Leaving Mother Lake (29 page)

Sometimes even the teachers fell asleep. But occasionally they talked from their hearts, mostly of their experiences in the Cultural Revolution. Of course, I too remembered the Red Guards putting up their posters on our village walls, and I had not forgotten the worse details of the stories the horse-men told around the campfire, but I had somehow assumed that this cruelty was something the Han — that imaginary bogeyman our mothers threatened us with when we were naughty — had done to get
us.
Until I heard my teachers speaking in the politics class, I had no idea that the Cultural Revolution had happened all over China — neighbors spying on neighbors, friends betraying friends, children spitting on their own parents, students beating their teachers. And as I watched my teachers speaking with trembling hands of the ten years of bitterness, all I could think was, these people are mad. These people are mad and dangerous. But as to who “these people” were exactly, I had no idea.

Sex for its part was entirely devoid of poetry — taught not in songs and clever improvisation but as part of the general curriculum in physical hygiene during which we learned about the various body parts that distinguished men and women and thus enabled the mechanics of procreation. As for sex without procreation, our teacher told us it was a healthy hobby in which married couples could safely engage up to twice weekly. I thought of Moso women singing around the bonfires, making love under the stars, lighting the fires in their flower rooms, not too bright, not too hot, but just right so that their bodies could relax. Perhaps Moso bodies were different from Han ones. When I had first walked into the communal showers at the conservatory, I had found the Han girls so white and their bodies so flat, their breasts so small. No wonder Han people did not need to make love, I now thought, listening to the teacher. For the Han girls had looked at me as well. They had stopped talking and fixed their curious eyes on my dark skin. Then one of them had said, “Why does she have such big breasts?”

“All minority women are like her. They’re like foreigners. It’s because they eat dairy products,” another diagnosed.

But a year or so into my schooling, I discovered that it was not Han and Moso bodies that were different but our minds. Students at the conservatory were just as interested in lovemaking as Moso peasants, and eager to take advantage of any dark recess that could offer privacy. And others also took advantage of the dark recesses — the security personnel who seemed to enjoy peering at the couples even more than they did catching them out. Nonetheless, if and when students were caught, there was only one punishment, and it was swift and disgraceful — expulsion from the school, as had happened to the Chinese girl who had fallen in love with the African.

And now there was another girl everyone talked about, a beautiful Han girl who had fallen in love with one of her classmates. She had taken the train to a country town to have an illegal abortion, and she had come back in such a terrible state that the teachers soon discovered what had happened. When she came out of the hospital, the girl was called by the school’s administration to be criticized and was told to write a confession, to name the father of her baby, and to give all the details of their encounters. But she was not so easily subdued. Instead of writing her boyfriend’s name, she gave the names of eleven teachers — so that when the administrators and the teachers read her statement, they decided to forget about the confession altogether, and she was not expelled. But the school had to make an example of her, and the story of her abortion appeared on the disciplinary notice board for everyone to sneer at. This terrified me.

When male students looked at me, I looked away, no matter how brightly their eyes shone. I laughed and joked and went to parties, where we danced cheek to cheek to slow, decadent music, but I never danced with the same boy too many times, and I never let anyone walk me back to the dorm late in the night. Yet, before I went to sleep, I often thought of Geko, and as my body grew older, I thought of him more and more often. What was he doing now? Who was loving him? What would he think of me riding a bicycle in the streets of Shanghai? In these sweet waking dreams, I imagined myself alone in my flower room and Geko tapping on my window. I always got up and opened my door now. But this was only in my village, in my imagination. Here in Shanghai, love was the most dangerous thing of all, and I stayed well clear of it.

One day a classmate told me that there was a letter for me at the office.

“Are you sure?” I asked incredulously.

I had never yet received a letter. I had thought of writing to my mother many times — surely she must be anxious to know what was happening to me. But every time I thought of writing, I decided against it. My Ama could not read. If I wrote, she would have to find someone to read the letter for her, and that would probably cost her at least a chicken. There was no point in making life harder than it needed to be.

