by Ma Jian
‘When I reached Shigatse, I was afraid to tell anyone that I was looking for my daughter. Instead, I just asked them if they knew of a man called Dondrub. There were lots of people called Dondrub in Shigatse, but at last I met a skin trader on the street who said he knew the Dondrub I was looking for. He said that he’d gone to Central Tibet to pick up some furniture. I found my way to Dondrub’s home, which was twenty kilometres down the road from Shigatse. But when I arrived, Metok wasn’t there. I asked Dondrub’s mother where she was. I told her that I was a relative of Metok’s, and had a letter for her. The old woman said, “You’re looking for that little bastard girl, are you? I kicked her out a long time ago. Our family don’t mix with scum like her. May the Bodhisattva of Mercy send her to hell!”
‘I trekked back to Shigatse, and for days on end I circled the walls of Tashilumpo Monastery, spinning the prayer wheels. The old people I met there talked of a woman not yet twenty years old, who’d slept with every young hooligan in the area. She camped on the streets, apparently, and lived off the donations of passing pilgrims. They said that she came from the Chiu Pastures, and that she’d lost her mind, and would often walk around half-naked. After a few months of living on the streets, her lower body had begun to smell and men were afraid to go near her. The old people felt sorry for her, and said what a terrible father she must have. I was struck with guilt. All day, I threw myself into prostrations, trying to wipe the sins from my body. I begged the Buddha to take pity on me and allow me to find my Metok.’
The old man told me a lot more, but this was about the sum of it. His only wish now was to end his life. He’d heard that many pilgrims who travel to Mount Kailash die while circling its foothills. The more circles they complete before they die, the higher they ascend into heaven. It seemed to make no difference to him whether he returned dead or alive.
I looked up at the smoke vent at the top of the tent, and saw that the square of sky above was already turning white. The yak blood was still lying in my stomach, undigested, and kept sending a nasty, acrid taste to my mouth. I grabbed a clove of raw garlic and munched on it to get rid of the taste. My eyelids were beginning to droop. The old man stretched out on the sheepskins beside me, rested his head on the aluminium basin, and whispered a Buddhist mantra. The tent filled with the smell of his rancid breath.
I lay down next to him, and thought of the girl I’d seen in the Barkhor market in Lhasa. She had a round face and cheeks blown red by the winds of the high plateau. There was no turquoise pin in her hair. In fact, her hair was so messy it looked like a bundle of yak tails. She kept brushing back the loose strands that fell over her face. When she sensed that someone was looking at her, she would lift her head and smile at them. If they stopped and stared, and didn’t throw anything at her, she would stick out her tongue in greeting. The lower lids of her eyes were slightly swollen, but when she smiled, her mouth stretched wide open and her eyes beamed with kindness. It was the smile of the women of the high plateau, a smile as pure as the grassland air. She was smothered by the dust and noise of the crowded street. So that passers-by wouldn’t tread on her, she retreated under the table of a yak meat stall. After days of looking up in supplication, her forehead had become lined with wrinkles. Whenever someone stopped and looked down at her with pity, she would drop her head, pull her left breast to her mouth and suck it, then glance up and smile. Her left nipple had been in her mouth for so long that it had become swollen and translucent. As she crouched under the table, stray dogs scuttled about her feet, waiting for scraps of meat to fall from the butcher’s tray.
THE GOLDEN CROWN
Gar Monastery sat between the goddess mountains Everest and Shishapangma. When I climbed to the highest point of the monastery’s compound, I saw these two mountain deities, draped in silver robes, lifting their heads to the sky as though they were yearning to return home. Below the monastery gates ran an ancient horse-trail that was now overgrown with weeds. For centuries, merchants and travellers would pass through here on their way to Nepal. Beside the trail was a winding river that flowed through fields of barley and peas. Beyond the fields spread a dry, stony plain. In the summer months, nomads had to move their herds to graze on greener pastures.
