The Gray Earth

by Galsan Tschinag

  As usual, the students leave the classroom during recess. But today the teacher stays in his seat and calls me back. After dismissing the student on classroom duty and telling him to make sure the door stays shut, he turns to me. To my surprise, he speaks in a low voice and in Tuvan: “I have to find Gök or I’ll go to prison. Do you think your shaman aunt could help me?”

  I am stunned and speechless. Not waiting for a reply, the teacher continues: “I know she’s your aunt as well as your teacher. Would she receive me if you went with me?” His voice goes weepy: “Your big brother will be punished, too, if something happens to Gök. You must help me, dear little brother!”

  “The woman you have in mind is a long way from here,” I say. Or is something inside me speaking? “If you went to her, you’d lose too much time. I could help you and your student, but you said you’d send me to prison and have me shot if I ever so much as used the word shaman again!”

  The man eyes me with suspicion. I watch the expression in his bulging green eyes go from doubt to anxious curiosity, and then eventually to anxious hope.

  “I didn’t say that, little brother,” he replies with sudden fervor. “It was the Party Cell’s darga who said it, Jadmaj, Höjük Dshanggy’s son. And he only said it to frighten you.”

  “Oh well,” I say. Or is the voice inside me speaking again? “I have to take your word for it. Our witnesses shall be the black sky and his servant—the one you mentioned, Teacher.”

  “What do I need to do in order to count on your help, little brother?”

  “I need fire, juniper, tobacco, and a dark room.”

  “When?”

  “Right now.”

  “Impossible. How about tonight?”

  “What if Gök is still alive? Do we have to wait until he’s definitely frozen to death? Then you will no longer need my help.”

  The conch is blown to signal the end of the recess. The door opens, and the students, who must have been waiting there, surge back in as one solid mass. With the teacher rooted to the spot and unsure what to do, I take my seat. Feeling all the curious eyes on me gives me a prickling satisfaction beneath my skin.

  I can tell the teacher is trying to work things out. My mind is churning, too. Where will Gök be? Why didn’t he tell me? Doesn’t he trust me? Does he actually have a place to stay? Where did he spend last night? What if his feet really are frostbitten? Has he frozen to death by now? And if he is still alive, how will he survive the night?

  The more I think about Gök, the more restless I get. Perhaps I am picking up the teacher’s edginess, or he mine. He is obviously getting increasingly anxious. After he has covered half the blackboard with writing, he tells us to copy it into our books and then to read on in our reader. The eldest student in the class is to supervise if he is not back soon. Then he leaves.

  Ishgej is a good, if strict, substitute teacher. She takes her seat at the teacher’s desk and organizes the reading. The class obeys, although a few students make remarks.

  “Did you notice? The teacher’s scared shitless.”

  “He’ll go to prison for sure if something happens to Gök.”

  “Gök’s father is wild. Hunashak won’t wait for the law.”

  Big Lip turns around and asks me in a loud whisper, “Hey, Runaway, what does he want from you?”

  I poke the tip of my tongue out of the left corner of my mouth, signaling that I won’t tell. She doesn’t quit: “Go on. Admit it. He wants you to take him to your aunt, doesn’t he?”

  I stick out more of my tongue and squint.

  Billy Goat keeps pushing. “He wants your help, right? He wants you to give him an oracle, doesn’t he? Are you going to shamanize for him?” I feel caught, and my heart is thudding in my throat. But I try to deny everything: “Come off it! What you are making me out to be ...”

  Billy Goat won’t back off: “Son of Shynykbaj, do you really think we’ve all got our ears plugged?”

  Ishgej tells him to behave, but Billy Goat mocks her: “Teacher’s pet! Is that pretty little mouth going to tell on us? Go ahead. Today he’s not punishing anybody.”

  The conch is blown to signal the next break, and the teacher finally returns. Again the students leave, I am held back, and we talk in private behind the closed door.

  “I’ve got everything. You can start at the end of the break,” he says, flush with excitement. I nod.

