by Chi Zijian
‘When Washia is excited she scratches you, and she likes to fib. If I let her go, she’ll go and hurt another man! She’s just a wolf. Since I know that she’s a people-eater, if I let her go I’d be doing wrong! I’ll keep her, watch over her, and not allow her to eat anyone else!’
As I recall, that’s the longest string of words that Andaur ever uttered. And the most reasonable and the most resolute. In them, I saw the shadow of his father Lajide.
In August that year, as Nihau approached childbirth, ten reindeer went missing in one go: four fawns, two studs and four does. This was no trivial matter. The men split into three search groups. One group consisted of Valodya, Viktor and Andaur; one of Vladimir, Puffball and Dashi; and one of Luni, Kunde and Hase. After they left the campsite, we anxiously awaited their return.
The first evening, Vladimir’s group returned empty-handed. The second evening, Valodya’s group returned, faces full of disappointment. But on the third evening, Luni’s group finally returned with our reindeer in tow.
The reindeer aside, Luni also brought back three unfamiliar Han men. Two were on foot behind Hase and Kunde, one tall and one short. The other lay feebly atop a reindeer.
‘These three stole our reindeer,’ said Luni. ‘They planned to take them out of the mountains and slaughter them for the meat.’
When Luni caught up with them, they had already killed a fawn, so his group brought back just nine head.
As Luni recounted the tale, the tall man and the short one knelt before us and begged us to let them go and, above all, not to shoot them dead.
‘The famine drove us to steal your reindeer,’ they cried. ‘We can’t get enough to eat, and our parents and wives and children are all starving. We heard that you were herding reindeer in the mountains.’
Valodya asked them where they came from and what work they did. They just said they were from outside the mountains and didn’t have jobs, but they wouldn’t say anything more specific.
Then they pointed at the man stretched out on the reindeer. ‘We beg you to save him. He’s only sixteen and he hasn’t even married!’
‘A sixteen-year-old who steals things – what kind of future can he have?’ mumbled Hase.
But he took the man stretched out on the reindeer and placed him on the ground. His eyes were closed, he had a round face, pale complexion, thick eyebrows and very thick lips, but like his face, those lips showed no sign of blood. He did indeed look like he was just fifteen or sixteen, his whiskers shallow, all fuzzy, like the green grass that grows on the sunny south-east slopes in the early spring, soft and tender.
His stomach bulged like a frog’s. He was completely still and everyone took him for dead. Valodya crouched down and felt for his breath with his hand and discovered he was still exhaling. He told the kneeling pair to stand up.
‘What illness does this boy have?’ Valodya asked.
‘We slaughtered a fawn, built a fire, and gathered around to roast the venison,’ explained the tall one. ‘But he was starving and while it was still half raw he ripped the meat apart and wolfed it down. When it was cooked through, he ate that too until his belly was all round.
‘Then he said he was dying of thirst, so we gave him a flask of water. It’s when he finished that off that he was in trouble.’
‘It’s not when he drank the water,’ interrupted the short one. ‘It’s when he stood up, shot a stream of piss on a big tree and came stumbling back. He collapsed on to his bottom, sweat poured off his face, and then – gudung! – he toppled over.’
‘How dare he pee on a big tree!’ said Valodya. ‘He must have offended the Mountain Spirit!’
‘The Mountain Spirit is exacting its retribution,’ said Kunde. ‘There’s no way he’ll come out of this alive!’
The tall fellow and the short one knelt down together and kowtowed to us. ‘We heard that you have many Immortals, so once we entered the mountains we were extra careful. We didn’t dare sit on tree stumps or rocks, or even bend a blade of grass.
‘But who’d have guessed that taking a pee would end up watering your Immortals? We didn’t do it intentionally! It is said that you have a Sorceress who can commune with the Spirits. Please ask Them to forgive the boy.
‘In the future even if we are dying of starvation, we won’t dare steal! If he dies, how can we face his family on our return? We beg you, save him!’
