The Gray Earth Read online

The old dirt must remain on this side of time’s mountain. People settle their debts, return what they have borrowed, and reclaim what they have lent. Everything old must end so the new can begin.

  The four of us are under pressure in our brand-new, sparsely furnished yurt. Sister Torlaa has a firm grip on all of us, including Brother Dshokonaj. She is convinced that his reputation is at stake. Given that the Tuvans are stupid, and compulsive gossips, we have to watch out or he will be cut to pieces and destroyed! Brother Dshokonaj does not comment—which is very, very odd.

  We want to celebrate shagaa with Father and Mother in our yurt in the mountains, and this time Brother Dshokonaj is to come with us. Along with a large bunch of other students, the four of us set out on the last day of the old year.

  We have covered a considerable distance in a short time when a rider catches up with us and tells us to turn around on the spot and hurry back to the District Administration. Something tremendously important and serious has occurred. How loathe we are to turn around, and how curious to find out what has happened. And the sight of the rider! His horse steams and pants and trembles under an armor of ice. Obviously the messenger has been riding the horse as if it were summertime. After leaving us, he takes off at full speed toward Gök Meshelik, to catch up with the Ak Sayan students and call them back as well.

  “What could it be?” someone asks.

  Brother Dshokonaj shakes his head, pale with stress. “Maybe a fire?”

  “Or an epidemic?”

  “Or a war?”

  Some of the girls begin to cry when they hear these words, and our big brother does not order them to stop.

  We walk together toward the District Administration, which is in a tall, red structure made of logs. A large crowd is milling around in front of it, and as we stare with growing curiosity, we recognize Arganak, marching up and down on its periphery. He is hunched over, his arms drooping.

  “What happened?” Brother Dshokonaj asks him excitedly, before we have even reached the crowd. The men and women must have been standing there for a long time. The snow beneath them has been packed into hard, graybrown ice by their thick felt boots.

  “The worst!” cries Arganak in a muffled, weepy voice. “You’d better hear it directly from Comrade Secretary of the District Party Cell.” Although he is an old man, Arganak sobs openly like a child.

  Frightened, we stop as if rooted to the spot and watch the shining teardrops run down the wrinkled skin of his gaunt face. It’s embarrassing for all of us. There are gloomy expressions all around but he is the only one crying.

  Brother Dshokonaj rushes into the building after hearing Arganak’s ominous words. When he doesn’t return soon after, we realize that our happy anticipation of shagaa, the most beautiful holiday of the year, is definitely over. We prepare ourselves for the worst.

  At that moment three men and one woman appear, carrying a portrait of Marshal Choibalsan. A thin ribbon of black-and-red cloth is stretched across its lower-left corner. Their bare heads lowered to their chests, the four move slowly, staggering as if under some heavy burden and crying demonstrably. Their rasping breaths, whimpers, and sobs reach our ears still warm from their lungs and throats. I touch one of Sister’s fingers lightly and whisper, “Has the Marshal perhaps ...?”

  She pinches the back of my hand in reply, pushing out her lips before quickly pulling them back in such a scary way that her twisted face looks like a yak’s hole after a pile of crap has slipped out. I had wanted to add as well that our big brother is not behaving: after all, one may share another’s pain, but not their tears. Tears only cause more tears, people say. But instead I keep quiet and do what the people around me do. They are all older than I am, so what they do must be right. And so I am bewildered, but silent for now.

  The portrait is to be put up above the entrance. A ladder, a hammer, and several other tools appear, and a lot of people make a big show of helping to drive three nails halfway into the wood. Finally the picture is secured, tilting forward, above the heads of the crowd. Meanwhile more people have arrived, including the Ak Sayan students. Many of them are sobbing, a few noisily like children. Others cry in a more subdued manner. And some groan and rub their eyes, but apparently cannot produce tears.

  No one sheds as many tears as Arganak. And Dügüj, who works in the District Administration office, wails more loudly than anyone else. Brother Dshokonaj, on the other hand, cries in a quiet, unspectacular way. Having returned quietly to the scene, his shoulders tremble, but no other part of his body moves, and his face looks lifeless except for the thin bright tears seeping through the lashes of his half-closed eyes. They leave his gaunt cheeks glistening.

