Bill had mentioned that Altai might be reserved at first (the first time they met, Altai was representing an opposite argument than Bill's on some issue, but once she was done being Tough Lady they became good friends) and she was rather quiet. I sat a little awkwardly in the only chair there, which had me facing her directly as she sat at her desk. I balanced my laptop on my lap and Altai came in and out for meetings, and on one of her swings through placed a bag of Haribo gummi bears next to me along with three bottles of water. I wrote once about attending my friend's family Thanksgiving dinner as "a zone of grace: no end point", and this is another moment I would describe as such (though depending on how enlightened I am on a particular day I suppose it's possible to describe all moments as such): all that was inside that room was all that was needed, was grace.
We're still figuring out the best way to accomplish a faithful translation while accounting for the fact that she's quite busy; after she explained the theme of the first story and I confirmed that the theme had come through in Dashdavaa's preliminary translation I felt pretty comfortable not bothering her with any more general questions and going ahead with the revision work. For lunch she drove us to Gandan Monastery, where her mother works (and where I went with the National Library Director, Dr. Akim, last lunar new year to meet up with some monks and a golden Buddha statue for a caravan into the Gobi). Gandan is one of the peaceful spots in the cold, crowded grime of Ulaanbaatar, and an easy walk from the city center. I'd go there often by myself on Saturdays. Today in Gandan's parking lot there were busloads of girls in what looked like music-video style schoolgirl outfits and black pantyhose--it turned out to be the national day for college graduation and those were actual schoolgirl outfits. (Needless to say, the young Mongolian women looked *awesome*.)
I had a little video camera out the whole time and Altai was quietly amused. Two good friends of mine from New York (I met Julia 4 years ago in Paris and Alex is her lucky husband) who know things about editing and film took a look at my youtube channel, which is mainly Mongolia Montages, my last night in New York. We were in Ditmas Park (where I lived with 5 people from Turkey, Turkmanistan, and the Phillipines for 5 months) and they were helping me wrap my mattress in trash bags to go on top of Alex's car in the rain. I was getting a kick out of dropping my trash bags from my window on the 3rd floor to the building's trash pile directly below, partly because I suspected people aren't really supposed to do that, and partly because it required good timing on my part: it was a Jewish holiday, and the Orthodox Jews on whose neighborhood I was encroaching were walking in silent bands of five or six with their wonderful hats on and tassles swinging, and I had to time the drop of the trash bag for when there were no behatted guys around to accidentally drop it on. Julia and Alex took a look at the silly little movies that I'd taken with a camera meant mainly for digital photos and decided to outfit me with a better video camera this time around--and they'll lend their expertise to the editing! Anyhow, it was through this camera-toting and recording that one of Altai's first musings came to my ears: "I really like pictures of doors and windows," she said as we came into the compound and watched me film, "especially if they're open."
We walked along the hall of Gandan, which was completely closed during the Soviet period and still undergoing renovations, and she asked if I was religious.
"I'm spiritual," I said.
"You look spiritual," she said. I laughed; my hair somehow got really long lately and I was walking beside her in a motorcycle jacket, torn jeans, sneakers, and my usual colorful jewelery.
I asked her the same question and she responded that like most Mongolians she is Buddhist; her stories deal with Buddhist themes without being overt/didactic but the questions of time and eternity and peace central to Buddhist introspection are certainly there in her fiction.
We passed a gazebo-like structure that young men in red and yellow monks' robes were painting and restoring. Down the cold hall another young man was tracing a beautiful image of a mermaid on the floor. I asked why he was tracing, and the answer was "improvisation", so I think something was lost in translation there. In the adjoining rooms many more monks sat on the floor, practicing calligraphy. Altai spoke to someone on the phone and I heard a voice on the other side of the wall, speaking whenever Altai didn't, and sure enough, we exited the building and found Altai's mother on the other side of the door, a thin older woman with kind eyes. We walked to the monastery's cafeteria and ate mutton dumplings with soup. Both Altai and her mother are quite busy and these quiet lunches a few times a week are their chances to catch up.
My Mongolian, after 10 months of going unused, has really taken a hit, especially in auditory comprehension but I communicated haltingly with Altai's mother and asked her what she did there: she was the monastery's news editor.
Altai said, "I think my mother is a great lady because she was a teacher, and after she retired she started coming to Gandan to take classes. Then she graduated from here and started working with their newspaper."
Altai's mother asked me what I thought of Altai's stories, and I said in my limited Mongolian that I liked the internal workings of the characters. She responded that she could already see I am much more emotional and open than Mongolians are. My mother, also a great lady, has much in common with this woman, and at the end of lunch I kissed her on both cheeks, unable to say in Mongolian just how grateful I was for being around a mom--you can tell a mother by her hands, no matter where in the world she lives.
Altai herself ate quietly with bowed shoulders, just a daughter eating cheap, traditional Mongolian food with her mother on a cloudy Friday. On the way back to her office I asked if she saw herself as the head of politics the way others seem to see her. She married recently and would like to have children and solidify her family first, but then would be open to the idea. "I don't want to say things I don't believe, though," she said as traffic swelled around us on Peace Street, "and it seems like any political party you join, you have to do that. That's why I enjoy my time with my friends who are writers. They are genuine and philosophical and emotional, and you know they mean what they say. I don't think I could be a lawyer, though, and not a writer. I need both. I couldn't be only a writer with no law practice either."
The guards nodded at her as she pulled into the Ministry's parking lot. When we came into her office five solemn men in suits came too, and she conducted the meeting in a firm voice while I packed up my computer and skeedaddled. I don't think I would have stayed even if I'd been in proper attire; these are top officials at Mongolia's Ministry of Justice and I was amazed even to have been let in the building, let alone to've set up camp in the office where they were meeting and had lunch with their boss.
A man called Al who teaches English at the Technical University here just came over and introduced himself, gesturing across the room at three of his students, girls who wondered whether I was American or French. If that's not a compliment I don't know what is! Tol, Otgoo and Oggii just graduated yesterday, part of the aforementioned masses of comely girls in schoolgirl outfits spilling out of buses and into Sukhbaatar Square and Gandan monastery. Otgoo boasted a pin on her lapel of the university logo against the ubiquitous Ulzii, the knot-design that brings luck and is to be found on nearly every ger door and wooden gate (the young and brilliant writer Ayurzana has a tattoo of an Ulzii in honor of his wife, the poet Ulziitugs):
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