Yes, Littlest Sister, I say.

  Tonight, she says.

  Yes, Littlest Sister, I repeat.

  Okay, she says. First let’s eat.

  There is something about this girl. I know that to travel on the same path as this child and her guardian places me on a road toward darkness. I envision a ruin atop a hill, a circle of stones gleaming in the moonlight, and within this ruin, I know there is a place waiting for me. All the same I must continue on. Despite the vows I swear of highest integrity, there are times when we must walk toward the darkest dark, not because we believe in the dawn to follow, but because the darkest dark is simply the world as it is in that instant. This is what we must take refuge in. The truth of every moment, the way things are and not as we wish them to be. I am not to act in a manner that may bring shame on my brotherhood. I am simply to witness and be present to whatever is.

  My opponent lays the burlap sack down on the floor. A clattering of bones, then the eight ball rolls out, a sudden hole in the darkness. The girl stuffs it back in with her foot.

  The Tail of a White Mongol Sheep

  Happily, the guriltai shul is made with mutton and not beef, which I actually prefer. I have had little to eat, only a sliver of hardened aaruul I carry with me from Yatuu Gol. Vegetables can at times be a luxury in a nomadic culture, the people never in one spot long enough to harvest a crop, but this soup is thick with turnips. Because most of Mongolia’s traditional dishes involve meat, I and the monks in this region eat it regularly. Still, it is not something we do lightly. Before I take a single bite, I intone the mantra of clairvoyance as a blessing:

  Um badma üshnikha vimali khum pad

  With these powerful words, I purify the environment and wish the one born of an animal womb a higher rebirth in their next incarnation. Even His Holiness in exile down in Dharamshala is known to partake of the flesh of animals. Many years ago He feels sluggish and western doctors cannot fix Him. Then the Oracle says He must replenish His body with the energy of the spirit, and when He eats the tail of a white Mongol sheep cooked in a traditional broth, He is whole again, the tail of the sheep of Mongolia renowned for its fattiness.

  My opponent sits tearing at his bowl of food, his eyes locked on the snowy television. The girl does not eat with us but kneels by the stove poking at the flames. Next to a pile of dried dung there is a plastic bowl full of cold ashes. I do not know how to make sense of what happens next, though I try and hide my astonishment. Is it an act of mortification, an attempt to erase the self? The girl puts down her stick and takes a deep breath. She holds it in, her chest fully expanded. Without warning she shoves both her hands in the ash and rubs the grime over her face. There is nothing playful in her movements. A sooty cloud clouds the air. When she’s done, she exhales. My opponent throws her a rag. The girl looks at him and smiles, wiping her hands, her teeth like little moons in the dark.

  Rock ’n’ Roll

  It is now well past ten o’clock. The summer sun is finally bedded and the sky filled with night. Across the table my opponent puts his bowl down a third time and points at it with his finger. With her newly blackened face the little girl scoops it up and hurries to the doorway where she refills the bowl from the plastic barrel filled with airag. When she lifts the lid, I can smell the sourness from across the room. In Mongolia’s central provinces, a house without fermented mare’s milk is not a home. Though technically an intoxicant, which the Five Precepts counsel Buddhists to avoid, it is not unusual for monks to drink airag.

  I am still on my first bowl. It is a long time since I drink airag. From house to house, the taste is unchanged—the way the bubbles tingle at the back of the throat, how the head seems to loosen on the neck. The sourness can make the eyes water if you are not used to it. A western monk from Australia who is currently on retreat at Yatuu Gol describes it as tasting like a mixture of champagne and unsweetened yogurt.

  Outside, a truck rumbles up out front. Because it does not have its lights on, at first I think it is thunder rolling through the skies. But then I hear a car door open and slam shut. Two men push the door open and enter without knocking. Each grabs a bowl from a shelf. One of the men looks at me and then looks at my opponent, the question forming in his eyes. Why is there a monk here? When the only hope is a boat and there is no boat, I will be the boat.

