"Sky Burial, An Epic Love Story of Tibet" - читать интересную книгу автора (Xue Xinran)

5 LOST IN QINGHAI

When Zhuoma and Wen returned from the lake, they found two men in the tent, both carrying rifles with bayonets. Wen assumed that they must be relatives of Gela’s family, or were perhaps known to Zhuoma because she immediately engaged them in conversation. The men received a warm welcome from the whole family, who cooked a great hunk of mutton in their honor, and the aroma of roasted meat and barley wine filled the tent.

Once the men had gone, Zhuoma told Wen that the men had been passing travelers who were gathering medicinal herbs. Neither she nor Gela knew them but, in Tibet, all travelers received an enthusiastic welcome because they were the bearers of news. It was traditional to treat them with great respect and offer the best food. Their horses would be checked over by the men while the women would prepare them water and dried provisions for their journey. Sadly, this group of men had not been able to offer much information that was of use, either to Gela or to Zhuoma and Wen.

Early the next morning, as the first rays of sun were scattering over the grassland, everyone set about their tasks as usual. The men started to herd the sheep and yaks toward the slopes of a mountain to the south. This was the only time during the day that the three men raised their voices. There was an undertone of excitement to their vigorous calls as they drove their beasts, and the sound mingled with the lowing and bleating of the animals. Zhuoma set off for the lake with Ni and Hum chattering and laughing behind her, as if the empty waterskins on their backs were filled with happiness. Saierbao, Pad, and Wen set about churning the butter, a skill that Wen had now mastered. She was full of new hope and confidence. Zhuoma was planning to offer Gela some of her jewelry in exchange for two horses, and although Wen had nothing to give, she had decided that she would leave behind her book of Liang Shiqiu’s essays. For a while now, between the evening meal and prayers, the children had been asking her to read aloud a passage from the book, which Zhuoma would try to translate. It was difficult for her to understand Liang Shiqiu’s philosophical writing, but it helped her improve her Chinese. Every day she and the children learned something new.

Suddenly, Wen saw Pad standing in a trance at the tent door, staring into the distance. When Saierbao called out to her to come and help with the butter, she didn’t move. Even more strangely, she then walked twice around the tent. Although Saierbao seemed unperturbed by her daughter’s behavior, Wen was puzzled. She walked over to the tent door and saw, in the distance, Ni and Hum running toward them. There was no sign of Zhuoma.

When the children finally reached the tent, they were in tears. Wen watched Saierbao turn pale as she listened to what they were telling her and then run out of the tent to wave and shout at the far-off figures of Gela, Ge’er, and Om. Wen waited anxiously for the men to arrive back at the tent so that she could find out what had happened. All she could understand from the children’s babbling was the word “Zhuoma” repeated over and over again.

After what seemed like hours, the men entered the tent and listened to what the children had to say. Wen implored them in gestures to explain to her what was being said. It was Ge’er who, as so often, seemed to understand her. Taking a board that was usually used for working sheepskin, he threw some barley flour over it and drew a few pictures with his finger. Although crude, the pictures were clear enough. A group of men on horseback had thrown a sack over Zhuoma’s head and carried her off. When Wen had recovered from her initial shock, she laboriously asked Ni if she had seen anything else. Ni pulled down the sleeve of her robe to reveal several long scratches on her right shoulder. Hum placed Wen’s hand on his head, where she felt a large bump. She guessed they must have been hurt struggling with whoever had kidnapped Zhuoma. Wen had no idea why anyone would have wanted to take her. It was inconceivable. Unless they were some unknown enemies of Zhuoma’s, or Chinese soldiers.

For the rest of the day, Wen asked Ni and Hum many questions using gestures, pictures, and objects in an attempt to find out some more details about what had happened. It seemed that while Zhouma and the children were on their way home with the water, the group of men had ridden up to them, lassoed Zhuoma as they would a horse, and bundled her into a large cloth sack-the kind used to carry offerings. The children could understand what the men had been saying, so they must have been Tibetans. Two of them, it appeared, were the men who had visited their tent the day before. Ni told Wen that Zhuoma had continued to struggle, even after she’d been flung over the horse’s back. Wen remembered Pad’s strange behavior on the morning of the kidnapping. Had she seen or sensed something? She tried to ask her if she knew where Zhuoma was now, but Pad simply shook her head and pointed to her mouth, not saying a word. Wen had no idea what she meant.

In the days that followed, Gela and Ge’er spent hours scouring the surrounding land on horseback, looking for a sign of Zhuoma and her kidnappers, but they had melted into thin air. Each evening the men would return disconsolate. When they caught her eye, Wen understood that they had no hope of finding Zhuoma, and that they pitied Wen, who now found herself completely alone and unable to communicate.

