As Feng watched the grassland flashing by, getting wilder and increasingly remote the deeper in they drove, she grew more and more unsettled. But this was No Man’s Land after all, not some Shanghai backstreet. She’d set out so hastily – what if she didn’t find him? What if when she did find him, he didn’t want her?
She sighed inwardly. Given that she had made the decision to go looking for him, what was the point of overthinking it now? As for whether or not he would want her, she’d worry about that when she found him.
Gongzha: placid by nature but also capable of intense feelings. She had never missed someone so much, had never missed a place so much. Everything about the Tibetan wilderness was beautiful, and he was somewhere in this heavenly place, somewhere in this boundless vastness.
Rongma was right on the edge of No Man’s Land and the last place to get supplies. Feng took the advice of her driver Junsang and agreed to stay there a couple of days to rest and stock up on food. Two days was not a long time, but to Feng, who was longing to spread her wings, it seemed like two years.
She remembered Rongma very clearly. She had said goodbye to Gongzha on the mountain pass above the town. At the time, she’d thought she would never come back, would never see him again. Standing in the town now, she felt an incomparable sense of familiarity. Even the afternoon dust and the filthy street dogs seemed almost familial; it was as if she’d never left. She walked confidently as she meandered down the empty street. A little lamb trotted by and Feng knelt down to let it lick her palm. The warm feeling on her hand felt just like Gongzha’s gaze. When she was ill, being in Gongzha’s care had felt like that. Where under this blue sky was he? Which white cloud was hiding him, which mountains were sheltering him?
As if in a dream, she made her way to the hot springs, marvelling at the lovely red-rock valley unfolding in front of her. Beneath the blue sky and white clouds, the glistening travertine had formed all kinds of shapes, and the clear, steaming pool shone like a beautiful piece of jade. Red, white and blue pools were scattered across the slope. A stream wound its way through the pale yellow travertine, babbling cheerfully over red and green pebbles polished smooth and shiny by its flow. She picked one up and held it in her hand. It was cold, and as she rubbed it she felt a deep sense of calm. The grass on either side of the stream was a lush, dark green, and further up the slope some lost sheep were gazing down at her.
Feng stood on a ledge and saw that there were three levels, each with its own particular beauty. She was on the highest tier, where steam swirled across the surface of a hot-water lake and a small spring gurgled alongside. Some of the nearby springs had water, others were dry patches of ground that quivered and pulsed. To one side stood a stone incense burner that looked like it hadn’t been used in a long time, and above the steaming lake a string of five-coloured prayer flags fluttered gently in the wind. These were the only manmade things in sight and they lent a Buddhist air to the land and the water.
On the second tier was a small pool fringed by slabs of black stone. Hot water streamed down the slope from the plain above and in places a yellow flower protruded above the flow, waving towards the sun. The springs on the lowest tier were fed by a stream, its silver waters like a little parasol. The entire place was like a dreamscape. Feng stood there captivated by the sight of such striking beauty in the wilderness, quite forgetting where she was.
Just then a Tibetan woman emerged from the valley opposite. Tall and slender, with tanned cheeks and heavy eyebrows, she was dressed in a black robe and wore her long hair braided into countless tiny plaits; her large eyes shone like the light of the sun.
When she saw Feng, she stopped in surprise, then smiled, revealing two rows of white teeth. She continued to the edge of a small pool, took off her robe, walked into the water and began splashing herself. Seeing Feng staring stupidly at her, she laughed and said in Sichuanese-accented Mandarin, ‘Aren’t you going to bathe?’
Feng watched as the woman carried on splashing herself and giggling as the water caressed her butter-coloured skin. In a flash, Feng’s body began to itch, as if tens of thousands of tiny insects were crawling all over her. All those days on the road had made her weary, and her long hair had sand in it and stuck to her back like a board.
She walked over, took off her clothes and entered the pool. As her body sank into the warm, clear water, she felt relaxed in a way she’d never experienced before.
The woman laughed. ‘Your skin is so white, it’s like milk.’
‘Yours is also very nice, like butter.’ Feng looked at her smiling face and added, ‘I’ll help you undo your plaits.’
‘Alright!’ the young woman replied and came over, turning her back towards Feng.
Feng lifted up a handful of her small plaits and began to slowly undo them. She laid the pieces of red coral and turquoise that were threaded through the plaits at the edge of the pool. ‘Your hair’s so long! Black and slippery like silk.’
‘It’s never been cut,’ the woman said. ‘Your hair is also beautiful, so curly. Where are you from?’