  On the television, fuzzy images of a man and a woman wrestling in a western bed, the sheets crisp like a field of snow. I wonder what these people are expecting from me, then I stop wondering. It is out of my hands. Together the five of us sit and watch the television. I wonder if this is the kind of thing Mun watches in his apartment in the capital. On-screen one of the women walks into a room filled entirely with shoes.

  The girl stands up and shuts the television off. She collects the men’s bowls and then she and my opponent slip on their deel, the man’s tattered along the bottom. Nights on the grasslands the temperature can drop a full twenty degrees even now in the throes of summer. Ready, she asks.

  Rock ’n’ roll, I say in English. Once it is out of my mouth, I realize this is a favorite saying of my brother, a tiny fire gleaming in Mun’s eyes.

  One of the strange men bows to me. I can tell by the uneven way he dips his shoulders while keeping his eyes on my face that he is jesting, that he thinks my robes are just a show. I want to tell him I am simply a reflection like the moon on water, but I remain silent. As I rise from the table I bow my head, thinking of the animal spirit I consume. I will liberate those not liberated.

  The girl with her blackened face is the first out the door.

  The Man’s Patterns Are Inside

  Only three people fit in the cab, so the second man opens the gate at the back. I boost myself up. There is no roof, the walls wooden slats built like an animal pen so that the air can stream through. The truck is mid-sized and obviously used to transport livestock. The warped wooden floor is wet perhaps from being rinsed, though here and there I can still see dark clumps of their droppings. Despite the openness of the truck bed, everywhere the smell of animals; in a few spots what looks like blood maps the floor. Just as the man is about to close the gate, the girl appears, her eyes flashing. The man lifts her up and she walks to where I am squatting behind the cab. Her footsteps boom on the wood. The cab is missing its back window, a piece of dirty canvas taped in its place. Through it I can clearly hear one of the men singing. His song is an old tale about a beautiful horse that refuses to take a lover. The song’s bawdy lyrics cut through the darkness in sharp contrast to the beauty of its melody.

  Hold on, says a voice through the window, and the truck starts to move. The girl takes my hand. There is something protective in the way she holds it.

  We drive with the headlights off, just the glow of the moon to illuminate our way. Sometime in the next few weeks it should be full, a face shadowing us in the sky. We drive past the post office and the now-abandoned pool table like an empty garden plot, then on past the larch tree in the middle of town. Through the flimsy canvas I can see a shadow pass the driver a bottle. Tell me a story, the girl says. Something about this child reminds me of the adage: the man’s patterns are inside, the snake’s outside. All the same I honor her request. I think of my brother Mun walking the streets of Ulaanbaatar hundreds of kilometers away, his mind full of strange words and images, a library for me to draw on. Because she is not tall enough for the wind to find her in the leeward side of the cab, all the way across the grasslands the child remains standing.

  The Earth and Sky Never Meet

  Listen without distraction, I say. I can feel her grip tighten on my hand. In the sky the moon hangs like an ear.

  The earth and sky never meet, but the children of men do, I say. Once there are three brothers. They live in a ger by a bend in the Singing River.

  Does the river sing all the time, day and night, asks the little girl. I can tell it is no idle question, that nothing I say is being taken lightly.

  No, I say. It only sings to those with the patience to hear it. I wait a spell for her to respond to this, but when she does not speak, I continue.

  One winter the brothers’ animals die one by one until all they are left with is an old blind mare. When all the other animals are gone, the old mare no longer sleeps outside. Each night she hobbles into the ger, her big wet eyes like moons. One night Oldest Son goes to ladle a cup of airag out of the barrel by the door. Suddenly the ger fills with the sound of the wooden ladle scraping the bottom, the sound like a fish hook dragged over rocks. In the morning when the sun rises Oldest Son and Second Brother tell their third brother, Simpleton, that they are going out beyond the grasslands to make their fortune in the world, only to return when they are rich. From the doorway Simpleton watches them disappear over the horizon.

  On the grasslands, winter drags on. In the larder there is less and less to eat. Your brothers are not coming back, says the old mare one snowy night, her eyes wet as eggs.

