Still floating somewhere between life and death, Wen struggled to open her eyes. She was lying on the ground, but she was warm and comfortable. A shaft of strong light was beating down from above, making it difficult to see anything around her. With great effort she moved her weak body. Instinct told her that every part of her was there, but her head felt strangely absent.
“Is this the sun of the human world,” Wen asked herself, “or the holy radiance of heaven?”
A familiar face was bending over her.
“How are you, menba?” It was Zhuoma.
“Zhuoma?” Wen could feel herself returning to the land of the living. “Where are we?”
“We are in the home of a nomad family; this is their tent. Luckily for us, we had walked to the edge of the lowlands, where they have spent the winter. You collapsed. I don’t know what I would have done if Gela, the head of the family, hadn’t noticed us.”
Wen tried to heave herself up.
“Don’t move,” Zhuoma warned. “They’ve put some ointment on your forehead. How are you feeling?”
“My pack…” Wen felt around the ground where she was lying for the bundle of possessions that she had carried so carefully from Zhengzhou.
“It’s lost,” said Zhuoma. “But the book you were carrying in your pocket is safe. I’ve put it beside your pillow. It must mean a lot to you. Even when you were unconscious, you were holding on to it.”
A young girl of eleven or twelve entered the tent carrying an earthenware bowl, shyly handed it to Zhuoma, then ran back out again. Zhuoma told Wen that the bowl contained freshly drawn water, brought in by one of the daughters. The rest of the family were outside the tent working. They were planning to move on to spring pastures shortly, but in the meantime Wen could stay here and rest.
“But how can I possibly impose myself on these people?” Wen asked. “Surely they have enough difficulties in their life without the burden of a sick person.”
“The Tibetan people open their homes to all travelers,” said Zhuoma quietly, “whether they are rich or poor. It is the tradition of our country.” Then she went out to talk further with the family.
As soon as she was gone, Wen opened her book of Liang Shiqiu’s essays and drew out Kejun’s photograph. Amid all this strangeness, he was still smiling at her. She then took the opportunity to gaze at the extraordinary dwelling in which she found herself. The four-sided tent was made from large pieces of coarse material woven from animal hair and supported by sturdy wooden pillars. At its apex was a skylight, which could be opened and closed by means of a flap. This was the origin of the shaft of light that had blinded Wen when she woke. Now she watched the smoke from the cooking stove dancing in and out of the light. The simple stove, made from a large, boat-shaped stone raised from the ground on two small rocks, sat in the center of the tent. Beside it were a pair of bellows and stacks of brightly painted bowls, dishes, and jars, along with a few household items Wen could not put a name to. On one side of the tent, Wen spotted what must be the family’s altar. Above a table set with religious objects hung an image of a Tibetan Buddha embroidered in colored brocade. To the right was a large cylindrical object made of bronze. Farther along there was a heap of felts and rugs, quilts and clothes. And on the other side of the altar, sacks filled with something that smelled like animal dung were piled high. The door to the tent was a flap through which an adult would have to stoop to enter. On either side of this flap were arranged a variety of household tools and equipment for animals.
From her bed on the ground, Wen tried to make some deductions about her hosts, but found it impossible to guess how well-off the family was from the many gold and silver hanging decorations, the battered tools, the large number of bowls and jars, and the limited bedding. Everything felt very new and strange to her, not least the peculiar odor of dung, sweat, and animal hide.
The sound of footsteps drifted in from outside and, for the first time in her life, Wen felt how peaceful it was to have one’s ear to the grass and hear the sound of the human tread. When Zhuoma reentered the tent, she was surrounded by a crowd of people of all heights and ages. As Wen lay there looking up at their unfamiliar faces, her head swam.
Zhuoma introduced their hosts. There was Gela, the head of the family; his wife, Saierbao; and his brother, Ge’er. The family had six children but only four were present because two of the sons had entered a monastery. Wen found it impossible to follow the Tibetan names of the six children. They seemed even more inscrutable than the Latin names in the medical dictionary that she had never been able to memorize. Zhuoma explained that each of the names contained a syllable from the sacred mantra that every Tibetan uttered hundreds of times each day: Om mani padme hum. She suggested that Wen just call each child by the single syllable from the mantra: this would make the oldest son Om and the next son, who was at the monastery, Ma. The two daughters would be Ni and Pad. Me would refer to the other son who had gone to a monastery, and the youngest son would be Hum. Wen asked Zhuoma to thank the family for her and watched their shy smiles as Zhuoma translated.
