I had also heard that you could exchange money for anything. In our family, we were short of money. We only had it in the spring, after Father took away the flocks of sheep and herds of yaks. People said they ended up at the Russian border and got slaughtered by the Russians. Maybe that is why people insulted animals by saying, “Up the Red Russian ass!” The pieces of paper one got for a boisterous flock of sheep or herd of yaks did not even fill a hand, and one by one turned into flour, rice, salt, tea bricks, candles, lead, gun powder, primer, and other stuff. And when no paper money was left but more stuff was needed, Father sold another sheep or yak cow. The Kazakhs would buy them. The Kazakhs had money. They cut down the larch forests, built rafts to take away the logs, and exchanged them in the aimag for pieces of paper. No Tuvan ever touched a larch with an axe or a saw unless it had fallen already. But the Kazakhs sawed or cut them down wherever they found them.

What if I had a salary? What if I owned many colorful pieces of paper? I would be so happy. I would give them all to the grown-ups, and especially to Mother so that she, too, could hold them in her hands and exchange them for something she would like to have. I would also give some to Father so that he would never again need to deliver flocks or herds for slaughter to the Russians, nor offer any more sheep or yaks to the Kazakhs in exchange for one or two, or more perhaps, of the colorful pieces of paper.

The bickering in the ail was getting worse. It was worst among the children when we tethered or untethered the lambs and kids.

Brother, Sister, and I stopped helping the children of our relatives when they, as usual, could not even manage their single höne. It upset them, and they teased us. Torlaa, the devil, knew how to reply to an angry word with an even angrier one. The sparring got fie cer by the day.

Aunt Buja had sharp ears. Even before, she often meddled when we played, but now she was even keener to butt in when we wrangled.

“Kulaks!” she railed one day. This was not the first time we had heard the insult. Anytime someone had something against us, he or she would say or even yell the word. And nobody who did so ever got a reply: Neither Father nor Mother nor Grandma could afford to reply. But this was no way to tangle with Sister Torlaa—whose name meant “Little Partridge” but who certainly wasn’t one, didn’t know how to hold back, and who now flared up: “There has never been more than one kulak around here, and he’s dead as far as I know.” She meant Aunt Buja’s own father, who had been the richest man in our corner of the world. She kept going: “Don’t speak of kulaks who no longer exist. Speak of the dshelbege the place is teeming with!”