ONE
“Touch your head and feel nothing but hair; touch your feet and feel nothing but nails.” Once again, this saying aptly described the situation Dukkar Tsering found himself in: he didn’t have a thing to his name. He was staggering back home from the county seat as though weighed down by a thousand-pound burden. And in fact, the tens of thousands of yuan he’d borrowed from the bank wasn’t just a thousand-pound burden to a poor nomad family like his, it was something that was of no benefit to him personally and did nothing to appease his creditors, either. Thinking of all this now, the young man who’d just turned thirty, his limbs all muscle, felt tears of remorse welling unstoppably at the corners of his eyes.
The tips of all sorts of plants were escaping from their prisons of ice and poking up through the soil, birds of all kinds were soaring in the sky singing their melodious tunes, and the air was pervaded by the earthy fragrance of soil. The glory of spring had arrived in the world of man. From some unknown source there came the love song of a young woman:
From the flocks that side of the Machu
I hear the cuckoo’s beautiful song,
and my heart is so happy.
From the tents this side of the Machu
I hear my sweetheart’s beautiful voice,
and my heart is so happy.
None of this, however, had any effect on Dukkar Tsering, who continued to press arduously onward, step after heavy step. All he could see was the symbols on mahjong tiles, and all he could hear was the clacking sound of the tiles being shuffled. What a horrible, despicable feeling! He bit his lip, tears once more welling at the corners of his eyes. His vision now blurred, he came to a halt and sat down on the ground.
I’m not a man. I can’t go home now. How can I show my face to my family … ah ho … what have I done … Dukkar Tsering beat his chest as he admonished himself. He felt a sudden craving for a cigarette and stuck his hand in his pocket, but he couldn’t even find a match, let alone a cigarette. Feeling even lower now, he hung his head and said to himself, Tens of thousands of yuan, gone again just like that? Impossible. I’m not a man, I’m a dog. Worse than a dog.
“Ah, kind sirs, I have asked you to come here today because my good-for-nothing bum of a son has been gambling again, and he’s lost tens of thousands. We’re all out of grain, and my daughter-in-law took the two kids and left. So … so I ask you all to please take pity on us—again.” Dukkar Tsering’s father opened the meeting with these preliminary remarks, although, bluntly put, they would be more accurately described as begging.
“But this time Dukkar Tsering needs to swear in front of all of us that he won’t gamble again. ‘A man won’t swallow his oath, and a dog won’t swallow metal.’ ”
“That’s right. It wasn’t just once or twice. If he keeps gambling like this he won’t just ruin your family, he’ll ruin our whole camp. He has to swear in front of all of us, right here and now, that he won’t gamble anymore. If he does that, then we’ll do whatever we can to help him again.”
“That’s right, that’s right …” The other members of the community voiced their complete agreement with the opinions of the two speakers.
Dukkar Tsering, who had been hanging his head since the start of the meeting, was left with no choice. “If I gamble again, then I’m not a man, I’m a dog,” he vowed, feebly.
The community persuaded Dukkar Tsering’s wife to come back home and bailed him out with donations: some gave a yak, some gave a dri, some gave a ram, and some gave a ewe. In the morning he herded them to the county seat, where he sold them for over thirty thousand yuan.
His original plan was to go straight to the bank and pay down at least half his debt, then go to the market and buy some grain, which he would transport back home with a rented tractor. Yet, as soon as the money was in his hands, he was pulled by a strange and irresistible force that wouldn’t allow him to go to the bank or to the grain market, a force that pulled him—without even giving him the chance to remember the business about the “man” and the “dog”—straight to a club run by a local police chief, where signs in Tibetan and Chinese on all four walls read “Gambling Prohibited.”
TWO
At dusk, a man riding a black horse caught up to Dukkar Tsering. It was Orgyen, an old man from their camp. Orgyen was over sixty years old, thin and dark skinned, and he wore a ragged fur-lined coat. He wasn’t a man anyone wanted to pay much attention to. “Is that Dukbhé? You look terrible. Have you been gambling again?”
This was the last thing Dukkar Tsering wanted to hear at that moment, and it made him feel both nervous and irritated. “No,” he snapped, offering the old man no other greeting. His attitude, however, already provided clear proof that Dukkar Tsering not only had been gambling but also had lost. Orgyen launched into an interminable lecture about the fate of opium smokers and gambling addicts in both the old and new societies, about how Dukkar Tsering used to be such a good boy and used to be so considerate to others before he fell under the spell of gambling, but now people wouldn’t class him in the rank of dogs, let alone the ranks of men, and so on and on.
Dukkar Tsering grew even more irritated. He halted, at the end of his tether now, and as he blankly looked Orgyen up and down he noticed the edges of a few bread cakes sticking out of the man’s pocket. His face turned pale and his body trembled. He realized that he hadn’t had a thing to eat since yesterday morning and was struck by a sudden and intense pang of hunger. Worse than that, he remembered how before he left for the county seat yesterday his eighty-year-old grandma had extracted a five-yuan note from beneath layers and layers of packaging, placed it in his hands, and instructed him to bring back a few bread cakes. When his older sister, who’d married into another community, had heard that he’d fallen into debt again, she’d come to help out, bearing some butter and cheese and leading two yaks. She had wailed bitterly the whole time, pleading repeatedly with him not to gamble anymore, and just before she left, she’d given that five-yuan note to his grandma.
