Winter Pasture

by Li Juan

  Sister-in-law thought the world of her only son. She regularly dropped whatever she was doing to hold him. Kneeling behind him, she would hold his head and smother it with a hundred sweet kisses.

  And don’t be fooled by the siblings’ endless bickering. When they weren’t arguing, they also found comfort in each other’s embrace. Those long hugs said all there was to say about their silent, loving bond.

  But most of all, the boy wanted to be close to his father. The moment Cuma lay down to rest, Zhada would instantly creep beside him, hugging him tightly while playing on his phone.

  But Cuma preferred teasing his son. Zhada wanted to turn the handle of a broken trowel into a door handle. Cuma said, “Let me see.” Zhada quickly handed it to him. Who would have thought that Cuma would snap it in two and admonish, “You should be studying, not tinkering with nonsense.” Zhada instantly burst into tears. He threw his bowl of tea on the floor and sat down in the far corner to grumble. But after only a few minutes, he had forgotten all about it. After leaning in to kiss his dad, he picked up the empty bowl and handed it to his mom for a refill.

  After our TV program ended one night, Zhada was already fast asleep. Cuma crept up to his son and suddenly let out a piercing whistle in his ear. The prank left the child bawling with indignation. While scoffing at his son, Cuma told him to go relieve himself in preparation for bedtime. As he spoke, he slipped a jacket over the boy’s shoulders so he wouldn’t catch a cold when he went outside.

  I rarely let people browse my camera’s photos, in order to conserve the battery. On one of those rare occasions, I had only flipped through a few photos before Cuma said, “That’s enough, turn it off.” I was taken aback because he was always the one who enjoyed looking at photos the most. By way of explanation, he added, “Zhada’s outside. Wait until he’s back and we’ll look together.”

  Zhada was the family’s center of gravity. They were a bit overprotective of him, but not to the point of being indulgent. He loved being the center of attention, yet he did not become a brat as a result. In short, he was a good kid (aside from always sleeping in) who never shirked on his chores. He was brilliant too, able to disassemble a cell phone down to its keypad, then put it back together again (it was Kama’s cell phone he disassembled, resulting in some harsh words from her). He could also take a battery from a broken MP3 player, the bulb from a broken flashlight, and a switch from some other piece of electronics, and voilà, a functioning flashlight. And a bright one at that! In short, he was the pride of the family. But this clever boy, for some reason, ended up with bad grades.

  Of course, Zhada had his defiant moments too. When everyone was busy with no hands to spare, Sister-in-law told him to quit whittling the piece of wood and go out to collect some snow. He complained for ages, and after some more procrastination, he reluctantly went out with a sack. An hour later, there was still no sign of him. Sister-in-law asked me to put down my needlework and go look for him. As soon as I stepped outside, I spotted the kid in the clearing just beyond the burrow settlement drawing on the ground with a shovel! The sack, bulging with snow, lay by his side.

  The clearing where he stood was covered in a fresh layer of snow. The snow was white and the manure beneath it was black. The image he “drew” with his shovel had the effect of crisp, clear black lines against a white page. It was the face of a giant monster with bulging eyes and a thick beard. I praised him, “It looks just like your dad!” He said, “Koychy!” before smudging it out with his shovel.

  * * *

  IT’S HARD TO SAY if this thing called “childhood” is interesting or boring. There are many pointless activities that, when they were done by Zhada, became fascinating. For example, one day he decided to fill a bottle of his eldest sister Sharifa’s expired liquid foundation with hot water, then walk around squirting the milky-white liquid everywhere. When he ran out of hot water, he used tea from the thermos. Like that, he whiled away a whole hour; what kind of pleasure could he possibly have gotten from it?

  Other equally pointless activities included:

  Cutting up a piece of white cloth that Kama intended to embroider onto a cushion and turning it into a Japanese flag. Then cutting a sleeve off one of Sister-in-law’s old red tops and turning it into a red flag. Then Zhada and Rahmethan held one flag each high above their heads and charged up a sand dune for an all-out war.

