by Diane Wilson
A thin snow powdered the ground, so the hawks soaring above could see that my tracks snaked behind me in indecision. First toward the stream, then toward the ger, then—in a moment of chill fear—curving back toward my father’s ger, yet again doubling back toward Echenkorlo’s. At last I stood within its shadow, cautiously pressing my ear to the felt wall. In that hush that comes at the end of the day I could almost hear the earth spirits babbling beneath the frozen roof of their watery pathway. Their running chatter mingled with the moaning of the rising afternoon wind, and then other voices, human voices cackling and singing within the ger, reached my ear. And next, at once, as if all nature had caught me listening, everything was still. Heart trapped, thumping, in my throat, I silently turned to tiptoe away.
“Please don’t keep us waiting, Oyuna.” A singsong voice, ripe with power, spoke from within the felt walls. “Your tea grows cold.” I jumped in my snow tracks, suddenly remembering that my mother had said that Echenkorlo could often “see” without seeing.
A different voice then, one high and brittle, like ice splintering across a creek, spoke through the walls. “Your tea grows cold…” it echoed, then, cackling wildly, “…and your toe grows green!” The raucous laughter of ravens spilled from the ger.
Words inside my head screamed at me to run, run back to the safety of my own ger, but—how strange this was!—instead I calmly placed a hand upon the heavy door flap, alive with leaping animals in every color, and pushed it aside. How carefully I lifted my booted foot high over the raised doorsill, for to stumble upon it was to step on the neck of the ger’s owner and an instinct deep within me warned not to offend the inhabitants of this ger.
As the door flap whooshed shut against my back, I fell to the woven wool shirdiks, my hands pressing my face, gagged and blinded by thick smoke. Scented with the perfume of some plant unknown to me, the smoke lazily swirled within the round ger like a choking fog. I coughed and coughed. But finally I was able to take small, gasping breaths and, still cupping my hands over nose and mouth, managed to squint through tear-filled eyes.
Two old women, one of them the white-haired Echenkorlo, sat facing me on the opposite side of the fire. Both grinned. They were naked from the waist up, their four limp breasts sagging like the empty bladders of goats. Echenkorlo was laughing at me from behind the small carcass of a weasel-like animal that rested upon her palm. She stroked it with one misshapen finger and even kissed the whiskered lips stretched in their own frozen grin. Held motionless by this strange sight, I didn’t at first notice the other old half-naked woman shuffle toward me on her knees with surprising speed. She grabbed my face between leathery hands and screeched with the triumph of a hawk snatching its prey.
“Echenkorlo! You forgot to speak of her beauty!” Ragged and yellowed fingernails pulled at my braid. “Look at this hair—no finer silk has the Khan.” My wrists were ensnared, jerked into the air, and displayed as a prize. “And the hands! Strong. Not too big and not too small.” The woman, who stank of blood and urine, buried her face in each of my palms for a moment, murmuring words I couldn’t understand. Then, breathing heavily, as if she might fall away into a faint, the old woman drew back, marching her gaze along my arm, my shoulder, my neck, and then my face. A rattling gasp escaped her thin body and she jumped closer. “See how the brow curves like the ram’s horns above a thin nose? She is a stubborn one. And look at the eyes!” Her toothless face pressed into mine, a rotting stench clamping shut my nostrils. “Just a glimmer or two of gold. Do they see?” she asked over her shoulder. With her clawed hands gripping my cheeks, I could only roll my eyes toward my grandmother to see her shake her head: “No.” As if all the air had been sucked from her, the woman shrank, then shuffled on her knees back behind the fire. My fingers touched the greasy film left upon my skin, and my stomach flipped over. I felt my heart, like that of a scared rabbit, fluttering weakly and rapidly inside me.
Dropping the grinning carcass in her lap, my grandmother suddenly gave the other old woman a shove with both hands. The other woman squealed and shoved back but, after a brief tussle of flailing arms and slapping hands, scrambled aside. Then my grandmother edged over, leaving me the seat of honor facing the door. Both wrinkled faces turned toward me, smiling and nodding eagerly. But as if frozen to the spot, I could only look around me, thinking, What den of danger have I walked into?
