Love In No Man's Land

by Duo Ji Zhuo Ga

  ‘Feng…’ Sega pulled open Feng’s clothes to have a look. The wounds on her chest and shoulder had split open and blood was seeping out.

  Feng bit her lip, trying to endure the waves of pain coursing through her. ‘Don’t worry about me, Sega. Hurry and talk to Jijia like we discussed.’

  Sega nodded, turned to Jijia and said clearly, ‘Brother, Gongzha is… is my man!’

  Jijia stared at her in shock. ‘What did you say?’

  The other men also gawped at her, wide-eyed.

  ‘Last time, when Gongzha was here looking for Kaguo, you sent your men up the mountain to surround him. It was me—’

  ‘Sega!’ Gongzha yelled, interrupting her and turning to face her. He wasn’t going to allow Sega to sacrifice herself for him. He knew that Yongxi was only one small reason for Jijia wanting him dead; far more important was that Gongzha knew the location of the shadow hunters’ secret camp. ‘I have never loved you – stop imagining things. My heart only has room for Cuomu.’

  Sega’s expression changed at his words. It was if thousands of needles had been stuck into her heart. She’d tried to save him, and this was how he responded? She turned round, fixed Gongzha with her eyes, and said in Mandarin, ‘No. You’re lying. Your heart doesn’t only have room for Cuomu; it has her in it too. Why else would you have followed her here?’ Sega was a woman too, a proud woman of the wilderness. She’d never been disrespected like that before. Even if she were ever to lie in Gongzha’s arms, seeking pleasure from his body, it was obvious he’d always be thinking about another woman. It was a tragedy. How could she have loved him? She needed to forget this heartless man.

  ‘Not true. I don’t love either of you. Neither you nor Feng can replace Cuomu. My heart was given up long ago, when Kaguo killed Cuomu. You’re a good woman, Sega, but we’re not destined to be together. Get Feng out of No Man’s Land – please, I beg you.’

  ‘I thought you said Feng means nothing to you? In which case, what does it matter to you whether she leaves or not?’ Sega laughed sarcastically. ‘You’re not speaking from the heart, Gongzha. When a grassland man loves someone, he truly loves them and nothing can stand in his way. This is just death you’re facing, right? If you two were to die together, you would have Buddha’s blessing upon you!’

  ‘Get her out of the wilderness, Sega, I’m begging you!’

  ‘You’re begging me? You’re begging on her behalf, but still you say you don’t love her? Are you a man or not, Gongzha? You love her, but you don’t dare admit it!’ Sega began to cry, but her words were clear.

  ‘I’m not going anywhere,’ Feng said firmly, straightening herself and gripping Gongzha’s bound wrists. ‘I think Sega’s right, Gongzha. I gave up everything to come looking for you, and I don’t want to leave you again. If you’re going to die, let’s die together.’ She shot him a significant look, remembering his whispered words from earlier. ‘We’ll let that statue of the Buddha rest beneath the earth forever – perhaps that’s the Buddha’s will, after all.’

  ‘You… Don’t do this, Feng. You don’t deserve to die for the sake of a wanderer like me.’

  ‘Whether you’re worth it or not should be up to me to decide, right?’ Feng looked into Gongzha’s eyes and smiled. ‘I’ve never forgotten you, Gongzha, not once in these last three years. Not a day has gone by without me thinking about you. The time we spent together was the happiest period of my life. I wanted to come and find you, and the prospect of being with you kept me going through my darkest days. I love you, Gongzha. In this world, in this life, you’re the only man I’ve ever loved and the only man I’ve wanted to spend my life with. So I came to find you. I didn’t worry about the ferocity of the sandstorms or the length of the journey – I didn’t care about any of that, I just wanted to find you. And now that I have finally found you, how could I even think of exchanging you for a Buddha statue? To me, you are my Buddha, my master. Without you, I have no reason to live.’

  Her words brought Gongzha to tears. A wanderer like him could still have a love like this! He tilted his head to look at Feng and smiled. ‘You don’t regret loving a wanderer who doesn’t even have a place to pitch his tent?’

