Just inside the entrance to Gurvan Saikhan, we hopped on rented horses, which led us down a narrow footpath flanked by a rocky stream. Trotting into a valley that converged so tightly that we eventually had to continue on foot, we hopped off and tethered our horses.
Then, without any warning at all, the air grew cold. Confused and shivering, we made our way toward the chill’s source and rounded a bend to confront nothing less than winter itself. What we saw was what you’d least expect to see in the dead of summer: ice—an entire canyon of ice!
During the frigid Mongolian winter months, the Gobi’s Yolyn Am ice canyon grows to thirty feet thick and fifteen miles long, longer even than the island of Manhattan. Then, in summer, it partially melts, shrinking to a fraction of its former size. Still measuring an impressive fifty feet or so in length, the canyon forms a little chamber, an icebox of sorts, into which visitors can crawl and stay for as long as they like. Which is just what we did, spending the entire afternoon marveling over the profoundly strange nature of not only our day but our entire trip. Obviously, this last Gobi adventure had been Dergui’s grand finale, for good reason.
Then, after getting back on our horses, we reluctantly headed back to where Dergui was waiting for us. It was time to go home. And not just to Ulaanbaatar, but back to New York. At least that’s where I was headed. Although Meg would accompany me on the long train journey from Mongolia to China, we’d part ways in Beijing. Tobie would stay behind in Mongolia for a few more weeks.
CHAPTER 29
Homeward Bound
For the first time since Mongolia became a market economy, budget income will decline in the coming fiscal year. If we do not make any appropriate changes in reducing budget expenditures, the new tax law will yield no positive results. So, we have decided to begin to work to reduce expenditures.
—Interview, Mr. Bayartsaikhan, Ministry of Finance, MM Today broadcast
“Roll, Patricia, roll,” Batma said, showing me what to do with the boiled knuckles she’d presented to me. Meg and I had just returned from our trip to the Gobi, and we were spending our last day in Ulaanbaatar. The next afternoon, we’d board a train bound for China. As a parting gift, Batma had collected and cleaned eight livestock knuckles and had hand-sewn two tiny silk drawstring pouches to store them in—a pouch for Meg and a pouch for me.
I obeyed, rolling the knucklebone dice just as Batma had instructed. This was the Mongolian way to read a horoscope, and Batma wasn’t about to let me leave the country without making sure she was satisfied with my future.
“Oh,” was all she said as she frowned and pointed from the dice I’d rolled to the note card she was holding.
Written in English, the card was entitled “Complicated Fortune Telling” and it explained the implications of the knuckles landing in certain positions. Apparently, my toss of the dice had been particularly inauspicious. I’d rolled one of the two worst outcomes: “Your work and deeds won’t have any success,” it warned, making sure to capitalize the last word for effect. It seemed only marginally better than “With much gossips and bad quarrels.” Mongolian fortunes don’t mess around and Batma looked genuinely worried.
“I can try again?” I asked.
“Again,” she agreed.
Once more, I rolled the knucklebones, and Batma examined the note card.
“One will come or come back soon,” she read from the card, and we both exhaled, heaving a collective sigh of relief. Obviously it was crucial to leave Mongolia with tradition’s blessing, rather than its curse. After I finished packing, I put the knucklebones in my pocket and went for a walk. It was time to finally visit Gandan Khiid monastery.
Although I’d spent a summer passing through Gandan almost every day, I’d waited until my very last day in Mongolia to actually go inside its interior temples. Savoring this moment had definitely been the right thing to do. It was as if I’d needed to understand something about myself before I could understand anything about Mongolia, especially when it came to Gandan Khiid. Gandan Khiid, the only monastery left standing truly intact after Choibalsan’s and Stalin’s purges, is a true testament to the determination of spirit that is part of the very soul of every Mongolian I’d met thus far on my journey. That lesson wasn’t lost on me.
