‘I am sorry she feels that way. She never really cared about me though. I just fuelled her dreams of escape.’
Is it love that keeps her in this city, or hate? Would she really have run away with me? I don’t think she knows the answers herself.
The winter has been so dry that the Huanguoshu Falls are reduced to a trickle. A dam will be opened tomorrow for a foreign tour group, but I decide not to wait. Spring Festival is two days away. I want to head into the mountains and see it celebrated in the Miao villages.
On the sixth day of the Chinese Lunar Year, I continue west and meet a companion on the road. We spend all day together, walking through deep, green valleys. In the evening we reach his uncle’s house, and he invites me to share a meal and stay the night. The uncle tells me there is a bus to Anshun tomorrow, so I change my route and decide to loop north before I head into Yunnan.
A month later I pass through Yemachuan village on the Guizhou-Yunnan plateau, and take a red path that runs along a ridge like a fresh wound. Green weeds lining the path stretch towards the sky. Suddenly, a black cloud appears from nowhere, and in the downpour that follows, the path turns to mud and I slip twice to the ground. Through the sheets of rain I see a white house ahead, and wade through the wet grass to its gates. The sign on the door says SALAXI SANATORIUM FOR INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
I walk inside. The place is empty. A cold wind blows through my wet clothes. ‘Anyone there?’ I shout, but all I hear are my creaking footsteps. As I climb the wooden staircase I wonder whether the residents have been wiped out by a fatal plague. It is dark upstairs, the only light is from a window above the stairwell. I grope along the corridor and see a splinter of light shining from a crack in a door. The plaque says directors OFFICE. I walk in. The room is small and tidy. There is a newspaper and inkwell on the desk, and an acupuncture chart on the wall. I take a tea cup and open the thermos flask but there is no water inside.
The rain outside the window is so heavy I cannot see beyond the vegetable plot below. I take off my wet jacket and sit in the armchair. If no one turns up I might as well spend the night. I didn’t pass any hostels on the way.
Soon the building begins to creak. Footsteps climb the stairs and tread down the corridor. I stare at the door. It opens and a girl walks in. She speaks to me in a Guizhou dialect. I tell her I am a journalist and produce my letter of introduction. She puts down her umbrella and smiles. ‘You are the first journalist to visit our leprosy camp. Wait here, I’ll call the director at once.’
My eyes dart around the room. Now I know why there were no guards at the gate, the fear of leprosy is a sufficient barrier. I take out my camera and notebook and pass a comb through my hair.
The director is a young man of about thirty. He pours me a cup of tea and tells me the history of the sanatorium.
‘It was built by Italian Jesuits in 1933, specifically for the treatment of leprosy. How many patients now? About thirty. Their conditions are stable. Most could go home if they wanted, but no one will take them back. Symptoms? Skin thickening, ulceration, partial necrosis, hair loss. .’
‘Would you allow me to meet some of the patients?’ I ask, closing my notebook. ‘We can continue this talk later.’
‘You are very brave. Most people are terrified of infection. In the past, the staff had to wear gumboots and surgical masks before they entered the camp.’
The camp is situated just behind the building. In the drizzling rain it looks like a pretty mountain village. The path is lined with sick rooms, most of them empty.
The director knocks on a door and we walk inside. The windows are grimy. Through the darkness I can see white bowls and farm tools on the floor. Two camp beds are pushed against opposite walls. There is a large leek on the stove in the middle. The air is stale and musty.
‘Get up, Jiefang. A journalist has come to speak to you. You can say what you like.’ The director is a small man, his gumboots look huge on him.
‘S-sit down, please. I’ll light the stove. Is it still r-raining outside?’ Jiefang throws off his bedcover and picks up a box of matches.
‘I’m not cold. Please sit down. You seem to be in fine health.’ He looks perfectly normal to me.
‘I’m much b-b-better. Came here in September and the m-medicine worked at once. Went home, but my w-wife didn’t w-want me, wouldn’t even let me see the ch-children. Went back to my f-factory, but they wouldn’t take me. They gave me some money and told me to go away. No hostel would have m-me, so I had to come b-back here in the end.’
‘We wrote to his work unit to say he was not contagious, but they wouldn’t listen. The fear runs too deep.’
‘How do you spend your time?’ Jiefang looks about thirty.
‘My hands still work, so I am needed on the fields. My boys? One’s n-nine, the other’s five. No, they have n-never v-visited me.’ His lips continue to quiver long after he finishes speaking.
A woman hobbles in on crutches. Her clothes are filthy. She is wearing an army cap. Her twisted mouth is half-open. A blind man with a haggard face follows behind her. They are joined by ten or more patients. Some have lost a hand, an ear, a nose, but most of them can walk and their skins seem quite healthy. The room is too crowded now, so I suggest we move on.
I open the next door and see an old woman crouched by the stove. Tufts of hair rise from her bald head like clumps of weed. Her eyes follow me as I enter the room, then return to the chillies behind the door. Another woman is asleep in the bed. All I can see is a patch of skin — a face or shoulder — peeping out between the blanket and the pillow. Her breathing is loud and chesty. An old flannel and a card printed with the words DOUBLE HAPPINESS hangs from the hook of a grey mosquito net. The smoke-stained wall behind the stove is pasted with pill-bottle labels. It looks like fungus sprouting on rotten wood.
‘The lady in bed is fifty-one. She suffers from gastric bleeding and can’t speak any more.’
The next room is a little brighter, the walls are lined with newspaper. An old man with white hair sits on the edge of his bed watching flies dart about. His face is gaunt and twisted. Streams of saliva dribble from the corners of his mouth and run down his padded jacket like rail tracks. He clutches the bedside table with his two remaining fingers. There is a newspaper on the table, an apple and a muddy pair of gloves.
‘Where are you from?’ he splutters with great effort.
‘Comrade Ma is a journalist from Guiyang, Old Wu. He has come to investigate our situation and will report back to the higher authorities. Old Wu has been with us for thirty years. He studied at Kunming Normal College and worked for the local government. Everyone here comes to him when they need to write letters.’ The director obviously gets on well with his patients.
‘We only receive twelve yuan a month, but prices keep going up, we can hardly afford to feed ourselves.’ Old Wu dribbles, tapping his knuckles on the newspaper. ‘We have written to the public health department three times asking for help but they still haven’t replied.’
The other patients start chipping in.
‘The reform policies have improved people’s lives, but we still live on maize gruel here. In Hezhang Hospital they have televisions in every room.’
‘The county sent us some hats this year, but we need soap and new farm tools.’
‘And a television.’
‘We can never go shopping.’
‘Me? I was nine when I arrived. I’ve only been home once.’
‘This is our little orphan. His family lives in Sichuan. He went home in 1968 but the villagers beat him up. He hid in the bushes by day and walked back to us under the cover of darkness.’