Two Beijing Jeeps sped towards Tibet’s northern wilderness.
Feng’s mood rose and fell as sharply as the mountains around her. Normally when she went on holiday she chose a scenic spot and went exploring – or, to be more accurate, she went touring. She sat on a luxury bus, followed the tour guide’s little flag, made a charming pose once they reached the spot, and took a few commemorative photos in which the people looked more lovely than the spot itself. She was used to being in a city packed with cars and people, but here they met almost no one on the road. She’d expected there not to be many people, but she hadn’t expected there to be no trace of human life for kilometres on end. She found the vastness hard to process. The sky, the mountains, the grassland and the occasional temple that flashed by seemed like a scene from a fantasy movie; it was almost too beautiful to be real.
To get to Shenzha from Lhasa, they had to go through Shigatse’s Namling County. There was no public road to speak of: in the valley, everywhere was a road and nowhere was a road, so you simply had to trust your instincts and follow other people’s tyre tracks. Happily, none of Feng’s companions were in a hurry, so finding ‘the right road’ was not important. They were a troop of idle, curious children for whom the grassland was like something out of a dream.
On the first night they stayed in a small roadside rest-house in Jiacuo. They were so exhausted, they just ate some snacks and went straight to bed. The smell of yak butter on her blanket made Feng’s stomach roil and the sound of her companions’ snoring stopped her from falling sleep. She missed her mother’s cooking, she missed her bright office, and she missed the gleaming lights of the big shopping malls. She even felt fondly towards her boss, strict task-master though he was.
She didn’t know what time it was, but she couldn’t sleep. She crawled out carefully from under her blanket and in the moonlight put on her shoes and windcheater and went outside. The moon shone bright and pure, and several fires were burning out on the plain. The people around the fires were speaking softly in Mandarin. Feng walked over to where four men were standing around a fire chatting.
‘If I can pay off my debts by the end of the year, I’m going to go back home for a visit. I haven’t been home in two years. My son won’t even be able to recognise me.’
‘You’ve only been away two years – I haven’t been home for four. When I left, my daughter was only in year eight, and now she’s almost finished senior school.’
‘Maybe things will be a bit easier next year. Right now, going home is too hard – you have to spend more than ten days on the road.’
‘It would be great if they built a railway.’
‘How would you even start building a railway in a place like this?’
‘Hard to say. But maybe one day the higher-ups will make the decision.’
‘Ever since Old Deng went on his southern tour, the economy’s really picked up – everyone and his mother has gone into business and is making money for himself.’
‘Once I’ve finished this contract, I’d like to start my own trucking company. Driving for other people just doesn’t bring in enough, especially when you’ve got a wife and children back home to support.’
Feng walked over and sat down beside them, stretching her hands out to warm them at the fire. ‘Are you going to Shenzha? What’s in your trucks?’
‘We’re taking gold-mining equipment to Shenzha.’
‘Tibet has gold?’ Feng said in surprise. She only knew Tibet as a wilderness that stretched for thousands of kilometres, an impoverished land, a place populated by Tibetans in unusual clothing, and benevolent monks. Apart from that, she knew nothing about it.
‘There are lots of valuable resources here, it’s just hard to get at them. The altitude’s too high and there’s not enough oxygen. We’ve been here for years and we still pant when we’re walking.’
‘What’s the pay like, working here?’ Feng asked.
‘A bit better than elsewhere in China. If you drive fast, you can support a wife and kids, no problem,’ one of the men said, laughing. ‘Though a lot more people have come to do business here this year – Lhasa’s filling up fast.’
‘You’re all from elsewhere?’
‘Yes. I’m from Sichuan, those two are from Hunan, and he’s from Shandong,’ the small man next to Feng replied. ‘Where are you from?’
‘Shanghai. I’m on holiday.’
‘Oh, you city people! What can these empty mountains possibly have for you?’
‘What’s Shenzha like? Is the scenery along the road nice?’
