Love In No Man's Land

by Duo Ji Zhuo Ga

  A gun barrel was protruding through the jumble of broken rocks and Gongzha was squinting through its sights. There were three dots and a line in his crosshairs, and at the centre was Kaguo’s hefty body. He placed his finger lightly on the trigger, ready to pull.

  ‘Gongzha! Gongzha!’ Feng stood barefoot on the plain below and yelled loudly up at him, holding four pink eggs.

  Hearing the noise, Kaguo didn’t linger; she shook herself a couple of times, then disappeared into the rocks on the slope. Gongzha raised his head impatiently and shouldered his gun. Since he’d met Feng, the rhythm of his life had been disrupted. This was the third time she’d scared away Kaguo.

  ‘I’m sorry, Gongzha, it’s all my fault.’ When Feng saw Gongzha coming silent and glowering down the slope, she knew she was in trouble again. ‘I didn’t know you’d seen Kaguo. I’m so sorry. I thought you were hunting for food and I wanted to tell you that there are a lot of eggs over there so you don’t need to hunt today because we can boil them.’

  It would be better to take Feng back to the town before trying to hunt down Kaguo, Gongzha thought, keeping his head low. They’d been making slower and slower progress the last few days. First Feng would say she was tired, then that she was hungry, which wasted more and more time. Yesterday, beside a pretty little lake, she’d said that her head really hurt and she needed to rest for half a day. And then she’d spent the time playing energetically with the two baby antelopes by the lakeside. So much for her terrible headache.

  ‘Don’t worry about it. I’ll get her in the end,’ Gongzha said. He glanced at the eggs in her hand. ‘Those are from a ruddy shelduck. There’s a hot spring nearby and the water’s very hot.’

  ‘Let’s go and cook them then!’ Feng was delighted. She called loudly to the two little antelopes, who were standing a short distance away. ‘Baobao, Beibei, come back here! Let’s go!’ They bounded happily over.

  ‘They’re called Baobao and Beibei?’ Gongzha looked at the two scrawny grey antelopes in surprise. Giving them names as if they were pets in the city was really quite inappropriate.

  ‘They are! And they already recognise their names.’ Feng slipped on her shoes and followed Gongzha, who was carrying the luggage. The old horse followed Feng and the two antelopes walked beside her. ‘The taller one is called Baobao and the shorter one is called Beibei.’

  When they got to the hot springs, Feng found a small pool and put the eggs in it. Then she slipped round to the other side of a travertine outcrop and found a larger pool. ‘I’m going to take a bath,’ she said loudly. ‘I feel dirty.’

  Gongzha set the horse loose and sat cross-legged against the outcrop holding his gun. He closed his eyes and began to collect his thoughts.

  Feng extracted her make-up bag from her backpack, stripped quickly and slipped into the warm water. In truth she wasn’t really that dirty, she just didn’t want to miss the chance to relax in the pure water of a hot spring out in the wilderness.

  She lay at the edge of the pool, the warm water gently lapping over her. Her heart was suddenly full of an unnameable feeling. Looking at the clouds like puffs of cotton in the blue sky, her thoughts turned to what her colleagues in Shanghai would be doing right then. Zhuo Yihang would probably be sitting in that terrifyingly large office of his, wearily rubbing his forehead and planning some star’s new album. And Yang Fan? He’d be leafing through a thick stack of notes, racking his brain about how to present tomorrow’s pitch. She wondered if, after so much time off, she’d ever be able to readjust to normal working life again.

  Baobao and Beibei lay by her side, occasionally nibbling her shoulder. The tickling sensation made her giggle.

  Gongzha sat with his legs crossed, chewing on a blade of grass. As he rested his back against the rock, he lost himself in the white clouds moving slowly across the sky. Hearing Feng’s giggles from behind the rock made him smile. In the few days they’d spent together, he’d come to like this city girl. She was always scaring off his game, but she had a good heart; she kept begging him not to kill Kaguo because she was pregnant or asking him to wait until she’d had her cub; and if they came across an ass that had fallen into a gully or an antelope that had been blinded in a sandstorm, she always wanted to try and save it. It didn’t matter what sort of environment a person found themselves in, if they had a good heart, it would always shine through.