  Draping a large bundle of ready-to-spin wool over his head as a wig and strutting about like a model. When Sister-in-law saw him, she laughed out loud. Once she collected herself, she scolded the rascal for tangling up the wool that Li Juan had spent all afternoon straightening.

  After seeing a news anchor from southern Xinjiang wear a black lamb’s leather fez on TV, a light went off in Zhada’s head and he rummaged through chests and boxes until he found an old coat with a black leather collar. He tore off the collar, sewed both ends together, and slipped the tube-shaped hat over his head. From then on, he wore this topless southern Xinjiang fez every day as he worked.

  Zhada was busy every morning sawing a small length of wood or knocking off a red brick. One would think that he was working on some small project to contribute to home improvement, but as it turns out, he was making a little wooden car with four bottle tops for wheels; that or he chiseled a lovely round hole in a brick.

  Once he brought home the stiff, frozen hide of a dead horse’s head and softened it in the oven. Then he retrieved an intact horse skull that was hanging on the tripod on the dune and wrapped it with the softened horse hide. After carefully sewing the seams together, he had produced a horse-head taxidermy. His craftsmanship was flawless. Even the gaps in the hide were carefully patched and sewn.

  Another time, after connecting countless insulated wires together into one cord over thirty feet long and attaching a small light bulb to one end, he then hooked it up to the battery to light up the bulb.

  And having tied a flexible blade of grass around a white pebble, he created a ring.

  But it was only a few days before the carefully sewn horse taxidermy was taken apart by no one knows who. The hide was returned to the yurt where it came from, becoming, once again, stiff and frozen. The skull was found hanging from the tripod once again. The wooden car was tossed to a corner of the burrow with three of its wheels missing. The power cord that once stretched over thirty feet long shrank by the day until eventually the broken bulb was tossed into the oven.… Only the fez from southern Xinjiang survived—he wore it every day. The boy certainly was clever, applying himself to everything he did, only most of the things that he made were of no use to anyone at all.

  Although the nose pegs he whittled for the camels were useful. Upon Cuma’s request, he ran out to retrieve a bundle of saxaul branches. Sitting by the bed, he whittled and whittled, producing twenty-six units in one sitting! But they only had three camels.…

  When Kama painted her fingernails, he begged to paint his too. But what would a boy do with painted fingernails? So he painted his toenails.…

  * * *

  ON A WARM DAY in the middle of February, Kama and I made a visit to the family that lived in the pastures northwest of us. When we returned, I couldn’t stop talking to Cuma about how many children the family had. Cuma griped, “They don’t follow the two-child policy! They have a relative in the family-planning department!” Because of the policy, Zhada exceeded their family quota, leading to a fine of over ten thousand yuan, a fact that Cuma was still upset about.

  This only son of theirs wasn’t particularly healthy. He was often plagued by fits of coughing. It was especially bad at night. Even when he ran out of breath, he still couldn’t stop coughing. Lying in darkness, we listened quietly, having long gotten used to the troubling sound. I urged Cuma to make Zhada visit a doctor in case it turned into something more serious. Cuma said, “I gave him the money, he bought a cell phone.” I was speechless. But how can you blame him for wanting to be cool? He was young and lived in a world of shiny objects far from home.

  On a
nother warm day in the middle of February, Zhada donned his father’s getup and went herding. I could hardly believe it, so I asked, “Will he come back by noon?” Cuma replied, “No way! No earlier than eight!”

  Out with the flock, it was critical that Zhada had his cell phone. That way, he could listen to music while the sheep grazed. On top of that, he had to have Kama’s phone too. This way, when one ran out of battery, he could continue to listen to music on the other.

  I suggested taking his school bag instead—study while you herd. He giggled and acted as if he hadn’t heard me.

  The neighbor’s boy, Rahmethan, envied this little lone shepherd so much that he climbed on a white horse bareback and followed Zhada out to the pastures with the flock. From the top of a sand dune, I watched the two kids ride side by side into the distance. Even though I couldn’t hear their conversation or see the expressions on their faces, I could nevertheless sense their excitement and joy.

