Sonam felt a chill run down his back, and moved towards the fire. Although it was summer, at night it got so cold, his legs would go numb. Outside, he could hear the sheep huddling together for warmth, stamping their feet from time to time and clashing horns. The warm steam and the smell of yak dung in the tent slowly seeped into his body. He took a few sips of butter tea and checked the taste. The butter was fresh but the tea hadn't brewed long enough and tasted a little of mould.
He wanted to speak. âAsk me whatever you like,' he said. âHave you seen the big building I live in? It's very tall. There are rooms on each floor.' He thought about the cinema near his school and said, âOne day we could all be in a film.' He looked at their blank faces and explained, âThere are many kinds of films: dramas, documentaries, foreign films.' Seeing that they were still confused, he added: âIt's a bigger world outside. But of course, there aren't so many mountains as there are here.'
As he continued talking, he thought about his school, and about what an oddity he was in the eyes of his classmates: a boy who came from the wild grasslands, five thousand metres above sea level. When
he first arrived in Saga, he felt homesick, and often dreamed about the tent that smelt of dung smoke and warm milk, and about the endless, empty plains. In the grasslands, if you have a rifle, some gunpowder, a horse and a dog, you can feed on gazelles and wild deer, and sleep for free under the stars. But after a while, he settled in and began to enjoy the comforts and excitement of modern life. When he left Saga last month and boarded the bus to Mayoumu, he was so torn between the town and the grasslands that he felt as though his body were being ripped in two.
Now, half of his body had returned home. He was sitting in his family's tent on the high plateau near the shores of Lake Drolmula, listening to the wind rustling outside and his family discussing the breeding of yaks and sheep. He knew that the smell of cake in the air was the smell of Dawa's skin.
He stood up, and with his head bowed low circled the tent. He stroked the rough surface of the central pole. As a child, he used to test the knives he made by running the blades through the wood. He stroked the mirror on the door of the wooden wardrobe. Dawa walked over to him and, just as she used to, pushed her head against his. She gazed at her reflection, and he gazed at it too as her hair brushed against his neck. Nothing had changed.
Didn't you want to come home to Mayoumu? he asked himself. Haven't you come home now? Haven't you found your family's tent? Haven't you given Dawa a gold chiffon scarf and a pair of nylon socks, your mother a shirt, a box of powdered orange juice, a scroll painting of a Chinese landscape? But didn't the black horse run away with those presents? You told them that the girls in Saga wear leather shoes and you showed them how they walked. You said: âI'll take you to Saga. You could find work there. There are books on everything, the roads are as hard as rock, there are a hundred times more shops than there are in Mayoumu. If you go to Saga, you'll never want to come back here again.'
Dawa walked over and poured him some fresh tea. âUndo your top buttons,' she said. âYou're sweating. Did you meet many girls in the town?'
He stared at Dawa's eyes, then at her mouth, and said, âThe girls in Saga wear jeans, not robes. Their legs are as shiny as yak legs. They take off their jeans before they go to bed. They don't sleep in their robes like us.' After he said this, Dawa looked away, and he too dropped his gaze.
In Saga, whenever he saw a girl walk down the street, his thoughts always returned to the high plateau, and the dank, heavy air that pressed down on it.
Another gust of wind blew on Sonam's face. His
heart sank as he watched the slowly wakening marshes of Lake Drolmula. The ribbons of salt crystals along the shore were soaking up the first rays of the morning sun. The black horse must have delivered my sack to the tent by now, he thought to himself. In a daze, he found himself walking back to his family's tent. The sheepdog Pemu ran up to him and rubbed its head against the zip of his trousers.
Beyond the blue sky he could see Mount Kailash moving towards him. It was shrouded in white clouds, just like Goddess Tadkar Dosangma. He tried to stay upright, but his feet gave way and he collapsed on the ground. A ballpoint pen rolled out from the pocket of his jacket and landed between two blades of grass.
