Somehow at the end of a day of gurem, Mun always returns to the monastery with a few candy bars tucked in the folds of his robe. Unlike him, I dread gurem. I recoil from it not because of the long walk out to some isolated homestead, the grasslands shadeless and teeming with flies, nor for the taking of food from simple people who have little to give. No, I dread these prayer offerings in people’s homes because of girls like this, this girl in the yellow deel with the black coils of her hair shining. There are no women at Yatuu Gol. Outside Ulaanbaatar, Buddhist nuns are still a rarity. And so gurem brings me into contact with a part of life I am discovering for the first time. How after a day of gurem during the interminable trek back to Yatuu Gol, the monastery nestled in the shadow of the sleeping volcano, some young woman’s radiant face always stays tucked away inside me in a room whose existence I do not allow myself to acknowledge.

  Sometimes Faith Is the Only Medicine

  An hour passes. In another, the summer sun begins to dawn in the eternal blue sky. In the corner by the radio, the boy falls asleep sitting up, his rifle lying at his feet like a beloved pet. His sisters are curled together on one of the brightly painted chests that serve as beds. In sleep the girl with her hair in coils murmurs softly to herself as though singing. Their mother lies among the floor pillows, her forehead creased with what I now know is sorrow, behind her closed eyes her pupils racing back and forth. At Yatuu Gol at this dark hour I would be waking for first salutations in the room I share with eight others, everywhere the red wooden shutters of the monastery thrown open to the cold summer air.

  Then someone is untying my hands. I feel the blood course back into my veins. When I turn to look the grandmother signals for me to remain silent. Wordlessly she scrambles over to the altar and lifts the handkerchief, revealing a man in his mid-thirties as he poses with a shiny new motorbike. She looks at me with hope. I am familiar with such looks. During the summer when Mun and I first enter the monastery, a woman gazes on the Rinpoche in this same manner as she holds her sick infant out to him along the road to Bor-Urt. The child looks to be in its final hours. The Rinpoche leans in and places his palm on its forehead. Sometimes faith is the only medicine available. Then the woman smiles and backs away bowing, confidant that, with the Rinpoche’s blessing, the child is guaranteed to return to this earth in a higher state.

  I rub my hands together, the skin marked from the extension cord. The old woman points at the picture. I nod and crawl toward her. I wonder how old she is, if she is indeed old enough to remember the purges, the time when the communists destroy the monasteries, the monks driven out into the winter snows to die. It comforts me to think that like our brothers the Tibetans, we Mongolians manage to hold on to our faith through dark times. The histories of our two nations are intertwined, as it is the descendants of Chinggis Khaan who help establish Buddhism in Tibet. The whole world knows of His Holiness, the 14th Dalai Lama. Few know that the title Dalai Lama is a compound of the Mongolian word for “ocean” and the Tibetan word for “teacher,” each of the fourteen dalai lamas an Ocean of Compassion.

  I take the stick of incense the old woman holds out to me and light it in a candle. Then I clap my palms together and bow my head three times. With folded hands I beseech the Buddha of All Directions to shine the lamp of His being for all bewildered in the gloom of misery. Gently I place the burning stick in a small bowl filled with ash. The smoke spires up off the tip and fills the room. The girl with the beautiful hair is now unmistakably singing in her sleep though it is not a song I know.

  Silently I push a small chest out of the way. The old woman moves a stool. Together we proceed in unison, our bodies heaving up and down, back and forth like pendulums. Despite her age she moves through the poses with agility. By the time the police arrive in a battered truck, we have each done more than fifty prostrations. I feel a bruise on the verge of taking root on my forehead as over and over in my guilt I press my face hard into the floor. Conversely, the old woman remains unmarked, without flaw.

  Through Either Action or Inaction, One Must Learn to Forgive

  The whole family stands outside in the last dregs of night as I am led to the truck. The boy says I should ride in the back, but the officer patiently explains that sometimes criminals jump out, the truck jouncing over the grasslands for hours before the officer even notices. At the very least the boy insists that I be handcuffed. Silently the officer complies, though later when we are out of sight he removes them. The way the officer moves, as if he is walking through waist-high water, the thinness of his arms and legs in sharp contrast to his stomach which hangs on his front like something strapped to his body. It is easy to see that I am not what the officer is expecting when the boy radios of catching an animal wrangler. Despite this, I sense a strange elation in this officer of the law, a joy he is trying to keep hidden. Perhaps he is tickled at the novelty of catching a monk animal wrangling and the unbelievable tale he can tell others.

  Now at the end of this strange night, the girl with the beautiful hair tilts her head and looks at me. I allow myself to return her gaze. Her skin is clear as freshly planed wood, her eyes large. Because I do not look at women often, I can only guess if she is a few years younger than I am, or if she is a teenager. I wonder when she looks at me if she sees my brother, the insouciant monk who hides chocolate in his robes and enjoys the company of women, or if she understands that my brother and I are separate planets, each with our own atmosphere, our own natural wonders.

