“You think he took advantage of you,” she says, following me. She’s not trying to make things any better. “People lie in China, like everywhere. That’s how it is.”
“It’s bullshit.” I turn and look at her. “Here, surrounded by this truth and beauty, still we lie?”
“People always lie. Or maybe it wasn’t a lie. Maybe it was miscommunication. Maybe it was a lie. Who knows?”
“Why isn’t this—heaven’s honesty all around us—enough to inspire us?”
“Heaven is honest?” She looks past me. “Even if it is, not everything else is, not everything is pure like this.”
The breezes brush my cheek, and I take in the yellow sunshine glinting fresh through fir boughs. I remember being ripped off in the Guangzhou markets, deceived on the way to the Great Wall, and surrendering to wild cultural misunderstanding about those paintings in Lijiang. “Fine. Why be so angry, right? Why shut myself off?”
“You think you’re going to win one before God? Be angry, see if it helps.”
“Be angry.” I turn, feeling her strange advice bore into my back as we continue on the path.
“Sometimes it does help,” she murmurs.
“Be angry,” I say it to myself. “Be angry! Yeah, I’m angry. I’m pissed off!” A wave washes over me, opening a soothing spaciousness in me, and I laugh as I witness again the cascading waters above us.
“This time here is short,” she says.
“Real honesty isn’t avoiding anger or bitterness—there are avalanches and thunderstorms. Honesty is letting it come and letting it go.”
“Even if we think we’re poor, they probably need the money more.”
“Letting it come and letting it go.”
Our path weaves through knolls and groves of fragrant pine. She starts talking about her private Mandarin class in the countryside of Hunan province, where she was isolated in a dorm with a Chinese guardian and rarely interacted with locals. Her one classmate, who happened to be another young Québécoise woman, didn’t seem to mind and lived in the created world of the myths offered by Anton’s CNN—that China is dangerously poor and backwards. “Her idea of enjoying China was staying in the Changsha Holiday Inn,” she laughs. “As often as possible, almost every weekend! She’d just go eat sandwiches and pancakes. That was her China. Neither of us was learning a thing. After a month, I just left—to travel and—” she stops. I follow her eyes. Two wings of orange and purple dart a drunken course through the wind, flitting beside a bush, and then fluttering to her, alighting on the end of her finger. A butterfly. Smaller blue and white ones play like tiny winged angels above the bushes. She’s transfixed, overtaken for a moment by awe at creation. The miraculous beings draw me in too, and whole minutes pass.
An urge grabs me—to go all the way to the top, to leave the path and to forge as high as we can up the wooded slopes. My enthusiasm wins her. We cross sun-dappled beds of pine needles and summit one crest, then another, and everything turns vertical, reaching upwards through the crystalline morning. Way down below, ten thousand feet away, on the river, in the very crease of the gorge, the rapids rush with the wind. The gusts sweep up the slopes, through the pine, into my nostrils, and I ask the water, the mountains, the trees for their captivating secret: What is this eternal beauty, this honesty? What is this unnamable quality? The natural world is what it is, it releases itself entirely, it knows no fear. The answer has always been to choose trust.
The ground suddenly ends. I drop to my belly and creep forward to peer over the edge. A yawning abyss is carved by a tributary that feeds Cháng Jiāng. It seems incredible that such tiny streams could carve through three vertical miles of rock. Chantal steps back, but I stand up, right at the edge of the precipice, overcome with wonder, watching birds swoop and dive, suddenly knowing that I too could jump, throw myself into the wind, and leap this gap; I could release all the way into this universe; I could fly. I look back at my earthly companion, and limitations return to my brain. It’s three hundred feet across, and if I don’t make it… I die, Chantal is alone, and no one else knows. I sit on the ground beside her, and together we bask.
