Gao Xingjian - Soul Mountain

She is laughing loudly. You ask her why she’s laughing and she says she’s happy but she knows she’s not at all happy and is just trying to look happy. She doesn’t want to let on that she’s actually unhappy.

She says once she was walking along a main street and saw a man chasing after a trolley bus which had just driven off. He was walking on the toes of one foot, half running and half hopping, and shouting at the top of his voice. It turned out that when he was getting off the bus one of his shoes got caught in the door. He must have been a peasant from out of town. From the time she was a child her teachers had taught her not to make fun of peasants and when she grew up her mother warned her not to laugh stupidly in front of men. But she just couldn’t help laughing aloud. When she laughed like this people always stared at her and it was only afterwards that she learnt when she laughed like this it was inviting, and men of wicked intent thought she was flirting. Men always look differently at women, even if it’s not your intention it is wrongly interpreted as such.

She says the very first time she gave herself, it was to a man she didn’t love at all. When he mounted her and took her he didn’t know she was still a virgin and asked why she was crying. She said it wasn’t because she couldn’t stand the pain but because she pitied herself. He attempted to help her wipe away her tears but these weren’t for him, so she pushed him away. She buttoned up her shirt and tried to tidy her messed-up hair in the mirror, she didn’t want his help, he would only make it worse. He had enjoyed himself on her, he had taken advantage of a moment’s weakness.

She couldn’t say he had forced himself upon her. He had invited her to his room for lunch. She went, had a cup of liquor, felt a bit happy but not really happy, and began laughing like this.

She says she doesn’t completely blame him. At the time she only wanted to see what would happen and drank in one gulp the half cup of liquor he had poured for her. She felt a bit dizzy, she hadn’t imagined the liquor was so potent. She was aware that her face was burning and that she was laughing inanely. Then he kissed her, pushed her onto the bed, no, she didn’t resist, she even knew when he was pulling up her skirt.

He was her teacher and she was a student, and this sort of thing shouldn’t have happened. She could hear footsteps coming and going in the corridor outside the room, people were always talking, people always have so many totally meaningless things to say. It was midday and people were coming back to their dormitories after lunch in the canteen, and she could hear them clearly. In these surroundings it was like being a thief and she felt thoroughly ashamed. Animal, animal, she said to herself.

Afterwards she opened the door of the room and left, chest out and head held high. As soon as she got to the stairs, someone called out her name, and she says at the time she blushed, it was as if her skirt had been pulled up and she was wearing nothing underneath. Fortunately the lighting was poor on the stairs. It turned out to be a classmate who had just come in and wanted her to go with her to see this teacher about choosing courses for the following semester. She made the excuse that she was rushing to a movie and didn’t have time, then went off. But she will always remember the sound of being called, she says her heart almost leapt from her chest. Even when she was being taken, her heart didn’t pound as fiercely as it did then. In the end she got her revenge, in the end she took revenge, took revenge for all those years of anxiety and fear, she avenged herself. She says on the sports field that day the sun had a harsh glare, and in the sunlight there was a heart-rending scream, like a razor blade scratching on glass.

You ask who she is.

She says, her, and starts laughing loudly again.

You become apprehensive.

She urges you not to be like this. She says she is just telling a story, she heard it from a friend. She was a student from a medical college who had come to the operating theatre for practical experience. Afterwards they became friends and talked to one another about everything.

You don’t believe her.

Why is it all right for you to tell stories but not for her?

You ask her to go on.

She says she’s finished.

You say her story ended too abruptly.

She says she can’t tell mysteries like you, and moreover you’ve told lots of stories and she’s only just started.

Then go on telling it, you say.

She says she’s lost interest and doesn’t want to go on telling it.

She’s a fox spirit, you say after some thought.

It’s not only men who lust.

Of course. It’s the same with women, you say.

Why can’t women do what men can? It’s natural to all human beings.

You say you’re not censuring women, you’re only saying she’s a fox spirit.

