Song of the Silk Road

by Mingmei Yip

  After a late lunch of flat bread and milk tea at the hotel’s elegant, blue-tiled, Islamic-style banquet hall, I went back to the reception desk. Scrutinizing the three receptionists—one man and two women—I finally picked the broad-faced young man and asked if he knew anything about villages near the Mountains of Heaven.

  He studied me curiously. “There are a few, but why would you want to live in a village instead of at our hotel?”

  “I need to be there for business.”

  “What kind?”

  “Hmm… something personal.” That’s really none of your business!

  Now he looked at me suspiciously. “Miss, you traveling alone?”

  “Yes.” Damn, I really shouldn’t have told him this!

  “Then it’ll be too difficult doing this by yourself. I know most of the villages in that area. Why don’t I take you around?”

  I studied his face and thought for a while. “How much does that cost?”

  He scratched his big, crew-cut head. “What about five hundred renminbi including renting a car and gas?”

  “Why so expensive?”

  “Because it may take a whole day before you find the right one.”

  After some bickering we settled at four hundred.

  Since he worked at this international hotel, I figured he would not jeopardize his job by robbing or killing me. But it never hurt to be extra cautious. “Are you married? Any children?”

  He laughed a hearty belly laugh. “Ha, my boy has just turned one year old.” Then he fished a photo from his pocket and thrust it under my eyes.

  A chubby baby held by a young woman stared back at me, smiling.

  “Very cute, and your wife is very pretty.” I smiled, handing the photo of the two treasures back to its owner.

  Good, a family man. I should be in safe hands.

  “You bet,” he said, pocketing the photo.

  “All right, what about tomorrow, after you finish work?”

  “OK, come back here tomorrow at five then.”

  As I was about to turn to leave, a familiar voice shouted “Lily!” next to my ear.

  I turned.

  “Alex, what are you doing here?”

  He shrugged, looking a bit amused. “Traveling, like you.”

  “How come…”

  “Lily, don’t look so shocked. This is a very popular hotel in a very popular tourist city, so there’s always a chance of running into your fellow travelers.”

  Seeing that I was not able to respond, he smiled sunnily. “Can I invite you…”

  I cut him off sharply. “Alex, don’t you see I’m busy right now?”

  Broad Face and a young couple being served by another receptionist turned to look at me disapprovingly.

  Embarrassed, I softened my tone. “Why don’t we meet tomorrow for breakfast here. Is eight-thirty OK?”

  “Sure, see you tomorrow then,” Alex said, then cast me a deep look before he disappeared into a crowd of tourists.

  I turned back to Broad Face. “Now there’s a change of plan. Can we leave here tomorrow morning early—at six?” I needed to get away before Alex woke up.

  He nodded enthusiastically. “Yes, of course!”

  “You don’t need to work tomorrow?”

  “I’ll take care of that.”

  Of course, he’d rather miss a day’s work—even if he had to pay a small penalty—to make a fortune of four hundred renminbi.

  A mischievous smile blossomed on his face. “That foreigner your boyfriend?”

  I was not going to answer a personal question like this, so I asked instead, “What’s your name?”

  “Little Fong.”

  “All right, Little Fong, remember we need to make an early start. Be here at six tomorrow morning. Don’t make me wait.”

  Another belly laugh exploded in the air. “Ha, Miss, if a pretty woman can trust me to have a big, fat baby boy, why can’t you trust me to be punctual?”

  My four hundred renminbi proved to be well spent. Little Fong, though nosy, did a good job of driving me around the Mountains of Heaven to the edge of the Taklamakan Desert, where I found a tiny village not on my map that seemed suitable. The small village was located along a dried desert river that once flowed from the Mountains of Heaven. Kucha, an ancient Buddhist kingdom that ran along the northern edge of the Taklamakan Desert, was not too far away, and I felt safer being near a city. Moreover, it was also close to a larger, two-thousand resident village with a local TV channel and telephones.

