Soul Mountain (50 page)

She has loved more than once . . . 

How many times? She asks you to guess.

You say she began when she was small.

At what age? she asks.

You say she’s a romantic and that from a very young age she longed for love. She laughs.

You warn her that in life there is not a prince on a white charger and that she will be disappointed time and again. She avoids your eyes.

You say time and again she has been deceived and that time and again she will deceive others . . .  She tells you to go on with the reading.

You say the lines of her palm are complicated and that she is invariably involved with quite a few people at the same time.

Wrong, she says.

You interrupt her protest and say while involved with one person she is thinking of another, that she has a new lover before breaking off with the previous one.

You’re exaggerating, she says.

You say sometimes it’s conscious and at other times not. You are not saying this is not good, you are simply saying this is in the lines of her palm. Is there something you shouldn’t talk about? You look into her eyes.

She hesitates then resolutely says you can talk about anything.

You say she is destined not to be devoted in her love. You feel the bones of her hand and say that you don’t just examine the lines of the palm but also the bone structure. You say that any man can lead her away just by holding this small soft hand.

Try leading me! She pulls back her hand but you hold on and won’t let go.

She is destined to suffer, you are talking about what is in her hand.

Why?

You will have to ask yourself this.

She says she only wants to single-heartedly love one person.

You acknowledge that this is what she wants but the problem is it’s impossible.

Why?

You say she must ask her own hand, the hand belongs to her, you can’t answer for her.

You’re really cunning, she says.

You say it isn’t you who is cunning, it’s this hand of hers which is too delicate, too soft, too unfathomable.

She sighs and asks you to go on with the reading.

You say if you go on she’ll get cross.

She won’t.

You say she is already angry.

She insists she isn’t.

You say she doesn’t know what to love.

She doesn’t understand, she says she doesn’t understand what you’re saying.

You ask her to think about it.

She says she has but she still doesn’t understand.

This means she doesn’t know what to love.

To love someone, someone really special!

What do you mean by really special?

Someone who can make her fall in love so that she can give her heart to him and follow him anywhere, even to the end of the world.

You say this is momentary romantic excitement . . . 

What she wants is excitement!

After calming down it’s impossible.

She says it is possible.

But after calming down there will be other concerns.

She says if she falls in love there will be no calming down.

That means she has never been in love. You stare into her eyes, she looks away and says she really doesn’t know.

She doesn’t know whether she has been in love because she loves herself too much.

Don’t be so wicked, she cautions you.

You say it’s because she is too beautiful and is always concerned about what impression she gives.

Keep talking!

She’s annoyed. You say her not knowing is instinctive.

What do you mean? She frowns.

What you are saying is simply that this instinct is particularly obvious in her case, this is because she is too lovely and so many people love her. This is her misfortune.

She shakes her head and says you’re incorrigible.

You say it was she who wanted her hand read and furthermore wanted you to be frank.

But you’re a bit excessive, she quietly protests.

The truth can’t be quite as you’d like it or all sound good, it’s bound to be a bit bleak, otherwise how can one confront one’s fate? You ask if she wants you to go on with the reading.

Hurry up and finish.

You say she must spread her fingers and you separate them, saying you must see if it is she who controls her fate or fate which controls her.

Then who do you think is in control?

You get her to clench her fists tight, grab them and pull up her arms then yell out for everyone to look!

They all start laughing and she pulls herself free.

You say what bad luck, you’re referring to yourself and not her. At this she too bursts out laughing.

You ask if anyone else wants a reading. The women are all silent. Then a hand with long fingers stretches out and a timid voice says, look at me.

You say you only read hands, not faces.

I’m asking you to look at my fate! she corrects you.

This is a hand with strength, you say feeling it.

Don’t talk about anything else, just tell me if I will have a career.

You say you are saying that this hand shows a strong character.

Just tell me whether or not I’ll be successful in my career.

You can only say she will have a career but having a career is not necessarily the the same as being successful.

Without being successful how can it count as a career? she retorts.

A career can be something to support oneself.

What are you implying?

I’m saying there’s a lack of ambition.

She sighs and her fingers go slack. There is a lack of ambition, she admits.

You say she is strong but she lacks ambition and doesn’t want to control others.

That’s how it is, she bites her lip.

Often career and ambition are inseparable. To say a man has ambition is to say he has a career. Ambition is the basis of a career, with ambition one invariably wants to be outstanding.

Yes, she says, she doesn’t want to be outstanding.

You say she wants only to affirm herself, she isn’t pretty but she is kind hearted. Success in a career always requires struggle but because she is too kind hearted she can’t beat her opponents and so naturally she will never succeed in the sense of being outstanding.

She quietly says she knows this.

Having a career but not necessarily being a success can be lucky, you say.