“No photo!” a little robed raisin of a man shouted at me as I paid for my ticket. Stepping into the hushed quiet, I stopped and stared in awe at an enormous Buddha statue, his heavy-lidded stone eyes gazing at a point somewhere just beyond me. Silently, I walked clockwise around the perimeter of the Buddha’s dais, spinning the worn metal prayer wheels as I went. Prayer wheels are like spinning tops, but much larger, the size of oil cans. They’re inscribed with flourishes of traditional script and skewered with wooden rods to stand upright. It is believed that as long as they remain spinning, the wheels pray for you, not unlike lighting a candle in a church and letting it burn long after you have left.
I continued to make my way clockwise around the temple. At the back wall, I faced a crowd of angry-looking painted wooden faces. Pausing for a moment, I wished them well and asked that they protect me from harm’s way as I headed back home to Manhattan. From behind the wall, I heard the resonant thrum of a low, guttural chant. Making my way out of the temple and sneaking around back, I sought the source of the chant.
The security guard shook his head at me until he saw my Mongolia TV anchor badge, which I’d worn just in case I’d find myself facing a moment like this one.
“Hut-lugch? Mongol Televit?” he asked.
“Yes, sir,” I said.
Grinning broadly, he clapped his hand on his knee. “Mongol Televit!” he declared, and jutted his chin in the direction of that resonating chant, granting me passage.
The chanting grew ever louder as I followed a narrow garden path toward a set of wooden doors. There was no handle, so I knocked, leaning gingerly into one of the doors. It creaked loudly and suddenly cracked. Splinters and thick chips of peeling paint flew in every direction, and I found myself tumbling into a room cloaked entirely in varying shades of red and gold.
Young student monks from the Buddhist University of Mongolia sat on cherry-colored velvet cushions, draped in flowing robes of burgundy and mustard undergarments. From the look of the books in their laps, they’d been studying Buddhist scripture. The monks stared at me and I stared back, but only for a moment. I’d made quite an entrance. Legs spread wide, like a basketball player waiting to be called up from the bench, one of the monks smiled, revealing beneath his robes a pair of high-top sneakers.
“Uchlarai.” I said. “Excuse me, I’m sorry.” I put their door back together and left as quickly as I’d entered. Still, the chanting went on, and I hunted for its source. Creeping up another flight of stairs, I followed the vibrations. They were so earthy and tactile that I could have shut my eyes and still found their source.
Down a bare cement hall, a door was ajar and I inched toward it. The chanting grew ever louder. Sitting at a polished wooden primary school desks, a dozen or so young boys with shaved heads faced a blackboard. All of them, even their instructor, were dressed identically in robes of deep red. Eyes half-shut, they were reciting hymns, growling melodiously and in resonant unison.
I’d finally discovered the source of the thrumming and chanting. Closing my eyes, I listened and my entire body vibrated in time with their mantras.
Quietly I made my way outside again, inhaling the pallid dust in the temple’s square, taking one last look at the towering temple and bright blue sky that served as its backdrop. It was time to go.
Back at home, Meg and I collected our luggage, bid a fond farewell to Batma and her family, and headed downtown. Together, we’d booked passage on the Trans-Mongolian sleeper car, traveling eastward from Ulaanbaatar to Beijing. The journey would last thirty-six hours, and both of us would spend much of it in silence, trying to figure out what was next.
“Patricia!” Gandima called out, just as Meg and I were about to board. “I must give this to you!”
she shouted breathlessly as she ran toward me.
Back at the station a week earlier, Gandima and I and the rest of the MNB staff had already said our good-byes, and I certainly hadn’t expected to see her again.
“Open it!” she cried, pushing a flat, wrapped parcel into my hand.
I tore at the wrapping and then smiled broadly. Gazing up at me was Genghis Khan, his face painted onto a canvas of rawhide. Easily the most ubiquitous souvenir available for purchase in Mongolia, Gandima had worried that I’d already bought one for myself. I hadn’t, and I hugged her.
“Gandima, thank you,” I said, my eyes welling up. “For everything.”