  You don’t know that, says Simpleton brightly.

  The old mare sighs. Then drink of my milk, says the animal, and Simpleton gets down on his knees and reaches up for the shriveled teat with his mouth.

  Spring comes and goes. Summer burns the grasslands. Then it is fall. Each night Simpleton curls under the old mare’s belly, the outline of her ribs like the staves in a barrel as he drinks his fill, the animal’s milk perfectly sour yet fizzy, as if it ferments into airag right there in her teat.

  Your brothers are not coming back, says the old mare. Do you know it now?

  Yes, says Simpleton, and after he packs up the few things he cares about in this world—a lucky anklebone, a scrap from his mother’s dress—he and the old mare walk side by side out of the grasslands following the Singing River.

  It’s easy for him to find his brothers because the river tells him where to go, says the little girl.

  Yes, I say. In the truck’s cab two of the men are playing cards. All around us the grasslands lie dark as an ocean. Each night as they lie down to sleep, the river sings to Simpleton and the old mare, I say, telling them which way to head. Within a month the two find his brothers sleeping in a cave. Then Simpleton informs Oldest Son and Second Brother that he comes to join them so they might go forth together to make their fortune in the world. His brothers laugh.

  It is harder to make one’s fortune in the world than we could ever imagine, says Second Brother. How can you help us when you walk beside your horse as if it is your equal?

  She is my equal, says Simpleton. And how I may help you that is not for me to say, he says. But let us go. And so they go.

  The girl is looking at the sky. I am not sure if she is listening. Quickly I relate how Simpleton’s honesty and compassion to various animals he and his brothers encounter along the road are paid back in full when all three brothers are charged with an impossible task by a magician. With the help of his animal friends, Simpleton marries the Khaan’s daughter and comes into possession of a herd of ten thousand. Because he is a kind man, he gives to his brothers the older sisters of his wife.

  I finish my story, secretly relieved to find my way to a suitable ending. For a long time my only reward is the night’s silence.

  Weaving Like a Dancer to Emphasize His Point

  Finally the girl looks at me. How do you know that tale?

  I tell her the truth but simplified. My brother reads a lot, I say.

  She nods. That’s a nice story, she says. It tells us how we ought to live.

  Yes, I say.

  Only thing is, we don’t live like that, she says. I watch her eyes in the dark night of her face. Stories about good people doing bad are the best kind, she says. Don’t you think?

  I don’t know any stories like that, I say.

  How come, she asks. She slits her eyes as if she suspects me of dishonesty. If you don’t know about evil, how can you know anything about good?

  I contemplate this. All around us the grasslands like the Singing River chirring in the dark. Currently at Yatuu Gol, I am a novice. Eleven vows tie me to this way of life. In two months’ time, on the day of my ordination, I am scheduled to take the full 253 vows that forever pledge me to this tradition, the vows falling into five categories beginning with the Four Defeats and ending with Misdeeds. At least five fully ordained monks are required to perform the ceremony. That evening in celebration, I and the other newly ordained monks are expected to sit upon the cold earth in the main courtyard of Yatuu Gol. Like the generations that precede us, we must sit in the lotus position with our legs folded like pairs of wings as we wait for the Rinpoche to begin by asking us any question he likes based on the Collected Topics. Once we are called forth, we are to rise for debate two by two, one to defend his position, the other to question the soundness of his reasoning. Each questioner stamping the earth with his foot and clapping his hands, his prayer beads hanging from his arm, moving his body rhythmically through space, weaving like a dancer to emphasize his point, all night long the stars tracking their light through the heavens the way snails leave a bright path on stone.

  But as this night is quickly approaching, the question haunts me: am I up to it? Am I ready to defend the Collected Topics? Is my knowledge of the very subtle consciousness sufficient? Am I able to explain how this consciousness is similar to but different from the Christian concept of the soul? What if I am asked to remember how my own body’s indestructible drop forms when the egg and sperm collide? Here I am, unable to deliver a simple story of good and evil to a child—me, a being who lives the past fifteen years cloistered behind monastery walls. What do I know of life? And am I ready to give up the pleasures of living when I know so little of experience?

