Ma Jian - Red Dust

The driver jumps out. It is the man I spoke to this afternoon outside the train station.

‘So, what’s up, Su Jin?’ he shouts. ‘It’s dark already. Haven’t those bloody Japs finished yet?’

I seldom write in my notebook, for fear the police might read it. But at night, when I lie in a hostel bed with nothing to do, I cannot resist jotting down some thoughts.

5 March. Left Jiayuguan three days ago, and have walked nearly 100 kms already. Tonight I’m staying at the Peasant, Worker, Soldier Hostel in Yumen town. There is hot water in the bathroom and a television in the conference room downstairs. I went down a minute ago, but there were so many people watching, I couldn’t squeeze in.

Managed to buy some biscuits this evening before the shops shut. The street lamps were very bright, but they pointed to the sky and left the roads in complete darkness. All the cyclists wore face masks to protect them from the pollution. There are so many factories here, the town is shrouded in soot. The Qilian snow peaks in the distance looked pure and other-worldly. I must walk faster tomorrow.

8 March. Third night at Guangming Hostel in Chijinbao. No central heating. The water in the enamel washbowl has frozen solid. Cigarette butts and chicken bones litter the floor. Went to warm up in the staff dormitory. Two young men were having a beer and a game of poker. One was wearing a nylon jacket. Each time he threw his hand in the air you could see the large tear along the armpit.

Flicked through ‘Leaves of Grass’ this morning. I like this verse:

Camerado, I give you my hand!

I give you my love more precious than money,

I give you myself before preaching or law;

Will you give me yourself? will you come travel with me?

Shall we stick by each other as long as we live?

Tried reaching the mountains this afternoon. Walked 10 kms, but didn’t get near. Saw trucks stream from a quarry in the foothills. The clouds of dust behind them looked like yellow sails moving across the sea. Picked up some stones engraved with delicate fossils of primitive insects. Sat by a marsh for a while and thought of Xi Ping. Don’t know why. Perhaps because she appeared in my dreams last night. Lost my sunglasses. Never mind — I suppose I can live without them.

On my way back, a boy gave me a lift on his tractor. From the moment I jumped on to the moment I got off, he never looked at me once.

The man in the next bed is snoring loudly. It’s driving me mad. He’s a long-distance truck driver. He was afraid someone might steal his petrol tonight, so he rolled the barrels into the dorm. The fumes are asphyxiating. I’m leaving first thing tomorrow.

9 March. Walked 30 kms today. It feels good to lie down. The gravel is hard on the ankles. My feet ache and are covered in blisters.

The stony plain continued endlessly, not a tree in sight. The only spots of colour were the green mountains in the south.

At noon I passed through a village market. A new restaurant was opening. Firecrackers exploded as the sign was hung, it was very festive. I went in and ordered a bowl of mutton noodles. They were quite filling, but I kept thinking of the sheep’s head I saw bubbling in the pot. It seemed to have a smile on its face.

Reached Shulehe before sunset. Moon cakes are 8 mao a jin here, much cheaper than Beijing. They’re very hard though. Perhaps they’re left over from last year.

It is only when you take control of your life that you know you are alive.

Someone in a Yellow River truck tossed a bottle out of his window today and it smashed on my shoulders. Bastard.

The desert spreads to my left and right. I walk forward, continuing west along a hard black road that is sewn to the sky at the horizon. When I set out in the morning, the light on the Qilian mountains is a slant of pale green. At noon it is a straight beam of emerald. By the afternoon it scatters and becomes the same colour as the sky. White peaks follow me on the left. Sometimes I feel I am standing still. But I can’t be, because there is a new telegraph pole every one hundred steps and a new number on the post every two kilometres.

The road never ends. Sometimes, tractors pass and leave trails of fumes that hang in the air for hours. When long-distance buses approach, children lean out from open windows and gawk back at me for as long as their necks will hold. When trucks go by, I hear radio music and smell tobacco smoke.

I am used to the bag on my back — it is my new home, all twenty jin of it. The straw hat on my head is a souvenir from Jiayuguan. Its brim is printed with a line of Chairman Mao’s poetry: ‘Grim pass, hard as iron.’ Never mind. At least I can’t see it.

Last night in Shulehe I met the leader of a fireworks factory who makes regular visits to Shenzhen. He said Deng Xiaoping decided to turn it into a Special Economic Zone in 1980 because of its proximity to Guangzhou. It was just a sleepy fishing town at the time, but in four years it has overtaken its prosperous neighbour, and now has the fastest growing economy in the country. Thousands of foreign companies have opened businesses there, enticed by the low taxes and relaxed bureaucracy. He said high-rises go up in ten days and business licences are issued overnight. Factory leaders are called ‘managers’, employees wear suits and ties to work and are provided with free lunch. He gave me his name card. ‘Look after it,’ he said. ‘They cost me one mao each. It’s Japanese paper. If you drop it in water you can still read the print.’

A tractor has stopped on the side of the road. Two peasants are wedging a plank of wood under the back wheel. A hundred chickens stacked in cages in the back poke their heads out and stare at me. The smells of straw and chicken shit remind me of Yellow, the cockerel I kept as a child. After school each day I would scour the streets for scraps of food to feed it. When I took it to a cock fight we always came home the champions. I would carry it around in my arms and when I opened my mouth it would stick its head inside and drink my saliva. Then, one year, on the eve of Family Reunion Festival, my father chopped its head off. When I smelt the chicken soup simmering in the kitchen the next day, I burst into tears.

‘Bad luck, brothers,’ I say, passing as quickly as I can. Four human eyes and two hundred chicken eyes blur into a single gaze.

The road stretches on. Occasionally I see a roadworker’s shack or, at the end of a dirt track, a small settlement under a line of trees where the gravel plain meets the sand dunes. From the map, I notice the road ahead loops round to the north. I decide to take a short cut across the desert and head straight for Anxi. I want to get there as soon as possible and visit the Gorge of Ten Thousand Buddhas in the desert nearby.

I leave the asphalt road and turn left down a dusty track that takes me through rolling sand dunes. A few hours later, the sun starts to sink and I realise I might not make it to Anxi before dark. I see a water tower near the horizon, and a ragged line of roofs. Trucks move like boats across the heat haze behind. As the sun sinks lower, everything glows with a golden light. I drop my bag and lie down on my back in the sand. No wonder horses roll to the ground when they are tired. I feel better with my hooves in the air. I kick off my shoes and let my steaming toes suck the wind. Then I open my bottle, drink some water and splash some onto my face. My mind turns yellow. I hear a ringing in my ears — perhaps it is the noise of the sunlight, or the desert wind blowing through the telegraph wire. The water I swallowed charges through my veins. Eighty per cent of my body is water. My cells float in a sea. I am floating too, but my ocean is larger than theirs. I have the sky. I have freedom.