“One day, you will come back here,” she predicted.
Just then, the train whistle blew a final call, and Meg and I boarded, waving to Gandima until we pulled out of the station. Inside the tiny, carpeted train car, I sat and stared at the scenery slowly trundling past, wondering what on earth I would do once I got home.
CHAPTER 30
One Step Backward, Two Steps Forward
Currently, the Mongolian government is comprised of thirteen ministries, thirty agencies, eighteen offices serving the prime minister, president, and Parliament; and nearly 6,000 budget organizations. While budget income has been increasing annually since 1991, expenses have also been rising each year.
—Voiceover, English news, MM Today broadcast
And then, suddenly, I was back in New York.
Right away, I noticed that absolutely everyone seemed to be in a hurry. All around me, people were frantically typing on their smartphones, plugged into life and obligations. I was still unplugged and found all this very disconcerting. For the first time, I felt out of place in my own home.
My taxi arrived in front of my apartment building. I got out, and the doorman on duty just stared. I was dirty. My clothes were dirty. My backpack was enormous and dirty.
“I live here,” I said, offering him my name and unit number as proof, and he let me pass.
Once inside my apartment, I inhaled its familiar scent deeply. Removing my pack, I sat down at the kitchen counter. While I’d been gone, a friend had collected my mail. A stack of it now sat in front of me. I didn’t have much else to do, so one by one, I began opening bill after bill.
And then the phone rang.
Of course, it was always going to. If you’ve ever read Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist, you know that there’s a day of reckoning. On that day, you’ll be asked to decide between the certainty of the past or faith in the future.
“Hello?” I said reluctantly. I didn’t think anyone knew I’d returned, and I was more than happy to keep it that way, at least until I knew how to answer the obvious question: “So, what are you going to do next?”
“You’re back!” my old Credit Suisse boss said into the phone. In fact, it wasn’t exactly my boss I was talking to—it was my boss’s boss, and I couldn’t help but feel flattered to hear from him at all.
“So,” he said. “What are you going to do now?”
Of course, I didn’t know, and I said so.
“You should talk to J.P. Morgan,” he said authoritatively.
As I fingered the stack of bills in front of me and looked around my apartment at all the things I’d managed to accumulate, I found myself agreeing with him. “You’re right, I should,” I said, wincing at the last word.
Telling myself I would only meet J.P. Morgan just this once, I found myself in a series of interviews. After that, things happened quickly. Although I told myself I was powerless to stop what was happening, the truth is that I was looking forward once more to the feeling of responsibility.
A short time later, J.P. Morgan hired me. I was back in my old job, selling Foreign Exchange structures to hedge funds. Mongolia, and all that had happened to me while I was there, suddenly seemed like a lifetime ago, and that was just the way I wanted it, because it was the easiest way to handle it.
“There’s no meaning in life but money,” Les said to me early one morning soon after I’d started work. “It’s the joke that only bankers will ever understand.”
By this point, because I’d been out of the market for nearly a year, I’d been assigned to work with a colleague on some of the larger accounts I’d brought with me to J.P. Morgan. It was early 2007, the housing crisis was brewing, and markets were volatile and roiling. I’d need as much help as I could get, especially at a large and aggressive bank like J.P. Morgan. But although Les was my colleague, helping anyone at all appeared to be the last thing on his mind.
If someone were to create a caricature of the slickest, most soulless banker, Les would be it. About forty years old, he had greased-back hair and wore Ferragamo ties and designer suits. He lived in a loft in TriBeCa, owned a house in Connecticut, and commuted between the two in a flashy sports car.
On Monday mornings, he would regale the junior staff with stories of weekend nights spent with models, fine tequila, and rare cigars. Les could’ve been Patrick Bateman, the main character in Bret Easton Ellis’s American Psycho—he even looked like him. In fact, “Patrick Bateman” is what everyone called him, right to his face. And Les, for his part, would smile, clearly pleased with his nickname and his image on the trading floor. He was very good at what he did; Les had earned the right to enjoy his eccentricities.