Lyusya held September, Washia held An’tsaur, Tatiana held Berna’s hand in one hand and Maikan’s in the other, and they all surrounded the youth who lay on the ground. Nihau’s body was bloated, and the yataju for childbirth had already been constructed.
As the two strangers implored, Nihau’s body began to tremble and so did Luni. ‘Tian ah! Why did I bring them back with me?’ he groaned, pulling Berna against his chest.
I didn’t want to see Nihau and Luni lose their own beloved child again just to save the life of another. ‘We have no Sorceress here!’ I exclaimed. ‘It doesn’t look to me like this boy angered the Immortals, he just ate too much. Take a look at his stomach. He must have swallowed half a fawn! Isn’t that like asking to die? You all come up with a way to beat that venison out of his belly, and he’ll be all right!’
‘Things that have gone into the stomach are like things that have fallen into a deep well,’ said the tall one. ‘How can you drag them out?’
‘Do you have any herbs that can make him throw up what he ate?’ asked the short one.
We stood the youth up straight and stuck our fingers down his gullet, hoping to stimulate his throat and make him vomit, but he didn’t react at all. Then we poured laxative down his throat in the hopes of getting him to discharge what he’d eaten, but that method didn’t work either.
The sun sank behind the mountains and a few bands of reddish orange emerged on the horizon. Those were the sun’s final breaths. Now the sky was the colour of dusk, and this colour caused spasms of pain in my heart, because it was at this time of the day that our Shamans normally commenced their Spirit Dance.
Valodya tested the man’s breath again, and his hand quivered for a second. It looked like the youth had stopped breathing, so we might as well get rid of him. I felt an airy sense of relief; I reckoned his soul had already departed so we needn’t try to save him.
But then Nihau bent down with difficulty and placed her hand on the youth’s forehead. She stood up. ‘Carry him into our shirangju, and slaughter a fawn,’ she told Luni.
‘Nihau, think of others’ children first!’ I shouted. I thought only she would understand the significance of ‘others’ children’.
Nihau’s eyes moistened. ‘My own child can be saved, how can I . . .?’
Nihau didn’t finish her thought, but everyone understood what she left unsaid.
Luni stood motionless, but he held Berna tightly. Valodya instructed Puffball to slaughter a fawn and dedicate it to the Malu. He and Hase carried the boy into Luni’s shirangju.
This time Nihau didn’t allow anyone to enter the shirangju. Just how difficult it was for her to don the heavy Spirit Robe, Spirit Skirt and Spirit Headdress, none of us knew. When the drumbeats began to sound, the true night approached. The reddish-orange band of colour that had briefly appeared at the edges of the sky was gone, swallowed up by the night.
We stood trembling with fear in the campsite, encircling Luni and Berna like water surrounding a little island.
‘Everything will be all right,’ said Luni to Berna. ‘You don’t need to be afraid.’ We too comforted her with these words.
But not Washia. ‘I’ve heard that when your Eni performs the Spirit Dance, a child must die. You’re afraid to die, so why don’t you flee? How stupid!’
Berna was already shivering and this just made her shake more. I took An’tsaur from Washia’s arms, and told her: ‘Please leave here at once!’
‘Did I say something wrong?’
‘Leave! Now!’ I shouted.
Washia muttered something and turned and left, followed by Andaur. A fe
w moments later, the chala-chala of the metallic totems on the Spirit Robe striking one another and even the thumping of the Spirit Drum were partially drowned out by the din of Washia’s wailing and cursing. Andaur had tied Washia to a tree and was whipping her with a birch branch.
‘She deserves it!’ said Washia’s parents, and no one went to dissuade Andaur.
After Washia made a ruckus for half an hour, the sounds of her weeping and swearing grew faint. They were a dark cloud, and once they dissipated, the drumbeats boomed clear like the limpid moon.
From their urgency, you could imagine how excitedly and powerfully Nihau was dancing. Her body was so petite and contained an infant awaiting birth. How could she bear it?
To our ears, the drum howled like winter’s icy northern wind and it made you shiver.
