Soul Mountain Read online

  You ask her what else she’d like to hear. You say your childhood wasn’t in fact without happy times. You once used your grandfather’s walking stick as a punt-pole and your bathtub as a boat in the waterlogged lane after a storm. You recall lying on a bamboo bed in summer and counting the stars in the square of sky in the courtyard to see which was your own star. You also recall that one year at noon during the Duanwu Festival, your mother got hold of you to daub orpiment mixed in spirits on your ears and to write the character “king” on your head, saying it would stop boils and sores developing in summer. You thought it was ugly and before she finished writing, you broke away and ran off. But now, she has been dead for a long time.

  She says her mother is dead too, that she died from illness in the May Seventh Cadre School, when she went to the countryside she was already ill. At the time the whole city had been deployed for war, they said the hairy Russians were about to attack. Yes, she says, she too has been a refugee. The platform at the station was lined with sentries, not just military men with red badges on their collars but also civilian militias dressed in the same army uniforms with red armbands. A group of criminals to be reformed through labour were marched under escort onto the platform. They were wearing tattered clothing and looked like a band of beggars. Old men and old women, each with a bed roll on their back and an enamel mug and a rice bowl in their hands, were singing together loudly, “Sincerely, with heads bowed, we acknowledge our crimes. To resist reform can only bring death.” She says at the time she was just eight and started crying stupidly and refused to board the train. She lay on the ground yelling that she wanted to go home. Her mother tried to coax her, saying it was more fun in the countryside, that it was too damp in the air raid shelter and if she went on digging any deeper her back would break. It was better to go to the countryside, the air was better and her mother wouldn’t have to get her to thump her back every night anymore. At the cadre school she was with her mother every day. When the grown-ups studied the sayings of Chairman Mao and the numerous newspaper editorials she would sit in her mother’s arms and when they went to work in the fields she went along with them and played nearby; when they did the harvesting she even helped by picking up ears of rice. They all liked to make her laugh, that was the happiest time in her life. She actually liked the cadre school, except for the struggle-meeting to criticize Uncle Liang session. They pushed him off the stool he was standing on and his front teeth were knocked out and there was blood all over his mouth. And there were lots of watermelons growing at the cadre school, everyone bought them, and whenever anyone was eating watermelon they’d get her to come, she had never eaten so much watermelon in her life.

  You say that you also remember the New Year’s party the year you graduated from middle school. You danced with a girl for the first time and kept treading on her feet. You were very embarrassed but she kept saying it didn’t matter. Light snow was falling that night and the snowflakes that landed on your face melted. After the party you ran all the way home, trying to catch up with the girl you had danced with . . .

  Don’t talk about other women!

  You talk about an old cat you once had which was so lazy that it wouldn’t catch rats.

  Don’t talk about old cats.

  Then what shall I talk about?

  Talk about whether or not you saw her, that girl.

  Which girl?

  The girl who drowned.

  The young student who was sent to the countryside? The girl who killed herself by jumping into the river?

  No.

  Then which one?

  You all tricked her into going swimming at night and then raped her!

  You say you didn’t go.

  She says you must have gone.

  You say you can swear you didn’t go!

  Then you must have felt her.

  When?

  Under the bridge, in the dark, you also felt her, you men are all bad!

  You say you were too young at the time and didn’t dare.

  She says you must at least have had a look at her.

  Of course you looked at her, she wasn’t just pretty in an ordinary way, she was really quite beautiful.

  She says you didn’t just look in an ordinary way, you had a look at her body.

  You say you only wanted to have a look.

  No, you must have had a look.

  You say impossible.

  Of course it was possible! You’re capable of any sort of wicked behaviour, you were often at her home.

  Do you mean, her home?

  In her room! She says you pulled it up, you pulled up her shirt.

  How did I pull up her shirt?

  She was standing against the wall.

  You say she pulled it up herself.

  Like this? she asks.

  A bit higher, you say.

  Wasn’t she wearing anything underneath? Not even a bra?

  Her breasts were only just developing, you say, her breasts protruded but her nipples were still crinkled.

  Stop talking about this!

  You say it was she who wanted you to talk about this.

  She says she doesn’t want you to talk about these things, she says she doesn’t want to hear another thing about it.

  Then what shall I talk about?

  Just talk about anything, but don’t talk about women again.

  You ask her why.

  She says it is not her that you love.

  Why is she saying this? you ask.

  She says when you are making love with her it’s other women you are thinking about.

  Rubbish! you say, she’s making this up.

  She says she doesn’t want to listen, doesn’t want to know any of it.

  I’m really sorry, you interrupt her.

