Soul Mountain (30 page)

You say she’s a slut. She says don’t men like it like that? It’s simple, no stress, and exciting. When it’s finished, you walk off and that’s it, there’s nothing to worry about and there are no complications. You ask how many men she has slept with. She says at least a hundred. You don’t believe her.

What’s there to believe or not to believe? It’s really quite simple, sometimes it only takes a few minutes.

In a lift?

Why in a lift? You’ve been watching Western movies. Under trees, against walls, anywhere.

With total strangers?

That’s even better, then you don’t feel awkward when you bump into one another again.

You ask if she does this regularly.

Whenever the urge comes.

What if you can’t find a man?

They’re not hard to find, you only have to signal with your eyes and they come.

You say if she signals with her eyes, you wouldn’t necessarily come.

She says you might not necessarily dare, but there are plenty who do. Isn’t this all men want?

Then you are toying with men.

Why are only men allowed to toy with women? What’s so strange about this?

You say she may as well say she is toying with herself.

And why not?

In this mud!

She starts giggling and says she likes you but it is not love. And she says you should be careful, if she were to really fall in love with you . . . 

It would be a disaster.

She asks, a disaster for you or for her?

You say, a disaster for you and for her.

You’re clever, she says, what she really likes is your clever mind.

You say unfortunately it’s not your body.

She says everyone’s got a body, and says she doesn’t want to get worn out by living and gives a long sigh. How about telling a happy story, she says.

Shall I keep talking about the fire? The red boy with the bare bottom?

If you like.

You go on to say that this red boy, this fire god Zhurong, is the spirit of these nine mountains. The old fire god temple at the bottom of Huri Peak had long fallen into disrepair, people forgot to make offerings and were only concerned with enjoying the meat and liquor themselves. The neglected fire god became enraged and wreaked havoc. On your great-grandfather . . . 

Why don’t you go on?

The night he died, when everyone was sound asleep, a line of fire emerged in the forest, burning brightly and slowly travelling through the black mountain shadows. The wind carried the smell of burning and people who were fast asleep felt they were suffocating and hurriedly got up. They saw the forest on fire but just looked on in a daze. By daylight, the dense smoke had descended upon them and it was too late to stop it or even to escape. Pursued by scorching flames, wild animals were also terrified and tigers, leopards, wild pigs and jackals all scurried to the river. Only the deep turbulent stream stopped the spread of the fire. The crowds on the opposite bank watching the fire saw a huge red bird with nine heads spitting out tongues of fire rise from its midst. It soared into the sky trailing a long golden tail and wailing like a baby girl. Giant thousand-year trees shot up into the air like so many feathers, exploding loudly, then lightly falling into the sea of fire . . . 

I dream that the rock wall behind me creaks open and that within the crack is the fish-belly white sky. Beneath the sky is a small lane, lonely and deserted. To one side is the door of a temple, I know it is the side door of the big temple, that it never opens, and at the doorway is a length of nylon rope with children’s clothing hanging on it. I recognize it as somewhere I have been. It is the outside of the Two King Temple at Guanxian in Sichuan province and I am walking along a weir dividing the river which churns below my feet. On the other side there is also a temple which has been commandeered, I have tried to get inside but couldn’t ever work out how and could only look at the fish and snakes crawling on the high black curled eaves protruding over the wall. I am holding onto a cable and inching forward over foaming rapids. People are actually fishing there and I want to go up to them to have a look but the tide swells and I have to retreat. All around is the surging torrent, the me in the middle is just a child. The me of the present is standing at a back door overgrown with weeds looking at the me of my childhood years. I am wearing a pair of cloth shoes and am in a predicament – my shoes have cloth knot-buttons and those primary school classmates who use dirty language say I’ve got girls’ shoes and make me feel embarrassed. It is from the mouths of these wild street boys that I first learn the meaning of those words used for swearing at people. They say all women are sluts and that the fat woman on the corner who sells griddle-cakes griddle-cakes with men. I know all this is bad talk and has something to do with the bodies of men and women but only have a vague and hazy idea of just how. They say I like the dark skinny girl classmate who gave me a piece of scented paper and I blush, this is when I run into them at a special summer school cinema program after I have finished primary school and am in junior secondary school. They say she isn’t as dark as she used to be and is very sexy. She has asked them about me and they ask why I haven’t dated her. Afterwards, I am cast upon the flesh of women, struggling, I reach out and touch a woman’s moist lower body, before that I hadn’t dared be so bold, I know I have degenerated but am secretly happy, probably I know this is a woman I want but can’t have, I can’t see her beautiful face, I go to kiss her but the lips of another woman are kissing me. I know in my heart that I don’t love her but I derive pleasure from her nonetheless. I then see the worried eyes of my father, he is silent, I know he is dead and so know this is not true, in a dream I can be as wanton as I like. I then hear the banging of the door in the wind and remember that I am sleeping in the cave on the mountain, the wrinkled folds of the strange ceiling over my head is the rock wall lit by the hurricane lamp, I am sleeping in soggy bedding, fully clad, and the clothing which clings to me is also damp, my feet are still icy and haven’t warmed, the fierce mountain wind is howling on the other side of the banging wooden door like a blood-spattered wild animal crouching at the mouth of the cave blocked by the door. I listen carefully to the wind coming from the top of the cliff and tearing through the grassy marshland.