My eyes were growing accustomed to the smoke-filled ger and they widened in amazement at the clutter. You see, my people take pride in living with few things, carrying only those possessions necessary to survive on the steppe. But Echenkorlo’s ger was ajumble with curiosities I could not name.
To begin with, the walls were draped with spotted and striped pelts and dark, furry bags of all sizes. I remembered then my mother telling me that Echenkorlo, traveling alone, had visited lands far beyond those of our people. With only her oxcart and a small goat or two, she had traveled north to a place where she said all was white and people harnessed deer to carts with no wheels. And she had traveled south, where she said a quiet people lived all their lives on boats in the water. She even claimed, in crossing a gobi, to have spotted Almas, the legendary fur-covered half-man and half-animal, though I smiled inwardly at such silliness.
The hands were still waving at me, urging me to the seat of honor, so, choosing the path closer to my grandmother, I forced my unsteady legs around the fire. I felt the piercing eyes of both old women burning through me with each limping step. Sticky with a nervous sweat, I collapsed cross-legged between them and waited.
From the corner of my eye I saw it coming. The greasy hand of my grandmother’s companion flashed across me. Leather strips whipped through the air and I felt my twisted foot burn. At the same instant blue sparks leaped from the fire, layering another cloud of strange perfume in the smoky air. Screaming, I hunched over, covering my head with my arms.
“Udbal! Enough!” My grandmother’s sharp voice cut through the smoke. “All has been tried. We accept the leg.” A steaming bowl of tea was thrust into my lap, just below my tucked chin, its hot vapor adding beads of moisture to my already damp brow. Biting my lip and trembling, I timidly tipped my head and looked into my grandmother’s face.
It was round and, except for a nubbin of a nose, almost flat. The golden skin must have once stretched across her face as smoothly as water upon a still pond, but now the blazing fire highlighted sagging wrinkles that pulled and rippled around her eyes. I saw reflections of the flames dancing in those gray eyes, sparkling with silent laughter. She was smiling, radiating such warmth that my fear began to melt away.
“We are pleased you have joined us tonight,” Echenkorlo said. A slight frown in the direction of her companion brought an additional welcome.
“Yes, we are pleased,” the other woman said hastily. Her eyes, half-slitted, still stared at my foot as a cat does a mouse.
Straightening, I took the bowl in my hands and bent my head to sip the tea. My nostrils flared, uncertain of the spicy aroma. Yet my lips sucked in the warm liquid, the musky taste pleasant to my tongue.
“Speak,” Echenkorlo commanded.
“This is good tea,” I said.
Udbal snickered.
“No.” My grandmother drew herself up tall, leaning forward just slightly and concentrating her gaze on my eyes. “Speak of the white mare and the festival.”
I felt my face fall. “Oh,” I said, sighing, “I see my father told you.” I paused, and when no one spoke, added, “I made a weak choice.”
Both women leaned closer. “How is it weak?” they asked in harmony. “Does she kick?” asked one. “Does she bite?” asked the other. “When you place the saddle upon her back, does she lie down and refuse to run?”
“We can change that, you know,” they concluded in unison.
“No, no,” I said. “Nothing like that. At least, I don’t think so.” I sighed again. “The truth is, I haven’t even saddled h
er yet, because she is lame. She limped all the way home from the festival.”
Both old women sat back, somehow satisfied. “And why did you—” began Echenkorlo.
“—choose a lame horse?” finished Udbal.
I waited, sipping my tea, letting the fragrant steam tickle my nose. Should I tell them? I wondered. I wanted to tell somebody—I lay awake at nights wanting to tell somebody—but I knew that as soon as I did, it would be shouted that I was “crooked in the head.” Then again, my father had already said Echenkorlo’s mind was “twisted,” so maybe I could risk sharing my secret with these two.
“She spoke to me,” I said warily.
The two women leaned forward again, eager, but this time remained silent. All I could hear was the fire crackling and my heart thumping. I continued.
