I ask Sangye how much butter she uses for the candles. ‘We are still quite poor. Yeshe’s family has thirty-six candles. When they sheer their flock of sheep they can make two thousand yuan in a day. They invite lamas to recite scriptures every month.’
‘Which scriptures?’
‘We invite two lamas a year, three if we can afford it. We had two this year, they stayed with us for a week.’ Perhaps Liming did not translate my question properly, or maybe it is not important what the lamas recite.
‘We visit Tashilhumpo in the slow months,’ Gelek says, picking a date from the table. He is on his second bowl of tea.
‘If Tashi’s business takes off, what would you spend the money on?’ I watch Sangye’s coarse hand stroke the corner of her prayer book. The red socks peeping between her trouser legs and black shoes are almost threadbare.
When the soldier translates my question everyone laughs.
‘All his money goes back into his truck!’ Sangye squeezes Tashi’s leg. His eyes redden as he smiles. His speech is slower than his brother’s.
‘When we are rich, we will invite three lamas a month.’
‘Wouldn’t you like a wife of your own, your own family?’ I ask Tashi. Liming fidgets with his cap, he looks uncomfortable.
‘If we have too many wives it will split the family inheritance.’
‘More wives mean more children, and children are expensive to keep.’
‘Sons kill oxen and sheep, daughters tread on insects and worms, this is harmful to life.’
Before I have time to ask another question, Liming puts his cap on and stands up. Gelek goes to fetch us six bottles of beer. Liming places the money on the table and whispers, ‘You shouldn’t ask so many questions. They are not used to it.’
In the evening we open the beers and talk about sky burials. Suddenly he pauses and says, ‘The woman was only seventeen. Her name was Myima. She haemorrhaged during childbirth. The baby is still in her womb.’
I crush my cigarette and watch his pale fingers rub the edge of the table. Five red stars and a regiment number are printed on the headboard of the single bed against the wall. Above his desk are posters of aircraft carriers and a photograph of a Japanese actress torn from a magazine. There is just one window in the room. The lower pane is pasted with newspaper. Through the top pane I can see the sky slowly darken. It has been hours since I heard a truck pass.
The soldier stands up, kicks an insulator out of the way and sprawls on the bed. ‘You can go to the burial. The people are more relaxed here. Most of them have never seen a camera before. Myima’s husbands certainly haven’t.’
‘How may husbands did she have?’ As the question leaves my mouth, I realise how disrespectful it is. The soldier turns his radio down. A woman’s voice sings through the speaker, ‘You came to me with a smile but brought me only pain. .’ It reminds me of the Chengdu Ballroom and the girl in the red dress called Ding Xue. She was always humming that song.
‘You will see her for yourself tomorrow.’ He closes his eyes. ‘Myima was not born here. She was a weak child, the youngest of eight. Her parents could not look after her so they sent her here when she was six. After a while she grew stronger, and even attended school in Nangartse — but that was before her adoptive mother died.’
‘And what was her name?’ I ask, opening my notebook.
‘No. You mustn’t write this down. . Her adoptive father is a drunk. When he’s had too much wine he starts singing and grabbing women. Sometimes he grabbed Myima. Everyone in the village knew. She was still a child. How could she defend herself?’ His voice trembles, I can tell he is about to swear. When he was showing off just now, he let out a torrent of abuse.
‘Fucking bastard! Wait till I’m out of this uniform!’ His face flushes from red to purple and fumes with the stubborn rage typical of Sichuan men. I keep quiet and wait for his anger to subside.
He goes to the door to check the wind’s direction. The telephone line is completely still. There are no mosquitoes up here, even in summer. Damp air from the lake rolls into the room and chills my bones.
‘Will you take me to meet them?’ I ask. He flinches, so I say, ‘No, don’t worry, it’s not important.’
Without looking round, he puts his cap on, tugs the brim down, and takes the keys and torch from the table. ‘All right then, let’s go.’
We climb to the village again along dark mud-walled passages that are just wide enough for an ox to pass. My torchlight catches the straw and dung strewn along the paths. Behind the walls dogs begin to bark.
The soldier pushes through a gate and shouts towards a house with a lighted window. We step inside.
The men huddled by the fire turn and gape. The oldest one stands up and talks to the soldier, while the others continue to stare at me. I pass my cigarettes round, then light each one in turn. In the dark all I can see is the white of their teeth. I flick the lighter again and turn up the flame, and their jaws slacken. I hand the lighter to the man standing up. He takes it and sits down. Everyone’s eyes focus on the lighter. They pass it round and smile at me. At last I feel I can sit down. The man on my right cuts me a chunk of dried mutton. I pull out my knife and take a slice. It tastes better than the meat I ate a few days ago in the pilgrims’ tent. They pass us a bowl of barley wine. It is still green, there are husks floating on the surface. Perhaps Myima made it before she died.
The stench of dung smoke is so strong I can only take shallow breaths. As my eyes adjust to the dark, I look around the room. It is as simply furnished as most Tibetan homes, with whitewashed walls and wooden chests. Next to the front door is an opening into a dark chamber — Myima’s bedroom, or the larder perhaps. Opposite the fireplace is a traditional Tibetan cabinet, a scroll painting of the wrathful Yama, Lord of Death, clasping a Wheel of Life, and a table draped with white prayer scarves.
The men eye me and nod. They are probably discussing my request to attend the sky burial tomorrow.
The soldier stands up and beckons me to follow him. He leads me to the dark chamber and shines his torch on a hemp sack that is tied at the top with telephone wire and stands on a platform of mud bricks.
‘That’s her,’ he says.
I flash my torch on the sack. She appears to be sitting upright, facing the wall, head bowed low. Perhaps they had to push it down before they could tie up the sack.
Back in the soldier’s hut, I lie on the bed, eyes wide open, thinking about Myima.
The living and the dead can only meet in the mind. I imagine her singing, like the Tibetan women I have heard in the hills, and in the backs of open trucks. I picture her bending over the fields, her long braids slipping over her ears. I give her the face of a girl I saw on a bus: large red cheeks, small nose, dark-rimmed eyes, round bosom. A bent paper clip holds her shirt together where the second button has come off. The dark dip inside trembles with each shake of the bus.
The soldier walks in from his nightly inspection of the telephone line. His face is blank. He lights a cigarette and lies down beside me.
Eventually he speaks. ‘You’ll be gone in a few days, so I might as well tell you. Besides, I can’t keep this to myself much longer, the pain is too much.’ I lift my pillow and sit up.
‘Myima and I were very close, that is what kept me here so long. Most people would have applied for a transfer years ago. I first met her on that hill up there. I was walking to the hill behind to change a telephone wire. She had let her sheep out and was sitting on the grass. On the way back I was carrying a large roll of wire, it weighed a ton. I said hello and sat down beside her to rest. It was a hot afternoon. I was sweating even in my vest. She watched her sheep grazing in the breeze, then turned and stared at me straight in the eye. No woman had looked at me like that before.’