As the sun turned red, wisps of white cloud drifted towards the horizon. I could tell that the sunset would be beautiful. I checked the view through my camera. There was no snow on the mountains to the east, and the hills in the foreground made an awkward silhouette. I would have to climb the hill for a better shot. I was at the western edge of Tibet's high Changthang Plateau, a region of lakes and hills. It was a good place for photography, but the land was criss-crossed with rivers and streams, and it was easy to get lost. As I crested the hill, the sun dropped below the horizon. In the fading light I scanned the grasslands and discovered that my road back had sunk into the darkness. The rolling plains that spread before me were pitch black, there were no campfires in sight. I knew that I'd have to sleep under the stars again. I sat down on a breezy slope and finished the biscuits I'd bought in Baingoin. Then
I dug into my pocket and pulled out two pieces of dried yak cheese that I'd pilfered from a market stall. I popped one into my mouth. At first the taste was so sour that I nearly spat it out, but as the lump softened it produced a milky aftertaste that was comforting and familiar.
Before the night wind started to blow, I spread out my sleeping bag and snuggled inside with my shoes still on. I lay on my back, stared into the black sky and thought about life and death. For Tibetans, death isn't a sad occasion, merely a different phase of life. But it was hard to understand the pilgrims who prostrated themselves for hours outside the temple gates, grating their heads on the ground. Why are men so afraid of retribution? I was hungry. My stomach was empty. A gust of air whirled through my abdomen and slipped out through my guts.
I rolled onto my side to ease the pain in my stomach. It was getting cold. I looked up and checked the direction of the wind, and was relieved to find that it was blowing from east to west. There was a river to the west, and then the flat plains, so that even if any wild dogs over there had caught my scent in the wind, they wouldn't have been able to reach me. I took a dagger from my bag, held it in my palm and lay down to sleep. But as soon as I closed my eyes, I was assailed by terrifying visions:
a wild yak stampeded towards me; a wild dog ran off with my rucksack; a wolf crept up behind me and silently clamped its jaws into my spindly neck; a pack of hungry ghosts surrounded me and gnawed at my ears, nose, hands and feet as though they were chewing radishes.
Then my mind turned to women, and the warm smell inside their bras.
I glanced back in the direction in which I'd come and saw a still, faint light. I reached for my camera, and through the zoom lens discovered that the light was a square air vent at the top of a tent. I hoped that the person inside might let me spend the night there. I climbed out of the sleeping bag and groped my way down the hill. Two hours later, I reached the camp. As I approached the tent, I made a small noise to check whether there were any dogs about. But no dogs leaped out, so I lifted the door curtain and peered inside. An old man was sitting very still by the fire. I greeted him in Tibetan. He turned his head towards me, but couldn't see me clearly at firstâhe had probably been staring too long at the flames. It wasn't until I sat down by the fire that he realised I was a Han Chinese. He smiled and in Chinese asked me where I was from. I told him that I'd been in the hills taking photographs of the sunset, and that yesterday I had camped in Duoba
village. He said that he knew what a camera was. As a young man, he'd spent a few years at Sera Monastery repairing a bronze Buddha, and had seen a few Western and Chinese tourists. He had also been able to pick up some basic Chinese while he was working there.
I put my rucksack down and glanced around the interior of the tent. It was empty. The stones in the fire pit were burned through. It was obviously a popular site for nomads to set up camp. The old man had arrived here that morning, or perhaps the day before. I swept my eyes around the tent again, searching for something to eat, but all I could see were the old sheepskins he was sitting on, a saddle and an aluminium bowl. I asked him if there was any food. He said there was none. I put my hand over the fire. He reached behind him and pulled over some freshly cut wild grass and a pile of twigs. He continued talking to me, but I was too weak with hunger to hold a conversation, so I just grunted occasionally in response. As my mind began to blur, he got up, fastened his belt and walked out into the night. I spread my sleeping bag over one of his sheepskins, crawled inside and closed my eyes.
