Do Not Let My Brother Die

  Summer passes, then autumn and on into year’s end. We are in the dead of our second winter. Late afternoon and it’s already dark. The day moon like a vestigial bone in the sky. Namrut goes outside in only his robe and fills a small zinc basin with snow using his bare hands. Namrut whom the novices declare to be part yak, impervious to temperature. All week out in the sun the air never warms above -20°C. Most days it is faster to melt snow over an open flame than break the ice on the surface of the well. For morning ablutions the sangha washing themselves with icicles. Taking the icy points and rubbing them along the crowns of our heads. From the kitchen I watch as Namrut hefts the tub onto his bare shoulder. He carries it inside the same way he carries the skinned body of a goat in summer, the animal leaving a bloody print on the side of his face where he holds it firmly against his neck to keep it from slipping.

  Nights I can hear the snow accumulating in the courtyard, the sound of flakes compounding, universes being born and falling dead, the monks floating wordlessly through Yatuu Gol, each of us deep in prayer. Mun has a fever, the birthmark on the back of his neck hot as any flame. The Disciplinarian’s thumb and index finger swaddled in bandages where the old monk’s skin instantly blisters after touching it.

  Everywhere there is talk of death, though during that interminable week we are asked to speak only when necessary. In the hours of silence, everywhere I hear the language of death. The altar is kept lit at all hours, the offerings refreshed daily. As novices, we are told to lose ourselves, to go as deeply as we can in praying for the salvation of all sentient beings and for our brother the Redeemer.

  I follow Namrut as he carries the tub of snow into my brother’s chambers. The room is dark, unbearably hot, though two of the windows are open. At my brother’s bedside I hold a silver bowl in my hands and watch as Namrut dishes some of the snow into it, then lays a wet towel over the top. With the Rinpoche’s help he takes the bowl from me and positions it under Mun so that the back of Mun’s neck rests on the snow. Instantly steam curls up around the sides of my brother’s head. The sound as if someone throws water on hot coals. Within seconds the bowl is full of lukewarm water. Namrut fills it again.

  When we enter Yatuu Gol in the previous year, the fire in my brother’s pupils brings to mind the color you see in the eyes of some animals, mostly raptors, birds that need vision to the seventh power in order to spot their prey. A golden yet fiery hue. A smoldering, embers that lie quietly among the ashes. Now one year later the few times he opens his eyes there is less and less molten gold. His eyes turning into dark pools of stagnant water, like mine.

  Colds and infections are not unusual at Yatuu Gol. We are a community of all different ages living in close quarters. Viruses race through our ranks with nothing to stop them—no vaccines, no antibiotics, our diets scarce in vegetables and fruits. Occasionally when a cough is rampant among us, one of the older monks takes on the work of compounding herbs into tiny brown pellets that taste like dirt. Depending on your symptoms, sometimes you have to chew them, though just as often the monk boils them in water, then soaks cotton balls in the scalding liquid so that he might press the soggy cotton to the corresponding energy vectors on your body, the compresses so hot they leave marks.

  On the third night of his sickness, Mun’s breathing begins to grow ragged. The Rinpoche decides it is time. Because Yatuu Gol is too remote to house a telephone, in the morning I set out on foot with Namrut for the fifteen-kilometer trek into Bor-Urt to phone the monastery in Ulaanbaatar. I am chosen because I am born in the region and know how to navigate in winter, the snow erasing the few landmarks that would normally orient a traveler.

  We leave at sun-up and arrive back well past midnight. Namrut breaks through the snow with each footfall, always struggling onward. There are times when the whole world is an icy sheet, a whiteout, like being trapped inside a snow globe.

  The whole way there and back I am praying to the Green Tara. Do not let my brother die, I intone. In the weeks to come, I discover that my twin resents the fact that it is me sent to phone for help. That the world once again calls on his twin to save him.

