There was freshly cooked meat even though the meat from the day before could not possibly have been finished. There were even grains of rice floating in the broth, which on any other day would have made me delirious. I was soon full and left right afterward for my flock. Nobody made me do so, but then nobody tried to stop me, either. Nobody said anything to me that mattered in any way. And nobody told me what had happened to Grandma and where she had gone. Maybe it was better this way; after all, nothing would have felt more terrible than a conversation about Grandma. But at the same time I wanted badly to know what had happened to her and where she was now.

I caught up with the flock in Gysyl Göschge after it had already turned around. Arsylang was running along its far side. When he saw me, he ran toward me. He reached me at full speed, drew a narrow circle around me, threw himself on the ground in front of me, and whimpered quietly. Did he know? What a question—of course he knew!

Maybe he had even been there with her?

“Arsylang! Where’s Grandma?”

The dog jumped up, turned his head toward the west, scanned it sharply, pricked up his ears—and remained in this position. I sensed that if I were to ask him again where Grandma was, or better still, if I were to call for her so that the rocks around us would echo my voice, En-eeej! En-eej! …, my four-legged companion would immediately squat on his behind, point his jaws at the sky, and fall into a drawn-out, terrifying howling. That was something I did not want to happen under any circumstances. I was afraid of Arsylang, afraid of myself, and afraid of whatever it was that had happened around us and that I would eventually hear about. I also sensed that if I were to run in the direction in which he was staring and were to call over and over, Tuh! Tuh! Tuh! …, he would come along, run a little ahead of me, and take me there. That was what I most feared.

I would have dearly loved to know what had happened to Grandma, but I was afraid to hear the truth, afraid to look eye to eye with a truth that was bound to be heavy, hard, and bitter. I suspected what might have happened to Grandma in spite of all that she had talked me into believing only yesterday, or the day before yesterday, or the day before that, day after day. Having a suspicion was agonizing, but I preferred living with uncertainty as it still meant a ray of hope.