“I was looking over the horses brought for sale or trade. I wanted to find a swift one I could train into a champion for next year’s long race. When I got near this white mare, I saw she had been kicked by some other horses, and I got off to check her leg and then I…thought I…heard her say—”
“—help me away from here.” Our three voices spoke the words together in an eerie chant.
My tea bowl wobbled. My heart doubled its pounding. “How—how did you know?” I stammered. But then I felt foolish, as if I had been led into a trap. My embarrassment blazed into anger. “Well, if you already knew, then why did you let me tell you?”
“To see if you knew,” said Udbal, her lips making chortling sounds deep in her tea bowl. She began noisily blowing bubbles in the brown liquid until she caught sight of my grandmother’s narrowed eyes. Just like a child, she blew one last gurgle into her bowl before cradling it in her lap and falling silent. Apparently satisfied, Echenkorlo turned her kind face upon me.
“Why does your choosing of this white mare make you sad?”
The words spilled from my mouth. And my heart. “I wanted to bring home a champion, a horse that would win the most important race next year. And instead I have an old, crippled mare that can hardly walk. I like her, really I do. She’s so sweet. But I wanted…just once…I wanted to bring good luck to my clan.” Then, quietly, “I wanted to bring good luck to my father. Now I am always bad luck.”
I saw the two old women stare into each other’s eyes for several long breaths. Then, as if she had received a wordless message from Udbal, Echenkorlo nodded. Slowly she turned her head toward me.
“You want to ride the race and win. To capture good luck and carry it home. But I ask you, Oyuna, my grandchild, do you not see both good luck and bad luck around you always? Can you not reach out,” Echenkorlo said, extending her open palm before me, “and take either good luck or bad luck into your hand?” Her palm turned, closing into a fist upon the empty air. Then she turned her fist back and opened her palm again, this time revealing a tiny amulet carved of black stone. I gasped, surprised. Leaning closer, I saw the small figure of a galloping horse carrying a person upon its back. Before my eyes, gnarled fingers closed, one by one, over the amulet and when they opened once more, Echenkorlo’s palm was empty. Udbal giggled.
“Oyuna, my grandchild,” Echenkorlo continued, “many years ago the horse crushed your leg. ‘Bad luck,’ people say. And they pity you. But I say this brought to you good luck. I say that the horse claimed you as its own. That by crushing your leg it freed you from the ground and invited you upon its back to travel with the wind. It is no surprise, then, that the white mare spoke to you.”
I sat silent, my jaw still dropping open.
“This white mare has spoken to you,” my grandmother continued, “because she knew you would hear her. And you must listen. Do you think, because you walk upon two legs and animals must crawl upon four, that you are smarter or braver?” In the small ger’s smoky air, Echenkorlo’s round, wrinkled face seemed to float closer. I found myself focusing on a toothless mouth spilling forth wise words. “Every living thing has a talent for which it was created,” it said. “And, as you have discovered, Oyuna, every living thing has a voice. Did you not hear the earth spirits within the stream when you thought you were listening to us?” A shiver slithered down my spine. “You must learn to listen with your heart instead of your ears. And see with your mind instead of your eyes, for the water’s surface hides the fishes that swim below it.”
Echenkorlo sat staring at me, and through me, her eyes looking into mine, smiling. Then she straightened, settled her shoulders back, and said, “Now eat.”
Udbal’s hand flashed toward the cooking pot, the gnarled fingers emerging with a chunk of pale meat, which they stuffed into her mouth. Toothless gums chewed and chewed as a brown drool trickled down her chin. Echenkorlo politely nodded toward me. Hesitantly I reached into the pot, found a small piece of meat and, first swallowing hard, fearful of what strange carcass it may have come from, placed it in my mouth. It was mutton! And much tastier than my own bland recipes. Smiling and nodding, I reached in again, but this time Udbal’s claws grabbed my hand, holding it over the pot while the meat’s juices ran down my wrist. Wide-eyed, I looked over at my grandmother, but although a smile lit her face, her eyes were closed.