  “Should you use the toilet before I lock you in? I won’t be able to let you out again before the next break.”

  “You want to lock me in? Where?”

  “In your prison. You know, the storage area in the cellar. Just till the next break.”

  “Who’s going to be in there with me?”

  “Nobody. You’ll be on your own. You’ll find everything you need.”

  “That’s not going to work. I need someone to light the tobacco for me, to put the hat on me and take it off, and to remember the words.”

  “I haven’t got anyone and I can’t join you. I can’t possibly leave the class for another hour.”

  “Then I can’t help you, Teacher!”

  This hits him hard. He frets and then says with determination that I am to go now.

  “After the break,” he says, “I will be where I picked you up last time.”

  The moment I leave the classroom, the other students crowd around me. I walk past them quickly. At the entrance to the cellar, the yellow man who allowed me to keep the sugar cubes, whom I now know as Itikej, is waiting for me.

  “What did you do wrong this time, little fellow?” he asks when he sees me. He sounds friendly and caring.

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know?” He shakes his head. Everyone says Itikej is Kazakh. But because he speaks Tuvan so perfectly, I think he belongs to the Hara Sayan tribe.

  “Itikej Aga, are there mice in the prison?”

  I only ask in order to say something. I find it unbearable to be silent in the presence of someone like Itikej.

  “The prison,” he says and pauses. “You mean the storage area. No, there aren’t any mice. Why do you ask? Are you scared of mice?”

  “A little bit. That first day I thought a mouse was running around.”

  “It was probably a pebble that fell and tumbled down a board. The pit hasn’t been dug that well, so the gravel keeps falling down. Eventually the whole roof could cave in.”

  At that moment the teacher shows up. He walks so fast he is practically running and immediately turns to Itikej: “Where’s the fire?”

  “In a basin, down there. It’s yak dung and will burn a good long while,” the sunshine-yellow man says. He sounds accommodating and kindhearted.

  “Good.” The teacher sounds relieved. Lowering his voice he adds gravely, “This time you have to lock us both in. Don’t open the door until the next break.”

  Itikej’s eyes grow big. “You’re going in there too, Teacher?”

  “You heard right. Don’t say a word to anyone. Nobody needs to know.”

  “Itikej knows to keep his mouth shut, Teacher.”

  The heavy, metal-clad prison door opens before me a second time. I can tell from the teacher’s movements that he is unfamiliar with the place, so I go ahead. Filled with intense smoke, the dank, dark earthen cave smells a little like a yurt. Then I see the fire. It fills the basin, casting a soft yellow light on the bluish-gray ground.

  I begin by pulling my head scarf from my breast pocket—during the winter, it serves as my neck scarf—and holding one corner tightly: this will be my shawyd. I take my fox-fur hat off and turn it inside out. When I say “Incense!” the teacher pulls from his coat pocket a bulging pouch I recognize as a ram’s scrotum. He unties the string, reaches in with his right hand, and sprinkles juniper from his palm over the basin. While the flames crackle and flicker, I wave my scarf over the fire and mumble “Alas, alas, alas,” to myself. Then I say loudly, “Headgear!”

  Quickly the teacher grabs the inside-out fox-fur hat from my hands,
puts it over my head, pulls it down over my face, and ties the laces at the back of my neck. He seems to be familiar with shamans.

  Quietly, as is the custom, I begin the opening chant. It calls upon Father Sky and Mother Earth, and I have sung it a hundred times. But today my voice is shaky and my stomach heavy, and I get stuck in a groove. No new lines and no new melody rise from my throat and tongue. I realize I am going to have a difficult time of it. Turning from the light, I crouch, take the shawyd into my left hand, and wave it gently while simultaneously putting my right hand on my back, spreading my fingers. Instantly something gets pushed between my fingers. I bring my right hand forward, lift it to my mouth, put what was placed in it between my lips, and inhale: it is genuine, acrid tobacco, rolled in stiff paper with a cardboard mouthpiece—not something I have ever seen, let alone smoked! I take one drag after another, suck the burning, stinking smoke into my mouth, force it down my throat, and push and press the choking mass deep into my guts. With each gulp I feel more nauseous and heavy headed. But the essential jolt that would shake me to the core fails to materialize. I mutter in vain, shiver and quiver, waiting. Then I change horses in midstream. I drop the solemn chant in favor of a skipping and bucking one: Little son of Süsükej,

  Grab me.

