Xinran Xue - Sky Burial, An Epic Love Story of Tibet

Soon they arrived at a tent. They handed their horses’ reins to a woman waiting outside and followed the man in. Next to the stove they saw someone sleeping, a thick quilt wrapped around him. Only his pale face was visible.

“Qiangba!” Wen whispered. From the sound of the hermit’s breathing, she could tell that his lungs were very weak.

The Tibetan man gestured at them to stay quiet, then took them outside. He guessed from their anxious expressions what it was they were about to ask, and he told them to sit down on the grass.

“Don’t worry, I’ll explain. One morning a week or so ago, my two daughters came back from fetching water from the lake and said that Old Hermit Qiangba was just sitting there, not singing. My wife thought this unusual and suggested I go and see for myself. So that very day, I rode with my daughters to the lakeside. As they’d said, the hermit was just sitting there in silence, his head bent right over. I walked up to him, shouting his name, but he didn’t move or respond in any way. He didn’t look well, so I tried shaking him, but he just slumped over. I saw that both of his eyes were screwed shut, and that his forehead and hands were very hot, so I carried him back here on my horse. We have tried giving him some herbal medicine, but it doesn’t seem to have had much effect. Although his fever has gone down, he just sleeps all the time and doesn’t say anything. We were thinking of sending him to the monastery nearby to be treated by the lamas.

“Today, when my daughter came back from fetching water, she said she’d heard you’d been staying by the lake for several days, asking after the hermit, so I came looking for you.” He glanced inside the tent. “Although everyone around here loves and reveres Old Hermit Qiangba, no one knows where he comes from. All we know is that twenty years ago, he miraculously appeared here and began watching over the lake and singing about King Gesar, Mount Anyemaqen, and our great Tibetan spirits. Sometimes he also sings about how a Chinese menba stopped the fighting between Chinese and Tibetans in this region. People fetching water bring him food, but none of us knows where he lives. Sometimes, people see him talking to lamas from the nearby monastery. Some say that the lamas know all about his past, but I’m not sure. We only come to the Hundred Lakes for the spring and summer.”

Although Zhuoma tried to persuade the man that he should allow Wen to take a look at the hermit, the man was adamant that he wished to take him to the nearby monastery. Nor would he allow Zhuoma or Wen to accompany him, since women were not allowed in the monastery and this one had no guesthouse. After a brief discussion, Wen and Zhuoma decided that Tiananmen should go with Qiangba while they would pitch camp nearby and wait for news.

IT WAS many days before Tiananmen returned. Wen could do nothing but wait. She sat in the grass outside the tent and whispered to herself over and over again, “Om mani padme hum.” Zhuoma brought her food and helped her lay out her bedding at night. The rest of the time she allowed Wen to remain lost in her thoughts.

When at last Wen saw Tiananmen’s horse in the distance, she stood up. He rode straight to her and, without dismounting, passed her a bundle wrapped in yellowing bandages.

“For many years,” he said, “Old Hermit Qiangba has kept this safe at the monastery. All he knows about its contents is that they are to be given to a Chinese woman from Suzhou called Shu Wen. He has tried many times to find someone who would take it to Suzhou for him, but no traveler was able to help him. His lungs are a little better now. He has spoken to me about his experiences. I think the package must be for you.”

In the tent, Wen sat transfixed by the bundle. She could almost feel it breathing, waiting to come alive at her command. Finally, with trembling hands, she untied the familiar bandages-the sort used by doctors across China. Inside were two notebooks. Not much was written in either book, but every stroke of every character had been written by the man who had occupied her thoughts day and night for as long as she could remember. Wen’s blood was pounding in her veins. After so many years of searching and uncertainty, finally she felt she could see, hear, and feel her husband. Slowly she leafed through the pages, hardly daring to touch them in case they crumbled in her hands. One of the notebooks contained medical notes, recording the ailments that Kejun and his comrades had encountered on entering Tibet and details of their treatment. The other was a diary. On its first page, it said that it was written for Kejun’s wife, Shu Wen, for whom Kejun longed with all his heart.

Neither Zhuoma nor Tiananmen knew what to say to Wen, who was trembling and sobbing. No words or gestures could stop the flow of tears that had been accumulating for so long.

Tiananmen lit a lamp and hung it near her. Beside her he placed a flask of oil with which to replenish it. Zhuoma added a few more dung cakes to the fire, then arranged a quilt for Wen by the blaze and guided her over to it. The two of them then silently left the tent.

Wen began reading the diary with great trepidation. In neat handwriting, which grew more erratic over the course of the entries, was recorded the story of what had happened to Kejun.

The first pages were entirely taken up by Kejun’s surprise at the resistance his unit was meeting from the Tibetans. During his training he had been led to believe that negotiations between the Chinese government and Tibetan religious leaders had been entirely successful. He had been told that their “warmhearted, honest Tibetan compatriots” welcomed the People’s Liberation Army with open arms. His classes on Tibetan customs and government policy toward minorities had done little to prepare him for the aggression he encountered. His unit was composed of young, illiterate peasants whose heads were full of Communist slogans: “Liberate the whole of China!,” “On with the Revolution to the end!” They believed that all resistance to them was “counterrevolutionary.” Kejun and the unit’s commander were the only educated soldiers. Gradually they realized that the Tibetans’ hostility stemmed from the fact that they believed the Chinese were unearthly demons sent to destroy their religion. The Tibetans’ savagery was legendary: they would not rest until they had torn these demons to pieces. The Chinese soldiers had retaliated.

For weeks Kejun’s unit made its way north on horseback, taking great care to skirt areas where Tibetans were living or keeping their flocks. Then one evening as the sun was setting, they heard cries of agony coming from the mountainside. The commander and Kejun-who could both speak a little Tibetan-went on ahead to investigate. As they got closer to the terrible sound, they saw a scene that froze them with horror. A flock of vultures was feeding upon a pile of blood-soaked bodies, one of which was alive and struggling desperately to beat off the birds of prey. Before the commander could stop him, Kejun-with his sense of responsibility toward the sick and injured-whipped out his revolver and shot one of the vultures.

There was a flurry of wings as the birds flew into the air-then an awful silence. The injured man lay twitching on the ground. Kejun was about to walk over to him when a roar of rage cut through the air like a hurricane. He looked up and saw, on the hillside above him, a group of angry Tibetans glaring at him. A shiver ran down his spine. He realized that in his haste to help a dying man, he had intruded on a funeral rite and shot dead a sacred bird. He was terrified to think about the consequences of his rash act-he was also confused as to why no one had been present at the funeral to chant the scriptures, and why a man who was still alive had been left with the corpses.