The Girl That Would Fly (F)

Many hours to the west of Ulaanbaatar on a morning when the air was stilled even at the top of the crags, the girl braced herself on a rocky outcrop and with both arms lifted the eagle out from her body. In the early light, I could see her eyes close and then the great bird released itself from its human perch.

“She keeps her eyes closed so much of the time.”

“Yes.” Her teacher filled my cup with milky tea. “She follows the bird as it hunts.”

I let the salty flavor sit in my mouth for a moment. “She follows with her eyes closed?”

The sunlight bathed her face so that it seemed even more childlike, and the air was still below freezing, but because of the sun’s warmth and maybe the bird’s soaring, her mouth widened into a broad smile. I smiled too at her joy.

“Yes. She is in flight. She goes where the bird goes. It is her spirit animal.”

“She seems so young.”

“Yes.”

“She seems so small when she cradles the bird.”

“Yes.”

“What do the men, the local boys, think of her?”

He pushed a small platter with half a dozen mutton dumplings toward me. “What is there to think?” He held my gaze. “You like the tea.”

“Yes. Very much. So what does she see?”

“She sees as the bird sees. The bird looks up, and she sees the sky. The bird looks down, and she sees the ground. The bird hunts, she hunts.”

Karl, who flew into Ulaanbaatar from Guangzhou to take the photos, said that each shot was like working in a studio. The morning light, the dry air, the stillness. The girl and the bird, so very still. Shot after shot. And when the bird launched itself, Karl said, even then it was all magical as if in slow motion and perfect. He just clicked the shutter. All he felt was a calm, his breathing steady. Perfect.

“Teacher, I turned to see the bird, but I couldn’t see it.”

“No, the bird was hiding. In the sun perhaps. Or in the rocks.”

“But when she opened her eyes, she was looking right at it and pointed to it for me.”

“Yes.”

“But I couldn’t find it.”

“No. You search, she follows.”

Karl tried to follow the bird out into the sky with his camera but the bird broke off a long glide so abruptly that he nearly fell from what he thought was a secure seat on a boulder. Karl said it was sort of like losing his bearings on a rollercoaster.

The second week a hare scooted out into a patch of flat ground to warm itself, and the eagle came in a long, low flight that brought it behind the target and with a quick flap of its wings, the bird dropped onto the target. The girl whistled a long note and the eagle answered with a screech. Two boys visiting relatives at the camp ran out from a field of great rocks and jostled one another as they tried to be first to claim the prize. The eagle was back in the sky before the boys could get to the kill.

The third week, my instruction continued. Beneath the soft thrum of a horsehide drum, the first command. “Close your eyes.”

I sat still at first, but soon I could feel my body giving in to the steady rhythm of the beat.

“Speak her name.”

“Rachel.”

“See her.”

At first there were indistinct images, from the memory of a face I knew so well, from memories of photos that I had seen so many times.

“Speak her name.”

“Rachel.”

Again the command and my response. The cadence picked up a little speed.

Again, “Rachel.” The images flickered, none becoming clear to me, not real as if I could see her face, could see her before me.

“What do you see?”

“Her, but it’s not her.”

“Do not search for her in your mind. You must let her come.”

In the fifth week, after a cold morning in the hills with the young huntress, I was glad to be sitting again with my teacher, sipping a warm cup of tea.

“Close your eyes.” I did so immediately, but he did not pick up his drum and begin the first light taps. “Let her come. Listen for her.”

“Speak her name.”

“Rachel.”

“Wait for her. Speak her name.”

“Rachel.” Then, I cocked my head. I thought I heard someone call out to her—“Ms. Cullman!”

“What do you hear?”

“I heard her name called out.”

“What do you see?”

“She’s coming toward me. She is alone.”

I could as easily see her as I could have seen the inside of the teacher’s tent.

“She’s surrounded by white light. Coming through glass doors.”

“Speak her name.”

“Rachel.”

“What do you see?”

“She is closer. She’s wearing a white knit dress. She wears a thin red belt, not too tight at her waist. She is stepping from the light to me, coming closer. She is so close I cannot see her shoes without looking away from her eyes. I smell citrus. She smiles.”

I opened my arms to her even as I kept my eyes shut. She was right there, right there with me, only a few feet away. She smiled, laughed a little, and half-turned away. I stretched my arms toward her. She touched my fingers on one hand with hers. My eyes opened and I blinked a few times to clear my vision.

“She is not here?”

“Yes. No. No, I was not here.” Ladson 2014