Ah ho, what am I going to give to Grandma now? I’m not a man, I’m a dog. Worse than a dog …
Old man Orgyen was still advising and admonishing, but not a word of it was registering with Dukkar Tsering, whose eyes were still fixed like arrows on the bread cakes in Orgyen’s pocket. He thought, All I’d have to do is stick out my hand, pull the old man off the horse, press him to the ground, and wring his neck, just like that, and in the time it takes to drink a cup of tea those bread cakes would be mine! And if I were lucky he might have a good bit of money on him too. Yes, on the surface all he’s got is that ragged old fur coat, but don’t these types always skimp on their food and save on their drink, then end up hoarding loads of cash? Plus it’s the caterpillar fungus season now, and isn’t there a ton of it on his family’s land? Maybe he went to the county seat today to sell his caterpillar fungus. His train of thought having reached this juncture, he looked around and saw absolutely no one, not so much as a bird, on top of which it would be dark soon. All of a sudden his heart began to pound, he felt hot all over, and his whole body became moist with sweat.
And still Orgyen continued with his heartfelt words of advice and admonishment for Dukkar Tsering. From the look of it, he loved and cared for him as he would his own son. And, in fact, wasn’t it the old man and other kindhearted neighbors like him who had gotten Dukkar Tsering out from under his debt several times over, selflessly handing over the money earned with their own sweat and toil?
Ah kha, how could I be so ungrateful to those who’ve helped me? If I did it, I might get away with it in this life, but certainly not in the next, thought Dukkar Tsering, calming down, but again his previous thoughts came back to him. But how can I go back home empty handed like this? How can I show my face to my family? What am I going to give to Grandma? Once more he looked around and saw that it was almost dark, and the horizon was fading from view. His heart began to pound again and he felt hot all over. His throat became dry and he found it hard to swallow …
THREE
At that moment a rabbit bounded out in front of them and tore off into the distance, startling Orgyen’s horse, which reared to the side with a snort. The old man, taken by surprise, was tossed from the horse’s back like a bird struck by an arrow. Just getting thrown from a horse isn’t all that serious, but unfortunately the old man’s right foot was caught in the stirrup and he was pulled to the underside of the animal, which startled it even more, and it flailed, reared, and spun around uncontrollably. The old man was tossed between the horse’s legs like an empty bag, and as the “bread cakes” in his pocket were thrown in all directions, it became apparent that they were actually wooden nose rings used for cattle. Seen from the edge, their shape and color made them look exactly like bread cakes.
As though he’d suddenly awakened from a terrible nightmare, Dukkar Tsering leaped forward and grabbed the reins, at which point the horse, snorting and quivering, fell still. The old man was groaning as he dangled by the horse’s belly, head to the ground and feet to the sky.
Dukkar Tsering held the horse’s muzzle fast with his left hand, and with his right removed the old man’s foot from the stirrup. Orgyen sat, cradling his head.
Some blood was dripping from Orgyen’s nose and mouth, but apart from that he didn’t seem to be badly hurt. “Good boy, if it weren’t for you I’d be roaming the bardo right now,” he said after a moment of rest, enunciating every syllable.
“Let’s get back to the county seat and take you to a doctor.”
“No, I think I’m fine. Here, give me a hand, let’s see if I can stand.”
Orgyen managed to stand without any difficulty, and as he paced back and forth by himself, he said, “My boy, it’s about time for an old man like me to pass on, but as you know, my parents are still alive. There’s nothing more terrible than losing your son when you’re eighty years old, so I can’t go yet. For that reason I will never forget your kindness.”
As he gathered up the nose rings that had been tossed all over the place, Dukkar Tsering felt ashamed and terrified of the foolish, fearful notions he’d just had in his head. “That rabbit saved your life. That rabbit saved my life too. That rabbit was a bodhisattva, and no mistake,” he blurted.
“What? That harelip rabbit almost killed me!”
“…”
“Tomorrow I’m going to tell everyone in the camp about how you saved my life, and I’ll get them all to help you out again. But you should really give up gambling for real this time.”
“If I gamble again, then I’m truly not a man, I’m a dog. Swear on the Three Jewels,” Dukkar Tsering vowed both willingly and resolutely.
“Excellent. ‘A good man keeps his word and a jackal follows its tracks.’ ”
“Just you wait and see. I won’t need any help this time. I’ll pay off my debt through my own hard work.”
“That’s good. But regardless, I still need to repay you somehow.”
Just then, a conchlike full moon appeared in the sky and illuminated the vast landscape as though it were the middle of the day.
Dukkar Tsering helped old Orgyen onto his horse and led it away. The thousand-pound burden that had been weighing him down seemed to disappear without a trace and, filled with happiness, he couldn’t help but sing:
Over the mountain peak in the east
the clear white moon rises,
and the face of my beloved
appears in my heart again.