A child of the air

Crossing the wall was more than crossing from one place to another, leaving behind the pollution of humankind, it was crossing from one state of reality to another. Or beyond reality, to something transient, transcendent.

We found three Mongol ponies tethered, unattended, to a tree on the far side, and barely stopped to think, let alone look around, before we set off. We mounted, and you took the reins of the third pony in your hand, confidently steering yours with one hand and with your knees, as though you had been born to it. You took on the bearing of an ancient Sarkait, and sang to me in slow pentatones, harmonising with your breath as it passed over your lips like wind over an Aeolian harp.

We set our faces to the hills, at this point blue shadows on the desert horizon, and rode and rode from morning to evening.

For that first night, we did not unpack and build our yurt, but sat by a hasty fire, watching the moon and the constellations, and listening to the song of wolves. We leant against each other – I have no idea whether either of us succumbed to sleep – and your natural fragrance, strong in the open air, mixed with the woodsmoke and intoxicated me as no wine ever could. Not that we had wine in our skins, but we had water from whatever source we could find. I know I watched the dawn, heralded in purple, fading to aquamarine before it burst in eastern fire and dimmed the stars which had seemed so close during the night. I know that I felt your eyes upon me at some point, and that I looked for and met your smile with my own. But your eyes were alien, feral, full of wandering beauty and a challenge that was not entirely your own… and I marvelled at them, loved them, drank them in.

And on, and on we rode – you still humming and whistling your wild melodies – skirting camps and villages but waving to their shy denizens, stopping only to dicker for food and to hear stories of the way ahead.

Rock and scrub gave way to grassland, the nightly howling to the heavy breathing of the tiger, and here we did pitch our yurt and huddle safe beneath wooden blankets, our sleep deep and undisturbed by dreams. What are dreams anyhow, in a space like this wilderness? They blow away, they cannot be contained, they are sand. Sometimes it seemed I could hear your thoughts, but they were strange, in an arcane language, simply expressed but with meanings that slipped through my fingers like water. Your words to me were few, but your smiles were childlike and full of adventure.

When the grassland in turn gave way to wooded hills, the songs of birds came to us, and you ceased your humming, as if it was obsolete and drained of purpose. Instead you scanned the trees for flashes of colour, tilted your head to catch the further cries, sat erect upon your pony as a princess might. There was about you the serenity of a bodhisattva, but also the intensity of a youngster, a colt, a gazelle-kid about to startle and run. Your glance lingered upon the wayside shrines, now more common than their attendant villages – upon those which were in ruins, with the remnants of a holy, stone face peeking from behind the dark green and sudden, furious pink of a rhododendron, and those which were ancient but tended, with simple idols at whose feet posies had been laid. That look that you gave them was silent, contemplative, full of speculation in bond with recognition. And on, and on.

Valley tracks through the hills, and sluggish rivers, gave way to stony paths, mountain gorges, torrents, and to mists and clouds below us which gave unexpected, stark views of precipices and waterfalls. The calls of birds and the lush, deciduous woods gave way to silent air and the scent of pines. Here we could not expect to use out yurt, and loosed our third pony, slapping its rump to send it back down the way we had come, and to enrich some lucky villager. The wayside shrines, however, continued. They were as before, either tantalising hints at past purpose, or signs of continuing devotion, whether at the hand of some mountain-dweller unseen or of some pilgrim. We saw neither, but rode and rode, thinking ourselves upon the roof of the world until, at each turn in the track, higher ridges displayed themselves, and snow-caped peaks loomed above. Here we could only rest by the wayside, making bivouacs from our blankets, wondering silently about night-noises in the pines. But wondering was not fear – we had come too far for fear, and were now careless of our existence, as though we travelled towards the annihilation of Self.

At last we came to a place of subtle gongs and bells, and of chanting borne upon the breeze. It hung over space and over clouds, dizzying, as if to hint at heaven, austere, near to inaccessibility. Here we rested, neglected our ponies, and remained in a lodge open to the thin air of the mountains.

There, one night of utter, peaceful blackness – the stillness of which was broken only by the fluttering of prayer-flags – by some magic, we conceived.

One of us bore that child. I cannot recall which one, save both of us felt pain and joy at her coming. She was born into our poverty, like a Christ, for we had only the clothes we wore and the rice we could beg. But we called her our child of the air, for she had such wisdom in her infant eyes that it was clear even to us, broken as we were, that people would one day find their way to her – somehow – to hear. And to be heard.