Uncle points toward a café that says it has internet service. Saran looks happy not to have to cook. The five of us saunter over and sit down at a table by the window. There are a handful of customers scattered around the room, most of them western tourists bathed in the light of their devices. Uncle takes my wrist in his hand and looks at my watch. Good timing, he says, then powers up his iPad. It takes some minutes for the miracle to occur. Everything about the way it transpires is utterly mundane—the tablet turning on, joining the network, then Uncle opening FaceTime and searching among his contacts. But when the miracle does occur, all the same I do not believe it. I wonder what would happen if these western tourists would just look up from their screens for one moment and glance our way. What would they see? An elderly monk speaking in Tibetan, chatty as any teenager. But in this case, the monk is talking with one of the lights of the world, His Holiness, the 14th Dalai Lama.

  Would you like to say hello, Uncle asks. The image of His Holiness fills the screen. Tashi delek, He booms cheerfully. May only auspicious things come into your environment. Uncle holds the tablet out so that we are all in the picture. Little Bat smiles and waves. Among the three of us who have never met Him, only Saran maintains her composure. Of my brother and I, together our hearts beating fast as any schoolgirl’s, the sound filling the world.

  Where Marco Polo Once Walks Among the Nations

  Even after the two men say their goodbyes and hang up, my heart still thunders through the rest of our meal. For the moment my anger at my twin’s lasciviousness is washed away. May I always remember this moment when the 14th Living Incarnation of Avalokiteshvara, the Buddha of Compassion, wishes me tashi delek! I can feel a difference in my twin, a looseness spreading through his being.

  After lunch we drive out to what is once the center of the world. All around us the plain is flat and expansive, large and utterly empty. Erdene Zuu Monastery is the oldest in Mongolia. It is built in the 1500s and then abandoned during the Soviet era. The white wall mounted with 108 stupa rings the monastery, each like a snowcapped mountain. And just north of the wall lies all that remains of the ancient capital, Karakorum, the place where Marco Polo once walks among the nations of the world. When the wind blows, dust spires up in whirlwinds. The emptiness feels planetary.

  We don’t tell anyone we’re coming. Stealthily we pull up in the visitors’ lot like a pack of sheep wranglers in the night. Even if we want to tell someone that a high-ranking counselor of His Holiness is making an unannounced visit, who would we tell? Somehow I would have to notify the Rinpoche at Yatuu Gol, who would have to inform someone, perhaps in Ulaanbaatar, who would maybe call someone in Dharamshala, who would then try to raise someone here.

  Instead we walk around the perimeter of the monastery. A small sign points to an exit, saying this way to the turtles. We follow the path a hundred meters beyond the monastery walls. Already Saran is standing beside one of them. This is all that remains of Karakorum, the thirteenth-century center of civilization. Two stone turtles that once decorate one of the courtyards. There is a lesson here for anyone who chooses to listen. Pride. Impermanence. Desire. The thirst for legacy.

  Mun is here countless times with tours and yet this is his first time as a tourist. The connection to this place surges within my brother. I don’t understand his preoccupation with a man who bloodies the steppes more than eight hundred years ago. This pride seems like the very act of clinging. Övöö also spends a part of his adulthood obsessing over the great Khaan, and it costs our grandfather everything.

  Then my brother opens his mind to me. Educate yourself, Mun thinks, and suddenly I am awash in his knowledge:

  This Is His Millennium

  They say he is born with a blood clot in his fist. Like my brother and me, the stars predict his birth. As a child, he kills a half brother to claim his place at the head of his first small band of warriors. He eventually goes on to conquer the world. His empire is as large as the continent of Africa. In modern terms his realm covers an area of more than thirty countries with more than three billion inhabitants. His offspring found dynasties around the globe including the Yuan in China, the shahs in Iran, the Mughals in India. It is said that one out of every twenty males on earth carries his DNA. Karakorum is his legacy though he never lives to see it in all its splendor.

