The Gray Earth Read online

  Someone starts up the song. Instantly the rest of us join in and we advance, a mighty, noisy, thundering column. I feel blissful and exhilarated, and imagine I could march this way day in day out, to the ends of the earth without getting tired or bored. For a change I find the man marching violently at the front right corner of our column not only bearable but endearing.

  Our formation marches in a straight line toward the first river branch, crosses its ice, and is now fast approaching Hara Alagak, the Black Island. When we get there, we first hesitate, then invade it like a speckled band of predators. Some hold their breath and a few even protest loudly. But this is absolutely nothing compared to what comes next.

  “One hundred and eight larch trees are said to grow on this island,” says Arganak, marching up and down in front of the rows awaiting their orders. “Everyone knows this number is just a word. It’s pretty obvious there aren’t that many trees on the island, isn’t it? Today we, the Comrade Teachers and Students, will declare war against this bunch of lies that only feeds into the people’s superstition. We will mow down these so-called sacred larches and deal a deadly blow to enemy propaganda.”

  The words were uttered in a fairly low voice. But they impress and shock us nonetheless. The students’ faces are anxious and curious, and even the teachers hang back and wait. Then Makaj, the quiet teacher with the broad shoulders, asks in a tone that suggests opposition, “You expect us to chop down the larch grove? And you want us to do it even though there is plenty of brushwood on the ground and whole trees that were brought down during the storms?!”

  “The Party Cell has decided, not me,” Arganak replies coolly. Then he turns scornful: “Comrade Makaj! Am I hearing the State schoolteacher speaking here, or his father, the lama teacher? If you think you know better than the Party, then tell the School Collective directly rather than in this backhanded way.”

  Teacher Makaj looks dismayed and childlike. He mumbles something and then replies in a barely audible voice, “I didn’t mean it like that, Comrade Arganak. I just thought these trees are still young and they make such a nice background for the town. But you are right of course.”

  Herim, who is in fourth grade and one of the school’s best students, puts up his hand and turns to his homeroom teacher, the light-skinned Danish: “Teacher! You have always taught us that nature is alive and that we must love and protect it. And now we are to chop down the beautiful larch grove. I don’t get it.”

  “To love and protect does not mean to scrimp,” counters Danish. “Read the slogan on the banner, Comrade Herim. Come on, speak up!”

  And the student, known in school for his loud voice, reads out: “Do not wait to receive the gifts of nature. Act now and rip them off her! Ivan Vladimirovich Michurin, 1855-1935.”

  The boy’s clear voice seems almost to be echoed by every tree. We all stand rooted to the spot, stunned and surrounded by a great silence. Danish eventually breaks the silence, sounding as if he feels compelled to finish the conversation: “This is the lesson of our great scientist. Besides, chopping down that handful of larch trees has great political significance, as one of the members of the Bureau of the Party Cell has just reminded us on behalf of the District’s Revolutionary Leadership.”

  A shadow passes over Arganak’s face. He probably would have preferred to hear his own name. “Enough, Comrades,” he says, sounding resentful. “We haven’t come here for chitchat, but rather to work and fight the good fight. Let’s get on with it. I have one hundred and ninety-six hands at my disposal. That, divided by four, makes forty-nine trees. Forty-nine trees is my production target for you. If you chop down fifty trees, you will exceed your quota, and I hope you will. Each class forms a division. Your teacher is the leader of your division and may allow you to form subdivisions. Teachers, you will appoint the leaders for any subdivisions. You remain fully responsible for every member of your Collective, for their safety and for their political and work discipline. As leader of the school staff I will supervise our labor front and remain accountable to the District Administration for our overall results.”

