by Gao Xingjian
I am aware that at this moment I am surrounded by a world of dead people and that behind this wall are my dead relatives. I want to be with them again, to sit at the table with them and to listen to them chatting about trifling things. I want to hear their voices, to see their eyes, to actually sit at the same table with them, even if we don’t have a meal. I know that eating and drinking in the world of ghosts is symbolic, a ritual, and that living people cannot partake of it, but it suddenly occurs to me that just to be able to sit at the table and to listen would be a blessing. I creep up to them but as I cross the ruins of the wall, they get up and quietly vanish behind another wall. I hear their departing footsteps, rustling, even see the empty table they leave behind. Instantly the table is covered in velvety moss, breaks, cracks, then collapses into a heap of rubble and bushes sprout all over it. I know right now they’re discussing me in another room in these ruins. They don’t approve of how I am living my life and are worried about me. There’s really no need but they insist on worrying, I think maybe the dead just like worrying about the living. They’re talking in whispers but as soon as I put my ear to the damp mossy wall they stop and communicate with their eyes. They say I can’t go on like this, I need a normal family. They should find me a good intelligent wife, a woman who can tend to what I eat and drink and manage the home for me – they think my prolonged illness is from improper eating and drinking. They’re plotting how to arrange my life. I should tell them there’s no need for them to worry, I’m already middle-aged and have my own way of life, it’s what I have chosen and I’m not likely to go back to what they have in mind for me. I can’t live the lives they lived, and in any case their lives weren’t particularly wonderful. Still, I can’t help thinking about them and wanting to see them, hear their voices, talk with them about past events in my memories. I want to ask my mother if she had taken me on a boat on the Xiang River. I recall being in a narrow wooden boat with a woven bamboo canopy. There were people closely packed on the wooden planks on either side, their knees touching those of the people opposite. The water could be seen coming up to the top of the sides and the boat lurched continuously, but no-one commented. Everyone pretended not to notice but they were clearly aware of it. The overloaded boat could sink at any moment but nobody gave this away. I also pretended not to know. I didn’t cry or make a fuss and fought not to think of the disaster which could happen at any time, I want to ask her if this was when we were refugees. If I can find a boat like this on the Xiang River it will confirm this memory. I also want to ask her whether or not we hid in a pig’s pen from bandits. That day the weather was like the weather today, fine rain was falling, and going up a mountain road the truck broke down on a sharp corner. The driver blamed himself and said if he’d turned the steering wheel a fraction harder the front and rear wheels on one side wouldn’t have got bogged in the soft mud at the edge of the road. I remember they were the wheels on the right because afterwards everyone got out and off-loaded all the baggage onto the left of the highway next to the side of the mountain and then went to push the truck. However, the wheels simply spun in the mud without moving out of it. The truck was fitted with a charcoal combustion stove, it was during the war and it was impossible to get petrol except for military vehicles. To start, each time the truck had to be cranked furiously until it could be heard farting before it would go. Motor vehicles in those days were like people and wouldn’t go unless they got rid of gas. However, the truck farted but the wheels only spun and splashed mud into the faces of the people pushing it. The driver kept trying to flag a passing vehicle but none would stop to help. In weather like this and as it was getting dark they were all in a hurry to escape. The last vehicle with yellowish headlights like the eyes of a wild beast sped past. Afterwards, we groped in the dark in the rain up the mountain, each holding onto the clothing of the person in front and slipping time and again on the muddy mountain path. We were old people, women and children and it was with much difficulty that we made it to a farmhouse. They didn’t have a lamp inside and refused to open the door so we had to squeeze into the pig pen to get out of the rain. From the ink-black mountain shadows at the back, in the middle of the night, came bursts of rifle shots and a string of burning torches could be seen. Everyone said bandits were going past and, terrified, no-one dared make a sound.
I step over a crumbling wall. On the other side is a little-leaf box sapling with a trunk as skinny as a little finger shivering in the wind in the middle of these ruins of a roofless house. Opposite, part of a window remains, and leaning there I can look out. Among the azaleas and clumps of bamboo are some mossy black stone slabs which from a distance look soft, like human bodies lying there, bent knees sticking up and arms outstretched. In those times, Gold Top, with its one thousand rooms of temples, halls and monk dormitories, had iron roof-tiles to protect it from the onslaught of the mountain winds. In the Ming Dynasty, a multitude of monks and nuns practised the faith alongside the ninth concubine of the father of the Wanli Emperor. There must be some remnants of the grandeur of the morning bells and evening drums. I search for some relic of those times but only turn up the corner of a broken stone tablet. Could it be that within the space of five hundred years even the iron tiles have completely rusted away?
Now what will I talk about?