But who could have written to me? Could the letter be from Zuosuo? Could something have happened to my Ama? I ran to the school post office. My classmate was right. My name was on the notice board.

The envelope was thick. It was not from Zuosuo, but not so far from home either; the sender’s address was in Lijiang. I turned the letter over. The handwriting was very beautiful, so beautiful that I hesitated before tearing open the envelope. Inside there were eight pages, and at the top of each page, a beautiful letterhead saying
Camellia
magazine. I started to read.

Dear little sister Namu,
My name is Lamu Gatusa. Please forgive me for writing to you without a formal introduction. I am from the Moso village of Labei, in the mountains. Last year I graduated from Normal University in Kunming, and I am now working in Lijiang as a writer for the
Camellia
magazine. Two months ago I went home to my family, and I stopped in Ninglang on the way, to visit our Living Buddha, who has just been reinstated by the government. He told me your story and asked me to write to you because we are two young Moso who are making a name for ourselves and our people in the outside world. Our guru says that we have been isolated by the mountains for so long, our people need scholars and gifted artists. He thinks you are the pride of our people.

Dear little Namu, I wish I had met you before you left. Everyone speaks so well of you, and I am still a single man. . . .

But how are you? Did your lips who loved drinking butter tea get used to eating rice porridge? Did the bare feet that climbed the side of the mountains get used to walking in high heels on the streets of Shanghai? Did your ears used to the sighing of the mountain pines get used to the din of city traffic? . . .

I READ THE LETTER OVER AND OVER
. Suddenly my village seemed so close. Suddenly, it was as though my Ama was standing next to me, smiling, her beautiful face glowing with pride, just as it had when I had come back from Beijing with two hundred yuan rolled in pretty red paper. And Gatusa, who had written, “I am still a single man. . . .” I laughed out loud. A Moso man just could not waste an opportunity! And the Living Buddha, who had been recalled from farmwork and who was saying such good things about me. And all the people were proud of me. “They’ve forgiven me,” I thought. My Ama has forgiven me! I can go home now! I can go home anytime I want. I’m going to see my mother again, and Zhema and my brothers and little Jiama, who must be so grown up.

I ran back to the dormitory, took out a letter pad, and sat down to write my very first letter. I sat, and I thought about what to say, acutely aware that whatever I wrote, I could not write only for Gatusa but also for my Ama and my little brothers and my sisters and all our neighbors — for the Living Buddha even. All of which, in the final count, proved a rather tall order. I did not know what to say or where to start. When at last I had put a few lines on the paper, my handwriting looked so clumsy, my sentences seemed so banal by comparison to Gatusa’s beautiful prose, I could not bear it. I tried for a whole week; I wrote a few pages, and then I tore the letter and threw it in the wastebasket.

At the end of the week, I thought, “Lijiang is in the middle of nowhere, surely you can’t buy
Outside the Window
over there.” And I took the book off the shelf. Chong Yao was such an eloquent writer, I was sure I could find something in her novel that could express my emotions — something beautiful, something worthy of Gatusa’s letter. I began carefully selecting passages, copying, editing names and places. At last my own eight-page letter was ready. I sent it off, and the following week I had a reply from Gatusa. He thought I wrote beautifully.

For the rest of the school year, I received a letter from Gatusa every week, and I never failed to reply to him, always matching the exact number of pages. Over the months, he wrote ever more poetically and I plagiarized ever more efficiently. I now spent all my spare time in the library and the bookstores, reading, researching, looking for a poem, for a dedication, a prologue, a story that could express what my heart felt and my talents failed me to write. And if nothing else should come of it, I thought, my reading skills were improving dramatically.