  Tears stream from Comrade Party Secretary’s nostrils as well—or is it something else? His enormous nostrils quiver, his upper lip shines, and he wipes his face repeatedly with a crumpled, brightly-colored cloth. Soon the area around his nose turns pink, making the man look even more terrifying.

  One man climbs on the roof and fiddles endlessly with the slender flagpole on top of which a large, blue-and-red national flag flutters and crackles in the wind. As a result of his efforts, the flag drops and is dragged across the picture and over the crowd’s heads. The groaning, gasping, and sobbing grow considerably louder. Arganak and Dügüj seem to be engaged in a wailing duel, reminding me of competing singers at festivals.

  Finally the crowd is allowed to enter the building and assemble in the club room where we celebrated jolka. In the center of the front wall hangs another version of the same picture with the same black-and-red ribbon. The room is unheated, and it is almost as cold in here as it is outside. In any case, no one sits down and the crowd—by now the whole town seems to have come—stands facing the picture with bowed heads.

  Eventually Comrade Party Secretary steps up to the portrait and makes a deep long bow before turning and addressing us. His voice sounds thin and shaky: “Comrades!” At this point, a crying jag gets the better of him and he starts to shake. After a while he emits some deep grunts, which gradually diminish into lighter groans before ending in genuine medium-intensity weeping. Though his tears are not as big as Arganak’s, the round, glittering spheres bounce off his huge, protruding cheekbones and drench his hollow cheeks. His crumpled handkerchief no longer appears, and before long the whimpering man with his glistening face resembles a helpless child.

  The successful crying of Comrade Party Secretary rouses even more people to tears. Now a second female voice can be heard, and Oksum, who was the last to arrive, enlivens a quiet corner with his stuttering high whimper.

  Jadmaj continues his speech. His voice is so quiet and hesitant the teacher would give him a good thrashing if he were a student in our class. Still the Party Secretary does not remember his handkerchief, which should have been used to wipe his tear-stained face and dripping nose. Or has he thought of it and decided to make a point of not using it so the picture of grief will be that much more meaningful? After standing there watching events unfold for at least an hour, Comrade Party Secretary tells us what has happened: our chosen, much beloved leader and father, Marshal Khorloogiin Choibalsan, has died. The whole country is in a state of deep mourning, Comrade Party Secretary says, and now, at this hour, we have joined those who received the news before us. We shall not have shagaa; we will neither celebrate nor sing, neither laugh nor indulge in horseplay, nor talk in cheerful, loud voices. Within the hour, he says, delegates of the District Administration will ride off in all directions to inform the people. No one else is allowed to leave town. And all will have to show up instantly when called upon to participate in demonstrations and other ideological and political activities.

  “Let’s get this room heated right away,” the darga continues suddenly without groaning and faltering, in his familiar drone. “Workers of the People will be on call day and night. They will mourn and work tirelessly to make sure that our marshal is never forgotten.” He says the last words with such fervor that someone in Oksum’s corner starts to clap. Th
e darga quickly cuts him off: “Comrades! During this time of mourning, applause is forbidden.”

  Then the teachers and students walk back to the school. We walk in silence, our boots touching the ground lightly. At the school, we have a short assembly. “We no longer have our marshal,” says our tear-stained principal. “Our world has turned dark.”

  By now the sun has reached the fog-shrouded rim of the western mountains, and the sky does indeed look so dark that I briefly wonder how we can possibly continue without the marshal. For some reason the question saddens me.

  We’re scolded for our earlier behavior at the District Administration building: apparently while others were mourning, not one of the students shed a tear! We should always remember that the Party has its eyes everywhere, and might naturally wonder why a person keeps aloof from the boundless grief of the People.