  Little Fong even helped me to negotiate renting a mud-brick cottage. However, what I felt most grateful for was that he took me to register in the village for a temporary resident card. Because I intended to stay for a while, I paid the owner, who would also be my nearest neighbor, two months’ rent in advance. The main reason I picked this village was that it cost almost nothing—less than my car ride from the hotel. Of course I could afford something better, but I wanted to be cautious about money just in case. The landlady was a young, stout, and round-faced Xinjiang woman named Keku. Despite our differently accented Mandarin, we actually communicated easily. She told me I would be safe because no one would come all the way here to visit, let alone to steal.

  So the village must be that poor.

  The tiny cottage was practically empty except for a small lamp next to a “bed” consisting of a brick platform covered with a tattered blanket. Four thin tiles placed at a small corner would be the “kitchen,” once I bought a propane burner. Water for bathing and cooking had to be brought in buckets from a communal tap. Business , be it major or minor, was to be conducted either in a shared makeshift hut over a pit place some distance outside the cottage or in a bucket inside the house.

  Staring at this extremely depressing place I would now call home, my heart sank. However, it was not that it didn’t possess any redeeming features: the golden sand dunes receding to infinity; the occasional camels’ cries, remote as the callings of a lover from a past life; in the distance the peaks of the Mountains of Heaven wavering above the desert as if in a dream of paradise.

  I made up my mind to turn this cottage into something less depressing, and if possible, even appealing. For an extra fifty renminbi , Little Fang brought me to the neighboring village market to shop. I bought cooking supplies, chopsticks, plates, cups, a tablecloth, canned food, a gas burner and heater, a blanket, two pillows, and a small wooden table with two stools.

  It took me a whole week to fix up the cottage. I put up curtains made from old clothes Keku gave me. Then one morning when I went outside to look for plants, I found some thorny shrubs covered with tiny silvery scales. By the road I found two abandoned tires. After dragging them home, I made them into sofas by covering them with Keku’s leftover clothes.

  Keku gave me two discarded calendars from previous years. I cut off the grids and pasted the pictures on the wall. One was the Heavenly Maiden Scattering Flowers. Her sweet face and the waltzing flowers against a cloud-laden, azure sky immediately lifted my mood. The other was a Chinese garden with a pavilion and a vermillion bridge arched over a pond laced with goldfish. Keku also gave me her red headscarf, three crates, and a part-time functional boom box with five Xinjiang folk music tapes. From one of the occasional passing three-wheeled carts, I bought an assortment of candles and a small carpet. Now at night, three reddish-orange candles stood on my wooden crates, scattering yellowish light in my little home like mini desert-setting suns.

  A week later, I looked around my tiny refuge and felt a surge of happiness—like the rising desert sun.

  My neighbors were mostly Uyghur people who lived a very meager life with few possessions. It surprised me how quickly I was able to make friends in this small piece of exotic land. Most of the men either farmed or worked in the next village as vendors selling clothes, fabrics, plastic utensils, dried fruits, grilled lamb. The wives, besides taking care of their small children, helped raise cows and sheep and sewed hats and clothing at night to take in extra income.


  At first, the village women would bring their little ones to play in front of my cottage, peer inside my house to watch my every move, then giggle and run away when I spotted them. Everyone knew about the “stranger in town.” Some cast me friendly glances, while others, especially older people, watched my every move as if I were a shadow that had just lost its body. I tried my best to keep a smile on my face wherever I went.

  To please the friendly yet overcurious villagers, I decided I would give the women cheap jewelry and spices and the old people medicine oil I bought in the next village. For the children, I’d bribe them with candies and small toys so they’d run simple errands for me—taking pictures, delivering messages, and finding oddities for me like strangely shaped stones, twigs, or fossils.

