All the other people had ten fingers on their two hands. Grandma said so, and I had learned so myself. One thousand fingers all in one place? It had probably never happened. Was I the first one to come up with a plan nobody had ever been able to think of? Maybe. And that’s why I could spare no effort to bring together those one thousand fingers. There would be fingers big and small, clean and dirty. Some would come with clipped nails, others with claws. Father could not stand dirty fingernails, so he would not want to help me.
Oh well, if need be we could also include the toes, which were called foot fingers in our language anyway. Instead of a hundred, we would need just fifty people. But would I be able to talk all of them into taking off their boots? Wouldn’t the women who had older and highly respected male in-laws among the crowd rather die than undress their legs and show a bit of naked skin? Others, too, might rather keep their boots on than let me see their toes long enough to count them. Aunt Aewildek would call out: “Hang on, little one! My feet are dirty.” And although he used to go barefoot from early summer to late autumn, Uncle Dar would probably hide his feet under his coat seam rather than let me count his toes. “My feet are nobody else’s business,” he would mutter. And Mother would add, “Yes, leave his out.” His feet were hairy right down to their toes, and hairy feet made Mother sick, just as mice and spiders did. But then I would say that all I needed was the number of his toes, and that nothing else would tickle my nose, as Aunt Galdarak used to put it. How his toes looked and which way they went meant nothing to me.
One thousand! Oh mighty number! From one thousand pieces of livestock upward you were considered a baj. Grandfather had been one. Father was not. Nor was Stalin, even though he was a powerful man. “The days of bajs are over,” Father said, “today you can work yourself to the bone and still not make it to a thousand.”
Why would he say that? And why had he given away Brother and Sister?
Such were my dreams. They included the yurt Grandma and I would live in and the flock that would feed us both.
I dreamed up still more things. First, a hunting gun like the one Uncle Sargaj had: it took five cartridges, fired them in one burst, thundered loudly, and always hit its target. And a tobacco pipe like the one Galdar-Eewi’s son had. One day he let me smoke tobacco in his pipe. To smoke real tobacco in a real pipe was entirely different from what we did outside with rabbit dung and the pipe we carved from a wether’s shoulder bone. One puff and I was dizzy! That’s when I decided: When I grow up, I want to have a pipe like that. Apparently, the older you got, the more things you had to have.
And the yurt Grandma and I would share would be big and bright. Better still, inside there wouldn’t be just the two chests of drawers that belonged to any decent yurt but also the suitcase and mirror from Aunt Galdarak’s yurt. But most importantly, the flock would have to be big. I wanted it to be one thousand and one animals rather than nine hundred and ninety-nine, even though I did not want to become a baj.
Or maybe I should? The question was directed at Arsylang. He seemed to consider it and then suddenly to nod. I was thrilled to be someone other people could not be. If I were to become a baj among the people, Arsylang might become one among the dogs. I asked him if he would become one. He wagged his tail. On the other hand, Father always said … well, if Father said so, it had to be true. But then why did everybody else talk about bajs? And why did Father say they no longer existed?
Arsylang barked. I looked where he looked, and caught sight of the danger. Gliding, an eagle slowly circled above the flock. We moved closer to the lambs and the kids. Born in the fall after their mothers had already had offspring in the spring, they searched for blades of grass, unaware of the threat.
“On guard, Arsylang!” I called, holding my crook in my arm like a gun. The eagle circled above us. Seemingly lifeless, it glided in an invisible orbit, descending toward us only to rise again into the sky when I screamed and Arsylang barked. Eventually it seemed to get fed up with the unsuccessful game, left us alone, and disappeared.
This way we guarded the flock and were guarded in turn by Mother and Grandma, both of whom had stayed home. Mother came and went, squatted and skipped, walked and ran in a constant race against the sun, scanning the steppe for us and, whenever she caught sight of us, reporting to Grandma, who would then size up the situation and pass judgment.