In the past, a bronze stupa that housed a bone of Saint Mileripa had stood at the highest point of the monastery. But all that remained of the stupa now were its grey foundation stones. Many of the surrounding shrines had also crumbled into ruin. The altitude was so high that, over the centuries, the land had become almost deserted. The Tibetans who did still live here were short and stocky, and walked at a very slow pace. Everything that moved: clouds, sheep, dogs, prayer flags, women with children in their arms, and me – a Chinese drifter who’d recently arrived from the east – all did so in slow motion.
My head was pounding. It felt as though a crack had formed around my skull, and that at any moment my crown would lift like the lid of an observatory. Slowly, my memories started to slip away. I forgot what my ex-wife looked like, even though she was the reason that I was leading this sad and vagrant life. I forgot the names of all the important philosophers and writers of the world. Instead, images that for years had been buried deep in my mind suddenly flashed before my eyes. I realised that the keys that I thought I’d lost six years ago were in fact hidden below a wooden chest under my bed. I remembered that when I lost them, I was dreaming of a mouse that was startled by the noise of my keys dropping to the floor. The mouse picked the keys up, unlocked the drawer of my desk, riffled through the contents, took out my bottle of painkillers, swallowed a couple then slid the keys under the wooden chest.
I sat down at a crossroads and gulped deep breaths of air. Children and dogs slowly surrounded me. Some looked at my face and hair, others at my clothes, beard and camera. They squatted down, and in the space between two breaths I smiled at them. Then I stood up, reached into my pocket for my forged introduction letter and asked for directions to the district headquarters.
The clerk in charge of the headquarters had attended the district high school, but years of working at high altitude had dulled his wits. In the time it took him to smoke a cigarette he read through my introduction letter, then he smiled, and five minutes later, looked up at me. I told him that I had come to climb Mount Everest, that my work unit – such and such publishing house – had sent me here on a political assignment to climb to the summit. He told me that it was impossible to scale the mountain alone. He said that a man had come last year with the same intention, and had even written a will before he’d left, but had returned two weeks later with half his face frozen purple and his nose and ears lost to frostbite. He’d had to spend a month recovering in the district hospital. ‘Not everyone can touch the face of the Green Goddess,’ the clerk sighed. He told me that at the foot of Mount Everest was an icy river, and that if you slipped into its waters, you’d either freeze to death or be smashed to death by ice boulders. Seeing the dejection on my face, he added, ‘But there’s a smaller mountain near here that you can climb. From the summit, you can catch a glimpse of Mount Everest. There’s a Nepalese monastery up there. It’s in ruins now, but there’s a small village at the foot of the mountain.’
That afternoon, the district clerk accompanied me to the village below Gar Monastery.
From a distance, it looked like a sheep pen. The stone roofs of the houses almost touched the ground. There was no one about. The ground was so soft and dry that each step I took lifted clouds of dust that hovered in mid – air. A dog crawled out from under a fence and quietly yapped at me. Then a girl’s head peeped out from under a stone roof, disappeared into the pit below and emerged again a few minutes later. She was holding a mirror in one hand this time, and as she combed her hair with the other she stared at me. The path was dusty and scattered with broken stones. The district clerk pointed to a house and said that he knew the owner. ‘He’s a friend of mine,’ he whispered. ‘If you give him a packet of cigarettes he’ll put you up for the night. He’s the oldest man i
n the district.’
We crouched down, propped our hands on the stone roof and lowered ourselves into the pit. Apart from the smouldering ashes of the fire, I couldn’t see a thing. But I could hear someone sitting in the corner, breathing. I spent the night in this man’s home and listened to his story. My head was aching, and the clerk’s translation was not always clear, so the account may seem illogical in places. However, the altitude sharpened my awareness for detail, allowing many aspects of the story to remain crystal clear, so I know that I can’t have made everything up. What is still a mystery to me, though, is that although the man’s story was about a love affair he’d had as a young man, he claimed that the events took place four hundred years ago. This is what he told me:
‘At eleven years old, I started an apprenticeship with my teacher – the master craftsman Sangbucha. Work had just begun on the construction of the bronze stupa at Gar Monastery. My teacher, his wife, Kula, and I were housed in the monastery compound. I was told that they were both Nepalese, but that my teacher had been born on the Tibetan side of Mount Everest. My father had died of fever while travelling the horse-trail to Nepal. Sangbucha was a very talented silversmith. Almost every woman in the area owned pieces of jewellery that he’d made.
