Winter Pasture

by Li Juan

  During the winter, we took in frail, sickly sheep and newborn calves, passing one cold, long night after the next in the burrow. They were quiet and calm as if they were even more at home there than we were. The cat found them particularly exciting, always putting on a show of climbing up the central supporting post. The sheep and calf sat in quiet admiration. But if the cat seized the opportunity to sneak up close to them, they instantly turned on it, leaping to their feet, their tiny horns ready. Then, the cat would retreat, hiding behind a shoe (which only hid half its head), silently observing, preparing an ambush.

  Once, my cell phone fell out of my backpack, which was hanging on the wall, and the calf chewed on it quietly for the rest of the night. The phone had been turned off, but the calf managed to turn it on by chewing on it. Cuma said, “Little calf misses mama, he wants to give her a call.”

  Every morning in the burrow, we all clung greedily to our warm beds. Sister-in-law had already lit the stove and boiled the tea. Time and again, she attempted to rouse Cuma and their daughter, but no one heeded her. Eventually she sighed and crawled under Cuma’s covers. Kama, who was sleeping at the other end of the platform, squeezed in with her parents too. With the two of them crowding him so, Cuma had no choice but to get up. As he dressed, he grumbled, “Bad little girl” and “Bad old woman.”

  Come evening, even when it was already late, we were reluctant to sleep. By the dusky yellow light of a solar-powered bulb, Kama embroidered, Cuma read old Kazakh-language newspapers aloud, Sister-in-law spun wool, I read and took notes, and the cat pounced here and there practicing its hunting moves. The kettle had been whistling for a long while when Cuma sighed, “Let’s drink some tea.” Sister-in-law put down her handiwork, laid out tablecloth and bowls, and everyone gathered in a circle to sip in silence. The light grew dimmer and dimmer. Suddenly, Cuma screamed while pointing to my feet. I looked down—to pour the tea more easily, I had put the milk bowl by my feet instead of on the tablecloth. In my carelessness, the pink kitten, Plum Blossom, had snuck over and was lapping up the contents of the bowl with relish. I screeched as I swiped at the cat, much to everyone’s amusement. The last of the milk was ruined by the kitty, what a shame! But no one seemed to mind. They kept ladling the milk into their tea as usual. Indeed, how could that little pink mouth be considered dirty? He was still just a kitten after all.

  Our tea drunk and newspapers read, Cuma pondered for a moment before retrieving his iron box from the nightstand. Then, for the hundred and first time, he made an inventory of his little treasures. Inside the iron box was everything of value the family owned: superglue, a spare light bulb, nuts and bolts of different sizes, as well as a stack of wrinkled papers, forms, notes, debt receipts, and the like. I grabbed a sheet to take a look. It turned out to be a prepaid phone plan receipt. What use is that? Rummaging some more, I discovered a plastic bag sealed with several tight knots on top. When I finally managed to untie it, I found a packet of Mohe tobacco! Cuma rejoiced, grabbing it and hugging it tightly. He barked, “Mine! It’s mine!” And so, it was a fruitful inventory check after all.

  * * *

  CLOUDY DAYS WERE my favorite because they were usually warm and there was a chance that we might see some snowfall. Snowfall would relieve the drought so we wouldn’t have to walk so far to collect snow. But more importantly, on cloudy days there wasn’t much sun to charge up the solar-powered battery. If we ran out of electricity, we could go straight to sleep.…

  The nights dragged on longer and longer. No matter how long you had already been sleeping, daylight was still a long ways away. Anyone who went to the toilet in the middle of the night took a moment to clean out the stove and refill it with a few bricks of dry manure. It was too cold. On cloudy, snowy days, Cuma’s arthritis kept him awake all night. He was always getting up to take an aspirin and roll a cigarette, coughing his lungs out. Sister-in-law ground her teeth for long periods at a time and moaned in her dreams—even in her dreams, she was never far from sickness and pain. Kama slept pressed up against me, kicking me now and again. The pink kitten searched for any possible opening in hopes of squeezing under my covers … all night. He woke me again and again in the still, dark night, but I wasn’t bothered by it. The burrow was safe and tranquil.