Raindrops sprinkle on our wondrous contemplation. We hike down on our own new path, on a diagonal, so as not to waste time retracing our steps. The precipice hems us in on our right and the slope steepens. Rain slicks the clumps of dirt and grass beneath our feet. Chantal loses her footing, slips, lands on her back, and slides five feet before catching herself. I fall too. Mountain goats chew calmly and watch us filthy, ungraceful animals. We scramble, foot by foot, down, farther, finally all the way to the high path, and it feels like a triumphant return to civilization. My relief turns into euphoria, but Chantal looks shaken and is coughing and wiping mud from her cheek. “I should stop smoking.”
“We should’ve taken the easier way down,” I say.
She smiles weakly.
We gulp from our water bottles, and the sun reappears more glorious than when it left. The path takes us up onto a sharp ridge atop tall boulders, letting us walk there atop the world’s praying fingers. The view is spellbinding and a thousand photographs beg to be taken, but their voice is a whisper. I let everything go and walk in the beauty unhurried, undesiring, undefended. The sensations penetrate my being, and my billion molecules relax, soften, and dissolve. My eyes open to Chantal and I am overcome with admiration and joy. A vast freedom opens in me, and I realize I have no expectation of anything in return from her. I realize I have no expectation of anything in return from the planet. My heart drops open like a door, and I laugh and live naked with the abundant beauty around me. It too is naked with me. I honor and praise it, and I feel myself give into it—give in with all of me, my heart, mind, body, and soul. This truth, this wholeness, this absence of any need for perfection defines beauty and honesty. It is love. The act of making love is to release all of our personal words and needs and hopes and dreams and just to be beside beauty, to forget oneself, to remember that we are not separate beings. My breaths source behind my lungs, deep in my heart, and my mind wanders through a parade of visions: the whiteness of the students’ uniforms on the first day of school, the red flags and lanterns when I first arrived at Tiananmen Square, the ripples in the pool at the Forbidden City, the heavenly summons of the clouds on the mountaintop in Xiahe, the wet tears on my cheeks at the waterfalls, the softness of the red cushion beside the mandala with the monks. And there are the two happinesses, standing, waiting, smiling, as simple and obvious and sacred as twin mountain peaks: the happiness of my desires fulfilled, and the happiness of my pure awareness. They’ve been there all along, waiting for me to dance between them like a river.
The path bends deep into the mountainside. Our footsteps stop. Before us is a river blocking our way. A ferocious waterfall, a liquid avalanche twenty feet wide, pounds down from above, landing on the rocks just to the right of where our path should be. The water then completely takes out our path as it rushes to the edge, flies over the edge, and then drops hundreds of feet to the next outcropping. We stare at the waterfall and river, at their beauty, at their ferocious power, at their impossible breadth. Planks of what yesterday may have been a bridge stand akimbo, in splinters, to one side. Chantal takes off her shoes, but we can’t walk across this river.
“What’s the other plan?” she asks.
There’s only one. I take a deep breath and retreat several steps. If the universe had planned to kill me this week, I’d already be dead. “Let’s jump.”
Her eyes widen.
I dash towards the water and vault off one foot. Below me, the current gushes over the edge. I’m floating, stretching out through the air. With one foot I alight on a rock halfway across, then, using my momentum, I leap again, lunging towards the other side. I land a toe on the bank, my heel splashing in the water.
Chantal cries, “You’re like the tiger!”
I catch my breath. “Can you do it?”
She backs up, checks her pack, and reties her shoes. “I’ll t
ry.”
She takes one look, runs, and jumps. Her foot lands on the same rock in the middle, but her second jump falls short and she lands in the current, barely a yard from the cliff’s edge. The water pulls on her. She struggles towards me, and I step into the river and reach out for her arm. Our fingertips touch. Her hand is in mine. She’s in my arms, her shoulders shaking. We fall to the solid earth and stay there a while, watching the gushing currents soar chaotically over the edge, spraying us with drops of whiteness. Tears melt on her cheeks. The towering walls still yawn beside us, beneath us, around us, whispering about life and death, offering no apologies.
“Thank you,” she says, touching my knee.
I nod. “We made it.”
“I don’t think you had to grab me.”
Our eyes meet. She seems worried, scared. She looks away, but her eyes return to me as I get up.
