Love In No Man's Land

by Duo Ji Zhuo Ga

  Feng began to get nervous. Even though she was in her mid twenties, this was the first time she’d encountered such extreme conditions. The wild wind brought icy bullets that clattered against the car windows. The windows were not very robust and seemed as if they might break at any time. A cold gust of wind penetrated a tiny crack somewhere and chilled them to their bones. Was it safe in the car? In the face of nature at its craziest, their little metal box seemed like a small skiff out on the ocean.

  Feng was afraid. In her heart, she called out to the bodhisattva, to God, Laozi and Allah, praying in her confusion. She even promised herself that if she got out of this alive, she would never come back to Tibet.

  Then, what they’d hoped would not happen, happened. The car shuddered a few times and ground to a halt. The driver got out and looked at the engine. He shook his head and sighed, then asked everyone to get out of the car and help push. After two torturous hours, the car still showed no signs of starting.

  They had no idea where the other car had gone.

  To lose your way in northern Tibet was a terrifying thing. You could travel a whole day and on the second day discover that you were back where you’d started. Which wasn’t so bad, actually – at least you knew where you were. Far more terrifying was going out at night and discovering, when the sun came up, that you recognised nothing around you and that everything looked the same, in all directions.

  Everyone looked at Agang, hoping he could come up with something. He was the only one with experience of living out in the wilds, after all. Agang talked to the driver and confirmed that the car could not be fixed. They were in the hinterlands of No Man’s Land and could not rely on someone coming along and helping them. ‘We can’t just stay here and wait to die. We’ll have to get out of this ourselves,’ Agang said.

  Leading the way, Agang shouldered both his bag and the bag of a girl called Han and set off into the wind and the snow, leaving the car behind. The other four, including the driver, followed him.

  They had no idea how long they’d been walking for or even in which direction. The needle on Agang’s wrist compass wavered constantly, swinging back and forth so much, it upset them to look at it. ‘There may be a mine near here that’s making it deflect,’ Agang said, giving them a look that was far from confident.

  They had a discussion and decided to carry on along the mountain valley. But heaven and earth seemed to have fused into a single murky gloom behind the fog, rain or snow (it was hard to say which), and it was impossible to tell what was sky, what was land or where the mountains were; everything looked the same, in every direction.

  The bitter wind continued to howl and the hail continued to fall. Feng drew the hood of her windcheater tightly around her head and gripped its cords. Her backpack got heavier and heavier and she felt as if her legs were filled with lead. Each step forward required an enormous effort.

  Han began to cry, her tears sounding even more desperate in the wind and snow.

  The day grew darker and it got harder to see the person in front or behind. Agang occasionally called the others’ names and told jokes to encourage everyone. When at one point he called Feng’s name loudly but no one responded, he got frightened and yelled even louder, ‘Feng, Feng, where are you? Feng, answer me! Feng…’

  Haizi also began to call loudly, then Han joined in tearfully, then so did everyone else…

  But only the wind screamed back.

  *

  The weather in northern Tibet was like a child’s face: if it decided to be clear, it cleared instantaneously. It took just a second for a blizzard to vanish and turn into a beautiful day, and the speed of the transformation was truly astonishing to anyone not used to it.

  When the storm had passed, everything returned to normal beneath blue sky and white clouds. The mountains were still intact and the grass was still soft – so soft, it was like walking on a woollen blanket. Just a few hailstones remained, even though moments before they had filled the sky and tumbled in every direction. The air had become extraordinarily clear and cool and there was the merest hint of a breeze. Lakes near and far sparkled a deep blue, merging so perfectly with the deep blue sky, it was impossible to tell where the one ended and the other began. Up there on the unpopulated plateau, heaven and hell were just one tiny step apart.

  A valley ran from east to west, its green grass like a mattress and its flowers like a colourful blanket spread on top. Occasionally a large flock of sparrows flew up twittering from among the flowers, then settled again.