I’ll talk about what happened five hundred years later when this monastery, which had been reduced to ruins, was turned into a hideout for bandits. They slept in the caves during the daytime and at night came with flaming torches down the mountain to pillage and loot. It so happened that living at the nunnery at the foot of the mountain was an official’s daughter who, without shaving her hair, had devoted herself to Buddhist cultivation and was keeping watch over the ancient black Buddha lamp to atone for a sin in a previous life. However, she was seen by the bandit chief, taken up the mountain, and forced to be housekeeper for the camp. The girl refused, even under the threat of death, so she was first raped and then killed.
What else will I talk about?
I’ll go back fifteen hundred years, to a time before the ancient monastery existed when there was only a grass hut. A famous scholar had hung up his cap of office and retired here to live as a recluse. Every morning just before dawn he would face the east and practise Daoist life-prolonging breathing exercises, inhaling the essence of the purple profoundness. Then, head high, he would produce a sustained whistle. The pure sound would reverberate in the empty valley and monkeys climbing on the sheer cliffs would respond with their cries. Occasionally friends would come and they would drink toasts with tea instead of liquor, play chess or engage in pure talk debate in the light of the moon. Although old age was upon him he thought nothing of it, and passing woodcutters in the distance would point at him in wonder. That is why this place is called Immortal’s Cliff.
And what else can I talk about?
I’ll talk about one thousand five hundred and forty-seven years later, when beyond this mountain a warlord lived. After spending most of his life in the army he eventually became a commander and returned to his village to offer sacrifices to his ancestors. There he fell in love with the servant girl who looked after his mother and in due course an auspicious day and hour were chosen for him to take her as his concubine . . . in order of succession she was the seventh. One hundred and one tables of food and liquor were laid out to make an ostentatious show for the villagers. Friends and relatives filled the tables and of course couldn’t avoid sending vast amounts of gifts, for how could this feast not come at a cost? While everyone was celebrating, a beggar came to the door. His clothes were tattered rags and his head was covered with ringworms. The gatekeepers gave him a bowl of rice but when they tried to send him away he refused to go and insisted on entering the hall and going up to the main table to congratulate the groom. The commander was enraged and ordered his aide to hit the man with his rifle and chase him off. Late that night when everyone was asleep and the groom was lost in happy dreams, fires broke out everywhere, destroying the large
r part of the old ancestral home. Some said it was the Living Buddha Jigong using his magic to punish the wicked on behalf of Heaven. Others, however, said that the beggar was none other than the infamous Mottle Head who was cruel and mean. Beggars great or small a hundred li around all gave their allegiance to him, so how could he tolerate such an insult? Brigade commander or army commander made no difference at all. If they didn’t show respect, he’d get his ruffians to tie fuses on bundles of incense sticks and, in the middle of the night, shoot them over the high wall into the dry grass and piles of firewood. Even a general with a thousand troops and ten thousand horses wouldn’t be able to defend himself against this insignificant person. It’s as the old saying goes – the powerful dragon is no match for the snake crawling on the ground.
Now what else can I talk about?
It was more than half of a century afterwards, also on this mountain. This big mountain may look grand and majestic but because of the turmoil in the human world, it too has never known peace. The ugly daughter of the newly-appointed director of the revolutionary committee of a certain county fell in love with the grandson of a former landlord and, against her father’s orders, was determined to marry him. The couple eloped after stealing ration coupons for thirty-eight catties of grain and a hundred and seven yuan in cash from a drawer. They hid in the mountains confident that they would be able to survive by farming the land. The father, who spent every day preaching about class struggle, had had his own daughter abducted by the offspring of a landlord, so understandably he was righteously indignant. He immediately gave orders for the public security bureau to circulate the man’s photo and the entire county was alerted to arrest him. It was impossible for the young couple to escape the armed people’s militias scouring the mountains and when the cave they were hiding in was surrounded, the terrified youth used the axe he had stolen to first kill his lover and then himself.
She says she also wants to see blood. She wants to stab her middle finger with a needle. The fingers are connected to the heart and the pain will go straight there. She wants to watch the blood ooze out, swell, spread, soak the whole finger red, run right to the base of the finger, flow between the fingers, along the lines of the palm to the centre. The back of the hand will also be dripping with blood . . .
You ask her why.
She says because you’re oppressive.
You say the oppression comes from herself.
She says you are also causing it.
You say you are only telling stories, you aren’t doing anything.
She says everything you talk about is stifling, suffocating.
You ask whether she has some pathological illness.
She says it was induced by you!
You say you can’t understand what it is you have done.
She says you’re a hypocrite! And saying this she starts laughing crazily.
The sight of her frightens you, you admit you wanted to arouse her lust, but you find a woman’s blood repugnant.
She says she wants to make you see blood. She wants her blood to run down to her wrist, along her arm, to her armpit, onto her chest. She wants blood to flow all over her white breasts, bright red tinged with purple and black. She will be soaked in the purple-black blood so you will be forced to look . . .
Stark naked?
