An Hour to Sundown

We stop to make camp. Tomorrow we should arrive at Khövsgöl Nuur and the summer settlement of the Reindeer People. Already we are in Khövsgöl aimag, Mongolia’s northernmost province, a region famed for its beauty. After dinner, Saran piles the dishes in a plastic bucket and heads off toward the river. One of our water jugs is empty so I grab it and follow along. The spot where we choose to spend the night is idyllic. A lazy river winds its way through the landscape. The grass is filled with dung, the small black pellets that signify goats and sheep, and the large coiled droppings of yaks. A small herd of horses clusters on the far side of the river. The sun is still up though rapidly sinking.

I hold my free hand out at my side, dragging my palm through the tops of the grass, the long blades tickling my skin, the stems bowing down around me as if I am a boat cutting through water. Everywhere the loud mechanical stirring of insects in the grass, an impromptu symphony, the grasslands a metaphor for the mindlessness we attempt to achieve each day through meditation. In places, the grass is knee-high, its feathery tips gone to seed. With each step clouds of grasshoppers rise up in the air, my legs tickled by hundreds of tiny wings, the chirruping of insects like a sonic aura around me.

At the river’s edge I dunk the jug. Instantly my knuckles start to ache. The water is cold. Siberia lies just on the other side of the Sayan Mountains. Despite the livestock, we drink freely of the rivers, usually boiling the water first but not always. The jug should be heavy when full, but we are not too far from camp and I should be able to manage it. Here by the river Saran and I have just enough distance for a conversation that can’t be carried on the wind to other ears. Lightning flashes in my mind. This is another first for me.

Before this moment, I am never completely alone with a woman.