Nobody who came to visit us ignored Arsylang. Everybody acknowledged him with at least a general comment: “Oi, that’s a dangerous dog.” To which the reply was always the same, regardless of who was helping the guest off his saddle or lifting him back up again: “He only looks that way.”
Arsylang was not dangerous and had never bitten anybody. But people never stopped fearing him. Usually, their remarks would lead to a longer conversation about the dog.
Some people commented on his name, which meant “lion.” Then Father would reply that the lion’s job was not to see but to hear. Others said we should not have called the dog Arsylang, but Börü, which meant “wolf.” To which Father would answer: “That would mean calling the wolf by its name ten or twenty times a day and drawing it near—who would do that?”
Suddenly I felt like seeing Arsylang run. So I ran backward and called out in one breath, “Arsylang, Arsylang, Arsylang!” and then, “Tuh-tuh-tuuh!” Here and there barking rang out, and all of a sudden the dogs came charging. I watched how Arsylang ran: he stretched and pressed low to the ground, his tail flat and straight. He tore past the dogs that had taken off ahead of him, and he was now in the lead. I ran a bit further and crouched beside a burrow that a marmot or maybe even a fox could have easily slid into. When Arsylang arrived, he landed with his muzzle right in the burrow and, whimpering and scratching with all four paws, tried to squeeze the rest of himself into it as well. Grass and soil, still damp from the night’s dew, flew up in lumps. Then came a dry layer of soil which crumbled into dust and grew into a little cloud. I called Arsylang by his name, and he stopped straining. But the excitement wouldn’t let go of him for a long time: He continued to whimper, and his fur stood on end.
I got a fright.
Then Grandma arrived. She walked toward me with little toddling steps. Because I didn’t want her to drag herself so far from the ail for my sake, I called, “tshuh!”, gave myself a slap on the bottom, and galloped toward her.
The dogs followed me. Arsylang soon caught up and trotted along beside me. The other dogs stayed behind, none passed us.
Grandma stopped. She had grabbed the top end of her short birchwood stick with both hands and was leaning on it when we reached her.
“What was that? Was it a wolf?” she asked softly, with that little smile on her lips that rarely faded. “No, not a wolf,” I said, unsure of myself. “Maybe a fox or just a marmot.” I felt a little hurt that Grandma would ask me a question I had to answer with a lie.
“Where have you been, Grandma?” I asked sullenly, partly to fend off the shame that was bound to come, and partly to counter that shame by keeping alive the feeling of hurt so I would find it easier, for the first time ever, to keep a secret from her.
“I had to relieve myself,” Grandma said humbly.
“So long and so far away?”
“I went behind the hill. My legs are getting on.”
Grandma sighed, but immediately cheered up again. She pointed at her legs: “I told the two of them, Don’t be so lazy or I’ll take you to herd the sheep!”
I didn’t want to reply because I thought her joke was inappropriate. Instead, I wanted to get to the bottom of something else: “Grandma, why did you have to go behind the hill? The others squat right here in the steppe.”
“Oh, I couldn’t do that, dear. I’m not used to squatting while people look—I could never do that!”
Suddenly a fie ce feeling for her overcame me. It was part compassion and part awe. Then it changed into love. It felt like pain, it really hurt. The rims of my eyes turned hot. “Grandma!” I said and took her hand. She looked at me so kindly and with such understanding that I could barely speak: “Let’s go, Grandma. Let’s go home.”
GRANDMA
Grandma was human silk. That’s what Father said, and what he said was always right. Always. And she had been sent to me by the sky. That’s what Mother had revealed to me. Some of the things she said weren’t true of course, but when the sky was involved, we were not allowed to lie. Mother had said so herself and even Grandma had listened.
At first she was a stranger among us, people said. She used to have a husband, a son, a yurt, and a sizeable flock. Later her husband was shot dead by fleeing Russians, and her son struck dead by pillaging Kazakhs. The two events happened one right after the other.
Left all alone, she sought the company of her younger sister, Hööshek. The sister was widowed as well, and for all I know, she was the only woman in our corner of the world who had managed to acquire the title baj. She had a son who, though long grown up, had remained weak and shy; and probably as a result of this worry Hööshek felt both more important as head of her family and more determined to assert herself in life.