‘Shanghai. Have you heard of it?’
‘Yes. It’s very big, isn’t it?’
‘It is. Lots of cars and people.’
‘Are you here on holiday?’ The woman dunked her hair in the water and began to scrub it; it drifted lightly in the ripples.
‘I…’ Feng leant back against the edge of the pool and stretched out her legs. Underwater, her skin looked as smooth and white as jade. She folded her arms behind her head and gazed up at the slowly moving clouds; as she did so, that bearded face floated out from among them. She laughed, blushing a little, and said lightly, ‘I’ve come to find my spouse.’
‘What’s a spouse?’ the young woman asked, turning to Feng with a smile.
‘A spouse is what you would call a man.’
‘Oh, you’ve come to find your man!’ She smiled again. ‘Your man is very lucky to have married a woman as beautiful as you!’
‘Am I beautiful? No, you’re beautiful. As beautiful as this plateau.’ Feng smiled, sat up and helped the young woman rub her back. ‘Do you have a man?’
‘Yes. But he’s not here now, he’s always off with his gun somewhere. I’m getting ready to go and look for him.’ The woman blushed, her fingers unconsciously running over her full breasts. Where was he? When would that man stop wandering the wilderness with his old gun and his old horse and come to permanent rest in her tent?
Feng looked at the woman, so lost in her imagination; her entire face was a picture of blissful rapture. This was a woman sunk deep in the river of love – only a woman with love and longing in her heart would wear an expression like that.
‘You must have felt blessed when you were together,’ Feng said, as she and the woman rested against the side of the pool.
‘Yes. I like being with him. He’s a real man, not afraid of anything. That’s the sort of man I like, the sort that makes a woman feel safe. What about your man? Is he good to you?’
‘He is. The last time I was here, I’d got so lost, I almost died, and it was him who saved me and led me out of No Man’s Land. Those days that we were together were the happiest of my life. He taught me how to tell the direction and how to identify the tracks of different animals. We even rescued two little antelopes, called Baobao and Beibei, though unfortunately I couldn’t take them back to Shanghai. They must be grown up now – I wonder if they’ll recognise me?’
‘If you’ve come this far to find him, surely he’ll be moved?’
‘I don’t know. Although…’ Feng pictured the shocked expression on Gongzha’s face when he finally got to see her and she couldn’t help smiling.
‘Men…! If you kept them locked up at home all day, they’d feel stifled. But no matter how far they run, women like us will always catch them in the end.’
‘When I find him, I’m not going to let him go off wandering by himself again. I want to be with him – where he goes, I’ll go too,’ Feng said. As she imagined never being apart from him again, she laughed happily.
‘Yes, I’m the same. I don’t want to leave my man either. Just wait till I catch him – I won’t let him leave. Ha ha ha…’
Feng laughed too and the two women chatted on until the sun began to sink in the west. They were interrupted by the shrill sound of a whistle from a distant mountaintop; looking up, they saw several faint male figures near the summit. Feng automatically clasped her clothes to her chest. The other woman stood up unconcernedly, beads of water hanging from her buttery skin. She stuck her fingers in her mouth and issued a piercing whistle in reply. Then she picked up her black robe, put it on and fastened her belt. She looked at Feng and said sincerely, ‘Hey, I’m going. Do you want me to help you find your man?’
‘Thank you, but no. I believe the Buddha will help me find him.’
‘Alright then, I’m off.’ She bent down and quickly ripped away the clothes Feng had been holding in front of her chest. Feng shrieked and slipped back beneath the water.
‘If you ever need any help in No Man’s Land, you can come and look for me; my name is Sega.’ She laughed loudly, threw Feng’s clothes down beside the pool and ran off towards the valley she’d come from.
Feng laughed too. As she watched Sega get further and further away, her long, damp hair flying out behind her, Feng suddenly came to her senses and called out, ‘Hey, Sega, have you seen a man looking for a bear in No Man’s Land? He’s called Gongzha!’
But all she could hear by way of response was the vanishing sound of drumming hooves.
When Feng was satisfied that the men on the mountain peak had also disappeared, she climbed out of the water, put on her clothes and left the valley.
*
That night Feng stayed at the government guesthouse, in a mud-walled room of around twenty square metres containing a scattering of iron and wooden bedsteads. A floral drape hung from the ceiling, but it had clearly not been changed for many years and looked like it would rain dust at any minute. It wasn’t such a bad set-up, though; certainly preferable to sleeping outdoors, as she had on other nights, in sheep pens or by tumbledown walls. Compared with that, being out of the wind in a place with four walls and a roof was a luxury.
