I picked out Mother trailing along behind the herd as it streamed down the steep slope like a wide river. She seemed small and round and moved awkwardly like a child dressed in too many clothes. Even though it pained me, I could not take my eyes off her for a long time. And all the time I watched her, the lack of understanding I carried within me continued to grow and to spread.

Father did not come back until night had fallen. Arsylang announced his return well in advance; he barked without getting up and without haste or enthusiasm. Even though it must have been quite late when Father finally arrived, I was still awake. Was it only his absence that had kept me restless? Hardly, for I did not cheer up afterward either, not even when Father unpacked the gift he had brought: the sweets and the hand-and-face cloth from the Old White Man. For a while I held the rough, strange-smelling, shining white cloth with its pile of sweets in my hands the way one holds the blue or white ceremonial scarves. But then I put it aside without having tasted anything. I watched Father, who was bent over the platter and eating meat. And I listened to what he told us, but I was unable to keep my thoughts together. They soon left the yurt and went out into the steppe and into the mountain valleys, where rustling cold, glittering hoarfrost, and loneliness awaited me.

The next morning Grandma said: “Dusky’s time is up!” Dusky was the one remaining wether that had come to us with Grandma’s flock. Did this mean that now this animal, too, would be taken from the flock and from the earth?

But why? The shelf outside with the winter provisions was full of meat. The restlessness I had felt the previous day but that seemed to have vanished during the night awoke in me again. I was on my guard and watched closely what was happening around me.

My fear was justifi d: Father was about to slaughter Dusky and was in a hurry because he also had to look after the flock. I was told to help him, which meant I had to hold the victim’s hind legs. Horrifi d, I watched Father fight with the big, strong animal until he finally threw it over and slammed his right leg across its belly. I reached for the kicking hind legs where they were thinnest and grabbed and pulled them toward me as I fell backward and shoved my legs against the wether’s rear end. I didn’t mean to, but I couldn’t avoid watching Father’s right hand grope for the sheath at his belt. I saw the naked steel flash, saw its tip appear to graze Dusky’s belly just below the breastbone, leaving behind a slit beyond which, before its edges turned dark, white rumen fat became visible. And then I saw the hand drop the knife and thrust, with fingers straight and pressed together, into the slit as a hawk charges at a sparrow. I saw and felt how the animal twitched and started to spasm, and how immensely its strength grew as I fought to hold on. I knew that under no circumstances could I let go of the ankles I was holding away from the body, so I clenched my teeth and tightened my tendons. Dusky’s struggle lasted for some time, maybe one whole minute. When at long last the animal faded and I felt its strength grow weaker breath by breath and then die away altogether, I watched the lifeless legs slide from my hands. They stood motionless in the air above the belly, like stumps of dead branches.