Love In No Man's Land

by Duo Ji Zhuo Ga

  Gongzha thought about the time, long ago, when he, Cuomu and Shida had upset Luobudunzhu’s plans to follow Zhaduo with his gang of men. And he remembered how Luobudunzhu and his men used to circle Zhaduo’s small tent. He couldn’t help but nod.

  ‘I still don’t understand what their connection is with Nadal.’ Feng shook her head. ‘It can’t be coincidence – there must be something else there.’

  ‘Once I’ve taken you to Rongma, I’ll go back to the grassland and see how things are there,’ Gongzha said, packing away the Medicine Buddha.

  Feng picked up her small bronze Buddha and put it into Gongzha’s chuba. ‘Take this back with you too; it belongs to the grassland.’

  ‘You don’t want it?’

  ‘I can’t take it.’ Feng giggled. ‘It’s too valuable and I’m too greedy. If I were to take it, I might not be able to resist selling it.’

  Gongzha laughed. ‘I thought you wanted to get rich!’ Feng had prattled on endlessly about how she would buy a villa in the Shanghai suburbs or a fancy car when she got rich.

  ‘I don’t dare. It’s a Buddha – if I sell a Buddha, I might get struck down!’ she said jokingly. She pushed her stray curls behind her ears and stood up. ‘So, Mr Gongzha, what about that meat? I’m starving.’

  Gongzha stood up too, carried the deer in one hand over to the stream, got out his knife and skinned it. Then he brought out the salt bag and gave it to Feng, who was almost drooling in anticipation. He sliced the haunch into thin strips and passed some to her.

  Feng sprinkled on some salt, stuffed a slice into her mouth and narrowed her eyes in blissful appreciation. ‘It’s really good. I never knew raw meat was this tasty.’

  ‘You’re not afraid of turning into a barbarian?’ Gongzha looked at her with a pleased expression and put a piece of meat into his own mouth.

  ‘Who said eating raw meat was barbaric? Don’t the Japanese eat raw fish? And that’s a famous dish!’ Feng dipped another slice into the salt and ate it.

  ‘You really are an unusual woman!’ Gongzha said. He cut off another piece of meat and passed it to her.

  Feng sat up straight. ‘Does that count as praise?’ she asked in all seriousness.

  Gongzha looked at her spirited eyes and turned his head away. Cuomu used to have eyes like that. Cuomu… His heart hurt quietly.

  ‘Are you blushing?’ Feng said. ‘Gongzha, would you ever come to Shanghai?’

  ‘What would I do there?’ He tossed a deer bone into the distance. ‘The city’s too big. I’d get lost.’

  Feng laughed uproariously. ‘You’re so funny, worrying about getting lost. But I won’t lie to you, Gongzha, I get lost in the city too.’

  ‘When you see Yihang, don’t forget to tell him that he’s always welcome back on the grassland.’

  ‘I won’t. Yihang really respects you. He’s often told me that you’re the best hunter on the grassland.’

  ‘Haven’t you seen that for yourself? I’ve been that close to Kaguo three times and still haven’t killed her.’

  Feng blushed. ‘I’m sorry, Gongzha. That’s my fault.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. I still have time – she can’t stay on the run forever.’ Gongzha passed her some more meat.

  Feng dipped it in salt and put it in her mouth. ‘But you really are a good hunter. You have so many principles: not killing a pregnant animal, not killing an animal with young, not killing anything strong.’

  ‘A hunter without principles isn’t a hunter, he’s a murderer.’

  ‘You’re right. Like those people who slaughtered the antelopes with absolutely no sense of shame; they’ll end up killing every last antelope in Tibet.’

  ‘You have a pretty strong sense of right and wrong.’

  Feng giggled. ‘Is that another compliment?’

  Gongzha noted the pleasure on her face and narrowed his eyes. ‘Is praise really so important to you?’

  ‘Of course.’ Feng frowned. ‘Who doesn’t like hearing kind words?’

  She took Gongzha’s knife, pulled the napping Baobao and Beibei towards her and began scratching something onto their horns.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘I’m scratching their names. Otherwise next time I won’t recognise them.’