  In 1253 William of Rubruck, a Franciscan monk traveling from western Europe, makes his way across the steppes that stretch from Hungary to Manchuria. Today in Hungary you can still find horsemen who gallop upright on wooden saddles as they shoot arrows while racing along at fifty kilometers an hour. From his letters home, we can ascertain that William of Rubruck is not overly impressed with Karakorum. Unlike western Europe, the Mongol Empire is not interested in amassing treasure. Chinggis Khaan is not a leader who collects loot and builds monuments. Rather he is a man interested in ideas, which last longer than booty.

  He launches the first international postal system. He strengthens the trade route along the Silk Road and establishes the largest free-trade zone the world has ever seen. He creates the concept of diplomatic immunity that allows ambassadors of nations, even those he is at war with, to visit his capital without fear of retribution. He dismantles the old aristocratic system and institutes a process of promotion based on merit and loyalty rather than birth. He allows religious freedom through his empire, each nation free to worship as it pleases, though the Eternal Blue Sky rules over all. In Karakorum, William of Rubruck can walk past Buddhist temples, mosques, Nestorian churches, shamans and animalists, Zoroastrian fire worshippers, and countless other forms of worship.

  Legend has it there is a golden tree crafted by a Parisian prisoner of war named Guillaume Bouchier. It is one of the wonders of the city. The tree is reported to serve different libations—airag, mead, wine—which one can pour by pulling on various branches. Like the tree, Chinggis Khaan brings together distant and diverse cultures. Before the Mongol Empire, China doesn’t know Europe exists and vice versa. He helps spread scientific data and art, combining Chinese gunpowder with western iron to create the world’s first fusible arms.

  The Khaan’s army revolutionizes siege warfare. No wall can keep him out. When he reaches western Europe, he finds the region poorer than he expects. He turns around and returns home.

  Our grandfather Övöö is imprisoned for his research into the great Khaan. During the Soviet era, the government tries to suppress the memory and achievements of Chinggis Khaan, claiming he is a monstrous overlord. The Soviets are afraid that the memory of the Khaan might lead to the destruction of their union. If Mongolian national pride is allowed to be fed by the accomplishments of Chinggis Khaan, the people of Mongolia might rise up and throw the Soviets out, sending a signal to Russia’s other satellites that it’s open season on Moscow. And so men like Övöö, who simply want to search for historical artifacts about the Khaan, are fired from university positions, jailed, sent to Siberia. As a nation we are taught that the Khaan is a stain on the Mongolian people. The western view of him as a bloodthirsty barbarian wins out.

  Centuries after Chinggis Khaan’s death my brother wears his hair braided in a traditional style. The Khaan and all that he accomplishes lives on. Though I am one who knows little of the world, I do know that this is his millennium. Global networks spreading ideas from country to country at the speed of light. There is nothing barbarian about this.

  Everything Works Itself Out in Its Own Way

  The sky is just beginning to darken. After driving all day, we are back on unpaved roads. Technically we are in the Gobi, but it doesn’t look the way I imagine.

  It’s the biggest desert in Asia, says Mun. Most of it’s exposed rock, but where we’re headed, there’ll be sand dunes just like in the Sahara.

  Yes, says Uncle. It is what we call a rain-shadow desert. He sits looking out the window at the darkening plain. The Himalayas drive moisture up to a great height, he says, and the Gobi sits in the shadow of the Himalayas. The rain doesn’t come down here but farther away over Southeast Asia. In a way, it’s a metaphor. I feel my twin’s confusion compound with my own. Displacement, says Uncle. Everything works itself out in its own way in its own time. Perhaps not where you would expect, but eventually.

  Silently I ponder this. Everywhere great outcroppings of rock like heralds guarding the earth.

  Who wants to take a shower, Mun says. None of us respond. It is almost two weeks since we properly bathe, which is not unusual when one lives out on the steppe. My guess is it is my twin who is accustomed to regularly bathing, Mun now saddled with the habits of city living. Well, we’re going, he says.

