MONGOLIAN CIRCUS

Anu arrived in Bayan-Uul with a suitcase, a stethoscope, and more doubts than luggage. Her mother, Altantuyaa, was outside the small veterinary clinic yelling at a goat chewing on the signboard. The wind stopped to listen. The goat didn’t. Anu stood still. Even the dust looked embarrassed.

The village had ten houses, two dogs, and one endless smell of sour milk. Anu had returned after her father’s death—a man who spent his life chasing horses and wind, until both outran him. Her mother still ran the clinic alone, scolding animals and people with equal precision.

At dusk, a caravan of squeaky wheels and bright colors rolled in from the horizon. The Mongolian Circus had come to the steppe. Leading it was Alexei Vladimirovich Morozov, a tall Russian whose moustache appeared to have ambitions of its own. He bowed to the villagers like a monarch greeting his livestock. A parrot on his shoulder swore fluently in four languages.

Bat-Erdene, the driver, was trying to park the circus truck. The wheels preferred rolling over the elephant’s tail. Tsolmon, the local constable, saluted the mess, slipped, and landed in a puddle of goat droppings. “All according to plan,” he muttered, dripping.

Inside the striped tent, Anu found cages stacked under tarps—thin, almost see-through lions, a coughing camel, a monkey wrapped in bandages. Beneath a pile of crates, she saw ragged wild cats and ruffled feathers of the birds of prey. The circus was only a façade: behind the cheering crowds lay a route for smuggling animals across borders.

That night, Anu reached a firm decision and gathered the mischievous siblings, Jasrai and Batzorig, behind the hay barn. “We have to free them,” she whispered. They nodded solemnly, as if agreeing to steal the moon.

The rescue began quietly but collapsed immediately. The elephant sneezed, knocking over half the tent. The monkey grabbed Anu’s hat and threw it on one of the sleeping animal keepers. The parrot began shouting Morozov’s name, inserting a curse after every syllable. Horses neighed, lions roared, Bat-Erdene burped so loudly on account of being infected by H. Pylori, and Tsolmon fell into the pond for the second time that week.

By midnight, the steppe had turned into a festival of chaos. Morozov shouted commands no one understood, waving like a mad conductor of catastrophe. The animals bolted toward the horizon; the villagers applauded, thinking it part of the show.

When dawn came, the circus was gone. Only the prints of hooves, paws, and a few parrot feathers remained on the once green plain. Anu sat in the mud beside the elephant, who looked as tired as she.

Altantuyaa appeared, arms crossed, apron stained. “They are coming to get you,” she said.

Anu smiled. “I know. But I have a plan.”

Altantuyaa snorted. “Didn't look like that to me.”

The wind rose again, carrying the faint echo of a parrot’s voice across the empty steppe:

“Morozov—malaka!”

And the horizon, vast and silent, seemed to agree.