I put some clean plasters on my cuts and blew out the lamp to save them the oil. I felt as weak as a punctured tyre. My spirit can return to nature, but not my flesh.
A bird sang out as it flew over the roof. I opened my eyes and saw the morning light filter through the bamboo walls and the cracks in the wooden door. I stepped outside. Clouds of white mist still shrouded the forest. The clearing was no larger than half a basketball court. The thatched hut opposite served as a cattle shed by night and a school by day. A few cows had pushed through the door and were strolling in the yard. I stepped inside the shed and found it filled with flies and dung. There were wooden stumps on the floor for the children to sit on. A blackboard hung on the bamboo wall at the back. I could still see some chalked characters from yesterday’s lesson.
‘Mao Zedong said: "China is poor, we must learn to be frugal. ." Read the text and explain how we know that Chairman Mao lived a simple life. . His socks are darned. . New words: frugal, remind, sofa, bodyguard, interview. .’ The other characters had been wiped off by the swish of a cow’s tail. I used that same textbook as a child in the 1960s. It had a story about Mao Zedong tucking his feet under the sofa when foreigners visited so they would not see his darned socks. To this day, whenever I see pictures of Chairman Mao, my eyes always go straight to his feet. A portrait of Mao Zedong hung from a metal wire above the blackboard, out of tails’ reach.
The mist slowly lifted. I was very grateful for the good night’s sleep, and to thank my hosts I offered to take their family photograph. The man said, ‘Bet you’ll never send it to us,’ while the woman rushed indoors to comb her hair and dress the children. When I took out my camera, the man decided to join the group after all. The two boys sat on wicker baskets, rigid with fear. When the four startled faces stared into my lens the distance that separated our worlds seemed magnified. The sun rose above the school roof behind. I put on my pack, scribbled their address on a cigarette packet and promised to send them a copy. But the ink was washed away when I fell into the Nu River, and the photograph is still at the bottom of my bag.
In the morning I passed through a small Ake settlement, a remnant of a much larger village that was razed by the Han. I entered the largest hut and asked for a bowl of tea. The owner’s possessions consisted of an iron pot, a woman, the string of shells around her waist and the key that hung from her necklace. The key was puzzling, because he clearly had no need for a lock. I gave them a snake I had killed on the way and took my leave. As I continued up through the mountains, I saw peasants prodding terraced fields with bamboo sticks and dropping seeds into the holes. The dung heaps that littered the path were covered with large tiger butterflies.
On the third day I finally reached Bulangshan, the mountain stronghold of the Bulang tribe. Women in blue tunics and black turbans twisted cotton and kicked their buffaloes along as they returned from the paddy fields. The little baskets swinging from their waists were full of insects they had collected for the evening meal. I stayed with the village head, Secretary Lu. His grandmother was over eighty. When I asked to photograph her, she smiled and flashed her black-stained teeth. The secretary’s two daughters had beautiful eyes. They had not yet reached the teeth-staining age, but knew how to be shy in front of strangers. I gave them two lead pencils. I noticed a pair of plimsolls in the corner of the room and asked the secretary about them. He said he wore them to meetings at the town committee house.
In the next village I was told a frontier regiment nearby offered beds to visitors, so I marched there at full speed. When Instructor Chen heard how far I had walked he assigned me a bed and told me to rest. ‘It is a miracle you didn’t lose your way,’ he said. ‘You can relax now though. There’s a road just north of here that goes straight to Menghai.’
My skin was lacerated with sunburn and insect bites, but I gritted my teeth and washed with soap and water. I had to sleep on my side that night. Instructor Chen came to me the next evening and said, ‘How’s your back?’ I had taken a horse out that morning and when it cantered into the hills, I got caught in the branches and fell to the ground. I said, ‘Better, thanks,’ so he invited me for a stroll. Two kilometres beyond the camp, he took a gun from his pocket. ‘You wanted to try your hand at shooting, didn’t you? Here, have a go.’ He pulled out a sheet of writing paper and stuck it to a branch twenty metres away. My first shot missed, but the next two went straight through the middle. The bangs echoed through the forest.
On the way back he told me he wanted to leave the army and return to his wife in Chongqing. He said she had visited him one Spring Festival, but had gone home after three days, vowing never to return to the mountains for as long as she lived. He was worried that after eight years in the army it would be difficult to find a job in the city, as employers demanded skills and qualifications now. We spent a lot of time together over the next two days, drinking tea and smoking. I told him about my friends in Chongqing, and the ballroom where I hugged a girl and danced the chachacha. He told me that in the Cultural Revolution he was political instructor to a group of city youths from Kunming. His wife was one of his students at the time. She was the prettiest girl in the group.
My cuts and bruises were beginning to heal. At noon on the fifth day, I said goodbye to Instructor Chen, folded up the map I had copied from his, and set off for the main road.
From Traveller to Fugitive
Just before dusk the long-distance bus stops again in the shade of a high mountain. There is a traffic jam ahead, apparently. We all stream off to take a look. A boulder as large as an oil barrel has fallen from a cliff and landed in the middle of the road. I push and it moves a little. I call the men crouched under the tree to come and help, but they just smirk, so I give up and walk away. Trucks loaded with produce are parked on either side. The evening sun sinks towards a distant mountain, then birds swirl in the sky and disappear. I wish I too had a nest to go to.
I remember that it was this time of day, two weeks ago, that I reached the Nu River and gazed upon its flooded expanse. The roadworkers I had passed the day before had said there was a ferry here, but it obviously did not operate during the rainy season. There was not a soul about. The nearest bridge was a fortnight’s trek upstream. My heart sank as the rain poured down my face. The misty cliff on the opposite bank blotted out half the darkening sky. After the Nu leaves its source high in the Tibetan plateau it thunders south through steep, inaccessible ravines, and is of no use to man whatsoever. When it reaches the Burmese border though it slows down and becomes the mighty Salween — Burma’s Yangzi. I waded down to the muddy bank and discovered the ferry boat tethered to a tree. It was a long flat raft consisting of eight bamboo rods, bound together with rope.