The Gray Earth. Galsan Tschinag

Brother Galkaan and Sister Torlaa left for school: they looked dazzling, wrapped from head to toe in colorful brand-new clothes Mother had sewn throughout the summer. Father himself led them away. And how do I look? I am in rags. My head scarf is frayed and stained with squirrel blood and fish slime. And I am supposed to be the beloved baby? No one would believe it. Considering my lot makes me lose control, and I begin to sob loudly.

      Meanwhile we have reached the ford, and the horse starts wading through the river. The brilliant reflections and dull roar around me only make things worse: I feel abandoned and at the mercy of forces whose names I have yet to come up with.

      “Hey, what’s got into you?” Brother admonishes me. I sob louder in reply, whereupon this man who is said to be my brother, lording it in the saddle in front of me, goes wild. I feel him twitch and writhe on the other side of the stiff coat I desperately cling to. Then he hisses, “Stop right now or I’ll push you into the water!”

      His words hit like the crack of a whip, terrifying me. I shout for all I’m worth against the hiss and roar of the river: “Don’t, dearest Brother, please don’t. I’ll stop, I promise!”

      I whimper and dig my nails into his terribly stiff coat, which, no matter how hard I try, stays as unyielding as smoked leather. Experience has taught me never to look down when crossing a river, but I can’t help myself. Instantly our horse shoots upstream.

      Even more frightened, I try to look away from the seething current, but my stubborn gaze is as rigid as my body, and I can’t look away from the river’s whirling surface.

      Frozen with fear and wet with tears, I wriggle to brace myself against the rushing waters, like a cowardly dog who groans and cries just to stay alive and seated. If I had more courage and daring, I would rage and fight and drown, and then float away from the injustices hounding me so mercilessly and shamelessly.

      I crave a few comforting words—Don’t worry, little man, you don’t believe your big brother would push you off the horse, do you?—but they do not come. Instead I hear “Shut up, will you?” These words sound hardly less ominous than Brother’s earlier ones. I am stiff with fear, but I try hard to clench my chattering teeth and throttle the cries of pain.

      Below me, the water is rising. First my right boot feels wet and shortly after my left one as well. Then I feel the cold water at my calves, my thighs, and my bottom.

      The horse loses contact with the bottom and starts to swim. Lying at an angle, it floats like a piece of driftwood and no longer darts against the current.

      I remember Father once calling my big brother hard-hearted. While I cannot remember the occasion, I do remember that Mother did not like hearing it. She tends to quickly take offense because my big brother is her son by another man. Everyone knows it. It is why Brother has never lived with us. He used to come and visit from time to time, but he always quickly left again, like some distant relative. Eventually, we lost track of him. People say he’s pursuing the path to knowledge somewhere far away from us.

      Now he has returned, a bolt from the blue that has hit me like lightning.

      My suffering continues for what seems like forever, until at long last the vast wild water lies behind us and I can let myself slide down the side of the dripping-wet horse. I feel relief, even joy, at the feeling of solid ground beneath my feet. The sensation comes with a new awareness: from now on, if I don’t watch out for myself and my survival, in whatever place and by whatever means, no one else will. However, only later will this awareness become a conscious thought.

      Something confusing happens next that gives me cause for much thought. Brother steps close, wipes off my tears, and says, “Don’t cry, my dear little shaman. Now you don’t like what I’m doing, but one day you’ll be grateful for your new life. At home you may be the baby, but you can’t be the baby the rest of your life. That’s why, sooner rather than later, you must take on the burden of what we call knowledge. Knowledge has been waiting for you. And unless you accept its burden, you won’t be able to carry it into the future. Knowledge is the fire that illuminates our darkness and destroys our backwardness. Now go and wash off your tears and snot, and dry your clothes. I have to dry mine as well. See? I got wet up to my belt. I should have gone to the ford rather than try to find a shortcut.”

      Half a pail of water pours out of each of my boots. I pull the felt lining out, wring them as best I can, and pull them over two narrow, pointy rocks. I keep on my lawashak and realize I have to stand still, arms and legs spread wide apart like a scarewolf’s, to make sure the bottom seam stays smooth and straight in the sun.

      Brother has taken off everything but a pair of briefs that barely covers his private parts. At first I glance at him quickly, but then I can’t help myself and keep peeking. His skin is as light as a newborn’s, but with a bluish tinge. Maybe this is what scares me. His feet, their long toes spaced apart, suddenly remind me of the figure in my ladle. His coat, spread on the ground next to his other pieces of clothing, attracts my attention: it could be the cape I saw. I try to calm my pounding heart: in the ladle I saw a bald pointy head not at all like his, which is shaggy and shaped like a yak bull’s. The difference strikes me as significant, and I decide it is his long and wavy hair that makes him so different from anyone else I know, and hence so unapproachable. Will I be allowed to wear my hair like his once I have acquired the knowledge everyone talks about? The idea shakes me, but also brightens and warms my inner world with vague hope for a future lying in wait behind the rust-colored eastern mountains. Today—so the voice I sometimes hear inside me whispers—some of that future may still be a large lake or a high mountain. But every day a part of that future will split off and become a bright, sunlit morning, and all these mornings will move toward me, facing an unknown path. And they will treat me well.

      My brother steps into the river, vigorously splashes himself with water, and equally vigorously rubs his wet parts with his palms. He crouches and then stretches his slender body so it sways and floats in the current like a piece of aspen trunk. I cannot take my eyes off him. He washes differently than we do. We avoid stepping into a river when we wash but remain at the bank, kneeling on the dry gravel and scooping up the water with our cupped hands. We always make sure the water we take from our great mother river to wet and wash our head, face, and hands never runs straight back into the current.

      Finally he stands up, puffs and blows, and steps out of the river. Dumbfounded, I stare at his briefs. Their bottom droops and water runs out of them in a bright stream. He goes over to his coat and pulls from its side pocket a piece of fabric that is folded into a square. With two fingers he pinches one of its corners and elegantly shakes it open. Then he dabs his face.

      The cloth is brilliantly white and gossamer-thin. I know such cloths from Brother Galkaan and Sister Torlaa; they are called handkerchiefs. I have heard that every civilized person carries one in his or her breast pocket. Brother and Sister are civilized because they attend school. Father and Mother and I are not. We are primitive country folk. Sister Torlaa said so, and Brother Galkaan confirmed it. Brother and Sister showed us how to use a handkerchief: you blow your nose into it. The three of us were speechless. Then Father and Mother decided they would rather remain primitive country folk. But when I tried to follow their example, Sister told me to shut up. One day I, too, would go to school. Later she gave me a square, blue-mottled cloth to practice with, so I wouldn’t be a calf trying to shit like a bull.

      Father and Mother bristled when they heard her say that. Father asked where she had learned such language, and Mother commented that the snot blown into a cloth must conjure up the shit that soils your mouth and other people’s ears. Their words did not stop me from carrying the cloth in my breast pocket and practicing with it for a while. I did it a bit differently, though, than I’d been shown. I blew my nose into the open steppe and then wiped my nose with the cloth. Until one day I lost it.

      And now another snow-white, gossamer-thin cloth! Brother slowly lifts it to his light-skinned, smooth forehead and dabs off each drop of water. Knowing the proper name for the cloth does not leave me any less fascinated. Maybe one day I, too, will pull a handkerchief out of my side pocket and even use it properly.

      THE WORLD BEYOND