  Feng had already walked for two days in this beautiful place. She didn’t know how far she still had to go, nor did she know how much longer she could last. She continued mechanically, following the course of the valley, desperately hoping to meet someone – even a sheep would do. Alone in the middle of the desolate wilderness, carrying her bag and with very little left of the chocolate and sweets that had been sustaining her so far, she had now used up every last drop of enthusiasm. Was she going to die out here? She lifted her head and stared at the scorching sun above the mountain peak. Its rays had already dried her lips so severely they’d cracked, and her face had started to peel. Her legs felt as heavy as cement beams.

  She sat forlornly by a dark blue pool. She needed to drink and she needed to regain her energy. But to what purpose? She might as well be on different planet. Which way should she go? Every direction looked the same to her. She began to curse Zhuo Yihang. If it hadn’t been for him, she could have been sitting in a fancy café right now, holding a cup of warm coffee, reading or daydreaming.

  Feng pulled out the chocolate and stuffed a piece into her mouth. She didn’t dare eat too much; she had fewer than five pieces left, and other than that there was only a bag of candied fruit and two packets of biscuits. How long could she survive on that? As she felt the chocolate in her mouth slowly melt and disappear, tears flooded down her face.

  Helpless. That was the only word Feng could think of to describe her situation. Who could ever understand how she felt unless they’d been in the same situation, with no one around for fifty or perhaps even five hundred kilometres. It was terrifying, and no amount of mesmerising scenery could change that.

  When she’d cried herself out, Feng stood up. The sun was burning her face, but all around her there was not a tree she could go to for shade, not even a moderately tall blade of grass. In that environment, almost every plant had to cling to the ground to give it a chance of survival.

  As she stood beside the rippling lake, she screamed, suddenly and repeatedly. Her helpless, despairing cries spread across the wilderness, then disappeared into the nothingness.

  The wind picked up, and the surface of the lake began to get choppy. That meant it must be the afternoon. After two days of walking, Feng had gained some experience. The mornings were always gentle and beautiful, but as soon as the sun passed the mountaintops, the wind would pick up and it would either snow or hail.

  She lifted her water and drank a few mouthfuls. Luckily, there were lakes all over the grassland and there was no shortage of water. If there’d been no water either, in that barren place of no people and no food, she might not have even survived a day.

  She might as well keep walking. If she didn’t walk, what else would she do? She couldn’t just sit there waiting to die. She picked up her bag and headed towards the colourful meadow, each step a trial.

  In that extraordinarily beautiful, vast and lonely place, her solitary figure looked so piteous and helpless.

  When the wind and snow came again, the sky darkened.

  *

  The tiny yellow tent on the west-facing slope made a poignant sight.

  Feng lay inside it, gazing absently at the roof. She could sense her life slowly slipping away. Little by little, her body was getting lighter and her vision was becoming blurred. The strange thing was, she wasn’t in any pain.

  She thought about her mother and how she always looked so tired and stressed. Whenever Feng went home, her mother spent most of the
time talking about how house prices had gone up again and how she wanted to upgrade from their sixty square metres to somewhere double the size. She would talk about how she wanted to put aside some money to help her son, who was about to graduate and start working. Or she would ask when Feng and Yang Fan were going to get married, and if they couldn’t help the family a little afterwards. Feng’s mother was very discontented with the way her life had panned out, blaming everything on the fact that she’d brought up two children by herself with no help from her good-for-nothing husband. But things wouldn’t be like that for Feng. And if she died here, in this place as close to the heavens as it was possible to be, however much her mother complained, she couldn’t come and get her.

  Feng thought about Yang Fan too. Their love was like a marathon: the wedding date was often discussed and often postponed, because whenever he was close to coming home, he always had more pressing commitments, always said, ‘We have plenty of time, let’s wait a bit longer, give ourselves the chance to build a good foundation for our life ahead.’ Then they’d wait a year before they brought up the subject again, and so it went on. The cycle of uncertainty had made Feng’s heart numb. She started to see their wedding date as an entrancing mirage: beautiful but unreal.