AS SUMMER turned to autumn, Wen entered the darkest period of her life. At night, she would weep for the woman whose sleeping space now lay empty at her side, remembering her courage and intelligence. During the day, she struggled to manage without Zhuoma as an interpreter. The odd sentence of Tibetan that Zhuoma had managed to teach her-a few verbs and words like “yes” and “no”-allowed her to go about her daily tasks, but outside these routines, she was confined to a world of silence. And she had little hope of learning more Tibetan. Gela’s family lived their lives in a kind of tacit understanding. Even when they had the time to talk to each other, it was rare to hear them in conversation. Without language, how would she ever be able to persuade them to help her leave their home and risk her life alone on the plateau? Aside from the fact that she had his photograph, the family knew nothing of Kejun. Zhuoma had advised her not to tell them that the Chinese army was in Tibet. They would not understand why and it would frighten them.

Would she ever be able to tell them that she loved her husband so much she was prepared to suffer anything to find him?

Wen was eaten up by pain and disappointment. It was as if she had drawn close to her husband only to see him disappear yet again. She was trapped and could see no way out.

AFTER ZHUOMA’S disappearance, the family seemed far more fearful. Ni’s merry laughter dried up and the usually irrepressible Hum now clung silently to his mother instead of prancing and skipping around the tent. When the time came to move to their next pasture, Gela seemed to choose an even more remote place to settle. If they saw a human form in the distance, Gela would signal to his family to keep out of sight. Once or twice, he even hid Wen among the sheep so that she couldn’t be seen by passing travelers, as if he was worried that she too might be carried off. It felt like they were leaving the world of men far behind them.

Wen began to keep a diary. Every day she would use one of her colored stones to write a few lines on one of the pages of The Collected Essays of Liang Shiqiu.

The stones left only a faint indentation. She had to condense and limit her writing in order to save paper. Nevertheless, the diary was her only means of recording her thoughts and retaining her ability to write Chinese. It gave her a new strength and determination to survive.

ONE MORNING, Ni fainted as she was helping Saierbao with the milking. Saierbao yelled out to her husbands for help, and Gela carried Ni back to the tent. Clearly troubled, Gela said something to Ge’er, who immediately left the tent and began to saddle his horse. Gela then mumbled a few words to Saierbao, who went over to the stove and put some water on to boil. Using all the Tibetan she had learned, Wen tried to tell Saierbao that she was a menba, that she might be able to help them, but Saierbao looked at her blankly and continued what she was doing. Suddenly, Hum cried out, pointing at Ni’s lower body. Everyone’s eyes followed his pointing finger: blood was seeping through Ni’s robe. Gela told Pad to take Hum outside, then gestured at Wen to help him open Ni’s clothing. On the garments under her robe they found layer upon layer of bloodstains.

Now Wen finally understood why Ni had been weeping every night: she must have been bleeding like this for ages. She remembered Zhuoma telling her that because fetching water was so backbreaking, the women were very skilled at saving on clothes washing and went to great lengths to avoid menstrual bloodstains. Ni’s bleeding could not therefore be simply an ordinary period.

Trying to hold back her tears, Saierbao gestured to Wen that they had all known about this problem for a long time, but didn’t know what to do.

Gela soaked a piece of felt in hot water, wrung it dry, spat a couple of mouthfuls of barley wine onto it, wrung it out again, and walked over to the statue of Buddha to pray. He then wrapped the piece of felt around Ni’s feet and spat another mouthful of barley wine over her forehead. Ni’s lips moved slightly and her eyes opened a crack. She looked toward her mother, who was turning her prayer wheel and praying in front of the altar. Gela called Saierbao over and placed their daughter’s hand in hers. Ni gave a faint smile, then closed her eyes.

Wen stepped forward and took her pulse. It was terribly weak and she was continuing to lose blood. Yet without medical equipment or medicine, there was nothing Wen could do to help her. She was torn apart by guilt and frustration.

Throughout the day, the whole family kept a silent vigil by Ni’s side; even Hum-so hungry that he was sucking his fingers-remained totally quiet. Saierbao and Gela knelt together in front of the Buddha, endlessly turning the prayer wheel while they prayed.

At dusk, the sound of galloping hooves signaled Ge’er’s return. He had a bag in his hands, which the three adults quickly opened. They mixed its powdery contents with water and fed it to Ni. Wen watched, fascinated, but had no idea what they were giving her. Ten minutes later, Wen could see some color return to Ni’s cheeks.

No one slept that night. Gela gestured at the exhausted Wen to rest. She lay down, listening to the turning of prayer wheels until daybreak.

THEY WERE unable to save the lovely, lively Ni. Her spirit had gone too far away. The day after her collapse, the young girl, who couldn’t have been more than fourteen, lost her life.

Wen was overcome with grief. She mourned for the family, but also for herself. Of all the members of Gela’s family, Ni was the one she had spent the most time with, and who had brought her the most happiness. Now she had lost both Zhuoma and Ni in quick succession. Her future stretched out before her in a hopeless abyss.