  ‘If I regretted it, I wouldn’t have come.’ Feng placed her hands on his shoulders and without waiting for him to react bit him lightly on his cracked lip. ‘I’m your woman now. Grassland women don’t need their men to protect them from the wind and rain, they just want to stand shoulder to shoulder with them and fight alongside them, advancing and retreating together. I think I can do that.’

  ‘Alright.’ As he gazed into Feng’s questioning eyes, his heart softened. ‘We’ll go to Shambhala together. Today,’ he said loudly. ‘And in the next life, I will be a good man to you.’

  Feng’s face lit up and she rested gently against Gongzha. He dropped his head and lightly rubbed the top of hers with his chin.

  As she watched the thwarted lovers finally come together, Sega was moved to tears. She turned and said to the shocked Jijia, ‘Are you really going to put these two to death, Brother? If you do, not only will Yongxi and I hate you for the rest of your life, but Buddha will certainly not forgive you.’

  Jijia returned to his seat and collapsed into it. A war raged in his heart. Should he have them killed or let them go? If he had them killed, like Sega said, she and Yongxi would hate him forever. If he let them go, would this base that he’d worked so hard to establish still be safe? He glanced at the people around him, his face clouded with uncertainty.

  Sega stepped forward. ‘Relocating wouldn’t be that hard, Brother. There are many places on the grassland to set down a wanderer’s tent. But if you have them killed, we’ll never be at peace.’

  ‘Think of your son, boss. Let them go,’ Yangji said.

  Dawacuo chipped in. ‘Auntie Sega’s right, Uncle Jijia. Let them go.’

  ‘Let them go, boss.’

  ‘We can just find a new site, boss.’

  Jijia drank a mouthful of baijiu and set the cup back on the table. ‘Very well. Let them go. We’ll move tonight.’

  Sega let out a deep exhalation and hurried over to untie Gongzha’s bonds.

  When Gongzha’s hands were free, he caught hold of Feng, who’d uttered a great sigh and was about to fall over. He sat down, held her in his arms and pulled opened her clothes. He was shocked by what he saw. He drew out a small bottle from his chuba and shook some medicinal powder onto the wound.

  ‘Qiangba! Qiangba…!’ Sega shouted, realising that Feng was about to faint.

  Qiangba walked over reluctantly and Sega grabbed his wrist. ‘Help her! Quick!’

  Qiangba knelt down to examine Feng’s wounds. He rubbed his forehead and shook his head. ‘There’s nothing I can do, Sega. She’s lost too much blood, I’m afraid…’

  ‘What rubbish!’ Sega shouted, pulling at his robe. ‘I thought you said you were an amazing doctor? Think of something, quick!’

  ‘She was on the mend, Sega, but the wounds have reopened and she’s lost too much blood. There’s really nothing I can do.’

  Gongzha scooped up Feng and walked out of the tent. His old horse was waiting on the sand outside and Gongzha gently laid Feng across the saddle and then got on himself. One of the men handed him his gun and Gongzha whipped the horse and sped off.

  Some way beyond the encampment, he stopped his horse beside a hollow, brushed away some sand and dug out the Medicine Buddha from its temporary hiding place. Then he remounted.

  They’d not gone five kilometres when he heard hooves pounding behind them and a voice calling, ‘Gongzha, wait!’

  Gongzha pulled the reins into his chest and turned to see Jijia speeding towards them on a black horse. He didn’t say anything, just stared at Jijia in silence.

  Jijia rubbed his nose and looked a little embarrassed. ‘Ahem… Well… If you take the valley up ahead and then ride east for three days, you’ll come to a sacred lake. A group of Buddhist ascetics live beside that lake, including one called Samu wh
o’s an expert in traditional medicine. Maybe he… maybe he can… heal your woman.’

  As soon as his words were out, Jijia redirected his horse and tore off as if he was fleeing for his life.

  Gongzha watched him flying into the distance. ‘Thank you!’ he bellowed. Then he turned back and urged his horse on towards the valley Jijia had described.

  On a distant peak, Sega sat on her horse watching all of this. In her black robe and set against the blue sky she looked like a statue: mournful and solemn.