But she says it can’t count as good fortune.

Not being a success in one’s career is not the same as being unlucky, you reiterate.

What sort of good fortune are you talking about?

Emotional.

She sighs softly.

You say someone secretly loves her but she doesn’t take him seriously, she hasn’t even noticed him.

Then who is it?

You let go of her hand and say she’ll have to think about it.

Her eyes open wide and everyone listening intently bursts out laughing, she is embarrassed but puts down her head and also starts laughing.

This is a happy night, the women surround you and all put out their hands clamouring for a reading. You say you aren’t a fortune-teller, that you’re just a shaman.

A shaman, that’s too scary! the women all call out.

Not me, I like shamans, I just love shamans! A woman puts her arms around you and sticks out a plump hand. Have a look for me, will I have money? Pushing away the other hands, she says, I don’t care about love and a career, I just want a husband, a wealthy husband.

Won’t you just have to find yourself an old man? another woman says caustically.

Why do I have to find an old man? the woman with the plump hand retorts.

When the old man dies won’t all the money belong to you? Then you can go and find the young man you love. The woman is pretty harsh.

What if he doesn’t die? Won’t that be tragic? Don’t be so mean! the woman with the plump hands retaliates.

This voluptuous, plump hand is very sexy, you say.

Everyone claps, whistles and shouts.

Read my palm! she commands, nobody interrupt!

When you say this hand is sexy, you are serious. This means that this hand brings many suitors so it’s hard to choose and hard to know what to do.

There are plenty of people who love me and this is fine, but what about money? she mumbles.

At this everyone laughs.

People who don’t seek money but seek love don’t have love and people who pursue money don’t have money but have many who love them. That’s fate, you sternly declare.

This fate is pretty good! one woman calls out.

The woman with the plump hand turns up her nose, if I don’t have money how will I be able to dress up? As long as I can dress up and make myself pretty I won’t need to worry about nobody wanting me, will I?

Well spoken! the women all chime in.

And you, you just want women milling around you, you’re really greedy! a woman behind you says, will you be able to love them all?

But you’ve yearned for such a happy night and you say you love every hand and you want every hand.

No, no, you only love yourself! Each hand is shaking, protesting, shouting.

I enter Shennongjia through Fangxian in the north. Even now rumours are rife that there are Wild Men around these parts. It is recorded in the late Qing Dynasty work
Annals of Yunyangfu
that in this forest running 800
li
from north to south, “all day long is the roaring of tigers and the screeching of apes”. I am not here to carry out an investigation into Wild Men, but have come to see if this primitive forest still exists. I am not mercilessly driven by some burning missionary zeal, it is simply because I have come down all the way from the high plateau and the huge mountains of the upper reaches of the Yangtze and it would be a pity to miss out seeing this mountain region of the middle reaches. So not having a goal is a goal, the act of searching itself turns into a sort of goal, and the object of the search is irrelevant. Moreover, life itself is without goals, and is simply travelling along like this.

The rain falls heavily during the night and although by morning it has lessened somewhat, it is still fine and continuous. There is nothing resembling forest along the two sides of the highway and the mountains are covered only with creepers and actinidia vines. The rivers and creeks are all brown and muddy. I arrive in the county town at eleven in the morning and go to the forestry bureau hostel hoping to get a ride into the forest proper. I run into a meeting of three grades of cadres, and although I can’t work out which three grades, it seems the meeting is about timber.

At noon the cadres assemble for lunch and it becomes known that I am a writer from Beijing. The section chief in charge gets me to join them and arranges for a driver who is setting out in the afternoon to sit next to me while urging me to drink up.

“All writers are good drinkers!” he says. The section chief has a solid build and is very direct.

Big bowls of hot rice wine go down easily and faces are flushed bright red with alcohol. I can’t disappoint them and quaff down the wine. After the food and drink, I have a fuzzy head and the driver isn’t in any condition to drive.

The meeting reconvenes in the afternoon but the driver takes me to one of the guest rooms where we find beds and sleep right into the night.

At dinner there is leftover food and drink so all of us get drunk all over again. The only thing I can do is to stay the night at the hostel. The driver comes and tells me the mountain waters have washed away some of the road and it is hard to say whether or not it will be possible to set out the next day. It is a chance for a good rest and he is quite pleased.

At night the section chief comes to chat and wants to find out what they eat at banquets in the capital. What dishes are served first? What dishes are served last? He says people who have visited the Imperial Palace in Beijing tell him that when a meal was prepared for the Empress Dowager a hundred ducks had to be killed, is this really true? Is the residence of Chairman Mao in Zhongnanhai still open for public inspection? Have I seen the Chairman’s old patched pyjamas they show on TV? I take the opportunity to ask what stories he can tell me about the place.