‘The scenery’s nice enough, it’s just too short on oxygen, and there’s nothing to eat and nothing to buy.’
‘There’s a beautiful hot spring up ahead. It’s in a valley, less than twenty kilometres up the road from here,’ another man said.
Feng continued chatting with them and they told her all about what Tibet had been like when they first came and what it was like now. They were proud to have seen with their own eyes how the place was gradually changing.
‘You know, when I first came here, you couldn’t even find a public telephone in Lhasa. And the restaurants only served food three times a day, at meal times – you couldn’t get anything during the rest of the day.’
‘Yes, and they used to cook with a blow torch – it sounded like a war was going on.’
‘Showering was even worse. Whenever someone from back home came to Lhasa on business, if they stayed at the Friendship Hotel, we’d all go there to have a shower. Having a hot-water shower felt like being on holiday.’ The Shandong man sitting opposite her laughed. ‘It’s much better now – you can come here on holiday. Back then, people called us crazy even for coming to work here.’
‘Really?’ Feng smiled, her face glowing in the firelight. Her heart had never felt so light. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had such a relaxed and spontaneous chat with someone – her work was all-consuming, and even just going out to eat with her old schoolfriends always required a lot of forward planning.
‘Yes, really! It might be hard to imagine, but when we first started working in Tibet, not even the Potala Palace had locks on the door – no one stole anything. You could leave a bicycle anywhere and no one would take it. Life’s improved a bit, but there are thieves now too.’
‘One of the downsides of economic progress is that people get corrupted,’ Feng said. ‘Although when you compare Tibet with the rest of China, people here seem much more honest.’
The man next to her chuckled. ‘That’s true enough. I’ve never heard of a trucker being ripped off by his employer, for example – at worst, we just might get paid a bit late sometimes.’
It was rare for the truckers to meet a woman on the road, much less a beautiful city woman who spoke their language, so they were happy to share with Feng what they knew about Tibet. Feng herself was thrilled. In her diary, she wrote: I never knew that people could speak so openly with each other, share their ideas so honestly. Being away from the city and all its bustle makes it easier for me to be myself. If I’m upset, I can say so. When I’m tired, I can sit down and rest; no one’s watching to see how long I sit for, no one’s pushing me to work harder…
During their second day on the road, they stopped often – whenever they were passing through particularly beautiful scenery. Feng eagerly snapped photos: she’d already used up nearly half of the twenty rolls of film she’d brought with her.
‘No problem. I still have at least fifty rolls – I can lend you some,’ Haizi, one of her fellow travellers, said. Haizi was from Hangzhou. He was a reporter on a weekly photography magazine in the south and had been sent to Tibet on assignment.
Through his lens, Haizi focused on Feng sitting by the river. She was leaning over as she played with the water, and her long hair, braided into a single plait that reached her waist and was tied with a silk handkerchief, swung slightly as she moved. Her jade-white wrists rose and fell in the clear spring water. She had a gentle air about her that could stop people in their tracks.
He went over to her. ‘Do you like Tibet?’ he asked.
‘I like it, but it doesn’t suit me. And you?’
‘The same. I don’t mind coming here to take pictures, but it would be too hard to live here.’
‘Let’s go!’ Agang called. ‘We have to make it to Shenzha today.’ Agang was a warm-hearted person, as simple as a child. He’d been travelling around Tibet for many years, riding his bicycle everywhere. He was very familiar with the roads and made a good guide.
Feng stood up and automatically brushed herself off, even though there was no dirt on her. She was used to sitting on expensive leather chairs and assumed that sitting on rocks or sand would make her dusty. But if that were the case, would brushing herself off with her hands make her clean?
Shenzha’s county town was very small, so small that there was only one street. The car stopped at the side of the road while Agang and Haizi went with Feng to find Gongzha’s work unit. They were disappointed to learn that Gongzha had resigned and gone back to his old home. As they were exiting the courtyard on their way back to the car, a Tibetan women of undiscernible age ran out. Her Mandarin had a strong local accent. ‘Wait a minute, are you looking for my older brother?’