When I got back, I described like any shepherd in great detail what had happened during the course of the day. I always told what I had seen and observed, sticking to the facts although sometimes allowing myself a little exaggeration. So I claimed that the eagle had attacked us and that we had fought it off. I did so less to get praise for myself than for Arsylang. In the end, we both got praised and I was sent to play. But I did not feel like playing. The praise stuck, mouth-warm, in my ears and urged me on to further action. So I decided to search my hendshe for ticks. I combed the lambs’ necks with my fingers and crushed whatever ticks I found. Generally, the ticks went for the neck artery. They would pierce the skin and sink their teeth into it, and then suck up blood until they were full, thick as a finger, and bluish-purple. One was not allowed to tear them off because the cold might seep into the wound they left behind. Instead, one was to crush them and leave them in place. In time, the new skin would cast them off nyway.
Ticks filled with blood were easier to crush: they went pop. And the louder the pop, the bigger the praise. Sometimes when I hit on a particularly large number of ticks, or on ticks that were only half full and hard to crush, Father came to my aid.
But the best part was washing my hands afterward. Piece by piece the meat which had kept my senses alert all evening was taken from the broth in the kettle and stacked on a platter, forming a pile that steamed so much that the yurt nearly went dark for a moment. That was the signal to wash my hands and get ready. Then I would proudly show off my blood-smeared fingers and say: “I can’t grab the can!” And Grandma would offer: “Let me pour the water over your hands.” With a casual air, I would hold my hands under the lukewarm juniper water that glittered and gurgled from the water can’s spigot. I would wash finger after finger and then the backs of my hands and my wrists and further up. I would listen to the splashing and crashing sounds and strive to create even more sounds—sounds, if possible, like those I had heard when Father washed his hands, and through it all I would feel happy in the anticipation of being a grown-up.
That evening Grandma squatted behind the stove as usual and tended the fire. Half a step away from his regular seat, Father sat close to the oil lamp and bent over the remains of a piece of raw yak skin he was cutting into straps. Just as close to the lamp and just as bent over, Mother was sewing a fox-fur hat. It had blue silk on the outside and brownish-red satin on the inside. What little light remained fell on the yurt’s right side where Grandma’s bed was already prepared. At its foot a big basket sat upside down and covered over. Instead of dung, it contained several prematurely born lambs. At the edge of the light I was busy removing ticks from a year-old lamb. But my thoughts were not with the lamb or its ticks. They were chasing the big flock that would come together one day, and approaching the question as to who would own it. I wanted clarity:
“Our flock will grow, won’t it, Grandma?”
“Of course it will,” she responded in a soft, rich voice.
“And how big do you think it might get?”
“Even a single lamb can beget a flock of a thousand, my father used to say.”
“Will I be a baj when it reaches a thousand?”
Grandma hesitated with her answer. So, she suspected what I was after. Mother and Father stayed silent, too. They concentrated on their work and had said little all evening.
I waited for a while, but then lost my patience. “I shall be a baj!” I said.
“Baj can also mean simply rich. Anybody who works hard and spares no effort can get rich.”
That was Grandma, and Father nodded at her.
“No, Grandma. No, Father. I don’t
just want to get rich. I want to be a real baj. Like Grandfather.”
I noticed how Father paused. But again it was Grandma who answered: “Your grandfather was an outstanding man. Happy the person who will be as he was. But these days we no longer speak of bajs: we call them Champion Herders.”
So that was it. I was not going to be a baj, I was going to be a Champion Herder instead. I was disappointed. But I was also relieved to at least know what I would be.
“I shall be a Champion Herder, and you shall be a Champion Dog,” I said to Arsylang on our way to the pasture the following morning. Then I added: “Well, what can you do? That’s how it goes.” All the people in the Altai mountains knew this phrase, which had probably been around forever. Much has disappeared, but some things have endured.
