The cold endured. The lambs born late in the fall could no longer walk or look for grass. Again and again they paused and just stood there trembling, each pressed against the others and withdrawn into itself. I shooed them apart and drove them on so that they would not freeze to death. I was terribly cold myself, but in contrast to the lambs I understood that I had to keep moving in order not to die from the cold. I also had the glow stone, which was now of real use: for me it was a small sun.
Arsylang walked behind me and seemed to cower as if lying in wait. From time to time our eyes met, and I noticed that he was waiting for a sign from me. But I could not find the strength to break the barrier that had come between us.
When I got home in the evening, I found the kettle full of meat. It struck me as insane that so much meat had been cooked, particularly since Dusky had had to die for it. Grandma, who had already lain down, wanted to know if the flock had not left me enough time all day for a quick run home. It had not, I agreed. But when I saw the steaming meat piled high on the platter with all its pieces clearly showing, I could no longer hold back. The smell was too strong, too enticing. Gone was the revulsion I had felt all day and even just then; my hunger was stronger. I greedily tore into the pile and gorged on the meat. It was strange, though, that the fuller my stomach grew, the duller my senses became, and in the end I was no longer aware that the delicious meat had come from Dusky, whose frisky, proud looks had delighted my eyes for so long, and whose glorious image I had lent a helping hand to extinguish.
The next morning I noticed that Grandma was bedridden. She continued to tell her little stories about everyday life in years gone by, and the gentle smile in her old, wrinkled face accompanied the telling.
Dusky, she recounted, had been an orphan lamb whose mother was eaten by a wolf just after his birth. Grandma had noticed that the ewe was missing and went looking for her. When she finally found her, the ewe’s body lay in the snow while the trembling lamb stood at her side. It had almost frozen to death and was hungry because it hadn’t had its first milk. Grandma noticed the swollen, unscathed udder, touched it, and found it lukewarm; the wolf had probably taken off when she arrived. So Grandma crouched down and held the lamb to the udder. The poor thing had been looking for the mother’s udder, and now it quickly found the tit and began to suck. After it had drunk from the other tit as well, its desperate thirst seemed quenched. Grandma tucked the orphaned lamb in the breast pocket of her coat and started home. First she could sense its cold and later its warmth, and when she got home and pulled the lamb from her coat, she found it sleeping peacefully. She swaddled it like a baby and took it to her own bed for the night. The next morning the lamb was given a new mother. It stayed alive and thrived. Drinking the first milk from its mother’s udder had been good for it because that milk was thick and shimmered golden. Anybody unable to drink his fill of the first milk fails to thrive, and this is true for all living beings. There is a reason the first milk is called fire milk. “Eat of the meat and drink of the broth,” Grandma concluded. “The orphan lamb became a wether and the lonely woman a mother with a yurt full of children—how could it have turned out better?”
The following night I woke up suddenly. A fire was burning in the stove, and the dshula was lit in the dör even though the oil lamp was burning as well. Grandma sat propped against a tall pillow made of rolled-up clothes. Father and Mother sat at either side of her. Grandma spoke and Father and Mother listened quietly while looking at each other. Grandma was talking about two dung baskets that were to be put bottom-up, about her clothes, and about a body that would feel neither pain nor cold.
“You know that, Schynyk, don’t you?” she said and paused, but Father did not respond. So she continued: “Burn all the clothes; that’s the cleanest way.” Although I heard the words and saw Grandma say them, I could not grasp what they meant. The bit about the dung baskets and the body struck me as even more mysterious since I had not heard what had been said when I was still asleep.
Then she gave her blessings. They were for Father and Mother and their children, and for all the people in the ail and in the aimag. Afterward she began to sing the praises of the Altai and its mountains, steppes, valleys, rivers, lakes, and forests, and of the sky above. Having heard them from the grownups and used them myself when I had the opportunity, I had long known these hymns by heart, so I noticed that Grandma confused a few lines. They were meant to praise the sky but suddenly addressed the earth.
It much astonished me because such a mistake was not unheard of with other people, but it certainly was with Grandma. Yet I listened with delight and even piety and conviction to everything that was said in the quiet of the night in the dim, quivering light of the quiet dung fire, oil lamp, and dshula. Then her voice broke off, and I thought Grandma wanted to sigh because she breathed out loudly, and then sucked in her breath equally loudly and slowly. Then there was quiet. This was a different quiet from the one that had been there before in small fragments and had filled the breaks between Grandma’s lines. Cold and hot waves of this quiet that now resembled a void washed over me—I could feel the heat and the cold as clearly as if I had sat between the burning stove and the open door. But this quiet did not last long. Father broke it: “Höörküj awam dshoj bardy oj!”—Poor sister has left!
He had whispered loudly, which may be why it sounded frightening, as if he had hissed. Mother jumped: “Uj dshüü didri sen?!”—Oh, what are you saying?
These two exclamations of shock are locked in my memory like incantations, and, along with rhymes, proverbs, songs, and other well-shaped sayings, have accompanied me through life without being dulled by the passage of time, without losing their rough edges and thus becoming crippled or a deformed and impassive mass.
