Gao Xingjian - Soul Mountain

“It would be too embarrassing,” she says.

“Are there any of the old singers of folk songs here?” I ask, changing the topic.

“Of course. There’s an old man in a small town forty li from here who can sing lots of them.”

“Would I be able to see him?”

“If you take the morning bus you can get back the same day. He lives in Liupu, a town famous for its songs in this county.”

However, she says, unfortunately she can’t take me. She doesn’t think the head of the cultural office will let her go because there’s no-one to go on duty for her, too bad it’s not a Sunday. Still, she can make a phone call, her home is in the town; she can call the village authorities, she knows them all well, and get them to tell the old singer to wait at home for me. The bus back is at four o’clock, she wants me to come back to her place for dinner. She says she has to cook for herself, anyway.

Afterwards she goes on to talk about a dressmaker in the town, the older sister of a girl in her class at primary school. She is really good looking, exceptionally beautiful and with such fair skin, like a jade carving. If you see her, for sure–

“For sure?”

She says she’s joking, she says the woman has a dressmaker’s shop in a small street in Liupu, she works there herself and if you go along the street you’re sure to see her. But everyone says she has leprosy. “It’s a terrible tragedy and as a result no-one dares to marry her,” she says.

“If she really has leprosy she has to be isolated,” I say.

“People are deliberately maligning her,” she says. “Anyway, I don’t believe it’s true.”

“But that doesn’t stop her from going to a hospital for tests and getting a medical certificate,” I suggest.

“Nothing in her favour will work, people are bent on vilifying her, they’re really mean. What good would a certificate do?”

She also says there’s a cousin she gets on well with. She was married off to someone in the tax office and got beaten black and blue all over.

“Why?” I ask.

“Because on the wedding night her husband discovered she wasn’t a virgin! People here are rough and mean, not like you people in the big cities.”

“Have you ever been in love?” I venture to ask.

“There was a student at the teachers’ college, we got on really well and after graduating we continued on corresponding. But not long ago he quite unexpectedly got married. Of course he and I didn’t have a relationship, we were very fond of one another but didn’t ever get around to talking about it. However when I got his letter saying he had married I cried. Don’t you want to listen?”

“Of course I do,” I say, “but it’ll be hard writing it into the novel.”

“I didn’t give you permission to write about it. But you novelists can make up anything.”

“Only if one wants to.”

“It’s really sad about her,” she sighs. But it’s not clear whether she’s sighing about the dressmaker in the town or about her young cousin.

“Yes.” I must show I’m sympathetic.

“How many days do you plan to stay?” she asks.

“One or two, just to have a bit of a rest before going on.”

“Do you still have lots of places to go to?”

“There are lots of places I haven’t been to.”

“I wouldn’t be able to visit the places you’ve been to in a lifetime.”

“Don’t you get opportunities to travel on official business? You can also take leave and go travelling on your own.”

“I want to go to Shanghai and Beijing to have a look around. If I look you up, will you still know me?”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“By that time you will have long forgotten me.”

“From what you say, you don’t think much of me.”

“I’m being realistic, you must know lots of people.”

“I come in contact with lots of people in my work, but there aren’t many who are nice.”

“You writers are really good at talking. Can’t you stay a few days more? Liupu isn’t the only place in the county with folk songs.”

“Of course,” I say.

I am besieged by her naïve warmth, and I sense that she is spreading a net over me. That I am thinking about her like this instantly makes me feel unkind.

“Are you feeling tired?”

“A little.” I think I should leave her room and try to find out what time the bus departs for Liupu in the morning.

I didn’t think I would let things happen just as she had arranged. Without having a nap and without washing my dirty clothes, I get up early, go to Liupu, rush about all day, and can’t wait to get back to see her again. When I return at dusk, she has food arranged on the table. The kerosene stove is on and a small pot of soup is gently simmering. Seeing she has prepared so many dishes I say I’ll go and buy some liquor.

“I’ve got some here,” she says.

“Do you also drink?” I ask.

“I can only drink a little.”

I open the parcel of salted pork and roast goose wrapped in lotus leaves I bought in the shop opposite the bus stop. Here in this town they still wrap salted meat in lotus leaves. I remember when I was a child, food stalls always wrapped meat in this manner which gives it a unique and clean aroma. The creaking floorboards, the sense of seclusion created by the mosquito net and the charming little red wooden bucket shiny with the original lacquer in the corner all make me feel as if I have returned to my childhood.

“Did you see the old man?” she asks, pouring what turns out to be very fine unblended liquor.

“Yes,” I reply, lying.

“Did he sing?”

“Yes,” I say, lying again.

“Did he also sing those songs?”

“What songs?”

“He didn’t sing them for you? Oh, he won’t sing them for strangers.”

“Are you talking about ribald love songs?”

She gives an embarrassed laugh. “If there are women there, he won’t sing them either,” she explains.

“It depends on who it is, if it’s amongst old friends, when women are there he sings with greater gusto but he won’t have young girls present, this I know,” I say.

“Did you get some useful material?” She changes the topic. “After you left I phoned the town and asked the county authorities to tell the singer that a writer from Beijing was coming especially to interview him. What? Didn’t they notify him?”

“He was away on business, I saw his wife.”

“Then you wasted your time making the trip!”

“It wasn’t a waste of time, I spent most of the day sitting in a tea house and actually learnt a lot, I didn’t know these tea houses still existed, the upstairs and downstairs were crowded with peasants there for the market.”

“I seldom go to such places.”

“It was really interesting, people were doing business deals or just chatting, it was very lively. I talked with them about all sorts of things. This is life, too.”

“You writers are odd.”

“I met all sorts of people, people in all lines of work. Someone even asked if I could buy him a motor vehicle. I asked what sort he wanted, a Liberation sedan or a two-and-a-half ton truck.”

At this she breaks into laughter.

“Some people are really making fortunes, one peasant was doing deals starting off with ten thousand. I also saw a man who kept insects, he had a large number of jars of them. The price for one centipede was at least five cents, so if he sold ten thousand centipedes —”

“Stop talking about centipedes, I’m scared of them!”

“All right, I won’t talk about insects, I’ll talk about something else.”

I say that I stayed in the tea house all day. There was a bus back at noon and I should have come back early to wash my dirty clothes, but I didn’t want to disappoint her. I felt I should come back at dusk as she had planned so I also went all around the village for most of the day. But naturally I don’t tell her this.