Love In No Man's Land

by Duo Ji Zhuo Ga

  ‘He didn’t talk about how he’d spent those three months?’

  ‘He did not. It was enough that he’d come back. The plague was raging and in some tents had killed every single member of the family. The living Buddha was working flat out to save people – when would there have been time to talk about where he’d been? I remember we set up lots of large pots in the courtyard of the temple to brew medicine that would keep the survivors safe.’

  ‘So no one knows what happened to him during those three months?’

  ‘That’s right. No one asked, and he never told. Why are you asking about all this?’ Wangjiu turned his head and motioned for Cuomu to pass him the medicine tablets from the small table. They were from Zhuo Mai’s supply of Western medicine. When Zhaduo died, there was no one left on the grassland who knew Tibetan medicine. It was lucky that the Han doctor Zhuo Mai was there, otherwise the herders would have had to go all the way to the town for medical treatment.

  ‘I’m just curious.’ Gongzha stood up and passed the old man a glass of water.

  Wangjiu took his medicine and put the glass back on the small table. ‘When Zhaduo came back he had the Four Medical Tantras with him. He read that book whenever he had time and often went to pick herbs. He tested them on the yaks and sheep first, to see what effect the medicines had.’

  Zhuo Mai had been sitting on a bench and keeping quiet. Now he lifted his head and said quietly, ‘Clan Elder, I’ve heard that when your father was young he was a guide for a foreigner. Is that true?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right. My aba mentioned it often. He ran into the foreigner while he was herding; the man was on his own, he had a big nose and blue eyes and he didn’t look anything like us. It seemed he’d come from over by Chanaluo and was lost. His clothes were in tatters and he was as thin as a ghost. When he saw my father, he hugged him and began to cry. No one understood what he said, but he kept pointing to himself and gabbling something, which Aba thought might have been his name. He had to draw lots of pictures on the ground before my father could understand: it seemed that he’d come across some kind of cave and had then run into some bears. All the people he’d gone with disappeared and only he escaped. At the time, there were lots of avalanches on Chanaluo. My aba took some people with him and searched for two days but couldn’t find anyone. They also went to No Man’s Land but found nothing there either. The foreigner wasn’t able to say where the cave was, so they couldn’t do anything except take him off the grassland.’

  Zhuo Mai glanced at Gongzha; Gongzha nodded. Cuomu helped the old man lie down and covered him with a blanket.

  ‘We’re leaving, Bola. Have a good rest,’ Gongzha said.

  ‘Wait, I’ve just thought of something.’ The old man suddenly opened his eyes and looked at the three thoughtfully. ‘Once when I went to the temple, Living Buddha Zhaduo was looking at King Gesar’s book. He said that the book was written in gold ink and had been given to him by Buddhist ascetics living beside a sacred lake in No Man’s Land.’

  Gongzha thanked the old man and the three of them left the tent together.

  *

  Thanks to Zhuo Mai’s thoughtful care, Dawa no longer ran wild and naked, but her spirit was still troubled. Gongzha’s leave was almost up and he started to prepare his things ready for his return to the army base. The night he left, he went to Cuomu’s tent.

  ‘I will wait for you. You can go in peace.’ Cuomu lay in Gongzha’s embrace. They were covered with a soft lambskin blanket with only their naked shoulders showing. The yak pats burnt in the iron stove, the flames leaping occasionally, and the small tent was as warm as spring.

  ‘My senior officer says I can leave the army next year. When I come back, we’ll set up a tent together.’

  ‘Yes!’ Cuomu nodded and wrapped her hair around Gongzha’s neck. ‘I will take care of your ama. You don’t need to worry about her. Remember to write to me.’

  ‘Woman, I will miss you.’

  ‘I will miss my eagle.’

  12

  On the ninth of September 1976 the clouds were thick over Cuoe Grassland. The herders had gathered outside the production-team tent and were staring at the little radio on the table. A young man wearing a cotton Tibetan robe climbed onto the table to adjust the frequency, and out from the radio came muffled Mandarin. The herders could not understand Mandarin, but they still listened intently because Luobudunzhu had come back from the commune saying that the central government had some incredibly important information to convey and that everyone had to listen at the appointed time.