  Gongzha scanned the surrounding mountains. They might be able to reach Rongma tomorrow. There were people there, and cars. Feng could finally return to her world. And him? Cuomu! Oh, Cuomu…

  A little while later, Gongzha picked the eggs out of the hot pool and set them down on the ground. ‘They’re done.’

  Feng got out of the water, dressed, and walked over barefoot. She sat down next to Gongzha, picked up one of the eggs, tapped it on the ground, peeled off the shell, and handed it to him.

  He took it, and in a single bite the egg was gone.

  ‘There are ten in total, so that’s five each, to make it fair,’ Feng said. She peeled one for herself and took a small bite. For a brief moment her mouth was full of the egg’s light flavour. ‘I’ve never had such a delicious egg – did you say they’re from the ruddy shelduck?’

  ‘Yes. There are a lot of waterfowl by the lake and at this time of year their nests contain plenty of eggs.’

  ‘If I’d known they were this good, I’d have taken more.’

  ‘If you want more, there are plenty around.’

  ‘Really? Alright, if I see any more, I’ll collect them and we can boil them and take them with us.’ Feng smiled happily before peeling another and stuffing it in her mouth.

  Gongzha also peeled one and put it in his mouth. ‘You won’t be able to eat them after a few more days.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘They’ve already started to develop. If you opened it and found a duckling inside, would you still eat it?’

  ‘No!’ Feng turned her head away. ‘Can’t you say something a bit more appetising?’

  Gongzha laughed. ‘Eat up, we need to get going. We should reach Rongma tomorrow.’

  ‘Rongma, that’s the town closest to No Man’s Land?’

  ‘That’s right. Once you get there you’ll be safe.’

  ‘I’ll be safe?’ Feng said to herself as she looked at the towering mountains in the distance. ‘I can go home – back to Shanghai?’

  ‘Once you get to Rongma, you should look for the town cadres and they’ll help you find a way to get back to the county town.’

  ‘Alright.’ The thought of being back in the big city she knew so well made Feng happy. She couldn’t wait to stroll along its wide, neon-lit streets, couldn’t wait to drink a large glass of German stout, couldn’t wait to luxuriate in a spa and doze off with a moisturising mask on her face. ‘Let’s go now!’ she said. She put the rest of the eggs in her pocket and went over to pick up the luggage.

  Gongzha saddled the horse and strapped on the bags. Then they set off, taking the two antelopes with them.

  *

  After passing through two valleys and crossing a fairly low snow mountain, Gongzha said, ‘By midday tomorrow, we should be there.’

  ‘Tomorrow midday, I’ll be safe?’ Looking at the grassland around her, Feng felt a sudden pang in her heart.

  ‘Mhm.’ Gongzha took the luggage off the horse and unpacked it, then quickly set up Feng’s tent. ‘We’ll stay here tonight and set off again tomorrow as soon as it’s light.’

  Feng nodded and threw her sleeping bag into the tent. Gongzha picked up his old gun and walked off.

  She was going home. She was finally going home. Feng lay on the grass in front of her tent and mumbled to herself as she looked at the nearby snow mountains. When she got back to the city, the first thing she was going to do was buy an enormous pile of fruit: apples, pears, grapes, watermelons… Then she’d go out for an expensive French meal, its food as delicate as flowers, so romantic and aesthetically pleasing. Her stomach had really suffered out here.


  She turned over, stood up, went into her tent and dragged out her bag. She tipped everything out onto the grass, rolled up each item of clothing tightly, and put her cleansers and other make-up back into their little bag. In among her things was a small gold Buddha she’d got on Barkhor Street. She picked it up. She’d got it from a Swedish man called Nadal whom she’d met on her wanderings around Lhasa. The two of them had gone to a bar and he’d got blind drunk. When he’d finally stumbled out of the bar, he left a small white cloth bag on the table. Feng had looked inside, found the Buddha and chased after him, but he’d already disappeared into the swirling crowds. Frustrated, she’d kept the Buddha with her, hoping she might run into Nadal again and be able to return it. But she hadn’t had time to go back to Barkhor Street before coming to northern Tibet.

  She stood the little Buddha in the grass. It looked and smelled ancient and would make a nice addition to a shelf of antiques; it was a shame it was so small. She didn’t look at it again, just closed her bag, picked up her dirty socks from the grass and walked over to a nearby stream to wash them.