We walk onward, and the path grows more difficult, winding around higher and steeper chasms. Overhead, the sun burns. Fatigue touches me, a gentle hand on my chest, and I can’t help swallowing the last drops from my water bottle. Walking faster, I feel the last fluids begin to flee my pores. We hike for what feels like several hours.
At one point I realize that fifteen minutes have passed since I last saw her. I stop and wait, but too many minutes pass, and she doesn’t come. She was right behind me. I walk back a bit and look for her, then forward, more slowly. No sign. I strike off the path, into thick bushes, pushing through. I don’t see her. I can’t risk getting lost myself. I stare into the gorge, listening to it. A calmness comes, and I sit on the path and rest.
She appears, tears on her cheeks. We hold each other. She says she walked backwards and forwards. She thought I fell; she thought I was gone; she thought she was alone.
I feel her heartbeat beside mine, and I wait for it to slow.
When we continue, we stay close to each other, sharing a deepening gratitude. We reach a crest where the path descends steeply through colossal boulders. Step by step, as if on a staircase, we go down, realizing that this is the big descent, the one we’ve been waiting for. Two other people climb up towards us—the first souls we’ve seen since the Halfway Hostel. It turns out to be a French couple, and Chantal speaks with them, learning it’s still two hours to Qiaotou. Chantal tells them about the waterfall, but they forge on. “Bon chance,” Chantal says, to them, then to me, with a shrug and a smile.
An hour goes by, and the path leaves the woods and meanders downward, and it’s just the right steepness to release our bodies into a run, to gallop in freefall through pastures and meadows. The spirit of the gorge pushes us from behind, doing all the work, sending us off back into the world. Soon we’re on a gravel road and the village of Qiaotou lies nestled below us. A Cháng Jiāng tributary near the road lures us like paradise, and we kneel on its banks in delight. Into the gelid water we plunge our heads, to the eyebrows, to the cheekbones, to the chin. The river washes through me, swimming across my face, drenching my scalp, running up my spine. I throw my head back and gaze gratefully into the sky.
Chapter 36
Homecomings
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
—T.S. Eliot, Little Gidding
Guangzhou. It’s been exactly forty days and forty nights. A man squatting in an apartment doorway stares at me as the train from Kunming completes its cross-country journey, having hauled me all the way across the vast south of this empire. The train screeches to a rest inside the Guăngzhōuzhàn station.
I shoulder my pack and step out into the City of Five Rams. On the sidewalk I hail a shiny red taxicab, but it accelerates past me and stops beside two businessmen. It all returns to my mind in a flash: the incessant worship of wealth. The way a younger brother imitates his older sibling, this city idolizes Hong Kong. The wild and worrying political uncertainty exacerbates the craving and imparts a flavor of frenzy—everyone yearns for a piece of the sweet new prosperity now, before it’s gone.
A taxi finally stops, and I climb inside. I’m greeted by the heavenly breeze of air conditioning, and for the first time in what feels like forever, I stop sweating.
Home sweet Peizheng. The gate welcomes me with anonymous generosity. A half dozen students play basketball on the court beside the big tree. The athletic field waits, deserted.
The dorm is unlocked and vacant. I climb the stairs, and my key fits the lock. Greeting me is a thick new layer of dust on the walls and tables. Everything remains where I left it, physically and mentally. An irrepressible frisson runs through me like lightning, and in an instant I strip off the ragged clothes that I’ve worn for eons. Naked, exultant, I shout my triumph and joy off the walls of the empty building. My fears showed me the way to every single step that I needed to take. I only needed curiosity. I only needed to look. I only needed to listen.
The sun rises slowly, hiding behind the haze of a Guangzhou morning. I leave my dorm for the last time. My faithful blue backpack, my excess clothes, the rice, and everything else in the dorm I give to Mr. Chen and Bo. They’re surprised to see me, and surprised that I’m leaving again. I bid them a final goodbye and then bid everything on campus a final goodbye. Goodbye Peizheng, you were my most important teacher.
