In the white mists of Tianzi I felt cut off from the world, but Zhangjiajie pulls me back to earth. Tourists fill the streets and restaurants. Late at night, the police break into my hostel and drag a naked couple into the corridor, threatening to inform their work unit unless they pay a three-hundred-yuan fine. The man’s feet turn white and the woman’s thighs tremble with cold. They fetch 170 yuan and say it is all they have. The police grab the money and let them go.
Back in the dormitory, everyone lights a cigarette and discusses the naked woman.
‘So that’s what women look like with no clothes on.’
‘Such shiny skin, lovely white bottom.’
‘Serves them right, sleeping around like foreigners.’
‘They were up to no good. He looked old enough to be her father.’
Director Liu of Shaoyang Food Supplies describes how counter-revolutionaries were dealt with during the Cultural Revolution. ‘They were shot, then stripped naked and tossed into the river so everyone downstream would know. Once I saw a whole family floating by, threaded together with a piece of wire.’
‘What about the women?’ asks the man who had never seen a naked woman before tonight.
‘No chance of a cheap thrill, my friend. They hacked the tits off before they threw the women in.’
I read the hotel regulations pinned to the wall. The last one says: ‘Men and women can only share a room if their age gaps exceed seventy years.’ I guess that rules out grandmothers sharing a room with their grandsons. I crawl into bed, but cannot sleep. The room is still murmuring with gossip.
I hate people gloating over the misery of others. When the police drive criminals to the execution ground, the streets fill with gawping crowds. Women are always treated the worst. In a Beijing suburb I saw a woman being dragged through the streets by a wire hooked between her vagina and anus, while the male prisoners were just hooked at the shoulder blades. When a woman steps before the firing squad, people point and whisper, ‘Look, it’s a woman.’
In the 1940s Chinese men could take fourteen wives, but a decade later they had to limit themselves to one. But the thwarted desires for domination and voyeurism still seethe inside men’s hearts and explode at every opportunity. On an execution notice today, I read of a Sichuan man who, having raped a young girl, stretched his hand up her vagina and ripped out her womb. When a country is ruled by a band of thugs, men behave like savages. Another naked couple stand shivering on the street outside. The police must have found some more victims. Inside our room, six stinking mouths chew over the details of the scene. Before day breaks I pack my bag and leave.
I return to Guizhou Province the next day and climb the sacred Mount Fanjing. There are stone steps all the way up. When the black rain clouds lift, the mountain is bathed in light. The Buddhist temple at the top is under restoration, the shrine is empty. I stand and watch the clouds race through the sky below. There is no one in sight. It feels good to be away from the crowds and breathe the clean mountain air.
Two days later I descend the mountain and trek to Shiqian village to bathe in the Ming Dynasty spa.
When the Shiqian Library manager reads my letter from Guizhou Press he smiles and hands me the keys to the building. There are four thousand dusty books to browse at will. I decide to stay a few days.
The next morning I buy a ticket for the hot springs. There are three connected pools: officials’ at the top, men’s in the middle, and women’s at the bottom. The middle room is thick with steam. About ten men are wallowing in the bubbling water. They mop their faces with flannels then use washing powder to scrub their dirty clothes, plimsolls, slippers and sheets. The water is filthy, but at least the heat soothes my chapped skin. The stream that arrives from the officials’ pool is far from clean, I imagine it is black by the time it leaves the women’s pool.
The old man beside me stands up and tries to piss over the ledge, but his aim is poor and the urine dribbles back into the pool.
‘Sorry, my friend,’ he says, wiping the ledge with his flannel. ‘I’m getting old. I will be eighty-one this year.’
‘Congratulations, that’s a fine age.’ I look at his little penis and edge away. I am not in the mood for conversation.
Soon the stench of chlorine and filth brings tears to my eyes. I stand up and stick my head out of the window. A few women too poor to buy tickets are washing in the black stream running from the lower pool. As the water continues down the narrow valley the steam slowly disappears.
In the evening I lock up the library and walk back to the hostel. There is a light still on in the village. An old man has passed away and a crowd has gathered at his house hoping that the sight of an aged corpse will bring them long life.
I squeeze through the door. The couplet hung on the back wall reads THE SOUL RETURNS TO HEAVEN, CLEANSED OF WORLDLY DUST. On the funeral altar, a photograph of the deceased is lit by two flickering candles. I recognise the face. It is the old man who pissed in the pool this morning. His relatives pull me inside and give me a seat at the front, right next to the corpse. There is no escape.
The woman on my right hands me some melon seeds. I stare at the dead man’s sunken chin and the yellow teeth behind his dry lips. In this room full of living people he is the only one who has walked to the end of life and stopped. His death draws the living around him, while the living try to suck life from his death. Today, this man is their role model, the guide to their future.
‘He lived to a fine age. Had a tumour removed last year, big as an apple.’
‘Never lost his appetite. He ate a bowl of gruel yesterday and peeled two hard-boiled eggs by himself.’
At last the Catholic priest walks in with a red cloth over his shoulders and a prayer book in his hand. I saw him this morning at breakfast in the hostel canteen. I take advantage of the confusion and squeeze outside. It is less crowded on the street. A hush falls, then the people inside start chanting with the priest: ‘Almighty God, when the earth shakes and the mountains crumble, you will come on your horse to pass final judgement. We wait in fear. Have mercy on our sins, absolve us from punishment, lead us to heaven and grant us life eternal. Amen.’
After breakfast the next day, I buy the prayer book off the priest for two yuan, and set off back to Guiyang.
Rain Over the Leprosy Camp
With a letter of authentication from Old Xu, I go to the post office to cash my cheques and come out with nearly three hundred yuan. Fu Yi takes me to find the sofa boss who still owes me money for my paintings. Fu Yi works for someone else now, making picture frames for double his old wage. He says, ‘Yanzi thought you were quite nice. She keeps asking where you’ve gone.’
‘Don’t tell her I’m back,’ I say, remembering the cold, hard soles of her feet.
The sofa boss lives in an old courtyard compound. The tree in the middle is dead. Each coal shed is filled to the brim. There is a coffin outside the boss’s door. Fu Yi tells me it was given to the boss’s father as a retirement present. The boss is not at home, but later we find him playing drinking games in a nearby restaurant. He gives me 150 yuan. I painted thirty-five pictures so I was owed more than seven hundred.
When I leave for Huanguoshu Falls the next day, Old Xu walks me to the bus station. He says, ‘Tian Bing wanted to run away with you, but when you showed us your qigong she decided you were a cheap prankster and now she never wants to see you again.’