The Blue Sky

by Galsan Tschinag

  Mother decided on the following words: “I am not good enough to be given the honor of caring for my mother in her old age. Others, better ones among my siblings, have been chosen to do so. But you shall know, Daaj, that you will be a mother to me if you can see a daughter in me. And this, too, shall you know: When there is tea in the tea pot, I will pour you the strongest sip, and when there is meat in the kettle, I will serve you the tastiest bit.”

  Grandma responded with similarly solemn words: “We were ten siblings to leap from our mother’s body, but only two of us remain. Hööshek is the youngest. I could take on the mother’s role for her, fulfill a mother’s duty, and enjoy a mother’s right. I am a bad person because so far I have only done so by halves. I am sure, therefore, that I have disappointed the spirits of Father and Mother and our siblings. How much worse would they feel if I abandoned my only remaining sister while we are still alive?”

  This, then, was a rejection.

  The second time Hööshek’s words were more detailed and ran like this: “If your belly is fuller and your body more rested among strangers than they were when you were with me, your natural sister, then feel free to stay there until you die. But in my yurt and all around it lies stuff that is yours. I’d like to know whether to toss it or whether you still need it. When I moved to the summer pasture, your stuff gave me plenty of trouble, and I want you to know I’d rather save myself the trouble on the way back.”

  Mother, who was there when these words were delivered, called out in indignation: “She’s talking about stuff? Why not talk about the animals then, too?”

  But Grandma kept her calm and sent back the following words: “You were hatched by the same womb and grew in the same nest I did. Thus it is your duty to carry me into the steppe when my time has come. I now release you from your duty and ask you to carry away and burn instead of my corpse the things that belong to me. But save my underwear and the two tons. I will fetch them someday, when I get a chance, and later, when I’m dead, Schynykbaj and Balsyng will destroy them. And one more word: You spoke of strangers. To us, the Kazakhs, the Chinese, and the Russians are strangers, but they, too, are human beings. If you look more closely, you will see that we are kin even to the animals around us. Why then not kin to people whoever they may be? We are all shoots of one tree, children of one mother. Do not turn your siblings into strangers. This I can say because I have known things longer and also because my end is likely not far off”

  The two people whose names Grandma had mentioned and whom she had appointed to destroy her things upon her death were my father and my mother.

  With this, Grandma had made her decision.

  What should happen with her livestock, however, had not yet been decided. She herself said nothing about it, which was rather odd. Father and Mother talked it over. Maybe Grandma was shy? Mother tried to talk Father into telling Grandma to leave her livestock to Hööshek since otherwise Hööshek might think they had taken in her sister only because of the livestock. Father thought otherwise: Hööshek could think what she liked, but this was about Grandma, and so whatever happened was fine as long as her feelings were not hurt.

  Father and Mother turned to Grandma. She met them halfway: “You surely noticed that the words were stuck in my throat, and that I did not know how to put them. My flock is not great in numbers, but some of it came down to me from my father’s flock, and the rest is the fruit of my whole life’s arduous work. So I would love to leave it with all my blessings to the child who has now at the end of my life softened my liver and lit up my soul. Yet there is …” She fell silent. Father hastened to help her along: “Forget people’s black tongue, Awaj. It will pale with the white of your blessing and our awe of your white head.”

  “You are right, Schynyk,” Grandma said in her calm, steadfast way, “he who knows himself in the white need not fear the black. But I was thinking of the quota and the state law behind it. You already have enough trouble with your own livestock without adding mine to the flock and making your life even harder.”

  “If that is all, Awaj,” Father said, relieved, “do what seems right. The boy will be grateful to you all his life just as I am grateful to those from whom my flock has come down to me, because it is my flock that feeds me and my children and that will continue to feed my children’s children and their children.”

  Around the middle of the first summer month Grandma rode back to her sister’s yurt. She took Molum along as a drover. Father and Mother had argued that there was no rush to get the flock and that it would be better for her to get it in the fall when the ails had moved closer together. And as for her clothes, Grandma had already sewn the odd piece anyway. But Grandma thought that her animals should get used to our pasture and to the other members of their new flock before the arrival of winter, and that we should look at each animal in turn and imprint it on our memory—the earlier, the better.

  Then disaster hit our ail, our yurt, me: I fell into the kettle, into the simmering milk.

  It happened the evening Grandma rode off to get my future flock and bring it into the hürde for me. Mother had poured the fresh milk into the cast-iron kettle for boiling and, because the fire was burning too high, had taken the kettle off the oshuk and temporarily put it on the three chunks of dung lying next to it.

