‘I thought the communists fought alongside the Kuomintang against the Japanese?’
‘That’s true. But the tinker’s grandfather chose the wrong uniform. Chop! And outside Leshan, there’s a village where a pig roast was held two days ago.’
‘So?’ said my cousin.
My nephew swallowed. ‘They haven’t had pigs there since the famine.’
‘So?’ I croaked.
‘Three days ago the Commune Committee were shot for embezzling the People’s buttercream. Guess what — guess who — they put in the pot... Attendance at the pig roast was compulsory on pain of execution, so everyone shares in the guilt. Pot or shot.’
‘It must be quiet down in hell,’ I thought aloud. ‘All the demons have come to the Holy Mountain. Is it the comet, do you think? Could it be bathing the world in evil?’
My nephew stared at the bottle of rice wine. He had always supported the communists. ‘It’s Comrade Mao’s wife’s doing! She was just an actress, but now all this power has gone to her head! You can’t trust people who lie for a living.’
‘I’m going back to my Tea Shack,’ I said. ‘And I’m never coming down from the Holy Mountain again. Visit me sometimes, Cousin, when your ankles let you climb the path. You’ll know where to find me.’
The eye was high above. It disguised itself as a shooting star, but it didn’t fool me, for what shooting star travels in a straight line and never burns itself out? It was not a blind lens, no: it was a man’s eye, looking down at me from the cobwebbed dimness, the way they do. Who were they, and what did they want of me?
I can hear the smile in My Tree’s voice. ‘Extraordinary! How do you tune yourself into these things?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘It hasn’t even been launched yet!’
Once again, I rebuilt my Tea Shack. I glued Lord Buddha back together with sticky sap. The world didn’t end, but hell did empty itself into China and the world was bathed in evil that year. Stories came up the path, from time to time, brought by refugees with relatives at the summit. Stories of children denouncing their parents, and becoming short-lived national celebrities. Truckloads of doctors, lawyers and teachers being trucked to the countryside to be re-educated by peasants in Correction Camps. The peasants didn’t know what they were supposed to teach, the Correction Camps were never built in time for the class enemies’ arrival, and the Red Guard sent to guard them slowly grew desperate as they realised that they had been sent into exile along with their captives. These Red Guard were children from Beijing and Shanghai, soft with city living. Brain had been denounced as a Dutch spy, and sent to an Inner Mongolian prison. Even Mao’s architects of his Cultural Revolution were denounced, their names reviled in the next wave of official news from Beijing. What kind of a place was the capital, where such things were loosed from their cages? The cruellest of the ancient emporers were kittens alongside this madman.
No monks prayed, no temple bells rang, not for many seasons.
Like the guide told his foreign devil, it was all too evil.
Summers, autumns, winters and springs swung round and around. I never went down to the Village. The winters were sharp-fanged, to be sure, but the summers were bountiful. Clouds of purple butterflies visited my upstairs room during the mornings, when I hung out the washing. The mountain cat had kittens. They became semi-tame.
A handful of monks returned to live at the summit of the Holy Mountain, and the Party authorities didn’t seem to notice. One morning I awoke to find a letter pushed under the door of my Tea Shack. It was from my daughter — a letter, and a photograph, in colour! I had to wait until a monk came by, because I can’t read, but this is what it said:
Dear Mother,
I’ve heard that some short letters are being allowed through at the moment, so I’m trying my luck. As you can see from the photograph, I’m almost a middle-aged woman now. The young woman to my left is your granddaughter, and do you see the baby she is holding? She is your great-granddaughter! We are not rich, and since my husband died we lost the lease on his restaurant, but my daughter cleans foreigners’ apartments and we manage to live well enough. I hope one day we can meet on the Holy Mountain. Who knows? The world is changing. If not, we will meet in heaven. My stepfather told me stories about your mountain when he was alive. Have you ever been to the top? Perhaps you can see Hong Kong from there! Please look after yourself. I shall pray for you. Please pray for me.
A trickle of pilgrims slowly grew to a steady flow. I could afford to buy chickens, and a copper pan, and a sack of rice to see me through the winter. More and more foreigners came up the path: hairy ones, puke-coloured ones, black ones, pinko-grey ones. Surely they’re letting too many in? Foreigners mean money, though. They have so much of it. You tell them a bottle of water is 20 yuan, and often they’ll pay up without even doing us the courtesy of haggling! That’s downright rude!
A day passed near by, not long ago. In summer, I hire the upstairs room for people to sleep in. I set up my father’s hammock in the kitchen downstairs and sleep in that. I don’t like doing it, but I have to save money for my funeral, or in case a famine returns. I can make more money from a foreigner this way than in a whole week of selling noodles and tea to real people. This night a foreigner was staying, and a real man and his wife and son from Kunming. The foreigner couldn’t speak. He communicated in gestures like a monkey. Night had come. I’d boarded up the Tea Shack, and lay in the hammock waiting for sleep to come. My visitors’ son couldn’t sleep, so the mother was telling him a story. It was a pretty story, about three animals who think about the fate of the world.
Suddenly, the foreigner speaks! In real words! ‘Excuse me, where did you hear that story first? Please try to remember!’
The mother was as surprised as me. ‘My mother told it to me when I was a little girl. Her mother told it to her. She was born in Mongolia.’
‘Where in Mongolia?’
‘I only know she was born in Mongolia. I don’t know where.’
‘I see. I’m sorry for troubling you.’
He clunks around. He comes downstairs and asks me to let him out.
‘I’m not giving you a refund, you know,’ I warn him.
‘That doesn’t matter. Goodbye. I wish you well.’
Strange words! But he is determined to leave, so I slide the bolts and swing open the door. The night is starry, without a moon. The foreigner was upbound, but he leaves downbound. ‘Where are you going?’ I blurt out.
The mountain, forest and darkness close their doors on him.
‘What’s up with him?’ I ask my Tree.
My Tree has nothing to say, either.
‘Mao is dead!’
My Tree told me first, one morning of bright showers. Later an upbound monk burst into my Tea Shack, his face brimming over with joy, and confirmed the news.
‘I tried to buy some rice wine to celebrate, but everybody had the same idea, and not a drop could be bought anywhere. Some people spent the night sobbing. Some spent the night telling everybody to prepare for the invasion from the Soviet Union. The Party People spent the night hiding behind closed shutters. But most of the villagers spent the night celebrating, and setting off fireworks.’
I climbed to the upstairs room, where a young girl was sleepless with fear. I knew she was a spirit, because the moonlight shone through her, and she couldn’t hear me properly. ‘Don’t worry,’ I told her. ‘The Tree will protect you. The Tree will tell you when to run and when to hide.’ She looked at me. I sat on the chest at the end of my bed and sang her the only lullaby I know, about a cat, a coracle and a river running round.