  After the dressing-down, we are sent back to our classrooms, where we learn how to make mourning bands. It is not difficult. We tear strips from two different cloths, the same way we prepare offerings. But while the ribbons we offer at the ovoo can be of any length and width and of any color except black, these ribbons can only be black or red. The black ones are the width of three fingers, the red ones the width of two, and both must be as long as two hand spans. They are tied around our left upper arms, first the black one and then the red one, exactly centered on top of the black. The four corners are then tied together. We are instructed to wear these ribbons during all our waking hours until the end of the mourning period.

  When we finally leave the school, we find that its entrance has been decorated. There is the marshal’s picture, just as it was at the District Administration building. But now lengths of black fabric reach from floor to ceiling on both sides of the picture and of the entrance. On top of each of these hangs, perfectly centered, a length of red fabric half as wide. It all looks impressive, beautiful even, and yet I can’t escape the suffocating feeling that accompanies all this seductive invigoration; this sense, that is, that “You, too, belong.” On the way back to our yurt, we notice that some homes have been decorated with signs of mourning, though none as elaborately as our school.

  In this way, the White Rabbit gets a black-and-red tail and the Black Dragon follows seamlessly. Mute and melancholy, we face the new year, not knowing how life will carry on, and whether we will ever again be allowed to cheerfully welcome the birth of another.

  The days of mourning are infinitely long and monotonous. All our lessons are about the marshal. We learn that Khorloo was his mother’s name, and that his mother was a poor, honest, brave woman who from day one raised her son to become a fighter. We learn that he hated aristocrats, the rich, and the lamas, and swore to topple their systems. We learn that he wore a blue cotton shirt, and that he unmasked, arrested, and destroyed the enemies who wanted to sell out Mongolia to evil foreign powers, and who were planning to poison our great hero Sükhbaatar, his comrade in the struggle. We learn that he defended the revolution and the fatherland with such wisdom and courage that he was twice named Hero of the State, and that he was promoted to marshal, the highest military rank. And we learned that he worked for us tirelessly until the day he died.

  Such stories are lovely to listen to. But they also raise questions. For example, when there is talk about the mother, one would also like to hear about the father. When the blue shirt he wore as a boy is mentioned, one wonders if he wore pants along with the shirt, or scurried across the steppe with a bare ass like the rest of us. However, something keeps all of us from asking these questions—once burned, twice shy.

  The days drag on. Living in a state of merciless silence and mourning without having any fun is hard. Yet even during the black-and-red days, different stories emerge. It’s just that they have to be whispered more quietly.

  Sürgündü is now homeless. The aunt in whose yurt she used to stay got mad and sent her packing after noticing the strange ribbons around her upper arm. “Mourn yourself to death for all I care, but not in my yurt!” yelled her old aunt. Sürgündü moved into the dormitory, where a bed had been empty since Gök’s departure.

  Ombar taught himself to cry. He soaks a handkerchief with onion juice and wipes it across his eyes whenever tears are called for. Others copy his trick. As a result, copious tears are shed at the great memorial rally, which is attended by representatives of the working herders from all directions. Afterwards, the District Administration praises our school, and so the principal praises our class.

  One day we see newspapers with pictures of mourners like us next to a black-rimmed picture of the marshal. One woman in particular stands out because she is young and, as Billy Goat puts it, as beautiful as a witch. Even this woman cries! She must have had her reasons. The teacher knows her name, and tells us she was the marshal’s songstress. Later we hear that she held a wake at the marshal’s coffin and cried nonstop for days and nights—so overwhelming was her grief! We can’t help but wonder whether she, too, had to work on her beautiful, bewitching eyes with a handkerchief soaked in onion juice.

  Sometime later, the period of mourning comes to an end, though we are still said to be inconsolable. We are allowed to laugh and be boisterous again, at least occasionally. Now the word is that we must work hard to continue the revolution and change the world, thus gaining strength and filling the gap in our ranks. Everyone comes up with a target. The doctor commits publicly to decreasing the mortality rate by 50 percent. The veterinarian promises to ensure that only healthy offspring are born in the coming spring so the one thousand newborns that perished each previous year will survive and enlarge the People’s herds. The District Trade Commissioner promises to procure twice as many commodities as last year for the workers, and to collect raw materials of only outstanding quality for the State. And the District Administration guarantees that all buildings and all ails in town will be fenced in, and that all yurts in the countryside will get fabric covers inside and out. Oksum declares himself ready to fulfill the plan by 1,000 percent month after month. And all of the herders commit to increasing their flocks by 50 percent over the next five years.