  Danzeng had invited Pubu, the teacher from the tent school across the lake, to translate. He was the only one in the team who spoke Mandarin. Pubu had graduated from middle school and stayed at the tent school to teach the children their letters. Right now he was gripping the radio and listening carefully; his face was looking more and more serious.

  ‘Our Manjushri has really left us!’ When the radio began to emit nothing but static, he turned around. His eyes were full of hot tears. Seeing the expectant expressions on the faces of the waiting crowd, he sobbingly translated the message into the dialect of northern Tibet.

  ‘Manjushri’ was the herders’ respectful name for Mao Zedong.

  The sounds of mourning erupted suddenly from every part of the crowd. Manjushri was gone and it seemed like the grassland’s sky was about to fall in. As they gazed at the image of Chairman Mao on the front of the tent, people’s eyes filled with tears. They bowed, took a khata into their hands, carefully hung it over the frame of Mao’s portrait, and bowed again with each step. In the hearts of the grasslanders, Chairman Mao was the bodhisattva who had saved them from a sea of suffering.

  They honoured the great man in their traditional way: one year of not washing their faces, combing their hair or wearing make-up; one year without dancing; one year of sorrowful remembrance and cold loneliness. There was now one more spirit to honour in their shrines, one more sad day lodged in their hearts.

  That year, Gongzha retired from the army. The minute he’d reported to his work unit, he set his horse for home, galloping off straightaway, not even stopping to eat lunch. The lure of Cuomu’s passionate eyes made his heart almost leap out of his chest. The grassland was both his heaven and his home and his spirits soared as he urged his horse onwards, faster and faster into the wind. He would be with the woman he loved and they would never part; they would have two or three children and he would return to the grassland for holidays, taking up his rifle with the forked stand and going hunting. He would definitely shoot a red fox this winter and make her a hat. When he pictured Cuomu’s moon cheeks set off against the red fox-fur, he couldn’t help chuckling to himself.

  He opened his sheepskin chuba and began to sing at the top of his voice. The loud lyrics of the herders’ song and the horse’s thundering gallop shattered the grassland silence, scattering the mice and rabbits and even sending the foxes and antelopes dashing through the short grass, their bodies flattened, vanishing in an instant.

  ‘The stars in the sky

  Are like Brother’s eyes

  Watching Sister’s silhouette.

  The butter lamps ablaze all night

  Cannot see your eyes, Brother,

  As they fall inside the tent

  To light up Sister’s heart.’

  The track stretched across the plain to the horizon and beyond, seemingly without end. Occasionally the sound of pounding hooves scattered a flock of skylarks; they flew up into the air with a pop, waited until the horse passed, then settled again.

  The sunshine was wonderful. It warmed and softened everyone in its embrace, so that the vast grassland was like a mattress, cushioning and wrapping everything in the afternoon light and tumbling it gently to the ground. Between the blue sky and the dark blue water, what warmth there was. It was the perfect weather for lovers, and Gongzha urged his horse on, welcoming the wind and laughing wildly. He was a man deeply in love. In no time at all he would be with the woman he loved and hi
s whole body was alive with anticipation.

  His horse tore across the plain, its athletic body rising and dipping. As it rounded a bend in the track and leapt over a stream into the next river valley, the sound of Cuomu’s frightened screams suddenly echoed around them, accompanied by the faint snarl of a bear.

  ‘Gongzha…!’

  It was a truly heartrending cry.

  Gongzha whipped his horse savagely, desperate to grow a pair of wings.

  The strengthening smell of blood gripped his heart like an iron claw.

  Then he saw his woman’s turquoise-studded plaits flailing wildly; her despairing eyes.

  As Kaguo extended her claws again, Gongzha’s meat knife flew out of his hand without him even thinking about it and buried itself in her foreleg. Kaguo turned with a growl and ran off with her cub. Gongzha leapt off his horse, gathered Cuomu’s bloodied body into his arms and howled like a wild animal.

