The Gray Earth

by Galsan Tschinag

  Then there was the question of the school uniform. At the beginning of the school year, each school was allocated one complete sample uniform. The sample was modeled on the uniforms worn in the capital, and all schools were asked to duplicate it as closely as possible, by handing out free uniforms to their special students.

  The special students—that is, the top students and orphans—have to get special treatment from the State and the People, always and everywhere. The State is embodied in our school, and the People in us, the students. The students are led by the Comrade Teachers, who are led in turn by Comrade Principal. This means Comrade Principal is the leader for all four teachers, one hundred students, one man cook and one woman cook, and finally for Arganak, janitor. Thus Brother Dshokonaj is the leader for all in our state school.

  Soon I would be overflowing with the knowledge that had been poured into me, but this cold morning it had not yet come to that. At this point I was still an empty vessel, a dumb creature. I stood at the threshold, marking the end of my world and looking ahead helplessly to what was coming.

  Sister stands in front of me, staring directly at me as if I were a dog about to attack her. She yells something that pounds on my eardrums and makes me pull a face. I understand nothing and feel even more intimidated. And I wonder: Why is Sister Torlaa showing up only now, when I haven’t seen her since the summer? Why, instead of holding my head in her hands and sniffing my cheeks and whispering “Bitsheldej! Dear little one!” in her gentle voice, why does she have to yell at me in a foreign language? And where is Brother Galkaan? Where have the two been hiding since yesterday, while I have been looking and listening for them all that time? I am crushed.

  Quickly I turn to run away. But a burning sensation awakes in my hips and, like a fire caused by lightning, races in opposite directions through my flesh and sinews. Nevertheless, I hobble away, dragging behind me my poor leg, which is numb with the sharp pain of my wound. I scream with pain and fury. I am enraged because, hobbling toward the gate in the sky-high fence, I already know people will catch me and lug me back like a mangy lamb. Covered with tears and snot, I will be made to stand again where I stood before.

  This is exactly what happens. I get caught before I even reach the gate. Nothing helps, though I fight with what little I have. They already took my dagger and its sheath. The bone pipe, which would have come in handy as a weapon, was left behind in one of my boots. The ground beneath my feet is no longer like the steppe it once was: there isn’t a single rock I could pick up. The only weapons I can draw on are my voice and my tears. I use them as best I can. I call upon Father and Mother, upon the Blue Sky and the Gray Earth, and I call upon my spirits: the Reddish-Brown Eagle with the Whistling Feathers, and the Stone-Gray Polecat with the Flaming Carnassials. May they come to free me from the fangs of the violent! And if that is impossible, may they come and sever the red thread of my life, freeing me from this wrong, from this neither-life-nor-death.

  But no one comes, and nothing helps!

  Dressed to kill, I am sweating. As if to mock me, my snappy clothes are so tight I can barely breathe, let alone drop to the ground. I want to roll in the dust of the steppe like an asa rolling in the ashes before shifting shape. But here the steppe is swept bare and trampled colorless, and two tall boys grab my arms and carry me off like a sacrificial lamb. Squished between the boys, both as unyielding as larch posts, I am drowning in snot and tears. Although I have given up hope, I can’t stop fighting and screaming, stabbed and spurred on by the human herd that seems to relish my pain and shame, like a stick teasing an animal before hunting it to death.

  Sister Torlaa has beaten a retreat and blended into the sea of people behind her. Brother Galkaan is glued to the spot, but he looks pale, bleak, and bewildered. I can just make out a twitch in his cheek muscles. Like a flayed animal, I think of vengeance and can almost taste the bittersweet satisfaction.

  Suddenly Comrade Principal shouts something over the tops of the heads. Row after row, the human snake backs away. Coarse, with shades of gray like yak-hair rope—it winds its way back until it slithers into the dark jaws of the school building.