Over the following weeks, Wen was nursed back to health by Gela and his gentle wife, Saierbao, who fed her milk tea mixed with herbal medicine every day. Zhuoma told Wen that the family had delayed moving to their spring pastures until she was fit enough to manage the journey.
The two women discussed at length how they should proceed in their search. Zhuoma thought that they should stay with the family until the warmer weather came. By summer, they would both have learned enough to survive outdoors, and the family would have built up their reserves of food and might be able to spare them some provisions and a couple of horses. Wen was alarmed by the idea of such a long wait. What might happen to Kejun in the meantime? But Zhuoma reassured her. The family was planning to travel northward to find spring pastures. Perhaps, she said, they would meet other nomads or travelers on the journey who would be able to give them news of Kejun and Tiananmen.
Wen had no choice but to accept her situation, although, lying weakly in her bed, unable to join Zhuoma as she helped the family with their tasks, cut off from conversation by her inability to speak the language, each day felt endless. As she convalesced, she watched the Tibetan family’s routines. She was struck by the rigorous order of their days, which seemed to follow a pattern that had remained the same for generations. Each member of the family went about their business with very little verbal communication. Everyone seemed to know their place and their days were filled to overflowing with jobs to be done.
Gela and Ge’er, assisted by the oldest son, Om, were responsible for important matters outside the home, such as pasturing and butchering their herds of yaks and sheep, tanning hides, and mending their tools and tent. Zhuoma told her that it was they who would go off and leave the family periodically in order to trade for household items that were needed. Saierbao and her two daughters did the milking, churned the milk for butter, cooked the meals, collected the water, and made the dung cakes that would provide heat, cooking fuel, and light for the tent. They also spun and made rope.
Wen was full of admiration for the skills that made the family’s self-sufficient life possible, but was daunted by how much she had to learn. Even eating their meals involved learning a whole new set of rules. Except for the cooking utensils, there were no forks, spoons, or chopsticks in the tent. The only eating tool the family used was a ten-centimeter-long knife that hung from their waists. The first time Wen tried to use one of these knives to cut a hunk of mutton, she nearly speared her hand. The children, who had crowded around her in amused curiosity as if they were watching an animal at play, gasped with horror.
The family ate the same three meals every day. In the morning they “licked jiaka.” A dough made from roasted barley flour and curds was heated on the stove and placed on one side of a bowl. Milk tea was then poured into the other half of the bowl. While they drank their tea, the family would turn their bowls so that the tea absorbed the jiaka, gradually washing it away. There was no need for cutlery. The first time Wen was given breakfast, she drank all the tea in the bowl in one go and then asked Zhuoma how to eat the jiaka. Once she was used to it, however, she enjoyed the sensation of partly drinking, partly eating her food, and found a way to avoid burning her mouth.
The midday meal was “mixed.” This involved making tsampa out of ground roasted barley and curds. Holding the bowl in one hand, Wen used the other to roll the ingredients into little balls. “Rub first, turn second, and grasp third,” she would repeat to herself. The meal was always very generous: in addition to tsampa and milk tea, there would be dried meat boiled on the bone, which the family picked off with their knives. The little boy Hum showed Wen how to rip it apart with her hands and gnaw on it. There would also be delicious fritters fried in butter. Wen could see that this was an important meal for everyone: it could last for nearly two hours and the normally quiet family would spend some time discussing problems that had come up in the day. In the evening, the family ate meat and barley flour again, but cooked into a sort of gruel in a way that reminded Wen of the hula soup she had drunk in Zhengzhou.
Each meal was so health-giving and nutritious that Wen’s cracked skin healed and her cheeks became rosier every day. Already she could feel her body getting stronger and her skin becoming tougher as it adapted to the harsh winds, the cold, and the sharp sunlight. The family appeared to accept her presence, but they never tried to speak to her. They would talk only to Zhuoma, of whom they appeared to be in great awe. Later, Zhuoma would tell Wen what had been discussed. Excluded from all conversation, Wen sometimes felt like one of the family’s animals: protected, gently treated, watered, and fed, but set apart from the human world.
The religious practices of the family made her feel even more of an outsider. They prayed constantly, muttering the mantra “Om mani padme hum” under their breath even as they worked. They frequently came together for prayer ceremonies where the father, Gela, would turn the heavy bronze cylinder above the altar by means of a length of rope and lead the family’s incantations as they spun little wheels on sticks. Zhuoma explained to Wen that both the large cylinder and the smaller wheels were prayer wheels. She depended heavily on Zhuoma for explanations about everything and gave thanks that she had been fortunate enough to encounter such a brave, clever woman. Had it not been for Zhuoma, she could never have begun to understand this family who, with their deep spirituality and carefree self-sufficiency, was as different from the Chinese as heaven and earth.