  Chimegee, says the girl’s grandmother. She points into the ger. Tsai. The girl sighs and disappears through the door. When she comes back she strides up to where I am standing by the truck and holds it out to me. I look to the officer, but the man nods and I realize she is offering it to me. As my wrists are cuffed, I take it with both hands and bow my head. I can see that the seal is broken and the bottle reused as is customary, but I bow again all the same. As she hands me the milk tea, our fingers touch. Bayarlalaa, I say. Thank you, sister. What I want to say: Chimegee, may this suffering in me serve to awaken all hearts.

  Then the officer holds the passenger door open. Just over his shoulder I glimpse the pen filled with sheep that the little girl with the sooty face is pillaging only hours before. For the various ways one hurts oneself through either action or inaction, one must learn to forgive the self. Though we are still an hour from dawn, somehow the sheep’s wool looks rosy. Perhaps it is only my need in this dark hour to look for signs of hope that color the world so. I get in the truck and the officer gently closes the door. I can feel the animals’ big wet eyes on me long after we pull out of sight.

  The Membrane Covering My Face Translucent as Milk

  Even after we crest the first hill the officer doesn’t slow the truck. We seem to pick up speed as he takes both hands off the wheel and leans over to unlock my cuffs. Once I am free, I bow to him and rub my wrists. I am keenly aware of being awake for more than twenty-four hours. Today at Yatuu Gol the children are riding in for their weekly lessons, the herders sending their sons into the monastery to learn the ancient script, each family wanting one child capable of reading the old prayer books on solemn occasions.

  The officer uncaps his thermos and takes a long drink. When he finishes, he offers me some, but I shake my head. From where I am sitting I can smell the sourness. It is barely four in the morning and he is drinking airag, but the truth is the entire thermos might have the same alcohol content as one western beer. I’m Noyon, he says. I take a closer look, but there is nothing princely about him. Now that we are away from the family, Noyon seems to be in a better mood.

  I’m Chuluun, I say.

  I know, he says. You’re the stone and your brother’s the vicious dog.

  I don’t say anything as I’m not surprised. In Mongolia we are not named for the sound of our names but for their meanings. Often rather than tempt the gods by gracing a child with a beautiful moniker, parents give the baby an unpleasant one. Perhaps this is why my father names my twin Muunokhoi after a savage animal and me for a rock. Twenty-three years ago Mun and I are born in the year after the Soviet Union loses its grip on Mongolia. Instantly, news of our births ripples through the five hundred square kilometers surrounding the volcano. Of course Noyon knows who I am. Twenty-three years ago when I am born he must be right here in sight of Yatuu Gol.

  Through the headlights, Noyon scans the landscape, perhaps looking for a familiar butte, a rock which indicates the way. I look away from him and up into the sky. Though the world is still more dark than not, two black specks are circling on the winds. Cinereous vultures, the largest true birds of prey in the world. I watch the birds funneling up into the sky as they climb the thermal currents. Watching them, I think of the English word cleave, one of the first English words I learn from flipping through the monastery’s only copy of the King James Bible. The way cleave has two meanings which mean exactly the opposite of each other. “To cling with ardor” or “to divide as with a knife.” This is the way I sometimes feel about Mun. That I cannot stand to be with him and at the same time ever since he leaves Yatuu Gol I feel an emptiness in my chest.

  Ever since I can remember I know the story of how we re-enter the world. The way the stars in the Black Tortoise blaze red the week leading up to our birth much the way a comet fires up the night at the birth of Chinggis Khaan eight hundred years ago. How after three nights of burning pain Mun’s appearance at first light explains everything, the midwife pointing to the birthmark on his neck, the woman disregarding the strange white membrane veiling his face. This is the reason why this birth is so difficult, she says, wiping the waxy skin with a rag. See?

  I picture my father leaning in, his eyes filling with wonder. The midwife angles the baby in her arms so that he can get a better look. It’s shaped like a piece of fire, she says. Aav stares a long time at the dark blue splotch on his firstborn child. Finally he smiles and nods. Then my mother’s stomach clenches again, and I appear in the world also as if sheeted, the membrane covering my face translucent as milk so that my father once again takes a knife and makes two slits for my nose and mouth until the midwife can peel back without injury what is essentially a living skin. As the midwife and our father tend to the tissue shrouding our newborn faces, our mother takes her last breath in this world and we become a household of men. My father, Övöö, and Mun and me. The story of the cauls shrouding our faces makes people believe we are old beings though at the time there are no holy men in Mongolia to come and discover us. During the first year of our lives the local people claim that the smoke rises out of our chimney in a straight line all the way up to heaven, the smoke like a white finger, the wind never carrying it away, as if someone is pointing down at us from an unfathomable height.

  How Are Your Animals Fattening This Season?

  In the sky the vultures are gone. All around us the grasslands are starting to wake. Within the hour we pass a flock being driven out to pasture by a small girl on horseback. Noyon beeps the horn and holds his hand out the window. The little girl watches us drive past. For a moment she spurs her horse and races along beside us.