  Truncheon of the State,

  Hit me.

  The man I have named and begged does not comply. He stays glued to the side of the basin as if deaf and dumb from old age.

  I fly into a rage, jump up, spin around, and pelt him with insults I would never otherwise dare to let pass as verses out in the open among the mountains and waters: Trunk without head,

  Head without ears.

  Lump that you are,

  I gave you words

  Not farts.

  At last he begins to connect. His eyes are wide open and cast two tight green beams of light at me. It still does not occur to him to take my request literally and do what I demand, namely, to hit me. I have to push harder and lure him into a corner where he can no longer control himself.

  Little son of Süsükej

  Little fool of Sojakaj,

  Did you really think

  I would help you?

  Ha-ha-ha-haa!

  He jumps with a jolt, waves his fists, and yells, “I can’t believe this!”

  You do not hear much more

  Than what foolishness deserves.

  Give me at last

  What I deserve, hey!

  “Watch out, boy, or you’ll get a good hiding!”

  A good hiding? Oh no!

  You lack

  A man’s courage

  As you lack

  A father’s name!

  He whacks my shoulder, knocking me off balance. I feel relieved, but this half measure is disappointing.

  That’s your best shot?

  More like unsalted tea.

  I can tell

  You lack a lot!

  The next blow lands on my right temple. This one is harder and better, a more genuine blow. All along he must have been filled with the desire to kill. I am flung to the ground and, just when I feel the damp, cool gravel against my face, my head starts to buzz. Screaming full throttle, I try to get up. Although I pity myself bitterly, I feel satisfied—apparently, this is what I tried to achieve.

  At that moment I see Gök in front of me. Tiny, his face as blue as ice, he is crouching in a corner. Quickly I forget my self-pity and try to run to him. My path is blocked by obstacles: walls, walls, and more walls are both separating us and locking us in—him, me, all of us—and there are dark beams and light beams, each harder and higher and more impossible to overcome. Everything I see and everything I think turns into chant. I can hear my own voice, muffled and distant ...

  Suddenly I find myself back at the basin. It no longer contains fire. Without light or crackle, two bits of ember glow wearily like exhausted, dying eyes. “Incense!” I demand, unsure whether I will be obeyed. There is a rustle and the sweetish, warm scent of juniper. “Headgear!” I say with more confidence. The hat is plucked from my head, and a heavy burden lifts from my body and my heart. I am aware of my hat fanning the juniper. A drawn-out yawn escapes me, and I shake myself. My whole body feels utterly relieved and deeply tired.

  “Eej tümen eej dshajaatshy!” the teacher says, addressing me as one addresses a shaman. “Oh, you ten thousand spirits! I saw the world with blind eyes and listened with deaf ears, and I acted disgracefully when I was unable to make out the true sense of your verses. I beg your forgiveness ten thousand times.” He puts my hat back on my head, this time the right way around.

  “It is I who should ask for forgiveness, but there seemed to be no other way,” I say. Then I add firmly, “I hope you paid good attention to what came afterward?”

  “Oh I did, I did,” he says. “There was a mention of someone crouching in a corner, and of walls made of dark and light beams that block the way to that corner. And also of a stinky place.”

  “A stinky place?”

  “Yes, those were the exact words. That’s where Gök is supposed to be, blue with cold, crouching in a corner.”

  Itikej comes back sooner than expected, before the roar of the conch. Later it occurs to me that he must have been eavesdropping.

  “The sooner, the better! Let’s hurry back to class so I can send the big boys to check the corner sheds.” The teacher is visibly agitated.

