Gao Xingjian - Soul Mountain

It is while waiting for a boat on a wharf that I meet her — two little plaits, vivacious, a ruddy complexion, intelligent eyes. I can see she is full of fresh curiosity about this chaotic world. I ask where she is going and she tells me she is going to Yellow Rock. I say that under the dusty sky of that place there is nothing but black smoke belching out of the steelwork chimney stacks. What fun will you have there? She says she is visiting her aunt and asks me the same question. I say wherever I happen to go, I don’t have a specific destination. Her eyes open wide and she goes on to ask what work I do. I say I’m a speculator and profiteer. She bursts out laughing and says she doesn’t believe me.

“Do I look like a trickster?” I ask her.

She shakes her head to refute this suggestion, “Not even a bit.”

“What do you think I look like?”

“I don’t know,” she says, “but definitely not a trickster.”

“In that case, I’m a wanderer.”

“Wanderers aren’t bad people,” she says with conviction.

“Most wanderers are actually good people.” I must affirm her conviction. “People who look very proper are often tricksters.”

She can’t stop laughing, it’s as if she’s being tickled, she’s a very happy girl. She says she also wants to wander everywhere but her parents won’t let her, they’ll only let her visit her aunt. They also say that as soon as she finishes school she has to start working. This is her last summer vacation and she has to make the most of it. I commiserate with her and she sighs and says, “Actually, I really want to go and have a look at Beijing but I don’t know anyone there. My parents won’t let me go on my own. Were you born in Beijing?”

“I’ve got a Beijing accent but that doesn’t mean I was born there; I live in Beijing and the people in that city have suffocating existences,” I say.

“Why?!” She is startled.

“There are too many people, it’s so crowded it drives people to distraction, if you’re off guard for a moment, someone will tread on your heels.”

She pouts.

“Where do you live?” I ask.

“Guiqi.”

“Does it have a Dragon Tiger Mountain?”

“It’s just a desolate mountain, the temple was destroyed long ago.”

I say I am looking for this sort of desolate mountain, the more people don’t want to go to a place, the more I want to go to it.

“Are such places good for cheating people?” She has a cheeky look.

I can’t help smiling as I say, “I want to become a Daoist.”

“There’s no-one to take you in, the Daoists who used to be there have either run off or have died. If you go there you’ll have nowhere to stay, but the scenery is quite wonderful. It’s just twenty li from the county town and you can walk there, I’ve been there on excursions with my schoolmates. If you really want to go, you can stay at my place, my parents like having guests.” She is quite earnest.

“But don’t you have to go to Yellow Rock? They don’t know me.”

“I’ll be there in ten days. Aren’t you going to be wandering about anyway?” As she says this the boat arrives.

Outside the window of the train, clusters of grey-brown mountain ranges rise straight up from the plains. That’s Dragon Tiger Mountain at the back so this range must be Immortal Cliffs. In the course of my travels, through a chain of introductions I visited a museum director who showed me photographs of Immortal Cliffs. Hanging coffins have been found in many of the caves on the cliffs along the river, a burial site for the ancient Yue people of the Warring States period. While they were putting these in order, they also found a black lacquered wooden box-drum as well as a two-metre wooden zither which, from the holes, they ascertained had thirteen strings. If I went there now, I wouldn’t be able to hear the beat of the fishing drums nor the pure, intense notes of the zither.

The Immortal Cliffs slowly recedes into the distance, growing smaller and smaller until they finally vanish. When we parted after getting off the boat we gave one another our names and addresses.

I drink some tea and experience a moment of bitter regret. Maybe she will one day look me up, maybe not. However this chance meeting leaves me with a pleasant feeling. I would not pursue such an innocent young girl, perhaps I will also never truly love a woman. Love is too burdensome, I need to live my life unburdened. I want to find happiness but I don’t want to take on responsibilities. Marriage always follows and then the tiresome anxieties and resentment. I have become too indifferent and no-one can make my blood surge with passion anymore. I suppose I’m getting old and there’s only a bit left of what can barely count as curiosity, and there is a lack of desire to bring about an outcome. The outcome isn’t hard to imagine and would end up being burdensome. I would rather drift here and there without leaving traces. There are so many people in this big wide world and so many places to visit but there is nowhere for me to put down roots, to have a small refuge, to live a simple life. I always encounter the same sort of neighbours, say the same sort of things, good morning or hello, and once again am embroiled in endless daily trivia. Even before this becomes solidly entrenched, I will already have tired of it all. I know there is no cure for me.

I meet a young Daoist nun with delicate fair skin and a beautiful face. The graceful person beneath the loose Daoist robe exudes dignity and freshness. She installs me in the guest room in the temple hall in the side courtyard off the main hall. The unvarnished floorboards which clearly show the grain and colour of the timber are spotlessly clean and the bedding smells as if it has just been washed and starched. I am staying in the Palace of Supreme Purity.

Each morning the nun brings hot water in a washbasin for me to wash my face, then makes tea and stays to chat for a while. Her voice rings with a clear purity like the first picking of the green tea that I am drinking and she talks and laughs in an open manner. She says she finished high school and voluntarily took the examinations to become a Daoist nun, but I don’t ask why she made this decision.

They enlisted ten other young men and women along with her and all have at least primary school education. The head Daoist is a master. He is over eighty but has a clear voice and walks with a spritely stride. He doesn’t shirk hard work and it was only after spending several years liaising with the local government and various levels of the establishment, then convening a meeting with the few old Daoists on the mountain, that he was able to re-establish the Palace of Supreme Purity on Qingcheng Mountain. Both the old and the young chat freely with me and, to use her words, everyone likes you. She says everyone, but doesn’t say she herself.

She says you can stay as long as you like, Zhang Daqian the painter lived here for many years. I saw a portrait of Zhang Daqian’s father engraved on stone in the temple of the three legendary rulers — Fuxi, Shennong and the Yellow Emperor — situated alongside the Palace of Supreme Purity. Afterwards I also learn that Fan Changsheng of the Jin Dynasty and Du Tingguang of the Tang Dynasty lived here as recluses in order to write. I am not a recluse and still want to eat from the stoves of human society. I can’t say that I am staying because of the charming spontaneity of her movements and her unaffected gracefulness, I am simply saying that I like the tranquillity here.

My room leads out onto the temple hall with its ancient colours and ancient smells. Inside is a long table made of nanmu hardwood and some square chairs with armrests and small low tables. Calligraphy is hanging on the walls and the freizes of the horizontal central tablet and the pillars are early wood carvings which have luckily been preserved. She says you can do some reading and writing here and when you get tired you can go for a stroll in the courtyard at the back of the hall. Ancient cypresses and ink-green indigo plants grow in the square courtyard and the artificial stone mountains in the pond are completely covered in thick green moss. Early in the morning and at night the talk and laughter of the nuns can be heard coming through the carved lattice windows. Here, the oppressive and prohibitive harshness of the Buddhist monasteries doesn’t exist. Instead there is tranquillity and fragrance.