Two days later, toward evening, the last horseman returned. It was Dambi, who was related to Mother and thus a daaj to me. He brought something we had never seen before, something we had never even heard of: a hardened light mass that melted and liquifi d when it was heated. It was called dawyyrgaj, which meant nothing to us at the time. But later, when I was well traveled in the world of languages, I realized it was a variant of the Mongolian word for resin. The dawyyrgaj was the resin of a certain tree and did indeed possess magic power. Barely had it been brushed onto my skinless, greased, and shiny flesh when I, the suffering child, stopped screaming and trembling, and soon after went to sleep. I slept for a long, long time. But my sleep was arduous because it was impossible to put me into a comfortable sleeping position, and so people had to keep holding me just as they had before. A cape that surrounded both me and the person helping me to remain standing protected me from the cold and the draft and from idle glances—glances from which Tuvan children since time immemorial have been protected when they fall ill.

It was hard on whoever held me, whoever crouched in front of me and pulled me up by my wrists, always anxious not to let my slippery, limp body slide from his hands. It didn’t take long for his forearms to tingle and then to burn and eventually for his arms to lose all sensation and turn numb, while helplessly he watched his charge slip from his hands, millimeter by millimeter. Then he needed to be replaced, there was no other way. Father and Mother took turns. Whoever had just been replaced had to take care of life inside the yurt. Neighbors took care of everything outside.

When I woke up, I started to scream again, but now it was different. I no longer screamed in alarm, and no longer screamed to fight for a life that was about to be cut short.

One day, a third pair of hands came to support me, Grandma’s. Oh yes, Grandma: All those days and nights she had crouched in silence in front of the stove, and all day and night she had kept the fire going, which had been the only assistance she had dared, and been allowed, to provide.

She had returned the very next day after she had ridden away. By then, word of the disaster had crisscrossed the country but, strangely enough, it had not reached Grandma. She came back with all her remaining possessions. Once she was back in the yurt, she learned what had happened. Mother received her not with the joyful greeting she must have anticipated but with an admonition: “See? So that’s why you were so hell-bent on taking off. It was the evil spirit that possessed your damn beasts and called for you!”