  Once I had finished fixing up my cottage and had time on my hands, I began to stroll around taking pictures. Local women and children adorned with colorful scarves and exotic costumes were my favorites. My other subjects included poplar and fig trees, the sheep and cows raised by the villagers, passing three-wheeled carts loaded with trinkets, and the little store that sold plastic utensils, sugar, flour, spices, dried fruits, canned food. When I tired of this I would go back to my cottage and write in my journal or reread the books I had brought with me.

  As much as I was happy with the cheerful decoration of my new home, I also felt uncomfortable living there, especially at night. When the temperature dropped, even with my blankets, I felt chilled and sometimes my teeth would chatter. Anything moving outside my window would make me think of visitors from another dimension. Then I found myself thinking of Alex. It would be really nice to have him around. Men are useful after all. There are so many things they can do, both inside and outside a house, in a city or out in the desert—let alone having a warm body as company.

  In fact, what really bothered me at night was not the cold, but something else. I felt suffocated. But by what? It took me a few days to realize it was the qi. It’s not that its circulation was blocked, but that it was oppressive. Strangely, though the cottage was tiny and its qi constricted, I also felt engulfed by an immense, chilly emptiness. Some nights I had nightmares of floods and woke up gasping for air. Were the tears from Guan Yin flooding all the way from Mogao to this village? Who was she crying for?

  I seemed to find the answer one day when I took a long walk half a mile away from my cottage.

  A graveyard.

  There were just five graves, all marked with a thin wooden board inscribed with faded red paint. As I was trying to decipher the characters on the first grave marker, I suddenly heard footsteps in the distance. Swiftly I moved behind a boulder to watch.

  It was a fortyish, muscular, tan-faced man.

  He walked straight to one of the graves, dropped to his knees, and fervently prayed. Then he did the same at all the other graves, his face sad beyond words. My heart would often melt when I saw a sad face; for me it was a window to tragedy, mystery, and poetry—qualities that fascinated me. But this one looked so sad that there was no room left for any of these.

  Finally when the man finished his prayer, he stood up, pressed his lips against each grave marker, and started to leave. I lowered myself so he wouldn’t see me. With his eyes unfocused and his expression hollow, I doubted if he was alert to anything around him, except perhaps those six feet under.

  After making sure that the stranger was gone, I went up to take a good look at the two graves to which he’d paid the most respect. I took out my pen and paper, trying to copy the inscriptions, but one of them was so damaged that I ended up copying only one.

  Back home, I asked Keku to translate the inscription for me.

  1981–1986 Tangri, beloved son of the Limbit family. His five years of life on this planet gave joy and peace to many people, especially his loving parents and doting grandparent. May his beautiful body and soul rest in heaven.

  I couldn’t even imagine the overwhelming sorrow to have lost a child at this tender age. What had happened?

  Later, I asked Keku more about the burial sites, but she only widened her eyes. “Nobody knows. Nobody goes.”

  Then I told her about the sad-faced stranger. “Do you think it was his son buried there?”

  “Don’t know. Never ask. Bad luck. Better not go there yourself.”

  “You’re not curious about this man and his dead relatives, friends?”

  She didn’t answer my question, but sighed. “Miss Lin, now understand why rent cheap?” She paused, then, “Why no people, no thieves come here steal?”

  I felt a shudder inside. Who were this village’s real residents, the Muslims or the phantoms?

  But I thought it might actually turn out to be something good. Maybe I could know this area better by communicating with spirits—ancestors who might tell me tales about the mountains and the desert that the living didn’t know or wouldn’t tell. Of course, I would not tell anyone about this ability of mine, for I had no intention of being stigmatized by my new acquaintances as crazy or, worse, a witch.

  Since my teens, I’d been attracted to graveyards—perfect places for me to read without the slightest disturbance, since the dead stay out of your way and don’t try to engage you in boring conversations. I’d never had more than one or two friends for I never had much in common with my classmates.

