Ma Jian - Stick Out Your Tongue

When the elder brother dug his knife into Myima’s chin and drew it up her face, I suddenly forgot what she had looked like. While the brothers continued to carve, her eyes remained fixed on the sky above, until every piece of her had vanished from the site.

The elder brother snatched a bunch of Myima’s braids that were still tied with red thread, swirled it around the circling vultures and staggered back to the fire. The crows had now joined the vultures at the metal posts, and were picking at the roast barley that had been mashed up with scraps of brain.

I checked my watch. I had been up here for two hours already. It was time to go down. I knew that the soldier was waiting for me in his room. He’d promised that he would borrow a boat in the afternoon and take me fishing on the lake.

Sonam dismounted his horse at the foot of a hill that he had ridden past a few hours before. He took a deep breath then softly expelled it. The air smelt of grass and the moist, sun-baked earth. The wind was still blowing from the same direction: rising from the valleys of the Gangdise Mountains, sweeping over the flat wastes then racing onwards to the distant shores of Lake Drolmula. Far away, he could see the lake rippling in the wind, as though some great amphibian dinosaur were breathing below the surface. Reeds swayed by the banks and white saline crystals sparkled along the shallow waters. It was a salt lake. Every year, hundreds of yaks and horses drowned in its briny marshes. He was certain that his family would never choose to set up camp along its shores.

He led the horse forward, then stopped, flung the reins onto the horse’s back and started up the hill alone. The grass slope was split open by seams of exposed limestone. The fissures in the stone had been deepened by centuries of rain and snow, leaving a treacherous terrain of ridges and ruts. Horses that ventured up the hill would often trip and injure themselves; smaller animals would fall down the wide cracks and drown in the water that collected below. When Sonam reached the top of the hill, he saw the blue sky floating in the pools of stagnant water that dotted the plain below. He glanced back at his horse. It was still standing where he’d left it. He’d been riding it for almost a month now. It was one of his uncle Kelsang’s best horses. He hadn’t found the riding easy, though. He was out of practice; his thighs and tailbone were very sore. He had grown up in this region of the high plateau. One year, a severe drought had forced his family to move their camp to this very spot. His youngest sister, Gagal, had fallen into a ditch and died while riding her yak up this hill. He was eleven years old at the time.

He turned towards the lake again and continued walking. The pastures spread before him. In the distance, a swathe of pale grass trembled under the sun. There were no clouds, no tents, no animals. His chest felt empty and hollow.

These high pastures were five thousand metres above sea level. A few hardy shrubs, able to withstand the cold winters, spread their leaves under the warm August sun. Sonam kicked some weeds out of the way, sat down on a rock and glanced back again at his horse. It was stamping its hoofs now and whipping away a swarm of gadflies with its tail. Its stomach was no longer shuddering. The wind has stopped, he thought to himself.

It was a slow horse. When he’d collected it from his uncle, Sonam had taken a saddle from another horse and attached it to its back. A few days ago, the hemp sack that had served as the saddle lining fell off, and since then the wooden saddle had been digging straight into the horse’s back. Its skin was raw in places. The horse had been in so much pain that it had often bolted off in fits of agony. Sonam remembered the brown stallion that he rode as a boy. It could jump over the deepest ditches. And the white yak. He hadn’t ridden a yak since he’d left home two years ago to go to school in Saga.

His heart tightened when he realised how little of his holiday remained. Five days ago, he had come across Old Tashi’s family. Tashi still recognised him. He was very old now and could barely stand up. He asked Sonam what black arts he had studied at school in Saga. Tashi’s extended family had pitched their various tents across the meadow, but in the evening everyone gathered in the main tent to hear Sonam speak about the outside world.

Tashi was unable to hear a word that Sonam said. He just kept mumbling on about how he too had travelled to Saga as a young boy, to study the black arts. He said that during his uncle’s initiation ceremony, the Living Buddha Danba Dorje ripped out his uncle’s eyes, pulled out his tongue, chopped off his hand and offered the severed parts to Avalokitesvara, the Bodhisattva of Compassion. After the ceremony, the uncle returned home and died a few days later. Tashi was then sent to Saga to learn some spells that would allow his family to exact their revenge. He took a herd of yaks with him. In Saga, he found a Buddhist master who was able to tame the wind and make hail fall from the sky. Tashi gave the master his yaks, a silver ornament and a brass incense burner in exchange for a year’s board and tuition. The master taught him an incantation for subduing one’s enemy, as well as a few less dangerous spells. When Tashi returned home, he used the evil incantation to blind Danba Dorje, then he moved camp to this region of the high pastures.

Tashi’s nephew, Dhondup, said that Sonam’s family had moved to the south-east a month ago. There was a fertile valley there, apparently, but it was almost a two-week trek away. Dhondup also mentioned that Sonam’s sister, Dawa, had grown up a lot recently and was now as pretty as a wild raspberry. ‘Everyone who sees her wants to take a bite,’ Dhondup said. Those words made Sonam feel very uncomfortable.

Dhondup couldn’t explain why Sonam’s family had decided to move to the valley. Usually, nomads only went there in the autumn. As the mouth of the valley faced north, in the summer there was no wind and the pastures became infested with wasps and mosquitoes that attacked the nomads’ herds. Sometimes, the yaks and sheep became so distraught that they abandoned camp and followed the scent of moist air all the way to the marshes of Lake Drolmula. Dhondup told Sonam that his father was in bad health and could no longer throw a lasso, and that his mother had fallen off a horse a while ago and was unable to do any work. I don’t believe him, Sonam thought to himself at the time. My mother has never ridden a yak. Perhaps he’s confusing this with the story of Gagal’s accident.

A breeze blew from Lake Drolmula. Sonam breathed in deeply. The air had a flat, slightly bitter taste. The sky began to darken and the ground beneath him seemed to pull him down. He kicked his numb legs about and staggered to his feet. It was already two days since he had eaten something. His stomach burned with hunger.

He glanced back and saw that the horse had gone. When did it run away? he wondered. He remembered that he’d dozed off a few minutes ago, when the wind had changed. I should have brought the horse up here, he said to himself. There’s no grass to distract it here, and no gadflies. He walked back down the hill and followed the hoofprints the horse had left in the grass. His legs felt very weak.

When night fell he came to a stop. He opened his mouth, then closed it again. A sudden cold descended on the grasslands. He could still sense where Lake Drolmula was, but he couldn’t go there. He’d heard that the lake was the urine of Goddess Tadkar Dosangma, and that on the peak of the mountain behind it, you could see the splashes that she had left behind. He knew that it was dangerous to approach the lake. Nevertheless, he was now clearly walking towards it.