After the first slaughter Father took food to the sum. Four frozen blocks of meat from small animals made up the advance payment. Brother and Sister would not be able to eat that much by themselves, so any leftovers would go to the people who had put them up. The food lay heavy on the horse’s back. In addition to the blocks of frozen meat, there was white and yellow butter in wether rumens and in yak bladders, and frozen disks of yak milk the size and shape of our kettle. The horse staggered when he set off
Father did not return until evening. He brought sweets with him. They came from Brother and Sister, who had both learned well, winning awards at the end of the first quarter. There were two glacier-white lumps of sugar, both larger than my fists, and three candies in blue-striped wrappers. One was thinner and brighter than the other two, and Brother Galkaan later confessed he had sucked it a little. They were the very first candies I ever saw. All the sweets were wrapped in a white cloth, which was also an award and was covered with rows of square dimples. It looked like a piece of wether rumen. Later I learned that it was called a face-and-hand cloth, and later still, I was awarded one myself. Father spread the cloth and broke one of the lumps by tapping it with the back of his dagger. With each further tap the pieces broke into smaller bits. The grown-ups wanted just a taste and in the end were content with the crumbs. They told me to eat all I could. But I didn’t eat more than a few little splinters. I could have eaten more of course, I could have finished it all, but I didn’t want the sweets to be gone. How much better to look at them and touch them, to sniff and lick them whenever I felt like it! Each morning before leaving the yurt I unwrapped the cloth and looked at its contents. Often I would content myself with a look and a sniff, but sometimes I would lick them to assure myself of their sweet taste, only to pull myself together quickly and put away the bundle.
The second quarter was said to be over soon, and that meant Brother and Sister would be returning. I counted the days, but the fewer were left, the longer they seemed to become. I was sure that Arsylang already knew. Not surprisingly, he felt my excitement; day after day my stories had dealt with Brother and Sister, and he got excited each time I mentioned their names. We lived in anticipation of seeing them again. In other words: we suffered.
Finally the time had come. Father saddled two horses, took one by its lead, and rode off. It was early in the day, and the sun had only just risen. My eyes were glued to the gelding with his empty saddle. The thought that he would bring Brother and Sister back to me before sunset shook me. I decided that if he returned with them, I would honor the bay—whom we called Scholak Dorug, or the brown one with the stumpy tail—as if he were my own brother. I kept my word. I never humiliated him although later I could not avoid making him pant and sweat. But because I always respected him, he must have sensed how I felt toward him. In turn, he behaved impeccably toward me and served me reliably. When we saw each other for the last time, Scholak Dorug was standing in the midst of a large herd, rested and well fed. The summer sun reflected off his mane onto me. It was the sun of the eighteenth summer of both our lives—for we were of the same age. I was, as people say, at the beginning of my path, but his path had almost reached its end, and so he spent his last summer enjoying his life’s holiday: At the beginning of spring, his saddle had been removed for good. I knew we would never see each other again, and I was grateful to the people who had created the custom of paying one’s last respects to old, worn-out animals. I sensed that the gelding, too, knew what lay ahead, as his gaze seemed to radiate both pain and gratitude.
The day Brother and Sister were expected to return was one of the longest of my life. It was also one of the hardest, as well as one of the most beautiful. Arsylang and I were told to stay with our flock until Father returned with Scholak Dorug, who would carry Brother and Sister on his back over Doora Hara, the mountain ridge that stretched from right to left at a distance of two or three gun shots below our camp, and that had got its name from looking black.
Mother was walking the large flock along the ridge that formed a half circle high above us on the other side of the camp, above the steep rock face of Gysyl Dshagyr. I could tell that she, too, was looking out for them, for she and a small tip of her flock appeared repeatedly even though it must have been very windy up there on the ridge.
Grandma also kept an eye out for them. Again and again she stepped out of the yurt to stand and look. We could see her, but I knew that with her aged eyes she could not see us. So I shouted: “Grand-ma-a, we are he-re!” and Arsylang barked along. But she just stood there, stooped and motionless. She obviously did not hear us. In the morning we had agreed that whenever she would see or hear us, she would wave the white yak tail normally used for dusting. But, apparently, Grandma’s ears had aged as well.
