The Gray Earth. Galsan Tschinag
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Название: The Gray Earth
Автор: Galsan Tschinag
Издательство: Ingram
Жанр: Современная зарубежная литература
isbn: 9781571318121
isbn:
Someone else wants to know where precisely I have my injury—apparently in an attempt to throttle the imminent fight. Eager to help, I open my lawashak and show my wound. It is the size of a palm and has a blood-red edge. Another round of oohs and aahs wells up, and in the eyes around me I discover a fear born from admiration. I feel faintly proud.
At that moment a girl’s voice I had never heard before calls out from the door. The witch must only just have pushed her stupid head through the door, along with her prying eyes and her shameless, merciless, and bungling tongue. When the conversation had turned to the pipe, the students pulled the door shut and made sure it stayed.
But there it is, her high-pitched, deadly loud voice: “The boy isn’t wearing any pants!”
Everyone jumps, most of all me. I quickly drop the seam of my lawashak and turn toward the voice. A tall girl with a sallow face and long heavy braids stands at the door and grins. Her head is tilted sideways and her mouth is half open. Later I will learn she is called Sürgündü and was born in the Year of the Tiger. She is a bit slow, and her round tongue cannot pronounce the s. Soon my sharp tongue will repeatedly and mercilessly bring tears to her dark-green, good-natured eyes.
But it has not yet come to that. We have only just met and are sizing each other up, her fox eyes filled with ignorance and scorn, my calf eyes with shame and despair. In a corner of my heart I am hoping that the group, or at least the boys with whom I have had such a manly, naughty conversation, will stand up for me. With that in mind I turn to the tall boy whose ready fists hold such power to terrify and control. He’ll show the girl once and for all. She’ll never again poke her nose into other people’s pants.
What happens instead floors me. The tall boy turns his bull’s eyes on me: “First a pipe and a sheathed dagger, and now a bare ass—boy, you are some character!”
Laughter rings out and swells to a roar, taking my breath away.
“Weirdo, weirdo, weirdo!”
“Fur Baby, Fur Baby! Fur Baby goes to war!”
“What a man! A snotty brat with a bare ass!”
They pat and paw me all over. I don’t resist. Blindly I stare at a spot somewhere above their heads. Too bad I haven’t gone deaf and numb as well. Or maybe I have. I no longer feel shame rage under my skin and torment me like a bunch of wild fire ants. Instead I feel hurt and disappointment, killing me bit by bit.
“Don’t you realize you’ll get your pants pulled down and your skin torn off? You have it coming!” Big Head pipes up. “Teasing the principal’s little brother will really get you into trouble.”
His words hit home and the room falls silent.
The principal is my brother? I wonder and pause, but I don’t feel relieved. Instead, I am inconsolable. Suddenly I see what has been done to me. I am a stone that has been moved. I cannot possibly return to the place where I was dropped, when I first began to be.
NUMBER ONE HUNDRED
Sit? Ssuuh!
Stand? Boss!
Turn? Äh-regh!
Sshuuh—boss—äh-regh!
Sshuuh—boss—äh-regh!
Sshuuh—boss—äh-regh!
We are doing drills. Uncle gives me orders, and I crouch, jump, and turn. Later I learn that Uncle’s name is Arganak; he is to be addressed as Comrade Arganak, and crouching, jumping, and turning is called obeying his commands. So I should say Comrade Arganak gives commands that I obey. However, I am still not saying it quite right. I am no longer really myself. I have almost become a student—as soon as I get out of here, I will be one. I should probably put it this way: Comrade Arganak gives commands the student obeys. Maybe I will even have to be addressed as Comrade Student?
Sshuuh—boss—äh-regh!
Sshuuh—boss—äh-regh!
Sshuuh—boss—äh-regh!
I am sweating. My leg hurts badly, but I keep going because Comrade Arganak will not stop. Why won’t he? Surely he sees I have learned his lesson ages ago. The man is unyielding. His thick smoker’s voice babbles on tirelessly, so I, too, keep going.
Sshuuh—boss—äh-regh!
I feel sick. I am hot in these clothes. But apparently I look nice. The uncle, Comrade Arganak, whistled through his teeth when he saw me dressed up. Then he knit his brow.
Boss—sshuuh ...
Why does the damned stuff have to be so tight? The skin over my wound is burning so badly I am scared it will burst. If only my brother, Comrade Principal, would come back!
Boss . . .
I can no longer stand it. Why won’t he shut up? I am just going through the motions anyway, no longer needing to be told . . .
The grind started at sunrise, when Comrade Principal dragged me here and delivered me into the hands of this man. He talked to the man for some time and then left. Once I was crouching stark naked, my head shaved, in a huge trough of slimy black planks, Comrade Principal returned. With my bare hand I tried to protect my wound from the boiling-hot water that was poured over my twitching body. Comrade Principal touched me here and scrubbed me there, told the other man I don’t know what, and then left again. The man began to lather and scrub me from head to toe. I jumped and screamed when he scrubbed my wound, but he was unruffled. He pushed me to my knees and continued to manhandle me. The man was just a head with no ears and no eyes! Eventually he dried me off with a rough rag and dressed me in things I had never seen, not even in my dreams. At the time I did not have the slightest idea what they were called or what they were good for. Mainly they were a jacket and a pair of pants, both of Manchester corduroy the color of brown leather, and a pair of pointy black boots with long narrow legs.
“Stop whining. Enough is enough!” Comrade Arganak wheezed again, and then again in Tuvan. “I hope he knows how nice he looks. And I hope he remembers that not everyone has a principal for a brother.”
It was almost as if he was thinking aloud. He spoke more quietly now and in no particular direction. The triangular eyes in his wrinkled face gleamed inwardly, their light almost vanished.
And now all these commands I obey. At long last Comrade Principal returns. I am about to crouch down for the umpteenth time, but I stop myself and remain standing even though I have second thoughts right away. His eyes sparkle and shine, and his hot face glows with joy. In a loud voice he offers to Comrade Arganak what must have been praise because a small trembling beam of light flits across the man’s gaunt, furrowed fox face. I don’t think Comrade Principal noticed. He turns to me and takes my hand, and I feel a heavy burden fall from my shoulders.
My relief disappears quickly. As we walk away, I feel a leaden weight and a dull pain in my leg. Worse still, as soon as we step outside I am told not to limp nor stare at my new clothes. I find it hard to avoid doing either, but I try.
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