Junsang slept in the car as usual. He said he needed to watch over it because of all the supplies they were carrying.
Very early the next morning, someone in a herder’s outfit turned up and said that his brother had seen Gongzha in some valley, although he couldn’t say exactly where. Junsang told Feng to wait in the town while he went and found out more. Feng wanted to go with him, but, mindful that someone needed to keep an eye on the car, she stayed put. She reminded herself that she was now in Tibet and that Gongzha was only just ahead of her, in some unknown place; she would see him soon – the Buddha did not play tricks on those with a sincere heart.
There was a well in the courtyard and local residents came by frequently to draw water. Feng leant over the side of the well and stared at her reflection, reimagining it with the bearded man reflected alongside her. She had no control over her emotions: her longing was like a spider’s web and she was the insect trapped inside it, unable to free herself however hard she struggled.
A silver-haired old woman arrived carrying a deep wooden bucket on her back. When she saw Feng, she smiled compassionately. Feng smiled in return and turned to help her. She lifted the bucket off the woman’s back, tied it to the well rope and helped her fill the bucket. Then she copied the old woman and placed the bucket strap around her own forehead to bear the weight on her back more efficiently. The old woman watched Feng but made no objection, only helped Feng push her long hair out of the way. Then she took Feng’s hand and they walked out of the courtyard together.
When they arrived at her home, the old woman called her granddaughter and said something in Tibetan, pointing to the mountain behind the house.
‘Granny says the bearded man you’re looking for was here several days ago,’ the little girl said in halting Mandarin. ‘He carved a picture up there.’
‘He carved a picture?’ Feng couldn’t quite imagine that. Gongzha’s large hands were adept at handling a gun, but could they draw as well? The idea was highly entertaining.
‘Yes.’ The little girl nodded earnestly. She pulled Feng outside, pointed at the nearby mountain slope, and said, ‘Up there. There are lots of pictures on those rocks.’
‘Can you take me there?’ Feng asked, giving the girl a pleading look. Just the words ‘the bearded man you’re looking for was here several days ago’ had been enough to make her heart leap.
‘Granny says she’ll watch the car for you,’ the little girl said, and pulled Feng outside.
The crushed stones that littered the ground gleamed darkly in the sunlight. Feng looked at her outdoor sports watch; it was three in the afternoon. In northern Tibet, this was when the sun was at its strongest. She pulled up the hood of her windcheater and fastened it tight around her forehead. She didn’t want Gongzha to not recognise her, and a woman had to look good for the one she loved. But when she thought about that some more, she realised it didn’t matter. During their days together, she’d been so ill, she’d almost died; her face had peeled and her lips had been chapped. He’d already seen her at her worst, and surely she looked a lot better than that now?
The mountainside she’d thought looked so near actually took two hours to climb. ‘It seemed so close, but it’s three kilometres away.’ Feng’s watch tracked distance; she could hardly believe it.
‘Many things here look near but take a long time to reach,’ the little girl said.
‘That’s true enough.’ Feng nodded, gazing up at the snow peaks and mountain ranges in the distance. The air in northern Tibet was crystal clear, which made it seem like you were looking through binoculars the whole time because you could see things in such detail. ‘Where are the pictures?’
‘On these rocks!’ The little girl pointed at the boulders scattered across the slope.
‘On the rocks?’ Feng dipped her head and began to search.
The mountainside was covered in broken rocks, large, small, thin and thick, their surfaces burnt black by the sun. There were quite a few ancient rock engravings on the larger ones. Rock engravings? When Feng realised what she was looking at, she got very excited. The pictures were simple outlines etched with stones and all of them depicted scenes from the lives of ancient peoples: herding, making tea, hunting, and singing and dancing.
Feng picked up a stone and tried scratching a rock herself. The rock was very hard; it wasn’t easy to leave a mark. She could tell it had been very difficult to make these pictures. No wonder they were still visible, despite having endured thousands of years of wind and rain.
‘Where are his pictures?’ Feng was stooping down to examine each one.
‘Here.’ The little girl squatted in front of another rock.
Feng flung down the stone in her hand and hurried over. Sure enough, there was an image on the rock. It had obviously been engraved with a knife. In the middle were two Tibetan antelopes, with two people alongside them. Below were engraved four characters: Bao bao, Bei bei.
