Stick Out Your Tongue

by Ma Jian

  They smiled at me. The sack was opened and Myima’s body was pulled out. She was lying in the foetus position, her limbs bound to her chest. The auspicious swastika that had been carved onto her back had dried and shrunk. When the rope was loosened she flopped to the ground. They tied her head to a metal post and pulled her body straight. She was flat on her back now, her eyes fixed on the sky and the scattering clouds of mist.

  The younger brother lit a fire of juniper twigs and sprinkled roasted barley on the flames. The thick smoke rose into the mist. Then he moved to a second fire and dropped a lump of yak butter into a frying pan that was resting on a wooden frame. The elder brother fed dung pats to the two fires and glanced at the mountain summit. The lama sat cross-legged on a sheepskin rug counting rosary beads over an open prayer book. He was sitting close to the flames.

  I studied the corpse from a distance, then slowly approached. Her limbs were splayed out as though she were preparing to take flight. Her breasts were paler than the rest of her body and drooped softly to either side of her ribcage. Her belly was swollen, the unborn child still lying inside it. I wondered whether the soldier was the father of the child.

  I set the aperture of my camera, adjusted the distance, then squatted down beside her and prepared to take a photograph. In the background were clouds of fog and snow peaks flushed by the rising sun. Through the lens, Myima looked like a little girl. I imagined her arriving at this mountain on horseback as a child of six, peeping out from under her sheepskin cloak to catch her first glimpse of the Kambala Pass. Years later, when she was up here tending her sheep, she would often gaze at the pass and think about her home in the south.

  She looked as though she were asleep. I panned my camera down her body. Soft arms, palms upturned to the sky, a red mole under her breast, smooth thighs. I thought of the soldier’s creaking wooden bed and of the two brothers who were now gulping the barley wine. I focused on her feet. The soles were white, the toes tightly clenched. The smallest toes were so short there was no room for nails to grow. I stepped back for a wider view and hit the shutter, but nothing happened. I checked the camera, pressed the button again. It was stuck. My legs gave way. I sat down on the ground, wound back the film and changed the battery. I focused on Myima’s face this time and pressed the shutter, but the button seemed to be frozen in place. Then, as I looked up, I noticed the corner of Myima’s mouth twitch. It was neither a smile nor a sneer, but her mouth definitely moved.

  I stood up. A shriek echoed through my head then vanished with a gust of wind. A bald eagle plummeted through the sky, circled the corpse’s head, settled on a rock and ruffled its wings.

  I tramped back to the fire. The younger brother reached into his felt bag, scooped out a piece of dung and flung it onto the flames. Then he produced a lump of roast barley and broke me off a piece. I chewed it greedily. There were raisins inside. He brought out some dried mutton and filled the lid of the thermos flask with barley wine. I grabbed it and downed it in one. I wondered whether Myima had prepared the mutton. I looked up at her. Her legs were spread open; a piece of string hung from the wounded flesh between her thighs. I presumed that someone had attached it during her troubled labour in an attempt to wrench the baby out. I dragged my knife through the dried mutton. The brothers smiled at me. I smiled too, perhaps, but my face was turned to the distant snowcaps that were reddening in the sun. The fog had vanished, and in the distance Yamdrok looked as calm as it had the day before, and as blue as Myima’s turquoise.

  The elder brother got up, threw some more dung onto the fires, then walked to the lama and poured him some wine. The lama pushed the bowl away and announced that Myima’s soul had risen to the sky. The younger brother stood up and took a sharp knife from his pocket. I followed the two brothers to the body. Immediately the sky darkened with vultures that screeched and swirled through the air. The brothers turned Myima’s body over, stuck the knife into her buttock and pulled it down, opening up her leg all the way to the sole of her foot. The younger brother hacked off a chunk of thigh and sliced it into pieces. Her right leg was soon reduced to bone. With her belly squashed to the ground, sticky fluid began to trickle from between her thighs. I picked up my camera, set the distance, and this time the shutter closed with a snap.

  The vultures surrounded us and fought over the scraps of flesh. A pack of crows landed behind them. Perhaps they considered themselves an inferior species, because not one of them dared move forward. They kept their distance, sniffing the air, waiting for their turn.