Grandma did not talk much about her sister, and what little she said was good. She never said anything bad about anybody, not even about strangers. That’s the way she was.
In spite of that, people talked a great deal about Hööshek and about what she had done with Grandmother’s yurt and flock. The stories added up. They were common knowledge.
Hööshek and her family always kept their distance, and yet a story was put together one crumb at a time that added up to some kind of picture of what Grandma’s life had been like at her sister’s. Hööshek has long since died. It’s believed in all languages and among all peoples that one must never speak ill of the dead. Why is that? Is being dead a luxury for the select few to enjoy? Or a punishment for outcasts to atone themselves? No, it is the price we all must pay for having been here, for the miracle worked with our birth. Let us therefore follow the trail of what happened and stay in the shining light of truth.
Piece by piece, Grandma’s yurt and flock wandered into Hööshek’s possession. The good felt blankets were found to be much more useful covering the sister’s yurt than lying around unused and going to rot. This followed on the heels of Hööshek saying, Why put up two yurts if one has enough room for all of us?
So Grandma had to let her own yurt sit as a pile of bundles and had moved into her sister’s yurt. When the first of Grandma’s bundles was fished out of the pile, unwrapped, and its blanket taken, the word was, Just for now, until we’ve rolled new felt and sewn new blankets! But new felt was never rolled, and then more blankets were taken.
Meanwhile even the poorer pieces of felt were used as saddlecloths for mounts and pack animals. At first they were taken whole, as makeshift, on loan for a short time, but not long after, they were cut and sewn to measure. The same thing happened with the wooden scaffolding. The roof ribs were taken first. One after another they were put to different uses. And it did not take long before Hööshek took liberties and casually hacked one of the ribs to pieces and turned it into stakes. Stakes, after all, were needed.
Later, parts of Grandma’s lattice work, of her yurt’s walls, ended up in Hööshek’s yurt, replacing those of hers in need of repair.
Same with the animals. Hööshek now preferred to cover running expenses with lambs and kids, and at times even with mature sheep and goats, all from Grandma’s flock. Grandma’s were runts anyway, not as good as Hööshek’s flock. Better to keep one good flock, and one day Hööshek would replace Grandma’s animals. But not a single lamb was ever replaced. Nothing ever was.
One day it was understood that there was no longer any point in dragging along from one move to the next a pile that had once contained a yurt. So the remains of the pile were broken up. Anything left of value was claimed, while the rest was burned on a fire. This is how Grandma became homeless. And if she had stayed with her sister any longer, she probably would have become destitute as well. Fortunately, things turned out differently.
People called Grandma Dongur Hootschun, which means “old woman with a shaved head.” The name was accurate. She was the first of only two women with a completely shaved head that I have ever seen among our people.
By the way, the other woman, who lived in the Altai Mountains half a lifetime later, was also called Dongur Hoot
schun. And the nickname, as is often the case, had replaced Grandma’s real name long ago. No one will ever know what she was called when she still had the long black hair that she kept in two braids. I myself called her Dongor Enem—my grandma with the shaved head. When other children tried to follow my example, I quickly told them off: “Why Enem? She’s not your grandma, is she?”
In those days, the children in the Altai Mountains used to live in peace with one another. So the child I had just told off would likely respond: “Oh well, it’s Eneng then—your grandma.”
Father and Mother and the other grown-ups in the ail put my name in front of Grandma’s and used the ending that indicates belonging, or rather possession. I liked that, for she was indeed my grandma. And this is how that came about: Since moving in with her sister, Grandma had taken care of the lighter chores in the yurt and the hürde because, having long passed seventy, she no longer had the strength for more. She rarely saw anybody, and even more rarely went—or rather, given her age—rode anywhere. She only went out when she wanted to get her head shaved, rather than get her hair cut, since the former trade was plied by men only.
So it happened that one day Grandma rode off again to find someone who would shave her head. On her way she passed our ail and our yurt. This is easily told now when in truth it was a bad story, albeit one with a good ending. Grandma’s horse had shied at dogs and already raced past four or five ails. The dogs—there were three of them at first—stayed hard on the horse’s and its rider’s heels. Ever more dogs joined in, and in the end they made up a pack of more than a dozen. Our cousin Molum, who happened to ride past, saved her: He chased the fleeing horse until he caught up and eventually got hold of its reins.
