The foreign man sitting before her begins to say something. It is obvious he is complaining. The woman holds up her hand. To me it sounds as if she is speaking sharply with him, but maybe this is just the way people in the capital talk, or perhaps this is how foreigners treat one another all the time. The man shakes his head, but he doesn’t get up from his chair.

  Oh, and don’t forget I put a hold on the 66 for three weeks, Mun says.

  For what? The way Tuul transitions between languages, as if simply stepping over a puddle.

  Remember? Mun says. Private tour. He winks at me.

  No way, says Tuul, swiveling in her chair toward a computer. I don’t care about the car, she adds, it’s you I can’t lose.

  Relax, says Mun, I’m not going. Ganzorig’s driving. At the name, Tuul shakes her head. I wonder what’s wrong with Ganzorig. I can sense that Mun also has reservations about him. You see my brother over there, Mun asks, pointing to me. I am standing by a bookshelf filled with notebooks in which past customers share written reviews. Says Martin K. of California, Tuul is the best, but get out of UB into the countryside as soon as you can. I see Tuul fix her eyes on me. I put my palms together and give a small bow.

  Tuul gives me a quick bow in return. She looks startled to see a monk in her office. I notice a small prayer wheel sitting on her desk. Where’s this private tour headed, she asks. Even though we are identical twins, I can tell she doesn’t believe we are related. Mun with his scruffy beard, his hair in two shiny braids, the abomination tattooed on his arm, and me with my shaved head, my scarlet robe.

  Top-secret Buddha mission, Mun says.

  Some specifics would be nice, she says.

  Mun ignores this. Three, he says.

  One, she counters.

  Mun keeps fiddling with the candy wrapper. Come on, he says. Two weeks.

  I’ll give you twelve days maximum.

  Shit, my brother thinks in English, but he looks at her and grins. Great, two weeks with Ganzorig it is, he says. Tuul sighs but doesn’t contradict him.

  The western expletive echoes in my mind. Right thought, right speech, right deeds. It is sufficient to rest in the unabsolute unceased, I think, filling both my mind and my brother’s with this calming mantra. My twin glares at me. A few western tourists stop what they are doing and look around with puzzled expressions. They are probably wondering what this sudden tingling is they sense in the air.

  I feel my brother internally stiffen though he doesn’t let it show. Fourteen days to drive across the country and back. For a moment I get a flash of his thoughts. Ganzorig is Tuul’s nephew, which is why she keeps him on despite his proclivity to hit every sinkhole, get stuck in every river. In a land with few highways, two weeks means little to no sleep and no room for mistakes.

  Mun lays the candy wrapper on Tuul’s desk and grabs another handful of sweets. Already he is walking out the door with the clipboard. As I follow him out, I glance at the small offering he leaves on her desk, the candy wrapper expertly folded. I look again even though I see it forming in his mind as he brings it to life in his hands. Who is this being who resembles my brother but is not my brother? The thing winks at me as I hurry out the door. A tiny silver penis as delicate and beautiful as an origami crane.

  Where I Walk, He Runs

  Tonight at sundown my destiny awaits behind the gates of Gandan Tegchenling Monastery. At the thought, I pull my robe tighter around my body, elongating my spine so that it is not rigid but firm, my posture a reflection of my inner life. I must wait until this evening to find out why the world brings me here and who it is that I join in this journey.

  From my seat in the middle of this crowded shuttle bus filled with tourists, I watch my brother grip the wheel. These tourists may be here to see Naadam, but I am here to mentally goad my brother into remembering his true self; it is imperative that he aid me in my quest. My brother and I are opposites in every way. Where I walk, he runs. When I look to the stars and see the emptiness at the heart of all things, the nothingness my twin sees is a kind of nihilism. We handle our connection in different ways. When I want to keep Mun from my mind, I imagine whiteness, the snowy steppes, winter as far as the eye can see, the ice on a mountain lake, the ice deep as the standing height of a man. In Mongolia, it is easy to fill one’s thoughts with visions of snowy vistas. Winter here is like a visiting relative who refuses to leave.

