Soul Mountain (18 page)

“Does he have any family?” I ask.

“No-one seems to know, the students who worked with him were transferred long ago to teach in universities in Chongqing and Guiyang.”

“Hasn’t anyone taken an interest in the matter since then?”

He says it was only when the county was sorting some old archives that they discovered ten or so of his notebooks. They contain many accounts of the ecology of Caohai. His research is meticulously detailed and he writes well. If I am interested he can show these to me.

There is a hollow sound like an old person with a racking cough coming from somewhere.

“What’s that noise?” I ask.

“Cranes,” he says.

He takes me downstairs. In the basement breeding room behind an iron fence is a one-metre high red-headed black neck crane and a few grey cranes. From time to time they make a hollow cry. He says the black neck crane injured its foot and was captured for treatment. The grey cranes are fledglings born this year and they were brought here from the nest before they could fly. In late autumn, flocks of cranes used to come here for the winter and were seen everywhere amongst the reeds and in the fields. Later on they were hunted near to extinction. Following the establishment of the reserve, the year before last more than sixty turned up, and last year more than three hundred black neck cranes flew here, and even a larger number of grey cranes. It’s only the red-headed cranes that haven’t started coming back.

I ask if I can go onto the lake. He says if the sun comes out tomorrow he’ll pump up the rubber dinghy and go out on the lake with me. Today the wind’s too strong and it’s too cold.

I take my leave, and stroll towards the lake.

I follow a track on the slope of the mountain and come to a small village of seven or eight houses. The rafters and the supports are all made of stone. The only trees are the few growing in people’s courtyards and in front of houses – the trunks are slender, no bigger than a rice bowl. Some decades ago, I imagine the dark forest must have come right up to this village.

I go down to the edge of the lake and walk on the earth embankment between the slushy mud. It is too cold to take off my shoes but as I go further on, the embankment gets softer and the mud sticking to my shoes gets thicker. Just ahead, the solid land comes to an end. At the water’s edge is a boat and a boy. He is holding a small bucket and a fishing rod. I want to reach him, and get him to take the boat out onto the water.

“Will you take the boat out onto the lake?” He is barefoot, his trousers are rolled up above his knees and he looks to be thirteen or fourteen. But his eyes ignore me and are looking right over my head past me. I turn around and see someone waving to him from the village some distance away. The person is wearing a colourful jacket and looks to be a girl. I take another step towards the boy. My shoes sink right into the mud.

“Ai – yi – ya – yo –” The shouting in the distance is incomprehensible but the voice is clear and beautiful. She must be calling him. The boy with the fishing rod dashes off right past me.

It will be very hard to go any further but having reached the lake I have to get onto it to have a look. The boat is at most ten steps away, I just need to get one foot onto where the boy was standing, the mud there is clearly more solid, and I’ll be able to get into the boat. A bamboo punt-pole is at the prow and I can already see aquatic birds skimming the water between the reeds. They are probably wild ducks and they seem to be calling. A wind has risen from shore and I can hear the distant shouting of the two children but not the calls of the nearby birds.

I think, if I can punt the boat out of the reeds I’ll get to this broad expanse of water and I’ll be able to drift about all alone in the middle of this lonely plateau lake. I won’t have to talk to anyone. It wouldn’t be bad at all to just vanish into this lake and mountain scenery where lake and sky unite.

I pull up a foot and take another step. I sink deep into the mud right up to my calf. I don’t dare shift my weight onto my front leg for I know if it goes above my knee, I won’t have a chance of pulling myself out of the mire. I don’t dare try to move my back leg. I can neither go forward nor backward and am in an embarrassing dilemma. This is of course an absurd situation but at issue is not the absurdity but the fact that as no-one has seen me, no-one is laughing, and I won’t be rescued which is worse.

Maybe they’ll see me in the upstairs telescope of the little ranger station, just like I had seen people on the boat. But I would just be a meaningless figure moving about, they wouldn’t be able to see my face. Even if they adjusted the lens, they’d only think I was some peasant taking the boat out to get a bit of extra income.

On the lonely lake, even the aquatic birds have gone. The dazzling surface of the water imperceptibly grows hazy, twilight emanates from the reeds and the cold rises from underfoot. I am chilled all over, there are no cicadas chirping, no frogs croaking. Can this possibly be the primitive loneliness devoid of all meaning that I seek?