  Gongzha came back dragging a small deer. When he saw the Buddha in the grass, he froze. He bent to pick it up and turned it this way and that, squinting at it. When he saw a delicate ¤ scratched onto the Buddha’s outward-facing palm, his face darkened. He was sure it was one of the Buddhas he’d brought down from the cave complex on Mount Chanaluo.

  When Feng came back carrying her clean socks, Gongzha greeted her with a sombre face.

  ‘What’s wrong? Didn’t you hit anything?’

  ‘This Buddha, where did you get it?’

  ‘I met a foreigner on Barkhor Street; he got drunk and left it behind. What about it?’

  ‘A foreigner dropped it?’

  ‘Yes. He said he paid 20,000 yuan for it. There were about five of them, apparently. I think he was tricked; if they really were antiques, he shouldn’t have paid less than 100,000 yuan for one of them.’ Feng laughed and laid her socks on the grass.

  ‘It is real!’ Gongzha said, sitting down cross-legged.

  ‘What?’ Feng turned her head in surprise.

  ‘It is real,’ Gongzha repeated in a low voice. ‘This is one of the Buddhas from the temple near my home, Cuoe Temple.’

  ‘You… you mean it’s a real… antique? A cultural relic?’ Feng went over and took the Buddha from his hand. She looked at it from every angle but could see nothing remarkable about it.

  ‘That’s right. Look at the symbol on its palm. That symbol is special – no outsiders know anything about it.’

  ‘What does it mean?’

  ‘Kaguo’s forehead has the same symbol.’

  ‘Kaguo the bear?’ Feng asked cautiously.

  Gongzha nodded and his face twitched with pain.

  ‘I’m sorry, Gongzha. Don’t… don’t think about it, alright?’

  Gongzha kept silent and looked at the mountains, trying hard to control the pain in his heart.

  Then, for the first time ever, he told an outsider about the cave on Mount Chanaluo, about his hatred for Kaguo, and about the learned Living Buddha Zhaduo. Finally, he said, ‘This symbol might be the symbol of an ancient clan of our grassland; the elder of that clan was skilled at taming bears.’

  ‘Wait, wait, Gongzha. Did you say that the English writing on the cave wall said “Sven Hedin”?’ Feng asked in surprise.

  ‘Apparently, yes. That’s what Zhuo Mai said. Afterwards we went to ask our clan elder about it; his father had actually rescued a foreigner called Sven Hedin many years before and led him out of the grassland.’

  ‘My goodness, it really is a small world! Nadal, the Swede I met, he said his grandfather was called Sven Hedin and that he’d been to Tibet and had gone to No Man’s Land.’

  Gongzha was speechless with amazement.

  ‘He also said that the Cuoe Temple Medicine Buddha was a real treasure and very finely crafted. His grandfather told him that he had to find a way to get it.’

  Gongzha looked at Feng, shaking his head, and for a while could not respond. ‘I brought this Buddha out of the cave myself and gave it to Basang, the monk at Cuoe Temple. How could it have got into Nadal’s hands?’

  ‘It’s obvious, isn’t it? Basang must have sold the Buddha to Nadal,’ Feng said. Cultural relics and antiques were worth a lot, and the chance to earn a big stash of cash could have a transformative effect on a person. Feng had seen that a lot in her business life.

  ‘Basang… sold the Buddha?’ Gongzha looked at Feng in shock. How could he have done that? Basang had told him he was a disciple of the living Buddha; he loved the Buddha so much, used to pray morning and night – how could he have done such a thing?

  ‘Antiques like this are very valuable now. There are people who spend their whole time scouring Barkhor Street for a lucky find, people from all over, from other parts of China and even from overseas. They buy a statue and take it back home to resell, whether or not they believe in the teachings of the Buddha. Some people are just a lot more interested in the beautiful world of the here and now than in the world to come that they can’t see.’

  ‘He sold the Buddha?’ Gongzha couldn’t get over it. It was incomprehensible. Even though he himself wasn’t a devout Buddhist, he knew that to the believers on the grassland, images of the Buddha were incomparably holy. They usually venerated such images and protected them – how could one of them take the Buddha’s image and exchange it for money? He’d never heard of such a thing.

  ‘He’s not selling the Buddha, he’s selling the Buddha’s image!’ Feng took in Gongzha’s serious expression and didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

  ‘It represents the Buddha!’ Gongzha said, looking at the statue.

