Nankadroma was beautiful, tall, and strong, with very dark skin. Her hair was thick and black, her eyebrows likewise, and her eyes, trained in the movements and expressions of Tibetan opera, had the power to silence or entrance. Nankadroma always seemed absorbed in her own thoughts; she talked slowly and sparingly, and whenever she spoke, everyone listened. I admired her very much, and I was so proud to share a hotel room with her. I watched every move she made, and then I copied her facial expressions, the waving of her hands, and the swaying of her hips. And I followed her everywhere. I even followed her into the bathroom when she was preparing to take a bath, which was how I discovered another thing besides airplanes and trains and ice cream.
“What is this?” I asked in Chinese.
“It’s a bra. Don’t worry, you don’t need one.” She laughed as she waved me out of the door.
Outside the hotel there were grand avenues, and on the avenues the people walked and talked as though they owned China. My wonderment was total. I had seen many marvelous things already in Yanyuan and Xichang and Chengdu, but nothing compared with Beijing. Beijing was enormous, stately, beautiful, overwhelming. Here I was not just enjoying myself, I was awestruck. “You’re so happy,” Nankadroma said, “you sleep with a smile on your face!”
The organizers had arranged daily outings for us to visit important sites — the Great Wall, the Forbidden Palace, Tiananmen Square, Mao Zedong’s apartments, and the mausoleum where the great helmsman lay embalmed in his glass sarcophagus. The state of my political and historical education was such that on seeing the giant portrait of Mao in Tiananmen Square, I was only struck by the mole on his chin — because my mother had a mole at exactly the same place. I could not believe it! Years later my mother would come and visit me in Beijing, and she would also notice Mao’s mole. It would become such a source of pride to her.
THE NIGHT OF THE CONTEST , I stepped onto the stage trembling with fear and anticipation. Nankadroma smiled at the audience, huge and darkened before us, and I smiled too. Then she smiled at me and the orchestra played the first notes. That night, under the heat of the stage lights, I remembered everything, every Tibetan and Yi word and what I should do with my face and when I should come in. I sang with all my heart, and at the end of the evening, Nankadroma and I had won first prize along with the rest of the Sichuan group.
The next day we were given our red diplomas and pushed on and off a huge stage in the People’s Great Hall, where all manner of officials made speeches I could not understand and hundreds of people in the audience applauded the speeches. But this time we did get some money — wrapped, not in a simple red envelope, but like a precious gift, in the most beautiful rice paper. And it was a lot of money, Mr. Luo told me, two hundred yuan. A fortune.
My first thoughts were to count the money and buy truly expensive things for my family, but I could not bear the idea of tearing up the beautiful red paper. At home we never wrapped any gifts, and I so wanted my mother to see this paper. To everyone’s amusement, I spent all evening mulling this over. It was not until we had gone back to our hotel room and we were ready to go to bed that, in the end, I decided not to open the money. Nankadroma then looked a little concerned and said I needed to watch out for thieves. The next morning I woke up to find her sewing a special pocket in my undershirt to keep my money safe.
“Little Namu, what did you decide to do with your money?” Mr. Luo asked as he counted our train tickets in the hotel foyer.
“I’m going to let my mother open it.”
And he patted me on the back, and all the singers agreed with him that this was the best decision. They were all so kind and they had been so patient. I was the youngest and the least experienced by far, but I was everybody’s favorite. In particular, I was Nankadroma’s favorite. As I sat next to her on the bottom bunk of our second-class train carriage, I looked at her beautiful face, my heart welling with love for her and pride for myself. I was thinking, “I traveled to the center of the world to sing with the famous Nankadroma, and we won.” But when the train shook and slowly began chugging out of Beijing railway station, I forgot about Nankadroma and the little red bundle of money pushing against my waist, and I just felt sad to be leaving.