  Don’t talk about anything anymore.

  You say in that case you’ll listen to her.

  She says you never listen to what she’s saying.

  You ask if she was eating watermelon at the cadre school all the time.

  What a real bore you are, she says.

  You plead with her to go on talking and promise not to interrupt.

  She says she doesn’t have anything to talk about.

  Setting out from Jiangkou county and going upstream on the Taiping River, the source of the Jinjiang, the mountain formations on both sides become more and more bizarre. Then after passing the Panqi stockade settlement with its mixed population of Miao, Tujia and Han nationalities, one enters the nature reserve. Here the densely forested mountains begin to close in and the river becomes narrow and deep. The ranger station at Heiwan River is a two-storey brick building situated at the end of the bend in the river. The ranger is a tall middle-aged man who is dark and thin, he has a crew cut and a dark lean face with stubble. The two live Qichun snakes I saw had been confiscated by him from poachers. He says that Qichun snakes are common among the wild flax plants on both sides of the river.

  “This is the kingdom of the Qichun snake,” he says.

  I think it’s thanks to the Qichun snakes that this stretch of primeval subtropical forest and undergrowth of evergreen broadleafs has been preserved.

  He was first in the army and then a cadre. He has travelled to many places but he says he doesn’t want to go anywhere now. Not long ago he turned down an appointment as sub-station chief in the Public Security Bureau and also refused to head the botanical farm unit of the reserve. He just watches over the mountain on his own and has been captivated by the mountain.

  He said five years ago tigers used to come to the village settlement and take off cattle but these days no-one sees any signs of tigers. Last year when the peasants killed a leopard, he confiscated it and had it sent to the reserve administrative office in the county town. The skeleton was first treated with arsenic before being made into a specimen and locked in the specimen room, but still it was stolen. Someone had climbed up the water pipe and got in through the window. If the arsenic-treated bones are passed off as tiger bone and sold for so
aking in spirits, then drinking it will really bring about longevity.

  He says he’s not an ecology protection agitator and he can’t do research, he’s just a ranger. When they built this ranger station on the reserve, he decided to stay. There are several upstairs rooms in the building and he can offer hospitality to specialists and scholars to facilitate their investigations and collecting of specimens.

  “Don’t you get lonely being on the mountain all year round?” I ask, seeing that he doesn’t have a wife or children.

  “Women are troublesome.”

  He then started talking about when he was a soldier. During the Cultural Revolution women also joined in causing havoc. There was this nineteen-year-old girl who had civilian militia training and was one of the top-ranking shooters of the province. During the armed battles, she went with her group up the mountain and, one shot at a time, picked off five soldiers in the company which had surrounded them. The company commander was angry and gave orders to take her alive. Afterwards when she ran out of ammunition, she was caught, stripped, and a soldier fired a magazine of bullets from his submachine gun into her vagina. He also spent some time in a small mine as a personnel cadre. When the miners fought over a woman the knives would go in clean and come out red, and this was on top of the more ordinary complications over women. He had a wife once but they separated and he doesn’t intend to get married again.

  “You can stay here and write your books, it’s good having someone to drink with. I drink every meal, not a lot, but always some.”

  A peasant carrying a string of small fish is crossing the single-log bridge over the bend of the river in front of the house. The chief ranger calls out to him, says he’s got a guest and gets him to bring them over.

  “I’ll make you sesame and chilli fish, it’s just the thing to go with liquor.”

  He says if he wants fresh meat he can get the peasants to get it for him when they go to the markets. And twenty li from here, in the settlement, there’s also now a little shop where you can even buy liquor and cigarettes. And he regularly gets to eat bean curd because whenever the peasants make it he always gets a portion. He keeps a few chickens so chicken and eggs are never a problem.

  At noon, beneath the dark green mountain he and I drink liquor and feast on sesame and chilli fish and a bowl of salted meat which he has steamed.

  “You are really living the life of an immortal,” I say.

  “I don’t know about it being an immortal’s life but it’s peaceful and I’m not troubled by many anxieties. My work is simple, there’s only the one path up the mountain, it’s right under my eyes, and I have only to fulfil my duty of keeping watch over this mountain.”

  Coming through the county town I’d heard that his mountain was the best managed in Heiwan River district. It seems to me this is due to his philosophy of not seeking fame and wealth. In his view it is because he gets on really well with the peasants here. Every New Year an old peasant will always bring him a bag of dried roots as a gift.

  “When you go into the mountains, if you’re chewing a piece of this root the snakes will keep away from you.” Saying this he goes into his room and brings out a straw bag, opens it, and gives me a brown root. I ask what plant it is but he says he doesn’t know and he doesn’t ask. It’s the mountain people’s secret remedy handed down from their ancestors and they have their rules about it.

