In those days the emaciated ewes had little if any milk. Their udders sagged like empty bags, and their teats were cold and lifeless. The lambs bleated with hunger and licked and sucked whatever got in front of their little mouths—other lambs, their mothers’ shaggy strands of wool, people’s fingers or the seams of their clothes. Mother prepared a gruel of flour, butter, herb tea, and salt, to which she sometimes added a bit of milk. Flour was a rarity we only got to taste on holidays. And the milk was drawn one drip at a time from the odd ewe that was a little better off than the others—in the eyes of the mother and her baby, it must have felt like theft. With this gruel we fed the starving lambs. But the hollow sucking sound of the empty horn-bottle betrayed the lambs’ persistent hunger. This was not about what you might have called “stilling their hunger” or making them “feel full,” it was about getting them to survive the day and endure into the next which might, perhaps, be better. Sometimes I got a little bowl of gruel myself. Then I swore that in the future, when the good times would come, I’d eat nothing but gruel.

Some ewes even rejected their lambs. That happened in other years, too, but now it spread like a devastating infectious disease. When they were supposed to be nursing, we would squat behind these ewes, cling to their udders, and sing for dear life. Yes, we sang! It was not the lyrics that mattered, but the melody, the rich voice, and the repetition: toega—toega—toega … Sometimes, though, little rhymes would also slip off ur tongue:

If you don’t love your little one—

toega—toega—toega

You are such a wicked one—

toega—toega—toega

If you nurse it all you can—

toega—toega—toega

You’ll become an Ardshupan—

toega—toega—toega!

Ardshupan was the hero of the fairy tales I made up and told Arsylang. Ar- came from Arsylang, dshu- from one of my own names, Dshurukuwaa, and -pan was meant to indicate great courage.

Father sang:

As long as we have you—

toega—toega—toega

We are the richest of all—

toega—toega—toega

As soon as we lose you—

toega—toega—toega

We are the poorest of all—

toega—toega—toega!

Whom did he have in mind? Hardly those stupid sheep who left their children to die in order to save their own meager lives! Maybe he meant the mountains. That was more likely. The mountains protected animals and people from the wind and the cold and gave us so much: grass and herbs, bulbs and roots against the hunger, water and snow against the thirst, desgen and düüleesh against the cold. As I thought about it, I myself suddenly felt like praising the mountains, our Black Mountains. But first I had to finish telling the stupid sheep what was most important: If you nurse your little lamb all you can, you’ll become an Ardshupan; if you do not love your little one, remember that slaughter will come!