A Village on the Edge of Time
The train ride to Chengdu took three days and two nights, during which I kept my face glued to the window and watched China go by in reverse. My eyes were still hungry for the world, and yet sometimes, instead of seeing the villages and the mountains, I saw Lake Lugu and our own Goddess Gamu. And when I closed my eyes at night, I did not dream of pink ice cream but of roasted potatoes and butter tea. I also dreamed of my mother’s face as she opened the little red bundle, and then I dreamed of all the places I had seen and of all the other places I had yet to see.
From the train window I watched China go by. Fields upon fields, and meandering rivers, and mountains lost in cloudy heavens, grimy cities and earthbound villages, peasants walking in groups with hoes and rakes on their shoulders, peasants working alone in fields planted right up to the edge of the railroad track and littered with the garbage thrown out the train windows. In my travels I had discovered that there were two types of people in the world: city people, who ate in restaurants and took showers and went to the cinema, and peasants, who worked in the fields. We Moso were of the second type.
On the third day, when we reached Sichuan, the train passed through flooded fields and stranded villages, small islands wrecked in a sea of yellow water. Peasants waded through the dirty water holding their children and their belongings above their heads. Waded to where? There was water as far as the eye could see. Then I saw a small woman carrying a little child on one shoulder and a suitcase on the other. The water was almost up to her chin. If she stepped in a hole, she would certainly go under. One of the singers put his hand on my shoulder. “Don’t worry, the People’s Liberation Army will rescue them.” The others nodded their heads and pulled away from the windows, and after some time, they went back to their games of cards, their books, their tea and cigarettes. But as the train chugged toward Chengdu, I could see no sign of the People’s Liberation Army.
In Chengdu we were driven to the Jinjiang Hotel, where the director of the Sichuan Cultural Bureau welcomed us to a banquet organized in our honor because we had won first prize in Beijing. People from the Sichuan Television Network had also been invited, as well as writers from various local and provincial newspapers. In the dining room, the huge round tables were covered with dishes.
The director made an interminable speech. I could not understand any of it. But even if I could have, I would not have listened. As I stared vacantly at the official’s mouth opening and smiling over tobacco-stained teeth, all I could see were people standing in dirty water up to their chests. All I could think was that not very far from this banquet room, a small woman was crying out under the black sky, a suitcase on one shoulder and on the other a little child who was clinging to her hair. I had never seen a flood. And surely if there ever was a flood in Zuosuo, surely we would help each other. How could the director put a smile on his face? How could any of us put food in our mouths? I could not eat and I could not speak for the rest of the evening. I could not understand these people. I missed my mother and Zhema and my brothers and I was glad they were safe in Zuosuo. For the first time since I had left, I missed my home and my people.
The next two days were spent giving interviews. Once again I saw myself on the television, and then in the local newspaper, the Sichuan Daily. There was a huge photograph of me on the front page. Nankadroma read the headline: A GOLDEN PHOENIX RISES FROM THE MOUNTAIN VALLEY. I took the page, folded it, and packed it carefully with the other things I was to give my mother. It would make her very happy, very proud, I thought with a sad sort of joy. Because I did feel sad. Because I could not forget the misery I had witnessed from the train window, and because the time had come to say good-bye.
Except for those who lived in Chengdu, everyone was going home. Nankadroma
was also leaving. On that last afternoon, I found her sitting on her bed, alone in our hotel room. She was crying. I thought she was unhappy because we had to say good-bye, but she pointed to a letter lying in front of her on the bed. As I could not read, I asked her, “What is it? What’s wrong?”
Nankadroma looked at me as though I were supposed to know the answer, and seeing that I did not, she said, “It’s written in red. Don’t you see?”
“Yes, I see.” But I was puzzled. “Is red bad?”
Red was a beautiful color. It was the color of azalea flowers and of my mother’s vest at festival times. It was the color I had so enjoyed painting on my lips when we had sung on the stage. Why was Nankadroma afraid of red?
