days in a row, but who know if it’ll rise again tomorrow?”

“Okay, I’ll go, I’ll go! Just spare me the pathos. What do you want me to ask them?” I scanned my messy desk for a pen that still worked. My plan was to read a script from a piece of paper and avoid looking anyone in the eye.

“Have them make lists of the food they have. And find out about weapons—who has a gun, how much ammunition, who knows how to load one without shooting their fingers off.”

“Are we recruiting for the resistance?”

Lola looked away, annoyed.

“Okay. I’ll find out.”

Now that I’d said yes, she moved on—time to scold me about my unwashed dishes. Ever since Lola had noticed that her words had power over me, her lectures about good nutrition, good grooming, and the benefits of eight hours of sleep had become a lot more frequent.

I heard her out stoically, nodding and agreeing. There was no point in fighting with someone who was trying to take care of you. And when it came down to it, I trusted her more than I trusted myself.

Auntie Lola wasn’t my real aunt. I’d just called her “auntie” one day and stuck with it. It all started when she decided to make me mow my lawn. I didn’t have a mower, and I’d sort of hoped the tall grass would fence me off from my neighbors. Once it was fully grown, I realized I’d never need a fence at all. The grass towered above my head, and a horde of crickets had taken it over. My place was so overgrown that you’d never even notice the house if you didn’t know to look for it.

But all good things come to an end. One fine day I woke up to the harsh whining of a lawn-mower. I ran outside without getting dressed and saw her: a woman full of energy, calmly ripping out my grass by the roots. She’d already deposited a huge pair of shears and a scythe on my front porch.

I shouted at her. She didn’t hear me. I couldn’t let a woman I didn’t know see that I was afraid of bugs and hated walking through wet grass, so I had no choice. I put some clothes on and went back outside. By then she had mowed a path straight through the yard and was turning her demonic machine in my direction.

I crossed my arms and scowled hard, trying to scare her off, but Lola just waved at me and asked if it was okay for her to cut my grass. The crickets, she explained, were keeping her up at night.

No, I told myself. You will not stop by her place for a glass of lemonade. You will not bring her a little gift. You will not stay for a game of Monopoly. Under no circumstances will you tell her about your life or ask about hers. You have no interest in any of that.

I was still thinking those things as I counted out the squares with my tiny top hat, while Lola thanked me for finishing the mowing. The crickets would have to find a new home.

A week later, she invited me to her birthday party. Much to my surprise, not a single relative of hers was there, just some noisy professors who got more boisterous the more they drank. I felt out of place. Somebody had given Lola some expensive French cognac, and she served me a glass. “I don’t drink,” I told her, but she put a hand on my shoulder and said, “We’re celebrating today.”

I never drank to celebrate—only to grieve. I took a sip, let my eyes lose focus, and stopped making myself pay attention to any specific object. The world went liquid. Flames of dark blue twilight merged with the angry drone of the crickets and the dull thumping of moth wings beating against the little pink lamps that Lola had hung haphazardly around her garden, with no regard to pattern or composition.

“How old are you now?” I asked when she sat down nearby, so close that her billowing shawl made my elbow itch.

“I stopped counting after forty,” she answered. “There’s no point. You live alone, is that right? How old is your mother?”

“I don’t know.” I made a point of yawning, to show how much I liked talking about my family. “We’re not close.”

“That’s a shame. A family makes one feel safe. That’s important.”

“Nobody’s coming after me. Except your shawl.” I moved slightly to give myself a good scratch.

“Life is war! And going to war without allies is a recipe for defeat.” Lola spoke quietly, sipping from her lacy-looking cocktail glass.

“Thinking there are enemies all around you is a surefire way to go crazy.”

“But if there’s nobody around you at all?”

She was about to say something else when she noticed another guest nearby, shifting his weight awkwardly, obviously needing the toilet. She stood up to lead him inside.

I recalled what the shaman had said, the one who’d told me I would know exactly where and when I would die, and went to refill my glass. With every swallow, my body felt softer. Even my right foot, always in motion, went quiet. My mother had always been annoyed by the way I jiggled that foot. But everything she did grated on me, and she didn’t give a damn about the cause of my nervous tic. Lola apparently hadn’t paid my foot any attention.

That evening I fell asleep on her veranda, and when I woke up, I decided to stay for breakfast. A Sunday morning in the warm bosom of one’s family must feel exactly like that—the sunlight glowing through the colorful draperies, the scent of pears stewed with sweet basil swirling around the serious voice of the news reporter.

Lola eventually broke through my defenses, but she couldn’t cure me of years of misanthropy. I would make the rounds of the neighbors, read her list of stupid requests from my sheet of paper, and slink back into my burrow.

The whole area has been hung with For Sale signs lately. People panicked by the revolt are shooting off around the world. But while some have left home forever, others are celebrating housewarmings. I hoped that the constant fighting downtown would play into my hands and that nobody would want to answer the door.

As I crossed the street toward a house hidden behind a wall of smooth concrete, a flash of light made me jump. A motion detector. I waved at the invisible camera, just in case, and headed for the front door. My clothes were baggy, sloppy. If I looked like a bum, these propertied people would be even more reluctant to open their doors.