  A sea of eyes greets us with burning curiosity. “Did you have to go back to prison?” Sarsaj whispers as I squeeze back into my narrow seat. I shake my head. “You look like you’ve been crying,” he says. Indeed! I think. I am shaken, but I try to look calm.

  Only then is the conch blown. The teacher keeps the class in their seats. He picks first Ombar and then five more boys and tells them to check each outhouse from top to bottom. All eyes are blazing, and during the break the whole class crowds around me, wanting to know what happened. I keep insisting I know nothing. Soon, at the beginning of the next and last class of the day, the six boys return. No sign of Gök.

  Suddenly the teacher asks in Tuvan, “What sort of places are stinky around here?” His question perks up the class and makes us laugh.

  “Toilets!” comes from all sides.

  “What else?”

  Now the answers come one at a time.

  “A bed when you fart.”

  “Places with dead animals, in the summer.”

  “Classrooms, when classes are over.”

  “Blue Tooth Buura opening his mouth.”

  “Hospitals.”

  The teacher jumps in: “Why’s that?”

  “Medicines stink.”

  “That’s right. And medicine for animals really stinks.”

  “It stinks wherever Doctor Shööke goes.”

  I prick up my ears. The teacher does, too. He looks up. “Do you just think so, or do you know?”

  “I know,” says Hünsegesh, who made the comment about the vet.

  “Everywhere he goes. It’s worst where Uncle Shööke fumigates the camels. I was there the other day.”

  The teacher’s round eyes squint. “The other day? I thought the shed was kept locked.”

  “No, it’s not,” the boy shouts. “It’s not locked. The door is high up, but we managed to pry it open, didn’t we, Arash?”

  Arash jumps in and confirms the story.

  “Quick! Run over and check. Go!”

  Both boys dash off. A little later Arash returns. “Teacher!” he screams. “He’s in there! Gök’s in there. He’s in the shed!”

  Then he adds that Gök is asleep, curled up on the floor. The teacher goes pale. Before he can rush off with the boy, I take a chance and ask if I may come too. The teacher pauses, then nods.

  “Everyone else stay here. Carry on with your readers.”

  Quickly we reach the narrow camel-high shed with the tent roof. Hünsegesh opens the door from inside. Gök is squatting, tiny and pale in a corner. He looks at us silently, and seems exhausted.

&n
bsp; “What’s up, Gök? Get up!” the teacher pleads in a whisper.

  “He can’t get up,” Hünsegesh says. The teacher bends down, puts his arms under the boy’s armpits, and lifts him up.

  “Where to, Teacher?” I ask.

  “To the hospital!”

  The teacher carries the boy the way a father carries his child, one arm supporting his bottom, the other cradling his shoulder. Gök is limp and indifferent to what is happening, but we can see that he is breathing. When his eyes meet mine, a tiny smile flits over his thin pressed lips.

  LITTLE BLUE MOUSE

  Gök is in the hospital for a whole month. Every day we visit him in groups of three, always bearing gifts. The gifts are small and turn up almost by themselves. One day he gets a pair of knee-high socks. We call them foot sacks and laugh our heads off. They are the first socks any of us has ever seen. Sürgündü made them out of black sheep wool after a Kazakh woman taught her how to knit. The woman explained to Sürgündü that instead of wrapping your feet in fur or cloth you can stick them into sacks so they are cozy and snug in your large wide boots.

  Another time Gök gets an oversized wooden spoon that Ombar carved for him out of aspen. Ombar says he figures a big mouth that brings nothing but sorrow needs to be fed with a big spoon. Then it won’t have time to waste on anything other than what is most important: shoveling it in. We also bring Gök lots of drawings. Our pictures are full of people, animals, trees, and yurts, and everything in the pictures runs or skips toward the viewer on strong, healthy legs.

  Gök’s feet are frostbitten, but everything would have been much worse if we had not found him that day. His whole body would have frozen, along with his thin red thread of life.