  In the blink of an eye, the warm, spring-like grassland turned into hell on earth. The sun disappeared behind a mass of black clouds and the wind hurled the sand ahead of it, screeching as it blew. The wild asses and antelopes looked at the sky in confusion and rushed towards the mountain valley with the wind at their heels. The earth was chaotic and the sky was dark.

  All afternoon long, Gongzha staggered around the grassland with Cuomu’s cold body in his arms, zigzagging aimlessly, directionless. His brown horse followed behind. Vultures circled overhead, occasionally swooping down then soaring back up again.

  According to the traditions of the grassland, Cuomu’s body should have been taken by the funeral master and swaddled in white cloth like a baby in a womb to symbolise that she was to leave the world as she had entered it. But Gongzha wouldn’t let the funeral master do anything. He himself drew water from Cuoe Lake, washed his beloved’s hair and body clean, rebraided her plaits and then tenderly wrapped her in soft white cloth. Through all of this he remained extremely quiet, as if nothing had happened. No one else’s tears or words of comfort had the slightest effect on his demeanour. He just kept watch over Cuomu’s body, neither eating nor speaking.

  A burial was a significant event for a family. Guests came in a continuous stream, so the family had to prepare food, receive condolences, and get all sorts of things ready. But they were not allowed to cry. A relative’s tears would unsettle the spirit of the departed and make it worry about its family in the material world, which risked delaying its journey and preventing its reincarnation. This life of Cuomu’s had ended; her life to come had not yet started. They had to let her step onto the road towards that next life and whatever place of belonging that might be.

  So her relatives could not cry, could not mourn. Letting the departed’s spirit leave happily was the last thing they could do for it in this life.

  Gongzha did not cry. During the brief periods when he wasn’t keeping watch at Cuomu’s side, he sat quietly on his own out on the grassland, staring ahead as the evening sun stained the sky red. Everyone who saw the lonely silhouette sighed and left their words of comfort unsaid. He was young and had waited so long for love, had seen it almost come to fruition, and then in a moment had watched everything good disappear. Like an antelope that had lost its mate in the spring, his every hair and pore dripped with despair.

  *

  The morning that Cuomu died, the commune had been mobilising the herders. The government wanted everyone to join together to help repay the national debt to the Soviet Union. A borax mine had been discovered in No Man’s Land and the production team decided that every able-bodied young person should go and work there, not even returning home in the evenings. The elderly and those who were weak or ill would stay behind to look after the animals.

  Zhuo Mai got leave and hurried back to the grassland; he wanted to see Cuomu off on her last journey.

  The sun had not yet risen and there was a biting chill in the air. Gongzha carried Cuomu on his back. She was so light, it was as if a feather had settled on him and was slowly drilling into his flesh. That soft feather wiped the dust from his heart. The physical weight of the dead may have been slight, but yearning for them was the heaviest of burdens. When you missed someone, they were never absent from your thoughts, and your body never stopped aching for them. Year in, year out, you couldn’t touch them, couldn’t see them; longing for them became a habit, became part of you, something you could neither forget nor forego.

  Zhuo Mai walked in front, carrying a smoking clay jar.

  Neither of them spoke.

  Dawn was breaking now, but the sky had not yet become fully bright. A light fog, white as milk, lay in a band across the gloomy grassland, soft like a khata, like a young woman’s hair, graceful and dreamlike. The yaks and sheep had not yet woken, and even the skylarks seemed to be asleep. Everything on the grassland was quiet this morning, in honour of that kind, beautiful girl, seeing her off on her journey.

  Three men walked across the measureless grassland: the funeral master, Zhuo Mai with the jar, and Gongzha carrying Cuomu.

  When they arrived at their destination, Gongzha laid Cuomu gently on the large black boulder, opened the white cloths that swaddled her, and watched as the first rays bathed her in light, her four limbs spread like a baby’s, pure and beautiful. He and Zhuo Mai stood quietly and though tears welled in their eyes, they did not let them fall. The funeral master lit the incense and its light blue smoke floated straight up. When a light wind blew, the whole valley was filled with its scent.