Misunderstandings, though, were still frequent. In the rare moments that Wen found herself alone, she would take out Kejun’s photograph and caress his smiling face. One day, the little boy Hum came into the tent when she had the photograph in her hand. He took one look at the picture and ran from the tent calling out in terror. Distraught, Wen went to find Zhuoma to ask how she had frightened the boy. Zhuoma explained that he didn’t know what a photograph was and was afraid of the man “sleeping” inside it.
Eventually, the family felt that Wen had recovered sufficiently for them to move on. On the day of departure, Wen woke at dawn to see the shadows of Gela and Saierbao swaying in the weak light. She noticed that many of the things from the tent had been parceled up into rolls to be carried by the yaks. Because she hadn’t yet learned to ride, Gela’s brother, Ge’er, had made a kind of saddle shaped like a round-backed chair for her out of a few luggage rolls, so that she would not fall off her horse if she went to sleep. He indicated to her that he would take charge of her reins.
The path their journey followed was very hard going. Storms forced them to stop and they had to huddle among the yak herd. At night they slept in the open air, sheltered from the snow and wind by mountain rocks. They did not see another soul. Wen couldn’t imagine who the “bandits” were that the Liberation Army had been hunting in this deserted area.
As the altitude, the hard riding, and the unfamiliar food began to gnaw away at her strength and spirit, she was plunged into depression. Was Kejun suffering as she did? And how would she ever find him in these snowy ice fields where she had neither language, survival skills, nor any means of transport? She had lost all sense of time. Each day was like the other and she did not know if they had been traveling for days or weeks. When finally they arrived at their destination, Zhuoma told her that they were close to the Bayan Har mountains and would set up their spring camp in the lush grassland near the Yalong River. For half a day, Gela and his sons hammered in poles, hung the tent, and secured the guy ropes. Once the tent was up, Saierbao and her daughters deftly arranged their household items. Wen sat by the luggage, clumsily helping them out with a few light tasks. Just as she was about to hand a prayer wheel to Saierbao, Zhuoma stopped her, warning her that outsiders shouldn’t touch objects of worship.
According to their custom, after setting up house the family feasted on meat, tsampa, fritters, and barley wine. Just as she did while they were on the road, Saierbao prepared Wen some medicinal milk tea. After the feast, Gela led a prayer ceremony. That night, when they were all lying together on the ground, Wen wedged between Zhuoma and the daughter Ni, Zhuoma whispered to her that, as well as praying for the yaks and sheep to get fat and strong, Gela had prayed for the spirits to protect Wen. Wen was deeply moved and, when she thought no one was listening, quietly recited to herself the Buddhist mantra: Om mani padme hum.
The next day, helped by Saierbao, Wen put on a Tibetan gown for the first time. They were the “maiden’s clothes” that Saierbao had worn before her marriage and consisted of a set of white undergarments made of a coarse cloth, a long-sleeved collarless shirt fastened at the side, and a pair of trousers, richly decorated and gathered in at the ankles. Over this, Wen put on a thickly lined robe of blue, pink, and purple cloth that hung all the way down to her feet. Saierbao showed her how to wrap it across the front of her body and secure it with a broad brocade belt. She then tied a rainbow-striped length of cloth rather like an apron to the front. Wen was still frail, so to help her withstand the cold mountain winds, Saierbao gave her a high-necked sheepskin waistcoat and some felt boots. The boots were far too big, but Zhuoma said that it didn’t matter: in cold weather they could stuff a thick layer of yak’s wool inside for warmth.
Finally, Saierbao tied a jade amulet to Wen’s waist and placed a rosary of wooden prayer beads around her neck “They will protect you,” explained Zhuoma. “They will keep evil at bay and drive away ghosts.” Then she smiled and silently placed a string of her own carnelian beads around Wen’s neck.
Saierbao made a sign to Wen to sit down, and standing in front of her, she parted her hair with a comb and made two braids on either side. The youngest daughter, Pad, who was standing to one side, then gestured to Wen to look at herself in a bowl of water she had standing ready. Wen could hardly believe her eyes: apart from the fact that her braids were too short because she had only shoulder-length hair, she looked like a proper Tibetan woman. She tucked her precious book containing Kejun’s photograph and her sister’s paper crane inside the big pocket of her Tibetan robe.