I sat up. I wanted to see better and to find out for sure whether Grandma had really left, as Father had just claimed, or was still there, as it seemed to me. I saw that she still sat there and was leaning back with her eyes closed as if in thought. At that moment Father noticed me. He gestured to Mother, who came over, pulled me back by my shoulders, tucked me into the fur ton I had lain in before, and whispered firmly: “Stay put and go back to sleep!” She took my rolled-up ton, which had served her as a pillow, and placed it in front of my head to block my view.
Bewildered and cowed, I could not find the courage to push aside the ton. Instead I lay still and listened. There was nothing for me to do but pick up the sounds of what was happening on the other side and translate them into what my other senses might take in. And so I figured that Grandma was being undressed and her clothes bundled up, that Mother was sewing something.…Then I was overcome by sleep….
I woke up late. Father and Mother had not called and shaken me as usual, but had let me sleep and wake up on my own. The first things I noticed were the roof ring and the top ends of the ribs holding it in place. Blazing sunlight was streaming into the yurt. Then I saw the shining blue of the sky beyond the roof hole. Both the sunlight and the sky struck me as strange, as if I had searched for them and longed to see them again, and as if something had occurred to me that I now had to tell them about. My eyes wandered to where Grandma used to sit and slurp her tea from her wooden bowl when I heard the wake-up call and felt the wake-up shake, and when I fought equally against the call, the shake, and my sleep, and then finally opened my eyes.
But this time Grandma was not there. Her bedside had been cleared. The three sheep skins piled on top of each other which she used to sit on were no longer there.
Her cane was nowhere to be seen, either. Instead of Grandma and instead of her things I saw Dügürshep. He was the older of Nansyka’s two sons and the father of the other Torlaa, the one who was called Little Torlaa then and Pale Torlaa later. Ours was called Red. Nansyka’s ail always spent the winter in Hany Dsharyk, the mountain valley next to ours. Sometimes we noticed smoke or heard the dogs bark over there, but so far none of us had had the heart to go there. Now this Dügürshep was sitting and eating in our dör. Father
sat next to him and ate with him. Mother was busy in the kitchen area and talked while she worked. She was talking about someone who had explained long ago that she would announce when her time had come, and who now had announced that her time had come. And it had been true.
I got up, slipped into my boots and ton, put on my belt, and stepped outside. I did not say a word and neither did the others. The hürde was empty. The tip of a flock was just disappearing behind the mountain finger below Eser-Haja. It must have been the hendshe. Arsylang was nowhere to be seen. For the first time ever I went all the way to the rocks behind which the adults went to relieve themselves. I went there even though I knew I was allowed to pee anywhere I wanted—I could have peed walking or even skipping had I been in the mood. But my mind was not on playing now, nor on being the youngest, the only child in the ail. The horses were saddled and shone with the hoarfrost that covered their bodies. Who might ride off with Scholak Dorug?
All our horses were tame, but this one was the tamest. Even when we moved and Scholak Dorug was loaded, we could let go of his reins and drive him before us with the oxen. Now he stood there with my saddle on his back, with a piece of felt serving as a blanket beneath it that reached all the way down to his belly. Was he about to be loaded? Outside, there were two dung baskets sitting where none had sat before. The previous night, one had contained desgen roots, while the other one, empty and upside down, had been covered with Dusky’s skin, which had been put outside, frozen stiff, to dry in the cold. But now both baskets stood empty next to the stone altar for smoke offerings, diligently lined up as if after a day’s work. I also saw signs of a fourth horse. They were tracks left by small hooves, the front ones apparently having been shoed recently.
Without having to be reminded, I washed my hands and even my face. Usually I avoided washing my face in the morning by claiming that I would have to scrub it with snow many times during the day to avoid frostbite when I was out with the flock. In reality, however, I scrubbed my face very rarely—only when my cheeks or my chin, or the tip of my nose, were actually close to being frostbitten. After such a quick snow wash, at first I would briefly feel colder than before, but as soon as the skin dried, I would feel warmth or sometimes even a little rush of heat, as if a tiny animal were stirring in the pores of my skin.
There was freshly cooked meat even though the meat from the day before could not possibly have been finished. There were even grains of rice floating in the broth, which on any other day would have made me delirious. I was soon full and left right afterward for my flock. Nobody made me do so, but then nobody tried to stop me, either. Nobody said anything to me that mattered in any way. And nobody told me what had happened to Grandma and where she had gone. Maybe it was better this way; after all, nothing would have felt more terrible than a conversation about Grandma. But at the same time I wanted badly to know what had happened to her and where she was now.
I caught up with the flock in Gysyl Göschge after it had already turned around. Arsylang was running along its far side. When he saw me, he ran toward me. He reached me at full speed, drew a narrow circle around me, threw himself on the ground in front of me, and whimpered quietly. Did he know? What a question—of course he knew!
Maybe he had even been there with her?
“Arsylang! Where’s Grandma?”