  ‘That’s true. For those of you who believe, of course he represents the Buddha. But, Gongzha, for people who don’t believe, it’s just a very valuable object, something they can make a lot of money out of.’

  ‘But Basang is a monk – he was one of the living Buddha’s disciples.’

  ‘But the living Buddha isn’t here any more, there’s no one to control him.’

  ‘But Basang…’ Gongzha tried to make sense of what he’d just learnt. In the space of a minute, it had all become very confusing. The Buddha’s disciples would sell his image for money? If that was true, how could the light of Cuoe Temple’s Buddha ever shine on the grassland again?

  Feng looked sideways at him. ‘Did you know Basang from before?’

  ‘No.’ Gongzha shook his head.

  ‘Did anyone on your grassland know him?’

  Gongzha thought and then shook his head again. ‘I never heard of anyone knowing him.’

  ‘That makes sense. Gongzha, I think it’s safe to say that this person is almost certainly an imposter.’

  ‘An imp… imposter?’ Gongzha was even more surprised to hear that, so surprised that he couldn’t even speak clearly. Before the Cultural Revolution there’d been a lot of monks at the temple, many of whom he hadn’t known.

  ‘Yes. Think about it – if he really had been Living Buddha Zhaduo’s disciple, how come no one knew him? And…’

  ‘What?’ Gongzha saw that Feng was hesitating and looked at her inquiringly.

  ‘I can’t say for sure, it’s just a feeling…’ Feng said. ‘But from what you’ve said, Basang is quite old and has difficulty walking. How could he have taken the Buddhas to Lhasa to sell? I think he must be working with someone – and probably not just one person. They must have known you’d go and look for the Buddhas, which is to say they must have known you had a good relationship with Zhaduo, so they used the fact that the government had started righting the wrongs of the Cultural Revolution and they made Basang pretend to be a monk and come back to the grassland to trick you.’

  ‘Then… what if I hadn’t found the Buddhas?’

  ‘If you hadn’t found the Buddhas, they wouldn’t have lost much,’ Feng said. She could sense the thread of a thought twitching in her mind, but she couldn’t q
uite grasp it. ‘But if I’m right, would they really have gone to all that trouble just for those little Buddhas? They’re only worth a few ten thousand yuan. I’m not sure… It can’t be that straightforward. Let me think…’

  Gongzha stared at the woman in front of him, quite stunned. Everything she’d said ran counter to what he’d always believed, and yet he instinctively felt that there was truth in her words. And the consequences of that were alarming.

  As he lay dying, Zhaduo had made one last request of Gongzha. Had Gongzha lost the chance to fulfil that one request?

  Feng was still furiously rubbing her forehead; her brain was whirring. ‘So… the Medicine Buddha. Didn’t you say that the Medicine Buddha was the temple’s most precious treasure, and that Zhaduo gave it to you? I think it must have been that statue they were really after.’

  Gongzha looked at Feng again. ‘They were really after this…?’ From his chuba he took out the Buddha bundled in yellow cloth, unwrapped it and set it on the grass.

  Feng looked at the Buddha in amazement. It was exquisite, a work of extraordinary beauty. Its colour was not pure black but rather the deepest of blues, like the depths of the sea or the heart of a sacred lake. It gleamed, too, as bright as Venus.

  The Buddha’s expression was so serene, it matched everything she’d imagined about him. As she gazed at the statue, she couldn’t help being entranced; it made her heart and spirit feel so peaceful. She didn’t dare stare at it for too long, for fear that her mind would empty. She reached out, quickly wrapped up the Buddha again, and thrust it back into Gongzha’s hands.

  ‘Until we’ve resolved this, you can’t tell anyone you have this statue, Gongzha,’ she said, ‘otherwise your life might be in danger. Not everyone is as honourable as you. There are people who will stop at nothing if there is money to be made. Also, didn’t you say that Lobudunzhuo—’

  ‘Luobudunzhu, not Lobudunzhuo.’ Gongzha didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

  ‘And what do you think of this Luobudunzhu? Didn’t you say he’d pursued and harassed Living Buddha Zhaduo? I think that must have been because of this statue. Of course, I’m only guessing, and I don’t have any evidence, but I think you should be careful.’