In the meantime, I kept all of Gatusa’s letters inside my pillowcase and I read them again and again. I thought of him constantly. I was in love. I imagined, quite naturally, that he looked something like Geko — tall with dark skin, beautiful long and strong fingers, and I pictured him sitting at his office desk at the
Camellia
magazine, writing, smoking a cheap cigarette, blowing smoke rings into the air, searching for inspiration. I saw myself serving him butter tea, standing by his side, my hand resting on his shoulder, my fingernails painted pink. I slowly massaged his tired shoulders and then I bent my head to his and whispered softly in his ear, leaving a trace of pink lipstick on his delicate earlobe. I imagined we were just like the lovers in
Outside the Window.

I was never so happy. My heart was filled with Gatusa’s poetry. Even the voice lessons became easier. I listened to my teacher, and I smiled at her. That year I also made my first professional recording. It was called
A Moso Girl Sings of Love,
and I sang every song for Gatusa. The world seemed such a joyful place and the future was so bright. Time flew. In the summer I spent part of the long vacation in Beijing with Umbalo and her family, and when school began again in September, I was already looking forward to the New Year and the winter holidays. I had decided to go home — to see my mother and to meet Gatusa. Or perhaps it was the other way around.

Coming Home

I
n China the idea of spending New Year apart from one’s family is almost unbearable, and I had spent too many New Year holidays on my own in the miserably cold dormitory, dreaming of going home. Early in the fall of 1986, I wrote to Gatusa that I had made up my mind to come home for New Year. It had been such a long time since I had seen my family. And such a long time since I had broken up the school kitchen, surely I no longer had anything to fear. I was now the pride of my people — I had recorded my first professional cassette, and I was two years from graduating from the best music school in the country.

This time I would not travel to Chengdu but to Kunming, in Yunnan province. Gatusa had arranged to meet me in Ninglang, where we were to visit the Living Buddha, and from Ninglang I could go all the way to the eastern shore of Lake Lugu by Jeep.

I carried two suitcases filled with gifts — clothes, coffee, tea, candy, tiger balm ointment. I also had a gold ring for my mother, a long wool coat for my father, and two boxes of American cigarettes for Gatusa. The gifts had stretched my resources somewhat and I had to travel third-class on the train, but the thought of Gatusa waiting for me at the end of the journey made everything so much easier to bear. In addition, I was with five classmates from the conservatory — Han, Bai, and Yi students who were going home to Yunnan province. We had four seats among us, which made things more comfortable. At night we took turns resting on the benches or sleeping against each other’s shoulders, and during the day we played cards and sang and told jokes and made the best of it. In Kunming I said good-bye to my friends and took the twenty-four-hour bus to Lijiang, and after a night’s sleep in Lijiang, the twelve-hour bus to Ninglang, via Huapin and Yongshen. On that last leg, everybody seemed to be throwing up, and all I could do not to lose patience was to remind myself of the first time I had traveled by car on the mountain road. And then, as we neared Ninglang, the sight of the open blue sky and the red mountains, and thoughts of Gatusa, almost made me forget my grief.

The bus drove into the station and stopped, and the passengers rushed out of their seats, lighting cigarettes, pushing each other, tripping over bags and feet; they could not wait to get off. I took the time to pour a little water from my drinking bottle onto a cloth and to wipe my face clean. I put on my pink lipstick and brushed my shortish hair. I really wanted to look my best.

Careful not to tread in anything disgusting in my slick city boots, I got off the bus and stumbled past the others on the uneven concrete pavement toward the back of the bus, where I picked up my two cases. Then I went to stand on the porch, from where I gazed anxiously about the yard, looking among peasants in blue cotton garb and Yi women in colorful dusty skirts for a tall, dark, handsome Moso writer wearing a gray wool sweater, a white-collar shirt, and a long black coat.

There was no one fitting this description.

But I noticed, a few feet away from me, a short man in white sports shoes and a ridiculous white jacket who was staring at me. Meeting his eyes, I felt uncomfortable and turned away. And when the short man walked over toward me, I suddenly became desperate for Gatusa to arrive.

“The bus came in early,” he said in Moso.

“Where is Gatusa?” I answered him, barely looking at him, worried that something wrong had happened. Maybe there had been an accident.