  When the Red Horse Stops Running

  During his sickness I sleep in his chambers. Nights I am tangled up in his dreams. Each time I slip into our shared world, without fail he is dreaming of horses, the earth itself turning thanks to the power of a red horse that forever runs along the horizon, like a treadmill, the horse’s feet powering the revolutions of the planet. I know this horse is my brother’s hema, his wind horse, the animal that energizes his being, what in the old shamanistic tradition is believed to be a person’s essence. I know that when the red horse stops running, my twin could die.

  Four days after the call is made from Bor-Urt an old Soviet jeep pulls up at the monastery gates, its headlights sliding over the 108 snow-covered stupa surrounding Yatuu Gol, the ring of stupa like a mountain range hemming us in. Two figures climb out.

  There is a rumor circulating that a traditional medicine man arrives. This doesn’t require medicine, says the Rinpoche. Nights in Mun’s dreams I witness the red horse’s coat building a lather, foam issuing at its mouth. And so I agree with the Rinpoche’s assessment. Something is blocking Mun’s hema, his wind horse struggling to stay ahead of the turning earth.

  One of the monks who exits the jeep is an old man. The other is a young monk, his frame slight as if he is still a boy though I am told he is fully ordained. I assume the old man is the one the Rinpoche summons, but once the ceremony starts, I realize my mistake.

  Every member of the sangha is called on to participate. We chant for more than two hours. Incense fills the temple. The chants are different. We read them from the folded books the pair brings with them, the pages yellowed and delicate. It becomes evident fairly quickly that we are trying to invoke something, that we are seeking to bring something that doesn’t exist into existence. The old monk from the jeep walks among us, pouring mentholated waters into our cupped palms. We sip it, then dribble the few remaining drops on our heads. We feel ourselves cool. The energy in the room building. A sea of red rocking itself into frenzy. The long horns blaring, the tingsha ringing, the drums booming until our blood courses through us to their rhythm. Even when I am not playing it, I can feel the conch in my lap emitting a deep humming sound.

  Mun is lying on a golden cushion at the head of the assembly. The young monk who travels to be here sits by his side staring at him the way one sometimes stares into the flame of a candle without blinking. Finally the muscles in the monk’s back begin to ripple. He begins to shake his head from side to side. Something about his movements reminds me of a panther. Some animal of immense power that keeps said power contained until the one percent of its life when it needs it.

  The monk is a medium, one who channels an oracle, an ancient spirit that protects and guides. We in the Gelug sect of Buddhism have a long tradition of consulting oracles in times of need. In 1950, it is the Nechung Oracle, the official state oracle of Tibet, who on several occasions counsels the young Dalai Lama to flee His country after the Chinese invasion, but the young leader doesn’t obey immediately. Only after the last consultation, the medium flinging himself around the chamber as the oracle fills his body, does His Holiness finally acquiesce, dressing as a soldier and letting Himself be led out of His beloved country and over the Himalayas along trails used by herders. The local people bowing to Him along the route though His counselors try to keep His leaving a secret.

  Here at Yatuu Gol, hour after hour the energy grows exponentially. The music intensifying. The incense thickening until I can hardly see. Then the young monk leaps up off his cushion and throws himself into the air. Others rush forward to grab his arms. He snarls like an animal and fights them. Eventually they work him into his costume: a series of brocade robes adorned with gold and precious stones, on his shoulders a wooden harness that supports four banners that stream behind him as he runs to and fro. Last, an enormous headdress is tied on his head, the thing more than a meter tall and weighted with jewels. Anchored in the center of the headdress is a circular mirror big as a man’s face. It flashes light around the room. It is said that the headdress weighs more than fifteen kilos, the many splendid robes an additional ten, and that if the oracle is not in a true state of trance, the headdress could break his neck. Only a being in a state of possession can bear the weight of such a helm.