But after just a minute, this door swung open. Before me was a young woman in a purple kimono. A real one, I thought, not a European knock-off. She was barefoot, and her toes were turning red in the cold.

“Hello, neighbor,” she said. “Is something wrong?” She smiled and took a step back, inviting me inside.

“I… I’m… We’ve had a little neighborhood council meeting.” My hand tightened around the paper in my pocket. I couldn’t read her my scripted speech without seeming like a jerk.

“A neighborhood council? I wasn’t invited.”

“Well, honestly, it was just me and the woman who owns the house on the rise over there. We wanted to know if you have any firearms.” I forced the words out.

She turned around—thin, fragile to the point of transparency, a body like Japanese kintsugi, laced with gold to fill the fine cracks. Looking at her made me want to turn and flee.

“Firearms? I can’t remember. We haven’t finished unpacking yet. Maybe we do have some, somewhere.” There were boxes stacked in the huge, empty living room. “I’m Rosa,” she added.

“Mark. Mark Sergeyevich.”

I held out a hand for her to shake, but she simply looked at it, not reciprocating. Then she ran her gaze from my feet right up to my neck. There was something contemptuous in the glance.

“Who are you,” she demanded. “Some kind of hotshot? Or a bureaucrat?”

“No.”

“The son of a bureaucrat?”

“No, why?”

“You’re the same age as me. I’m not using your patronymic.”

“Fine with me.”

She walked inside, into what I presumed was the kitchen. The room was empty except for a refrigerator and a table, covered in moving boxes and the remains of a meal. When she saw me staring at her dirty dishes—they had been on the table for a few days, judging by the smell—she muttered excuses: the cook never came in, she wasn’t expecting guests.

“I’ll go, then.”

“Do you know what’s happening with the delivery men?”

“What about them?”

“I haven’t gotten any packages for days.”

“The internet isn’t working. They always go to the central post office first and cut off communications. Standard practice.”

“You’re not out of food, are you? I’d love to eat something. I need to eat, and drink.”

“I can take you to my friend’s house,” I said reluctantly.

“Let me get dressed. You wait here.”

She pulled a bottle of wine from a box, handed it to me, and went upstairs. I wondered if I could hide it, so that Rosa wouldn’t get the idea of bringing it with her and spending more time at Lola’s than was strictly necessary. I can’t stand drunk people.

“I’m ready. We can go.” Rosa was coming downstairs slowly. Still no socks. “I’m dying of hunger.”

“Enough people have already died this month,” I commented.

“What? Who died?” Rosa lifted a hand to her mouth in a show of astonishment. I could tell she didn’t care at all.

“The woman in the house next to yours. Didn’t you hear all the howling?”

“Whose?”

“Some relative.”

“Do you think all this will ever be over?” We were outside by then, and she was pushing buttons on the security system’s keypad.

“Every armed conflict ends sooner or later. People are a finite resource.”

“Yet renewable,” she said with a snort. It was exactly the retort I might have made myself, but when it came from someone else, I suddenly heard the cynicism in it.

“Your house seems nice,” I said, to change the subject.

She took my arm.

Lola opened the door, and the warm scent of basil came to greet us. She pulled Rosa inside, gave her a hug, and started joking about how I’d finally brought a girl home. Rosa played along, probably to be sure of getting some dinner. I was about ready to declare publicly that I had no interest in women. Or in men, for that matter. If I’d ever wanted to bring Lola something I was interested in, it would have been a tool for tuning her cello or a souvenir horseshoe.

There was no sign of Lola’s student boarder. He was probably peeved that I’d turned away at the wake when he tried to tell me his name.

KRONOS is a novel that, in the most wondrous way, has upended lives. When I sat down to write it, Kazakhstan was in the grip of chaos. Machine-gun volleys resounded outside my window, and the January uprising raged. I was hopelessly in love with someone I could never be with. I did not believe in ghosts.

After it was over, after the last page was written, I awoke a completely different person. Russian-language publishers took notice of KRONOS immediately. But then a series of idiotic laws were passed banning the “propaganda of non-traditional relationships” (read: any story with queer characters), and the novel was prohibited from publication.

Such things have happened before in literature, I thought. And some time later, KRONOS was accepted for publication in Ukraine. But there as well, after the initial excitement, people decided it was too soon to release it in Ukraine, where the wounds of war remain so fresh. Rejected, banned, deemed too shocking or just too much for this time and this system of morality—I cannot say which.

So KRONOS flowed on, searching for new channels. Finally it came into the hands of my brilliant translator, Shelley, who perceived in my novel a glimmer, like a spark in an icy heart. Everything in this world has its own path, its own moment. Now KRONOS stands before you, and if it finds a home in your heart, then so be it—its destiny will be fulfilled.

First of all, Sabina’s words have me blushing. I don’t know how brilliant I am, but I do love a good book, and KRONOS is an amazing piece of writing. It’s almost noir, with shades of Murakami, from a part of the world that isn’t known for producing that sort of prose, and it’s set at a traumatic time that hasn’t yet been addressed in Kazakhstani fiction: the peaceful, nationwide protests that devolved into armed clashes, police terror, and rumors of an attempted coup in January 2022. Since it’s “too dangerous” for publication in its own language, we hope it might find a safe haven across the ocean and in English. Or, as Sabina says, in readers’ hearts.