As I drifted off to sleep, I heard a terrible noise outside. It sounded like a wild beast stamping its hoofs. I sat up, grabbed my knife and lifted the door
curtain. The old man was walking towards the tent dragging a yak behind him. He clutched the yak's horn with one hand and put the other over its mouth. The yak struggled to break free. I offered to help, but the old man told me to stay away. He yanked the yak's head down, flicked a knife from his belt and thrust the blade into its neck. Then he whipped off his hat to collect the blood that poured from the wound. The yak kicked and brayed. At last, the old man released his grip, pushed the animal away and watched it stagger back into the darkness. He walked back inside the tent and handed me the hat of blood. âDrink!' he said, as he returned to his sheepskin rug. He fumbled for a cigarette, lit it, then sucked the blood that dripped from his fingers.
I placed the hat of blood in front of me and watched the steam and froth slowly disappear. I was no longer in a mood to sleep, so I started a conversation with him while we waited for the blood to congeal. He told me that he was a nomad from the pastures near Chiu village. Six months ago, he'd travelled to Shigatse, sold his entire herd of yaks and sheep and donated the proceeds to Tashilumpo Monastery. I asked what his plans were now, and he said that he was on his way to the Gangdise Mountains to pray to the Buddha, and to wash his sins away in the sacred waters of Lake Mansarobar.
He told me that he had a daughter. I asked him where she was, but he didn't answer me. His eyes darted from left to right. I could tell that he was dying for a drink, so to distract him I took a cigarette from my pocket and tossed it to him.
When he finished telling me his story, I thought of a girl I had seen in Lhasa, and wondered whether I should mention her to him. In the end I decided not to. I was afraid that if I told him about her, he would pester me for more information. And I was also worried that if he'd known what state his daughter was in now, he might have lost his mind. This is what he told me:
âAfter I sold my herd, I went to Tashilumpo Monastery to pray to the Buddha. I asked the Buddha to protect my daughter, and to allow me to see her again in heaven after I die. I begged the Buddha to help me complete nineteen circuits of Mount Kailash, then allow me to rise to heaven. It was all my fault â¦
âI drank from my mother's breast until the age of fourteen. Her milk never ran dry. My father was killed during the Tibetan Uprising in 1959. The Chiu Pastures are almost deserted now. You will see that for yourself when you travel through them. I was sixteen when I first slept with my mother. Although I saw other women when I went to Chiu
village for the annual Sheep Shearing or Yoghurt Festivals, for some reason, I could never break my attachment to my mother. Sometimes she cried about it, but there was nothing we could do. She'd brought me up alone. After my father died, she devoted her life to me and distanced herself from the other nomads. Then one year in Chiu village, I heard that Sera Monastery in Lhasa was recruiting workers to help repair their bronze Buddha. I saw this as a chance to escape from my mother, so I left home and travelled to Lhasa. Our daughter Metok was nine years old by then. If she'd known that she was my mother's child, how could she have lived with herself?
âI learned many things while I was in Sera, but told no one of the sins that I'd committed. Every day after work, I'd prostrate myself before the temple gates to wipe the sins from my soul. But I'd grown used to suckling at my mother's breast, and during those years at the monastery, I chewed my fingers raw.'
I remembered how he'd looked like a greedy child when he sucked the blood from his fingers a few minutes ago. His skin was dark. His dishevelled hair was drawn back from his face and fastened with a purple thread. Red light from the fire danced across the veins protruding from his forehead. He
thrust his hands out as he talked, and when he shook his head loose strands of hair swung across his eyes.
âAfter five years in Lhasa, I thought that my sins had been washed away, so I returned home. Metok was fourteen. I'd bought her some clothes and a pair of felt boots.
âMetok could already weave her own apron by then. Sometimes she'd sit on my lap and let me put up her hair in the Lhasa style. Over the next two years, she grew up a lot, and began to remind me of her mother. In the grasslands, women strip to the waist at midday, you know, just like the men.'
I told him that I'd seen women do this, then I asked him what had happened to his mother.
âShe died two years after I returned from Lhasa,' he said. âWhen Metok rode with me to the pastures to round up the yaks, the sight of her bare breasts made my heart jump. One day, I lost control. I grabbed hold of a ewe and sucked its udders. Metok saw me do this, and from that day on she kept herself covered at all times and slept as far away from me as she could. I started to drink. I was terrified that my old habits would return.
