Liu Ren picks the largest chunk of beef from the pot. The smell of meat has filled the room.
‘For us Han Tibetophiles, Tibet is an escape from China, but we are drawn to it for aesthetic rather than religious reasons. So much of the culture is being lost, though. The Tibetans in our office are more westernised than us. They wear jeans and perm their hair. The only people left who can talk to us about art are a few mad painters hiding in the hills.’
‘You shouldn’t confuse art with religion. Buddhism is a very practical philosophy. Disciples have to abide by the rules and control their desires. But art requires you to push your individuality to the extreme and break all the rules.’
‘What can I say to them, Ma Jian? I have a child, after all.’ He changes the subject suddenly just as he did last night.
‘What are you talking about?’ I am slowly getting used to speaking to my mirror image.
‘The work unit has received another vasectomy demand, and my name has come up. There are only three of us left to choose from and the other two have just got married.’ He snorts, and I instantly think of the peasant I saw being sterilised in Guizhou.
‘You can promise not to have another child, but don’t let them operate. If I were you I would resign. You could go home, go travelling. No one is forcing you to stay here.’
‘I like my job. You only have yourself to think about, but I have a family. Besides, I’m a Party member, I am expected to set an example.’
He is sitting on a wooden stool. The table is strewn with bones and half-eaten rolls.
Beimu has not barked for some time. I push the door open and peep outside. ‘Oh no. Where’s that dog gone?’
We run outside. The dog has vanished and so has the rope that tied her to the post.
My ears start ringing. ‘Bloody hell. What’s Mo Yuan going to say?’ I grab a torch and run through the front yards shouting her name. The gatekeeper tells us he has just come on duty but has seen no one leave with a dog. We scour the office block, canteen, boiler room, water tower, then search the yards again.
‘He gives me the keys to his room and I go and lose his puppy. What a disaster!’ My throat is burning.
Back inside in the room, Liu Ren turns on the electric heater. ‘Don’t worry,’ he says. ‘She can’t have left the compound. Maybe someone has stolen her. When everyone has gone to bed, we’ll go out and have another look.’
A few hours later we creep outside and start whispering her name. Suddenly we hear a dog bark.
‘It’s her,’ says Liu Ren. ‘No doubt about it. That room belongs to Lobsang. He’s one of our technicians.’
‘Go and get her then. She might be hurt.’
‘I can’t. He’s Tibetan, it could cause trouble. Let’s wait for a while. He can’t keep the dog in the room all night. He will have to take her out later and sell her in the market.’
‘I’m not waiting!’ I make for Lobsang’s door, but Liu Ren pulls me back. We sit down and half an hour later the door opens and Beimu is dragged out. When I snatch hold of the rope, Beimu bounces at me and wags her tail.
‘Why did you take this dog?’ I shout. The man laughs awkwardly.
Liu Ren pulls me away. ‘Please, Ma Jian. Don’t make trouble.’ He mumbles some placating words in Tibetan then tells me to take Beimu home. As I turn to leave, Lobsang whips his belt off and tries to hit me. I grab his hand but Liu Ren pounces between us and shouts, ‘Ma Jian! Don’t fight! You can run away, but the rest of us have to live here.’
Lobsang knows my hands are tied, so he catches up with us and starts thrashing Beimu with his belt. Beimu rolls to the ground and yelps in agony. I control myself and whisper, ‘Stop, or you will get hurt.’
But he ignores me and continues to attack the dog. The people who have gathered to stare pull me back to Mo Yuan’s room. I tie Beimu to the post, my hands still shaking. Then suddenly Lobsang runs up with a rock in his hand and throws it at the dog. It misses Beimu by a hair and smashes through Mo Yuan’s wooden door. I untie Beimu and carry her inside, and tell myself if he comes at us again I will not hold back.
I lie awake for hours, smoking cigarettes. I have calmed down now, but Beimu has lost all her spirit. She is on the brick floor now, trembling with fear. Liu Ren brought her a plate of beef a while ago, but she didn’t even sniff it.
Same Path, Different Directions
Three days after leaving Yangpachen, I am still walking south-west along the banks of a clear stream. The high plateau is covered by green grass and brown hills. The dark dips in the land are lakes.
As the sun reddens, wisps of white cloud drift to the horizon. I can tell the sunset will be beautiful. I check the view through my camera. There is no snow on the mountains to the east and the hills in the foreground make an awkward silhouette, I will have to climb the hill for a better shot. This region is wonderful for photography, but the land is criss-crossed with rivers and streams and it is easy to get lost. As I crest the hill the sun rolls below the horizon. I scan the grasslands in the fading light but see no sign of the pilgrims I have been walking with, or of their large white tent. I will have to sleep under the stars tonight.
I sit on a breezy slope and finish the biscuits I bought in Yangpachen. Then I dig into my pocket and pull out two lumps of dried yak cheese I pilfered from a stall in Lhasa. I pop one into my mouth. The taste is very sour at first, but as the lump softens it produces a comforting milky taste. I remember the girl I saw crouched below that meat stall on the dusty corner of the Barkhor: the lower rims of her eyes slightly swollen, cheeks blown purple by the grassland wind, forehead wrinkled in supplication. If someone stopped and looked at her with pity, she would cup her left breast and suck it, then smile affectionately. Her eyes were full of kindness and her smile was as pure as the grassland air. Dogs clambered over her feet, waiting for scraps of meat to fall from the butcher’s knife. Now and then she chanted softly, ‘Om Mani Padme Hum.’ Can the Buddha really extinguish all suffering?
Before the wind gets up, I lay out my sleeping bag and snuggle inside with my shoes still on. I stare into the black sky and think about life and death. For Tibetans death is not a sad occasion, merely a different phase of the same reality. All that concerns them are the causes of death and the quality of the funeral. Where is the poetry in that? I think back on the lines of a poem I wrote a few days ago: ‘In the silent graveyard/Let me, like the rain’s song/ Dampen your shoulders again. .’
Ma Jian, religion calms your spirit, but the Buddha does not fill your every thought, he has not entered your heart. Can you still call yourself a Buddhist then? No. All you believe in is a list of precepts and principles. My stomach feels empty. A cold wind passes straight through me. I roll onto my side and the hunger slowly subsides.
Today is 18 August. Three years ago in Beijing, I could never have guessed I would spend my thirty-third birthday alone in the wilds of Tibet. The pilgrim family I walked with today are trekking to Mount Kailash. The journey will take them six months, but their sheep are so thin they will run out of food well before then. The two yaks that carry their carpet and tent are as skinny as the sheep. The pilgrims wore tattered hides, I could not guess their ages. Last night I spotted their tent and went to ask them for some food. The man in the felt hat spat into a bowl, gave it a wipe with his sleeve, then filled it with ground barley and milk. This morning they folded their tent and continued along the pilgrim trail. I followed them all day, watching them chant with their hands in the air, praying for release from earthly suffering. They looked to heaven and saw liberation. I looked into the same blue sky, but saw nothing. The noon sun blistered my face.