  In the case of the Nechung Oracle, the medium channels the spirit of Dorje Drakden, a warrior who back in the mists of time is charged with protecting the line of the Dalai Lama. Here I don’t know what spirit this monk channels, but the way he bandies himself about with no concern for his physical being, the power of the possession is evident.

  The monk runs around the room. He spits. He claws. His voice deep as thunder. Though I know better, I would say he is possessed by a demon. One of the younger novices begins to cry. The oracle hisses out a series of unintelligible sounds. Eventually he collapses. Monks rush forward to relieve him of the neck-breaking headdress. He is carried to a room where it takes him two full days to recover. His body convulsing until it eventually quiets. The old man who travels with the oracle translates. The oracle speaks in an ancient tongue of Tibet. It is a language few people know.

  The old man turns and speaks with the Rinpoche. The Redeemer Who Sounds the Conch in the Darkness does not know where he comes from, the old man says. He does not know the true history of his family. Knowing it may give his wind horse strength.

  The Rinpoche nods and bows deeply. And so it is my brother and I come to learn the secret history of our grandfather.

  The World Is a Mystifying Place

  The Rinpoche takes a deep breath. This is what I know, he says. We are in my brother’s chambers. The walls painted with scenes from the life of the Buddha as well as images of deities, many of them wrathful in appearance, their mouths filled with teeth, their skins all sorts of fantastic colors. Outside, the snow is falling fast, each flake a light in the billion-billion-armed cosmos. When we are younger, our grandfather would tell us stories of blue wolves and deer, a mountain with the power of the world steeped in its sides. The room takes on the same hue as those nights, a fire burning in the stove.

  My brother is lying on the floor on a leitur. He is covered with blankets. His forehead draped with a wet cloth. Today he does not open his eyes. Namrut carefully pouring broth into his mouth, most of which runs down his chin. Namrut claims that at the exact moment when the oracle falls into his trance, steam rises off the skin of my brother.

  Your grandfather is born in Khentii, just a few hundred kilometers from God Mountain, some years after the birth of the communist Mongolian People’s Republic, says the Rinpoche. The old monk’s eyes gleam. For the first few years it is easy to forget that we are a new country, he says. We are like the mouse that hangs itself for the state. What happens in Ulaanbaatar is so far away from the lives most of us live out in the grasslands, out on the steppes. The politics of the capital are inconsequential to us, and vice versa.

  Then the Rinpoche’s eyes harden in the firelight. I am the last tulku discovered before the purges, he says. I am found when I am three years old. I remember my ordination day. There are monks from Tibet, from all over. I remember the smell of the butter lamps, the butter rendered from the summer milk of yaks who feed on wildflowers. The purges start when I am seven. I am living with my brothers in Gandan Tegchenling in the capital. One day, soldiers come and tell us we have to leave. The soldiers are Mongolian. Many of them are only teenagers. The zud is hard that year. Many animals die. There is famine. War massing in various regions of the faraway world. I remember seeing a snowy field covered in blood. The look of the blood on the ice in the winter sun. Monks being shot, clubbed. The sound of the Heart Sutra filling the air. I remember walking unfathomable distances in the snow. I remember someone carrying me.

  I am the youngest Precious One. I am a child. I am saved, he says. An old herder and his wife take me in and raise me among their eight children. Your grandfather is the youngest of those eight. He becomes my brother. Though he is a few years younger than I am, nights I teach him to read, I teach him the chants as we lie together under the blankets. I am a herder like the rest of the family, but I teach your grandfather what I know of Buddhism. His own grandmother remembers much of the Religion of the Yellow and would periodically sit us down and light a candle, and together the three of us would make our prostrations, praying that our enemies and every living being attain peace.

