‘Remember us. You can never forget us’

On my last day Aizam is crying. His younger brother, who is also homeless, has been arrested and sent to the countryside to work. It will be two years before he sees him again.

The others are listless. Last night, a Japanese group visited with its guide for a “tour” of the hole. They took pictures for five minutes before leaving and paying the kids enough to get drunk on. Battulga was arrested for fighting. He will likely spend the next two to three months in prison. Soyolerdene is crushed, wondering how she will eat without the money he brings in.

Something else has happened. The kids have grown attached to me, and I to them. They tell me they have renamed their puppy, Johnny, in my honor. Then they beg me to take them to the airport so they can watch me leave.

We pile into a minivan. Snow is falling, whitening the four holy mountains that surround the city – Chingeltei, Bayanzurkh, Bogdkhan and Songino Khairkhan – and drifting across the carved wooden eaves of the Gandan monastery, which passes on a low hill to the north. Buddhist prayer flags flutter from its roof, releasing the hopes and dreams they contain into the wind to be carried down the valley and spread across the empty steppe.

The children’s eyes follow the temple as it recedes behind us. I ask them what they’re thinking.

“Remember us,” Enkhbat says. “No one like you will ever come again. You can never forget us.”

As the plane takes off his words stay with me. I open my journal to write them down, and see another of Aizam’s songs scribbled on the page. He sang it often, and everyone knew it:

While we were playing

My mother disappeared

Why did she leave me all alone?

When I see the other children with their parents

My heart fills with sadness

When I think that I cannot see you again

My heart fills with tears

When we were playing

Where did my mother go?

When we were playing

Where did my father go?

Several weeks later I hear from my interpreter, Tselmeg. Shortly after I left, the police rounded up the kids and took them to a detention center, then sealed their holes. The group has broken apart and scattered throughout the city.