  Zhuo Mai took out some prayer flags, and he and Gongzha hung them on the stones around the mountainside. When this was done, the two of them turned and hurried away without looking back. It was not that Gongzha did not want to watch; he did not dare to watch. When he reached the bottom of the mountain and heard the shrieks of the circling vultures, he could stand the pain in his heart no longer. He sat down heavily on the ground, defeated. Covering his face with his hands, he wept the tears he had tried to suppress, sobbing into the wind.

  Zhuo Mai stood behind him, watching the slowly rising sun, and his eyes were wet.

  *

  The day after Cuomu’s sky burial, Gongzha returned to his work unit. He did not smile again.

  Zhuo Mai also returned to his unit and began to make a serious study of the medical book and notes that Living Buddha Zhaduo had left him. He chose two young people from Cuoe Grassland to be his pupils and taught them about Tibetan medicine as well as Western treatments.

  The second year, when the snow began to fall, Zhuo Mai passed the medical book and notes to Gongzha and asked him to one day restore them to Cuoe Temple. Then Zhuo Mai returned to metropolitan China, to the great city of Shanghai, taking with him Zhuo Yihang, the son he had pulled out of an avalanche.

  Without Cuomu, Gongzha was lonely, cold and cheerless, like the waters of Cuoe Lake. The lake looked beautiful on the surface, with its clear blue ripples. But when you put your hand in to feel it, the cold cut to the bone and froze your heart.

  His body was haggard. He wandered from one wilderness area to another, from one drink to another; he wanted to drink himself into oblivion and never wake up. Day after day, year after year, he watched as other people married, had children, lived happy lives. His friends advised him to forget the past and start again, to find another woman to cherish, a new family to take care of. But Gongzha always responded with a bitter laugh: how could he cherish another woman and take proper care of a family when he could find himself swamped by a sudden burst of loneliness at any time and in any place. Along with the loneliness came an unquenchable longing that tore at him without remission. Its only salve would be having Cuomu returned to him.

  Even so, he was still the head of the household for one tent.

  When he came back to the encampment on annual leave, he appointed people to find wives for his three brothers, then held the weddings very quickly. He brought his mother, Dawa, to the county town and organised his sister, Lamu, to take care of her.

  The day after Dawa left the grassl
and, Ciwang also disappeared. No one knew where he’d gone, and apart from his family, no one cared. When he’d been at the peak of his powers, he’d brought hatred to the grassland. With the grassland now peaceful again, Ciwang longed for the return of those glory days, but his was a solitary voice. His lot was cold and lonely, and he’d lost his status in the encampment to Luobudunzhu, who disliked him and often bullied him or beat him up. When Ciwang disappeared, the grasslanders just assumed that he’d lost some sort of bet with Luobudunzhu and was hiding at the tent of an old friend, biding his time until things settled down.

  As for Zhuo Mai, he often called Gongzha from the city, and the two of them talked of the grassland, of Cuomu, and of days long past. Gongzha thought that Zhuo Mai’s loneliness was because of Cuomu; he didn’t know that his heart belonged to a different woman. Meanwhile, the sun continued to rise and set over the grassland and all its people, regardless of their hurts.

  13

  The lake water went from clear to blue and from blue back to clear again as the years slid by. There was some good news; it had spread through the country and had finally reached the grassland: China was bringing back the college entrance exam.

  Everyone was excited: young and old, those who had gone to school and those who had not. To the herders, going to college had always been beyond their wildest dreams, but that dream was now a real possibility. Thirteen years earlier, when herders had not even had the freedom of their own homes, just learning a few words of Mandarin had been unthinkable, much less going to college. Then, in the early sixties, tent schools had been established on the grassland and children had begun to realise that they could do more than just herd yaks and sheep and collect yak pats. The Cultural Revolution had begun not long after.