  He says a round trip to Gold Top, on the main peak, will take three days. I’ll have to take rice, oil, salt, as well as some bean curd, green vegetables and eggs. On the mountain, I’ll have to spend the night in a cave. The cotton-wadding beds used by scientific researchers earlier on are still there, they’ll keep out the cold. It’s windy up there, and it’s very cold. He says he’ll go to the village to have a look, and if he finds someone I’ll be able to go today. He heads off in the direction of the single-log bridge.

  Afterwards I go for a walk around the bend of the river. In the shallows the river flows fast and sparkles in the sunlight like crystal, but in shady spots it is dark and there seems to be something menacing about it. There is a thick growth of forest and undergrowth on the banks, so thick that it looks black: it has a frightening dark dampness and must be alive with snakes. I cross the single-log bridge and come to the other side. Behind the forest is a small village settlement of five or six families. There are tall, old wooden buildings with walls and rafters which have gone black, probably because of the over-abundant rain here.

  The village is quiet and lonely, devoid of human sounds. The doors are all open and the uncovered rafters are crammed with dry grass, farm tools, wood and bamboo. I almost go in to have a look but suddenly a grey-black mixed-breed Alsatian appears, growling ferociously and coming right at me. I quickly beat a retreat and go straight back over the single-log bridge. Before me is the huge black-grey form of the mountain in the sunlight behind the small ranger station.

  Jolly laughter comes from behind and looking around I see a woman coming across the single-log bridge. She is toying with a carrying pole in her hands on which is curled a big five- or six-foot snake with a length of wriggling tail. She is obviously calling me and I go up to the edge of the river before I can make out what she is asking me.

  “Hey, want to buy a snake?” Quite unperturbed, she giggles as she comes toward me, one hand holding down seven inches of the snake and the other holding the pole with the writhing serpent coiled around it.

  Luckily the ranger appears just in time, and from the other side of the river, scolds her, “Go back! Do you hear? Go back right away!”

  The woman has to go back to the other side of the bridge as instructed.

  “She’s crazy, this woman, as soon as she sees a stranger she always wants to get up to some sort of mischief,” he says. He tells me he’s found a peasant to act as a porter and guide. He’ll fix up a few things in his office and then arrange a few days provisions for me. I can go ahead as far as I like, the guide will follow after, the mountain people are used to travelling on these mountain paths and he’ll catch up right away with a basket on a carrying pole. There’s only the one path up the mountain so you can’t go wrong. Seven or eight li up is a copper mine which earlier on was half developed before it fell into disuse, if he doesn’t turn up by then I can stop there for a while.

  He tells me to leave my backpack, the peasant can bring it for me. He also gives me a stick, saying it will help conserve energy going up the mountain and can be used for chasing off snakes. And he tells me to chew a piece of the dried root he gave me. I bid him farewell. He waves to me, turns, and goes inside.

  I still think of him and his practical attitude of rejecting fame and wealth and also the gloomy other side of the single-log bridge in the bend of the river, the village settlement with the wooden houses which have gone black, the savage Alsatian with the grey-black fur, and the crazy woman with the snake on the carrying pole. These all seem to be hinting at something, just like the huge gloomy mountain behind the small building. There is something more to it all which I will never be able to fully understand.

  You are walking in mud and fine rain is falling, it is quiet on the road except for the squelching of the mud sticking to your shoes. You say she has to walk where the mud is firmer but straightaway you hear a plop. You turn and see that she has fallen and is awkwardly holding herself up with one hand in the mud. You put out your hand to pull her up but her foot slips and the dirty hand which had been holding her up smears mud all over her. You say she really has to take off her high heels. She is crying miserably and plonks herself right into the mud. You say, come on, so you’re a bit dirty but that can be fixed up, there’s a house up ahead and you can have a good wash. But she refuses to go on.

  This is women, you say, they want to go travelling in the mountains but don’t want any hardships.

  She says she shouldn’t have come walking with you on these lousy mountain roads.

  You say it’s not all scenery in the mountains, there’s also wind and rain, she’s
already here so she should stop regretting having come.

  She says you tricked her, there isn’t a tourist anywhere on this damn Lingshan.

  You say if it’s people and not mountains she wants to see, hasn’t she seen plenty on the streets in the cities? If she hasn’t, she can take a trip to the department stores where there’s everything a woman needs, from cakes to cosmetics.

  She covers her face with her muddy hands and starts crying like a child. You can’t take anymore, pull her to her feet and help her along.