  Ropes of animal hair, if they are left in still water for seven-times-ten days, become snakes. The thought makes me shake with nausea. When the end of the snake’s tail has disappeared and the door has been shut behind it, Comrade Principal springs back to life. He turns in the opposite direction. Just before the fence he veers sharply to the left and heads straight toward the house I was in earlier that morning, where my old clothes lie in a corner, rolled into my lawashak. The two boys follow him in lockstep. They continue to hold me as tightly as before, even though I no longer fight or scream but cry with abandon.

  Comrade Arganak’s fox face shows no trace of surprise when he sees us coming or, for that matter, when he sees me in such a state. He must have heard me shout and scream, and he probably watched from his window. Comrade Principal hastily starts to bellow, and then quickly disappears. One word sticks in my ear: shorung, prison. Comrade Arganak and the two boys, who let everything wash over their bowed heads, stay behind with me. The boys finally let go of me but continue to stand at attention, while Comrade Arganak nods toward the little pile that sits in the corner as I left it. His nod and subsequent short hiss reveal contempt and a touch of malicious pleasure. But this is another insight I will gain only later.

  I stand there motionless, thinking about my situation. The man hisses in Tuvan, “Stop standing there like a dummy. Are you expecting others to undress and dress you because the principal is your brother?”

  I start to undress, but his scolding continues: “A worthless dog’s stomach can’t even digest yellow butter, people say.” Why yellow butter, I wonder, while I struggle to free my foot from the narrow boot. Yellow butter is melted butter and therefore has more fat, I conclude, and turn to the other foot.

  I am not the least bit sorry to give up my new clothes. To the contrary, I am relieved. In my old familiar clothes I’ll be able to move again with ease. But I wonder whether to keep the white long underpants. The fox eyes pursue me, and I get caught as I try to throw my lawashak over the underpants.

  “Pants off!” he hisses. And then comes an even more threatening, murderous hiss. For one leg of my underpants is stained with blood.

  “Look at it: beautiful, brand-new underpants and he’s already made a mess of them.”

  The underpants are pushed under the boys’ noses. Both boys start back with anxious disgusted expressions. “This is a matter of state property. I am accountable to the People and the State. And I couldn’t care less who happens to be your brother. I shall report your case and make sure the State gets compensated.”

  With these words Comrade Arganak throws the underpants in my face. I wait a bit before I pick them up off the floor. A little later, assuming I have wrecked them so badly I will have to replace them anyway, I try to put them back on. But they are so brusquely ripped from my hands that I expect a thrashing as well.

  So I button up my lawashak and reach for my belt.

  “Aren’t you going to wear underpants?” the man asks, a bit more gently this time.

  “I don’t have any,” I say quietly.

  “You have no underpants!” the man hisses, craning his thin neck. His skin is wrinkled and flabby. He further screws up his already narrowly slanted eyes. They have a yellowish-green gleam. He tiptoes toward me.

  I remain silent and look at the floor, embarrassed in front of the boys. I hate this man so much that if I had a cup of steaming-hot tea in my hand, I would fling it right in his face.

  The man turns to the boys: “This is the son of Shynykbaj and the grandson of Khylbangbaj, and he is not wearing underpants. Do you know what that shows? It shows miserliness. And it is precisely miserliness that makes a baja and distinguishes him from other people.”

  Turning toward the slighter of the two, he continues: “You’re Tenekesh’s son, aren’t you? I thought so. You have ears like a summer hamster a
nd a bony nose with sunken nostrils like a thirsty goat. That tells me whose child you are. Your grandfather Güsgeldej was one of Khylbangbaj’s many laborers. Ask your father if I’m right. He will tell you. And tell your father that today a grandson of the famous baj has shown up with a bare ass, and that Arganak, the grandson of the have-not Sidikej and the son of the have-not Dojtuk, has given him a pair of underpants.”

  With these words he turns to me and dangles the underpants in front of my nose as if teasing a dog with a bone. His left thumb and index finger seize such a tiny corner that it looks as if he’s about to let go.

  I stand there motionless.

  But when I feel one of the underpants’ legs softly slap my face, I snatch the garment and fling it at the wall as hard as I can.

  Suppressed laughter rings out, lonely sickening laughter. Neither boy joins in. I glimpse nervous curiosity in their faces, which is vaguely comforting. Like a beast of prey facing its hunter, I have a liberating sense of determination.