  The morning sun flooded the burial site with light. The younger brother shooed away the approaching vultures with pieces of Myima’s body. I picked up the axe, grabbed a severed hand, ran the blade down the palm and threw a thumb to the vultures. The younger brother smiled, took the hand from me and placed it on a rock, then pounded the remaining four fingers flat and threw them to the birds.

  When the elder brother dug his knife into Myima’s chin and drew it up her face, I suddenly forgot what she had looked like. While the brothers continued to carve, her eyes remained fixed on the sky above, until every piece of her had vanished from the site.

  The elder brother snatched a bunch of Myima’s braids that were still tied with red thread, swirled it around the circling vultures and staggered back to the fire. The crows had now joined the vultures at the metal posts, and were picking at the roast barley that had been mashed up with scraps of brain.

  I checked my watch. I had been up here for two hours already. It was time to go down. I knew that the soldier was waiting for me in his room. He’d promised that he would borrow a boat in the afternoon and take me fishing on the lake.

  THE SMILE OF LAKE DROLMULA

  Sonam dismounted his horse at the foot of a hill that he had ridden past a few hours before. He took a deep breath then softly expelled it. The air smelt of grass and the moist, sun-baked earth. The wind was still blowing from the same direction: rising from the valleys of the Gangdise Mountains, sweeping over the flat wastes then racing onwards to the distant shores of Lake Drolmula. Far away, he could see the lake rippling in the wind, as though some great amphibian dinosaur were breathing below the surface. Reeds swayed by the banks and white saline crystals sparkled along the shallow waters. It was a salt lake. Every year, hundreds of yaks and horses drowned in its briny marshes. He was certain that his family would never choose to set up camp along its shores.

  He led the horse forward, then stopped, flung the reins onto the horse’s back and started up the hill alone. The grass slope was split open by seams of exposed limestone. The fissures in the stone had been deepened by centuries of rain and snow, leaving a treacherous terrain of ridges and ruts. Horses that ventured up the hill would often trip and injure themselves; smaller animals would fall down the wide cracks and drown in the water that collected below. When Sonam reached the top of the hill, he saw the blue sky floating in the pools of stagnant water that dotted the plain below. He glanced back at his horse. It was still standing where he’d left it. He’d been riding it for almost a month now. It was one of his uncle Kelsang’s best horses. He hadn’t found the riding easy, though. He was out of practice; his thighs and tailbone were very sore. He had grown up in this region of the high plateau. One year, a severe drought had forced his family to move their camp to this very spot. His youngest sister, Gagal, had fallen into a ditch and died while riding her yak up this hill. He was eleven years old at the time.

  He turned towards the lake again and continued walking. The pastures spread before him. In the distance, a swathe of pale grass trembled under the sun. There were no clouds, no tents, no animals. His chest felt empty and hollow.

  These high pastures were five thousand metres above sea level. A few hardy shrubs, able to withstand the cold winters, spread their leaves under the warm August sun. Sonam kicked some weeds out of the way, sat down on a rock and glanced back again at his horse. It was stamping its hoofs now and whipping away a swarm of gadflies with its tail. Its stomach was no longer shudd
ering. The wind has stopped, he thought to himself.

  It was a slow horse. When he’d collected it from his uncle, Sonam had taken a saddle from another horse and attached it to its back. A few days ago, the hemp sack that had served as the saddle lining fell off, and since then the wooden saddle had been digging straight into the horse’s back. Its skin was raw in places. The horse had been in so much pain that it had often bolted off in fits of agony. Sonam remembered the brown stallion that he rode as a boy. It could jump over the deepest ditches. And the white yak. He hadn’t ridden a yak since he’d left home two years ago to go to school in Saga.

  His heart tightened when he realised how little of his holiday remained. Five days ago, he had come across Old Tashi’s family. Tashi still recognised him. He was very old now and could barely stand up. He asked Sonam what black arts he had studied at school in Saga. Tashi’s extended family had pitched their various tents across the meadow, but in the evening everyone gathered in the main tent to hear Sonam speak about the outside world.