  We remain even more tenaciously silent than before. This silence feels as if it is not based on fear alone, but I am not sure what else may be causing it. Pompousness can be infectious, and I can’t help but wonder if some people feel more important themselves when they hear the ragged old Arganak puff himself up. Be that as it may, Arganak seems encouraged by the silence that has descended upon the crowd. He carries on like a man who feels entitled to do whatever he wants: “Comrades, Pioneers, students! Before you throw yourselves into this job, the adults will show you how to fell a tree.” He gestures for the teachers to approach, nods toward a saw and a rope, and marches ahead with the teachers in tow. We are paralyzed with shock and slavish obedience, and our hearts hurt as we watch each of his movements, wondering which tree will fall. Arganak is unstoppable. He walks past trees both big and small, crooked and straight, including many larches. The farther he walks, the more we feel awe mingling with fear in our hearts. The ragged, soot-black Arganak grows larger and more sinister with each step.

  We soon set out to follow him from a distance. Finally he stops in front of a gigantic larch. It stands in a cloud of blue and white ribbons and strings. We, too, stop and so for a moment do the hearts in our chests. For the larch is a sacred shamanic tree!

  Arganak appears calm, then glances at Danish, who is holding the rope, and says matter-of-factly, “Climb up and put a loop around the trunk as high as possible.” Then he looks at Makaj and at our homeroom teacher, who are each carrying an end of the gleaming steel saw. “Comrades!” Arganak speaks with heightened authority. “Time to make a different sacrifice to this demented old fogey! Put some bright cold steel to his ankles. Off you go!”

  Neither teacher moves. Makaj, with a small voice and timid eyes, turns to the commander: “Is that really necessary, Brother Arganak? Are there not more than enough other trees?”

  He fails to move Arganak. To the contrary, the embers burst into flames: “Absolutely not. This is the one. It’s not only people who have to learn that the revolution will fight all counterrevolutionary activities. If there is a counterrevolutionary among the trees, rocks, and springs, the larch is surely it. And thus it deserves to be executed. On behalf of the people and their revolution!”

  Makaj doesn’t reply, but he still looks indecisive. Our teacher, too, seems paralyzed and small. Arganak flies into a rage. He storms at teacher Deldeng, rips the axe from her with both hands, and charges toward the larch tree with its leafless, white-and-blue crown. When he reaches it, he swings the axe with both hands, cutting into the knotted layers of faded strips of fabric that form a cushion as thick as an arm around the tree’s knee. The sharp edge of the flat axe penetrates the bark and gets stuck in the wood, while the thick cushion of fabric slides to the ground without a sound. Arganak does not trouble himself with pulling the axe from the trunk. He lets go of the handle, gleefully thrusts his arms and clenched fists into the air, and smirks. His face looks less black and gaunt than usual. He bursts out laughing: “Now you can have a go at the old fogey without shitting yourselves. Its faded thread of life is cut, see?”

  Danish stands there motionless, holding the thick rope in his hands. Likewise, the other two teachers, who remain connected to one another by the steel saw, appear to be rooted to the spot.

  “The whole Mongolian People are determined to fill the gap they have suffered in their ranks with heroic deeds on the labor front.” Arganak sounds angry now. He shreds the tangled ribbons, bunches them up, and flings them to the ground. With the shapeless soles of his much mended dark boots he stomps on the shreds and yells, “You dare to mutiny! You try to pass outmoded superstitions on to the next generation? They’re moldy and rotten! You are subverting the revolutionary effort! You know what this means. I’ll make sure you’ll end up where you belong. I promise. Superstitious riffraff, that’s all you are. Poisonous snakes crawling out from the dark caves of feudalism.
You are blowflies on the bleeding wound inflicted by the hatred of world imperialism on the back of the revolutionary Mongolian State.”

  Teacher Deldeng steps forward. She walks up to her two colleagues, pushes Makaj to the side, grabs the saw, and touches its flashing teeth to the tree’s trunk. Our teacher has to join in. Danish, too, starts moving again. He flings one end of the rope over a branch and begins to climb the tree. I am so shaken I can hardly take in what follows.

