Ulaanbaatar agreed to let us have then land. After the surrender, we soldiers were having a merry
time while people were mourning the death of friends and family.
I looked down at my shoes shamefully. How could I have been so selfish and celebrate while
many people had to suffer. Bayarmaa still looked up at me and I saw her eyes fill with tears.
“Honey, come on, hurry up, your school bus is coming!” yelled Mrs Wong.
“OK, I’m coming,” moaned Michael.
“Remember I’ll meet you up at the Parent’s evening tonight.”
“Yeah, I know. You know what ? Mr Li told me that I got an A for my history class. Oh I really
wish dad was here so that I can ask him to buy me a ticket to the museum!”
The mum and son looked at the picture of their beloved hanging on the wall and remained
silent for a while. It was a hot morning in July 1965.
In a cold winter in 1995, Michael, leading a group of archeologists, found the skeleton of
a man in the Gobi Desert next to an old, battered diary. It was estimated that the skeleton was
buried in the desert some 30 years ago. There were traces of Mongolian death worms living in the
southern part of the Gobi Desert.
