Ma Jian - Stick Out Your Tongue

‘When I woke up the next morning, I found myself lying on top of her. That night I’d released all the frustration that had been building up inside me for so many years. At first I thought it had all been a dream. I went out for a piss, and waited until I was fully awake before I returned to the tent. But when I walked through the door curtain again, I saw Metok jump under a pile of clothes. I ran outside, got on my horse and rode off into the grasslands. When I returned that night, Metok and Dondrub had gone.

‘That autumn, I drove my herd to Tsala. I knew that Metok would never call me father again, but I was determined to find her. I asked for news of her in Tsala, but no one had seen her there. Then, in a cart shop, I heard that a month before, a skin trader had passed through the village with a young woman in tow. The shopkeeper asked me whether the woman I was looking for had a turquoise pin in her hair, a round face and slightly puffy eyes. He said that the trader kept swearing at the woman, and spoke in a Shigatse accent. When I heard this, I sold some of my yaks at the market and headed for Shigatse.

‘When I reached Shigatse, I was afraid to tell anyone that I was looking for my daughter. Instead, I just asked them if they knew of a man called Dondrub. There were lots of people called Dondrub in Shigatse, but at last I met a skin trader on the street who said he knew the Dondrub I was looking for. He said that he’d gone to Central Tibet to pick up some furniture. I found my way to Dondrub’s home, which was twenty kilometres down the road from Shigatse. But when I arrived, Metok wasn’t there. I asked Dondrub’s mother where she was. I told her that I was a relative of Metok’s, and had a letter for her. The old woman said, “You’re looking for that little bastard girl, are you? I kicked her out a long time ago. Our family don’t mix with scum like her. May the Bodhisattva of Mercy send her to hell!”

‘I trekked back to Shigatse, and for days on end I circled the walls of Tashilumpo Monastery, spinning the prayer wheels. The old people I met there talked of a woman not yet twenty years old, who’d slept with every young hooligan in the area. She camped on the streets, apparently, and lived off the donations of passing pilgrims. They said that she came from the Chiu Pastures, and that she’d lost her mind, and would often walk around half-naked. After a few months of living on the streets, her lower body had begun to smell and men were afraid to go near her. The old people felt sorry for her, and said what a terrible father she must have. I was struck with guilt. All day, I threw myself into prostrations, trying to wipe the sins from my body. I begged the Buddha to take pity on me and allow me to find my Metok.’

The old man told me a lot more, but this was about the sum of it. His only wish now was to end his life. He’d heard that many pilgrims who travel to Mount Kailash die while circling its foothills. The more circles they complete before they die, the higher they ascend into heaven. It seemed to make no difference to him whether he returned dead or alive.

I looked up at the smoke vent at the top of the tent, and saw that the square of sky above was already turning white. The yak blood was still lying in my stomach, undigested, and kept sending a nasty, acrid taste to my mouth. I grabbed a clove of raw garlic and munched on it to get rid of the taste. My eyelids were beginning to droop. The old man stretched out on the sheepskins beside me, rested his head on the aluminium basin, and whispered a Buddhist mantra. The tent filled with the smell of his rancid breath.

I lay down next to him, and thought of the girl I’d seen in the Barkhor market in Lhasa. She had a round face and cheeks blown red by the winds of the high plateau. There was no turquoise pin in her hair. In fact, her hair was so messy it looked like a bundle of yak tails. She kept brushing back the loose strands that fell over her face. When she sensed that someone was looking at her, she would lift her head and smile at them. If they stopped and stared, and didn’t throw anything at her, she would stick out her tongue in greeting. The lower lids of her eyes were slightly swollen, but when she smiled, her mouth stretched wide open and her eyes beamed with kindness. It was the smile of the women of the high plateau, a smile as pure as the grassland air. She was smothered by the dust and noise of the crowded street. So that passers-by wouldn’t tread on her, she retreated under the table of a yak meat stall. After days of looking up in supplication, her forehead had become lined with wrinkles. Whenever someone stopped and looked down at her with pity, she would drop her head, pull her left breast to her mouth and suck it, then glance up and smile. Her left nipple had been in her mouth for so long that it had become swollen and translucent. As she crouched under the table, stray dogs scuttled about her feet, waiting for scraps of meat to fall from the butcher’s tray.

Gar Monastery sat between the goddess mountains Everest and Shishapangma. When I climbed to the highest point of the monastery’s compound, I saw these two mountain deities, draped in silver robes, lifting their heads to the sky as though they were yearning to return home. Below the monastery gates ran an ancient horse-trail that was now overgrown with weeds. For centuries, merchants and travellers would pass through here on their way to Nepal. Beside the trail was a winding river that flowed through fields of barley and peas. Beyond the fields spread a dry, stony plain. In the summer months, nomads had to move their herds to graze on greener pastures.

In the past, a bronze stupa that housed a bone of Saint Mileripa had stood at the highest point of the monastery. But all that remained of the stupa now were its grey foundation stones. Many of the surrounding shrines had also crumbled into ruin. The altitude was so high that, over the centuries, the land had become almost deserted. The Tibetans who did still live here were short and stocky, and walked at a very slow pace. Everything that moved: clouds, sheep, dogs, prayer flags, women with children in their arms, and me — a Chinese drifter who’d recently arrived from the east — all did so in slow motion.

My head was pounding. It felt as though a crack had formed around my skull, and that at any moment my crown would lift like the lid of an observatory. Slowly, my memories started to slip away. I forgot what my ex-wife looked like, even though she was the reason that I was leading this sad and vagrant life. I forgot the names of all the important philosophers and writers of the world. Instead, images that for years had been buried deep in my mind suddenly flashed before my eyes. I realised that the keys that I thought I’d lost six years ago were in fact hidden below a wooden chest under my bed. I remembered that when I lost them, I was dreaming of a mouse that was startled by the noise of my keys dropping to the floor. The mouse picked the keys up, unlocked the drawer of my desk, riffled through the contents, took out my bottle of painkillers, swallowed a couple then slid the keys under the wooden chest.

I sat down at a crossroads and gulped deep breaths of air. Children and dogs slowly surrounded me. Some looked at my face and hair, others at my clothes, beard and camera. They squatted down, and in the space between two breaths I smiled at them. Then I stood up, reached into my pocket for my forged introduction letter and asked for directions to the district headquarters.

The clerk in charge of the headquarters had attended the district high school, but years of working at high altitude had dulled his wits. In the time it took him to smoke a cigarette he read through my introduction letter, then he smiled, and five minutes later, looked up at me. I told him that I had come to climb Mount Everest, that my work unit — such and such publishing house — had sent me here on a political assignment to climb to the summit. He told me that it was impossible to scale the mountain alone. He said that a man had come last year with the same intention, and had even written a will before he’d left, but had returned two weeks later with half his face frozen purple and his nose and ears lost to frostbite. He’d had to spend a month recovering in the district hospital. ‘Not everyone can touch the face of the Green Goddess,’ the clerk sighed. He told me that at the foot of Mount Everest was an icy river, and that if you slipped into its waters, you’d either freeze to death or be smashed to death by ice boulders. Seeing the dejection on my face, he added, ‘But there’s a smaller mountain near here that you can climb. From the summit, you can catch a glimpse of Mount Everest. There’s a Nepalese monastery up there. It’s in ruins now, but there’s a small village at the foot of the mountain.’