“Another round?” Evan asked.
“Bring it on,” I confirmed, narrowing my eyes seductively.
“Zuhn gram vodka!” he called out to the waitress again, ordering another pair of shots for both of us.
“Another round?” Evan asked a third time.
He hardly needed to ask. “I’m only getting thirstier,” I quipped.
Obviously, we were both about to take the easy way out of confronting the evolution of a platonic relationship into a romance. But that wouldn’t last long. In fact, it wouldn’t even last through the weekend.
“Let’s go for a walk,” I said suddenly to Evan. I’d had just enough liquid courage to broach the subject I’d spent the evening pondering.
It was late, nearly midnight, and it hardly seemed unusual to anyone that we were leaving, although we did field a few raised eyebrows for leaving together. Meg just waved me off and said she’d see me back at home. In fact, she seemed even less interested in our joint departure than the rest of our friends. Obviously, I’d misunderstood her intentions, but it was too late to turn back the clock. Anyway, I didn’t necessarily want to.
Once Evan and I had gone, I tried to gather the courage to say something, anything at all, but I just couldn’t. The only thing worse than talking about your feelings is being told that you’re the only one feeling them. Kicking at the dirt, we both seemed to try in vain to strike up a conversation, but it was no use. The weather had grown unbearably, sweaty-upper-lip hot that evening. There was only one place to seek some relief, and obviously it wasn’t at my Mormon host family’s apartment. Evan’s apartment was near Peace Avenue, and without any discussion whatsoever about where we were going, we made our way there.
Once inside, we kissed. It was a slightly drunken kiss, the sloppy kind that is not exactly born of sincerity, and we both knew it. But we didn’t figure that out until we’d ripped each other’s clothes off, only to find that neither one of us was ready to go on.
“Mac and cheese?” Evan said, interrupting the otherwise awkward moment.
“I’d love some,” I said, wondering where on earth he’d managed to obtain a box of American Kraft macaroni and cheese.
While he cooked, completely naked, I got dressed and sat in an armchair in his living room, watching him. What I couldn’t deny was that there was something to him, but what I just wasn’t sure about yet was if there was something to us.
Evan drained the pasta and mixed it with the cheese and butter. Turning back toward me, he held out a bowl of strategically placed late-night dinner that covered what his missing boxer shorts didn’t. We both laughed.
“I have a girlfriend,” he said suddenly into the choking silence of abruptly ended giggles. “Sort of,” he added, as if either the girlfriend or the “sort of” was something of an afterthought. Explaining that they’d only recently begun dating, he said it was too early to tell if there was a future in it.
“We’re deciding whether or not,” he paused, considering his words, “to care more.”
Carefully, deliberately, I put my unfinished dinner onto his coffee table. Considering my own words, I wanted to tell him that his macaroni and cheese was too salty. Instead, I looked at him for a long time, wondering just what to make of meeting someone so far away, under such unlikely circumstances, with such a serendipitous backdrop. Was this all that would come of it?
“The thing is,” he added finally, “I think I love her.”
“To. Care. More.” One by one, I repeated those three words back to him, gravely, wondering if they’d sound as baffling to him as they did to me. But they didn’t. He meant what he’d said; his brand of relationship wisdom was his truth. After all, he’d explained, he’d only just met her. While he was here, she was there, back in the United States, finishing up a law degree. He and his new girlfriend simply hadn’t had the time to think about their feelings for each other before he’d left for Mongolia. But now, well, now he was more certain of what he felt.
Still though, I was thrown. I’ve always thought that love, like destiny, happens to you. You don’t happen to it. So I told him all about the fortune-teller and his prediction. Evan just shrugged his shoulders, and I was left no clearer. The only thing I knew for sure was that it was time to go home. After all, we had a weekend in Khustain to resolve what was left of this. And that’s just what we’d do, although not in a way I’d have exactly expected.