The dog jumped up, turned his head toward the west, scanned it sharply, pricked up his ears—and remained in this position. I sensed that if I were to ask him again where Grandma was, or better still, if I were to call for her so that the rocks around us would echo my voice, En-eeej! En-eej! …, my four-legged companion would immediately squat on his behind, point his jaws at the sky, and fall into a drawn-out, terrifying howling. That was something I did not want to happen under any circumstances. I was afraid of Arsylang, afraid of myself, and afraid of whatever it was that had happened around us and that I would eventually hear about. I also sensed that if I were to run in the direction in which he was staring and were to call over and over, Tuh! Tuh! Tuh! …, he would come along, run a little ahead of me, and take me there. That was what I most feared.
I would have dearly loved to know what had happened to Grandma, but I was afraid to hear the truth, afraid to look eye to eye with a truth that was bound to be heavy, hard, and bitter. I suspected what might have happened to Grandma in spite of all that she had talked me into believing only yesterday, or the day before yesterday, or the day before that, day after day. Having a suspicion was agonizing, but I preferred living with uncertainty as it still meant a ray of hope.
When I returned with my flock to the hürde and the yurt in the evening, I learned who had taken care of the large flock: Galdarak, Dügürshep’s younger brother. He was drinking tea and eating meat, and telling what he had seen in the course of the day, where the wind had blown from, and how the flock had behaved. Then he rode off.
I was left alone with Father and Mother. For the first time ever our family was that small. I pretended to be busy, crushing a lot of ticks, and spent the evening with all my senses alert. But not a word was said about Grandma, who had lain on her bed and worked on the continuation of her stories just the evening before. Now we lived as if we had never had her, never known her.
While I bent over the lambs, combing their necks with my fingers for ticks and crushing a few more, I could still hear her soft, sonorous voice, and I could see the kindly, spider-web smile in her wrinkled face.
As time passed, the secret got more and more hazy. An occasional visitor would ask me teasingly where my grandma with the shaved head had gone. Or sometimes they would be even more direct and ask if I longed for my grandma, who had gone into the salt.
Oh yes, going into the salt! I already knew about that. Once we expected a baby to come to us. We had longed for it so badly but never got to see it. People eventually said that it had lost its way and gone into the salt instead of to us.
Salt was a rarity in those days. People went into the salt with their camels. It took them a long time to return, and when they finally did, they brought back a lot of salt. People also shared whatever salt they had. I often had to run to the neighbors to ask for a bowl of salt, and sometimes I came back with only half a bowl.
I never replied to questions about Grandma. Mother did it for me, or Father. They said that Grandma would return once I was a grown-up. Everybody agreed, even people who had teased me at first. It was strange, but the doubt that had reared up inside me and torn at their words would then die down, and I would be calmed again for the time being.
I had to stay calm and wait, although naturally my brain was not yet capable of this clear and complete thought in those days. Nevertheless, I must have had this insight in some shape or form, for I remained tame and calm, not only in light of what had already happened, but also in light of what was still to come. I remained resigned to fate—in complete contrast to my nature. But it was good that Arsylang and I were close again. We took care of the flock with each other and for each other. Diligently, we did our duty: Watching over our little flock gave meaning to our life.
It was also good to know that Brother and Sister would return. Not so good was the fact that they would have to leave again, and that they would always have to leave again. And that was not the end of it. I could feel myself growing more and more upset because before long it would be my turn to leave behind the flock, Arsylang, our home, Father and Mother, the Black Mountains—everything that had been part of me. With that thought came misgivings that led to further thoughts and left me afraid: Would Grandma find me if I were no longer at home? What would come of our flock, which meanwhile had become my flock? What of the yurt we would have to get somehow and in which I had planned to live with Grandma? Would I one day become a teacher or even a darga and live off a salary rather than livestock? In that case, would I live in a shack made from larch logs and smeared with clay, just like the elegant people in the sum center? Which meant, didn’t it, that I would never have a yurt of my own, would never put it up an
d take it down and move with it through the four seasons and across the four rivers, from the mountains into the steppe, over to the other mountains, to the lake, and back? And did this mean that I would have to leave behind, and would never be able to return to, all that I had had and held so far, and all that had been mine?
These and similar thoughts populated my head. They came to me like ragged shadows, settled down in the midst of my life, stayed, and at some point left again without me noticing. I lived my life as it was given to me. What existed in the past had certainly been beautiful, and I loved to remember it. But I had no desire to bring back what was gone. Intuitively I must have known that I had to cling to what still was mine: my flock and my dog.
The Year of the Yellow Cow was coming to its end. Like all years before and quite a few after, it consisted of four parts that were called seasons and followed one another. They appeared to crash into each other like the yurt’s folding lattice walls, probably because the events making up the nomadic life differed so harshly from one season to the next.
It was still during the Yellow Cow that we moved to Ulug Gyschtag, our big winter camp. It lay a ridge and two passes farther into the mountains, which meant getting even farther away from people, but closer to whatever was left of the pastures. And the latter was important not least because of the pregnant animals that were trudging wearily beneath the burden of their swelling fruit, and becoming noticeably skinnier.
The Blue Sky Page 10