The moon was already in the middle of the sky, and it was a half moon. In spite of its incompleteness, it looked bright and pure. The drumming had ceased, and it seemed the dance had too. Luni still held Berna close, and we all breathed a long sigh of relief.
‘Do you hear that? The drumbeats have ended, and you’re just fine,’ I said to Berna.
Berna burst out noisily in tears as if she had been deeply humiliated. We comforted her and waited for Nihau to appear.
But even when Berna’s tears dried, Nihau still had not appeared. Luni and I grew anxious and just as we were about to enter to see how Nihau was doing, a Spirit Song emerged from the shirangju. Her singing made me think of light – the moon’s light on a frozen river.
O child, come back!
Our world’s brightness unseen
You descend into darkness.
Eni made you leather gloves
And Ama a pair of snowshoes.
O child, come back!
The bonfire is lit
And the hanging pot is in its place.
Unless you return
Your parents shall crowd the hearth
Yet still feel cold.
Unless you return
They shall watch over a pot full of meat
Yet still feel hungry.
O child, come back!
Your feet bound in snowshoes
Follow the herd so near
For without you
Wolves will mangle
The lovely horns of the reindeer.
Luni and I both understood what we were hearing. Nihau’s Spirit Song was for the infant who was about to be born. We refused to believe it would die before birth.
Luni and I ran into the shirangju. Filled with the stench of blood and rotten flesh, the air stank. The fire in the hearth was almost out. Luni lit the bear-oil lamp, and we saw the boy curled up in the corner, sobbing quietly amidst the clumps of vomit that were scattered around him.
Nihau was seated next to the fireplace, head down, holding the new-born in her bosom. She had removed her headdress, and her sweat-drenched hair swung like a weeping willow above the dead infant’s hair. Her Spirit Robe and Spirit Skirt were still on her. Perhaps she hadn’t the strength to remove them. Her Spirit Skirt was stained with fresh blood, and the metallic totems on her Spirit Robe were still twinkling.
The infant was a boy. Before he had seen a ray of light in our world, he had sunk into the darkness. He didn’t even have a chance to be named, the only one of Nihau’s children to remain nameless.
Once again Valodya and I picked up a white cloth bag and went to bury Luni’s and Nihau’s flesh and blood. But this time we didn’t discard him haphazardly. We dug a hole with our hands and buried him in the soil baked hot by the blazing August sun. For us, he was a seed that would germinate and grow into a sky-bound tree.
In my eyes, among the lush greenery on the sunlit south-east slopes there grows a passionate plant, and that is sunlight. As my fingers and Valodya’s dug the grave, they were encrusted with warm soil.
At one point, I unearthed a pink earthworm and unwittingly severed it.
The two parts continued to squiggle to their heart’s content, boring into the dirt and then resurfacing. Its ability to survive is so great that a single earthworm’s body houses several lives, and this touched me deeply. I couldn’t help wondering: what if human beings possessed this ability?
Luni set fire to the yataju built by Nihau, the yataju that was never occupied by a mother-to-be, the yataju in which no child was born. The birthing hut resembled thick clouds that we had believed would bring rain and dew and coolness to the parched couple. Who could have foreseen those clouds would appear and then vanish in vain?
In the end we let the three Han go free. Valodya said that thievery engendered by famine is pardonable.
When they left the camp, a despondent Luni gave them some jerky to eat on their way. They knelt on the ground and kowtowed to us over and over, and swore with tears in their eyes that one day they would repay us for saving the boy’s life.
Nihau rested in her shirangju for a week before she found the strength to step out. She had grown even thinner, and her cheeks were sunken, lips pale, and her grey hairs more numerous.
It seemed she feared the sunlight, and she shivered outside. Nihau resembled a wealthy person who once possessed a big granary, but famine had emptied it and shrivelled her belly.
We smelled an odd odour about her – the scent of musk.
The River Deer is the ugliest creature in the forest. It has coarse, brownish-yellow fur, but its chest sports a permanent band of white fur – a white towel ready to wipe away sweat, just in case it should be needed. With a small, pointed head that’s all wrinkled, it’s incredibly repugnant. But a buck is a rare catch, for located between his belly button and genitals lies a sac containing a glandular secretion that, once removed and dried, emits a special aroma – musk – so we call the animal ‘Musk Deer’.