  Feng laughed as she tightened her grip on the necks of the squirming antelopes. With a straight face, she admonished them. ‘No sudden movements! My hands aren’t used to doing this, so if you move suddenly, I might cut your throats.’

  Gongzha shook his head and laughed drily. Then he sprinkled some salt on the leftover meat and stashed it away.

  After Feng was finished with her name-scratching, she sighed and stared contentedly at her handiwork. ‘Hmm… not bad. Now, wherever you go, I’ll be able to recognise you.’ She patted the antelopes on the back and watched them bound off. Then she followed Gongzha back to the tent.

  The evening sun was already slanting over the plain, and the mountains glinted gold. Feng stretched out her legs and leant back with her hands behind her head. As she watched the sun set over the grassland, she let her mind wander. Gongzha stood beside her, gazing out into the wilderness. Baobao and Beibei were next to the old horse, staring fixedly at them.

  Below them on the grassland, a fox was digging into a mouse hole, a stream of dirt flying out from between its hind legs. Every so often it raised its head to survey its surrounds. In the light of the evening sun, its red fur blazed like leaping flames. A herd of wild asses was grazing not far off, two foals gambolling at their mothers’ sides. Their carefree attitude made Feng envious.

  ‘It’s gorgeous, isn’t it?’ she said lightly.

  ‘Mhm.’

  ‘I’m going to come back to the grassland, Gongzha.’

  ‘Mhm.’

  ‘Will you be pleased to see me?’ Feng said quietly.

  ‘I…’ Gongzha paused for a moment and then said, ‘I’ll be pleased to see you.’

  ‘I will always remember these days we’ve spent together, Gongzha. I have so much to thank you for – not just for saving my life, but also for the wonderful experience these past few days have been for me.’

  Gongzha stayed silent.

  The sun set, and the wilderness fell quiet.

  *

  Feng lay in her sleeping bag listening to the sounds of the night. She couldn’t sleep. Gongzha had found a grassy hollow out of the wind and she pictured him in it, wrapped in his sheepskin chuba, holding that strange old gun, his eyes shut. Perhaps that great beard of his would be tinged with frost? And his long, wild hair, would it be stirring in the breeze? What sort of expression would he have on his face, she wondered. No, there’d be no expression – it would be impassive.

  Feng turned over and faced the other side of the tent, her thoughts racing. Tomorrow they would say goodbye. Would he remember her? Maybe he wouldn’t. His heart held only one woman, and that was the long-departed Cuomu. To him, his time with Feng was just a strange episode during his travels in the wilderness; she was a guest who’d strayed briefly into his world. To leave was to say goodbye forever. What would be the point in remembering, for either of them?

  Tomorrow she would be out of the wilderness; she would be safe. Logically, she should be happy. Why was her heart suddenly full of inexpressible sadness?

  She went back over the last ten days: her initial terror, her despair, her relief at being found by Gongzha, and how her survival instinct had made her cling to him as if he was some sort of life-raft. She thought about watching him eat raw meat, how disgusted she’d been to start with and how she’d got used to it and was now eating it herself. He’d taken her to see wild yaks, had taught her to identify animal tracks and to use plants to tell direction, and he’d told her what to do when she encountered wolves or bears. She’d almost forgotten about the hectic city, forgotten about her tubes of make-up and her enormous stack of files; she’d even started to think that a permanent life in the wilderness could be quite desirable. To live there, to be with Gongzha, t
o watch the sun set and the moon rise, to mark the passage of the four seasons…

  When she caught herself thinking along those lines, she was scared. A red wave washed across her cheeks. How could she possibly live out here, like a herder, wearing a sunburnt face and a heavy Tibetan robe, driving the livestock out every morning and back home every night, growing old before her time?

  She turned over again. Would such a life be so bad? One tent, one column of smoke. She would stand in the evening sun, shading her eyes with her hand, watching for the figure of her returning man. If there was love, surely a quiet life would not be lonely? No, when she thought about it, it would not. There would be yaks, and sheep, and a man. When she pictured the returning man, it was Gongzha’s bearded face that appeared before her. It was a lovely picture, a picture that made her heart sing.

