One of the yurts was very small and had four sides, but was covered with snow-white canvas that sparkled in the sunlight. It belonged to Aunt Galdarak. She was the younger of Father’s two sisters. Aunt Galdarak had a daughter who still lay in her cradle and had a famous name that nobody among us had ever gone by. Her name was Dolgor. For five years Aunt Galdarak had been up to mischief far off in the south. That’s what Father said. Others said so, too, although they all told different stories. Aunt Galdarak had her own stories. She had seen the capital and eaten bread. She had been a soldier and played war with a wooden gun. Nobody knew what war was, but everybody agreed it was terrible. We had never played war. The grown-ups would not have allowed it anyway. There were many things they did not allow. For example, they forbade us to play wolf, or even to call its name. We said Eshej, “Grandpa,” and knew whom we meant. “Bad games lead to bad things,” Grandma said. Aunt Galdarak had played war and had bad luck as a result. The man she was married to had walked out on her in that faraway place and disappeared. Aunt Galdarak had only recently returned—with her daughter and her tiny, snow-white yurt, a yurt such as nobody in these parts had ever seen, let alone owned. It was a fancy yurt whose dör was decorated with a suitcase and a mirror.

The yurt next to it, which was larger but not as bright, belonged to Father’s other sister. This aunt was called Buja, and her husband was called Sargaj. They had five children, each spoiled worse than the other. That’s what Father and Mother said. But I envied them because, for example, they were all allowed to smoke. It often happened that Uncle Sargaj and Aunt Buja sat around the stove with their five children, all seven of them smoking. The inside of their yurt was blue with smoke and gave off the same wonderful smell as the people in the sum center. Each winter Aunt Buja and Uncle Sargaj’s family settled in the center, and Munsuk, the youngest of their three sons, told us that while they were there, they were free of their animals from morning to night, and for months at a time.