  26

  A herd of antelopes had arrived at Yongxi’s pasture. There were about a hundred of them. Tajiapu tugged his dog’s tail and gambolled across the plain in hot pursuit. The antelopes weren’t afraid of them; they just raised their heads occasionally to look at the boy and the dog, then went back to their grazing.

  Yongxi was mending the tents.

  It was a peaceful scene: humans, livestock and wild animals co-habiting without bothering one another.

  One of the male antelopes began moving towards Tajiapu. Yongxi stood up and was about to shout a warning, when she realised that it had no intention of hurting Tajiapu, it was simply looking at him quietly.

  Tajiapu stretched out his hand and the antelope came slowly towards him. It licked Tajiapu’s palm. Tajiapu giggled. Then he called, ‘Ama! Come here, he has a picture on his horn!’

  Yongxi went over and saw that there really was something carved onto its horn. She remembered Gongzha telling her that he and Feng had rescued two antelopes and that Feng had used a knife to engrave their names. Could this be one of the pair they’d rescued? She reached out and scratched the antelope’s neck. No wonder it wasn’t afraid of people, if it had grown up around them.

  She stroked its smooth back and tried calling it. ‘Baobao.’

  The antelope didn’t move.

  She took a step back and called again. ‘Beibei, come here.’ This time the antelope walked slowly towards her.

  Yongxi hugged its neck and laughed loudly. ‘You’re called Beibei? By the Buddha, you really are called Beibei. How lovely that Gongzha and Feng’s little darling has grown so big. Why don’t you stay here at my pasture and let me look after you.’

  Beibei looked up at Yongxi with large, trusting eyes.

  ‘You agree? Good, good. Come on then, Beibei. Come with me.’

  Yongxi took her son by the hand and returned to the tent, trailed by one dog and one long-horned antelope. It was a unique picture: a solitary herder woman in the depths of No Man’s Land, her son and their dog, now accompanied by an antelope. But this was the northern Tibetan wilderness, where all manner of strange things could happen.

  *

  Gongzha was carrying Feng through a valley thick with snow, his horse following behind.

  Feng kept slipping in and out of consciousness. When she was conscious, she babbled to Gongzha about how her wounds hurt, her wrist hurt, her feet hurt, her head heart, she was hungry, her back was sore; she loudly recited all of the ways in which she was uncomfortable or might become uncomfortable. She figured that seeing as she’d suffered so much during her quest to find him, she should make him worry a bit now. If she was going to die, she needed to give him something to remember.

  So, whenever she was awake, she complained.

  Gongzha worried very cooperatively. Whenever she cried out, he stopped, examined her wounds and then wrapped her in his arms, frowning, trying to do everything he could to make her a bit more comfortable. He was not a great talker, so he channelled all of his concern into the hand that held her wrist or the worried expression on his face. Every so often, Feng would give him a peck on the lips, and that made him glad. The more time he spent with her, the deeper into his heart she travelled. Loving someone meant serving them with all of your mind and all of your heart – that was not how Gongzha had been brought up, it was just something he understood with the core of his being.

  Most of the time, however, Feng was unconscious, saying and doing nothing. The deathly pallor of her face and the feverish heat of her skin terrified Gongzha. He kept worrying that she’d never wake up again, that she would go far away, like Cuomu had, and leave him on his own again. Life on his own was so lonely.

  As long as Feng wasn’t crying out in pain, Gongzha trudged on day and night, desperate to get to the lake Jijia had told him about and to find the doctor, Samu.

  On the afternoon of the third day, Feng’s temperature shot up so much, it was as if she was on fire. Gongzha was too scared to have her stay on the horse for fear that she wouldn’t be able to take the jolting, so he carried her himself. It was a huge effort to trudge through the snow with Feng in his arms, but he hoped the snow might at least help cool her a little.

  When he finally came to a summit and looked down to see stone houses scattered around a steaming lake at the foot of the mountain, his face ran with hot tears. It had to be the valley of Buddhist ascetics Jijia had told him about. He skidded down the mountainside as fast as he could, with Feng in his arms.

  The people who lived at the foot of the mountain were wrapped in swathes of cloth that left only their eyes visible. When they saw Gongzha, covered head to toe in dust like a wild man and carrying a woman in his arms, they stopped and looked him up and down with curiosity.

