Читать книгу Soul Mountain - Mabel Lee, Gao Xingjian - Страница 20

Outside the upstairs widow of the old house in a twisting narrow lane are rooftops sloping at all angles, running in all directions, all adjoining and stretching into the distance as far as the eye can see. Shoes are airing in the sun on the roof-tiles below the window of a little apartment poking up between two roof ridges. The room has a carved timber bed with a mosquito net and a red wooden wardrobe with a round mirror; a cane chair is next to the window and there is a bench by the door. She gets me to sit on the narrow bench. There is nowhere to move in the small room. I met her a couple of nights ago at the home of a journalist friend and we were all smoking, drinking and chatting. She wasn’t put off when it came to crude jokes and in this small mountain town, she seemed to be quite up to date. When we later discussed my request, my friend said, you’ll need a woman to take you there. She agreed straightaway and has now brought me here.

She whispers into my ear in the local dialect, quickly alerting me. “When she arrives you must ask for incense. You must ask for incense and also kneel and prostrate yourself three times. This ritual must be observed.” Her voice and movements have reverted completely to that of the local women. Squashed next to her on this narrow bench, I suddenly feel quite uncomfortable. In this small county town where everyone knows everyone else couples come to places like this for illicit sex if they’re having an affair. I detect the acrid smell of preserved vegetables. Yet the room is immaculate, the floorboards in the middle of the room have been scrubbed so clean that the original colour of the timber can be seen and the wallpaper behind the door is spotless. There isn’t the space here for an urn to preserve vegetables.

Her hair brushes against my face, as she says in my ear, “She’s here.”

A fat, barely middle-aged woman comes in, followed by an old woman. The fat woman takes off her apron and straightens her dress which has faded from washing but is clean. She has just finished cooking downstairs. The slight and gaunt old woman who follows her into the room nods to me.

My friend immediately reminds me, “Go with her.”

I get to my feet and follow her to the side of the stairs where she opens an inconspicuous little door and goes in. It is a tiny room where there is a table with an incense altar dedicated to the two Daoist deities, the Venerable Lord Superior and the Great Emperor of Light, and to the bodhisattva Guanyin. Below the incense altar are offerings of cakes, fruit, water and liquor. On the wooden walls hang red banners with black borders and jagged yellow pennants, all bearing words to invoke good fortune and to dispel misfortune. Sunlight streams in through a transparent roof-tile and smoke from a single stick of incense slowly rises in the ray of light, creating an atmosphere which prohibits speech. Only then do I realize why my friend has been whispering since we came in. From a slot under the incense altar, the old woman takes out a bundle of thin incense sticks wrapped in yellow paper. As instructed earlier by my friend, I immediately put one yuan into the woman’s hand, take the incense sticks, light them from the burning paper she has put a match to in the censer, and holding them in both hands kneel on the rush cushion in front of the altar to reverently perform three prostrations. The old woman smacks her sunken lips to show her approval of my devoutness, takes the incense sticks from me and puts them into the incense altar in three lots.

When I return to the room, the fat woman has prepared herself and is sitting sedately in the cane chair, her eyes closed. She is apparently the spirit medium. The old woman sits down on the far side of the bed to say something to her in a low voice, then turns to ask my friend the zodiac sign of my birth. I tell her my birthday according to the solar calendar. I can’t remember the exact date according to the lunar calendar, although I can work it out. The old woman also asks the hour of my birth and I say both of my parents are dead and there is no way of finding out. The old woman is obviously worried and has a quiet discussion with the medium. The medium says something which I understand to mean it doesn’t matter, then puts her hands on her knees, closes her eyes, and begins to meditate. On the roof-tiles outside the window where she is sitting, a pigeon settles and starts cooing. The band of shining purple feathers around its neck puff out and I realize it is a male pigeon performing his mating ritual. The medium however suddenly inhales and the bird flies off.

I always feel sad when I see roof-tiles, the fish-scale overlapping shapes always conjure up childhood memories. I recall rainy weather, rainy weather when, drops of transparent water clinging to it, the spider web in the corner of the room trembles in the wind. This sets me thinking about why I have come into the world. Roof-tiles have the power of making me weak and making me succumb to inertia. I want to cry but I have already lost the ability to cry.