A few days later, Wen noticed that someone had laid a cloth bundle on her sleeping space. It was her uniform, now cleaned and mended. Wen was so touched that she didn’t know what to say. She held the clothes in both hands, inhaling the tang that came from the sun of the high plateau, and bowed deeply to Saierbao.
ZHUOMA TOLD Wen that Tibetans said there were only two seasons, summer and winter, because, in Tibet, spring and autumn were so brief. But that spring was a very long one in Wen’s life: she spent many sleepless nights, longing for Kejun and turning over and over in her mind her uncertain future. She couldn’t imagine how she could possibly continue to survive in such harsh conditions, or learn a language that seemed to her utterly impenetrable. Although she knew there must be other nomadic families in the region because Zhuoma had told her that Gela and Ge’er met other herders when they were out at the pastures, the women saw nobody. She began to doubt whether Zhuoma had been right in thinking there would be an opportunity to get information about Kejun and Tiananmen. Both she and Zhuoma were so absorbed in their struggle to adapt to the nomadic way of life that each had entered her own private world, and they rarely discussed what they would do next. Despite her loneliness, though, Wen had begun to feel great affection for the family, particularly its matriarch, Saierbao.
Saierbao’s face was so weathered that it was hard to tell how old she was, but Wen guessed she must be about thirty. She was an extremely calm and dignified woman who seemed to savor all her chores, however tough and exhausting they were. She never shouted or scolded. Even if someone knocked over her freshly made tsampa or spilled her milk tea, she didn’t get cross. At most she would purse her lips and smile briefly as if she had seen it coming. Saierbao loved jewelry and draped herself in precious things even on ordinary days: with her necklaces, bracelets, and waist ornaments of agate, jade, gold, and silver, she was like a multicolored wind chime. Wen rarely saw Saierbao rest: her tinkling began the moment the first rays of light sneaked into the tent; at night, the whole family took its cue for sleep when her chimes fell silent. Wen would imagine performing the routines of life with Kejun in the manner of Saierbao: bearing and raising children, husband and wife working together in harmony. But every night, as soon as the final movement of Saierbao’s daily concert drew to a close, Wen was brought back with a jolt to her longing and isolation, and her face would be bathed in tears.
Gela seemed older than Saierbao. He was a man of few words, but was the spokesman for the family. One of the popular Chinese myths about Tibetans was that the men were tall and strapping, but Gela was not much taller than his wife. Neither fat nor thin, his face neither humble nor arrogant, happy nor angry, he gave an impression of reliability, but he was not an easy man to read. Even the animals, Wen discovered, recognized Gela ’s dignity and authority: no sheep would wander off, no horse would refuse to allow its hoof to be picked up when Gela was around. Everyone, human and animal, took their orders from Gela’s body language: he was a model patriarch.
Ge’er was close in age to his older brother, Gela. The two were very alike, except that Ge’er was thinner. Wen found herself wondering whether he was a mute. He never spoke, not even when he was playing with Hum, the youngest child, of whom he was very fond. Zhuoma told Wen she’d heard Saierbao say Ge’er was the best craftsman in the family, and Wen often saw him mending tools with extraordinary concentration.
One night, just as daylight was breaking, Wen decided to brace herself against the gale and go outside the tent to relieve herself. When she tiptoed back past the sleeping family, she was amazed to see Saierbao under the quilt with Ge’er, their arms wrapped around each other. She stood there for some time, unable to move, watching them sleep.
Since coming to live with Gela’s family, Wen had slowly gotten used to sharing a common bed with all of them, male and female. She couldn’t imagine how husbands and wives conducted their sex lives in full view of all, but she knew a great many races had lived like this for centuries. It had never occurred to her that the calm, dignified Saierbao would have an affair with another man right under her own husband’s nose. Just to live with your own husband, she wanted to shout to Saierbao, is the most precious, wonderful thing in the world. She didn’t, of course, but nor was she able to go back to sleep.
The next day, Wen remained troubled by her discovery. She didn’t know how to look Saierbao and Ge’er in the face and tried to avoid them. Everyone noticed there was something wrong with Wen, but assumed that she was homesick. Ni kept dragging Zhuoma over to try to persuade Wen to tell her what was wrong, but Wen just went red and they couldn’t get any sense out of her. Zhuoma knew that Wen often stared into space during the day and wept at night, so she assumed Wen’s distractedness must be due to missing Kejun and was afraid to risk asking clumsy questions.