  Just as I expected! By twelve thirty, the boy came home for tea, having left the sheep behind. Like a decorated hero, when he ate fried noodles, he insisted that his mother should add extra sugar.

  I was sure that Zhada wouldn’t be able to keep it up for more than a few days. Who would have guessed that from that day on, whenever it was our family’s turn to herd, the boy rushed to volunteer. His enthusiasm was quite remarkable.

  It wasn’t until school was starting up again and the boy was sorting through his inventory that he would be taking north to school with him that I finally understood—Cuma had promised to give him five yuan every time he herded.…

  Cuma exclaimed, “He arrived at the burrow with only fifty cents on him. Now he’s leaving with more than sixty bucks!”

  Zhada had a head for business. He even pocketed the cash gift left in exchange for Panda Dog’s puppies. Outrageous! He never even fed the dogs, yet he took the money when they were sold!

  What’s more, he sweet-talked Kama into trading her new phone for his secondhand one. Kama quickly came to regret the decision. When she wanted to trade back, the rascal said, “Sure, but you have to give me twenty yuan on top!” He even explained his logic, which left Kama thoroughly confused. As Cuma savored the siblings’ dispute, he said to me, “The first time they traded, I told them to write a contract. They didn’t listen. Now they are having ding-dong [trifling] problems!”

  * * *

  AS ZHADA’S DEPARTURE approached, Kama became deeply anxious, often mumbling to herself, “The twentieth, Zhada will be gone! …” When the parents heard her, they had nothing to say. But the boy thought nothing of it and seemed even more chipper than usual. Of course, he was leaving this desolate place soon. More importantly, his wallet was bulging.…

  During those last few days, when I was teaching Kama Chinese, for some reason the boy suddenly felt inspired. He took his Chinese textbook out of his backpack and started to read. Normally, at that hour, he would have had his wallet out to count his money. Cuma exclaimed, “A month, after a whole month! This is the first time I’ve seen him open his backpack!” Zhada paid no mind, transfixed by his textbook.

  On the day before his departure (apparently a car would come pick him up), Zhada sang compulsively all morning. Everyone sat around the tablecloth eating last night’s leftover meat on knife-cut noodles. While eating a piece of backbone, Cuma said, “Why wait for a car? You can fly there in an airplane!” With a pair of wing bones in his hands, he made a humming noise indicating that the “airplane” was taking off. Everyone laughed. But the sadness of separation still hung in the air. Only the person of interest was distinctly cheerful, carefully chewing the bones, worried that he might get grease on his new clothes.

  Those last few mornings were shrouded in fog. By the time the fog dissipated, the blue sky was once again obscured by the rising mist. The day remained overcast. The solar-powered battery barely charged, so we couldn’t watch TV in the evenings. Add to that the fact that the car was several days behind schedule, and Zhada grew anxious—he would herd the flock to earn some extra cash, but he was afraid that he might miss the car; or maybe he wouldn’t, in which case it was another day wasted waiting.… From a high vantage point, he watched the two flocks (by that point, our new neighbors, Kulynbek and his family, had moved into one of our burrows) as they walked far away, slowly converging to the same distant point. He watched for a long time. Zhada was the son of a shepherd, so of course he loved the land, but what truly inspired him was the glittering life beyond the pastures.

  PART

  THREE

  Serenity

  22.

  Twilight

  IT’S HARD TO PUT into words just how long twilight lasts. From when the sun weighs down on the western horizon like a hefty pile of golden ingots to the luminous glow after sunset, and then, when the constellations begin to light up and the world fades into serenity—in this stretch of time, we are able to do so many things! Drink tea, herd cattle, milk cows, add “bedding” to the sheep pen, prepare dinner. Then we climb up the northern dune again and again to gaze toward the direction from which the flock will return … then meet them along the way … then slowly accompany them home.…

  Whenever I walk alone into the wilderness, enveloped by dusk, I watch as the celestial halo hardens into a sharp, silvery disk. The silver moon grows heavier and heavier, deeper, bigger, and rounder, its cold light radiating … and just like that, another day has passed. As the long night thrusts forth slowly and forcefully, the earth turns away. Darkness, like a kettle of water, fills the world … no, I can’t describe the power of dusk.