Outside, it was nearly two o’clock in the morning, but I managed to find a taxi quickly. Back at home, I slid under the covers and fell fast asleep. Just a few short hours later, I woke up to the clank of breakfast dishes and running water. This could mean only one thing: it was time to forget about the night before and get up to prepare for my very first adventure into the Mongolian steppe. I peered outside at a glorious summer dawn. The sun was rising, rimming buildings and trees in radiant orange and ruby.
CHAPTER 14
The Steppe
Anika Moarzing, President of the Federation of the World Anesthesiologists’ Association, organized a series of training courses for local Mongolian doctors. These courses were aimed at enhancing the current practices and professionalism of doctors here in the country.
—Evening news voiceover, MM Today broadcast
Meg and I arrived at the bus stop, early and eager. Standing alongside our transportation, waiting for the others to arrive, we tapped our feet in the stillness and sipped cups of hot coffee. Finally, everyone arrived, and we were off. Evan and a friend had booked a car and were already on their way.
Politely, Meg had asked about my night with Evan, and I’d simply shrugged. “We’ll see,” was all I said.
As we drove west along Peace Avenue, the pavement gave way to a bumpy dirt road, which would soon give way to just bumps. I hung my head out the window, ingesting as much of the scenery as I could. Standing beside a wooden table at a street corner, an old man peddled an unlikely combination of fur pelts and cassette tapes, with a sign that simply read “KACCET,” handwritten in Cyrillic on a flap of cardboard. Trailing behind a clunky, cheddar-orange Soviet oil tanker, we watched the trappings of city life slowly exhaust themselves. Wide wooden plank boards mapped out property lines, but those, too, disappeared as we drove deeper into the countryside. Here, emptiness spilled out onto endless emptiness.
I dug through my pockets until I found my iPod. Listening to it was something of a luxury that had to be rationed. Without reliable electricity in the host family’s apartment, I was never sure which moment might be my last to listen to my music. Often, it seemed to complete the thoughts I couldn’t always complete on my own. I scrolled to find Bach’s cello suites and closed my eyes. As bow dipped into string, the swell of Yo-Yo Ma’s cello served as the perfect backdrop to the adventure we were embarking upon. The drawn-out notes rose and fell, just like the verdant hills and valleys.
All around me, the color green exploded, over and over again, wafting scents of rosemary and thyme as the van turned onto a dirt path. Not for the first time, I silently and incredulously remarked to myself, I’m here; I’m not there. Still, I could hardly believe it all, and opening my eyes once again to the brilliance of the beauty and the steppe only made it that much more incredible to me.
Five hours later, Meg and I were still pressed up against one another, feeling a little less eager, a lot less poetic, and definitely impatient. Finally though, we arrived. Although we’d driven only about sixty miles, the rough terrain made the trip slow going.
Khustain National Park is home to the Przewalski horse, a breed of horse so endangered that it’s already extinct—at least technically. In the wild, the Przewalski is extinct and has been since 1969. But in captivity, where breeding programs have all but saved the species, there are only about fifteen hundred horses left. And those horses, once they’re set free in a special protected zone in Mongolia, roam as if they owned the place all along.
Built like professional wrestlers, the Przewalski horses are short and squat with brassy blond or
auburn coats and taupe-colored mullet manes that are so scrub-brush stiff that they don’t swish in a breeze. Frankly, they have the burly body of Hulk Hogan and the haircut of Vanilla Ice.
What’s remarkable about the Przewalski horse is that it’s the only wild horse on earth, and you will be reminded of just that by anyone who’s ever come in contact with these majestic beasts. They look nothing like the lean and tall American Mustang, a breed that’s often given the dubious distinction of being wild, despite having once been domesticated. To put this into context for those of us who know little about horses, most animals on this planet are used as our food, our food’s food, our transportation, or for target practice. The Przewalski, however, has succumbed to none of these fates and has remained, all this time, wild.
