Gao Xingjian - Soul Mountain

They can’t catch the big shots, I say.

Of course you’d know better than me, you’re in the capital, you’d get to know about everything that’s going on! I tell you, catching me isn’t all that easy. I pay all my taxes. I’m now an honoured guest in the homes of county dignitaries and regional heads of the bureau of commerce. It’s not like when I was the town primary school teacher in Chengguan. At that time, to get transferred from the countryside to Chengguan, at least four months of my yearly salary was spent on meals for cadres in the education office.

His eyes narrow as he takes a step back and, with his hands on his hips, scrutinizes an ink painting of a winter landscape on my wall. He holds his breath for a while then turns and says, didn’t you once praise my calligraphy? Even you thought it was good but when I tried at the time to put it into an exhibition at the county cultural centre, it was turned down. The calligraphy of some important officials and famous people is sub-standard but aren’t they the honorary chairpersons and vice-chairpersons of calligraphy research associations and aren’t they the ones shamelessly getting their work published in the newspapers?

I ask him if he still does calligraphy.

I can’t make a living from calligraphy, it’s just like with the books you write. But if one day I too become a famous person, people will come sniffing at my backside after my ink treasures. That’s society, I’ve given up on it.

If you’ve given up on it then there’s no point talking about it.

I’m cross about it!

Then you haven’t given up on it. I ask if he has eaten.

Don’t worry about it, in a while I’ll get a car to take you to whatever restaurant you like, I know that your time is precious. I’ll first get what I have to say out of the way, I’ve come to you for help.

How? Tell me about it.

Help get my daughter into a prestige university.

I say I’m not the president of any university.

And you wouldn’t get appointed, he says, but surely you must have some contacts? I’m now considered wealthy but people still think of me as a speculator. I can’t let my daughter’s life be like mine, I want her to go to a prestige university so she can get into the upper stratum of society.

So she can find herself the son of a high-ranking cadre? I ask.

I have no control over that, she knows what she must do.

What if she won’t look?

Stop interrupting, will you help or not?

It depends on her school results, I can’t do anything to help.

She’s got good results.

Then all she needs to do is sit for the examinations.

You’re really pedantic. Do you think all those children of high-ranking cadres have passed examinations?

I haven’t researched such matters.

You’re a writer.

So what if I am a writer?

You’re the conscience of society, you must speak for the people!

Stop joking, I say. Are you the people, or am I the people, or is it the so-called we who are the people? I speak only for myself.

What I like about you is that you always tell the truth!

The truth is, my good elder brother I’m starving, so put on your overcoat and let’s find somewhere to eat.

Someone is knocking at the door again. I open the door but don’t know the person holding a black plastic bag. I say I don’t want to buy any eggs, I eat out.

He says he’s not selling eggs and opens the bag to show me it doesn’t contain a weapon and that he is not a criminal on the run. He carefully takes out a large bundle of paper and says he has come especially to seek my help. He has written a novel and wants me to have a look at it. I have no choice but to let him in and invite him to sit down.

He says he won’t sit down but will leave the manuscript and call again at a later date.

I say there is no need to leave it for a later date, if he has something to say he can say it now.

He fumbles in his pockets with both hands and takes out a packet of cigarettes. I hand him matches and wait for him to light his cigarette so that he can quickly finish what he wants to say.

Stuttering, he says he has written a factual story–

I have to interrupt him and tell him I’m not a journalist and I’m not interested in facts.

Stuttering even worse, he says he knows literature isn’t the same as newspaper reports and that this work of his is fiction. He has added an appropriate amount of fabrication to a factual basis. His purpose in getting me to look at it is to see if it is publishable.

I say I am not an editor.

He says he knows this but thought I might be able to recommend it, I could make any corrections I wanted. I could even add my name to it so that it could be considered a joint work. Of course his name would be put second and mine first.

I say that if I put my name to it, it will be even harder for it to get published.

Why?

Because it is very hard to get my works published.

He exclaims to indicate that he understands.

I am afraid he doesn’t fully understand and explain that it would be best if he found an editor who was able to publish his work.

He stops talking and is obviously uneasy.

I make up my mind to help him, then tell him to take the novel back.

His eyes open wide and he asks instead whether I would forward it to the relevant editorial department.

It’d be better for you to send it directly rather than for me to forward it. It will certainly stir up less trouble, I say with a smile.

He also smiles, puts the manuscript back into his bag and mutters his thanks.

I say no, it is I who am grateful to him.

There is knocking on the door again. I don’t want to open it.

You gasp for breath taking a step and then resting as you walk towards the mountain of ice. It is a struggle. The green river of ice is dark but transparent. Huge mineral veins, inky green like jade, lie beneath it.

You glide on the smooth ice and the biting cold stings your numb frozen cheeks. Barely visible snowflakes of all colours glisten before your eyes and the moist air you breathe out instantly forms a layer of white frost on your eyebrows. All around is frozen silence.

The riverbed suddenly rises and the glacier imperceptibly moves a few metres, ten or so metres or even much more in a year.

You are going against the flow of the glacier crawling like a partially frozen insect.

Up ahead, in the shadows where the sunlight doesn’t reach, windswept flat slabs of ice soar up. When gale-force winds blow at a speed of over a hundred metres per second, these white walls of ice are polished to a high sheen.

You are in the midst of these ice crystal ruins and even while not moving you are gasping for air. There is a tearing pain in your lungs and your brain has already frozen so that you can’t think, everything is almost blank, isn’t this precisely the state you have been aspiring to reach? Like this world of ice and snow there are only some indefinite blurred images created by shadows — they don’t tell anything, have no meaning, are a stretch of deathly loneliness.

You can fall over with every step, so you fall over, then struggle as you slide and crawl. Your hands and feet can no longer feel pain.

The snow piled on the ice gradually decreases and is left only in corners where the wind can’t reach. The snow is solid, it gives the impression of being soft and fluffy but is in fact wrapped in a hard coating of ice.

A bald eagle is circling in the valley of ice below your feet, it is the only other form of life apart from you. You can’t decide whether or not it is something you’ve imagined but what is important is that you do have visual images.

You spiral upwards. And while spiralling up between life and death, you are still struggling. You still exist, that is to say, blood is still circulating in your veins, your life still hasn’t ended.