  Tashi was unable to hear a word that Sonam said. He just kept mumbling on about how he too had travelled to Saga as a young boy, to study the black arts. He said that during his uncle’s initiation ceremony, the Living Buddha Danba Dorje ripped out his uncle’s eyes, pulled out his tongue, chopped off his hand and offered the severed parts to Avalokitesvara, the Bodhisattva of Compassion. After the ceremony, the uncle returned home and died a few days later. Tashi was then sent to Saga to learn some spells that would allow his family to exact their revenge. He took a herd of yaks with him. In Saga, he found a Buddhist master who was able to tame the wind and make hail fall from the sky. Tashi gave the master his yaks, a silver ornament and a brass incense burner in exchange for a year’s board and tuition. The master taught him an incantation for subduing one’s enemy, as well as a few less dangerous spells. When Tashi returned home, he used the evil incantation to blind Danba Dorje, then he moved camp to this region of the high pastures.

  Tashi’s nephew, Dhondup, said that Sonam’s family had moved to the south-east a month ago. There was a fertile valley there, apparently, but it was almost a two-week trek away. Dhondup also mentioned that Sonam’s sister, Dawa, had grown up a lot recently and was now as pretty as a wild raspberry. ‘Everyone who sees her wants to take a bite,’ Dhondup said. Those words made Sonam feel very uncomfortable.

  Dhondup couldn’t explain why Sonam’s family had decided to move to the valley. Usually, nomads only went there in the autumn. As the mouth of the valley faced north, in the summer there was no wind and the pastures became infested with wasps and mosquitoes that attacked the nomads’ herds. Sometimes, the yaks and sheep became so distraught that they abandoned camp and followed the scent of moist air all the way to the marshes of Lake Drolmula. Dhondup told Sonam that his father was in bad health and could no longer throw a lasso, and that his mother had fallen off a horse a while ago and was unable to do any work. I don’t believe him, Sonam thought to himself at the time. My mother has never ridden a yak. Perhaps he’s confusing this with the story of Gagal’s accident.

  A breeze blew from Lake Drolmula. Sonam breathed in deeply. The air had a flat, slightly bitter taste. The sky began to darken and the ground beneath him seemed to pull him down. He kicked his numb legs about and staggered to his feet. It was already two days since he had eaten something. His stomach burned with hunger.

  He glanced back and saw that the horse had gone. When did it run away? he wondered. He remembered that he’d dozed off a few minutes ago, when the wind had changed. I should have brought the horse up here, he said to himself. There’s no grass to distract it here, and no gadflies. He walked back down the hill and followed the hoofprints the horse had left in the grass. His legs felt very weak.

  When night fell he came to a stop. He opened his mouth, then closed it again. A sudden cold descended on the grasslands. He could still sense where Lake Drolmula was, but he couldn’t go there. He’d heard that the lake was the urine of Goddess Tadkar Dosangma, and that on the peak of the mountain behind it, you could see the splashes that she had left behind. He knew that it was dangerous to approach the lake. Nevertheless, he was now clearly walking towards it.

  Four months ago, he’d sent a letter to his family telling them that he would visit them during his summer holidays. But when he arrived in Mayoumu last month, he found that the letter was lying still unopened in the village headquarters. The officer in charge told him that his family had moved their herd to the Yara valley in spring. Sonam travelled to Yara, but when he got there, the nomads gave conflicting reports of his family’s whereabouts. In the end, he’d decided to follow his uncle Kalsang’s advice, and come to look for them here on the hills near Lake Drolmula. When he arrived here five days ago, Old Tashi warned him to stay away from the lake. He said that Goddess Tadkar Dosangma goes there to meet her lover, the Mountain God, and that anyone who sees them making love is doomed to lose their sight.

  Last night, Sonam sensed that his family were not far. He reached a hill where a tent had just been removed. The upturned earth was damp and the soil below the fire pit was still dry. He even found the piece of apron that his father used as a saddle lining. The embroidery looked very familiar – he was certain that his mother had stitched it.

  He remembered Dawa’s coloured apron. She has grown up now, he thought to himself. In fact, she was already quite grown up when he left for Saga two years ago. She would no longer undress in front of him, and would always run ten steps away from him before crouching down to piss. He thought of the smell of sour milk on Dawa’s body.