  She thought about Zhuo Yihang, her best friend, a man who was like a brother to her. He’d often spoken to her of Tibet, of the Potala Palace in Lhasa, of the Guge Kingdom in Ngari. He said that Tibet was heaven, the last pure place on earth. Now she was lying on the pure ground he’d described, waiting for the last moment of her life.

  It was alright; it would be alright to go like this. When she thought about going, Feng was surprised to find herself smiling. She would never again have to work day and night writing interminable reports, never have to worry about whether her dress would clash with her co-worker’s shirt, never have to see her mother’s hurt expression, never have to remind herself to say, ‘I love you.’

  With the end now in sight, Feng had never felt so relaxed.

  Was the snow outside very thick? Looking at the odd shape of her tent, Feng thought it must be. Had the wolves come too? As a lonesome howl sounded in her ear, she was surprised she wasn’t afraid. In idle moments in the past, when she’d wondered how she might meet her end – through illness, or in a car accident, a plane crash or a boating disaster – she’d never imagined she might die on the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau in the jaws of a wolf.

  The howls began to sound one after the other. Even before dawn broke, the strange cries of the vultures started up too. Wolves, vultures – they were the most sensitive creatures on the grassland; they could always tell when something was about to die, ready to snatch their food at the first opportunity.

  The sun had not yet risen and a half moon still hung over the mountain. As its clear rays hit the snowy, silvery ground, it gave off a pale, cold light. On this ominous morning, how long could the lonely tent last?

  17

  After Gongzha left, Yongxi’s life reverted to how it had been before: milking, herding and churning, with one day much like the next. In the infinite wilderness that was No Man’s Land, there were plenty of yaks, bears and wolves; the one thing in short supply was men.

  She couldn’t get out of her head the image of Gongzha’s departing figure against the plume of dust kicked up by his horse. She had so wanted him to stay, so wanted to help wipe the sadness from his face, the depth of which, in spite of her efforts, she still didn’t understand. She knew he wouldn’t be coming back.

  Distracted by her thoughts, Yongxi had failed to notice that her yak herd had grown to include two enormous wild yaks. She did see, though, that four of her female yaks had wandered off. She tossed her plaits over her shoulders, took out her slingshot and hurled a stone in their direction.

  Two yaks in the centre of the herd suddenly lifted their heads. Their round eyes fixed on Yongxi, their backs stiffened, and she could tell they were about to charge. She was startled. Wild yaks! How could there be two wild yaks in among her herd?

  Knowing she had no time to lose, she leapt onto her horse, yanked the reins and headed for a nearby slope to get a better view of the herd in the valley. She frowned. The dog kept darting over to the herd and barking, but the wild bulls were unperturbed. They didn’t even look at him, just pawed the ground and raised their heads ready to chase him when his barks annoyed them. The dog ran off and the wild bulls returned to the herd.

  The domesticated bulls could only look on as the two massive wild bulls made a play for their mates. Yongxi, too, could only look on. Like most people, she was too scared to try and chase them off; usually the herders just had to wait until the mating season was over and the bulls left of their own accord. Yongxi’s main concern was that the wild males would drive away the domesticated bulls. Yaks had long legs and when they were determined to go somewhere, there was really no way of stopping them.

  Just after noon one day, Yongxi was nestled in a grassy dip when she heard the dog barking with unusual urgency. She raised her head and, as feared, saw that the two wild bulls were leading four of her domesticated females up the slope towards the snowline. She quickly grabbed her meat bag and mounted her horse. With a crack of the whip, she and the dog chased after them.

  She was no match for those two enormous creatures; all she could do was circle round in front of them and try and drive them, along with the four females, back to the herd. The bulls were not at all concerned by the girl so bravely trying to block their way. They simply lifted their heads, bellowed and charged. The females trotted along unhurriedly behind them, occasionally nibbling on the blades of grass poking up through the light covering of snow on the mountainside.