Understandably, a guest who arrived in such a manner was offered a warm welcome. Still panting and shaking, the old woman was seated on the good felt mat, which usually stayed rolled up behind a stack of clothes and was brought out only for guests of honor or rare visitors. She was welcomed and pitied by the grown-ups and eyed with curiosity and wonder by the children. The children had come galloping, a whole horde, even before the visitor was helped off her saddle, while the grown-ups showed up one by one—the first one with her baby at her breast, the next one with the hide she was tanning, the third holding the piece of clothing she was sewing—each in turn repeating more or less what had already been said and asked. Grandma, too, replied to the questions and the gentle chiding with almost identical words—getting chided of course because she had been careless enough to get involved with a horse that wasn’t docile.
Grandma’s horse was a mare that used to have a dark gray coat but, getting older, now looked almost white. The mare was anything but wild, but had once been attacked and badly mangled by wolves. Ever since, she had been shy of dogs. She foaled each year but the late-winter snowstorms, the wolves, and Hööshek all taken together had managed to ensure the mare remained Grandma’s one and only mount.
On the stove, the best tea was being prepared. The best tea meant that in addition to milk and salt a very fatty, floury paste was added to the concentrated tea. The tea was the result of a communal effort. Each woman who had comfortably settled her girth between door and stove made herself useful. The curiosity of the horde of children grew with the smell of burning fat and flour. They could not wait to find out who this person was who had a man’s head and a woman’s voice. Because they were not allowed to enter the yurt like the grown-ups or even to stand in its doorway, they kept walking past the door to steal quick, inquisitive glances at the yurt’s inside. That almost made them ache.
When the guest stepped over the yurt’s threshold, a small, noisily babbling child reached for her. That was nothing special. In those days any child, as soon as it was able to move on its own and until it could tell danger from no-danger, was tethered with a rope to the head of its parents’ bed. This way the child was protected from the many dangers it could get into. But much like a tethered young animal, a child subjected to the practice quickly grew bored and craved any form of companionship. And so the toddler flapped and chirped toward the entering guest, and the very first person to greet me was Grandma. At this point, she was to me still just an old woman with a shaved head, but she responded to my greeting in her own way. She nodded at me and caressed me from a distance, blessing me and wishing me a long life with the following words: “Take my white head, my remaining yellow teeth, and the years on top!” Then she had to take her eyes off me for a little while to exchange greetings with the grown-ups and to hold and sniff the snuff bottles she was offered along with the greetings. She herself did not take snuff
Unable to leave her alone, I waved wildly and continued to make a racket, my eyes riveted to her the entire time. This went on until people took notice and decided to free me from the rope. As soon as I could, I made my way straight to her on all fours and with a joyous scream grabbed hold of the hands she offered me. She helped me to my feet, pulled me close, sniffed first my hands and then my hair, and again wished me a long life—this time she talked to the mountains and asked them: “Oh, my rich Altai! Take this tiny pup into your lap to protect him from below; take this tiny pup into your armpit to protect him from above, and grant him a long life with long-lasting happiness!” Then she took me into her lap and held me. And from that moment on she was no longer for me and my family an old woman with a shaved head but my grandma with the shaved head.
Grandma spent the day in our ail and stayed overnight. As she went from one yurt to the next to drink the tea people prepared for her, I was glued to her back. Until then, Mother had always torn pieces for me off the dumplings or pancakes in the bowls, but now Grandma did that for me. This went on until I was overcome by sleep.
The next morning Grandma’s gray mare was saddled early, but she could not leave until around noon since I refused to get off er lap and started to scream each time people tried to pull me off her. She had to wait until I fell asleep again. Cousin Molum took her home, because of the dogs and also because of her sister. He carried with him a few words from Father and Mother. Once they arrived at Hööshek’s yurt, he was to speak on behalf of Grandma.
Grandma returned in the spring. But before spring there was winter, and in those days people heard very little of each other during that long time. Often they heard nothing at all. That year my parents could not find out until spring whether the Höösheks in Baschgy Dag had had a winter with only a few losses, and whether Grandma had got through the winter.