‘Baobao, Beibei…’ Feng murmured, kneeling down. Those were the antelopes they’d rescued; they had to be quite big by now. Were they still with him? Gongzha, Gongzha, where are you? Do you know I’m here? Do you know I’ve come thousands of kilometres to find you?
Her tears flowed. When they hit the rock, they dried in an instant.
She pulled out her Swiss army knife and used all her strength to carve her words:
I still remember my first glimpse of you,
Your face weathered by wind and frost.
The grass was young, the flowers bloomed,
The clouds were light, the wind was soft.
I want to take your hand and never part,
I long to see my love set deep in your heart.
My heart is steadfast,
The sky is my witness, and so is the earth,
My love endures
Though days and months may pass.
‘Is he the one you’re looking for, Sister?’ the little girl asked as she watched Feng finish.
Feng nodded, wiped away her tears, and raised her head with a satisfied smile. Gongzha the tough mountain man had a soft side. He hadn’t forgotten her – why else would he have engraved that picture?
She had never felt so happy. She stood up and impetuously hugged the little girl. ‘It’s him, it’s him. Gongzha. He’s the only who knows Baobao and Beibei.’
‘Is Gongzha your man, Sister?’
‘Yes, he’s my man,’ Feng said firmly and with absolute certainty, as if she were telling the whole world.
When the girl saw Feng’s smile, she smiled too. ‘There are lots more paintings over there, Sister, do you want to have a look? Granny says they were all drawn by the Buddha and are very interesting.’
Feng nodded and picked her way through the rocks, holding the little girl’s hand.
That part of the slope was covered in broken black rocks. There were ancient rock engravings on almost all of the bigger ones. The rough outlines had obviously been made by something with a small circular point; some were deep, some were faint. The clumsy execution had a kind of ancient beauty.
Feng looked at one and took a photo. If she got the chance, she’d try and get an archaeologist to come out and have a look. Sparsely inhabited though the area was, it certainly wasn’t lacking in evidence of human activity.
On one of the rocks, she saw a troop of horsemen fighting. In the next picture a group of women were walking, and she could tell from the slant of their bodies it was an arduous journey. Yaks, asses and horses were all carrying bundles. In the third she saw a herding scene; there were many Buddhas above it.
‘Are they moving pasture?’ Feng asked.
‘No, Granny said this shows the Nacangdeba and the Jialong of Cuoe Grassland fighting. When the Nacangdeba knew they couldn’t win, they sent the women and children to hide in No Man’s Land.’
Cuoe Grassland? Gongzha’s home territory? The thought flashed through Feng’s mind, but she turned her attention to the pictures. Gongzha had mentioned that battle, as well as that mysterious cave. The Nacangdeba had had no choice but to leave, and the women and children were the grassland’s last hope. She thought of the Buddha the Swiss man had left behind, which Gongzha had said belonged to Cuoe Temple. She’d reported it in Lhasa and had later heard that the police had found the Buddhas and returned them to the temple.
As Feng looked at the rather large Buddha in the middle of the engraving, it suddenly seemed familiar. It reminded her of the blue-black Buddha Gongzha carried with him, that Medicine Buddha of unknown material. There was another circle below the image, with some intricate lines in the middle. In the centre lay two people with their torsos raised, as if they were swimming. On either side of them were two yaks and two sheep. Yaks and sheep swimming with people? Feng was taken aback. Those ancients really did have vivid imaginations.
They descended the mountain to find Junsang waiting for them. He had a herder with him called Cirensangzhu, or Sangzhu for short. Sangzhu had seen Gongzha a week ago when he was in No Man’s Land searching for a yak.
‘Where was he?’
‘He was in a valley. This is the map I drew.’ Junsang drew a notebook from his chuba. ‘Going by what he said, it’s not far from Yongxi’s pasture.’
‘Yongxi’s pasture? There’s pastureland in No Man’s Land?’
‘Yes, sure, No Man’s Land has good pastures, though not many people live there. I think I remember that Yongxi had a grandmother, and they’ve always lived in No Man’s Land.’
‘Have you met her?’
‘I met her once when I went looking for a yak.’ Junsang closed the notebook and put it back in his chuba. ‘I’m afraid I won’t be able to find the place myself, so I’ve asked Cirensangzhu to take us.’
‘Good, good.’ Feng nodded her approval. ‘When do we leave?’
‘Tomorrow morning.’
‘Good.’ Feng was delighted and nodded at Cirensangzhu. Then she reached into the car, pulled out two packets of chocolates and gave one to the little girl and one to Sangzhu.