  At first I hear a scream. It cannot possibly come from the old tree. Or if it does, it must be the painful sound of the soul leaving its dying body. Next I hear a crash that sounds like a huge heavy ball hitting a hard bone and smashing it to pieces. I hear a chorus of wails that lasts a long time before changing to a sigh. The larch trembles from the first touch of the saw’s blade against its thick bark, just as a yak starts when its neck is touched for the first time by the tip of a knife before it is slaughtered. The tremble grows and becomes a bolt, the same way all things grow—a prick becomes a wound, and a flame a conflagration. Then the larch begins to sway. It tries to flee and scratches at the sky with the countless claws its branches with their twigs and pointy ends have suddenly turned into. Finally, the tree falls, never to rise again.

  What I hear and what I see don’t fit together. These sounds and sights are as separate from each other as ears and eyes in separate places of the head. Thoughts rush to mind, but that must have happened some time later. These people are killing the tree! A tree is our brother, and people who kill a tree will kill anyone, even their own father or mother. This is the thought that recurs, over and over.

  Afterward the killing really takes off, and I am lending a hand. It is like the slaughter before the winter. There is a pile of waste here and another one over there. Trees are even more helpless than sheep, which remain mute under the knife and utter a single groan only at the very end, before giving up the ghost. I am not sure if the trees even shiver when the saws invade their trunks. The trees’ blood is bright and thick and more like brain or marrow than blood. But a larch tree, like any other tree, makes a terrible sound when it—he, she—falls and dies. The sound awakens and terrifies the whole flock of trees surrounding us in the distant mountains and steppe. All these other trees start and groan and scream in turn, like yaks, who stand roaring with raised tails and lowered heads when they scent their fellow yaks’ blood and guts. We quickly get used to the killing, for the shock that first overwhelmed us all with the felling of the ancient shamanic larch subsides as the screams from all beings near and far subside. Our fear when the next dying tree screams doesn’t stun and paralyze us anywhere near as much as the first one.

  The youngest larches are left to the first grade students. They are tree children, the same age as we, or maybe our parents, are. Sarsaj, Sürgündü, Galbak, and I form Subdivision Seven and together attack a young tree. I am the tree climber and loop tier. Together with Galbak I pull on the end of the rope in the direction the tree is meant to fall. The other two have the harder job of sawing. Our larch is medium size, straight at the bottom and forked at the top. At some point we will have to relieve Sarsaj and Sürgündü. Sarsaj asks Galbak if her father is lazy. He’s not, she says.

  “Why is your saw so rusty then?” the boy flares up. He is usually one of the quietest students in class, but killing makes people aggressive. Besides, Sarsaj is our subdivision’s leader, and thus allowed to behave a little different today. He is right about the saw, by the way. It is rusty and dull, has a loose handle, and is, all in all, completely useless. I could have come up with a worse comment if I had felt entitled to voice an opinion on the saw and its owner. But I am not our subdivision’s leader, much as I would have liked to be. And even if I had been appointed its leader somehow, I wouldn’t have made such a cutting remark. Galbak is a kind girl with fine, blindingly white mouse teeth that light up her reddish-brown face whenever she laughs, and she laughs a lot. I am always happy when I’m around her. Sürgündü and Sarsaj are all right, too; I feel comfortable around them. Who knows how working with the others would have been? Billy Goat, for example, would have puffed himself up and given orders like an instantly fullfledged father: Hey, Little Guy, do this! Hey, Runaway, do that! Or with Big Lip, who would have entertained herself telling us for the tenth time the same old gossip from the hinterland of the Ak Sayans.

  At last our hapless larch falls, leaving us with a sense of release. Until this morning I never would have thought anyone could fell a living, growing tree. But now I feel joy, and also pride that my work has contributed to the fall of this young, sky-high larch. How strange. Because we have struggled so long and been frightened by the trees that crashed and fell all around us, we, too, have become heroes, and now stand in the cross fire of appreciative, envious glances. But the fruit of victory is bittersweet. Briefly, I feel an almost deafening blinding rush, which seems triggered less by pride and joy than by remorse and fear. So now you have felled a tree, I tell myself. The thought quickly leads to another. How can I tell Father and Mother? The shaman? How to tell her that a shamanic tree was felled, like an old horse: slowly, mercilessly, and without the slightest expression of respect and gratitude, without the tiniest plea for forgiveness and understanding.