Then she came! It was still in the lean time between the storms and the move, and our yurt had only just arrived at Hara Hoowu. The Höösheks were stopping over at Saryg Höl on their way down from the mountains into the steppe. Grandma praised Sedip, the Hööshek son and her nephew, for his sharp young eyes and his binoculars and asked him to keep an eye on Hara Dag, across the Ak-Hem. One morning Sedip announced that the ail was leaving. And then he followed the movements of the flock of sheep and herd of yaks with the loaded oxen, reporting to Grandma in short intervals: “Passing the Heritsche above Doora Hara. At Üd Ödek. In Gysyl Schat. Along the Ak-Hem.”
“Keep watching, my dear,” Grandma said, “we’ll soon know where people are heading.” Shortly afterward she learned that the herds were crossing the Ak-Hem toward the area above Gysyl Ushuk. And so Grandma knew where our yurt could soon be found.
The next morning she rode off to get her head shaved and freshened up, as she put it to her sister. She found our yurt where she had expected it. Mother chided her when she heard that Grandma had all by herself and with some trouble crossed the Homdu, the great and dangerous river. The ice covering was already full of holes and cracks, and Grandma said she had seen deep water in a few places. But of course Mother was also happy that Grandma had come. As for me, who in the meantime had grown and learned to walk, the same happened as before: With a scream I hastened toward her and climbed into her lap, determined never to leave again. I remained there and stayed awake till late in the evening. When I finally went to sleep, Gr
andma could have kept me at her side all night, but she passed me back to Mother. Grandma had not touched her hair since we had last seen her, and it had grown a lot. This way she always had an excuse ready to come to us.
The storms did not simply continue but grew worse with each passing day even as the sun, their counterforce, inevitably grew stronger as well. The clash of these two natural forces had a destructive influence on half the world, and the rivers’ icy armor grew more brittle by the hour until it cracked and dissolved.
Father, who had abducted Grandma from me while I was asleep, brought her back in the afternoon. I felt as if the joy that had filled me when I saw Grandma for the first time had stayed inside me like some wave or like a breeze of light burning so intensely and radiantly that it blazed a bright trail through the time since I had last seen her. By now the river had become impassable since the cool of the night could no longer weld together for even a few hours the shards of ice that were breaking apart. The icy mass was like softened clay that sank beneath a horse’s hoof. Father had no choice but to call out to one of the Kazakhs who in those days had already settled on the other side of the river to come to the bank, and to ask him to pass the word to Hööshek at Saryg Höl.
Grandma stayed with us until early summer. She was a big help in the household, mostly because she kept an eye on me. But it was more than that: she brought me up. She would not have thought of it that way, though. In those days, nobody in a yurt would have thought that he or she was “bringing up” a child, just as no child would have been aware that it was being “brought up.” The word did not exist in our language.
Grandma loved being with us. All of a sudden, a little one had pushed his way into her motherly, long-orphaned soul, filling it with light.
Twice Hööshek’s words reached us. Letters did not exist in those days, aside from those from far away, from soldiers. In the interior of the country we only had words which, as soon as they were spoken, were relayed from the mouth to the ear by people passing through. The first words Hööshek said and sent on their way to her sister were short and merely consisted of a statement and a question that probably contained an admonition as well: “The river has been passable again for quite some time now. Why haven’t you come back?” Before these words arrived, others had been spoken in our yurt. Father and Mother had invited Grandma to stay with us. Father’s offer had gone exactly as follows: “I carried my father away when he died, and my mother as well. Now I can stand tall before the sky and my children and say I have fulfilled my filial duties. But not all are granted the opportunity to fulfill their most sacred duty. The sky may know why that is. Since time immemorial people have done their best not to leave such duties unfulfilled. And whoever is allowed to perform this duty for another human being is a happy man. But the truth is that this right must be earned. Awaj, it is up to you to name the one you consider worthy to carry you in his hands the final distance when that day may come for you. Should your choice fall onto me, it would make me as happy as if my mother had returned to let me once again live with her for a while and then carry her to her final rest a second time.”
The Blue Sky Page 2
