‘Pick that stub up, you bloody idiot!’ I remember hearing that if anyone drops a stub in the meadows, the herders will beat them to death.
‘Calm down, brother. Everyone has to live, you know.’
When we finish for the day he rinses his hair under the tap and carefully buckles his watch. He is taking me to the library tonight.
The boss finally agrees to my idea of selling paintings together with the sofas. He hands me a photograph of an evening seascape and promises to pay me fifteen yuan a copy. I go out to buy canvas and paints and finish two pictures before dusk. Once I get the hang of it I manage to churn out six paintings a day.
On Tuesday afternoon I visit the offices of Guizhou Press to see Old Xu. He hands me a pile of letters that have accumulated for me over the last month. There is a lot of news about the stories I have submitted to magazines. Wang Ping tells me Northern Fiction has accepted ‘The Last Rain’ and Beijing Literature will publish ‘White Fruit’. Li Tao says ‘Black Earth’ will appear in next month’s Modern Writing and that Special Economic Zone Literature is interested in ‘Virgin’. Horizon magazine writes to say ‘Waves’ was published in their autumn issue and my fee has been sent to Wang Ping. I decide to give up the sofa job and wait for my cheques to roll in.
Old Xu says he liked ‘Escarpment’ and ‘Yin Yang’ but his boss said they were too dark and decadent and refused to publish them. I say, ‘Never mind, there are two thousand literary magazines in China, one of them is bound to take them.’ Old Xu has arranged for me to talk to the Guiyang Teachers’ Book Club tonight. I will receive a fee of twenty yuan. We make our way to a classroom in the Telecommunications College, and with the aid of some notes I have scribbled in the library, I ramble on about the influence of Daoism on modern Chinese verse, then discuss my approach to creative writing.
When I am finished, fourteen teachers seated behind a horseshoe of school desks start firing questions at me.
‘My name is Zheng Guang. Please tell me, do you think traditional culture will influence the future development of society?’ Zheng Guang is the chairman of the book club. He wears a suit and tie and has a big smile on his face, and looks very out of place in this cold, dark classroom.
‘Well, it can’t influence the past, can it? Tradition is an inevitable part of life. Of course it will influence our future. But modern societies are driven primarily by the concept of individualism.’
‘Mister Ma, the reforms have so far been limited to the economic sphere, but I feel that what our country needs most is political liberalisation. What is your opinion on this?’ I glance at the questioner opposite me: bald, smiling, middle-aged, doesn’t look like an informer. He cracks his knuckles as I reply.
‘I was asked similar questions at Anhui Normal College and Shenzhen University. The authorities talk about reform but they have no intention of loosening political control. Political freedom gives one a sense of self. Economic freedom encourages greed. If one has the latter without the former then society becomes warped and this can be very dangerous.’
‘I read in a magazine that robots have reached the intelligence of a three-year-old child. Does this mean that in fifty years’ time they will achieve the intelligence of an adult?’ The questioner at the back clenches his hands into tight fists.
‘Forgive me, all I can tell you is that foreign countries use calculators to control their production lines. I know nothing about computers.’
‘Why are you a Buddhist? Do you believe in heaven?’ The man in the front row has no legs. All I can see is a head perched on the table.
‘Buddhism eases one’s spiritual pain. I will not let a political party tell me how to live, when to die or what to believe in. Our souls are linked to the universe, but we can never see heaven, because our flesh ties us to the earth and the people around us. But when the people around you have lost their will to be free, then earth becomes a hell.’
‘Do you think dogs can predict earthquakes? Have you ever seen a ghost?’ Before my talk, this man told me he was a professor of biology at Guizhou University. Either his hair is very greasy or he was caught in a shower on the way here.
‘As man’s brain has evolved he has lost some of the subtler sensitivities. Animals are more attuned to nature. The dogs in the street outside know we are sitting in this classroom, but we have no idea where they are. Sometimes when I practise qigong I feel my soul leave my body. I have never seen a ghost, but I hope the Buddha will appear to me one day.’
‘What is your opinion of Bao Yu’s love for Lin Daiyu in A Dream of Red Mansions?’ This woman is sitting right in front of me. She has a small mouth and thick white glasses.
‘I read the book when I was sixteen. It’s a wonderful novel. We all want to live a dream life in a beautiful secret garden. But when the dream shatters, we wake up and see through the red dust of illusion. I too write about love and death, or, to be precise, about how love can only exist in death, because only death is eternal. What? No, I have not seen through the red dust yet.’
The questions come to an end. During the applause Zheng Guang presents me with a brand new nylon shirt, and everyone begs me to show them some qigong.
A few days later, Tian Bing and I go to Zheng Guang’s home for a drink. He and his wife are divorced but they still share their one room. His wife is a Beijing Opera singer and gave me twenty yuan for my copy of Van Gogh’s cornfields. Tonight she has fried some wild onions and spicy fish. Everyone from the book club is here. They say they paid me too little for the lecture and slip a hundred-yuan note into my pocket. I sit on the floor and give them another qigong demonstration. Everyone gasps as my palms turn red and the sweat pours from my head. When I open my eyes I see Tian Bing weeping on Old Xu’s shoulder. As I open another beer, she walks over and slaps me hard on the face.
I decide to take a trip into the countryside. Yang Ming is due to arrive soon, but I cannot bear to stay in this city any longer. The next day, I walk to the train station and buy a ticket for Zhangjiajie Nature Reserve in northern Hunan Province.
Abyss of Desire
I wake in the morning to a white universe. It snowed last night. The toilet hut looks like a fairy-tale cabin. I walk past it and crunch through the snow to the edge of the ‘One Step Crevasse’ I jumped across yesterday. The snow has narrowed the gap, but the drop is still as deep. The opposite side is slightly lower, so the leap across is easy, but the return jump is perilous. Last summer a Beijing tourist jumped back with so much force he ricocheted off the wall and fell into the abyss. I remember the fear that seized me yesterday, a sudden clenching between my thighs. They should build a footbridge across the damn thing and put an end to it.
I walk back to the timber frame of the condemned house that stands at the foot of Mount Tianzi. When this spot was turned into a tourist site, the village committee decided the house spoiled the scenery and ordered it to be knocked down. I stayed with the owner’s uncle last night in his warm and comfortable flat. He showed no concern for the fate of his nephew’s family when the snow started to fall. ‘Let them freeze to death!’ he said. ‘Serves them right for not listening to the village head.’
I see smoke rising through the roofless frame. Since there is no door, I walk straight in. The wife is feeding logs into the stove, and the five-year-old daughter is clutching a hand warmer. I touch it. It is stone-cold. Her frozen fingers look like little red carrots. She says her daddy has gone to the village. Hanging from the central beam is a mirror, a string of chillies and a calendar torn to today’s date: 1 January 1986. ‘Snow on the first day of the year. That must be a good omen.’ I try to give them some words of comfort, then take my leave and set off for Zhangjiajie town.