Gao Xingjian - Soul Mountain

You say when you were young you saw a fortune teller, but you can’t remember whether it was your mother or your maternal grandmother who took you.

That’s not important, she says.

What you remember clearly is that this fortune teller had very long fingernails. He worked out your horoscope by positioning little brass flags on an Eight Trigram Chart, and he also spun a compass. You ask if she’s heard of Ziwei Constellation fortune telling, an ancient school which can predict a person’s life, death and future. You say, as he positioned the brass flags he flicked his fingernails loudly, it was scary, and chanted incantations: ba-ba ka-ka, ka-ka ba-ba , this child will throughout his life have many demon problems. His parents in a past life want to take him back, it will be difficult for him to survive, he has too many debts in a past life. Your mother, or maybe it was your grandmother, asked whether there was a way of dispelling this calamity. He said this child must change his features so that when the aggrieved ghosts summon his spirit, they won’t recognize him. Your grandmother therefore seized the chance while your mother was out, you remember this quite clearly, to put an earring on you. She rubbed your ear lobe with a green soyabean and a pinch of salt and said it wouldn’t hurt, but as she rubbed your ear lobe became swollen and began to hurt more and more. However, before she got to piercing it with a needle your mother came home and had a big row with her — she grumbled but had to give up the idea. As for you, at the time you had no fixed ideas about having your ear pierced.

You ask her what else she’d like to hear. You say your childhood wasn’t in fact without happy times. You once used your grandfather’s walking stick as a punt-pole and your bathtub as a boat in the waterlogged lane after a storm. You recall lying on a bamboo bed in summer and counting the stars in the square of sky in the courtyard to see which was your own star. You also recall that one year at noon during the Duanwu Festival, your mother got hold of you to daub orpiment mixed in spirits on your ears and to write the character “king” on your head, saying it would stop boils and sores developing in summer. You thought it was ugly and before she finished writing, you broke away and ran off. But now, she has been dead for a long time.

She says her mother is dead too, that she died from illness in the May Seventh Cadre School, when she went to the countryside she was already ill. At the time the whole city had been deployed for war, they said the hairy Russians were about to attack. Yes, she says, she too has been a refugee. The platform at the station was lined with sentries, not just military men with red badges on their collars but also civilian militias dressed in the same army uniforms with red armbands. A group of criminals to be reformed through labour were marched under escort onto the platform. They were wearing tattered clothing and looked like a band of beggars. Old men and old women, each with a bed roll on their back and an enamel mug and a rice bowl in their hands, were singing together loudly, “Sincerely, with heads bowed, we acknowledge our crimes. To resist reform can only bring death.” She says at the time she was just eight and started crying stupidly and refused to board the train. She lay on the ground yelling that she wanted to go home. Her mother tried to coax her, saying it was more fun in the countryside, that it was too damp in the air raid shelter and if she went on digging any deeper her back would break. It was better to go to the countryside, the air was better and her mother wouldn’t have to get her to thump her back every night anymore. At the cadre school she was with her mother every day. When the grown-ups studied the sayings of Chairman Mao and the numerous newspaper editorials she would sit in her mother’s arms and when they went to work in the fields she went along with them and played nearby; when they did the harvesting she even helped by picking up ears of rice. They all liked to make her laugh, that was the happiest time in her life. She actually liked the cadre school, except for the struggle-meeting to criticize Uncle Liang session. They pushed him off the stool he was standing on and his front teeth were knocked out and there was blood all over his mouth. And there were lots of watermelons growing at the cadre school, everyone bought them, and whenever anyone was eating watermelon they’d get her to come, she had never eaten so much watermelon in her life.

You say that you also remember the New Year’s party the year you graduated from middle school. You danced with a girl for the first time and kept treading on her feet. You were very embarrassed but she kept saying it didn’t matter. Light snow was falling that night and the snowflakes that landed on your face melted. After the party you ran all the way home, trying to catch up with the girl you had danced with…

Don’t talk about other women!

You talk about an old cat you once had which was so lazy that it wouldn’t catch rats.

Don’t talk about old cats.

Then what shall I talk about?

Talk about whether or not you saw her, that girl.

Which girl?

The girl who drowned.

The young student who was sent to the countryside? The girl who killed herself by jumping into the river?

No.

Then which one?

You all tricked her into going swimming at night and then raped her!

You say you didn’t go.

She says you must have gone.

You say you can swear you didn’t go!

Then you must have felt her.

When?

Under the bridge, in the dark, you also felt her, you men are all bad!

You say you were too young at the time and didn’t dare.

She says you must at least have had a look at her.

Of course you looked at her, she wasn’t just pretty in an ordinary way, she was really quite beautiful.

She says you didn’t just look in an ordinary way, you had a look at her body.

You say you only wanted to have a look.

No, you must have had a look.

You say impossible.

Of course it was possible! You’re capable of any sort of wicked behaviour, you were often at her home.

Do you mean, her home?

In her room! She says you pulled it up, you pulled up her shirt.

How did I pull up her shirt?

She was standing against the wall.

You say she pulled it up herself.

Like this? she asks.

A bit higher, you say.

Wasn’t she wearing anything underneath? Not even a bra?

Her breasts were only just developing, you say, her breasts protruded but her nipples were still crinkled.

Stop talking about this!

You say it was she who wanted you to talk about this.

She says she doesn’t want you to talk about these things, she says she doesn’t want to hear another thing about it.

Then what shall I talk about?

Just talk about anything, but don’t talk about women again.

You ask her why.

She says it is not her that you love.

Why is she saying this? you ask.

She says when you are making love with her it’s other women you are thinking about.

Rubbish! you say, she’s making this up.

She says she doesn’t want to listen, doesn’t want to know any of it.

I’m really sorry, you interrupt her.

Don’t talk about anything anymore.

You say in that case you’ll listen to her.

She says you never listen to what she’s saying.

You ask if she was eating watermelon at the cadre school all the time.

What a real bore you are, she says.

You plead with her to go on talking and promise not to interrupt.

She says she doesn’t have anything to talk about.

Setting out from Jiangkou county and going upstream on the Taiping River, the source of the Jinjiang, the mountain formations on both sides become more and more bizarre. Then after passing the Panqi stockade settlement with its mixed population of Miao, Tujia and Han nationalities, one enters the nature reserve. Here the densely forested mountains begin to close in and the river becomes narrow and deep. The ranger station at Heiwan River is a two-storey brick building situated at the end of the bend in the river. The ranger is a tall middle-aged man who is dark and thin, he has a crew cut and a dark lean face with stubble. The two live Qichun snakes I saw had been confiscated by him from poachers. He says that Qichun snakes are common among the wild flax plants on both sides of the river.