  To a herder, wouldn’t the experience of dusk feel even richer and more profound? Alone, he leads the flock slowly back to camp. Cold and hungry, he hasn’t said a word all day. Beneath the stars, white kitchen smoke rises from the direction of his home. The sheep are even more eager than he is, their heads low, trotting quicker and quicker. If in this moment, the herder sees his family approach him from the distance to greet him, what comfort and delight would that bring! He cannot help but sing.

  * * *

  AT DUSK, AFTER THOSE who remained home finished their day’s work, they retreat to the burrow to rest and wait for news of the flock’s return. I stood at the top of the northern dune by myself, scouring eastward. Far in the distance, it seemed that the sheep were approaching. I watched for a long while before I could clearly see the outline of the flock moving. They were a little over half a mile out, so I ran home to bring the news. Once I had returned to the dune, I picked up the long whip I’d stuck in the sand and fixed my eyes on the flock as I set out to greet them.

  After trekking over two small dunes, I noticed that the flock had scattered in place. They had decided to continue grazing in the dark night air. Shinshybek sat still on his horse, apparently unable to bring himself to disturb the feeding sheep. So I stopped too and watched from afar, afraid to startle the flock and interrupt their feeding, sending them hurrying homeward.

  When Shinshybek saw me, he dismounted and walked over, leading the horse along behind him. He spoke his first words since leaving the burrow that morning: “How are you, young lady?” I quickly returned his greeting, but then found that I had nothing else to say. The two of us stared at the flock in the twilight.

  A while later, he spoke his second sentence of the day: “Sheep, eat!” in Mandarin, by which he meant the sheep were still eating, let’s wait a little longer. The sheep were startled nevertheless by his words. They raised their heads and crowded together nervously, gradually nudging one another toward home. The two of us stood side by side in the gloom, still with nothing to say. Suddenly, he kicked the sand with his felt overboot and asked, “How to say this in Mandarin?” I said, “Shazi.” He repeated the word to himself. Then he asked me how to say “snow” and “grass,” then waved the whip in his hand and asked me what that was called. I answered him one by one, but I knew that it would be hard for him to remember all the words. Maybe it wasn’t so much about learning as simply wanting to say something
. After all, he had just returned from a long, lonely day.

  We walked on either side of the flock, slowly accompanying them westward. It was getting darker and darker. The sheep began to quicken their pace.

  All of a sudden, from the other side of the flock, Shinshybek started bellowing a song: “Every day, ah, every day! Every day, ah! Every day …”

  In the distance, the dummy we erected on the top of a dune looked as if it was approaching us—shoulders slumped, listening, trying hard to identify us.

  If Cuma had been the person I had gone to greet, he would have talked endlessly, teaching me everything he knew about herding. It was because he assumed that the only reason I had come to the winter pasture was to learn to herd.

  When he returned home in the evenings, he would say to me, “One should always walk slowly, never rush.” This was because the sheep had been eating grass all day, and their stomachs were stuffed. If they ran, their stomachs will catch cold at night.

  With that, he would kick his horse and gallop home, leaving me to walk the sheep back by myself, slowly.

  After only a few steps, he turned to remind me, “You must not run!” And off he went again while bellowing a song.

  * * *

  IT WAS STILL EARLY. Alone, herding the flock beneath a solitary moon, I climbed over the last dune. In front of me was a lonesome sunset. They say the shape of the moon comes from the earth’s shadow as it blocks the sun. But it looked like the sun and the moon were right next to each other, while the earth was all the way down here where I was. The three objects clearly sat on a plane, forming an acute triangle.…