  Feng sat up suddenly, pulled down the zip of her sleeping bag, put on her windcheater and left the tent. The night was calm and the clear cold moon shone low over the plain, like quicksilver.

  Feng looked around and discovered Gongzha lying to one side in a nest of short grass, Baobao and Beibei huddled beside him. She crept over and crouched down next to him. Baobao and Beibei opened their eyes and glanced at her, then shut them again.

  Gongzha had the classic face of a grassland man. His skin was as rough as a lump of ancient rock, his lips were worn and slightly cracked, and his nostrils were large. His dark, bushy eyebrows were like sharp swords and his forehead had two deep wrinkles like two mountain ranges. His beard was unkempt, ragged and dirty. He’d pulled his chuba up to his neck and some of its greying wool stirred gently in the wind.

  Feng quietly leant down and kissed his forehead, then scrambled up and bolted back to her tent, zipped up the flap and sat inside commanding her racing heart to be still.

  In the moonlight, Gongzha half opened his eyes, directed his gaze at the little yellow tent and stared at it with calm seriousness.

  *

  When their two figures appeared on the mountain pass above Rongma town, the people on the plain below could barely contain their excitement. Their shouts of encouragement in Mandarin and Tibetan filled the sky.

  ‘You really won’t come down with me?’ Feng asked in a hurt voice as the two of them stood there.

  ‘No,’ Gongzha said. ‘You go on down, they’re waiting for you.’ He handed her her backpack.

  ‘Don’t worry, as soon as I get to Lhasa, I’ll report the case. I won’t let Nadal take your precious Buddhas away.’

  ‘Mhm.’

  ‘Yihang says he wants to bring his father’s ashes back to Tibet.’

  ‘Mhm.’

  ‘I know you’re as comfortable in the wilderness as you are in your own home, but please do be careful out here.’

  ‘Mhm.’

  Feng picked up her bag and started making her way down the slope. Her legs felt as if they weighed several hundred kilos. The two antelopes whinnied and followed her. Feng knelt down, petted their heads and spoke to them quietly. They looked round at Gongzha, then bounded back to him.

  Feng looked at him too, wrinkled the corners of her mouth, turned and continued down.

  Her travelling companions embraced her and spun her in circles, everyone talking at the same time, wanting to know what had happened and how she’d managed to survive out there for so long.

  Feng glanced up at Gongzha astride his horse on the mountain pass. He was just turning to leave. A string of five-coloured prayer flags fluttered beside him, the sky so blue, the clouds so soft. His silhouette seemed as smooth as a mani prayer stone. A sharp pain pierced her heart.

  ‘Gongzha…’ she suddenly screamed, her voice tearful, ‘I’ll miss you!’

  The figure on the horse straightened his back at the sound but did not turn round. A moment later he hunched low again; then his horse shot off like an arrow from a bow and disappeared over the ridge.

  Beneath the blue curtain of sky, on the brown mountainside, only the prayer flags remained, flapping wildly.

  19

  Feng returned to Shanghai, returned to her former life.

  Her days were hectic. Every month she received a handsome salary, then indulged in a shopping frenzy at a famous mall. To everyone who knew her, she was a model businesswoman, someone who took her position and job seriously. But even though she kept on getting promoted, her boss’s approving gaze and her colleagues’ envious stares were no longer enough.

  ‘You’ve become a shopaholic – something’s not right.’ Zhuo Yihang was helping carry some of her many bags from the mall to the car park.

  Feng briefly stopped walking but quickly recovered herself.

  When they found the car, Zhuo Yihang opened the door then loaded her purchases into the boot. Feng got in and put on her seatbelt. She sighed, then quietly asked Yihang, who was about to start the car, ‘Will you ever go back and live in Tibet?’

  ‘That’s the plan. Next year, or perhaps the year after, I want to go to Lhasa and buy a house to retire in.’

  ‘Retire? You?’ Feng rolled her eyes.

  ‘Aren’t you the one who’s always going on about how living here reduces your life expectancy? So I’d like to find somewhere that will extend my life expectancy. Tibet’s the first place that comes to mind.’