Udbal turned my palm upward and pressed her face close to it. A yellowed claw on her other hand drew a trail through the grease, prodded at the fleshy mounds. Then she looked into the fire and for the first time I noticed the shoulder blades of a sheep burning white within the flames. Udbal, grunting, studied the cracks crisscrossing the hot bones.
“Is it so?” spoke my grandmother, opening her eyes.
“It is so.” Udbal giggled. “Two lines, two shadows. It is so.”
My grandmother spoke in a deep voice, her vacant eyes staring at a place above my head. “Your journey with the white mare is long. Your hands bring change.”
I don’t know if I truly heard my father calling me then, but, jumping up, I shouted, “Coming, Father!” And, stumbling over legs and pots and pelts and bundles, I shoved my way through the door flap and bolted into the clear, frosty air of night. No indecision in my tracks this time: the cold light of the rising moon showed them heading straight for home.
10
“You Are Chosen!”
I lay in my bed that night after dinner, eyes still open wide, heart banging. No one knew of my visit. And as I listened to the heavy rhythmic breathing of those sleeping around me—my father, Shuraa, and her two sons; sensible people who would readily laugh at Echenkorlo’s strange words—I began to think I was a little crazy for having walked alone into her black ger.
The moon that night rose fat and round. The winds had pulled aside the felt collar covering our smoke hole and through this opening poured the moon’s brilliance. I watched through drooping eyes as this looping circle of light slipped slowly across my toes, crept up my chest, rested upon my folded hands, illuminating the dirty half-moons of each fingernail, and finally laid its full brilliance upon my face. I closed my eyes to the glare.
Sleep was just pulling its warm blanket over me when, at my elbow, I heard my name whispered: “Oyuna!”
My heart leaped over a beat. I opened my eyes. There, at the side of my bed, knelt my grandmother, Echenkorlo. Draped across one arm was Bator, purring contentedly.
“Oyuna!” she whispered again. “Did you feel the circle of the moon upon your face? You are chosen. And so you must choose.”
I could manage only to stammer, “What? Why…did you come here now?”
Following Echenkorlo’s gaze to the foot of my bed, I saw, slumping in the moonlight, an old leather pouch. “You will need assistance in the days ahead,” she said quietly.
I looked around, wondering why my grandmother’s arrival had not awakened anyone else. “I don’t understand,” I said.
She kept her voice low, speaking so softly that I had to hold my breath to hear her words. “You want to run the race next year and win. To bring good luck. And so you may, my gran
ddaughter, for the white mare has shared a talent with you.” She leaned closer. “Never lose her!” Her breath carried the words with a warm rush into my ear.
I exhaled, excitement roaring in my head. Was my grandmother, a shamaness, telling me I would win the race next year? With what horse? I instantly wondered. But again she was whispering, and I had to suck in my breath to listen.
“Now your journey takes you south, where graze ten thousand white mares.”
“And one will be mine?” I whispered excitedly. “One will be my swift horse? How will I find her?”
Echenkorlo closed her eyes, clutched Bator to her chest, and rocked back and forth upon her knees. She spoke in a chanting voice. “On the mountains’ cold breath fly blackbirds, laying wings of gold at your feet. Fly with them, but follow only your heart.”
She opened her eyes and stared at me. I heard her rattly breathing, saw her thin lips flutter. Then, admonishing me sharply to listen, Echenkorlo pressed her face to my ears and whispered for a long time about the many sicknesses and healing of horses. She described herbs and clays and where they could be found, which plants to eat and to avoid, the proper timing for fire and bloodletting. Confusion welled within me, but the urgency in her voice forced me to concentrate. When her learning had filled my ears, my grandmother sat back, silent, and simply stared at me again. After a moment she spoke a few more words.
“Oyuna!” she said softly. “I, too, have felt the pity of others. But always I choose my own path. And I pull my own luck from the air. Remember!”
Now, to tell truth, I cannot remember what happened after this. When next I awakened, the moonlight had left our ger and I did not know in that darkness what was real and what was a dream. When I awoke again, the sky was just growing pale with the sun’s light. Throwing aside the fleece covers, I rushed to look out the door flap.