‘Gongzha is your older brother?’ Feng asked.
The woman nodded, blushing, and stared at her toes in embarrassment. ‘I just heard that you were looking for him?’
‘You’re Gongzha’s sister?’ Feng asked gently.
‘I’m called Lamu, and Gongzha is my older brother.’
‘I’m Zhuo Yihang’s classmate – he says that Gongzha’s his uncle?’
‘Yihang? I remember him. When I was little, he came to our grassland.’ Lamu looked at Feng and laughed happily. ‘Have you just arrived? Why don’t you come and stay at my house?’
Feng glanced at Agang. He was the leader and of course she needed to take the rest of the group into consideration.
‘There are lots of us. Is there room for all of us at your house?’
‘There’s room, there’s room! Our house is very big.’ Lamu was innocently eager; she just nodded energetically without asking how many people there were.
‘Why don’t we go and have a look? If there isn’t room, we’ll think of something else,’ Agang said.
‘Good! Good!’ Lamu nodded. Without further ado, she took Feng’s hand and led her into the courtyard.
Lamu’s house was right at the back of the courtyard. It was a two-storey Tibetan-style home and each room was large and light. An old lady sat quietly on the veranda sunning herself.
‘This is my mother; she’s not well,’ Lamu said. She walked over to her and said, ‘Ama, we have guests; they’re Yihang’s schoolfriends. Do you remember Yihang? He used to send you medicine. He’s Dr Zhuo’s son.’
The old woman turned slowly and looked at the three young people, a flicker of recognition passing across her face. ‘Ha ha, Dr Zhuo,’ she murmured.
Yes, this was Dawa, the onetime beauty of Cuoe Grassland, now a grey-haired old lady. Time had treated her in the same way it treated everyone; no matter how beautiful or ugly, how rich or poor, in the end everyone got white hair, a bent back, shaky legs and missing teeth…
Perhaps the words ‘Dr Zhuo’ stirred some memories in Dawa’s brain. She looked at Feng and suddenly said, ‘Cuomu, is Gongzha good to you?’
Feng cast Lamu an inquiring look. She didn’t understand Tibetan and didn’t know what the old lady was saying.
‘Ama, she’s not Cuomu, she’s a friend of Yihang’s. You’ve forgotten, Auntie Cuomu died a long time ago.’ Lamu didn’t explain to Feng immediately but settled Dawa first. She tipped two pills out of a bottle and handed them to her mother. ‘Take your medicine, Ama.’
Dawa swallowed her pills obediently, then turned away, stared out at the sun and fell back into her own world.
Lamu covered her with a blanket, and said, ‘Mother’s brain isn’t quite right, although she still remembers Yihang’s father. Let’s go, I’ll take you to see the rooms.’
So the tourist group moved into Lamu’s house. They made their own food, washed their clothes, and sang and danced when they were happy. Lamu buzzed around taking care of everyone, smiling happily and singing the herders’ songs that she’d learnt growing up. After Sister Cuomu died, her mother had fallen ill again, and her older brother had stopped smiling; though he’d continued to take care of the household, he remained very distant. Her three other brothers lived in the encampment. They had their own families to take care of and couldn’t come to the county town very often. So Lamu and her mother were usually the only ones there, watching the rising of the lonely sun and the solitary setting of the moon.
Agang and Haizi followed the lively Lamu everywhere with their cameras, but Feng preferred to stay still. When she wasn’t out and about, she sat with Dawa on the veranda. She didn’t speak, just helped the old woman with her blanket and gave her her medicine when she needed it.
Sometimes when the wind picked up or the sun set behind the mountains, Dawa would mumble to herself or cry out in distress. Feng couldn’t understand her but would look into her eyes and smile, gently patting the veiny backs of her hands. Then Dawa would quieten, and, staring into the distance, would slip back into her own world again.