Owing to my limited Chinese, Nankadroma found it difficult to explain that the letter was from her lover’s wife, that the wife was Chinese and terribly jealous and that she now wanted Nankadroma dead — which was why she had written the letter in red ink. In China red ink was a curse. Indeed, it was not until a few years later, when I was a student at the Music Conservatory in Shanghai, that I truly understood the terror that red ink could inspire. Strolling in the streets with my teacher and classmates, I came across a large poster with the photographs of two young men and, listed under each picture, their names, their ages, where they had grown up, and last, the words homosexual criminals. Each list had been ticked off with a large red stroke. I asked my teacher what it all meant, as this was the first time I had seen the word homosexual. Then I asked him about the red strokes and he answered that the men had been executed. Everything inside me turned to ice.
Now Nankadroma had dried her tears and she was desperate to talk to her lover, and as there was no telephone in the hotel, we had to go to the post office. There I waited for her outside the glass booth, and while she shouted down the telephone and cried, I ate a red bean ice cream. I was terrified. I remembered the stories about the Yi chiefs who had wanted to chop off Dr. Rock’s head, but those were stories. I had never before heard of anyone who had cursed someone to die.
When Nankadroma came out of the telephone booth, her mouth was set in a sad but resolute expression. She did not want to go back to the hotel. She wanted to take a walk and calm herself. So we walked on the streets for a while until she said: “Are you hungry, Namu?” and she smiled weakly. “Of course, you’re always hungry. Come, I know a nice place.” And I followed Nankadroma down a few narrow streets to a small restaurant famous for its duck stew.
We sat ourselves close to the street, on square stools at a square table. Nankadroma drew closer to me and lit a cigarette. She asked me what I wanted to drink.
“Tea,” I answered.
“You’ve never drunk wine?” she asked, pointing to a bottle of Erguotuo standing on a dusty shelf.
“Not Chinese wine.”
“Try it,” she ordered me.
I did not know that Erguotuo was a very cheap and very nasty liquor, but even if I had, I would not have dared refuse her. She looked so sad and I did not want to upset her more. Nankadroma called on the restaurant owner to bring her the bottle of Erguotuo. She poured two small glasses and drank hers straight down.
“Go on!” she said, pushing the other glass in front of me. “Bottoms up!”
I took a sip and immediately felt the fire in my throat and the heat rising in my cheeks. This Chinese wine was nothing like our Sulima wine. Meanwhile, Nankadroma helped herself to another glass and downed that one as well. I watched her, feeling at the same time fascinated and afraid.
Nankadroma was so beautiful and she was so famous. Why was she crying for a man? Why did she allow a man to cause her so much trouble? Nankadroma could have anyone she wanted. Why did she need to love a man who had such a nasty wife? It now struck me that marriage was a great source of misery and that love was a very complicated thing outside our Moso country. But, of course, I had known this before going to Beijing. All Moso knew this about marriage. Watching Nankadroma drink her second glass of Erguotuo, I thought of my Yi sister, Añumo, who had run away from her husband, and then I remembered other stories, and one in particular, about a young Naxi couple who had taken their lives in nearby Lijiang.
For all those who believed that love suicide had died with the advent of the Communist Revolution, this was shocking news.
The Naxi were not like the Han Chinese, who, in the days before Communism, had kept their women indoors. In Lijiang girls skipped arm in arm up and down the streets, singing at the top of their voices, teasing the boys. There it was the men who stayed at home, who played cards and smoked tobacco or opium, and who looked after the babies, while the women butchered animals and built houses and went to market. Naxi women carried huge loads on their backs and worked in the fields from morning to night. They were short and squat and strong as mules, and they took orders from no one. But until the Communists reformed their marriage rules, when it came to love, the Naxi were bound by a cruel tradition whereby Naxi girls were promised in marriage at their birth, always to a cousin on their mother’s side, and the rule was so strict that only death could undo a betrothal arrangement. When young people who were pledged to others fell in love, they were honor-bound to commit suicide.