Onboard the train, I witness the other passengers. So many months ago this ride seemed wild and exotic; today it seems efficient, plush, streamlined, and blindingly clean. I gaze out the window at the fertile cropland, and it looks so utterly different, opposite from the spent, stretched farmland up north: The browns in the earth streak richer and sweeter, the greens in the stems and leaves unfurl more deeply. Hong Kong coalesces its grand spectacles around me, and I step off the train into a modern metropolis, realizing that the last time I was here this island kingdom was part of Great Britain. Elevated sidewalks ferry me between towers of black steel and glass. Anxious people in dark suits thrust my luggage aside without looking. The straps of my duffel bags saw into my palms. Overhead, a bright purple and lime billboard advertises cell phones in screaming characters that I can now read: “Convenience, Pleasure, Freedom.”
At the airport, my bags disappear on a conveyor belt. Weightless as a mountain wind, I float onto a plane. Cloud-like carpeting and luxurious seats expand around me. Have the seats always been this big? Is this “class” really “economy?” The plan is impossible—to go six thousand miles in eleven hours.
The stewardess bends over me to help the little boy in the seat next to me, and her perfume furtively yanks my brain into another galaxy. Some sensual rule inside me dissolves. In this world everything smells good. She leaves, and we’re left with no odor whatsoever. The fragrances of Asia—the tea, the incense, the cigarettes, the garbage, the constant body odors, the piercing fish sauces, the spry ginger, the tonifying garlic, the hefty braised pork wielding dark plum sauce—it’s all gone.
Engines roar, wheels accelerate down a runway, and our wings lift us into the air. We float off over the sea. Out the window, the continent crawls away.
August 6
Yes, it is here, the levitation home. So many journeys, so many hours, so many rides, so many waits, so many days, and here it is. Now. It’s unbelievable, but everything is unbelievable. We believe whatever we open ourselves to see. But this very moment—now—I’ve thought of it forever—it’s impossible! Are sheetless beds, filthy floors, rude vendors, and densely polluted air all behind me?
I just watched a movie. I’ve eaten more food than I often do in two days. What a sweet comfortable life it must be back home. How are we stupid enough still to be unhappy and fearful and greedy and envious? Or is that a mistaken memory lodged in my mind? With all the variety of experiences on earth, the homeland I remember is superficial, incomplete, unreal; so too is the me who last lived there. Now I’ll see it all firsthand once again. Home, here I come.
Chapter 37
South of the Clouds
將欲歙之必固長之
將欲弱之必固強之
To shrink something, first allow it to expand.
To remove something, first allow it to flourish.
Tao Te Ching, 36
My hair stands on end, still wet from a shower. The bus came through Qiatou so quickly after we arrived from the gorge that only one of us got to bathe. “Sorry,” I grin, feeling my heart pump the blood fast through my veins after the frenetic rush to board. Her knee rests against mine. “But that’s what you get for always making me go first.”
“Americans always do that,” she says, with a sidelong smile. She got to change clothes. “You owe me. I’ll be first next time.”
The bus, a sleeper to the city of Kunming, is beyond full. I’m sitting on the edge of a bed on which two men lie; Chantal sits across the aisle, on the edge of a bunk occupied by two teenage girls. The bus rumbles out of town, and we ride down, down from the mountains, down through forests, down into rugged farmland. My view remains mostly her profile. “You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met,” I say. “I’ve seen women in magazines, but that’s nothing. You’re beautiful and you’re real.”
“You’ve been in China too long,” she replies, blushing slightly.
I consider her words, and I speak from the part of me that walks selflessly, honestly, that channels the energy of waterfalls. She doesn’t have to do anything about it, I just want her to hear me, to hear about hiking amid great beauty, about not knowing where to stare, about being swept away.
Her brown irises lock on mine for a moment. She listens, considers, but she seems to refuse the premise, the logic, the whole idea. For a while we say nothing. The girls behind her on the bed are giggling…at me! They understood. Chantal catches on, and she laughs at me too. Now I’m the one blushing. It’s too ridiculous, and I just give up and laugh.
Double Happiness: One Man's Tale of Love, Loss, and Wonder on the Long Roads of China Page 31