Lamu said that Feng would make a good doctor because her mother was as well-behaved with her as she was when the doctor was around. Lamu and Feng shared a room and the two of them often talked late into the night. Lamu told her all about how beautiful the grassland was and about the mysteries of Mount Chanaluo; she talked about the pranks Zhuo Yihang had played when he was a child and about Dr Zhuo’s medical skills.
But mostly she talked about her brother and Cuomu. To Lamu, Gongzha was the best man in the world, and the love he had for Cuomu was the kind of love that every woman on the grassland dreamt of.
Wasn’t that every city girl’s dream too? Feng’s heart began to churn as she listened to Lamu. When she heard that Cuomu had been mauled to death by a bear and that Gongzha had carried her to the funeral platform himself, she wept. She was sad that such a beautiful romance had not ended happily. Through Lamu’s stories, the gun-toting wanderer crept into her heart.
*
When Agang heard that there was a lake like the Dead Sea in No Man’s Land, he came back and raved about it, loud with excitement one minute and quietly intense the next. ‘We must go and see it, it’s Tibet’s Dead Sea. If you throw someone in, they’ll float – they can’t drown.’
Hearing that, everyone else became enthusiastic too, and they began to get their luggage together, preparing to leave Shenzha the next morning. They were all excited about going to No Man’s Land in search of the ‘Dead Sea’.
As they were leaving, Dawa suddenly came down from the veranda, grasped Feng’s hand and mumbled something.
‘Mother says you must come back and bring Brother with you,’ Lamu said. ‘She’s confusing you with Auntie Cuomu again. Will you come back, Auntie Feng?’
‘Take good care of your mother, Lamu. I will definitely come back and see you all.’ Feng took Dawa’s thin, frail body into her arms and patted the old woman’s back comfortingly.
When the car set off, Dawa chased after it, calling, ‘Ah, ah.’ With her grey, dishevelled hair and tottering gait, she seemed so weak and helpless. Feng felt quite upset. In their week together, she’d developed a fondness for the sometimes silent, sometimes crazy old lady.
The weather out in the wilderness was changeable. One minute it was so clear, you could see for thousands of kilometres, the next a great wind would blow, and hail would come pattering down, carpeting the ground in no time at all.
Then the fog came down, obscuring both the nearby lake and the distant mountains. They could see neither the road ahead nor the road behind them. The two cars, originally quite close together, became separated. The atmosphere in Feng’s car grew tense; even Agang, who was normally very lively, stopped chatting.
Feng began to get nervous. Even though she was in her mid twenties, this was the first time she’d encountered such extreme conditions. The wild wind brought icy bullets that clattered against the car windows. The windows were not very robust and seemed as if they might break at any time. A cold gust of wind penetrated a tiny crack somewhere and chilled them to their bones. Was it safe in the car? In the face of nature at its craziest, their little metal box seemed like a small skiff out on the ocean.
Feng was afraid. In her heart, she called out to the bodhisattva, to God, Laozi and Allah, praying in her confusion. She even promised herself that if she got out of this alive, she would never come back to Tibet.
Then, what they’d hoped would not happen, happened. The car shuddered a few times and ground to a halt. The driver got out and looked at the engine. He shook his head and sighed, then asked everyone to get out of the car and help push. After two torturous hours, the car still showed no signs of starting.
They had no idea where the other car had gone.
To lose your way in northern Tibet was a terrifying thing. You could travel a whole day and on the second day discover that you were back where you’d started. Which wasn’t so bad, actually – at least you knew where you were. Far more terrifying was going out at night and discovering, when the sun came up, that you recognised nothing around you and that everything looked the same, in all directions.
Everyone looked at Agang, hoping he could come up with something. He was the only one with experience of living out in the wilds, after all. Agang talked to the driver and confirmed that the car could not be fixed. They were in the hinterlands of No Man’s Land and could not rely on someone coming along and helping them. ‘We can’t just stay here and wait to die. We’ll have to get out of this ourselves,’ Agang said.
