Ma Jian - Red Dust

The old man beside me stands up and tries to piss over the ledge, but his aim is poor and the urine dribbles back into the pool.

‘Sorry, my friend,’ he says, wiping the ledge with his flannel. ‘I’m getting old. I will be eighty-one this year.’

‘Congratulations, that’s a fine age.’ I look at his little penis and edge away. I am not in the mood for conversation.

Soon the stench of chlorine and filth brings tears to my eyes. I stand up and stick my head out of the window. A few women too poor to buy tickets are washing in the black stream running from the lower pool. As the water continues down the narrow valley the steam slowly disappears.

In the evening I lock up the library and walk back to the hostel. There is a light still on in the village. An old man has passed away and a crowd has gathered at his house hoping that the sight of an aged corpse will bring them long life.

I squeeze through the door. The couplet hung on the back wall reads THE SOUL RETURNS TO HEAVEN, CLEANSED OF WORLDLY DUST. On the funeral altar, a photograph of the deceased is lit by two flickering candles. I recognise the face. It is the old man who pissed in the pool this morning. His relatives pull me inside and give me a seat at the front, right next to the corpse. There is no escape.

The woman on my right hands me some melon seeds. I stare at the dead man’s sunken chin and the yellow teeth behind his dry lips. In this room full of living people he is the only one who has walked to the end of life and stopped. His death draws the living around him, while the living try to suck life from his death. Today, this man is their role model, the guide to their future.

‘He lived to a fine age. Had a tumour removed last year, big as an apple.’

‘Never lost his appetite. He ate a bowl of gruel yesterday and peeled two hard-boiled eggs by himself.’

At last the Catholic priest walks in with a red cloth over his shoulders and a prayer book in his hand. I saw him this morning at breakfast in the hostel canteen. I take advantage of the confusion and squeeze outside. It is less crowded on the street. A hush falls, then the people inside start chanting with the priest: ‘Almighty God, when the earth shakes and the mountains crumble, you will come on your horse to pass final judgement. We wait in fear. Have mercy on our sins, absolve us from punishment, lead us to heaven and grant us life eternal. Amen.’

After breakfast the next day, I buy the prayer book off the priest for two yuan, and set off back to Guiyang.

With a letter of authentication from Old Xu, I go to the post office to cash my cheques and come out with nearly three hundred yuan. Fu Yi takes me to find the sofa boss who still owes me money for my paintings. Fu Yi works for someone else now, making picture frames for double his old wage. He says, ‘Yanzi thought you were quite nice. She keeps asking where you’ve gone.’

‘Don’t tell her I’m back,’ I say, remembering the cold, hard soles of her feet.

The sofa boss lives in an old courtyard compound. The tree in the middle is dead. Each coal shed is filled to the brim. There is a coffin outside the boss’s door. Fu Yi tells me it was given to the boss’s father as a retirement present. The boss is not at home, but later we find him playing drinking games in a nearby restaurant. He gives me 150 yuan. I painted thirty-five pictures so I was owed more than seven hundred.

When I leave for Huanguoshu Falls the next day, Old Xu walks me to the bus station. He says, ‘Tian Bing wanted to run away with you, but when you showed us your qigong she decided you were a cheap prankster and now she never wants to see you again.’

‘I am sorry she feels that way. She never really cared about me though. I just fuelled her dreams of escape.’

Is it love that keeps her in this city, or hate? Would she really have run away with me? I don’t think she knows the answers herself.

The winter has been so dry that the Huanguoshu Falls are reduced to a trickle. A dam will be opened tomorrow for a foreign tour group, but I decide not to wait. Spring Festival is two days away. I want to head into the mountains and see it celebrated in the Miao villages.

On the sixth day of the Chinese Lunar Year, I continue west and meet a companion on the road. We spend all day together, walking through deep, green valleys. In the evening we reach his uncle’s house, and he invites me to share a meal and stay the night. The uncle tells me there is a bus to Anshun tomorrow, so I change my route and decide to loop north before I head into Yunnan.

A month later I pass through Yemachuan village on the Guizhou-Yunnan plateau, and take a red path that runs along a ridge like a fresh wound. Green weeds lining the path stretch towards the sky. Suddenly, a black cloud appears from nowhere, and in the downpour that follows, the path turns to mud and I slip twice to the ground. Through the sheets of rain I see a white house ahead, and wade through the wet grass to its gates. The sign on the door says SALAXI SANATORIUM FOR INFECTIOUS DISEASES.

I walk inside. The place is empty. A cold wind blows through my wet clothes. ‘Anyone there?’ I shout, but all I hear are my creaking footsteps. As I climb the wooden staircase I wonder whether the residents have been wiped out by a fatal plague. It is dark upstairs, the only light is from a window above the stairwell. I grope along the corridor and see a splinter of light shining from a crack in a door. The plaque says directors OFFICE. I walk in. The room is small and tidy. There is a newspaper and inkwell on the desk, and an acupuncture chart on the wall. I take a tea cup and open the thermos flask but there is no water inside.

The rain outside the window is so heavy I cannot see beyond the vegetable plot below. I take off my wet jacket and sit in the armchair. If no one turns up I might as well spend the night. I didn’t pass any hostels on the way.

Soon the building begins to creak. Footsteps climb the stairs and tread down the corridor. I stare at the door. It opens and a girl walks in. She speaks to me in a Guizhou dialect. I tell her I am a journalist and produce my letter of introduction. She puts down her umbrella and smiles. ‘You are the first journalist to visit our leprosy camp. Wait here, I’ll call the director at once.’

My eyes dart around the room. Now I know why there were no guards at the gate, the fear of leprosy is a sufficient barrier. I take out my camera and notebook and pass a comb through my hair.

The director is a young man of about thirty. He pours me a cup of tea and tells me the history of the sanatorium.

‘It was built by Italian Jesuits in 1933, specifically for the treatment of leprosy. How many patients now? About thirty. Their conditions are stable. Most could go home if they wanted, but no one will take them back. Symptoms? Skin thickening, ulceration, partial necrosis, hair loss. .’

‘Would you allow me to meet some of the patients?’ I ask, closing my notebook. ‘We can continue this talk later.’

‘You are very brave. Most people are terrified of infection. In the past, the staff had to wear gumboots and surgical masks before they entered the camp.’

The camp is situated just behind the building. In the drizzling rain it looks like a pretty mountain village. The path is lined with sick rooms, most of them empty.

The director knocks on a door and we walk inside. The windows are grimy. Through the darkness I can see white bowls and farm tools on the floor. Two camp beds are pushed against opposite walls. There is a large leek on the stove in the middle. The air is stale and musty.

‘Get up, Jiefang. A journalist has come to speak to you. You can say what you like.’ The director is a small man, his gumboots look huge on him.