The felted door of our yurt had already been rolled up onto the roof while they were still hanging down at the other yurts. None of the children from the other yurts were visible, and I knew they were still asleep. And so were Uncle Sargaj and Uncle Sama. Father grumbled: “Th se going downhill have a big sleep!”

Things were indeed going downhill with them: Each of the other families was down to just one höne of lambs and kids, and none of these was even full, so that Aunt Galdarak’s four lambs and three kids had been added. On the other hand, we had six höne, all with lambs. And yet at some point our grandfather had given all these siblings the same number of animals. Ours had multiplied, while theirs had dwindled.

During Aunt Galdarak’s absence Uncle Sargaj and Aunt Buja had looked after her animals. Now only a tiny number remained. But neither Aunt Galdarak nor her sister or brother-in-law made a fuss about it. Times had changed, they said. The new era had begun, and you no longer needed animals. Uncle Sama and Aunt Pürwü said so, too.

“Maybe they’re right after all?” Mother said one day. “Everybody is saying the same thing, and they can’t all be wrong!”

“Nonsense,” Father flared up. “I am somebody, too, and so are all the others, all the people who cling to the herds that have already fed our parents and our ancestors, and that will feed our children and children’s children for all eternity!”

Grandma agreed with Father. “Trust your husband, Balsyng, particularly these days, when people are getting their heads turned,” she said firmly.

I immediately ran over to Uncle Sama and Aunt Pürwü’s yurt. The ail people had gathered around the kettle simmering with porridge tea. I looked carefully at people’s heads, but I could not detect anything suspicious. They seemed to be right where they had always been.

Usually we finished tethering or untethering the lambs of our six höne before our cousins finished their single, half-full höne, and so we would help them fill their höne in the evening and empty it in the morning. “The poor pamper their children, the rich their mounts and pack animals,” Grandma said. Uncle Sama and Uncle Sargaj were poor, and their children were allowed to sleep in and dodge work.

But were we rich? Were our mounts and pack animals pampered? I wasn’t sure. I knew Brother and Sister were not pampered. They rose early every morning and went to bed late. They worked all day long. It was a different story with me: I was the youngest, and I was still little.

Grandma and I walked to the river, down to the shallow spot she had picked for me to wash my face and hands each morning. I stepped into the water and suddenly remembered I had forgotten to pee.