Leading the way, Agang shouldered both his bag and the bag of a girl called Han and set off into the wind and the snow, leaving the car behind. The other four, including the driver, followed him.
They had no idea how long they’d been walking for or even in which direction. The needle on Agang’s wrist compass wavered constantly, swinging back and forth so much, it upset them to look at it. ‘There may be a mine near here that’s making it deflect,’ Agang said, giving them a look that was far from confident.
They had a discussion and decided to carry on along the mountain valley. But heaven and earth seemed to have fused into a single murky gloom behind the fog, rain or snow (it was hard to say which), and it was impossible to tell what was sky, what was land or where the mountains were; everything looked the same, in every direction.
The bitter wind continued to howl and the hail continued to fall. Feng drew the hood of her windcheater tightly around her head and gripped its cords. Her backpack got heavier and heavier and she felt as if her legs were filled with lead. Each step forward required an enormous effort.
Han began to cry, her tears sounding even more desperate in the wind and snow.
The day grew darker and it got harder to see the person in front or behind. Agang occasionally called the others’ names and told jokes to encourage everyone. When at one point he called Feng’s name loudly but no one responded, he got frightened and yelled even louder, ‘Feng, Feng, where are you? Feng, answer me! Feng…’
Haizi also began to call loudly, then Han joined in tearfully, then so did everyone else…
But only the wind screamed back.
*
The weather in northern Tibet was like a child’s face: if it decided to be clear, it cleared instantaneously. It took just a second for a blizzard to vanish and turn into a beautiful day, and the speed of the transformation was truly astonishing to anyone not used to it.
When the storm had passed, everything returned to normal beneath blue sky and white clouds. The mountains were still intact and the grass was still soft – so soft, it was like walking on a woollen blanket. Just a few hailstones remained, even though moments before they had filled the sky and tumbled in every direction. The air had become extraordinarily clear and cool and there was the merest hint of a breeze. Lakes near and far sparkled a deep blue, merging so perfectly with the deep blue sky, it was impossible to tell where the one ended and the other began. Up there on the unpopulated plateau, heaven and hell were just one tiny step apart.
A valley ran from east to west, its green grass like a mattress and its flowers like a colourful blanket spread on top. Occasionally a large flock of sparrows flew up twittering from among the flowers, then settled again.
Feng had already walked for two days in this beautiful place. She didn’t know how far she still had to go, nor did she know how much longer she could last. She continued mechanically, following the course of the valley, desperately hoping to meet someone – even a sheep would do. Alone in the middle of the desolate wilderness, carrying her bag and with very little left of the chocolate and sweets that had been sustaining her so far, she had now used up every last drop of enthusiasm. Was she going to die out here? She lifted her head and stared at the scorching sun above the mountain peak. Its rays had already dried her lips so severely they’d cracked, and her face had started to peel. Her legs felt as heavy as cement beams.
She sat forlornly by a dark blue pool. She needed to drink and she needed to regain her energy. But to what purpose? She might as well be on different planet. Which way should she go? Every direction looked the same to her. She began to curse Zhuo Yihang. If it hadn’t been for him, she could have been sitting in a fancy café right now, holding a cup of warm coffee, reading or daydreaming.
Feng pulled out the chocolate and stuffed a piece into her mouth. She didn’t dare eat too much; she had fewer than five pieces left, and other than that there was only a bag of candied fruit and two packets of biscuits. How long could she survive on that? As she felt the chocolate in her mouth slowly melt and disappear, tears flooded down her face.
Helpless. That was the only word Feng could think of to describe her situation. Who could ever understand how she felt unless they’d been in the same situation, with no one around for fifty or perhaps even five hundred kilometres. It was terrifying, and no amount of mesmerising scenery could change that.