  The man still will not leave me alone. He inches closer. His size terrifies me, and I hear a voice inside warn me: Watch out and hold tight!

  For now I concentrate and keep my eyes on the crumpled underpants in his bony black fist as he waddles toward me. But the moment he shoves his fist with the underpants in my face and gives me a rough punch on the nose, my jaws snap shut and bite down. Something hard and soft is between my rows of teeth; I taste blood and hear a crunching sound that clearly drags on.

  Again I hear the voice inside: Spit it out!

  I spit. A blubbery dark mass like dog crap shoots at the gaunt old face, which is contorted with fear. It hits the face on the right and turns dark red as it spreads across the man’s eye, nose, and chin.

  Because I can taste the blood more distinctly now, I go to spit again. But before I can, I am throwing up.

  THE PRISONER

  Did I really live through all this? Or was it all a dream?

  I feel as if I have been beaten and crushed, and died and gone to hell. But I have my things on me: my head scarf is in my breast pocket and my bone pipe tucked in my boot. A dead sheep gets its wool plucked, a dead yak its skin flayed. All things are taken from the dead so they may stand naked and bare before Erlikbej. Hence I cannot be dead. That I am in pain is yet another sign that I am alive. My head rings, my ribs hurt, my ears burn. I seem to recall punches and kicks. But I am just a child, and he is a grown man, strong enough to kill a dog, or even a yak.

  Some time ago, I sensed a strong brightness. I must have been outside. Then it turned dark again. Wood squeaked and iron clanked. There were other sounds as well, and there seemed to be other bodies along with something I sensed most distinctly: raw meat. It was no longer fresh and had a pungent smell. And there was no breeze to carry away the sweetish smell of the blood trapped in the meat.

  Beneath me I feel damp cool gravel. A small clump of earth under the gravel is slimy. A musty smell assaults my senses and makes my eyes water. I shouldn’t lie here any longer. I should try to escape. I lift my head slowly, prop myself up on my elbows, and slowly sit up. The darkness around me spins. My mouth feels sticky, and the skin on my face is taut as if covered in glue. When the spinning stops, I decide to explore my environment. Stretching my arms sideways, I bump into a wooden log panel on my right and recognize peeled larch beams stacked on top of each other. I feel my way along the wall and reach a corner where another wall starts, this one cooler and smoother but also made from larch beams.

  So I did land in prison.

  I have heard of prison. Everyone fears it. Prison is where enemies of the People are sent. In the beginning there were many enemies, now not so many. Most of them have been eliminated, a few reeducated.

  Samdar is one who went to prison and returned. Once he stayed overnight at our yurt and talked through half the night. He spent ten years in prison, the first three of them alone in complete darkness. His cell was narrow and built of stone, and he was allowed outside for just ten minutes a day. Just long enough to finish a bowl of hot tea, he said. Prison tea comes without milk or salt and is drunk from a tin cup instead of a proper bowl. Along with the tea, prisoners get a piece of black bread no bigger than two matchstick boxes. I have had tea without milk or salt, but I have never had bread. I would love to try some—ideally, right now.

  After that night Father and Mother’s fear of prison seemed to grow. As we say in our family, any yak cow that fails to calve and any sheep whose wool gets lost can land you in prison. So far we have fulfilled our quota, if barely.

  And as for me now?

  I feel a light but insistent pressure from my bladder. What to do? I must explore my cell and find out what I have here. Samdar said he had a plank bed and a tin bucket. I may have a bucket, too. If I don’t, I’ll have to find a corner to relieve myself in, at least for now.

  The beams lead me farther. My prison seems big compared to Samdar’s. Its floor drops. The farther down I go, the eerier it seems. First I think of a cave, then again of hell. Maybe I should turn around. What if this gaping mouth has no end, or if an abyss opens up suddenly?

