Go Inside the Door in the Mountain

This is what I know, rasps Little Bat. In the firelight his eyes gleam like precious stones. I am born in Amdo Province, he says. His Holiness is born in the same province in 1935. It is a land much like your Khentii, the birthplace of Chinggis Khaan. Hills and valleys, green everywhere. Do you know we are also the descendants of the Khaans? Many of the first settlers in Amdo are Mongols. Our lifestyles are similar—nomadic, summers in the mountains with our animals, the yak predominant, winters down in the valleys. But I have no memory of true nomadic life. All this is before. The Chinese invade Tibet in 1950. I myself am born in 1970. The Chinese force the nomads to settle, to become farmers. And so my grandfather builds a small house, the woodsmoke blackening the interior over time.

I don’t know what is lost through the years. When my parents can afford the fees, we go to school. I am the fourth of five children. School is expensive. An uneducated population is easier to control. At the start of the day they raise and lower the Chinese flag. We are forced to learn Chinese. I go to school less and less. My brothers and sister, my neighbors, we go less and less. I don’t know things should be different.

As kids, one of our favorite things to do is to climb a small nearby mountain up to the very top and play in an old cave where a holy man once lives. It is long abandoned. The cave has a wooden door wedged in the entrance, the thing rotten in places. A red bucket of dirt sits beside the door, a few weeds poking out of the soil. Inside the cave it is always dark, but as children we play there, pretending it is our house and that we are adults. Sometimes I pretend I am a holy man.

One night when I am seven years old, I see a light shining on the mountain. It’s late fall. I get up to go to the bathroom in the place we use outside. The moon is up. I have no shoes on. I can see a glow coming from the mountainside as if a small fire is burning. There is nothing else to say. I go to it. It’s like a dream. In a dream, there is never any question of whether or not you perform some act. You just do it. So I go. I am barefoot. The night air is cold but somehow I am not cold. When I get near the top, I see the wooden door. It looks new, the wood fresh and without rot. There are prayer flags flapping among the rocks. A small tree is growing in the red bucket by the entryway. One white blossom blooming in its branches.

The door is cracked open. There is a soft glow coming from inside. Light pours around the doorframe. I put my foot in the crack. I don’t use my hands. I want it to seem as if the wind blows it open, like it is not an act performed by me. The door swings open and I wait for something to happen, for someone to yell at me to go away. There is only silence. I stick my head in. Then I go inside the door in the mountain.

Most times when I play there with my siblings, the cave is empty, but now there are a few chests, some blankets, cooking utensils, a bucket filled with water, the cave transformed as if all this time somebody is living there. And everywhere small candles burn solidly, their flames unwavering, even with the door open. They never seem to give off smoke. They never burn out.

I walk around and look at everything. I run my finger along a musical instrument which appears to be a human bone decorated with coral. In one corner there’s a small altar, on it a silver bowl filled with fresh water. I dip my finger in. When I pull it out, my finger feels warm and tingly. I feel the warmth begin to travel up my arm. I know it is moving toward my heart. I’m not scared. I wait to let what may happen happen. When it reaches my heart, a contentment comes over me that never leaves even until this very day. I walk over to one of the chests and open a hidden drawer in the side of it. Somehow I know exactly where the drawer is and how to open it. Most people wouldn’t notice there is a drawer. But I know.

Inside the drawer are a handful of drawings, sketches of landscapes, one of a very beautiful woman, her hair plaited like a horse’s mane. And at the bottom of the drawer I find a second secret compartment. A kind of false bottom. I lift the cover and there it is.

I study the photograph a long time, says Little Bat. The image is faded and cracked, but it holds me. I look at it until it is burned in my heart, until I know every detail of it. If I put it back in the false bottom and close the drawer, my life would be different.

Little Bat stops talking. I look at Mun, but my twin is somewhere far away. I don’t have any idea where this story is going. The fire hisses and pops. I feel my own toes begin to throb.