Then, years after the Communists had given the Naxi free-choice marriage, it had happened again. A young couple had committed suicide. For months they had met in secret in the fields and in the pine forest until one day the girl’s stomach had grown too round to hide under her blue tunic and they had walked into the mountain according to the old custom. It had happened very early one morning, while everybody was still asleep. They had left the village, dressed in their best clothes, carrying a food hamper, and they had gone into the forest, looking for a beautiful picnic spot in a clearing where they could live happy loving days — until they ran out of food and wine and they hanged themselves from a tree.
When my Ama had heard about it, her eyes had shone with tears, and Dujema had whispered, “No Moso woman would ever hang herself for a man.”
I wanted to tell this story to Nankadroma. I wanted to tell her about the Naxi lovers and about my sister Añumo, and of how simple love could be in my village if you were not afraid to open your door. But I did not have enough Chinese words. I wanted to say, “In my village, when women are in love, their faces shine like the sun; your face looks like you’ve attended a funeral.”
Nankadroma downed another glass and asked, “Do you know what the Chinese say about women? They say that beauty is a woman’s misfortune.” And she told me her story.
Nankadroma came from Mianing county in the Tibetan part of Sichuan. She was one of three daughters and the most beautiful — which caused her much trouble because everywhere she went, women were jealous of her and men pestered and bullied her. Where Nankadroma lived, men did not always court women with clever songs and pretty belts. Instead they threw stones and shouted ugly things, and when the women turned to shout back, they laughed at them. When Nankadroma was about sixteen, she was walking down the street when two boys ran up to her and tried to grab at her breasts. She was fighting them off the best she could when another man came along and chased the boys away. She didn’t know who he was and she never saw him again, until many years later, when they met by chance at the local bus station. She was a famous singer by then, touring with the Tibetan Opera, and he was working for the local Cultural Bureau. They were about to get on the same bus. They recognized each other immediately and fell in love before the end of the tour. Unfortunately, in the years since he had rescued her on the streets, the man had married, and most unfortunate of all, he had married a Chinese woman. If his wife had been Tibetan, they could have come to some arrangement, but a Chinese woman would never tolerate a rival nor grant a divorce.
“Why didn’t he marry a Tibetan?” I asked.
“She was a beautiful woman, and he loved her when he married her. How could he know that we would meet again? How could he know that she would turn out so mean-spirited?” Nankadroma lit another cigarette and then fill
ed up her glass. By this time I had stopped counting the glasses, but the bottle was more than half empty. “Anyhow, it’s all over. I’m going to break it off,” she continued, tears suddenly flooding her eyes again. “I’m getting more miserable every day, and now I even have to fear for my life. I can’t believe this!”
When the bottle was empty, Nankadroma wanted to go back to the hotel. It was very late and the only other customers were men yelling and playing a drunken betting game. But Nankadroma was herself so drunk that when she stood up, she knocked the glasses off the table, and I had to hold her up while the restaurant owner sent a waitress to call a rickshaw.
My throat was on fire and I had a bad taste in my mouth, but I was not sure that it was all due to the cheap wine. Nankadroma’s story had unnerved me. I had been very jealous of my own sister at times, but the worst thing I had ever done was to steal the blood sausage from her lunch box. A truly terrible story that had my mother laughing for weeks. I had never wished to curse or do serious harm to anyone. And I had never heard of women fighting over a man. As I helped Nankadroma lurch into the rickshaw, I felt relieved that my mother and my sister and my little brothers lived in Zuosuo, where everyone took care of each other, where there were no floods, and where people could love without fear of jealousy or punishment.
Nankadroma leaned on my shoulder, and I stroked her thick, silky hair. I felt very close to her, as I had felt sleeping near Añumo that night, happy in the thought that I was of some comfort. When we were back in our room, I helped her take off her shoes and clothes and put her to bed. I kissed her on the cheek, as though I were her mother.
The next morning she was still drunk, or at least she had a hangover. I gave her a glass of water and said good-bye. She mumbled something but I am not sure that she really noticed I was going. I did not see her again for many years after that, and during that time, I often wondered if she had broken up with her lover and found a man worthy of her.
Leaving Mother Lake Page 16