Stark naked, sitting in a pool of blood, the lower part of her body, between her legs and her thighs, all covered in blood, blood, blood! She says she wants to sink, become utterly depraved, she can’t understand why it is that she lusts, lusts for the tide to soak her. She sees herself lying on the sandy shore, the tide surging, the sandy shore rustling but unable to suck it all up before another tide irrepressibly surges in. She wants you to come into her body, to thrust and to pull relentlessly. She says she no longer has shame, nor fear. She used to be afraid, then when she wasn’t she still said she was, even though she really wasn’t. But she’s afraid of falling into the black abyss and endlessly drifting down. She wants to sink but is afraid of sinking, she says she sees the black tide slowly swelling, swelling up from some unknown source. The black tide is swallowing her, she says she comes slowly but when she does, she can’t stop. She can’t understand why she has become so wanton, oh, she wants you to say she is wanton and she wants you to say she is not. From you, only from you does she have this need. She says she loves you. She wants you to say you love her but you never say this, you are so cruel. What you want is a woman but what she wants is love, and she needs to feel it with her whole body and heart, even if it means following you to hell. She begs you not to leave her, not to abandon her, she is afraid of loneliness, afraid of only being afraid of the emptiness. She knows all this is temporary but wants to deceive herself. Can’t you say something to make her happy? Tell a story to make her happy?
Oh! It’s rowdy as they quaff the liquor from the big bowl passed from hand to hand. They are sitting cross-legged opposite one another before woven bamboo mats laid with a long line of black pig’s blood, white bean curd, red chillies, tender green soya beans, soya sauce pig trotters, stewed pork ribs and broiled fatty pork. The stockade village is celebrating – nine pigs and three oxen have been slaughtered and ten big vats of aged liquor have been opened. Everybody’s face is flushed and shiny, noses drip with greasy sweat. The crippled chief stands up and starts to shout in his raspy drake’s voice. Hemp Flower Peak has been theirs for many generations, how can they let outsiders burn down the forests to plant corn? He has lost all his front teeth and splutters. Don’t get the idea that this decrepit old man who is like a piece of straw is all they have in head stockade, don’t get the idea that the head stockade can be easily duped. He can’t handle a spiked carrying pole or a blunderbuss anymore but the young men of the head stockade are no cowards! Mother of Big Treasure, you wouldn’t keep back your son, would you? The silver bangles on the woman fly up with her arms. Venerable old chief, don’t say that, the whole stockade has watched my son Big Treasure grow up, he is not respected by outsiders and he’s also the butt of the village. Don’t just pick on my Big Treasure. Mine isn’t the only family in the head stockade. Which of the families produce only daughters and no sons? Suddenly all the women sulk off. Mother of Big Treasure, why are you changing the subject? If the head stockade doesn’t stand up to the outsiders how can we not lose face? Flushed with alcohol, the young men open their jackets and beat their chests: Old chief, the blunderbusses we have aren’t vegetarian! Venerable elder, just give the order, but don’t listen to your daughters-in-law and keep your eldest son and second son locked up in the house, leaving us young people to fight in the vanguard. The daughters-in-law panic at hearing this, and retort: You spoke barbed words even before you started getting hair on your face, your parents don’t mind parting with you, so why should we? A young man suddenly stands up, his eyes bulging. Little Two, you’re being rash, it’s not your turn to interrupt in the head stockade! Are you still listening?
Keep talking, she says, she just wants to hear your voice.
So you muster the energy and go on. Everyone starts clamouring. With a toss of the head he braces himself into a straddle stance, seizes a rooster and snaps its neck, and with its wings still flapping, he sprinkles the hot blood into the bowl of liquor and shouts in a loud voice: Whoever doesn’t drink is a son of a bitch! Only a son of a bitch won’t drink this! The men roll up their sleeves, tread on the saliva they spit in the dirt, make oaths to Heaven and fiery-eyed turn to their weapons – knives are sharpened and firearms cleaned. The aged parents of each household light lanterns and go to the ancestral burial grounds to dig graves. The women stay at home and with the scissors they had used to cut their hair after marriage and to cut the umbilical cord when they gave birth, they cut streamers for the graves. At dawn when the morning mists are about to rise the chief limps out and pounds on the big drum. The women, wiping away tears, emerge from the houses to keep guard at the gates of the stockade and to watch their menfolk, armed with knives and blunderbusses and striking gongs
and shouting, charge down the mountain. For their ancestors, the stockade, the earth, the forests, their sons and grandsons, they go into battle then silently return with the corpses. The women weep and wail to Heaven and Earth, then silence returns. Then there is ploughing, seeding, replanting, harvesting and threshing. Spring passes and autumn comes, then after many winters when the graves are covered in grass and the widows have stolen men and the orphans have grown up, the grief is forgotten and only the glory of the ancestors is remembered. Until one evening, before the annual feast and sacrifice to the ancestors, the old people start talking about the sworn enemies of many generations and the young people have been drinking, and hot blood again boils up . . .