  To sever our connection Mun prefers fire. When he has a secret, I feel a heat building in him. I know not to probe, not to reach out and touch the burning stove, the red-hot iron, not to put my hand in the flame or risk the bubbling of skin, the instant blister, my mind seared like a piece of meat.

  Ever since our days as children at Yatuu Gol, our connection grows both stronger yet more tenuous. Since learning to quiet our minds, to live the life of the spirit, we each establish methods of strengthening our defenses against the other, though Mun’s strength is greater than mine, as he is the Redeemer Who Sounds the Conch in the Darkness, the heat of his inner eye unbearable. There is a place inside him, a spot the size of a grain of dust, but in this place deep within my brother radiates an infinite heat as well as an infinite anger. It is where he keeps his truest secrets from me, his twin, the one who shares the womb with him those long nights when we feed from one cord inside our mother. It is a place I am unable to access. A place that is completely off-limits. To touch this spot in Mun, to try to open it, would be worse than walking on the sun. He develops this spot as a child during our first months in the monastery. It is the place I can never go. It is more forbidden than even the Great Taboo where Chinggis Khaan is buried eight hundred years ago in the province of Khentii. I cannot imagine what it is to live with such a place inside me. I would cut this burning out of my twin, this spot like a cancer, but it is what fuels him, his eyes flaming at the mention of his spiritual name. When I think of the fiery space Mun hollows out within himself, this is what I imagine one would find there: memories of his previous lives, blocks of charcoal.

  Even now as he drives these tourists through the city on this day of national sport, I can sense that he is already on to the next thing, already trying to work out what lies waiting for him beyond this day, and how he might benefit from whatever may come. And for me, I must spend this day being the small voice he hears above the flames, the voice that says: individually the self is nothing. But tonight the moon should look different here under this new sky. I must remember the Eight Reminders of the eleventh-century mystic Milarepa and not be tempted by the urban life surrounding me:

  Castles and crowded cities are the places

  Where now you love to stay,

  But remember that they will fall in ruins

  After you have departed from this earth.

  Pride and vainglory are the lure

  Which now you love to follow

  But remember, when you are about to die,

  They offer you no shelter.

  May my twin remember the refuge of the Triple Gem. May the temptations of this floating world not engulf us both!

  To Know the Self, One Has Only to Listen

  There are eleven people on the shuttle bus. They’re mostly young western couples, backpackers taking what in their language is called a gap year. The concept is mystifying to me. I cannot understand it, as the idea of searching for oneself through travel seems counterintuitive. As if self-knowledge can be attained through globe-trotting. To know the self, one has only to listen, to slow the mind’s inner dialogue and be content with the world as it truly is and not as one wants it to be.

  Quickly I come to understand why Mun is so valuable to Tuul. He is both guide and driver, his English impeccable, his cheekiness an asset with the less formal westerners. This morning as we load ourselves onto the shuttle, I sit down next to a young woman traveling alone. Her toenails sparkle a brilliant cobalt blue. When I first sit down beside her, I apologize for my English. Even with Mun’s fluency in the back of my mind, I cannot call on his knowledge quickly enough to mirror his proficiency. I can understand what is being said, but it takes me time to craft a response. The woman looks at me and coolly nods, then proceeds to seal a door closed between us. Outside the window I watch the city pass in silence. I try to make myself as small as possible. From time to time I glance at my watch only to discover that it is only a few minutes later.

  As we file out of the shuttle bus, my brother tells his charges that Naadam is the country’s biggest holiday, a day of national sport, a holiday bigger than even Tsagaan Sar, the Mongolian New Year. The largest Naadam competition is held right here in Ulaanbaatar, which means “Red Hero,” he explains, but all over the country throughout the month of July, people compete in what are called the three manly sports of wrestling, archery, and horseback riding. He pantomimes each activity with an unlit cigarette clamped between his fingers.