  Yesterday, when he reached the hill, he turned round to the black horse and said, ‘Look, look! Here they are! That’s their yak hair carpet!’ He fell to his knees and smelt the earth, then he picked up a sheep’s hoof that he presumed his family had tossed from the cooking pot, and turned it in his hands. He looked up and said, ‘I’ve been searching for you for a month. Why are you still sitting down, Dawa? Get up, get up. Come to me! I’ve bought you shoes, made in Beijing. I’ll tell you where Beijing is. There are so many people there. More than all the yaks in Mayoumu. My school in Saga has lots of windows, and stairways that go round and round.’ Then he paused and looked around him. The breeze blowing from the grasslands smelt of yak shit and sheep bones. At his feet he saw maggots wriggling through a pat of yak dung. He watched the dung puff up, and then slowly sink again.

  Tonight he was standing on the high plateau in the pitch dark, the mosquitoes biting into his face. He walked on for a while and saw pale, mauve ripples drift across the surface of the lake. That’s where the Goddess pisses, he muttered. He lay down on the ground and gazed into the distance. The Goddess leaves the lake in the winter to join the Mountain God. The lake is her urine. The shore is rimmed with white crystals. That’s where she pisses, over there, over there … He closed his eyes and slowly dropped off to sleep.

  When he woke again, he found himself bathed in the red light of the morning sun. He wanted to return to his dream. Gradually his mind cleared and he sat up and looked back at the route he had taken. He knew that his food and water had run out, that his horse had run away, and that if he didn’t come across any nomads soon he would not survive another day. He rose to his feet. As soon as his legs stood firm, blood rushed to his head and his heart started to beat wildly. He was weak with hunger. The black horse must have escaped down this path yesterday, he thought to himself. The slope isn’t steep, and the ditch on the left would have been too wide for it to jump. If the horse had run down here, it would have had the wind in its face. This was the only path it could have taken if it had wanted to escape the gadflies.

  He gazed at the lake. It was perfectly still. The white salt crystals lay on the shore like a long prayer scarf. Below him, in the brilliant sunlight, a pool of water sparkled like ice. Mounds of wild herbs carpeted the distant marshes. There was no living creature in sight, not even a fly.

  He trudged slowly onwards. When he finally reached the lake, h
e turned right and began walking along the shore. It was as though he thought that, by doing so, he would eventually come across something. He walked for hours, but all he saw were banks of dry grass poisoned by the saline crystals. He tried to drink some water from the lake, but the taste was so foul he had to spit it out. A fire burned through his stomach. My piss tastes better than that, he muttered. Then he looked up and saw the lake smiling at him. That’s just how Dawa used to smile, he thought to himself.

  As the sun began to sink again, he stopped and stood still. The Gangdise Mountains were wrapped in mist. The light on the summits grew clearer, then dwindled, left the mountains and hovered for a moment in the sky. A few seconds later, everything went black.

  A gust of wind blew into Sonam’s face. When it died, his family suddenly appeared before him. First, he saw the tent, the flickering fire and the cooking pot with the aluminium lid. His mother was standing behind the steam, dropping lumps of yak butter into the pot. He could smell the warm butter tea and fried cheese. Then he saw Dawa, or rather, Dawa saw him. She yelped with joy, raced over to him, dug her head into his chest and slapped his shoulders. He laughed and followed her into the tent.

  Inside, nothing had changed. The same yak hides covered the ground. His father was leaning against the central pole, as usual, enjoying the warmth of the fire. The yak butter pouch that his mother had used all her life still hung from the same hook.

  Sonam placed beside his father’s feet the white bucket that he’d brought with him from Saga. He said that this was the bucket the black horse had run off with. Ngawang, his youngest sister, walked in. She hadn’t grown at all, and still had the same foolish smile that she’d worn the time he’d wiped coal dust over her face. Dawa looked down at the fire, broke off a lump from the tea brick and threw it into the pot. Sonam presented her with the bag of fine grain salt that he’d brought with him. She had grown up a lot. As she bent over to take the bag of salt from him, her breasts jerked forward and wobbled a little. Immediately he thought of the school sports field where he played football after lunch. Next to the field was a large pond, and behind that was his school. When you looked at the school reflected in the water, its whitewashed walls seemed very clean.