Sangzhu took his, copied the way the girl unwrapped one of the chocolates, and put it into his mouth. He quickly frowned and spat it out, giving the rest of his bag to the girl. The other three laughed loudly.
*
Feng couldn’t sleep a wink that night.
She’d thought about Gongzha day and night for the last three years and had even convinced herself that seeing him again was nothing more than a pipedream. So she was surprised to discover that now she was so close to finding him, she was nervous. It felt a bit like having been away for a long time and getting apprehensive at the prospect of returning home.
When she realised that she wasn’t going to get to sleep, Feng got up and began to organise her things. She took everything out of her bag and repacked it. But when she checked the time, not even an hour had passed. She shook out her sleeping bag, rolled it up neatly, and put it in her bag, but that used up only twenty minutes. Now what could she do? She stared out at the bright moon, sighed, got up and went outside.
The moonlight was strong – it was almost as bright as day. It was only in Tibet that Feng realised there was truth to that phrase. She walked down the stone stairs and saw that someone was lying in the courtyard. It was Sangzhu, the herder who was to be their guide. He lay snoring on the sandy ground, wrapped in his sheepskin chuba. Feng didn’t find that at all strange. When they were in the wilderness, Gongzha had slept that way every night. He said grasslanders saw the earth as their bed and felt unsettled when they didn’t sleep on the ground.
She tiptoed out of the courtyard and sat on a boulder outside. Some wild dogs who were nosing through the nearby rubbish heap for scraps stared at her and barked a couple of times but didn’t come over.
In front of her stretched a white salt lake. In the past, herders from all over the north Tibetan grasslands used to come there to collect salt. But now they didn’t need to, because processed salt came in on the Sichuan–Tibet and Qinghai–Tibet highways. As people lost interest in natural salt, the once busy salt lake quietly slipped out of the herders’ lives.
The grey snow mountain loomed in the distance. Without the sun glinting off it, it looked soft and lovely. The stars were clear and bright and seemed as if they’d been stitched into the sky with just the right distance between them.
Resting her elbows on her knees, Feng cupped her chin in her hands and stared out into the night. She wondered if, somewhere out in the wilderness, Gongzha was sitting like her, sleepless and stargazing.
It was hard to wait until seven o’clock. If she’d been in the city, the streets would already have been bustling with people. But in this frontier town, it was as quiet as if it were the dead of night. Feng couldn’t take it; every minute seemed as long as a year. She went back to the courtyard and woke up Junsang.
Junsang climbed out of the car, rubbing his eyes. He woke up Cirensangzhu and then started the car so it could warm up.
Cirensangzhu stood up reluctantly, walked groggily to the well, drew a bucket of water and washed himself splashily. When he was finally more awake, he put his chuba on the roof of the car. Junsang gave him two biscuits; Sangzhu tucked them away, took out some dried meat and began to eat it.
When the people living round the courtyard heard the car running, they all got up to see them off. After two days together, they were all quite reluctant to say goodbye. The little girl who’d taken Feng to see the rock engravings came out with her grandmother and they gave Feng a box of curds. Feng refused them – she didn’t want them – but the old woman didn’t care and put them in the car. The town cadre brought some dried meat; another auntie brought some steamed momos. Feng was so moved that her eyes welled with tears.
When they got to the pass above the town, Feng made Junsang stop the car. She stood there, in the place where heaven and earth met, gazing at the fluttering prayer flags, listening to them snapping in the wind. As she walked, the flags brushed across her body and face.
She remembered him that day, how he’d turned away amid a scene much the same as today’s. The wind had been just as strong and the flags had fluttered just as wildly. He’d said he could only take her that far, that she would be safe there.
Her body had been safe, but she’d left her heart in No Man’s Land.
A goshawk swooped down suddenly and Feng instinctively brought her palms together to greet it. Spontaneously and for no reason, she howled at the mountains: ‘Gongzha…’
As her cry echoed through the mountains, tears began to pour down her face. She was lost in a sea of memories and her body had become as weak as clay.
‘I have climbed to the highest of places, just to find you,
I have travelled over mountains and rivers, in search of you.
Oh, eagle, where will you fly?
Have you seen the one I love as he wanders,
Has he grown thin, has he grown weary, is he hurt?
Please tell him I am here, under the white clouds,
Hoping to follow him as he wanders,
To follow him wherever he roams.
Let love calm the pain,
Plant love in your heart,
Let there be two hearts in one tent,
So that, no matter where they wander, they will find their way home.’