We kept our eyes trained on Father and followed him as he became smaller and smaller. Occasionally he disappeared from view but then showed up again, even smaller than before and as threadbare as a breeze in a mirage. But I only had to glance at Arsylang to assure myself that the figure I saw was indeed still Father. In his eyes everything was as clear as if it were written. Behind the fourth of the seven Kazakh homes Father disappeared again and this time did not re-emerge. After that, we went off on the wrong track. Each time we discovered and followed a moving body here, or another one there, they turned out to be wrong. Only much later, when the mountains’ shadows had reappeared and were growing more quickly, did we find him again, right where we had lost him.
At first it was Arsylang who jumped and whimpered with joy and pain. Then I discovered the grayish-dark speck standing out against the light-brown steppe. It was growing and coming closer. There was no doubt: it was our people! Then I could distinguish the two horses which until then had formed but one dark figure, as well as the riders who had dismounted and were now walking ahead of their horses. They crossed the frozen river and mounted their horses again, and then all of a sudden the two dark figures began to grow.
Arsylang and I made such a racket, jumping up and down and running around in circles, that Mother must have seen us. Together with the little tip of her flock she disappeared from sight and was obviously now heading toward the ail. I knew it would take her some time to make her way across the ridge’s more gradual northern slope to the saddle and then down from there. Our own flock had already set out for home. All day long we had forced the animals to stay on the windy mountain ridge. The young lambs had begun to bleat and look for protection among last year’s lambs, and even the latter, who had turned their heads toward the ail and pulled in their legs, were no longer searching for blades of grass. They were cold. While Arsylang and I had been occupied with the events in the steppe beyond the rivers, they had abandoned us and taken off. But from up where we were, we could see them as if in the palm of my hand. They had reached the slope below Eser-Haja, which was sheltered from the wind, and had come to a halt.
By now the riders had left the Ak-Hem valley and were climbing the foothills of the Black Mountains. We didn’t know how to stay calm or how to make them progress faster. While I knew that the horses could only go at a walk and had to struggle hard to make ground—surely they were walking too slowly!—I jumped up and down and urged Arsylang to continu
e to love and honor our father Gök-Deeri and our mother Hara Dsher, not least for having brought our dear ones back to us safe and sound. Arsylang whimpered and barked and jumped with me. He was trembling all over, and joy lit up his eyes like a bright flame. He would have loved above all to tear off and race toward them. But I knew he would not leave me. Under no circumstances would he ever leave me behind on the lonely mountain ridge.
By then we could see that the horses were being driven hard. They were struggling up the path across the rock face, one behind the other, their necks stretched forward, maintaining their distance from each other. Their dark coats shone with hoarfrost, and both horses were steaming and snorting clouds of breath that quickly rose toward the sky and dissolved in a gray veil. Father rode in front, and he seemed as powerful as always but also decidedly elegant, even beautiful. I vaguely detected a smile on his face, and I also thought I saw smiles on the faces of Brother and Sister. But Torlaa’s face looked strangely bright and even somewhat narrow as she sat in the saddle in front of Brother. And Galkaan’s face, which peered out two or three times from behind his sister’s back, radiated the kind of brightness people in the mountains in those days called “paper-white.” Strangers called him Whitey anyway, whereas Sister had been nicknamed Red for her ruddy cheeks, and I Blackey, for reasons I never understood.
With his skin tone, Brother Galkaan took after Father, who with his light skin, hook nose, brown hair, and his round, light-brown eyes was a rarity among Tuvans. Father showed, as I would later learn, Caucasian traces.
When they got close enough for me to recognize their features and indeed their smiles, I suddenly felt timid. I had no idea where the feeling came from or what it meant, but I felt it so clearly that I would have given anything to run away. But how and where? I stayed where I was. No longer jumping or rejoicing, I stood as if paralyzed, and all I could do was whisper to Arsylang: “Please be quiet … please be quiet!”
The Blue Sky Page 8