  My hand touches something soft, and I quickly pull back. Then I reach out to touch it again. It must be flour—many sacks, piled on top of each other. One sack contains something grainy. Is it rice? Rice grains are not this small and round. It must be millet. The discovery brightens my spirits. Now I think I can see what towers in front of me: a heap of white sacks, filled to bursting with powdery snow-white flour. Not even Father has ever seen this much flour. He brings home flour in a small rumen bag I can easily carry over my shoulder. In exchange for the pelts and small intestines he takes to the trading agent he receives not only flour, but also brick tea, salt, rice, gunpowder, lead, primer, candles, and wolf poison. When she stands in front of the provisions Father brings home, Mother always gets a little shaky before solemnly proposing: “Let’s have a look at the flour and the tea.”

  If I were to show her this heap of flour and say “You can have a whole sack,” she would probably pass out. But if she didn’t, I’d say, “Have as much as you like, Mother. Take not only flour, but millet as well!” Then she would say, “Really? This is such fine food—but I won’t eat, my dear child, unless you will, too,” and then she would pause. Once, a long time ago, I ate so much cooked millet that now I can no longer stand it. So Father stopped buying millet. At this point I would say, “I’ll find something else to eat. You go ahead and have the millet. You like it, don’t you?”

  I am burning with curiosity as I feel my way forward. I can feel shelves with more sacks. Salt, I realize. And onions. Finally I come across the meat whose sweetish-foul smell is making my prison unbearable. It is leftover meat from a goat’s spine. I shake my head: why would pieces of marrow that should have been used up first be left while the haunches and ribs are gone? I can hardly believe what I discover next: a heavy wooden box full of sugar cubes. The box has been torn open and it is almost full. What would happen if I were to haul out the heavy box and open it in front of our clan’s children? They’d probably cry out in shock and then fall silent for who knows how long. In the end they might tear into the box. After much hesitation I take four sugar cubes and tuck them into my breast pocket.

  At that moment I hear a sound like a pebble rolling across a stretched hide. It seems very close, almost inside my right ear, and makes me jump. Is it a mouse? I hold my breath and listen, but all I can hear is my own heartbeat. My whole body is shaking. No matter how hard I try, I don’t hear the sound again. But then I think I can actually see the mouse. It appears and disappears, runs away and back toward me. It is a hideous long-tailed mouse with bald skin and a bloated belly. Its kidneys shine bluish through its thin skin.

  “One of your clan’s chieftains was devoured by mice,” Camel-Lips Shunu told me one day while he watched me hunt them. Why, he wanted to know, was I not afraid of mice? Of course one doesn’t believe everything Shunu says, particularly since his camel lips made a strange laugh after h
e asked me. But he was basically right. Father can’t even bear hearing about mice. If he happens to see one, his hand instantly reaches for the dagger on his belt. Mother doesn’t go so far as pulling a knife when a mouse crosses her path. But she uses language she would never use otherwise, which is bad enough. Everyone in the ail finds mice disgusting. And disgust is worse than fear.

  The pressure from my bladder, which I had forgotten, reasserts itself. I lose interest in my treasure and turn away from the shelf. Arms stretched out and head tucked in, I trot forward. Going up feels better than down, and I feel relieved because I imagine the exit is close. Instead I soon run into the log panel. No matter how carefully I grope to the right and to the left, my paths are blocked by walls of big hard beams, as solid as rock.

  I keep trying to find an exit or at least a nook, but in the end I give up and pee on the beams.

  The mouse I see in my mind’s eye lingers close by. It stares at me with bulging glassy eyes full of insolence and suspicion, so I don’t dare sit on the ground. Each time it gets close, I make the whistling and snorting sounds I would use to drive a herd. The mouse backs off, but soon comes scuttling toward me again.

  When I see the animal becoming more brazen, I realize I must kill it. I pick up a handful of the larger pebbles and wait. Soon the mouse appears, smirking and squatting on its hind legs, its glassy eyes fixed on me. I move a pebble from my left to my right hand and hold it with three fingertips the way one pulls an arrow from the quiver to nock it on the bowstring. Then I take aim: the tip of the index finger of my outstretched left arm aims at the mouse while I pull my bent right arm back to propel the pebble. Missed!