Ma Jian - Red Dust

The door keeps swinging open. Villagers walk in, eager to listen to the ‘Beijing journalist’. They stand at the threshold for a while, then move to the dark corners of the room and sit down to smoke. I only see their faces when they lean over for a refill of Anmei’s tea.

I remember the song that blared as I walked into the village and say, ‘Chairman Mao has been dead for years. You don’t have to play those songs any more.’

Anmei frowns. ‘Those tapes are very old, I know, but we cannot afford new ones. I hear in Beijing you can buy tapes of last year’s Spring Festival television special.’

‘That’s not all. You can buy tapes from Taiwan and Hong Kong, the songs of Deng Lijun and Su Rei — even that French singer, Nana Mouskouri. In Beijing the cinemas are open every day. On Saturday nights, young people give parties at home. They play disco music and dance cheek to cheek.’ The dark lives these people lead fill me with frustration, I cannot help my superior tone. Mili’s eyes are the only bright things in the room.

‘Some of my friends have moved to America,’ I continue. ‘They own cars and telephones now. Last September the government announced that Chinese citizens are allowed to marry foreigners. This country is changing, opening up. You can’t just stay here like vegetables. You should travel, broaden your minds. Haven’t you heard about Shenzhen Economic Zone? It’s like a foreign country now. Employees are provided with free lunches. They can eat as much as they want. .’

The men seated around me do not look up, but I can tell they are rapt by my talk. Everyone falls silent. Even Mili stops munching the pumpkin seeds. I try to keep talking, but my voice tails off. I hate it when this happens. When people visit me at home in Beijing I always play a tape in the background so that if an awkward silence occurs we can pretend to be listening to the music.

At last I ask Tang Weiguo what books he likes to read.

‘I haven’t read much since I left school.’

‘How about you, Anmei? Have you read Mauriac’s The Desert of Love?’ I say, deliberately choosing an obscure title.

‘Uh, I read whatever is lying about really. I have a subscription to Youth of China .’

‘And you, Mili? What do you like to read?’ She is about to spit a husk onto the floor, but when I look at her she dribbles it into her hand instead.

‘Tell us about Beijing,’ Anmei says, adding some hot water to the teapot. ‘The papers say that parents have to queue to send their children to nursery school. I don’t understand.’ She walks to the cupboard and comes back with a bottle. ‘Try some of this.’

‘I’m fine with the tea, thank you.’

‘It’s orange juice, there’s half a bottle left. I bought it in the county town.’

I take a sip. It’s flat fizzy orange.

‘Go on, have some more.’ I don’t want to upset her, so I pretend to take another gulp, then pass the bottle to Mili.

‘Family planning is strict in the cities,’ I explain. ‘Couples are only allowed one child. They all want to give them the best education. Good nurseries have pianos, the top ones teach English and give chocolate at break time.’

‘How much do they cost?’

‘Top nurseries charge forty yuan a term. They provide apples and sweets in the morning and a meal at noon. The fees are double if the children board.’ I swallow some more tea. The conversation is getting tedious. ‘Are there any interesting sites around here?’

‘The lost city of Suoyang. There’s an article about it here in the Gansu Daily.’

Tang Weiguo hands me the newspaper. A boy standing behind me switches his torch on and shines it onto the page.

‘Gansu Province has a long and glorious history,’ I read aloud. ‘A land of mountains and rugged deserts dotted with oasis towns which in ancient times served as caravan stops on the legendary Silk Road. . Although the majority of the population is Han Chinese, the province is also home to a number of Muslim minorities including the Chinese-speaking Hui and the semi-nomadic Kazaks. . The Mogao Caves of Dunhuang hold China’s most spectacular Buddhist art. . world-famous Singing Sand Hills and renowned Crescent Moon Lake. . awesome Jiayuguan Fort. . I can’t see any mention of Suoyang.’

There are six faces surrounding me, and six torches shining on the page. Tang Weiguo points to the spot and reads, ‘Suoyang city was originally called Kuyu. Legend relates that during the Tang Dynasty, General Xue Rengui led his army west to repel the nomadic hordes of the Central Asian steppes. But when the soldiers reached Kuyu, the enemy troops surrounded them. General Xue and his men barricaded themselves within the city walls waiting for reinforcements to arrive from the imperial capital. As the months went by, supplies ran out and the soldiers had to dig the ground for food. The suoyang roots they found saved their lives, and the city was renamed in their honour. The expression "Stuck in Suoyang" entered our vocabulary. After the sea route to India was discovered in the fourteenth century, trade along the Silk Road declined and, like many other caravanseries, Suoyang was abandoned to the desert sands. The city walls are ten metres high. .’

‘I’ll go there tomorrow. Maybe I can dig up some suoyang!’ The men chuckle and the women frown. I say I am ready for bed, and Tang Weiguo picks up a thermos flask and leads me to the militia headquarters.

The mud houses look cold and grey under the moonlight. A gravel track stretches straight into the stony desert. It is hard to believe I was walking across golden sands today.

I wake up late. Warm sunlight moves down my face and quilt like a woman’s hand. A group of peasants have come to sit at the end of my brick bed. They are smoking and discussing the man in the next village who has made a fortune breeding angora rabbits. ‘He rakes in ten thousand yuan a year from those animals.’

A mule brays in the yard outside. I hide under the quilt. It smells of feet but is at least cleaner than the blankets in the hostels I have stayed in. I realise I have been travelling for a month now. I think about why I left Beijing, and wonder if I will ever return. I imagine spending the rest of my days drifting from place to place.

I sit up, say hello, and climb off the bed. Perhaps these are the men who sat in Li Anmei’s room last night.

At four o’clock, I put away the poem I have been working on, take a gulp of tea and set off for Suoyang with Mili. She has offered to be my guide for the afternoon.

The ruins are only eight kilometres away. The sky is blue.

Before long we are walking through desert. The Qilian peaks in the distance remind me of Hemingway’s Hills Like White Elephants. It is the story of a man taking a girl to a distant town to have an abortion.

Mili is neither fat nor thin. Her lips are thick and red. When I look at them I remember how they moved last night as she chewed the pumpkin seeds. Her hair is brushed back into a tight ponytail, a straight fringe bobs over her forehead. She walks beside me, head bowed.

I ask her how much suoyang fetches in the market. The roots are used in Chinese medicine. They are believed to cure male impotence.

‘Locals go to Suoyang every summer to dig up the roots. They dry them at home and sell them for two yuan a jin.’

‘Gansu people don’t talk much, do they? The men who joined us last night didn’t say a word all evening. You didn’t say much either.’

She looks up and smiles into the distance. ‘Can you see it?’

I see a crumbling wall fringed by tufts of green weed.

‘It’s wonderful! It looks like a fossilised dinosaur.’ Then I turn and look at her. ‘I would like to sleep there tonight. Will you stay with me?’ Walking through the dry desert with a moist girl by my side, I cannot help thinking about holding her after dark.