  Then she left the yurt again to tether the calves since the yak herd had just returned from pasture. In the meantime, Father was busy outside with the lambs, along with Brother and Sister. Even though I was not yet changed and prepared for the night, I had, as often before, been overcome by tiredness, had crashed in the middle of playing, and now lay asleep on the low bed. Mother was about to sneak up and catch the last fugitive calf when she heard my screams. She became alarmed but tried to calm herself by reasoning I was crying because I had awakened afraid. Not wanting to run back to the yurt before she had caught all the calves and completed the last task of the day, she held out until she got hold of the straggler and tied it to the dshele. Once that was done, she raced back to the yurt as fast as she could because my screaming not only continued but was now cracking and threatening to choke me. By then the fire in the oshuk had gone out, leaving the yurt in darkness. Mother kindled a light and found me in the kettle, floating on top of the milk, my limbs stretched apart and stiff with fear. My head, arms, and legs were barely recognizable on the surface. But this must have saved me, otherwise I surely would have drowned. The kettle was large enough to submerge an entire wether, and that night the milk reached almost to its brim even though it was early in the year and the milking season was just beginning.

  Since Grandma had moved in with us, the old practice of keeping me on the tether had become unnecessary even when I was fi gety. I had grasped that perfectly well and had in fact weaned myself, which became obvious the day after Grandma had left, when Mother tried to return me to the rope and it no longer worked: I fought against it with everything in my power, and won in the end.

  Fortunately, I remember nothing about the incident. And fortunately, no one remembers the details of what happened next. Not Mother, who must have fished me out of the milk, nor Father, who must have come running when he heard the two screaming and howling voices, nor Brother or Sister, who showed up soon after but had to dash off to get the other ail people to help—none of them has ever been able to give me the whole story. Or maybe none has been willing to. Maybe something occurred that has remained unspeakable. The first express messenger left the ail right away. He took his message to the next ail, and from there other men rode on to other ails. As a result, very soon the news was flying in all directions at the speed of a horse that is whipped nonstop. It was in my favor that all this happened shortly before the National Holiday, when the race horses had already been caught and were being broken in. That night was their first and possibly hardest trial of strength because they had to run several örtöö under heavy saddles and heavy grown men. Their only breaks came when they reached an ail. Their paths led across mountains, through the steppe,
and across rivers to the next sums, where Urianghais and Dörbets as well as Kazakhs, Torguts and other tribes lived, each with their own language and their own body of knowledge. The first of the men returned before midnight. He brought bear fat that had matured for ten years to brush on my burned skin. Others returned with fat from wild horses or wild camels, from badgers or sables, even from marmots, and again and again from bears, all well-matured, much of it almost a human lifespan old.

  The older it was, the more liquid and clear the fat had become: twenty-five-year-old bear fat was like spring water. The Tuvans were accomplished hunters as well as herders, but strangely enough, very few knew that the fat of wild animals was medicinal. Whatever was brought in from the outside during those days, in exchange for horse sweat and pleas, would have been available in almost any yurt in our own ail. But since it was not at hand, people approached the novelty with awe, and so it came about that I was soon floating in fat. Yet nothing—nothing seemed to help. The naked creature I had become—my torso was almost completely skinned—continued to scream long after having grown hoarse and having run out of tears. I shook and trembled and showed signs of the most terrible suffering. The only skin left undamaged was toward the outer ends of my limbs, on my face, my neck, and a small area around my navel. Given the circumstances, I was lucky that my hands and feet had been spared so that people were able to stand me on my feet and hold me by my hands.

  Two days later, toward evening, the last horseman returned. It was Dambi, who was related to Mother and thus a daaj to me. He brought something we had never seen before, something we had never even heard of: a hardened light mass that melted and liquifi d when it was heated. It was called dawyyrgaj, which meant nothing to us at the time. But later, when I was well traveled in the world of languages, I realized it was a variant of the Mongolian word for resin. The dawyyrgaj was the resin of a certain tree and did indeed possess magic power. Barely had it been brushed onto my skinless, greased, and shiny flesh when I, the suffering child, stopped screaming and trembling, and soon after went to sleep. I slept for a long, long time. But my sleep was arduous because it was impossible to put me into a comfortable sleeping position, and so people had to keep holding me just as they had before. A cape that surrounded both me and the person helping me to remain standing protected me from the cold and the draft and from idle glances—glances from which Tuvan children since time immemorial have been protected when they fall ill.

  It was hard on whoever held me, whoever crouched in front of me and pulled me up by my wrists, always anxious not to let my slippery, limp body slide from his hands. It didn’t take long for his forearms to tingle and then to burn and eventually for his arms to lose all sensation and turn numb, while helplessly he watched his charge slip from his hands, millimeter by millimeter. Then he needed to be replaced, there was no other way. Father and Mother took turns. Whoever had just been replaced had to take care of life inside the yurt. Neighbors took care of everything outside.

  When I woke up, I started to scream again, but now it was different. I no longer screamed in alarm, and no longer screamed to fight for a life that was about to be cut short.

