Fortunately, I remember nothing about the incident. And fortunately, no one remembers the details of what happened next. Not Mother, who must have fished me out of the milk, nor Father, who must have come running when he heard the two screaming and howling voices, nor Brother or Sister, who showed up soon after but had to dash off to get the other ail people to help—none of them has ever been able to give me the whole story. Or maybe none has been willing to. Maybe something occurred that has remained unspeakable. The first express messenger left the ail right away. He took his message to the next ail, and from there other men rode on to other ails. As a result, very soon the news was flying in all directions at the speed of a horse that is whipped nonstop. It was in my favor that all this happened shortly before the National Holiday, when the race horses had already been caught and were being broken in. That night was their first and possibly hardest trial of strength because they had to run several örtöö under heavy saddles and heavy grown men. Their only breaks came when they reached an ail. Their paths led across mountains, through the steppe, and across rivers to the next sums, where Urianghais and Dörbets as well as Kazakhs, Torguts and other tribes lived, each with their own language and their own body of knowledge. The first of the men returned before midnight. He brought bear fat that had matured for ten years to brush on my burned skin. Others returned with fat from wild horses or wild camels, from badgers or sables, even from marmots, and again and again from bears, all well-matured, much of it almost a human lifespan old.

The older it was, the more liquid and clear the fat had become: twenty-five-year-old bear fat was like spring water. The Tuvans were accomplished hunters as well as herders, but strangely enough, very few knew that the fat of wild animals was medicinal. Whatever was brought in from the outside during those days, in exchange for horse sweat and pleas, would have been available in almost any yurt in our own ail. But since it was not at hand, people approached the novelty with awe, and so it came about that I was soon floating in fat. Yet nothing—nothing seemed to help. The naked creature I had become—my torso was almost completely skinned—continued to scream long after having grown hoarse and having run out of tears. I shook and trembled and showed signs of the most terrible suffering. The only skin left undamaged was toward the outer ends of my limbs, on my face, my neck, and a small area around my navel. Given the circumstances, I was lucky that my hands and feet had been spared so that people were able to stand me on my feet and hold me by my hands.