  Morning after morning the teacher tells us of these commitments. And day after day this topic is included in our homework: What more does your fellow citizen want to achieve? The students report on other people’s plans and promises. We report on the exact number of wolves, foxes, rabbits, rock partridges, and marmots that will be hunted; the number of willow and larch fences that will be built; and the number of bedsheets and covers that will be sewn. Many of our fellow citizens promise to renounce such remnants of feudalism as drinking, smoking, and taking snuff. Baatar’s forty-year-old father, Legshid, is said to have started exercising every morning. The sixtytwo-year-old grandmother, Enikej, is determined to wash her neck and feet in the river once a day after the ice has melted. And Mijtik, Seeke’s grandfather, will liberate himself from all superstition, never again dismounting at an ovoo or making offerings elsewhere.

  I would love to include something about Father and Mother at story time. But for the life of me I can’t think of anything to share. Finally I come up with something: Father will clear the rocks from all the paths in the Black Mountains, and Mother will clear the bones from all the winter camps. Later I find that my claim about Father is true, simply because he has always picked up rocks. My claim about Mother, on the other hand, misses the mark. She’d be crazy, she says, to rob the earth of its food.

  Along with these commitments and promises we hear that the school will soon supply its own firewood, meat, and vegetables. To start the process, the School Collective will go into the woods the following weekend. We think we know what that means: we will walk through the nearby bush and pick up brushwood, break off withered willow or larch branches and, at most, chop up a larch tree felled by a storm.

  In fact, much more is about to happen.

  On Saturday morning we gather at school at the usual hour but without our bags. Instead, each of us brings an axe, a saw, or a rope. Two older
boys arrive with a bright red banner, one fathom long and one cubit wide, with white, glued-on letters. They carry the banner between two poles high above their heads. We march right behind them in rows to the assembly, stamping on the ground and singing the song we have sung several times daily since the mourning period began: Heroic Mongolians

  Honored and beloved Choibalsan ...

  The singing ends. The light voice of the leader of the Pioneers’ Council calls out: “A—tten—’shun!” We throw our heads back, suck in our bellies, press our palms against our thighs, and stand as rigid as posts. Then the principal addresses the school. He speaks of our beloved leader whose death has left a gap that can never be filled, and of the people’s determination nevertheless to fill this gap through ever new triumphs and victories. I know this sentence by heart, along with many others. If I had to, I could rattle off the lot of them. Unfortunately, I am only in first grade. No one allows a first-grader to speak at an assembly or a rally. Again, the question arises: Can that gap be filled or not? Every time it comes up, first, it can’t and later, it can!

  Should I ask the teacher or Brother Dshokonaj? Should I ask any one at all? Of course not. By now I am smart enough to remain the good student; actually, I am the top student. And I know that even if Gök, our little blue mouse, were to show up again, I’d still be the best.

  We will all contribute to our people’s triumphs and victories, says the principal. Fortunately, these triumphs and victories are so easy that anyone can make a contribution to them. Comrade Arganak, member of the Bureau of the District Party Cell, will lead the Collective on the project, continues the principal. What a pity! Or is it? I remember what Sister said some time ago. Perhaps Brother Dshokonaj has listened. The project is to be carried out under Comrade Arganak’s direct leadership, and no one is to leave the workplace without his permission.

  The same voice as before calls out: “A—tten—’shun! Left turn! Quick march!” The boys with the banner march at the front, flanked by Arganak and the leader of the Pioneers’ Council. Behind them we advance in rows of four, flinging our legs into the air in spite of the fact that we can only swing our left arms. Our right arms steady the tools resting on our right shoulders, making us feel like soldiers with guns.