Soul Mountain (49 page)

I arrive in this bustling city ablaze with lights, streets full of pedestrians and an endless stream of traffic. At the change of traffic signals, like sluice gates opening, there is a surging tide of bicycles. And there are also the T-shirts, neon lights, and advertisements sporting beautiful women.

I had planned to find myself a reasonable hotel near the train station so that I could have a hot bath, eat a decent meal, spoil myself a bit and then have a good sleep to recover from the accumulated weariness of the past ten days. I go from street to street but all the single rooms of the hotels are taken: it seems people are better off and are intent on having a room to themselves. As I have made up my mind to be extravagant tonight and refuse to sleep in a big shared room stinking of sweat or in a corridor with an added bed which must be vacated and dismantled at daybreak, I have no choice but to wait in a hotel lobby for people catching the night train to vacate their rooms. It is all very annoying. I suddenly remember I’ve got a phone number of a good friend of an old friend in Beijing who said that if I passed through I should feel free to contact this person.

I decide to give it a try. The person who answers is curt and tells me to wait. I never like making phone calls, first I don’t have my own private phone and second I know that some people in positions which entitle them to have a phone installed at home often use this tactic on strangers who phone up, then when the other party gets impatient they say the person’s not in or just hang up. Only a few of my friends have their own telephones, so this friend of my friend must be an official. I’m not prejudiced against all officials, I haven’t got to the stage of giving up on human society but for me the phone lacks human feeling and I wouldn’t use it except under exceptional circumstances. I’m still waiting. Even if I hang up I’ll still have to go on waiting in the hotel lobby so I may as well keep listening. Whatever the outcome it’s one way of passing time.

A unfriendly voice eventually answers, questions me, then calls out in surprise and asks where I am. He says he will come right away to fetch me. He is indeed the good friend of my old friend who didn’t know me before but indeed acknowledges this friendship anyway. I instantly give up the idea of staying at the hotel, ask him what number bus to take, pick up my bag and leave.

As I knock on the door I feel a bit anxious. The owner of the house opens the door, relieves me of my bags and, without shaking my hand or showing any formality, leads me in with his arm around my shoulders.

What a comfortable house it is. The hallway leads on to two rooms which are arranged elegantly with cane chairs, glass-block coffee tables and a display cabinet with antiques and foreign ornaments. Painted porcelain plates hang on the walls and the brown-lacquered floors are so clean and shiny that I don’t know where to put my feet. I first become aware of my filthy shoes then in the mirror I see my messy hair and dirty face. I haven’t had a haircut for months and it is hard even for me to recognize myself.

“I’ve come out of the mountains and look like a Wild Man,” I say, embarrassed about my grubby appearance.

“If it wasn’t for this chance, it would be hard getting you to come,” my host says.

His wife shakes my hand and busies herself getting cups of tea. His daughter, who is not yet ten, greets me with “hello uncle” from the door and looks at me with a hesitant smile.

My host says his friend in Beijing had written so he knew I was wandering everywhere and he has been looking forward to seeing me for some time. He tells me all the news about the political and literary world – this person has reappeared and that person has fallen from power, who has given such and such a speech and who has put forward such and such a theory. There has also been an article referring to me by name and saying that this writer’s works are problematical but that it is wrong to beat him to death. I say that I am no longer interested in these things, what I need is life, for example, at this moment what I need is to be able to have a hot bath. His wife bursts out laughing and says she will heat some water right away.

After I have a wash, my host takes me to his daughter’s room, which also serves as his study, and says if I am tired I can sleep for a while and then he’ll wake me to have something to eat. I can hear his wife frying something in the kitchen.