  ‘Tibet…’ Feng’s gaze rested on the quivering leaves of the roadside trees. Could she ever forget Tibet? That plateau and that man were never out of her head for long. She longed to be back there, yearned for it with an intensity that was deeply personal and heartfelt, but returning there was out of the question, an impossibility. She had to keep saying to herself, ‘Forget about it, forget about him. Tibet’s not your sort of place. This bustling city with its swarms of cars and seas of people, that’s where you belong.’

  At 8 a.m. sharp one morning, three years after her return from Tibet, Feng was sitting in her bright, spacious office. As she stared at the enormous pile of papers that needed to be signed, approved or revised, her eyes clouded over. Was this really the life she wanted? A large work of calligraphy by someone famous hung on the wall and a crimson leather sofa stood to the side. No one ever sat on the sofa for more than two minutes; it was little more than window dressing – window dressing for the company’s image, and window dressing for her empty heart.

  There was an orchid on her marble side table, a stem extending from amid its elegant leaves. A bud was bursting into bloom and its delicate fragrance filled the room. But Feng didn’t look at the orchid; instead she gazed out through the floor-to-ceiling window. The sky was grey; was there more rain coming? She frowned. When would the sky be blue again? When would white clouds float across it? If there were no tall buildings or concreted areas, would sparse grass grow there like it did in northern Tibet? Would it wither and then spring up again? Feng imagined it, then laughed at herself and withdrew her gaze.

  A light, extremely polite knock sounded at the door. It was a standard knock, neither loud nor soft, but courteous.

  Feng frowned again. If it were Gongzha, he’d probably hammer on the door as if he were setting off a cannon. Or he’d just push it open and come straight in. When she realised she was daydreaming again, she laughed wryly and called a polite, ‘Come in!’

  Her secretary came in wearing a standard work outfit and a standard professional smile. She put a sheaf of papers in front of Feng, leafed through them to the signature line on the last page and placed the pen in Feng’s hand. ‘These are the minutes of this morning’s meeting.’

  Feng barely even looked at them before scrawling her large signature across it.

  The secretary smiled and left, shutting the door carefully behind her.

  Feng was alone in her empty, sterile office once more.

  She forced herself to go through the papers on her desk. At midday, her secretary quietly opened the door and glanced in. When Feng didn’t even look up in acknowledgement, the secretary shook her head and placed the boxed lunch she’d bought on Feng’s desk. Feng threw her a smile of thanks
, then dropped her head again.

  When she was finally done, Feng put down her pen and stretched; her shoulders were a little sore. She pressed the buzzer and her secretary quickly knocked and entered.

  Feng motioned for her to take away the documents neatly piled on the desk.

  The secretary noticed the box of now congealed food and said worriedly, ‘If you carry on working as if your life depended on it, will your body be able to take it?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ Feng said. ‘Take that design plan for Century City to the boss’s office.’

  ‘Okay!’ The secretary went out, then returned soon after with a cup of hot coffee and took away the cold boxed lunch.

  Feng lifted the cup and took a sip. She frowned. All of a sudden she’d lost the taste for Jamaican coffee; what she really wanted was a drink of north Tibetan spring water: fresh, cool and bursting with sweetness. When she realised she’d begun daydreaming again, Feng stood up, picked up her bag, walked out of the door and took the lift down to the car park.

  There was a crossroads not far from the office complex. She had no particular direction in mind, so she chose a road at random, just as she had every day previously.

  The trees on either side of the road had been neatly pruned and the flowerbeds planted in intricate patterns. Shanghai could be beautiful. The flowers were fragrant and the birds soared and sang. Zhuo Yihang had already invited her several times to go for an outing to the suburbs, a chance to relax; he said it was the perfect season for a stroll. But when she thought of those manmade vistas, those hand-crafted stone paths, Feng had little interest.

  For three years, day after day, she had missed Tibet, missed the wild, unsophisticated highlands, missed that rough, uneducated man. The two of them had said nothing, done nothing, but she’d been unable to let him go ever since.

  She couldn’t carry on living like this, could she? It’s the weekend, Feng thought. I’ll go out with Yihang and his friends.