  Thirty minutes after we stop and make camp, the five of us walk a kilometer in the last dregs of daylight to a spot in the middle of the desert. The landscape looks utterly empty, like walking on a red moon, then we crest a dune, and the world changes. A sprawling complex appears nestled in the sands. And the luxury! Everything made of stone and blond wood, glass and chrome. It’s as if we are stepping straight out of Mongolia. People walk the grounds in bathrobes, westerners with small white buds in their ears, many of them carrying bottles of water, zazen pillows tucked under their arms. Little Bat stumbles around, amazed. I can tell that he doesn’t know what to think. We pass a cafeteria, groups seated at round tables of ten, everyone eating, their plates piled with more greens than I eat in the past year.

  Everywhere the sound of bare feet padding across hardwood, the sound of air being recirculated, the temperature like floating in a warm broth. It’s a meditation center, Mun whispers. People from all over the world come here to cleanse themselves on the edge of the Gobi. For a fee, they let travelers like us come use the facilities, then it’s back out to the desert for us.

  I notice a group of people with deep tans, sunburned lips, sitting around a table. Mun sees someone he knows, another guide, and goes bounding over. See you later, he says.

  Our camp is a little more than a kilometer away among the rock and sand. The sun is down, the night dark, the showers heavenly. When I come out, Saran is standing by the gift shop.

  Mun is off with his friend, she says, and the others are already heading back.

  Inwardly I smile at the fact that she waits for me. Shall we, I say. And so we set out across the desert.

  Two Notes Spiraling Up into the Dark

  This area of the Gobi looks like what I imagine a desert should look like, the dunes vast as an ocean of sand. The wind is chilly. I pull my robe tighter around myself. After twenty minutes, I realize I have no idea where we’re going. Behind us the meditation center looks like an oasis. In the other direction, distant lights shine in the desert, but which one is ours? Saran walks serenely by my side. We walk and walk, the night deepening all around us. I realize she would follow me to the ends of the earth without question.

  Finally I concede it. I think we’re lost, I say.

  We stop and look around. The lights don’t seem to be getting any closer. I know this feeling from growing up out in the grasslands. In a place with no man-made landmarks, it is difficult to orient oneself. I imagine the two of us wandering all night over the desert plain, then with the morning sun realizing we are within feet of our camp.

  What should we do, I ask. I try to imagine what Mun would do. Would he stop and wait to be found? No, never. An image of him lying with his arm across Saran’s naked breasts comes to mind. No, he would wander all night, like a lost sheep. Wander and never admit it. All the while claiming he is just where he wants to be.

  Then I hear a note rising over a nearby dune. Someone is throat singing. The two notes spiraling up into the dark, weaving themselves together. We continue on. In the distance I see a fire burning, animals shackled in the darkness. Figures appear.

  Uncle is sitting beside Little Bat. Both are holding a bowl in their hands. Little Bat sits on a blanket. He is the one singing. I listen to him accompany himself. One melody like thunder on a distant plain. The other a small yellow bird flitting through a sunbeam. Miraculously when he throat sings, producing two notes at the same time, his voice sounds whole, smooth as water on ice.

  But this isn’t our camp, I say.

  It’s a good sign, says Uncle.

  A child, a boy, something about his skin not right, wanders out of a nearby tent and offers me a bowl of milk tea. The boy has no color, is all light. In the morning it all makes sense.

  The World’s Largest Dinosaur Graveyard

  In the desert night Mun never finds us, though truthfully he never looks. Early this morning Uncle texts him—incredibly there is cell service out here in the middle of nowhere. One of the westerners explains that the desert is good for signals, that they can travel hundreds of kilometers unimpeded. When Mun stumbles into this camp, it is obvious he is still feeling the effects of his night. I feel my head pound, then quickly I imagine a snowstorm raging between us in order to keep my twin’s night of drinking at bay. Still, all day I feel a slight throbbing like a rainstorm off in the distance.

  My brother is surprised he doesn’t know this place. Who are these people, he asks.