‘Sangbucha was employed by the monks to supervise the construction of the stupa. The dome of the stupa was to be cast in bronze and its crown carved from solid gold. I learned everything I know now during the seven years I studied with Sangbucha. His wife, Kula, was nearly thirty years younger than him. She’d run away from Nepal and moved here to unite with him in a ‘false marriage’. When she first met him in her village in Nepal, she was entranced by the beauty of his jewellery. Although she was nearly thirty, her face was free from wrinkles. The sapphire pinned to her nostril was as pure as Lake Mansarobar. Every morning, she would coil her hair into a bun, smear red chalk down her middle parting and dab a dot of crimson cinnabar between her brows. She always wore my teacher’s most precious pieces of jewellery.
‘The mould for the bronze dome of the stupa took six years to make. The dome was bell-shaped, and was to rest on a stone foundation of tapering steps that at the base would measure four metres in diameter. The edges of each layer of steps were to be decorated with figurines of auspicious animals holding wind-bells in their mouths. Surmounting the bronze dome would be a circular stone platform, from the centre of which would rise a crown carved from pure gold. My teacher told me that the circular platform would keep the rain off the bronze dome below and the thieves off the golden crown above. Thirteen stone peacocks were to decorate the platform’s circumference. The stupa would reach sixteen metres high. The crown would be shaped like a miniature stupa, its interior carved with images of the Sixteen Bodhisattvas. Although it would measure just fifty centimetres in length, my teacher’s exquisite carvings would render it valuable beyond price. When completed, the crown would be slotted onto the tip of the bronze pillar that would rise through the interior of the stupa.
‘I was a strong and conscientious child. I could endure hardship. My teacher liked me very much. He said that the rings I made were better crafted and more beautiful than his. Kula was very affectionate to me, and often put some of my teacher’s food aside to give to me later. When I was thirteen, my teacher travelled to Dansang to buy the clay for the mould. He was away for a month. Before he left he asked me to move in to his room. He was afraid that the monks in the monastery would try to sleep with his wife. The first night I spent in the room, Kula told me to lie down beside her. The second night, she leaned over and stroked me. The scent of her skin made me tremble with fear. She smelt of musk from head to toe. A few days later, she invited the monastery’s disciplinarian to her room. They waited for me to doze off before they started to embrace, but I was soon woken by Kula’s moans. When my teacher returned I didn’t have the courage to tell him what had happened.
‘My teacher was over sixty years old by then. Although his back was a little bent, he was still in good shape. He had curly hair that fell to his shoulders, and big black eyes. He often wore a purple braid around his head. He didn’t drink much, but he liked to flirt with the women who came to buy his jewellery. If a woman took his fancy, he’d add some extra silver to the rings or hairpins he made for them. When he helped a woman put on a necklace or bracelet, he would take his time and stand very close to them.
‘The mould for the bronze dome hadn’t yet dried the first time I slept with Kula. My teacher was spending all his time locked in his workshop, carving the Bodhisattvas into the golden crown. At night, monks guarded his door to make sure no thieves could enter. Only Kula and the monastery’s treasurer were allowed inside the workshop. I was assigned a small group of craftsman and told to supervise the construction work outside. That night, Kula called me to her room. I didn’t tremble at all this time. I smiled as I watched her slowly unwrap her sari, then I jumped on her and sucked at her skin as though I was thirsting for drink. From then on, she and I became inseparable. As soon as night fell, I would seek her out, following the smell of musk to her room. Even during the day I could tell where she was just by sniffing the air.