We collected our bags from the bus and huddled in a group under the weight of a dense, sodden sky that had turned moody during the long drive. It was misty and unusually cool, a late-summer afternoon in the Mongolian steppe that felt more like early autumn in the Lord of the Rings. A neighborhood of gers dotted a dip in the valley surrounding us. From a distance, they looked like gigantic aspirin, neatly lined up in rows on a pharmacist’s counter.
Our group was large, about twenty people, and most of the travelers had decided to strike out on their own and camp. At thirty US dollars per night for room and board in a traditional ger, the fee was steep for most of the backpackers. On the other hand, camping was free, but it was also illegal. And because it was prohibited, there were no facilities. So even if you could sneak around the restrictions, the threat of rain was going to make a warm fire difficult to come by.
The solemn sky began to empty itself on us, and we fled to our accommodations—Meg and the rest of the group to set up their makeshift campsite, and Evan and Tobie and I and a few others to the ger camp. Evan and I were very clearly avoiding each other and the previous night’s conversation, but that wouldn’t last for long, because each of us needed a roommate in order to stay in a ger. Ours wasn’t the only group here, and accommodations were in limited supply.
“Pick a roommate!” someone shouted into the din of the noisy drizzle. Evan and I looked at each other, shrugged our shoulders, and gave each other a thumbs-up—a gesture of convenience, not of romance. Partnered up and hauling overnight packs, off we trotted to find our assigned gers.
All over Mongolia, gers are built with their doors facing south. This is done to keep out the intense heat of the summer sun and to keep in the warmth of sunlight during the cold winters. No matter where you go, you can tell which direction you’re traveling just by seeing a ger and the location of its front door.
Crouching into the low painted entryway of the little round felt house, we deposited our bags on two of the three beds that lined its rear wall. An old-fashioned stovepipe was at the center, made of a thin aluminum. Although the gers in our compound were used as permanent hotel accommodation, nomads use them as portable homes. From the stovepipe to the felt walls, everything is lightweight enough to be carried by people and horses to fresh grazing pastures, season after season, year after year. While Evan and I unpacked, we made just enough small talk to assure each other that, really, everything was just fine. But not long after, the silence became unbearable. Mercifully, there was a tap at the door, and we both rushed to answer it.
“We’re all going for a hike,” one of the other group members said, inviting us to join them. The rain had stopped for a little while and the fragrant steppe was hushed.
Low stone ridges gave way to gentle craggy peaks. As I inhaled the subtle scent of herbs in the shifting wind, I marveled that maybe—just maybe—I was hiking one of the very trails that Genghis Khan had roamed eight centuries earlier. After all, given my surroundings, it wasn’t exactly a stretch. Although Mongolian cities have modernized extensively since the fall of Communism, the countryside’s prairies were left just as they had been long ago. With few roads, fewer modern facilities, and no buildings other than the gers, visitors end up marveling that they’ve somehow stepped inside a time machine and turned back the dial very, very far.
I dropped back from the group, watching Evan up ahead, holding court again with another of his parabolic tales. A long time later, he was still telling it, everyone was still laughing, and we were only halfway up the same stubbornly steady incline. So vast, so expansive is the Mongolian countryside, that it’s impossible for the naked eye to measure distance on a scale of footsteps. Contemplating the last of my coveted chocolate stash that my mom had sent with me to Mongolia, I thought about Evan and the conversation we’d had. No matter which way I looked at it, it came back to me from a distorted angle. Only one thing was clear, though, and that was that I still had the weekend to figure a few things out about him—and myself.
Suddenly, the sky shuddered, groaned, and spit a squall of icy summer rain all over our party. It was time to head back, and not a moment too soon. Like bees threatened from their hive, we evacuated, moving as a tightly knit shadow, swarming determinedly down the craggy hillside, past all those deceptively low ridges that we’d have to save for another day. Back at the mess hall, indulging in tall glasses of cold lager and bowls of hearty mutton stew and pasta, I found Tobie.