On this chilly late-autumn night, dense heavy darkness encloses a totality of primitive chaos; indistinguishable are sky and earth, trees and rocks, and needless to say the road; you can only stay transfixed, lean forward, put out both arms to grope, to grope in this thick dark night; you hear it in motion, it is not the wind in motion but this darkness which is devoid of top bottom left right distance and sequence; you are wholly fused with this chaos, conscious only that you once possessed the outline of a body, but that this outline in your consciousness is rapidly vanishing; a light emanates from your body, dim like a candle in the darkness, a flame with light but no warmth, a cold light which fills your body, transcending the outline of your body and the outline of your body in your mind; you draw it into your arms, strive to guard this ball of light, this icy transparent consciousness; you need this sensitivity, you strive to protect it; a tranquil lake appears before you, on the other shore is a wood with trees which have shed all their leaves and trees which haven’t shed all their leaves; the yellow leaves on the tall poplar and the two small pale yellow leaves on the black branches of the date tree tremble; bright red tallow trees, some thick and some sparse, are like balls of mist; there are no ripples on the lake, only reflections, clear and distinct, rich colours, many shades ranging from dark red to bright red to orange to light yellow to inky green, to greyish-brown, to bluish-white; on careful scrutiny these suddenly fade, turning into different shades of grey, black, white, like an old faded black and white photograph; vivid images lie before your eyes but instead of standing on the ground you are in another dimension, staring with bated breath at the images of your own mind; it is so tranquil, disturbingly tranquil, you feel it is a dream; there is no need to be anxious but you can’t help being anxious because it is too strangely tranquil.

You ask if she can see the images.

She says yes.

You ask whether she can see the boat.

She says the boat makes the lake look even more tranquil.

You suddenly hear her breathing, reach out to touch her, your hand wanders over her body, she stops you, you grab her wrist, pull her to you, she turns around, curls up into your arms, you smell the warmth of her hair, look for her lips, she struggles to get away, her warm body is alive, her breathing quickens, her heart beneath your hand is pounding.

You say you want the boat to sink.

She says the boat is already full of water.

You part her and enter her moist body.

She knew it would be like this, she sighs, her body going limp, as if she has no bones.

You want her to say she’s a fish!

No!

You want her to say she’s free.

Ah, no.

You want her to sink, you want her to forget everything.

She says she’s afraid.

You ask what she’s afraid of!

She says she doesn’t know, then says she’s afraid of darkness, afraid of sinking.

Flushed cheeks and leaping flames are suddenly swallowed in darkness, bodies are twisting and turning, she tells you not so rough, she calls out you’re hurting! She struggles, calls you an animal! She has been stalked, hunted, torn apart, devoured. Ah . . .  this dense palpable darkness, primordial chaos, no sky no ground, no space, no time, no existence, no non-existence, no existence and no non-existence; non-existence exists so there is non-existence of existence; non-existence of existence exists so there is non-existence of non-existence; burning charcoal, moist eye, open cave, vapours rising, burning lips, deep growls; human and animal invoking primitive darkness; forest tiger in agony, lusting; flames rise, she screams and weeps; the animal bites, roars and, possessed by spirits, jumps and leaps, circling the fire which burns brighter and brighter, ephemeral flames, without form. In the mist-filled cave a fierce battle rages, pouncing, shrieking, jumping, howling, strangling and devouring . . . The stealer of fire escapes, the torch recedes into the distance, goes deeper into the darkness, grows smaller and smaller, until a flame no bigger than a bean sways in the cold breeze and finally goes out.

I’m terrified, she says.

What are you terrified of? you ask.

I’m not terrified of anything but I want to say that I’m terrified.

Silly child,

The other shore,

What are you saying?

You don’t understand,

Do you love me?

I don’t know,

Do you hate me?

I don’t know,

Haven’t you ever?

I only knew that sooner or later there would be this day,

Are you happy?

I’m yours, speak to me tenderly, tell me about the darkness,

Pangu wielded his great sky-cleaving axe,

Don’t talk about Pangu,

What shall I talk about?

Talk about the boat,

The boat was about to sink,

Was about to sink but didn’t,

Did it sink in the end?

I don’t know.

You’re really a child.

Tell me a story,

When the great flood broke out, only a small boat was left in the world, a brother and his younger sister were in the boat, they couldn’t bear the loneliness and huddled close together, only the flesh of the other was real, could verify one’s own existence,

You love me,

The girl was seduced by the snake,

The snake is my big brother.

I am taken by an Yi singer to several of the Yi camps in the mountain range behind Caohai. Further into the mountains, the hills are rounder and the forests more luxuriant. There is a primitive femininity about them.

The Yi women have dark skin, a high nose bridge and long eyes and they are very beautiful. They seldom look directly at a stranger and should they encounter one on a narrow mountain road, they keep their eyes down, say nothing, and stand aside to make way.

My singer guide sings many Yi songs for me. They all seem to be sad and tearful outpourings, even the love songs.

When the moon is out,

Don’t take a torch with you,

If you take a torch with you,

The moon will be heartbroken.

When vegetables are in flower,

Don’t take a basket to cut vegetables,