  Dinosaur hunters, says Little Bat in English. He grins from ear to ear, then wanders off to help carry a silver cargo trunk.

  Uncle thinks it’s a sign, I say.

  What is?

  That he is so easy to find.

  Who?

  The candidate, I say.

  At the mention of him, the candidate floats by, a small figure dressed in white, a hat on his head with netting carefully draped to cover every inch of his face and neck. The child also wears long gloves all the way up to his shoulders. Last night the one time I see his eyes full on in the light of the fire I am not sure what I am seeing. His eyes red as if filled with blood.

  Sain bainuu, says the child to Mun, and hands him a bowl of milk tea. Mun nods, speechless. He doesn’t offer a hello back.

  Last night decisions are made, generosity extended. Today we ride out to the dig site two to a camel. Uncle rides behind Tömör, the candidate we come to see. Because of their positions on the camel, Uncle seems like the child, Tömör the adult, which, if he is who we think he is, seems right.

  Each day in the summer season the teams work until eleven o’clock, then rest for two to three hours when the sun is at its worst before picking back up. To get to the actual site, many in the expedition ride camels, though the heavier equipment is hauled over by truck.

  Tömör is staying in the camp by himself, his family a hundred kilometers south tending their herds. Though he is only seven and his family lives year-round in the Gobi with their livestock, for the last two years Tömör spends his summers here with the paleontologists—he even learns English. Three summers ago his family makes their summer camp in the shadow of what turns out to be the world’s largest dinosaur graveyard. Each day, rather than help with chores, the pale precocious child sprints off on his camel to see what the scientists are up to. His parents cannot keep him away. He shows such an aptitude for finding bones, for spotting where the researchers should dig, that Stevie and Jess make him an unofficial member of the team. When he points to a spot on the side of a hill that produces a dinosaur nest complete with a dozen unhatched eggs, the scientists decide to make it official. Now when Stevie and Jess and their team return each summer, Tömör joins them in camp. As his family entrusts his well-being to them for the season, the two scientists treat him like their own son. Eagerly he helps out with all aspects of the expedition. Although a congenital albino, he is the only member of the team never to complain of the heat.

  Zeal for Bones

  I ride over the landscape seated behind Billy, a graduate student from California, who tells me about the expedition and the history of the area. In 1922, American paleontologist Roy Chapman Andrews, whom Billy calls the real-life Indiana Jones, makes a perilous overland journey from China in his quest to find dinosaur bones. As I watch the landscape roll by, I try to imagine what it must be like to transport thousands of kilos of supplies over such terrain. Andrews uses a motorcade, driving the most technologically advanced cars of his time, but he quickly learns that animals are better. He has to carry everything his expedition needs with him. Between 1922 and 1925 he makes four journeys deep into the Gobi, discovering several new species of dinosaurs as well as the first-ever intact dinosaur eggs. Then the Soviets come into power through a series of puppet regimes and close the borders. The paleontology world loses access to the richest trove of dinosaur artifacts on earth. Andrews goes on to direct the American Museum of Natural History. Even today stories still circulate of the abuses he heaps on the local people in his zeal for bones.

  Billy has long sun-bleached hair and is working on getting his doctorate. We chat a bit about our studies. Both our educations must culminate with a defense of our ideas, though in Billy’s case the rules call for a defense in front of a committee of mentors about a theory he is proposing involving the evolution of hollow bones. I am to spend an evening debating several peers on deep cosmological tenets, like at what moment does consciousness enter the body and where does it come from?

  After twenty minutes, I begin to feel sick, the motion of the camel like riding in a small boat. I tighten my grip on one of the camel’s soft humps, each like a burlap bag filled with fat. My nausea is coupled with my twin’s distant headache thundering on the horizon, his hangover a cloud hovering over us both. I reinforce the wintry scene in my mind more resolutely than before. I am one who never overindulges with drink. To have the after-effects of drinking without the experience of drunkenness is something I find myself resenting.