Whenever Les would pontificate, he would take his time doing so. Halfway into a nugget of wisdom, he’d pause, deep in thought, accentuating concentration with his bulging eyes. Then, straightening his silk tie, he’d wink capriciously and repeat the same maxim every single time: “There’s no meaning in life but money.”
For Les, this was probably true. Not long ago, so the rumor went, his wife had left him for a younger man and had taken half his net worth in the divorce settlement.
Every morning, as soon as I arrived on the floor at six–thirty sharp, I’d take off my watch and place it on the desk in front of me, counting down the minutes until I could leave: 285 minutes until lunch and 645 until quitting time. Rain or shine, I always made sure to go for a walk at lunch, something that was vaguely frowned upon, especially since I chose a restaurant so far away from the building that I’d spend a guilty half hour getting there and back. Whether or not Les noticed, I never knew, but he hardly seemed to care. Somehow, I’d gotten sucked back into all of this. And so I willed myself to wait … for just one more bonus, just as I had before.
“Is this call being recorded?” a familiar voice inquired into the phone one afternoon.
“Phil, is that you?” A client for nearly a decade, since I’d begun my banking career, Phil had become a kind of mentor but not the kind of mentor that most bankers would want. Years earlier, when he was in his twenties, Phil been given one shot at his dream to become a musician. Taking well-intentioned advice from all the right people saying all the wrong things, he gave up on himself as the musician and instead pursued the corporate world. Some thirty years later, he still wondered what might’ve happened, if and only if. He’d offered me wise counsel based on his own experience with a truncated future, and needless to say, I dreaded the conversation I was about to have.
“Yes, we’re being recorded, but go ahead, say what you want.”
“What in the hell are you doing?” he demanded.
I knew what Phil meant, but I didn’t know how to answer. Phil was the only person in banking who knew what had happened to me just a few weeks earlier. I almost wished I hadn’t confided in him.
Just before committing to J.P. Morgan, I’d decided to give one last shot to my dream of becoming a foreign correspondent. “It’s now or never,” I thought, goading the universe into action. With that, I sent my resume and a tape of my anchoring experience to CNN. Not to just anyone at CNN, but to Jon Klein, then the president of CNN USA. Half of me was desperate for him to call; the other half was desperately hoping he wouldn’t. If he didn’t call, I could return to the safety and comfort of my old job and old life—and do so without any regrets.
But, incredibly
, he did call, and a few days later, I was sitting in his office. “So,” he’d said after politely introducing himself as if I didn’t already know who he was. “Why Mongolia?”
“My dream is to be a foreign correspondent,” I’d said. “So I went to Mongolia to follow my dream.”
“But what now? What do you want to do? Why are you here?” he asked pointedly.
He’d asked me as if I knew, so I told him as if I knew. But at that point, everything that had happened in Mongolia felt as if it had happened a lifetime ago. It just didn’t seem real anymore. So I took a deep breath and told him about my faded dream, leaving out the part about it being faded.
“Because I want to go to Baghdad,” I said, and I meant it. For years, I’d watched Christiane Amanpour report live from war zones, and still I wished I could do the same.
“Okay,” Jon Klein had said so simply that shivers ran down my spine.
Okay?
“Tony Maddox,” he’d said, printing Tony’s name and number on a piece of paper. “Call Tony by the end of this week. He runs CNN International, and he’ll be expecting you.”
Outside, it was snowing. For a long time, I stood on the corner of Fifty-Seventh Street in Manhattan, thinking. At some point, I’d have to choose between dreams and reality. Clearly, that time was now.
The following week, CNN flew me to Atlanta, and I was sitting across from Tony Maddox, executive vice president of CNN International. “Why Mongolia?” he’d asked, just as his New York counterpart had done. “And now?”
“And now,” I’d said, pausing to nervously lick my lips. “I’d like to go to Baghdad. To work as a correspondent for CNN.”
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