Gao Xingjian - Soul Mountain

I step over a crumbling wall. On the other side is a little-leaf box sapling with a trunk as skinny as a little finger shivering in the wind in the middle of these ruins of a roofless house. Opposite, part of a window remains, and leaning there I can look out. Among the azaleas and clumps of bamboo are some mossy black stone slabs which from a distance look soft, like human bodies lying there, bent knees sticking up and arms outstretched. In those times, Gold Top, with its one thousand rooms of temples, halls and monk dormitories, had iron roof-tiles to protect it from the onslaught of the mountain winds. In the Ming Dynasty, a multitude of monks and nuns practised the faith alongside the ninth concubine of the father of the Wanli Emperor. There must be some remnants of the grandeur of the morning bells and evening drums. I search for some relic of those times but only turn up the corner of a broken stone tablet. Could it be that within the space of five hundred years even the iron tiles have completely rusted away?

Now what will I talk about?

I’ll talk about what happened five hundred years later when this monastery, which had been reduced to ruins, was turned into a hideout for bandits. They slept in the caves during the daytime and at night came with flaming torches down the mountain to pillage and loot. It so happened that living at the nunnery at the foot of the mountain was an official’s daughter who, without shaving her hair, had devoted herself to Buddhist cultivation and was keeping watch over the ancient black Buddha lamp to atone for a sin in a previous life. However, she was seen by the bandit chief, taken up the mountain, and forced to be housekeeper for the camp. The girl refused, even under the threat of death, so she was first raped and then killed.

What else will I talk about?

I’ll go back fifteen hundred years, to a time before the ancient monastery existed when there was only a grass hut. A famous scholar had hung up his cap of office and retired here to live as a recluse. Every morning just before dawn he would face the east and practise Daoist life-prolonging breathing exercises, inhaling the essence of the purple profoundness. Then, head high, he would produce a sustained whistle. The pure sound would reverberate in the empty valley and monkeys climbing on the sheer cliffs would respond with their cries. Occasionally friends would come and they would drink toasts with tea instead of liquor, play chess or engage in pure talk debate in the light of the moon. Although old age was upon him he thought nothing of it, and passing woodcutters in the distance would point at him in wonder. That is why this place is called Immortal’s Cliff.

And what else can I talk about?

I’ll talk about one thousand five hundred and forty-seven years later, when beyond this mountain a warlord lived. After spending most of his life in the army he eventually became a commander and returned to his village to offer sacrifices to his ancestors. There he fell in love with the servant girl who looked after his mother and in due course an auspicious day and hour were chosen for him to take her as his concubine… in order of succession she was the seventh. One hundred and one tables of food and liquor were laid out to make an ostentatious show for the villagers. Friends and relatives filled the tables and of course couldn’t avoid sending vast amounts of gifts, for how could this feast not come at a cost? While everyone was celebrating, a beggar came to the door. His clothes were tattered rags and his head was covered with ringworms. The gatekeepers gave him a bowl of rice but when they tried to send him away he refused to go and insisted on entering the hall and going up to the main table to congratulate the groom. The commander was enraged and ordered his aide to hit the man with his rifle and chase him off. Late that night when everyone was asleep and the groom was lost in happy dreams, fires broke out everywhere, destroying the larger part of the old ancestral home. Some said it was the Living Buddha Jigong using his magic to punish the wicked on behalf of Heaven. Others, however, said that the beggar was none other than the infamous Mottle Head who was cruel and mean. Beggars great or small a hundred li around all gave their allegiance to him, so how could he tolerate such an insult? Brigade commander or army commander made no difference at all. If they didn’t show respect, he’d get his ruffians to tie fuses on bundles of incense sticks and, in the middle of the night, shoot them over the high wall into the dry grass and piles of firewood. Even a general with a thousand troops and ten thousand horses wouldn’t be able to defend himself against this insignificant person. It’s as the old saying goes — the powerful dragon is no match for the snake crawling on the ground.

Now what else can I talk about?

It was more than half of a century afterwards, also on this mountain. This big mountain may look grand and majestic but because of the turmoil in the human world, it too has never known peace. The ugly daughter of the newly-appointed director of the revolutionary committee of a certain county fell in love with the grandson of a former landlord and, against her father’s orders, was determined to marry him. The couple eloped after stealing ration coupons for thirty-eight catties of grain and a hundred and seven yuan in cash from a drawer. They hid in the mountains confident that they would be able to survive by farming the land. The father, who spent every day preaching about class struggle, had had his own daughter abducted by the offspring of a landlord, so understandably he was righteously indignant. He immediately gave orders for the public security bureau to circulate the man’s photo and the entire county was alerted to arrest him. It was impossible for the young couple to escape the armed people’s militias scouring the mountains and when the cave they were hiding in was surrounded, the terrified youth used the axe he had stolen to first kill his lover and then himself.

She says she also wants to see blood. She wants to stab her middle finger with a needle. The fingers are connected to the heart and the pain will go straight there. She wants to watch the blood ooze out, swell, spread, soak the whole finger red, run right to the base of the finger, flow between the fingers, along the lines of the palm to the centre. The back of the hand will also be dripping with blood…

You ask her why.

She says because you’re oppressive.

You say the oppression comes from herself.

She says you are also causing it.

You say you are only telling stories, you aren’t doing anything.

She says everything you talk about is stifling, suffocating.

You ask whether she has some pathological illness.

She says it was induced by you!

You say you can’t understand what it is you have done.

She says you’re a hypocrite! And saying this she starts laughing crazily.

The sight of her frightens you, you admit you wanted to arouse her lust, but you find a woman’s blood repugnant.

She says she wants to make you see blood. She wants her blood to run down to her wrist, along her arm, to her armpit, onto her chest. She wants blood to flow all over her white breasts, bright red tinged with purple and black. She will be soaked in the purple-black blood so you will be forced to look…

Stark naked?

Stark naked, sitting in a pool of blood, the lower part of her body, between her legs and her thighs, all covered in blood, blood, blood! She says she wants to sink, become utterly depraved, she can’t understand why it is that she lusts, lusts for the tide to soak her. She sees herself lying on the sandy shore, the tide surging, the sandy shore rustling but unable to suck it all up before another tide irrepressibly surges in. She wants you to come into her body, to thrust and to pull relentlessly. She says she no longer has shame, nor fear. She used to be afraid, then when she wasn’t she still said she was, even though she really wasn’t. But she’s afraid of falling into the black abyss and endlessly drifting down. She wants to sink but is afraid of sinking, she says she sees the black tide slowly swelling, swelling up from some unknown source. The black tide is swallowing her, she says she comes slowly but when she does, she can’t stop. She can’t understand why she has become so wanton, oh, she wants you to say she is wanton and she wants you to say she is not. From you, only from you does she have this need. She says she loves you. She wants you to say you love her but you never say this, you are so cruel. What you want is a woman but what she wants is love, and she needs to feel it with her whole body and heart, even if it means following you to hell. She begs you not to leave her, not to abandon her, she is afraid of loneliness, afraid of only being afraid of the emptiness. She knows all this is temporary but wants to deceive herself. Can’t you say something to make her happy? Tell a story to make her happy?