After the fruitless steak dinner with the horse researcher back in Ulaanbaatar, he and I had done our own homework on Khustain. It was then that we discovered that none other than Julia Roberts had been involved in the 1999 making of a documentary about the region and its Przewalski horse tenants. Obviously, the story we’d pitched had been upstaged by a Hollywood starlet. Tobie and I would have to bring a different angle to a tale that had already been told, or we’d have to tell another one entirely. We would end up doing neither; instead, a story would find us.
In the meantime though, we’d see for ourselves what all the fuss in Khustain was about. We were determined to try to get a glimpse of these famed horses, called takhi in Mongolian. This wouldn’t be easy. Like all horses, the takhi are shy, but like few horses, they roam freely across a massive national park. Actually, seeing one would be a real treat, but would require a bit of luck and some transportation that we didn’t have. The Mongolian man who’d driven us to Khustain had left us behind many hours earlier and taken his keys with him. But—it just so happened—he’d left his van behind.
Tobie and I finished our dinner, and along with the rest of the group, set off on foot. Although the rain had let up, dusk was falling; there wasn’t much time to find the Przewalski—until someone in our group came up with the genius idea to, temporarily anyway, steal the driver’s van.
“I’ll hot-wire it!” the backpacker had shouted in that fearless, bulletproof sort of way you do when your determination is dogged. He’d said it as if hot-wiring were an everyday task for him, and who knows, maybe it was. So, with impressive ease, he did as he’d promised, and in no time at all, the van’s engine was rumbling. We all piled in and kept our eyes peeled. And it’s a good thing we did, because the first species we spotted was our driver, and he was furious. But not for very long. Just as I turned around to peer out the dusty back window and see him beating the air with his fists, we were all treated to a magical sight.
There, in a meadow at the base of the valley alongside the dirt path, was a group of endangered Przewalski horses. Side by side they stood, observing us as coolly and carefully as we observed them.
In the 1970s, a small Dutch group formed the Foundation for the Preservation and Protection of the Przewalski Horse. At the time, it was estimated that as few as three hundred of these wild horses were still alive. Worse still, the last time anyone could remember having even heard about a Przewalski sighting, only one had supposedly been seen. Of course, this makes for very lonely mating and procreation activity. So, in an effort to salvage the species, now facing extinction in the wild and in captivity, the Dutch foundation bought several barely related male and female horses from zoos, turned down the lights, and let them go at it. It didn’t take long for the foals to arrive, and not long aft
er that, in 1992, the foundation began shipping horses back to Mongolia, where hundreds of them roam in a mostly free existence in Khustain National Park.
“Stop!” the driver barked hoarsely behind us. But he didn’t give us the dressing-down we deserved; instead, his jaw dropped. “Takhi,” he whispered in awe, captivated by what had captivated us.
“Camera?” someone finally suggested. Keeping our eyes trained on the distant horses, we slowly, deftly dug into our pockets and bags to find our cameras. One false move, we knew, would ruin this photo op for good.
Startled by the sounds of zippers and human voices, the horses seemed to confer with each other. Then, as if on cue, they playfully pranced away, gracefully spurning us. Adobe-matte coats and stiff taupe mullet manes didn’t budge an inch in the musky breeze. As Julia Roberts put it in her documentary, the takhi look like zebras but without the stripes. Effortlessly, the pack glided away, trailed by misty curls of foggy dusk. It was almost as if we were the exhibit in their zoo, rather than the other way around. For a long time, all of us stood stock still in the enveloping darkness.
CHAPTER 15
Another Dream, Another Dreamer
A third Mongolian athlete will be going to the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Pistol shooter Miss Munkhzul has taken fourth place in the world championship of shooting. Over 100 participants from forty countries competed in a shooting event in the Croatian city of Zagreb.
—Lead story, MM Today broadcast
This time, with the official driver behind the wheel, instead of a teenaged backpacker, we returned to our gers and campsites. The campers spent the evening tending to a sputtering fire, eating dry soup packets mixed with lukewarm water while Evan and Tobie and I were treated to a night of unexpected entertainment.
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