The medium burps a couple of times: the spirit must be attaching itself to her. She keeps burping, she has so much gas that I can’t repress the urge to burp as well, however I don’t dare and keep it bottled inside — I don’t want to break our rapport and give her the idea that I’ve come to cause trouble and make fun of her. I am sincere in mind and heart although I don’t really believe it all. She can’t stop burping, and more and more frequently. Her whole body starts to convulse and she doesn’t seem to be faking it. She is convulsing, I think, probably as a result of qigong during meditation. Her body is shaking and her fingers suddenly start jabbing into the air, that is to say, at me. She has her eyes still tightly closed and the fingers of both hands all stretching out, but the two index fingers are clearly pointing at me. My back is against the timber wall and there is no place to retreat, I can only brace myself. I don’t dare look at my friend who would certainly be more reverent than me, even if she has brought me to have my fortune told. The cane chair creaks noisily with the shaking of the woman’s fat body. She is barely comprehensible as she intones incantations. She is saying something like: Within the Lingtong Chamber of Efficacy of the Queen Mother of the West and the Lords of Heaven and Earth, grows a pine tree with the power to turn the wheels of Heaven and Earth and to entirely slaughter bovine demons and snake spirits. She speaks faster and faster, and with greater urgency. This really takes considerable practice and I judge that she is fully qualified. The old woman puts her ear up next to her and after listening, says with a grave expression, “It is an unlucky year for you, you should be careful!”

The medium goes on babbling but is totally incomprehensible. The old woman again explains, “She says you have encountered the White Tiger Star!”

I’ve heard of White Tiger referring to a very sexy woman and that if you get involved with her it is difficult to extricate yourself. I’m actually quite keen to have the good fortune of getting involved with such a woman but what concerns me is whether I’ll be able to escape from my bad luck.

The old woman shakes her head, “It will be difficult to escape from your dangerous predicament.”

I don’t seem to be a lucky person, nothing lucky has ever happened to me. What I hope for is never realized and what I do not hope for often materializes. I’ve had countless disasters in my life, I’ve had involvements and troubles with women, that’s right, I’ve even been threatened, although not always by women. I don’t have real conflicts of interest with anyone, I don’t think I’m an obstacle to anyone and only hope no-one will be an obstacle for me.

“Great calamities and disasters are imminent, you are surrounded by the tiny people,” the old woman adds.

I know about the tiny people, they are described in the compendium of ancient Daoist writings called the Daozang. These naked tiny people known as “triple corpses” live as parasites in human bodies, hiding in the throat and thriving on the person’s mucous. When the person is dozing they sneak away to the Heavenly Court to report to the Heavenly Emperor on the wrongdoings of the person.

The old woman adds that a violent person with bloody eyes wants to punish me and that even with incense and prayers I won’t be able to escape.

The fat woman slides off the cane chair onto the floor and is rolling about on the floorboards. This must be why the floors are scrubbed so clean. I immediately feel that my impure thoughts have invoked her curses. She keeps cursing me, saying that there are as many as nine White Tigers surrounding me.

“Then can I be saved?” I ask, looking at her.

She is frothing at the mouth and the whites of her eyes are turned upwards — she has a horrible expression on her face. All of this is induced by self-hypnosis and she is already in a state of hysteria. There isn’t enough space for her to roll about in the room and her body bumps into my feet. I hastily pull them back, stand up, and looking at this woman’s fat body wildly rolling about I am gripped with fear — I don’t know if it’s fear of my own destiny or fear brought upon me by her curses. I have spent money to make fun of her and will eventually be punished. People’s relationships with one another are really frightening.

The medium is still babbling away and I turn to ask the old woman what it all means. She shakes her head but doesn’t explain. I see the fat convulsing body at my feet gradually humping its back and slowly recoiling to the foot of the cane chair like an injured animal. People in fact are animals and can be quite savage when injured. And it is madness for his wretched person to allow himself to be terrorized. When people go mad they torment themselves with their own madness, it seems.

She heaves a long sigh and there is a low rumbling in her throat, something like the growling of an animal. With her eyes still closed, she gropes about and gets to her feet. The old woman rushes to support her and to help her into the cane chair. I really think she has had an attack of hysteria.

She had correctly sensed that I had come for a bit of fun and she wanted revenge, so she cursed me. It is the friend who brought me who is even more alarmed and she asks the old woman if a session can be arranged for her to burn incense and to pray for me. The old woman asks the medium who mutters something, her eyes still closed.

“She says such a session won’t help.”

“What if I buy extra incense?” I ask.

My friend then asks the old woman how much it would cost. The old woman says twenty yuan. I would spend this amount on a meal for my friends, this is for myself and I immediately agree. The old woman discusses it with the medium and replies, “Even if you do this, it’s not going to help.”

“Does this mean there’s no way for me to escape my bad luck?” I ask.

The old woman relates what I’ve said and the medium mumbles something again. The old woman says, “That remains to be seen.”

What remains to be seen? How devout I am?

The cooing of the pigeon outside comes through the window. I think it’s already pounced on its mate. But here I am, still unable to get a reprieve.