  The opening ceremony lasts an hour. I continue to sit next to the woman with the blue toenails. We watch as the procession of parade floats circles the National Sports Stadium, the people marching in wearing traditional dress, their furs gleaming in the July heat. Mun sits at the other end of the bleachers, a row of tourists between us, his earbuds firmly in place. Each time I reach out to him with my mind, there is nothing but silence. Eventually I stop and watch the performance.

  By western standards there is nothing spectacular about the ceremony. No pyrotechnics explode in a brilliant shower, no performers magically suspended in the air. Though the heyday of the USSR is long over, the parade floats still call to mind Soviet-era contraptions with their thick lines and abstract geometrical shapes, their pastel colors sugary in aspect. Then the cavalcade of animals enters including the two-humped camels of the Gobi and the wild horses of the steppes, these creatures paraded in among beasts as mundane as sheep and goats while a battalion of singers and dancers fluidly morph into complex formations in the infield, singing traditional songs. A child marches into the stadium bearing a golden eagle on his arm, the bird as large as a small leopard. At the end of the ceremony, the nine white horse tails of Chinggis Khaan are paraded into the stadium on long poles, what Mongolians call a sulde, a spirit banner, each one like a head composed entirely of hair, this symbol of our nation’s former glory.

  After the opening ceremony, the wrestlers enter the stadium, each one almost naked. Men big as mountains, their bodies culled from a time of giants. Only their shoulders are covered in the traditional zodog, the garment that sheaves the arms but leaves one’s chest bare. According to my grandfather, the zodog originates in the days of Chinggis Khaan after a particularly fierce competitor throws half the army to the frozen ground over the course of a single night. I remember Övöö relaying how, as the winner looms victorious in the circle of fiery torches, the victor triumphantly rips off his shirt, exposing two pale perfectly formed moons of what prove to be her breasts. I imagine the defeated men slinking off into the darkness, their skin flushing at the shame of losing to a woman. Now men wrestle bare-chested, leaving nothing in doubt. Similarly, the tight-fitting shuudag makes evident the sex of each competitor, the briefs red or blue and so short there is nothing for an opponent to grab on to.

  As tradition dictates, each wrestler slaps his thighs and performs a dance as he enters and exits the match. Some competitors float their arms up and down in the style of the golden eagle. Other stalk about like lions or tigers. Now there is a rule that a match can go no longer than three hours. Some years ago two titans face each other for the title. For hours the men trade positions back and forth, first one man on the brink of throwing the other, then the second finds a reserve somewhere deep within and reclaims the dominant position. This goes on through the evening and into the night, the moon shining down on them as if cupping the opponents in her silvery palms. There are long spells where both combatants appear to be sleeping, the two men holding each other up like dancers. Finally, in the early hours of the morning, the loser places his foot in such a way that he simply slips to the earth, conversely the winning man as if gently laying a lover down to sleep. No one cheers.

  If One Gets the Opportunity to Touch the Winning Horse

  After an hour of watching men throw each other to the ground, our group departs to wander the grounds outside the National Sports Stadium. The archery competition is already underway. Everywhere arrows fly through the noonday air, their bright and colorful fletchings made from the tail feathers of the demoiselle crane. I can hear the arrows whistling in their flight like water boiling in a kettle. Though the sun is at its hottest, the contestants wear long belted robes and the traditional hat with the golden spike, the thing shaped like a cairn atop a hill. Here even women compete. I watch a young woman in blue walk up to the line and take aim. When the archer draws, she uses only her thumb to pull the string back. As a child I am never any good at it, my thumb seemingly bleeding before I even lift the bow. The woman lets go and the arrow hits just inside the bull’s-eye.

  A little after noon we reboard the shuttle bus for the long drive out of the city to watch the third manly art, though it is an art practiced by children, including girls. Much of the population of Ulaanbaatar is also headed to watch the horse race, the animals covering upward of thirty kilometers. If one gets an opportunity to touch the winning horse after it crosses the finish line, it is said that one is guaranteed good fortune for the rest of the year. In this, my brother and I do not hide our hopes from each other. We are both anxious to lay our hands on the sweaty flank of the winning animal. In the coming days we are hungry for all the good fortune this world sees fit to grant us.

