Gao Xingjian - Soul Mountain

The boy hides behind the crowd and adamantly refuses to come out.

The old man waves his sleeve and says, “It doesn’t matter.” He turns to say to me, “Generally one has to prepare a bowl of rice and stand a cooked egg upright in it and then burn incense to invoke the spirits. The child kneels, prostrates himself, then prays to invite the spirits to accept the offerings: the True Ruler of the Four Directions, the Great Emperor Ziwei, the Star Ruler of the North Who in Nine Shakes Dispels Evil, the Star Ruler of Longevity of the Southern Dipper Temple, the two Guardian Deities of the Village, the deceased generations of clan ancestors, the sons and grandsons of the Kitchen God—”

Saying this he takes up his sword of office, flourishes it, and begins to sing loudly, “Spirit-soul, spirit-soul, you’ve had your play now quickly go home! In the east is a boy in blue, in the south is a boy in red, in the west is a boy in white, all on guard, and in the north a boy in black will bring you home. Lost and wandering spirit-soul cease your play, the road is long and it’s hard to get home. I will measure the road for you with a jade ruler, should you come to dark places. If you fall into the net of Heaven and the mesh of Earth my scissors will cut them. If you are hungry, thirsty, and weary, I have grain for you. Don’t stay in the forest listening to the birds singing, don’t stay by deep ponds looking at the fish swimming. If someone calls you a thousand times don’t reply, spirit-soul, spirit-soul, hurry back home! May the gods and deities protect you, may past virtues not be forgotten! From now on the spirit will protect the body and the soul will protect the house, wind and chill will not enter, water and the earth will find it hard to transgress. Sturdiness in childhood brings greater strength in old age, so that you will enjoy a long life to a hundred years and be of healthy spirit!”

He flourishes his sword of office and draws a big circle in the air, then puffing out his cheeks starts blowing on the ox horn. Afterwards he turns and says to me, “I then draw a talisman which carried on the person brings good fortune!”

I can’t decide whether or not he believes his own techniques but he dances and waves his arms and legs about, walks with a swagger, and looks very pleased with himself. Arranging a Daoist ritual in the hall of his own house with the help of his six sons wins him the respect of the villagers and, in addition, with such an appreciative outsider as his guest, he can’t contain his delight.

Next he makes a string of incantations to invoke the spirits of Heaven and Earth. His words become incomprehensible and his movements wilder as he circles the table and demonstrates a whole range of martial arts sword techniques. Following the pitch of his singing and the movements of his dance the six sons beat the gongs and drums with increasing gusto and produce endless variations. This is especially so with the young man on the drums. He throws off his jacket, exposing his dark skin and the rippling muscles on his shoulders and ribs. The crowd of onlookers outside the door grows so that the people at the front are pushed over the threshold and then along the walls, some even sit down on the floor. As each piece finishes everyone claps and cheers with me which pleases the old man even more and he doesn’t hesitate in performing every movement he knows to summon forth, one after the other, every spirit and demon in his heart. He starts to go into an intoxicated, crazed state. It is only when my tape gets to the end and I stop the recorder to change the tape that, panting, that he too comes to a stop. The men and women inside and outside the house are all excited and are chatting, laughing and joking. The village meetings are definitely never this much fun.

As he wipes the sweat off himself with a towel, the old man points to a group of girls close by and says, “Now how about all of you sing a song for this teacher.”

The girls start to giggle and after pushing and shoving one another for a while they shove Maomei forward. This wisp of a girl is only fourteen or fifteen but she doesn’t lack confidence, and flashing her big round eyes asks, “What shall I sing?”

“Sing a mountain love song.”

“Sing ‘Two Sisters Marry’.”

“Sing ‘Flowers of the Four Seasons’.”

“Sing about the two sisters weeping as they go off to marry.”

“This song is really good,” a middle-aged woman by the door says, recommending it to me.

The girl glances at me, turns away, and a very high pitched soprano voice cuts through the noise of the crowd and spirals upwards, instantly transporting me from the shadows into the mountain wilds. The sadness of a murmuring stream and the mountain wind are remote but clear. I recall the pine torch of night travellers flickering in the dark mountain shadows and that picture floats before my eyes again: an old man holding a pine torch and a girl, about the singer’s age, who is emaciated and wearing trousers and a floral jacket. They are going past the front of the house of the primary school teacher in a mountain village. At the time I was sitting idly in the main hall of the house and didn’t know where they’d come from nor where they were going, but I did know that up ahead was a big black mountain. They looked inside the main hall at me but didn’t stop and headed straight toward the black mountain shadows, leaving behind bright sparks in front of the house which glowed for quite a while. My gaze returned to follow the torch. When it re-emerged from behind the shadows of the trees and cliffs it had become a small unsteady flickering flame moving in the black mountain shadows, leaving intermittent sparks to mark their trail. Afterwards there was nothing, the sparks and dark red embers vanished, like a song, a song of loud and pure grief flickering in a flame the size of a bean seed on a candle in the shadows of a room. In those years I was just like them and worked barefoot in the paddy fields. As soon as it was dark there was nowhere to go, and the house of the primary school teacher was the only place I could go for a chat, to drink tea, and just sit, to idle away the loneliness.

The grief moves everyone inside and outside the house and no-one is talking. Some time after she stops singing, a girl a little older than her, probably a girl waiting to be married, heaves a sigh as she leans on the doorway, “It’s so sad!”

Only then do people start clamouring. “Sing a bawdy song!”

“Old Uncle sing us ‘The Sky at the Fifth Watch’!”

“Sing us ‘The Eighteen Strokes’!”

It is mostly young men shouting.

After a break the old man takes off his Daoist robe, gets up from the bench and begins to chase off the young singer and the children sitting on the doorsill. “All the children go home to sleep! Go home to sleep, there’s no more singing, there’s no more singing.”

No-one wants to leave. The middle-aged woman standing outside the door calls the children by their names one by one, and chases them off.

The old man stamps his feet, pretends to lose his temper and shouts loudly, “Everyone get out! Shut the door, shut the door, I want to go to sleep!”

The middle-aged woman comes through the door, drags out the girls and shouts to the youths, “All of you get out as well!”

The youths grumble and make rude noises.

“Ye—”

Finally two older girls catch on, and leave. Then with everyone pushing and yelling at them, the other girls and children are all chased out. The woman goes to close the door and the adults who were outside take the opportunity to squeeze inside. The door is bolted and the inside of the house is hot and filled with the smell of sweat. The old man clears his throat, spits, and winks at the crowd. He has transformed again and looks crafty, rakish and wicked. He slinks around to look over the crowd and then starts singing in a rasping voice.