  * * *

  BEING A DECOROUS HOUSEHOLD, every part of daily life must be lived with dignity. Even if it was just to go herd the sheep, Cuma took the time to make sure his boots sparkled. And on days when Sister-in-law suddenly handed him a clean change of clothes, he would sing until the sheep came home.

  Because we burned manure all day, which produced smoke and ash, a thick layer of soot accumulated on the roof beams. When a careless animal stepped on the roof, ash would come raining down everywhere. As a result, warm days were devoted to sweeping. We all pitched in. First we moved everything that could be lifted outside and covered what couldn’t with plastic tarps and polyester sacks. Kama, dressed in dirty clothes and with a towel around her hair, swept all the beams. Then, Sister-in-law picked up the felt rugs and beat them against the snowy ground outside until they were clean. Finally, we returned everything to its rightful place, and felt instantly clean.

  Originally the floors of the burrow had been made of sand. After Cuma coated it with a layer of mud, the floor became much more solid. But after a while, the mud became rutted with use. The problem was especially severe at the base of the walls, where without the reinforcement of the mud, sand cascaded down like a waterfall. Cuma patched the mud whenever he found the time. Before the winter’s end, all three sacks of dirt were used up.

  And whenever Kama had a free moment, she picked up a small broom and swept the ground outside the burrow’s entrance. Although sweeping simply meant erasing the hectic footprints in the sand, replacing them with smooth and orderly lines—still, it was necessary!

  Weeks into our stay, when the vet came to administer vaccines, Sister-in-law asked him to deliver a bag of food too delicious to eat ourselves to their spring and fall encampment. Living at the encampment at the time were Apa, Kama (who had gone back), and the Cumas’ other three kids, who were home for winter break. I found it odd because transportation was so much easier there. Whatever they fancied eating, they could have bought for themselves! Whereas out here, there was nothing to buy even if you had money … after all, we were deep in the desert, so shouldn’t they have been sending us food?

  But after some thinking, I realized—this was the real home! Even though we didn’t have a sturdy house, or nice things, or the conveniences of modern life, the cattle, horses, and camels were all here. All of their wealth and hope was here. This was the foundation of their existence. The encampment on the banks of the Ulungur River, on the other hand, was only a fickle, distant satellite that had to rely on this place to subsist.

  Interestingly, when the vet arrived, he brought a big bag of baursak (deep-fried dough) from the encampment. When he left the burrow, he took a big bag of freshly fried baursak back to the encampment … why bother?

  * * *

  WHEN WE WERE BRINGING the herds south, Kama and I, along with the camels, always arrived at the camp first and hurried to set up tent and boil tea before the arrival of the main herds. When it was all ready, Kama would always tidy up the temporary camp. But what was there to do really? As far as I could tell, it was humble beyond words, but when I came back from a short stroll, our tent looked like something else—all the blankets were neatly stacked (I had assumed that since the blankets were to be used soon, there was no reason to stack them …), and just like in a real home, all the utensils were placed to the right-hand side upon entering the tent, in accordance with custom. She even spread a plastic bag under the bowls and chopsticks. It was the cleanest of all the plastic bags, folded squarely and meticulously. A real “home,” even if we would only be staying there for a mere six hours. But when the men herding the sheep flock and large livestock arrived and saw this tidy “home,” how their weary hearts must have felt warm and happy!

&nbs
p; Our earthen burrow at dusk

  6.

  Winter Slaughter

  AFTER WE HAD SETTLED into the burrow and completed our first major undertaking of fixing up the sheep pen, the next task was the winter slaughter.

  Cuma said, “This winter we will slaughter three sheep and our neighbors will slaughter a two-year-old mare.” He went on, “Slaughtering a horse is more or less like slaughtering three or four sheep!”