  At the wheel of the shuttle bus Mun makes a sharp turn. The woman with the blue toenails and I slide into each other, our shoulders touching, the bare skin of my arm surprised by the heat of her body. Then suddenly we are driving up on the sidewalk, the shuttle avoiding the occasional park bench, pedestrians moving off to the side, though undisturbed by our presence as we are not the only ones to seek a new path out of the city. This is how one drives in Mongolia. We are horsemen and the sons of horsemen, on and on back to the first generations born under the eternal blue sky. We make a way where there is no way. We drive our cars as if they are animals.

  The shuttle slows down as even here on the sidewalk there is traffic. The woman with the steely blue nails closes her eyes. We are still pressed together. I feel the whisper of where her shoulder brushes mine as we continue to slide into each other like water lightly tumbling over stones. A light turns on in my chest. This is the first time I ever touch a woman in such a manner.

  It is all I can do not to hold myself there, the skin of my shoulder pressed to hers, our shoulders briefly kissing. I breathe deeply. The sunlight flashing on and off on the side of my face closest to the window as the shuttle bus slips among the city’s shadows. I recall the first time my brother fully touches a woman. It shames me to acknowledge that what I know of physical love I know only through the actions of my brother and our shared mind. The feel of the girl’s palms on his shoulder blades. The unexpected smoothness of her body, the steeliness of it as well, the heat.

  The morning after he first touches a woman, I encounter him in the hall when he sneaks back into the monastery, the light dawning like a new frontier, my look filled with reproach. My twin stares me full in the face, his eyes ablaze with Hayagrīva, the Horse-Necked One, the ferocious deity whose energy the senior monks are teaching him to channel. Mun’s nostrils flare with defiance. Now you know, he sneers. Then he shuts me out of that part of his life forever. I am never again to experience the touch of a woman through him. In a way, I am grateful that he seals me off from such things. When it comes to my twin and what I can only assume are his innumerable conquests, I would rather be left in the dark.

  Then just as easily the road curves, the shuttle bus veering, and with that, this blue-toed stranger and I slide apart. Maybe this is what happens when two people fall out of love. The path on which they are traveling together simply bends. This past year maybe this is what is happening between my brother and me. Perhaps our paths are about to reconnect.

  Come with me, Brother, I think, sending my thoughts through the air. It is like shouting into a raging fire. In return, all I feel is silence and unquenchable heat.

  The Leader of Ten Thousand

  Listen without distraction: the worst day of my life occurs when I am seven years old. That is the age at which children are allowed to participate in Naadam, though sometimes a younger child who is bigger than his peers manages to slip among the contenders.

  That year as Naadam approaches, it is all Mun can talk about. Summer nights before bed he shows me the space on the altar next to a picture of our mother in front of a backdrop of the Great Wall of China. After I win it, the medal goes here, he says. Each year, the winner is granted the title “Leader of Ten Thousand,” though the most skilled rider does not always cross first. In thirty kilometers anything can happen; one year the winner crosses the finish line asleep in the saddle. Now that he is old enough, Mun wants to be the leader of ten thousand. Of the two of us, Mun is the better horseman, but he is too cunning, too impatient, too ready to kick the horse in the ribs to spur it onward, domination the only way he knows to communicate with the animal.

  Two weeks before Naadam, Mun climbs up on Övöö’s stallion, the one without a proper name. Our grandfather holds to the old ways that one never names an animal anything besides its color. About a kilometer from our homestead the beast throws my twin to the ground, breaking his wrist. Later, Mun claims a marmot startles the horse, but none of us believe him. Övöö says his horse is part wolf. This is the reason Mun and I are not allowed to ride him. Even our father prefers to walk long distances rather than try to saddle Övöö’s stallion.