  Killing the next tree is easier. And easier still is cutting up their lifeless bodies. Their branches get chopped off, and their trunks sawed into blocks. It is tedious but straightforward work. The young larch’s wood is hard and rock solid, with smooth, iced-over grooves. Sürgündü and Galbak do the sawing, while Sarsaj and I take turns sitting on the trunk to weigh it down and give ourselves a break. The person not sitting on the trunk does the hard work of splitting the blocks. The teacher comes by from time to time and helps with his big heavy axe. He is strong, and it is nothing for him to chop up a block that has mocked us by seizing our slim axe and holding fast.

  By noon all the trees have been felled. As the leader of the school staff predicted, the target has been exceeded by one tree, the shamanic tree. It is the last tree to be cut up, communal property for the taking.

  Late in the afternoon, the leader orders us to suspend work at the labor front for now, and to carry back our booty, the sawed and split pieces of wood. Each of us lugs back as much as he or she can carry. After we have dropped our load in the school yard, we are allowed to relax for the rest of the day. The next morning we are to report directly to the labor front at first light.

  “Some people say there are spirits.” Sister looks across at Brother Dshokonaj as we eat our soup for dinner. “Others say there aren’t any, and doing good or evil makes no difference whatsoever. Now we’ll find out who’s right.”

  Then she tells Brother the story of the shamanic larch. Although he listens carefully, he does not think her expectations will come to pass. “Anyway,” she says calmly, “I’m glad you weren’t there today. Who knows what will happen?” Brother Dshokonaj pretends to be ashamed: “Is that what you think? It was bad luck I couldn’t go. I had to help Comrade Jadmaj write a report for the District Administration. Tomorrow I’ll come along and fell a larch.”

  “Don’t!” she cries.

  “Of course I will!” he replies coldly. “It remains to be seen whether spirits exist or not, but the fact that the Party is all-seeing, all-hearing, and all-powerful is beyond a doubt.” Sister has no counter to this, which somehow hurts me deeply.

  And so the next morning Brother Dshokonaj comes along. Arganak helps him kill and dismember his larch. His tree is young and straight, its firm bark a reddish brown. It strikes me that the tree and the man may be roughly the same age. The two men accept no additional help, work with a ferocious devotion, and look as congenial as a couple of friends, or even a father and son. Is that how they feel? I find it hard to believe. A few students are absent today, and a number of fathers and mothers have come in their place.

  The parents aren’t as submissive as their children, and among them Orgush’s mother is the fiercest. She is a big, vociferous woman with long
heavy braids that lash the air when she waves her arms about. She almost knocks Arganak over when she charges at him, calling him a madman who incites helpless beings to kill other helpless beings. “I know what’s inside you,” she cries. “Nothing but crap and hot air! I know because I live with a madman just like you! Though at least Oksum has a bright soul and skilled fingers. Whereas you’re like your name says: a scrawny, ugly Arganak! Nothing but poisonous crap and hot air!” she cries, shaking her chubby pink fist at his nose.

  Arganak cites the Party, the State, and the Law, but to no avail. The woman sneers at him: “Oh well, you and I can go to prison together. I know what I am talking about. Let me remind you of a certain three-year-old yellow mare. And let me tell you: there are more witnesses. They are still around!”

  Arganak begins to stutter. Brother Dshokonaj comes to his rescue and orders the woman to stop slandering the man immediately. But the woman only laughs louder and more angrily: “I wasn’t talking to you, you little twit. But since you barged in, let me tell you: people like Arganak are bad news. You better watch out. The humiliated and raped larch mother with her murdered children is my witness, and so are all the eyes that watched that disgrace, along with the Blue Sky and the Gray Earth!”

  We work hard and in silence, and it takes us till dusk to complete the job. Arganak tells us to clear the area of brushwood. Now that we have listened to the words of Oksum’s wife, Arganak seems to us like the leader of a gang of thugs ordering the removal of any trace of blood. No matter how hard we try, we cannot remove all traces of the trees. Traces remain.