  For every herder family, the winter slaughter is a crucial part of preparing for the winter. Through the long winter, all spring, and half the summer that follows, this fragrant meat is the greatest consolation in a life of scarcity. Many of the Kazakh families who have settled in cities still maintain this tradition. At the end of fall, they buy livestock and slaughter it to prepare for the winter. In those months, the green belts of grass that surround urban apartment blocks are riddled with slaughtered sheep hanging on public exercise machines, their skin removed, their carcasses butchered, offal cleaned out, and hair burned off their heads and hooves using blowtorches.…

  There is no better time of year to slaughter livestock. First of all, every day is colder than the previous one, which is ideal for hygienic storage; second, the sheep, recently returned from the summer pastures, have not yet lost their fat; and lastly—at any rate this is my guess—heading into a winter of scarcity, it reduces the numbers of mouths to feed.

  Although witnessing the end of a life is inevitably a difficult experience for me personally, I nevertheless decided to prepare myself. But when the moment came for the slaughter to begin, Kama dragged me off to help her carry a sack of snow! So exasperating … and the sack was so full that I could barely stand up. Three steps, then a break, five steps, then a longer break. By the time I’d lugged the sack of snow over the sand dunes and was nearly home, I saw in the distance that the horse had already fallen! I threw down the sack and ran to see. But by the time I got there, the blood had already been drained. The horse’s eyes remained open, silent and still; its body was likewise motionless.

  Thankfully, I caught the next day’s slaughter.

  There were plenty of sheep, and when it came to choosing one, there didn’t seem to be much of a difference—to my mind, one was as good as the next. The flock was noticeably more anxious and alert than usual, as if they knew that this time, it wasn’t going to be as simple as getting sprayed with “Lice Eliminator.” The unlucky one had already been caught, but it still kept jumping and squirming, bleating out heartrending screams. Cuma grabbed onto the wool on either side of its neck and dragged it to the open space outside the burrow where he told me to bring over the kettle we used for washing our hands. Then, he pried open its mouth and told me to pour some water in. He explained, the sheep hadn’t “eaten” yet today, “It shouldn’t die on an empty stomach, or else its soul would feel mistreated.” But a mouthful of water—isn’t that only a symbolic gesture? It all sounded a bit too convenient.

  Next came the bata (prayer). The bata happened in a rush, less than half a sentence and it was over, and the knife was out—again, no more than a gesture. I didn’t even bother to ask what the prayer meant. When Cuma would lead us in bata before sitting down to eat meat, he was equally terse and expedient, a couple of syllables and it was done.

  Did the sheep hear? Did it understand? Its butcher had watched it grow up. Its butcher had used his own hands to pick it up from its placenta on the spring pasture floor, gently nestled it in the warm felt sack he had prepared, and after carefully strapping it to the saddle, brought it home.… Its butcher had led it across hills and plains in search of the lushest, most succulent grasses, and when it wandered astray, he braved the rain to find it.… Time and time again, he gave it delouser and tended to its inflamed wounds.… In the cold season, he had led it to the warm southern plains.… Did the sheep remember any of it? Could its butcher have felt a shred of hatred or meanness in those happier times? Perhaps that is the way of all life: in the end, to each his own, so long as your conscience is clear.

  A Kazakh writer that I like, sister Yerkex Hurmanbek, once said, “You shouldn’t die for your sins, we aren’t born to go hungry.”

  * * *

  ON THE FIRST DAY of winter slaughter, as soon as the horse was killed, the preparation of its meat began. Its blood drained, the men started flaying the skin from the hooves upward. When they reached the horse’s abdomen, Kurmash clenched his fist and punched the underside of the belly repeatedly until the skin separated from the fat covering the meat. He laid the hide out on the ground, and the carcass was pushed onto it to be dismembered. While Shinshybek and Kurmash cleaned out the organ meats, the two women took the intestines and stomach away to wash. Cuma and Sister-in-law carried large slabs of leg meat into a yurt where they hung it from the frame to be cut up. Inside the burrow, Kama was preparing lunch for everyone, dicing up a big slab of fresh meat. As for me, I tried my best to help wherever I could.

  I had no problem acting as the assistant, but they were always giving me the bloodiest tasks! Hold the flayed shanks, pull out the organs, pluck ribs out from under the skin, carry slabs of meat. The organs of a freshly slaughtered animal are steaming hot, still warm with life, they twitch in your hands, not to mention the squirting blood.… I was grossed out, but I couldn’t refuse.