âLast summer a trader came to our tent asking if we had any leopard skins or antiques to sell. His name was Dondrub. He was well educated, he could speak Chinese. He told us that he'd had a salaried
job in Lhasa. But the truth is, he was a very bad man. May he go to hell when he dies! His cart was loaded with goods to sell to the nomads: aluminium pans, plastic teapots, coloured braid â¦'
âDid he fall in love with your daughter?' I said, interrupting him.
âI let him stay in our tent. He put his quilt down next to my daughter, and on that very first night, he slept with her. I could hear Metok groaning softly. It upset me. But part of me wanted Dondrub to marry her and take her away, so that I wouldn't fall into my old ways. That night, I started chewing my fingers again.
âDondrub stayed with us for two weeks. Every day, Metok served him roast meat and wine. In return, he gave her a hair slide and two plastic bracelets. During the day, I'd stay outside with the animals so that they could be alone together in the tent. But Dondrub's behaviour got worse and worse. Although he wasn't yet thirty, he could swear at women like an old man. If Metok hadn't been so fond of him, I'd have given him a good beating and kicked him out.
âThe day before they were due to leave I drank a lot of wine. I should never have drunk so much.' The old man seemed nervous now; he looked me straight in the eye. The yak blood had congealed. I
scraped it out, passed him the empty hat, then took out my knife, sliced the blood in half and handed him a piece. He took it from me without looking, then with trembling hands scooped it into his mouth.
âIt was Dondrub who kept filling my glass,' he said, glancing up at me again.
I had a feeling that he was lying, so I lowered my gaze and stared at the blood in my hand. The light from the fire flickered across the freshly-cut surface of the congealed blood. I could sense that the light bouncing from my knife was darting across his face.
âDondrub was probably drunk too,' the old man continued. âI asked him to look after my daughter. I told him that it hadn't been easy bringing her up on my own. He promised that he'd be good to her. But later, when he called me “father”, I laughed out loud. I told him that Metok was my mother's child. Metok shrieked when she heard this, and told Dondrub that I was speaking nonsense. But Dondrub seemed excited by what I'd said, and he poured more wine into my cup. I lost all sense of reason after that. I asked Dondrub to let me sleep with Metok. Dondrub agreed, but Metok flew into a rage and started kicking and punching me. Dondrub grabbed hold of her and said, “If you don't sleep
with your father tonight, I won't take you away with me.” After that, Metok stood still and didn't say a word â¦
âWhen I woke up the next morning, I found myself lying on top of her. That night I'd released all the frustration that had been building up inside me for so many years. At first I thought it had all been a dream. I went out for a piss, and waited until I was fully awake before I returned to the tent. But when I walked through the door curtain again, I saw Metok jump under a pile of clothes. I ran outside, got on my horse and rode off into the grasslands. When I returned that night, Metok and Dondrub had gone.
âThat autumn, I drove my herd to Tsala. I knew that Metok would never call me father again, but I was determined to find her. I asked for news of her in Tsala, but no one had seen her there. Then, in a cart shop, I heard that a month before, a skin trader had passed through the village with a young woman in tow. The shopkeeper asked me whether the woman I was looking for had a turquoise pin in her hair, a round face and slightly puffy eyes. He said that the trader kept swearing at the woman, and spoke in a Shigatse accent. When I heard this, I sold some of my yaks at the market and headed for Shigatse.
âWhen I reached Shigatse, I was afraid to tell anyone that I was looking for my daughter. Instead, I just asked them if they knew of a man called Dondrub. There were lots of people called Dondrub in Shigatse, but at last I met a skin trader on the street who said he knew the Dondrub I was looking for. He said that he'd gone to Central Tibet to pick up some furniture. I found my way to Dondrub's home, which was twenty kilometres down the road from Shigatse. But when I arrived, Metok wasn't there. I asked Dondrub's mother where she was. I told her that I was a relative of Metok's, and had a letter for her. The old woman said, “You're looking for that little bastard girl, are you? I kicked her out a long time ago. Our family don't mix with scum like her. May the Bodhisattva of Mercy send her to hell!”