Ma Jian - Red Dust

I feel ashamed of myself, traipsing through the streets like a stray dog, so I return to listen to Deng Lijun outside the hardware store. The tape is playing at double speed now. A man in a straw hat yells, ‘New listening experience! Advanced technology! All the latest functions!’ I walk straight past, stroll down a street lined with food stalls, cross a small bridge and turn into a quiet lane. Suddenly I notice a small brick house covered with bamboo scaffolding. I stop and stare. It reminds me of my house in Nanxiao Lane. In a flash I see my bed, the sketch of Lu Ping on the wall, the tea cup, orange sofa, cassette player, the jade seal I found on the beach as a child and keep in a box in a drawer next to the gramophone needle, divorce certificate and the paper-weight engraved with a picture of an old man crossing a bridge

. . While I stand there daydreaming, a middle-aged man with a thick chin walks up and asks me who I am looking for. I tell him the house reminds me of my home in Beijing.

His face lights up. ‘Beijing residences are built to very exacting standards, with taste and elegance. My home has not been renovated since the Liberation. It is a humble little brick affair, hardly in the same league as the splendid houses of the capital.’

‘No, no. I can tell it will look wonderful once the work is completed, and besides, it has the best feng shui in the lane.’ I picked up a geomantic handbook at a village fair, and the chapter on the four cardinals and five elements is still fresh in my mind. ‘The house has a mountain to the back, a stream to the front and green hills to the east and west. Taking a cursory glance, the wood, fire, earth, metal and water elements of the site appear to be in harmonious balance.’ Since I am only halfway through the book, I make a hasty retreat before I run out of things to say.

He drops his cigarette, grabs my arm and says, ‘Brother, I could tell at once you were no ordinary man. Please, may I ask your name?’

‘My surname is Lu,’ I say.

‘Brother Lu, would you give me the great honour of allowing me to buy you a meal?’

‘Yes, yes,’ I blurt, a little too eagerly.

We walk back to the food stalls and sit down at a small restaurant.

‘Order whatever you like, Brother Lu, please. How lucky I am to have made your acquaintance. To think you have travelled all the way from Beijing!’

‘It is too early in the day for me to eat,’ I lie, attempting to sound less desperate. ‘A beer will do fine.’

‘Well, let us at least have some snacks,’ he says, and orders pigs’ trotters, sliced cucumber and a plate of sweet and sour ribs.

‘Come, Brother Lu, drink, drink!’ We raise our bowls and drain them in one. ‘I am a common man,’ he says, ‘no education. I inherited the house from my father.’

‘He was a herbal doctor, am I right?’ When I peered through the windows earlier, I noticed what looked like an old-fashioned pharmacy.

‘So,’ he pauses to collect himself. ‘So you really are a sage. You have received teachings from the holy men, I am sure.’

I smile to myself. ‘I sought refuge in the Buddha last winter. Master Zhengguo ordained me and gave me the name Mighty Steel. I have left the red dust of samsara and resigned myself to my karmic destiny for the sake of all sentient beings.’

He gazes at me with admiration. It is a long time since anyone looked at me like that. ‘What is your name, sir?’ I ask.

‘Ma — Ma Youshan.’

‘An auspicious name. It will bring you fortune and good health for the rest of your days,’ I say, reminding myself I have no money for a room tonight.

‘I would like to receive your teachings, Mighty Steel. My family have been Buddhists for five generations. Please, come back to my home and stay with us for a while before you resume your journey.’

So I move in with Ma Youshan for a while. His father was deputy head of Linxia People’s Hospital, but was attacked during the Cultural Revolution because Ma Youshan’s grandfather ran a private pharmacy in the 1930s and treated a Guomindang general injured by the Eighth Route Army. He was forced to attend study sessions and confess his political crimes. One day they paraded him through the streets and someone hurled a stone at his ear. A few days later, the gash went septic and he died. Ma Youshan is an accountant for the local rice and oil depot. He has a wife and three sons. The youngest runs his own wholesale garment business and has been featured in the local papers.

Out of politeness, I give his house a rudimentary geomantic survey. I tell him it is unlucky to have the front door in direct line with the back door as it encourages the flow of malevolent currents. So he moves the front door a few metres to the right. Then I draw up a five-year astrological chart for each member of his family, and paint a mountain landscape above the new front door. In the evenings I lie in bed and scribble a few lines in my notebook.

20 June. Ma Youshan is a good man. His hospitality has saved me. I feel bad for duping him. His wife lights incense every night and bows to the clay buddha on the family altar. . Nannan must have freckles again by now, and grown even taller. It hurts when I think about her. I keep remembering the piggy-back I gave her last summer, and how the ice cream I had bought her melted and dripped down my neck. Why was I allowed to bring her into this world, but am forbidden to be a father to her?

25 June. While painting the mural today I felt a stabbing pain in my chest. In the morning I sometimes forget about death, but by the afternoon the memory returns and tells me that however fast I run or high I climb, my body is pregnant with death. .

5 July. A friend of Ma Youshan’s eldest son came round tonight and paid me 10 yuan to read his fortune. We had a drink and he told me about Shenzhen. He said the shops have automatic stairs — you step on at the bottom and they carry you to the next floor. He said if things go on like this, they will fix them to roads and we won’t need bicycles any more.

7 July. Went to a bookshop to browse through some graphology manuals, and saw a girl in a long skirt. Her neck was milky white. Various thoughts came to mind. I have tried to renounce all attachments and desires, but it is hard to stop thinking about women. Love shields us from loneliness, but when it falls apart, the pain is even deeper. Ma Youshan’s neighbour paid me 5 yuan to select an auspicious date for his son’s wedding. . Man’s sense of well-being derives from thoughts of future gain. It is these that give him the will to live.

10 July. Saw two men wrestling on the street. A crowd gathered and watched like spectators at a dogfight. I pushed my way through and dragged the men apart. Ma Youshan said that during the Cultural Revolution nameless corpses lay strewn on the street for days.

After three weeks in Linxia, I tell Ma Youshan it is time for me to pursue my search for enlightenment. His youngest son drives me to Xiahe and drops me at the gates of Labrang, the largest Buddhist monastery outside Tibet.

It is not until I leave Labrang a few days later that I finally open the brown envelope Ma Youshan gave me as we said goodbye. There is a stick of ginseng inside and a one-hundred-yuan note.

If I keep to a budget of two yuan a day, I have enough money to last for seven weeks, and in less than a month I should be in Chengdu, where I hope Yang Ming will help me find some work. Before me lies the long road to Sichuan. I will follow it from Hezuo to Luqu, veer west to Maqu, then join it again at Langmusi. This region of Gansu used to be part of Tibet, and the grasslands near Maqu are still inhabited by Tibetan farmers and nomads.