  Your grandfather excels at learning. When he is a teenager, he is sent to the capital to study. He works hard, gets a job working for the government. For many years, he prospers until eventually he becomes a government minister. One summer your grandfather is sent to China on government business. When he comes back, he tells me he’s seen it. There are always rumors circulating of its existence. A text written for the noble Mongolian family during the days of Chinggis Khaan. A secret history of the Mongols. But the Soviets are afraid of it, afraid lest it stir up nationalist sentiment, and so for years and years it is only a rumor, something scholars talk of, an ancient text in Old Mongolian originally written phonetically in Uighur script, one of the languages of Central Asia, and then transcribed into Chinese. Under the Soviets it remains banned in Mongolia.

  Your grandfather does the unthinkable. The next time he travels abroad, he brings a handwritten copy of it back from China. It is the only copy in Mongolia. He doesn’t read Chinese. Underground he begins to amass a group of scholars to work on the text, pairing those who can read the script with others who still understand the ancient tongue. When Stalin dies, there is a period of cultural thawing. It looks safe to bring the research out into the light. But within a few years, another round of purges begin. Scholars are kicked out of the university. A man is hacked to death with an ax just for suggesting that the warrior banner of Chinggis Khaan be placed on a commemorative stamp.

  One day soldiers come for your grandfather. Someone, under the pain of torture, denounces his work on The Secret History of the Mongols. Your grandfather is sent to a gulag in Siberia for ten years. His family assumes he is dead.

  A decade after his arrest, he comes back from Russia an old man with a deep limp and a mouthful of broken teeth. He goes back to living a life on the grasslands. He starts over with nothing. In this life he is a herder, a government minister, a prisoner, then a herder again. He is forty years old when your father is born. Because of the work of your grandfather, today there are copies of The Secret History of the Mongols all over the world. It is the history of our people. The Mongol people come from a line of warriors. Your grandfather pays a heavy price. If I know anything, I know he would pay it again.

  The Rinpoche’s watch begins to beep. The world is a mystifying place, he says. I don’t see your grandfather again until I find you at his deathbed. His watch falls silent.

  For the first time all week my twin takes a deep breath in his sleep, a breath that fills his belly and seems to run all the way down to his toes. He sighs and rolls onto his side like one contented in a pleasant dream.

  We Walk Among the Bones of the Ancients

  A Pile of Bones Lies in the Corner

  The Altai Mountains loom a day and a half behind us, a line of black teeth still visible on the edge of the world. We are headed into the southern reaches of the country, into the endless ocean of sand and bones, to see the final candidate. But rather than drive directly from the Altai into the Gobi, we make a slight detour. The tire ruts we now follow in the grass are well trod. This means many travelers follow this route. True, such a detour could add hundreds of kilometers to our journey, but here, everything is relative. A hundred kilometers on previously traveled land can go smoother than ten kilometers on virgin earth. The more direct route would take us through uninhabited regions where any unforeseen troubles can be disastrous. Even though we travel out of our way, it is a safer option. I am glad Mun chooses the more conservative path. Perhaps my twin is maturing.

  An hour before nightfall we arrive at a ghostly spot. There are no paved streets, the dirt black, volcanic. The whole outpost covers a single city block, the buildings gray and blocky and built in the old Soviet style of right angles and squares. It is as if the heart of some industrialized city is picked up and dropped in the middle of nowhere. A pair of black boots hangs from a fence. A child’s wagon lies on its side. A statue of two workers in headscarves stretch their arms up to the sky, but there is no plaque, no writing.

  In the middle of the square is a tree. A chair hangs in its branches, the kind you might find in a school. The chair looks inviting, as if you can climb on up and take a seat.

  It’s just a mining town or old military post, says Mun.

  There are abandoned outposts like this all over Mongolia, old towns built by the Russians and then junked, the landscape dotted with their ghostliness. Because it is an hour to sundown, we make camp in an empty building with no doors or windows. Inside, the floor is covered in soil, a carpet of weeds blanketing the space. A pile of bones lies in a corner; on a wall, things written in what looks like gibberish. It’s uncanny to see letters I can read but words that are foreign. Both Russia and Mongolia use the same Cyrillic alphabet, but our languages are different.