  Besides the ordinary dead people, there were other kinds of spirits I connected with, especially deceased authors. So from time to time, I’d skip class and take the bus to the graveyard in Happy Valley where I would read Sense and Sensibility, Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, Alice in Wonderland, The Sun Also Rises…

  When I tired of reading my books, I’d walk around to read inscriptions on gravestones. I found it fascinating when a person died either very young or very old, since I was alive but stuck in between. I also tried to talk to the deceased, easing my teenage angst and filling my mind with otherworldly romances. The graveyard was an escape from the boredom of school and life into a world of fantasy and magical possibilities.

  After I found the graveyard, my nocturnal feeling of suffocation stopped but the cold, empty feeling lingered.

  A few days later, I was eating my simple breakfast of bread and milk and listening to cheerful, exotic Xinjiang tunes when I heard stirring outside the door. I went to lift the curtain, peered outside the window, and was astonished to see Alex Luce fidgeting in front of the entrance.

  Like a hungry ghost, this kid just wouldn’t leave me alone!

  I flung open the door and screamed in his face, “Alex, what are you doing here? You following me again?”

  But his young face, agonized and exhausted, instantly melted my heart.

  “Don’t be mad, Lily. I just wanted to be sure you’re OK.”

  “I’m fine.” Seeing that he was sweating heavily under the hot sun, my heart melted again. “You want to come in?”

  He nodded.

  Inside, I signaled for him to sit on one of the floral “sofas.” After that, I poured water for him in a tin cup, then sat opposite him.

  “I just moved here.”

  “What do you mean by moved here?”

  He pointed to the far distance outside the window. “I’ll camp over there.”

  “At the graveyard?” I couldn’t believe my ears. “Why, are you out of your mind?”

  “So I can look out for you, Lily, in case anything happens.”

  “So you followed me here?”

  “I paid the guy at the hotel to tell me where you are. I hope you aren’t offended.” He lowered his head. His voice came out tender like water, just what I needed in the desert.

  Then he gulped down his water, put down the cup with a gentle clink, and looked me in the eyes. “Lily, I’m in love with you.”

  I tried to sound calm despite my desert-hot emotions. “But, Alex, we hardly know each other.”

  “Does it really matter? Either you love or you don’t, there’s no but in a relationship.”

  “Then what do you want?” I asked, feeling hot, unea
sy, impatient.

  “Let me love you by taking care of you.”

  “You never asked if I’m also in love with you.”

  “Are you?”

  His eyes were so tender that I felt my bones dissolving. Was I in love with him? It was a question I did not want to ask myself. But I was moved by this young man’s stubborn efforts to take care of me, to… love me. And I had to admit I did like to look at his delicate face and his lean body. Any girl would be ecstatic to have his company just for the sake of vanity. Then why would he choose me, years older? Was he starving for sisterly—or motherly—affection?

  I didn’t answer his question, but said, “I already have a boyfriend.”

  He looked stunned for a few seconds, then, “So… are you going to marry him, this boyfriend of yours?”

  I didn’t respond.

  A long silence fell between us before he spoke again, this time with urgency. “He’s married with kids, isn’t he?”

  Did this young man possess a third eye, or was “screwed by a married man” written like bright graffiti on my forehead?

  “He said he would,” I muttered, feeling completely drained.

  “Married men always say that to their mistresses so they’ll stay—in bed.”

  Stung by this unwelcome yet veritable remark, my voice shot out high like a jumping frog. “Alex, why don’t you find someone your age and leave me alone?”

  “I’m not interested in girls my age. They’re like dolls, and I’m not a girl.”

  “Do you want me because you miss your mother?”

  “Lily, I don’t care how old you are, only who you are.”

  “You hardly know me.”

  “Then why don’t you tell me more about yourself?”

  I blurted out, “All right. I’m an adventurer and an aspiring novelist writing a coming-of-age family saga based on my own life. My parents are both dead, so I’m all by myself on this planet.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You satisfied? Now tell me, what do you love in me.” My answer came out cold deliberately to cover the heat spreading inside me.