  One day, a third pair of hands came to support me, Grandma’s. Oh yes, Grandma: All those days and nights she had crouched in silence in front of the stove, and all day and night she had kept the fire going, which had been the only assistance she had dared, and been allowed, to provide.

  She had returned the very next day after she had ridden away. By then, word of the disaster had crisscrossed the country but, strangely enough, it had not reached Grandma. She came back with all her remaining possessions. Once she was back in the yurt, she learned what had happened. Mother received her not with the joyful greeting she must have anticipated but with an admonition: “See? So that’s why you were so hell-bent on taking off. It was the evil spirit that possessed your damn beasts and called for you!”

  Grandma slumped, dropped to her knees, and remained crouching, mute and motionless. Only her gaze flitted about. Her eyes were dry and shiny and, in a way, spoke—screamed.

  Father and Mother did suffer deeply because of my disaster. But I will never fully grasp the agony Grandma had to bear. Only a person who has suffered as much as Grandma can understand how horrifi, how immeasurable and ineffable her pain was. Not only had my accident dashed, with one stroke, the joys of motherhood she had found after years of loss, but it had also made her feel guilty for having caused the suffering of others. Mother could just as well have said the opposite of what slipped from her mouth, such as: “Don’t worry, Daaj, we had bad luck; it was nobody’s fault,” but not even that would have changed anything. Mother never forgave herself for having loudly and rashly accused an elder, an old person who at the end of her hard, lonely, and almost meaningless life had unexpectedly found a glimmer of hope that she might end her life among people who loved her, and that she might leave behind somebody on this earth who would remember her fondly and benefit from her efforts.

  As Grandma joined in and fought against the force with which the earth pulled me toward itself, her hands fought directly for my life. While admittedly her strength could not compare with that of Father or Mother—who at that time were young, healthy people—her meager strength was out of all proportion to her will. With numb arms and a stiff body she fought against gravity, determined not to give up the fight. She had to be replaced almost by force when others noticed how terrible she looked with her clenched, toothless jaws and her convulsively trembling head. Still, it was better this way, and not only for Grandma. Otherwise she would have remained crouching in front of the stove, feeling unneeded, if not rejected, while chores piled up by the hour, only to be taken care of by Father and Mother.

  Eventually, the burn healed and I survived—something I need not go into here—for which I am eternally grateful. I am grateful not only for the sake of my own small body and soul, but also for the sake of the people who suffered because of me, and above all, for the sake of Grandma and that tiny glimmer of hope she came to so late in her life.

  The disaster, which had hit with lightning speed, left me with my bare life and a stark naked body. Like a fledgling, I lived in a cage. When we moved, I stood or crouched on all fours in a softly padded basket perched high upon a camel. Next to me on a thick felt cushion sat Grandma, with her legs stretched out, keeping an eye on me. When it was cool or rainy, she covered the basket, but when it was warm and sunny, the top of the basket remained open, and Grandma chatted with me.

  In this way we moved all summer up and down the mountain valleys of Borgasun and back and forth across the mountain passes. And when we crossed the five arms of our milky-white mother-river, Ak-Hem, under the autumn sun to move north again, my wound had formed a scar, and the dead skin looked like aspen bark as it began to detach from the new skin underneath. Initially, the new skin was bumpy and patchy, but with time it became smooth and strong. And as the cold weather approached, the fact that clothing arrived to cover my body meant once and for all that I was saved.

  Grandma was happy in the last years of her life. We had each other, we were with each other, we lived for each other. We formed a small family within the larger one. All sorts of things happened in the large family, but in our small one, harmony reigned forever and the little sun of happiness kept shining. Grandma saw her late dreams fulfilled, lived inside some of them, and helped to shape their future course.

  Grandma and I had our own space in the yurt. It was the right upper quarter. Grandmothers always seemed to live on the right side of a yurt; it was the same in other families. In other yurts, though, it was the lower quarter. And not every grandmother had a child of her own, let alone a flock she owned together with that child.

  Oh yes, the flock! It was my pride and joy. All the sheep were Blackface and had stumpy ears. Of smaller build than our breeding stock, they also had a shorter fleece. Father said our own sheep belonged to a nobler breed than Grandma’s. But that was much later, and his remark stung me as i
f he had insulted Grandma herself.

  Grandma said she had brought back just twenty-one animals as some had got away in Hööshek’s herd.

  “What do you mean, Daaj? Got away?” Mother flared up. “Hööshek gave them away!” But Grandma stayed calm and explained: “Of course animals can get away. Mine drowned in the big herd and got away.” Mother wanted to give Grandma a piece of her mind, but Father stepped in ahead of her: “You didn’t stand next to Hööshek when she took the animals. Maybe they really did get away. You have to learn to master your mouth, woman! As the saying goes, people rarely meet with their death because of a horse but often because of a mouth.”