Soul Mountain (60 page)

“As long as I like the person and I’m in the mood.”

Her diffidence infuriates you and you want to blurt out hurtful things, but only say, “You’re wanton!”

“Isn’t this what you yourself would like to be able to do? It’s just that it’s easier for women. If a woman can see through you, why shouldn’t she enjoy herself? What else do you have to say?” She puts down the cup and turning her large brown nipples to you, says with a pitying expression, “You’re really such a pitiful big child, don’t you want to have another go?”

“Why not?”

You welcome her.

“You’re satisfied now, aren’t you?” she says.

You want to nod instead of replying, aware only of a comfortable weariness.

“Talk about something,” she urges by your ear.

“What shall I talk about?”

“Anything.”

“Not talk about the key?”

“Talk about anything you want to.”

“It could be said that this key–”

“I’m listening.”

“If it’s lost then so be it.”

“You’ve already said this.”

“In any case he went out–”

“What happened when he was out?”

“People on the street were rushing about.”

“Go on!”

“He was surprised.”

“Why?”

“He couldn’t understand why people were rushing about.”

“The only thing they can do is to rush about like this.”

“Surely there’s no need for it?”

“If they were not busy doing something they would be anxious.”

“That’s right, they all had strange expressions on their faces and they were all preoccupied,”

“And they were all very solemn,”

“They solemnly went into shops and solemnly came out, solemnly carrying a pair of scuffs under their arms, and solemnly taking out some loose coins to solemnly buy an ice cream,”

“And solemnly licking at it,”

“Don’t talk about ice cream,”

“It was you who started talking about it,”

“Don’t interrupt, where did I get to?”

“You were talking about taking out a handful of loose coins and solemnly bargaining at the stall, solemnly, why still solemnly? What need is there for solemnity?”

“Pissing into a urinal,”

“And then?”

“The shops had all shut,”

“And people were all scurrying home,”

“He wasn’t hurrying to go anywhere, he seemed to have somewhere to go, people usually call it home, to procure this room he had even argued with the caretaker,”

“Still he has a room,”

“But he can’t find the key,”

“Wasn’t the room unlocked?”

“The question is, did he have to go back?”

“Couldn’t he have stayed the night just anywhere?”

“Like a drifter? Just drifting wherever he liked in the city at night, like a gust of wind,”

“Just jumped on a train and let it take him anywhere!”

“It had never occurred to him, one journey after another, whatever he felt like, getting off wherever he wanted,”

“To find someone, to passionately make love with!”

“To ravish until he was totally exhausted,”

“Even if it killed him it would have been worth it,”

“It was like that, the night wind was coming from all directions, he was standing in an empty square and he heard a rustling noise, he couldn’t make out whether it was the wind or the sound of his heart, he suddenly felt he had discarded all responsibilities, had attained liberation, he was at last free, this freedom in fact came from himself, he could begin everything all over again, like a naked baby, thrown into the washbasin, kicking his little legs, crying without restraint to let the world hear his voice, he wanted to have a good cry to unleash the full extent of his emotions but discovered he only had the one physical body, it was empty inside and couldn’t produce shouting, he stared at this physical body of his standing there on the deserted square not knowing where it wanted to go, he should greet it, pat it on the shoulder, joke with it, but he knew that if at this moment he were so much as to touch it, it would die of fright,”

“It’s like sleepwalking, when the soul comes out of the orifices of the body,”

“It was then that he understood, his sufferings all came from this physical body,”

“You wanted to awaken him?”

“But you were afraid he wouldn’t be able to cope. When you were little you heard the old people say it only took pouring a bucket of cold water on a sleepwalker to kill him, you hesitated and didn’t dare to make a move, your hand was raised but you hesitated and in the end you didn’t pat him on the shoulder,”

“Why didn’t you gently awaken him?”

“You just followed behind that physical body of his, he seemed to want to go somewhere,”

“Did you still go back to that home of his? That room of his?”

“You can’t say for sure, you just followed him, passed along a big street, went into a lane and came out at the other end, came back to a big street, went into another lane and emerged from it again,”

“And returned to the street you started off from!”

“Dawn is about to break,”

“Come do it again, once more . . .”

I have long tired of the struggles of the human world. In all the fine-sounding discussions, controversies and debates, I have invariably been made the topic, subjected to criticism, made to listen to instructions, made to wait for a verdict, and then waited in vain for some kindly divinity to intervene, to turn Heaven and Earth and get me out of my predicament. This divinity eventually emerged but wasn’t sympathetic and just looked somewhere else.

Everyone wants to be my teacher, my leader, my judge, my good doctor, my adviser, my referee, my elder, my minister, my critic, my guide, my acknowledged leader. Whether I need it or not, people want to be my saviour, my hit man (that is to say my hit-my-hand man), my reborn parents (even though both my parents are dead), or else grandly represent my country for me when I myself don’t know what is country or whether or not I have a country. Others invariably represent me. And my friends, those who argue for me, that is to say are willing to argue in my defence, have all been reduced to circumstances similar to my own. Such is my fate.

I can’t play the tragic role of the defeated hero who fights against fate but I greatly revere those dauntless heroes who charge into danger and when badly injured will still fight on. I can only silently extend my respect and grief to them.