No longer able to hold back the urge to urinate, I crawl out of the bed, turn up the hurricane lamp, take it down and pull on my shoes. As I remove the branch against the door made from lengths of tree trunk nailed together, the wind blows the door wide open with a bang. Outside the cave is the pitch-black curtain of night and the hurricane lamp only casts a circle of light at my feet. I take a couple of steps, undo the fly of my trousers, and looking up suddenly see before me a monstrous black shadow. I yell out in alarm and almost drop the lamp. The huge form sways along with me and I immediately realize that this is the “demon shadow” I have read about in
Record of Fanjing Mountain
. I swing the lamp and it also moves: it is in fact my own shadow in the night.

My peasant guide who came into the mountain with me hears my yells and comes running out with his hacking knife in his hand. Traumatized, I can’t talk but just keep yelping, swaying the hurricane lamp and pointing. He also immediately begins yelping and takes the hurricane lamp from my hand. In the pitch-black thick curtain of night, two huge black forms prance wildly along with the jumping and yelping of two people. It is really strange to be terrified and then to discover that one has in fact been terrified by one’s own shadow! The two of us piss as we prance about like children making the black demon shadows prance with us, and also to steady our nerves and comfort our spirits which have been scared out of our bodies.

Going back into the cave, I am so agitated that I can’t get back to sleep, and he is tossing and turning too. So I ask him to tell me some stories about the mountains. He starts to burble away but now speaks in the local dialect and eight in ten sentences are incomprehensible. He seems to be saying that a cousin from a distant branch of the clan had been mauled by a bear and lost an eye because he had failed to pay homage to the mountain god. I can’t tell if he’s saying this to chastize me for having come on this trip.

We get up early to go to Nine Dragon Ponds. There is a heavy mist. He is walking in front. Beyond three paces he is only a faint shape and five paces away he can barely hear if I shout. If the mountain mist is thick like this, it is not at all strange that last night the lamp cast shadows overhead. For me this is a new experience and if I breathe out, a white vapour curls up to fill the gap I have made in the mist. However, before we go a hundred paces from the cave, he stops and turns back to say we can’t go any further.

“Why?” I ask.

“Last year it was also foul weather like this. A group of six went up the mountain to steal medicinal herbs and only three came back.”

“Stop trying to frighten me,” I say.

“You go if you like, but there’s no way I’m going.”

“But you’re here to accompany me!”

“I was sent by the ranger.”

“He sent you because of me.” I don’t tell him I’m the one paying for his porter fee.

“If anything happens, it’ll be hard explaining it to the ranger.”

“You don’t have to explain to the ranger, he’s not my ranger and he doesn’t have to be responsible for me. I’m the only person responsible for me. And I want to see Nine Dragon Lake!”

He says it’s not a lake, it’s just a few ponds.

I say, lake or ponds, I want to look at the gold hair moss there, I’ve come to this mountain to look at the one-foot-high gold hair moss, I want to somersault on the thick gold hair moss.

He says you can’t sleep there, it is all waterweeds.

I go to say that it was the ranger who told me it was softer than tumbling on carpet, but it is pointless for me to try to explain what carpet is.

He stops talking and head bowed walks on ahead. I am therefore on the road again, this is a victory for me, I am capable of unnecessarily forcing my will upon a guide whose legs I am paying a fee for. I simply want to prove I have my own will which is precisely why I have come to this place where even ghosts wouldn’t come.

As soon as I relax and fall a few steps behind, he vanishes in this white miasmic mist. I must hurry after his shadowy form but drawing near I discover it is a mountain oak. I don’t know where I’ll end up if I try finding my way back through this grassy marshland, I’ve completely lost my bearings and I start yelling out to him as loudly as I can.

He finally emerges in the mist, gesticulating wildly at me, and it is only after I come right up to him that I hear he is shouting. It’s this damn mist.

“Are you angry with me?” I ask, thinking I should be apologetic.

“I’m not angry, even if I were I’m not angry with you, it’s you who are angry with me!” He is still gesticulating wildly and yelling but the sound is muffled by the dense mist. I am aware that I am in the wrong.

I’d best follow close behind, virtually treading on his heels. It’s impossible to go very far and it’s very uncomfortable walking like this, and I certainly haven’t come up this mountain to look at his heels. Then why have I come? It seems to have something to do with the dream, the demon shadow, my soaking wet clothing, my not having slept all night and this frustration, that I have a foreboding premonition. I reach into the pocket of my shirt which is clinging to my skin for the medicinal root to fend off snakes. I can’t find it.

“Let’s turn back.”

He doesn’t hear and I have to shout out, “Let’s go back!”

This is all quite ridiculous but he doesn’t laugh and just mumbles, “Should’ve turned back long ago.”

So I end up obeying him. Turning around, I follow after him. He lights a fire as soon as he gets into the cave. The air pressure is so low that the smoke can’t escape and soon the cave fills with smoke and we can barely open our eyes. He sits down in front of the fire and begins chanting,
nan-nan na-na
.

“What are you saying to the fire?” I ask.

“I’m saying that humans can’t overcome fate.”

He then climbs onto the plank bed to sleep and before long I hear him snoring loudly. He is a spontaneous creature with an untrammelled mind I think to myself. My predicament lies in my always seeking to be self-activated and wanting to search for my soul. However, the problem is if my soul manifested itself, would I be able to comprehend it? And even if I were able to comprehend it, what would it lead to?