  Overhead the moon sits in the sky, familiar yet distant. Up until now in my life, I am never more than a few hundred kilometers from the place of my birth, the moon always questing at the same angles through the night. Secretly I am relieved to be here in the back of this truck on my way to wherever the universe may lead. Just once I want to see the moon from a different angle. I want to drink deeply of this world with both hands before I renounce it.

  I place a hand on my chest and feel the letter I have yet to finish writing tucked in my robe next to my heart. At Yatuu Gol we believe the natural state of the mind is one of luminosity and bliss. May this path I am on return me to this state of pure light free of doubt!

  The girl lets go of my other hand. For a moment bathed in the moonlight she looks like an old man.

  The truck comes to a stop. I look down. My palm is black with soot and in the darkness it seems to disappear.

  We Can Smell the Milk Turning

  The driver appears at the back of the truck. He begins fumbling with the latch to open the tailgate, but the thing seems to be stuck. My traveling companion puts both hands over her ears. The man nods, keeps working at it in a quieter manner. Finally the thing comes loose and the door opens. The little girl jumps down without help. I sit on the edge of the truck and ease myself out. My opponent and the second man pull dark masks over their faces. I can still recognize them by their size and shape. The driver climbs into the truck bed. He finds what he is looking for and slides a metal ramp down out of the back until it touches the ground.

  For a moment the five of us stand in the moonlight, the little girl with her face blackened with soot. Sadly I know why we are here. This is not the first time I ride across the grasslands to watch someone take ownership of something that does not belong to him. When Mun and I are seven years old, my brother wakes me in the middle of a summer night much like this. We ride our horses an hour west until we come to a ger where a young widower lives alone with a few animals. Everyone knows the man is a thief, that after the slow death of his wife in childbirth he now milks healthier animals that do not belong to him and sells the milk in town. I remember how Mun and I arrive at the man’s ger and find it unattended, the man out raiding the bounty of his neighbors. Inside his ger we can smell the milk turning, the whole roof covered with blocks of it. That night Mun steals a radio which he later trades for some old VHS tapes of American movies. I remember there is what looks to be a prayer book lying on a table. Take it, says Mun, but I can’t even bring myself to unroll it just to see what it says.

  The girl is good at her job. Soundlessly she opens the first pen. When she enters, a silent jolt of electricity seems to ripple through the flock, the sheep connected to one another. The animals huddle together along the edge of the enclosure, their legs folded underneath them as they lie sleeping, the ground as if littered with clouds.

  Seemingly effortlessly, the girl manages to cull an animal away from the others. She leads it out of the pen. The girl is a professional. Even in the dark she selects an animal that should fetch a good price but is not the pride and glory of the flock. An animal that is not remarkable, that is not singular enough to be missed. In some ways I am this sheep. In a few hours when the sun rises on Yatuu Gol, is there anyone among my cohort of young novices who might notice my absence at first ablution? I watch the sheep walk up the ramp into the back of the truck. It does not hesitate. It simply trusts.

  Karma Simply Means “Action”

  Mun and I are never caught for our transgression which in a way is worse than if we are. Early the next day at breakfast Övöö asks why the flanks of our horses glisten with sweat. Mun tells our grandfather that as it is the full wolf moon only the night before, the animals must be possessed by dreams of riding over the grasslands as part of the Khaan’s Mongol horde. Most days any mention of Chinggis Khaan makes our grandfather smile, but not that day. That day Övöö shakes his head. Somehow his toothless mouth appears more sunken. Like spoons unable to taste the flavor of soup, he says, are the fools who cannot see truth. He leaves it at that. Our father also says nothing. It is the worst rebuke. As if they are conceding that we are incorrigible, not worthy of correcting. After my morning chores I do a hundred full-body prostrations out in the emptiness of the grasslands. From atop his horse Mun watches as I press my face into the earth over and over. My face covered with bug bites, as each time I move, the grass comes alive.