I lie on his daughter’s small clean wire bed, my head resting on a pillow with a tabby cat embroidery and I think that it was lucky I made the phone call and that the phone is not such a bad gadget after all. I ask if he is an official and has joined the telephone-owning class. He says the phone is for public use in the office downstairs and someone is on duty to let people know when there is a call. He tells me he has some young friends who are keen to meet me. On these hot summer days everyone sleeps late, some just live in nearby buildings and some can be phoned, that’s if you’d like to see them. I am keen on the idea and soon hear him opening the door and footsteps on the stairs, I also hear talking in the lounge room through the closed bedroom door. They are discussing your writings and the disasters which have befallen you. You seem to have become a champion for social justice. You say you are not up to championing social justice, you say that absurdity does not apply only to those in official positions, the world and humanity itself is becoming more and more grotesque. You did not think there would still be some friends worried about you and it makes you feel that it is worth living after all. They then talk about getting the women to come the next day so you can all go dancing. Why not? it is you who say this and the women turn out to be a jolly crowd, either young performers or recent university graduates, they egg one another on and you all go to the pine forest to pick mushrooms, this is a brilliant idea but aren’t any of you afraid of getting poisoned? you try first, we’ll eat after you’ve tried them, who asked you to be a hero? heroes must sacrifice themselves for women! they won’t let you off, you say it is most fitting to die for women, they say that they are not so cruel, they are not Empress Wu Zetian or Jiang Qing, or Empress Dowager Cixi, they don’t care whether those old sirens are alive or dead, they want to keep you so you can light a fire to cook the mushrooms, and saying this they bring a big washbasin and firewood, you sprawl on the ground to blow at the dry pine needles and leaves, the smoke makes your eyes smart as flames suddenly start, they all shout for joy and begin to dance around the fire, someone starts playing a guitar and you are so happy you do a somersault on the grass, they all clap and shout bravo, a young man does a no-hands headstand then harasses one of the women to do somersaults in the air, she says she can do any dance anyone else can, what they want to see is her specialty, she says she is wearing a skirt, so what’s the problem with wearing a skirt, people aren’t interested in looking at the skirt, they want to see free-flying acrobatics, the young men won’t let her off, it’s her fault for winning the championship! the women also laugh and torment her so that she does a series of somersaults until she is out of breath, you say you learnt shaman magic in the mountains and can make the living die and the dead come back to life, they all say you are bullshitting, if you don’t believe then who’s game enough to try? they all point at her, this woman lying on the ground with her eyes closed and pretending to be dead, you break off a willow frond and flourish it and rolling up the whites of your eyes and chanting you circle around her, using the willow branch to chase off the demons on all sides, the young men all kneel around her, their palms pressed together in prayer, the women get jealous and all start shouting, quick open your eyes to see how many are here wanting to be your lover! you give a yell, strip to the waist and go into battle, sticking out your tongue and shouting and dancing, everyone dances around her in a frenzy, they lift her up, sacrifice her to the spirits! cast her into the river to be the wife of the Lord of the River! she keeps screaming, spare me! spare me! she says she will dance, she will dance anything as long as she is not thrown into the river, the young men announce the penalty, she must do the splits and hold up her arms without swaying, sadists! sadists! the women protest, only then does it all stop, everyone rolls about on the grass laughing until their stomaches hurt, all right, all right, tell us about it then, what about? tell us about things that happened on your travels? you say you went looking for the Wild Man? oh, did you really see the Wild Man? you say you saw a panda? what’s special about a panda? there are plenty in the zoo, you say the one you saw came into the tent looking for food and poked its head into your bedding, you’re lying! you say you really want to get to Shennongjia, people say there are Wild Men there, you want to capture one, take it home and teach it to talk, don’t treat us like children, you say you tried to be a child and failed, you really wanted to return to your childhood and travelled everywhere looking for traces of your childhood, the women agree that childhood is better, that everyone has happy memories, not me a voice says, my childhood was totally boring, I only want to live in the present, to look at the stars above just like this, tell us about your writing, another woman’s voice says, everything written has been published and what hasn’t been published hasn’t been written, you’re never serious, you say you are too serious all the time and just want not to be serious for a while, you poor poor thing another voice sighs pityingly! lalalalala, hey listen, I’m going to sing! as if you’re the only one who’s beautiful, as if you’re the only who’s spiteful, you two fight it out, whoever wins is beautiful, I don’t want you to judge, you say people always want to judge you, your fault for wanting to be famous, you admit wanting a bit to be famous but didn’t think it would cause so much trouble, everyone laughs, someone says let’s all go to the other side of the river, everyone holds hands to go into a cave, the leader gives a yelp, he’s bumped his head, this sets everyone off in fits of laughter again, it’s pitch-black inside the cave, afraid of bumping our heads we have to bend down then bump into the backside of the person in front, this cave is great for kissing! we can’t see one another, if you’re game enough you can kiss whoever you like, this is no fun at all, let’s go for a swim instead, everyone jumps into the little stream, careful don’t let him do anything bad! who? whoever is bad knows who it is! how about singing a song together? let’s have a palm tree, not palm trees all the time, let’s have a dragon’s messenger, who’s sending a message to whom? it’s you who is patriotic, it’s you who gets on people’s nerves, it’s you who is getting on my nerves, why don’t the lot of you stop bickering? father and brothers–I’m drowning! who’s being such a pest? picking mushrooms in the murky river of the nether world–what? what? there’s nothing here, you won’t be able to pick anything here except sadness, let’s play bridge, no it takes too much concentration, then let’s play a game of turtle with cards, who’s drawn . . . I’ve drawn a king! what luck, people who don’t think about being lucky are always lucky, that’s fate, hey, do you believe in fate? fate just plays games with people, to the Devil with fate! don’t talk about demons, it’s scary when people talk about demons at night, you’re walking along the murky river of the nether world, didn’t you go to Fengdu, the City of Ghosts? was it good fun? at the city gates there’s now a couplet exhorting the destruction of superstitions: “If you believe in them they exist, if you don’t believe in them they do not exist.” what sort of couplet is that? do lines have to be parallel and matching in length to be called a couplet? can’t there be couplets with uneven lines? you want to destroy everything, can you destroy truth? don’t threaten others with such a big hat, aren’t you an atheist who’s not afraid of anything? you say that you are afraid, what of? loneliness? a big man like you and a hero! hero or not, I’m afraid of beautiful women, what’s there to be afraid of in beautiful women? I’m afraid of being bewitched, what a useless idiot! hey, compatriots! what are you up to? do you want to save the nation? just save yourself, an unredeemable individualist! you get such a shock that you break out in a cold sweat all over, you want, you want, you want to return to the group but can no longer find anyone . . .

She wants you to read her palm. She has small, soft hands, very delicate, and very feminine. You open her palm and place it in your hand. You say she has an easygoing nature, that she is a very gentle person. She nods, agreeing.

You say this is a passionate palm and at this she smiles sweetly.

But this easygoing nature is superficial for within her heart is a raging fire, a burning anxiety. At this she frowns.

Her burning anxiety lies in her longing for love and the difficulty of finding a person to whom she can entrust herself, body and soul. She is too fussy and hard to please, you are saying what is in her palm. She pouts and makes a face.