There’s nothing bad about fox spirits.

You say you’re not criticizing them, you’re just talking about them.

Then talk about them.

Talk about what?

If you want to talk about fox spirits then talk about them, she says.

You say the husband of this fox spirit hadn’t been dead for a full seven–

Full seven what?

In the past when the husband died a woman would have to stay by his corpse for seven times seven equals forty-nine days.

Is seven an unlucky number?

Seven is an auspicious day for ghosts and spirits.

Don’t talk about ghosts.

Then let’s talk about the one who didn’t die. Before she’d taken off the white mourning strips from the tops of her shoes she was like the prostitutes at the Joy of Spring Hall in Wuyizhen, all the time leaning at the gate with her hands on her hips and one foot slightly raised on her toes. As soon as she saw someone coming she’d posture seductively and pretend she wasn’t looking in order to entice men.

She says you are debunking women.

No, you say, even the women couldn’t stand it and quickly walked away. It was only the shrewish Sun the Fourth’s wife who spat in her face.

But when the men walked past, didn’t they all look greedily at her?

It was impossible not to. All of them eagerly looked back, even the hunchback. There were more than fifty of them, all staring with their heads turned to one side. Now don’t laugh just yet.

Who’s laughing?

Let’s talk about Old Lu’s wife in the house next door. Right after dinner, she was sitting at the doorway sewing shoe soles and saw all this happening. So she said, Hunchback, your foot’s treading in dog shit! This really embarrassed the hunchback. On those very hot days when all the villagers sat out on the streets to eat their evening meals, she would walk by every doorway, wriggling her bottom with two empty water buckets on her carrying pole. Maozi’s mother poked her husband with her chopsticks and got such a thrashing during the night that she howled with pain. That sexy fox spirit, the women in the village with husbands all wanted to box her ears. If Maozi’s mother could have had her way, she’d have ripped the clothes off her, grabbed her by the hair, and pushed her head into a nightsoil bucket.

That’s disgusting, she says.

But that’s how things turned out, you say. To begin with, it was discovered by Old Lu’s wife that Zhu the Eldest, whom the villagers called Blockhead and who couldn’t get himself a wife, was always visiting her melon shed. He said he was helping her to spread around fertilizer. And this certainly was a place for spreading around fertilizer. If things hadn’t fallen upon the head of Sun the Fourth’s wife, events wouldn’t have taken such a tragic turn. Before sunrise Sun the Fourth said he was getting up early to go into the mountains to cut firewood. He shouldered a pointed carrying pole, circled around the village lanes and in a flash climbed over the wall of this woman’s courtyard. Sun the Fourth’s wife suspected what was happening and without waiting for her husband to come out, began beating on the door with a carrying pole. The woman came and opened the door, still fastening the buttons at the waist of her jacket, as if nothing was wrong. As if Sun the Fourth’s wife would let her off. Faster than it would take to say it, she had already charged at the woman and the two of them were brawling, crying and shouting, and everyone had turned up. All the women sided with Sun the Fourth’s wife but the men watched the fighting in silence. The woman’s clothing was torn and her face was scratched. Sun the Fourth’s wife later said it was her intention to ruin the woman’s looks, the woman sobbed with her hands over her face, writhing in pain. Of course it was a clear case of immoral behaviour but it was after all women’s business and both Sixth Grand Uncle and the village head, stood to one side and could only cough drily. However, as it is said, a woman’s mind is indeed most venomous and the women themselves decided to punish her. They talked it over and when the woman was on her way to fetch firewood on the mountain path, a few hefty women accosted her, stripped off her clothes, trussed her up, and carried her off on a pole. She called out again and again for help but even when those who got on with her heard and came running, the very sight of these mean women who would strip the skin off someone, deterred them. They carried her into the mountains to Peach Blossom Flat. In the past, because this peach blossom mountain flatland produced wanton women, it became a lepers’ village; they dumped her and the pole on the road, spat and stomped on her, cursed her, then left.