The Gray Earth. Galsan Tschinag

glassy eyes full of insolence and suspicion, so I don’t dare sit on the ground. Each time it gets close, I make the whistling and snorting sounds I would use to drive a herd. The mouse backs off, but soon comes scuttling toward me again.

      When I see the animal becoming more brazen, I realize I must kill it. I pick up a handful of the larger pebbles and wait. Soon the mouse appears, smirking and squatting on its hind legs, its glassy eyes fixed on me. I move a pebble from my left to my right hand and hold it with three fingertips the way one pulls an arrow from the quiver to nock it on the bowstring. Then I take aim: the tip of the index finger of my outstretched left arm aims at the mouse while I pull my bent right arm back to propel the pebble. Missed!

      A little later the animal is back. This time it senses my plan as soon as my right hand reaches for the pebble in my left one. There—the mouse is gone! I position myself for another attack and wait once more, my left arm stretched out, aiming for its target, and my right arm lifted, ready to hurl the pebble. For quite some time the coward stays away. When it finally returns, I immediately fling my pebble, but miss again. Enraged, I curse myself: “May my eyes go blind and my hands lame! I’ll never hit a marmot, let alone a mouse. Try something better!” Next, I take all the pebbles into my right hand. However, I don’t want to rely on any old number. There must be exactly thirteen pebbles. Holding them close to my lips, I breathe into them and implore, “May you each be a shard of the stones of the Altai’s thirteen ovoos, and may you all carry their holy spirit!”

      Then I straighten and ready myself to hurl them. My right arm is up, its hand clenched in a fist. And so I wait until my arms, neck, back, and legs are paralyzed and almost numb. At long last, the wretched creature reappears. I fling my fist forward with such force that it jerks my body forward as well and I stumble a couple of steps. By a hair’s breadth I miss knocking myself over, but I have hit my target. I see, I hear, and I know I have hit the beast. It is dead.

      Feeling very calm, I sit down. Tiredness envelops me like fog. I fall asleep and some time later, still aware of my circumstances, curl up on the ground like a dog and succumb to the sweetest dream I have ever been granted in my whole life.

      I am awakened by a light but do not rise. Instead I let the person, whose steps I hear, come close and pull me up. Above me, I see a tall yellow-faced man in a short white cape. He looks at me sternly.

      “Did you pee?”

      “Yes.”

      “Did you take a shit?”

      “No.”

      “Did you steal anything?”

      “No. But I did take four sugar cubes.”

      “Did you eat them?”

      “No.”

      I take the four sugar cubes from my breast pocket: “Here they are.”

      I try to hand them over, but he does not take them. Instead, he closes my fingers around them and gives me a glance. I quickly put the sugar cubes away again.

      He walks ahead, and I follow. We walk through two doors and climb a number of steep steps in between. At the top, on the ground, the stout man with horsefly eyes from the day before is waiting for us. He says something I don’t understand, but because he gestures with his head, I realize I am to follow him. The other man stays behind. His face with its yellow hair radiates something I feel on my back for a long time—something filling me with warmth and light. He must have followed me with his eyes and thought words he could not say to me.

      I feel his gaze on my back as intensely as the sun, which now burns brighter than ever ahead of me in the southern sky, blinding my eyes. I am curious where exactly the prison is located and what it looks like from the outside, but I am scared the horsefly eyes will keep peeking at me, and so I dare not turn. Besides, the man is moving so fast I have to struggle hard not to fall behind.

      Children stop their play and scatter as we pass. Each child moves alone, and they all look down and avoid us. But I can hear them whispering behind our backs.

      One says, “There’s the runaway,” and another, “Looks as if he’s been beaten.” And a third one says, “From the cold, dark hell into the bright white one.” Maybe the man really does not understand Tuvan, I think hopefully.

      Some time later my mind must have stopped working. All of a sudden I see in front of me a woman who, with her hair twisted and piled high, seems to have two heads. She must be the one who just dragged me across the doorstep. From her manner I recognize her as the woman with the shrill voice from the day before. Strangely, now I understand everything she carps on about. When I realize I am sucking on one of my fingers, I quickly take it out of my mouth, let my hand drop, and press it, like the other one, on my hip. Then I try to get my bearings: I am in a room with many different red colors and a mirrorlike finish. High up on the walls hang satin banners the color of lungs and as wide as the span of a hand. They display white letters and frame the room. Below them, large-faced and clean-shaven men look out from square frames of various sizes.

      Brother Dshokonaj sits behind a large table, writing. Besides the woman and the man who brought me here, two other men are in the room; in contrast to the first two, these other two men and the woman all wear lawashaks. But all four wear the same narrow black boots that gleam like mirrors, and all four remain standing even though there are benches. They face Comrade Principal and wait for him to stop writing.

      At long last he lays down his quill pen, looks up, and casts a quick but thorough eye on each of the four. He says something, and everyone sits down. Only now does his gaze fall on me, and it is as if a whirling storm were blowing toward me. Yet instead of letting myself get blown away, I stiffen my neck and hold my ground. Or rather, I quickly gather the breezes inside me and send my wind to battle his storm because I hear that voice inside again: Stand up for yourself!

      Immediately the storm breaks and a warm veil appears in the gap. “What’s happened to you? Has someone beaten you?” Brother asks. I am unprepared for this. My wind falters, I lower my eyes, and tears well up.

      Enraged, Brother Dshokonaj snaps at the stout man. As if stung, the man jumps up. His horsefly eyes pop even more and shine as he glares at me and yells in the coarsest Tuvan, “Did I so much as touch you? Hey! Speak up, boy, loud and clear, so your brother and the comrades can hear!”

      I shake my head.

      Apparently that does not satisfy the man. He charges at me, inspects my head close up, and, pausing on and off, goes on to list all my bruises and scars, and even the grains of sand clinging to my head. He concludes in Tuvan, “Boy, you have been beaten black and blue!”

      I whisper more than speak, “I don’t know.”

      “You do know!” shouts the principal. “Was it the old man in the bath shed?”

      “Yes,” I say with a loud sob. Someone is sent off and returns with Fox-face. In the meantime, I have a chance to compose myself because they ignore me while conferring with one another. They sound agitated and seem to be of one mind.

      Comrade Principal turns to Arganak and speaks down to him as if from a great height. His face is rigid and his voice strained. Arganak must have seen it coming because he immediately lets rip. He talks loud and fast and steps up his efforts until he screams and stammers as if he is being whipped. At the same time he waves his right hand wildly, his thumb wrapped in a thick white bandage. Brother seems unimpressed and listens, his face impassive. When he tries to interrupt, Arganak gets even wilder, throws himself at me, grabs my lawashak and lifts its bottom. Through it all, he continues to jabber.

      Later I learn what he said. Since I did not have any underwear of my own, he said, I had refused to return the State’s pair. Dutiful Party member that he is, he tried to reclaim State property. At which point I bit into his thumb. The story of the underpants impresses everyone. They immediately seem to turn against me.

      Fox-face harps on for a while. Darga is the one word in his tirade I can pick up now and again, and I know what it means. Barricaded behind his desk, Comrade Principal shrinks before Comrade Arganak. In the