Yak Cabaret
In this one you are sitting in a ger with your new herders’ boots on, showing Batmunk a map of Monoglia from the Lonely Planet. “It’s very beautiful” he tells you, but his smile implies a lack of belief. In this one you are tired after your day with the horses, the milk mutton soup and the sunset. Batmunk has been practising his English with you for an hour and you are pleased with his improvements. He wants to see other photos from the guide book too and on page 91 he thinks he sees one of his cousins from Kazakstan. He marvels at the photos of the people in the city eating pizza, talking on cell phones and going to discos and he tells you that next year he’ll go to the city to buy Calvin Klein underwear and a new pair of jeans.
Even at sleep time his fascination with dogs continues “do you really keep dogs in the house in your country, and you bath them, and you buy them different flavoured tinned food, and they have appointments at the vet?” He doesn’t love his dog. His dog works and has a job to do. How can you love a dog? He starts to laugh again remembering your earlier linguistic mistake when you tried to ask him to “hold the dog” but told him to “hold the husband” instead. He’s laughing uncontrollably now as he repeats the mistake “hold the husband”, “hold the husband”.
“You come from a strange, mysterious and exotic country” he says to you.
You are from the ghosts of Treharris and the uncle who died. He is from a circle home made of felt and camels with two backs. You are from the steel and the mines and the park bench overlooking the stream. He is from a statue of Ghengis Khan and mare’s milk. You are from a woman with red-lipstick waiting for the bus to Blackpool. He is from the delights of delusion and days of delays. You are a herder’s daughter, he is your own memory and trapped like a marmot.
The outside darkness encourages Batmunk’s silence so it is you who starts the new questions. “What do you want to do after you finish school?” you ask the question dreaded by children everywhere but he doesn’t seem to mind. “I’m going to have over one hundred horses” he says “and then I’ll buy a motorbike. After that I will marry a beautiful girl who can sing. She will have two children, the boy will help me with the herd and the girl will finish school and become a doctor, or a teacher like you. I want her to be a teacher like you”.
The only sound you can hear now is the dog barking itself to sleep, the sound of Batmunk sleeping and the fire crackling at the end of another day. In this one, you are aware of the moment and the outside of the frame, the gaze beyond the photographer’s eye-line. In this one, for once, your own perception of reality matches the second of the snap and click. You remember the feeling of those new boots, the smell of the fire and the milk in your belly. You can see Batmunk clearly sleeping in the tiny bed with you with no one around for a hundred miles and you can hear his breath. You can hear the groans of the yaks on the mountains getting quieter as the night sky takes control of the steppe and you remember the mystery of not being lonely. The sound of a yak cabaret under the azure night and a moment of a picture you’ll never have again.
Shorter than me 