Wen was terrified that the family would give Ni a sky burial. Zhuoma had described how, after her father’s death, his corpse had been cut into pieces and left on a mountain altar for the vultures to eat. She had answered Wen’s disgust by saying that sky burial was merely another manifestation of the harmony in Tibet between heaven and earth, nature and man: there was nothing to be disgusted by. But, although Wen remembered Zhuoma’s words, she didn’t think she could bear to watch Ni’s body being fed to vultures. In any event, she was spared: the family took the corpse to the lake for a water burial.

AUTUMN BECAME winter, winter became spring. Wen found that she could no longer keep track of the passing years. She simply followed the family as they moved in search of fresh pastures and shelter from the elements. To her, each mountain, each prairie looked the same; to them, there were subtle distinctions. As often as she could, she wrote in her book-letters to Kejun that she hoped she would one day deliver to him; details of her daily life. The words piled up. Once she had filled the blank pages in the book of essays, she started writing between the lines of text. Once those spaces were filled, she wrote over the faint imprints already there. The only space in which she would not write was the inside cover. She reserved this for Kejun. When she found him, he would write an epilogue to her diary. The pages overflowed with Wen’s loneliness, her love, her will to survive.

The book became thicker and thicker.

Kejun’s photograph yellowed. His face looked worn and wrinkled.

As there was no opportunity of escape, Wen stopped thinking about escape. Her body and mind adapted to the Tibetan way of doing things; she ceased to be so aware of her needs and desires. When the family prayed, she joined them, spinning her own prayer wheel. She added to the prayers the words of Wang Liang: “Just staying alive is a victory.”

The closest Wen came to having contact with the world beyond the family tent was the festival of Weisang. In the autumn, men would gather in huge numbers from all around the region to make offerings to the ancestors. Since women were not allowed to participate, Wen, Saierbao, Pad, and Hum would watch from the hillside as hundreds of horse riders carrying brightly colored flags moved in ritual formations around the sacrificial altar. Gela would bring back jewelry for Saierbao that joined the many ornaments with which she adorned herself. At first Wen didn’t understand how this poor family could spend their money on luxuries instead of buying animals. As time went on, she realized that these ornaments were not considered to be material wealth but were in fact religious objects.

GELA, GE’ER, and Om could not attend Weisang every year but they went as often as they could. The first time Wen had seen them set off on their horses, she had been alarmed. The size of their packs indicated that they would be gone for some time and she couldn’t understand why they were leaving the women and children alone. It was Pad who had tried to explain. She had imitated her father and drawn Wen a picture in barley flour showing three suns decorated with implements for breakfast, lunch, and supper. Under the middle sun, she drew three men. By this, Wen had understood that the men would arrive at their destination at midday and were not going too far away. But she was still very confused.

Two days later, Saierbao had told her children to change into their festival robes and had found a colorful silk sash to tie around Wen’s waist. They had tethered the livestock to yak-hair ropes outside the tent, secured the door, and set out on their horses. Saierbao had issued very few instructions to her children as they prepared to leave and they had followed her without speaking. By now, Wen was familiar with this silent way of doing things and she found it less disconcerting.

After a three-hour ride, they had stopped to eat. Suddenly Hum had pointed ahead, laughing and shouting. In the distance was a sea of people and flags. The flags fluttering in the breeze mingled with the flapping of banners planted in the ground and everywhere was alive with color and movement. Smoke and the smell of burning wood from the sacred fire enveloped the scene in a shimmering haze. Wen thought she had been transported to another world. After so many months of privation and solitude, the crowds, color, and noise seemed like a vision.

As the years went by, Wen grew accustomed to such extraordinary manifestations of faith. She also grew accustomed to the lack of news of the outside world. The only change to her life that Weisang brought was a wife for Om in a marriage arranged between the two families at the festival. Om’s wife, Maola, was very similar in temperament to Saierbao: a woman of few words, serene and hardworking, and always smiling. Although Om still played his lute outside the tent every night, his music was much happier than it had been.

Not long after the wedding, Maola became pregnant. Two young sheep were separated from the flock and tethered to the tent. Wen observed them being fattened up to serve as nourishment for Maola at the time of the birth and to celebrate the arrival of a new family member. It was when she watched in amazement as Gela and Ge’er skillfully delivered a healthy baby girl into the hands of Om that she realized her identity as a doctor, and indeed as a Chinese woman, was falling away from her.

That evening, Gela led his whole family in prayers for the newborn. Saierbao and Wen had been hard at work all day preparing the feast. At the banquet, Saierbao presented Wen with one of the crisp roasted legs of lamb. For as long as Wen could remember, that part of the lamb had always been reserved for Gela and Ge’er. Saierbao’s gesture seemed to be saying to her, “You are one of us now. Share in our happiness.”