‘The morning after we first made love, she travelled to Nilamu to buy some oil and red chalk. In the afternoon, I could smell her coming back. I put down my chisel and rushed to the other side of the mountain to meet her. As I started up the foothills, I saw her coming down. When she caught sight of me, she threw herself on the ground and lifted her sari. We were still rolling on the grass when my teacher turned up. He kicked me hard in the chest, then he picked up a wooden stick and started beating Kula with it.
‘For a few days, Kula and I dared not look at one another. We were just waiting for the right time to act.
‘Then one morning, Kula burst through my door. Her face was ashen, her eyes were glazed. She stood in front of me and told me that my teacher had left her. He’d run away from the monastery and was never coming back. Later the monks announced that a lot of gold was missing, and that they suspected that my teacher had taken it with him.
I was now put in charge of the entire construction project.The monks were afraid that I too would run away, so they employed a guard to watch over me. I moved into Kula’s room. She was kind to me, and told me many stories about her life in Nepal. She wanted me to go back with her to Nepal and become her ‘false husband’. She was very homesick. She told me that she often thought of the day when, as a child of twelve, she had married her true husband: the seed of the sacred cebil tree. She brought out a small parcel and showed me the seed that was wrapped inside. She explained that the seed was invested with divine powers, and that as long as it remained by her side, no harm would come to her. She warned me that when we reached her village she would consult an oracle and that if my astrological signs were found to be incompatible with hers, we would have to separate. She said that her signs conflicted with my teacher’s, and that because of this, her family had opposed their marriage, leaving her no choice but to elope with him to Tibet.
‘Ten days after my teacher ran away from the monastery, the stupa was finally completed. Kula and I packed our bags and prepared to leave for Nepal. In the evening, she told me that she had spent many hours watching my teacher carve the golden crown and that she knew exactly how to detach it from the stupa. She said, “There’s a golden key hidden in a box at the centre of the mandala below the Thousand-handed Bodhisattva of Mercy. To open the box, one must recite the secret mantra Nam Myoho Renge Kyo and lift the Bodhisattva of Wisdom. Only the abbot and I know the secret mantra.” I considered her proposal for a moment, then told her that I thought it would be too dangerous. I said, “If the monks found out that we’d stolen the crown, we would never make it to Nepal. They might even kill us.” But she said that she was certain that her plan would work.
‘Late that night, I heard her creep out of bed and leave the room.
‘At dawn the next morning, a monk banged on my door and said that Kula was on top of the stupa and couldn’t g
et down. Everyone in the monastery raced up the mountain. Kula had tried to carry out her plan after all. She had managed to dislodge the golden crown, but was now stuck on top of the stupa. Its central bronze pillar was driven between her thighs. She struggled to break free, but as she moved up and down, the pillar grew thicker and thicker until finally she could no longer move at all.
‘The golden crown had fallen onto the circular platform. The monks stood rooted to the ground in terror. I fetched a ladder and prepared to climb up, but as soon as it touched the stupa, it burst into flames. I dropped the burning ladder and jumped back. The bronze was as hot as it had been when it was melting in the furnace.
‘At last the abbot turned up. He ordered the monks to knock the crown off the platform with a long stick, then he arranged a ritual exorcism to banish the evil spirits. As the invocation was recited, a heavy rain fell from the sky. The stupa became shrouded in thick smoke, but continued to get hotter and hotter. When the raindrops hit the surface of the stupa, they exploded with a terrifying burst.
‘Three days later, the smoke finally lifted, and I saw Kula, still stuck on top of the bronze pillar. She was dead now, but her musky fragrance still filled the air.
‘The monks and I packed our belongings and prepared to leave the monastery. The abbot said that it was an unsuitable location for a monastery, because it stood on the eye of the Sea Dragon King. He said that the monastery should have been built beside the river at the foot of the mountain. I tried many times to follow the monks down, but the moment I could no longer smell Kula’s fragrance in the air, I would fall to the ground.