When she’d cried herself out, Feng stood up. The sun was burning her face, but all around her there was not a tree she could go to for shade, not even a moderately tall blade of grass. In that environment, almost every plant had to cling to the ground to give it a chance of survival.
As she stood beside the rippling lake, she screamed, suddenly and repeatedly. Her helpless, despairing cries spread across the wilderness, then disappeared into the nothingness.
The wind picked up, and the surface of the lake began to get choppy. That meant it must be the afternoon. After two days of walking, Feng had gained some experience. The mornings were always gentle and beautiful, but as soon as the sun passed the mountaintops, the wind would pick up and it would either snow or hail.
She lifted her water and drank a few mouthfuls. Luckily, there were lakes all over the grassland and there was no shortage of water. If there’d been no water either, in that barren place of no people and no food, she might not have even survived a day.
She might as well keep walking. If she didn’t walk, what else would she do? She couldn’t just sit there waiting to die. She picked up her bag and headed towards the colourful meadow, each step a trial.
In that extraordinarily beautiful, vast and lonely place, her solitary figure looked so piteous and helpless.
When the wind and snow came again, the sky darkened.
*
The tiny yellow tent on the west-facing slope made a poignant sight.
Feng lay inside it, gazing absently at the roof. She could sense her life slowly slipping away. Little by little, her body was getting lighter and her vision was becoming blurred. The strange thing was, she wasn’t in any pain.
She thought about her mother and how she always looked so tired and stressed. Whenever Feng went home, her mother spent most of the time talking about how house prices had gone up again and how she wanted to upgrade from their sixty square metres to somewhere double the size. She would talk about how she wanted to put aside some money to help her son, who was about to graduate and start working. Or she would ask when Feng and Yang Fan were going to get married, and if they couldn’t help the family a little afterwards. Feng’s mother was very discontented with the way her life had panned out, blaming everything on the fact that she’d brought up two children by herself with no help from her good-for-nothing husband. But things wouldn’t be like that for Feng. And if she died here, in this place as close to the heavens as it was possible to be, however much her mother complained, she couldn’t come and get her.
Feng thought about Yang Fan too. Their love was like a marathon: the wedding date was often discussed and often postponed, because whenever he was close to coming home, he always had more pressing commitments, always said, ‘We have plenty of time, let’s wait a bit longer, give ourselves the chance to build a good foundation for our life ahead.’ Then they’d wait a year before they brought up the subject again, and so it went on. The cycle of uncertainty had made Feng’s heart numb. She started to see their wedding date as an entrancing mirage: beautiful but unreal.
She thought about Zhuo Yihang, her best friend, a man who was like a brother to her. He’d often spoken to her of Tibet, of the Potala Palace in Lhasa, of the Guge Kingdom in Ngari. He said that Tibet was heaven, the last pure place on earth. Now she was lying on the pure ground he’d described, waiting for the last moment of her life.
It was alright; it would be alright to go like this. When she thought about going, Feng was surprised to find herself smiling. She would never again have to work day and night writing interminable reports, never have to worry about whether her dress would clash with her co-worker’s shirt, never have to see her mother’s hurt expression, never have to remind herself to say, ‘I love you.’
With the end now in sight, Feng had never felt so relaxed.
Was the snow outside very thick? Looking at the odd shape of her tent, Feng thought it must be. Had the wolves come too? As a lonesome howl sounded in her ear, she was surprised she wasn’t afraid. In idle moments in the past, when she’d wondered how she might meet her end – through illness, or in a car accident, a plane crash or a boating disaster – she’d never imagined she might die on the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau in the jaws of a wolf.
The howls began to sound one after the other. Even before dawn broke, the strange cries of the vultures started up too. Wolves, vultures – they were the most sensitive creatures on the grassland; they could always tell when something was about to die, ready to snatch their food at the first opportunity.
The sun had not yet risen and a half moon still hung over the mountain. As its clear rays hit the snowy, silvery ground, it gave off a pale, cold light. On this ominous morning, how long could the lonely tent last?