  ‘Please, where is Elder Samu?’ Gongzha asked the person closest to him.

  The man pointed to a house on a peak across the valley.

  ‘Gongzha, why are they wrapped up in all that cloth?’ Feng asked quietly, having suddenly returned to consciousness. ‘And look at the symbol on their chests – it’s the same as the one on the Medicine Buddha.’

  Gongzha glanced at the elder in front of him and suddenly noticed the white ¤ on his chest.

  ‘They… they…’ Feng coughed as soon as she started to speak. The injuries to her chest and shoulders sent hot, sharp pains shooting through her. She stopped and waited for the pain to subside before continuing. ‘Lots of them have it, Gongzha. Maybe… maybe they’re… con… connected to that cave you went to.’ She gave a sudden shriek. ‘There are scorpions on the ground, Gongzha! Masses of scorpions!’

  Gongzha glanced down to see a huge scorpion about to crawl onto his boot. The people around him yelled out in panic and fled. He raised his boot and kicked the scorpion into the distance, but the sudden movement disturbed Feng’s wounds and made her wince and cry out. ‘It hurts! It hurts so much, Gongzha. Why are there so many scorpions here? Look, in that crevice, on that bush, they’re everywhere. Do you think that’s why the people here cover themselves up so much, because of the scorpions?’

  ‘Don’t do any more talking now, Feng. Samu lives just over there. He’ll help you get better.’

  Feng smiled. Her man might appear very cool on the surface, but a great fire raged in his heart. In the past, he’d not found anything to allow his fire to catch, but now she was the kindling. The thought brought a smile to her face. Once she was better, they would go to Cuoe Grassland together, set up a tent, bring back his mother Dawa, make a home, have two children and grow old alongside each other.

  When Gongzha saw her looking at him with a flushed face and a mysterious smile hovering on her lips, he knew exactly what she was thinking. When she was awake, her brain never stopped spinning out strange ideas. ‘Could you not just let your mind rest for a while?’

  ‘You… know what I’m thinking?’ Feng smiled. She wanted to lift up her hand, but that would stretch her wound and cause even more pain. She frowned. With so many people around them, she was embarrassed to yell out.

  Gongzha saw that and immediately understood that her wound was hurting again, so he picked up the pace. ‘Don’t move any more.’

  ‘Do you know what… what I was just thinking about?’ Feng wasn’t that interested in finding Samu because she didn’t believe Jijia would have given them the right information. Scheming poacher that he was, why would Jijia have wanted to help Gongzha of all people, the man who only hours before he’d wanted to kill?

&nb
sp; ‘What were you thinking?’ Gongzha asked obligingly. He knew she’d keep asking if he didn’t reply.

  ‘I was thinking that once I can walk again, we should go back to Cuoe Grassland, put up a tent by the lake and bring your mother back. What do you think?’

  ‘You… you’re really not going back to Shanghai?’

  ‘No. Even if you drove me away, I wouldn’t go back,’ Feng said, a serious expression on her face.

  ‘I’m old enough to be your uncle!’

  ‘I know. Doesn’t Zhuo Yihang call you uncle? From now on, that little boy Zhuo Yihang will have to call me auntie, won’t he?’ Feng found the idea of jumping a generation ahead of Yihang highly satisfying. She couldn’t help laughing, but the laughter brought on another burst of searing pain.

  ‘You…! You’re just as much trouble as Baobao and Beibei,’ Gongzha said as he carried her along the curve of the lake.

  A few elders were floating on the lake and seemed totally at ease, as if the gentle waves were soft woollen cushions supporting their bodies. The lake was fringed with pure white sand and then a ring of black pebbles, as if the lake had been given a black and white frame. Beyond it, the ground was mostly sand and rocks, with occasional bushes and clumps of grass. Antelopes and asses wandered about.

  At the top of the mountain stood a solitary house facing the sun. Its stone walls made it seem as if it was almost sinking back into the landscape, and from each corner hung a string of prayer flags printed with well-known scriptures. The most unique part of the house was its windows: rather than being square, they were in the shape of a ¤; the centre was empty and the circle and its four radial lines were white.