Ma Jian - Stick Out Your Tongue

That afternoon, the district clerk accompanied me to the village below Gar Monastery.

From a distance, it looked like a sheep pen. The stone roofs of the houses almost touched the ground. There was no one about. The ground was so soft and dry that each step I took lifted clouds of dust that hovered in mid — air. A dog crawled out from under a fence and quietly yapped at me. Then a girl’s head peeped out from under a stone roof, disappeared into the pit below and emerged again a few minutes later. She was holding a mirror in one hand this time, and as she combed her hair with the other she stared at me. The path was dusty and scattered with broken stones. The district clerk pointed to a house and said that he knew the owner. ‘He’s a friend of mine,’ he whispered. ‘If you give him a packet of cigarettes he’ll put you up for the night. He’s the oldest man in the district.’

We crouched down, propped our hands on the stone roof and lowered ourselves into the pit. Apart from the smouldering ashes of the fire, I couldn’t see a thing. But I could hear someone sitting in the corner, breathing. I spent the night in this man’s home and listened to his story. My head was aching, and the clerk’s translation was not always clear, so the account may seem illogical in places. However, the altitude sharpened my awareness for detail, allowing many aspects of the story to remain crystal clear, so I know that I can’t have made everything up. What is still a mystery to me, though, is that although the man’s story was about a love affair he’d had as a young man, he claimed that the events took place four hundred years ago. This is what he told me:

‘At eleven years old, I started an apprenticeship with my teacher — the master craftsman Sangbucha. Work had just begun on the construction of the bronze stupa at Gar Monastery. My teacher, his wife, Kula, and I were housed in the monastery compound. I was told that they were both Nepalese, but that my teacher had been born on the Tibetan side of Mount Everest. My father had died of fever while travelling the horse-trail to Nepal. Sangbucha was a very talented silversmith. Almost every woman in the area owned pieces of jewellery that he’d made.

‘Sangbucha was employed by the monks to supervise the construction of the stupa. The dome of the stupa was to be cast in bronze and its crown carved from solid gold. I learned everything I know now during the seven years I studied with Sangbucha. His wife, Kula, was nearly thirty years younger than him. She’d run away from Nepal and moved here to unite with him in a ‘false marriage’. When she first met him in her village in Nepal, she was entranced by the beauty of his jewellery. Although she was nearly thirty, her face was free from wrinkles. The sapphire pinned to her nostril was as pure as Lake Mansarobar. Every morning, she would coil her hair into a bun, smear red chalk down her middle parting and dab a dot of crimson cinnabar between her brows. She always wore my teacher’s most precious pieces of jewellery.

‘The mould for the bronze dome of the stupa took six years to make. The dome was bell-shaped, and was to rest on a stone foundation of tapering steps that at the base would measure four metres in diameter. The edges of each layer of steps were to be decorated with figurines of auspicious animals holding wind-bells in their mouths. Surmounting the bronze dome would be a circular stone platform, from the centre of which would rise a crown carved from pure gold. My teacher told me that the circular platform would keep the rain off the bronze dome below and the thieves off the golden crown above. Thirteen stone peacocks were to decorate the platform’s circumference. The stupa would reach sixteen metres high. The crown would be shaped like a miniature stupa, its interior carved with images of the Sixteen Bodhisattvas. Although it would measure just fifty centimetres in length, my teacher’s exquisite carvings would render it valuable beyond price. When completed, the crown would be slotted onto the tip of the bronze pillar that would rise through the interior of the stupa.

‘I was a strong and conscientious child. I could endure hardship. My teacher liked me very much. He said that the rings I made were better crafted and more beautiful than his. Kula was very affectionate to me, and often put some of my teacher’s food aside to give to me later. When I was thirteen, my teacher travelled to Dansang to buy the clay for the mould. He was away for a month. Before he left he asked me to move in to his room. He was afraid that the monks in the monastery would try to sleep with his wife. The first night I spent in the room, Kula told me to lie down beside her. The second night, she leaned over and stroked me. The scent of her skin made me tremble with fear. She smelt of musk from head to toe. A few days later, she invited the monastery’s disciplinarian to her room. They waited for me to doze off before they started to embrace, but I was soon woken by Kula’s moans. When my teacher returned I didn’t have the courage to tell him what had happened.

‘My teacher was over sixty years old by then. Although his back was a little bent, he was still in good shape. He had curly hair that fell to his shoulders, and big black eyes. He often wore a purple braid around his head. He didn’t drink much, but he liked to flirt with the women who came to buy his jewellery. If a woman took his fancy, he’d add some extra silver to the rings or hairpins he made for them. When he helped a woman put on a necklace or bracelet, he would take his time and stand very close to them.

‘The mould for the bronze dome hadn’t yet dried the first time I slept with Kula. My teacher was spending all his time locked in his workshop, carving the Bodhisattvas into the golden crown. At night, monks guarded his door to make sure no thieves could enter. Only Kula and the monastery’s treasurer were allowed inside the workshop. I was assigned a small group of craftsman and told to supervise the construction work outside. That night, Kula called me to her room. I didn’t tremble at all this time. I smiled as I watched her slowly unwrap her sari, then I jumped on her and sucked at her skin as though I was thirsting for drink. From then on, she and I became inseparable. As soon as night fell, I would seek her out, following the smell of musk to her room. Even during the day I could tell where she was just by sniffing the air.

‘The morning after we first made love, she travelled to Nilamu to buy some oil and red chalk. In the afternoon, I could smell her coming back. I put down my chisel and rushed to the other side of the mountain to meet her. As I started up the foothills, I saw her coming down. When she caught sight of me, she threw herself on the ground and lifted her sari. We were still rolling on the grass when my teacher turned up. He kicked me hard in the chest, then he picked up a wooden stick and started beating Kula with it.

‘For a few days, Kula and I dared not look at one another. We were just waiting for the right time to act.

‘Then one morning, Kula burst through my door. Her face was ashen, her eyes were glazed. She stood in front of me and told me that my teacher had left her. He’d run away from the monastery and was never coming back. Later the monks announced that a lot of gold was missing, and that they suspected that my teacher had taken it with him.

I was now put in charge of the entire construction project.The monks were afraid that I too would run away, so they employed a guard to watch over me. I moved into Kula’s room. She was kind to me, and told me many stories about her life in Nepal. She wanted me to go back with her to Nepal and become her ‘false husband’. She was very homesick. She told me that she often thought of the day when, as a child of twelve, she had married her true husband: the seed of the sacred cebil tree. She brought out a small parcel and showed me the seed that was wrapped inside. She explained that the seed was invested with divine powers, and that as long as it remained by her side, no harm would come to her. She warned me that when we reached her village she would consult an oracle and that if my astrological signs were found to be incompatible with hers, we would have to separate. She said that her signs conflicted with my teacher’s, and that because of this, her family had opposed their marriage, leaving her no choice but to elope with him to Tibet.