Musk is a valuable medicinal material, and whenever we kill a Musk Deer, it’s a festive event for our urireng. Musk can be used to remedy food poisoning, and serves to restore consciousness and relieve nasal congestion.
These usages aside, it also functions as a contraceptive. Just a whiff of it inhibits fertility, so if a woman constantly keeps musk in her pocket, she’ll never get pregnant.
Everyone understood why Nihau put musk in her clothing. Nihau’s pregnancies were always associated with disaster. She was a bird that painstakingly constructed her nest, but just when it was complete an unforeseen storm knocked it down.
The scent of musk often causes women to shed tears, as if its odour burns our eyes. Luni didn’t reproach Nihau for her behaviour, but deep in his heart he despaired. During that summer and autumn when Nihau carried musk on her, Luni frequently broke down crying in public. As he scrambled to wipe away the tears, he always said there was a smell that irritated his eyes.
I knew how badly Luni longed for a son. Grigori and Tibgur were two shooting stars that had crossed the sky in Luni’s heart, and then disappeared without a trace.
Early that winter, the smell of musk on Nihau’s body vanished abruptly. I reckon it was Luni’s tears that chased it away. That fragrance was a thick mist, and Luni’s tears were rays of sunlight that broke through to shine on Nihau.
After 1962, the famine outside the mountains eased but grain supply was still tight. Ivan came back in the autumn but moved with difficulty. He hired two horses and brought us baijiu and potatoes, and cheese he got from Mongols. Those huge hands of his were deformed, their joints protruding and twisted. Once able to crumble a rock, now they could barely crush a raven’s eggshell.
Ivan told us he had heard that the government was cooking up a major plan: it was going to build another village and make the hunting peoples in the mountains relocate there.
‘Even those few houses in Uchiriovo were never fully occupied. If they go and build another site, I bet it’ll stay vacant too!’ said Hase.
‘If we leave the mountains, how will the reindeer survive?’ wondered Dashi.
Vladimir echoed their sentiments. ‘That’s right. I still think it’s best here in the mountains!
There’s a famine going on down there, and there are robbers and even thugs. Living outside the mountains – wouldn’t that be like living in a den of thieves?’
In reality, Vladimir was unwilling to leave the mountains because of Maikan. He never took Maikan out of our urireng because he feared her real parents would reclaim her.
Maikan was truly lovely. Her beauty made flowers pale and outshone the sun and moon. Vladimir’s ears stood erect like a hound’s whenever he heard horse hooves in the distance, and he became especially alert, certain someone had come to fetch Maikan.
The day Ivan returned everyone drank plenty of baijiu, and that evening I desperately desired to be with Valodya. Tatiana was already a young lady, and I feared that the wind-sounds we made at night would startle her, even though it’s true she grew up with them.
But that evening was different because the drink was a flame that ignited our passion, and the collision of our passionate wind-sounds must have been much more intense than usual.
I nestled against Valodya’s chest and we tried using conversation to restrain our passion. ‘Are you willing to go and live outside the mountains?’
‘You’d best ask the reindeer: are you willing to leave the mountains?’ replied Valodya.
‘They certainly won’t agree.’
‘Then we should obey our reindeer,’ he urged.
But he sighed and went on. ‘If the trees in the mountains continue to be chopped down like this, sooner or later – even if we aren’t willing – we’ll have to leave.’
‘There are plenty of trees in the mountains, more than can ever be chopped down!’ I said.
Valodya sighed again. ‘The day will come when we must depart.’
‘If I stay here in the mountains and the reindeer leave, what will you do?’
‘I’ll stay behind with you, naturally. The reindeer belong to everyone, but you’re mine alone!’ he said tenderly.
His words stimulated my desire, and we embraced more tightly, kissing until our passion finally burst like a thunderbolt behind thick clouds. Valodya lay over my body and melted me like intoxicating spring sunlight.