  As the wild bulls led the females further and further away, Yongxi got so upset, she wanted to cry. If she had a man, today’s tragedy would never have happened. She shouted for the dog to pursue them and cut them off. The sun was fierce and its rays scorched her forehead. She wiped away her tears, whipped her horse, and resumed the chase in defiance.

  Just then, a figure on horseback appeared on the snowy mountain ridge and fired a shot at the two bulls. The bulls could afford not to fear Yongxi because they’d understood that she couldn’t do anything to hurt them. But a person with a gun was different. At the sound of the gunshot, the two bulls spread their legs and tore off in a different direction, without giving a second thought to the females behind them.

  The domesticated females did not run. When they heard the shot, they simply looked up with momentary curiosity, then returned to their grazing. The dog immediately charged forward and encouraged them back down towards the rest of the herd, barking and leaping.

  The man who’d fired the shot had his back to the sun, so Yongxi couldn’t see who he was. Perhaps he was from one of the tents in the area, had come out hunting and just happened to have been in a position to help her? She reined in her horse and waited for him to gallop over.

  When eventually she could see his face, she saw that he wore an evil smile. It was Jijia.

  ‘You…! What are you doing here?’ Yongxi said, furious.

  ‘I came to see you, of course. I told you I would, didn’t I?’ He grinned, seemingly unconcerned by her reaction.

  ‘Why would you need to come and see me? I’m doing fine – what is there to see?’ Yongxi threw him a cold stare. She would have loved to have thrashed that smug smile off his face with her whip. If it hadn’t been for him, Gongzha would still be in her tent. What had she done to deserve this?

  ‘You’re my woman – you’re supposed to be happy when your man comes back.’ Jijia took a couple of steps forward and seemed surprised.

  ‘Your woman…?’ Yongxi said. ‘You’re dreaming!’ She turned her horse and sped down the mountainside.

  ‘You are my woman – I’m serious,’ Jijia said. But Yongxi didn’t hear him.

  He watched with narrowed eyes as she disappeared into the distance. She really was quite something – the only woman on the grassland who saw him as nothing special
. Other women were either so frightened of him, they trembled as soon as they saw him, as if he were some sort of demon, or they flirted with him, hoping he’d become a regular visitor to their tent.

  Jijia took up the reins and dashed after her, his horse’s hooves kicking up a cloud of snow.

  When she got back to the pasture, Yongxi took out the teapot and prepared to make tea. Jijia was only minutes behind her. Seeing her outside her tent, he jumped off his horse, swept her into his arms and, without thinking, covered her lips with his. Something stirred deep in his heart. The sweet taste of her soft lips kindled an almost insatiable desire and he squeezed her even more tightly, wanting to merge their two bodies into one.

  He only released her when he felt he was about to run out of air. He was surprised to see Yongxi’s eyes were wide with distaste, as if something horrible had happened. He’d only kissed her – did she really need to be that frightened? He patted her oval face. ‘Can’t you just enjoy it a little, woman?’

  ‘Aaaahhh!’ Yongxi finally recovered herself and jumped back with a yell. She darted into her small tent and pulled the flap tight shut.

  As Jijia unconsciously licked his dry lips and tasted the sweetness of her mouth again, he couldn’t help but smile. He polished off a cup of tea, then lifted the shiny silver pot to pour himself another.

  He’d come there without telling anyone. His comrades probably thought he’d gone to pay his respects to the Buddha. Whenever he completed a deal, he either made a pilgrimage to Mount Kailash or one of the sacred lakes, or he went to the temple to meditate. Sometimes he took two or three men with him, sometimes he went by himself. This time he’d gone by himself, and his journey was not for the Buddha but for a woman deep in the wilderness.

  Jijia watched as the fireball sank behind the mountaintops. Stripes of orange light streaked the ground. It had been a long time since he’d sat so quietly and watched the sun set. He was always busy: busy killing, busy making money, busy drinking, busy sending people out to find the next herd of Tibetan antelopes to poach. And so the cycle continued, leaving him with neither the time nor even the energy to sit and watch the setting sun.