It is also impossible for me to be a recluse. For some reason, I hastily depart from the Palace of Supreme Purity. Is it because I can’t endure the purity of non-being? Is it because I lost patience with reading the several thousand extant volumes of the Ming Dynasty edition of
Daoist Scriptures
which escaped being burned through the pleading of some old Daoists and are stored in the Daoist Scripture Pavilion? Or is it because I can’t be bothered with hearing any more of the sufferings of the lives of the old Daoists? And that I am also afraid of prying into the secrets locked in the heart of the young Daoist nun? Or is it because I don’t want to destroy my own heart? It seems, in the end, I am just a connoisseur of beauty.

In Haiba, more than 4,000 metres into Tibet, I am warming myself by the fire in a road worker’s stone hut blackened from smoke. Up ahead are huge ice-clad snowy mountains. A bus appears on the highway and a crowd of excited people get off, some have backpacks and some have little iron hammers, some also have specimen folders on their backs. They look like university students here to do practical work and, after poking their heads into the smoke-blackened hut with the windows shut tight, they go off. Only a girl with a red cotton umbrella comes in. Light snow is falling outside.

She thinks I’m a local roadworker and asks for a drink of water as soon as she enters. I use the iron ladle to scoop some from the sooty black pot sitting on the stone slabs around the fire and hand it to her. She takes it, starts drinking, and gives a yell. She’s scalded herself. I can do nothing but apologize. She comes up to the light of the fire, looks at me, and says, “You’re not a local, are you?” Her face, wrapped in a woollen scarf, is red with cold. Since coming onto this mountain I haven’t seen a girl with such beautiful skin and I want to tease her.

“Don’t you think mountain people know how to apologize?”

Her face goes a brighter red.

“Are you doing practical work here too?” she asks.

I can’t say that I could even be her teacher, so I say, “I’m here taking photos.”

“Are you a photographer?”

“I suppose so.”

“We’re here collecting specimens. The scenery is superb!” she exclaims.

“Yes, beyond words.”

It does seem that I am just a connoisseur of beauty. On seeing such a pretty girl I can’t help being affected and suggest, “May I take your photo?”

“Can I put up my umbrella?” she asks, twirling her red umbrella.

“This is black and white film.” I don’t tell her the film I’m using was cut and put together from a whole lot of reject movie stock I’d bought.

“It doesn’t matter, artistic photographers all use black and white film.” She seems to know a bit about it. She follows me outside. A large part of the sky is filled with fine swirling snow and she puts up her bright red umbrella to fend off the wind.

Although it is May and already spring, the snow on the mountain still hasn’t completely thawed and in between the patches of white, little purple fritillary flowers are growing everywhere and occasionally there are squat bushes of dark red stonecrop. Beneath the bare cliff, a green velvety artemesia stretches out a furry stalk with a big yellow flower.

“How about here?” I say. The big snow-covered mountain in the background was clearly visible early in the morning but right now the fine snow has turned it into a faint grey shadow.

“Does this look all right?” She poses and tilts her head but the mountain wind is quite strong and she can’t hold the umbrella steady.

She looks even better struggling to hold up the umbrella against the wind.

Further ahead is a trickling creek with a thin crust of ice flanked by big yellow alpine buttercups.

“Go over there!” I yell, pointing to the creek.

She struggles with her umbrella in the wind as she runs and I zoom in with my lens. She is panting, the fine snow has turned to misty rain and her scarf and hair sparkle with drops of water. I signal to her.

“Have you finished?” she calls out against the wind. Drops of water sparkle on her eyelashes and she looks even better. Unfortunately, I’ve already come to the end of my film.

“Can you send me the photo?” she asks hopefully.

“If you leave me an address.”

As my bus is about to leave, she runs up and hands me through the window a page torn out of her notebook with her name and a number of some street in Chengdu written on it. She says I am welcome to come, and waves goodbye.

Later, when I return to Chengdu, I pass by this old street. I remember the number of her house and go past the front of it but don’t go in. I don’t send her the photo afterwards either. After developing my big pile of film, apart from the few I really need, I don’t print most of it. I don’t know whether or not one day I’ll have all this film made into prints, nor do I know whether she will look as stunningly beautiful in the photo.

On Huanggang Mountain, which is the main mountain of the Wuyi Range, I manage to photograph a splendid deciduous pine growing in the belt of conifers in the lower section of the sub-alpine grassy marshland adjoining the peak. Halfway up the trunk it suddenly divides into two almost horizontal branches. It is like a giant falcon flapping its wings ready to take off and the part right between the two wings is exactly like the head and beak looking down.

Nature creates, in this mystical way, not only powerful vitality such as this but also exquisite, ever-changing feminine beauty. It also creates evil. It is also in the Wuyi Mountains, on the south side of the mountain reserve, that I see a huge decaying torreya. The core of the tree is hollow and could be a nest for a python, but on the sparse branches growing out at an angle from the iron-like black bark, small dark green leaves tremble. At sunset, the valley is plunged into shadows and above a sea of fine gentle bamboos burnished green and orange by the setting sun, this ancient tree suddenly looms up, its decaying black branches wilfully outstretched like a malevolent demon. This photo I do develop and print and whenever I look at it, it chills my heart and I can’t look at it for long. I realize that it brings to the surface the dark aspect in the depths of my soul, which terrifies even me. I can only recoil when confronted by beauty or evil.