  Thankfully, the neighbors’ baby, Karlygash, woke up and started bawling, so they told me to take care of her. But I soon realized that the bloody slaughter work was preferable! There’s nothing more tiring than watching a child—the moment you play, she laughs; the moment you stop, she cries. I had to jump up and down like a monkey to keep her calm. I wondered how Sayna did it. Clearly I was doing it wrong—it shouldn’t be this strenuous.

  A little over six months old, Baby Karlygash was already a good girl. She seemed to have understood what the day was all about. No matter how much she bawled, the moment someone entered the room, she would cease her tears and start laughing and clapping. When the adults were unusually busy, it meant that for lunch and dinner there would be feast and celebration.

  * * *

  JUST LIKE THAT, by lunchtime, a horse that had been running free in the light of dawn was a heap of meat and bones. We spent the whole morning carefully covering each individual piece of meat and bone with black salt to be air dried. Fat from the ribs and all the other bits of loose fat found between the skin and meat were stuffed into the intestines to be hung up.

  After all the hard work, lunch was laid out on the Shinshybeks’ family table with Kama’s stir-fried meat, as well as baursak, kurt, and a plate of dried apricots.

  I never ate horsemeat, perhaps because horses are too hot tempered? Their meat might be too—unlike sheep, chickens, and the like, docile and weak willed. But that day, I made an exception. It wasn’t because I was hungrier than usual, but after all that prayer and slaughter, I felt I could eat with a clear conscience. The plate before me became simply food. It was the final gift of power the horse left to us, to give us the energy to endure the long winter.

  That evening, to thank us for our help in slaughtering the horse, Sayna brought us a basin full of meat chunks, offal, and rib sausages.

  When she left, Cuma turned to me, pleased, and said, “Horsemeat, that’s the good stuff! Better than lamb! Real strong!”

  I asked why.

  He said, “Because horses are stronger than sheep!”

  Strange logic …

  Later, Sister-in-law minced the horsemeat and used it to make something resembling dumplings. So delicious! She boiled up a huge pot, enough that we had leftovers to warm up and eat for breakfast the next morning. Even though being soaked in water for a whole night made the dumpling skin too soft, they were still so good. I never eat leftovers, but even I ate a big bowl of dumplings in the morning.

  * * *

  THE FOLLOWING DAY was when we butchered sheep. Shinshybek and his family came over to help. And me, I was still the babysitter.… When the job was done, we gave them a big basin of lamb and offal as a thank
-you. Then, in the evening, we made a huge pot of lamb and wheat porridge to share with Shinshybek and his family. We ate to our heart’s content, and drank one cup of cold water after another.

  The meal finished, Kama went around with the kettle in one hand and a basin in the other so that everyone could wash their hands. Kurmash didn’t wash his hands but asked Kama to bring down the leather harness hanging beside the door. Slowly, he ran the thin leather straps along the spaces between his fingers until every drop of grease was soaked up. Beads of oil from his hands were instantly absorbed by the leather. I was fascinated, so I gave it a try too. The men laughed out loud, but then everyone started to do it. What a wonderful way to maintain leather.

  “Why is it that inlanders [migrant workers from south of the Great Wall] working at the same mine [mining is one of our county’s core industries] can save money but the Kazakh fellas can never save a single penny?” Cuma declared. “It’s because the Kazakhs can’t live without meat. Without meat, they have no energy. As for the inlanders, they can eat nothing but steamed bread and porridge all day!” he exclaimed admiringly.

  When the lamb, bones, and offal had all been processed, all that remained were the three heads that had been tossed to one corner of the bed pallet. Cheek by cheek, three sets of eyes stared into the distance. No matter how panicked the sheep had appeared before their deaths, now their expressions were peaceful and calm. As we busied ourselves with other things, hurrying in and out of the burrow, we often passed by and sometimes brushed up against the severed heads when we sat down. While chatting with Kama, I often found myself stroking their furry foreheads without ever thinking, “This is a corpse.” When I was feeling in a particularly good mood, I even lifted a dead sheep’s ear and asked it loudly, “All good in there?”