  Noyon wants to talk. It is obvious that he is settling in for a long drive, his belly rising and falling more slowly as he sinks farther and farther into his seat. How are your animals fattening this season, I say, one of many traditional topics of conversation.

  It’s a good spring, he says, which can mean almost anything.

  Noyon, I say. Please forgive me. I am awake many hours.

  He nods. When you wake, we’ll talk of how the Rinpoche hears of the fickleness of the mail truck, he says, and how I am searching for you at his request. He takes another pull from his thermos. This animal-wrangling business happens because you need a ride, no, he says, but if you’re truly a thief, you should tell me now. He looks at me and winks. Just do whatever the Rinpoche is sending you to do, he says, adding, boltugai, may it be so.

  I remain silent, close my eyes, and empty my mind. For every act, there is a consequence; for every consequence, a source. Earlier tonight I perform among the wickedest of actions, animal wrangling, yet through a series of chance connections, I am allowed to walk free. May I always be mindful of each little mercy lavished on me. And when mercy is not given, may I accept its opposite with equal grace.

  Noyon pushes a cassette tape into the deck. The sound of whistling fills the cab, the music like a river flowing out of icy mountains.

  He-Who-Is-Always-Hooded

  Quickly I fall asleep. From the emptiness within, the dream world arises. In many ways, it is just as real as this world, maybe more so. How I dream of him every night for the past year. The folds of his scarlet robe pulled down over his head. Just his mouth is visible, a wry smile playing on his lips. The six syllables of the jewel-in-the-lotus mantra fill the air, though the figure’s mouth never moves. A chorus of voices intones the words, sending the skies rumbling, the sound of throat singing like thunder and sunlight.

  Sometimes he is standing at the edge of the steppes. Sometimes he is sitting in the lotus position by a river created by the snowmelt far off in the Altai Mountains. Other times he is stationed in the middle of a ger next to a grove of larch trees. I name him He-Who-Is-Always-Hooded, this reincarnation I am going in search of. He-Who-Is-Always-Hooded stands holding the ger’s center pole. The pole is topped by a wooden ring with slots spaced all around it so that when you insert the slats that support the roof it looks like a star. Orange and yellow rays shooting out in a perfect fiery circle.

  In the dream I never ask why he comes, if he is strong enough to shoulder the faith. I never ask why he travels here to the land of the eternal blue sky. Even Mun knows enough to let him be, my brother the heathen who worships only the memory of Chinggis Khaan and the empire of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries when Mongolia is the center of the universe. Mun who wears his long hair braided in one of the traditional styles as if he can go back to that period of time and be somebody of importance, a leader of men.

  Each time I wake I wonder if Mun has the same dream. If the same figure comes to my brother in the night wherever he is far from the shadow of Yatuu Gol, the caldera sleeping peacefully under a mantle of frost even in summer. I wonder if Mun bolts upright under the flickering sodium streetlamps of the capital and feels uneasy at the thought of this robed figure who is beckoning us to find him, or if in the blue-gray dawn my twin feels something stirring in his chest, a sensation forgotten in the course of this past year, the jewel-in-the-lotus mantra filling the horizon. Om mani padme hum. Om mani padme hum. Sometimes I like to imagine that a calmness settles over my brother before he falls back asleep, a tranquility that lingers when he rises in the morning.

  I have no doubt that Mun knows I am on my way. Not only are we brothers, we are twins, the same thin membrane covering our faces at birth. Because of it, I can see into my brother’s mind and he into mine, our experiences passing between us like books in a library. When the Rinpoche tasks me with this journey, I know he is charging both of us with it—my brother with the strength of the flesh and me with the strength of the spirit, together the two of us indomitable.

  Why Do We Need to Believe Our Lives Must Add Up to Some Grand Narrative?

  The sun is somewhat higher in the sky. I open my eyes. Outside the truck’s window the grasslands float as though they have no end. There are no lands more beautiful than this anywhere on earth. I imagine this is what the world looks like in the first verdant days of its birth. The endless blue skies, rolling green hills, wholeness.

  Where are we going, I ask Noyon. Already the shadowy outline of Yatuu Gol rising up out of the earth is falling into memory.

  Ulaanbaatar, of course, says Noyon. It is obvious he is pleased to have an excuse to drive to the capital. I am glad my pitiful existence can be of use to someone.

  When the only hope is a boat and there is no boat, I will be the boat. I close my eyes and settle in for the three hours it takes us to travel there. This is neither a beginning nor an end. If all life on earth is one chapter in the story of the universe, each cosmic night four billion years long, then am I allowed to write a page in the tale of existence, am I to be granted a single word? Does the story even matter or is the witnessing enough, the being aware of each moment of beauty and hardship along the path? And why do we need to believe our lives must add up to some grand narrative, and what happens when we stop believing this?

  On my wrist, the Rinpoche’s watch sounds the hour.