After a few days, Wen’s sense of embarrassment had faded a little. When she observed Saierbao and Ge’er together, she could see that the two of them acted as if nothing was going on. She very much wanted to find out whether they were really in love or whether their coupling was just a physical urge, but she was ashamed of her own nosiness. Still, however she looked at it, Saierbao no longer seemed such a paragon. For Gela-a man whose wife was being stolen from under his nose-she felt pity; for Ge’er-a man who was living under his brother’s roof but flouted the most basic moral rules-disgust.
One day, the family’s fifth child, Me, approached the camp on horseback in the company of a group of lamas from his monastery. He was on a trip to collect colored stone from the mountains, which could be ground into pigment for religious paintings. He had heard from neighboring nomads that the family was nearby. When he saw Saierbao and Ge’er he galloped toward them shouting, “Mother, Father.” Since Gela was working away from the tent that day, Wen thought she must have misheard the form of address Me used. Her Tibetan was still limited to a few basic words. But Zhuoma, who had taken over churning the butter from Saierbao, said with a sigh, “Me must miss his mother and father. All children who leave home for the monastery get homesick.”
“Yes. Such a pity his father’s not here,” Wen added sympathetically.
“Oh,” said Zhuoma smiling, “that doesn’t matter. For Tibetan children any of their fathers will do.”
“What do you mean?” asked Wen, surprised. “Zhuoma, do you mean to say Gela and Ge’er are…” Wen stopped Zhuoma from turning the wooden pole.
Zhuoma was astonished by Wen’s confusion until suddenly it dawned on her. “Didn’t you know that Gela and Ge’er are both married to Saierbao?”
Now Wen was even more bewildered. “Saierbao has two husbands?”
“Yes, this is Tibet. In Tibet a wife can have several husbands. You never asked me about it so I thought you’d worked it all out from hearing the children call to them.”
Zhuoma passed the butter pole to Ni, who was standing nearby, entranced by their talking to each other in Chinese, and pulled Wen to one side.
“I understand how difficult it is. For you, living here is just like being in Beijing was for me. If I hadn’t visited China, I would still think the whole world lived on a snowy, mountainous plateau.”
Now that she understood Saierbao’s “adultery,” Wen was ashamed of her own ignorance and misjudgment. She didn’t tell Zhuoma that what she had seen a few nights ago had been the cause of her low spirits.
Wen was disappointed to find that Me and his fellow lamas knew nothing of the conflict between the Chinese and Tibetans and had not seen a single Chinese soldier. Just before they departed, Wen asked Zhuoma if Me might be persuaded to part with two small pieces of colored stone. That evening, she used one of the stones to write a letter to Kejun on the back of his photograph.
Dearest Jun,
Are you all right? I just want to write one
word. Sorry. Sorry to you because I haven’t
found you yet. Sorry to myself, because I
can’t search the plateau on my own. Sorry
to Zhuoma and this Tibetan family,
because I have no way of repaying them.
The color from the stone pencil was very faint but the stone made such a deep indentation that her words were engraved on Kejun’s smiling face. She remembered the diary and pen that Wang Liang had given her in Zhengzhou and that were now buried, along with her pack, somewhere in a mountain pass. “Writing can be a source of strength,” Wang Liang had said. She felt that her short message to Kejun had given her fresh courage to face the difficulties ahead.
Me’s brief visit to the tent made Wen reflect on what life was like for Tibetan children. It must have been very hard for him to leave the family at such a young age, she thought, and Saierbao must feel his absence deeply.
Zhuoma told her not to worry.
“The Tibetans let children go very easily,” she said. “All of Tibet is like one enormous monastery. Every household with more than two sons has to send at least one to the monastery to become a lama. This shows their religious devotion, but it also gives the child an education and relieves the economic burden on the family. There is a Tibetan saying: ‘Yak butter is a more lasting possession than a son.’ This is because a yak belongs to a family alone, but a son can easily be taken away to a monastery.”
Were Tibetan children allowed any kind of childhood at all, Wen wondered. She noticed that, except for clothes and hats, hardly a single item in Gela’s household was made especially for children. She asked Zhuoma to question Ni about what it had been like when she was smaller. Had she ever had toys?
“Yes,” Ni replied. Her father, Gela, had made her lots of toys out of grass and dried goats’ tails, but whenever they moved on they had to be left behind. He had also carved them wooden animals as birthday presents.
The oldest son, Om, was no longer a child. He must have been about eighteen and spent the day silently working away with Gela and Ge’er. He couldn’t read but he played the Tibetan lute beautifully and sang well. Every day at dusk, the time when all the family dealt with little bits of personal business, like removing lice from their robes and hair, washing themselves, or laying out their bedding, Wen would hear him singing outside the tent. She never knew what he was singing about, since it was all but impossible for her to communicate with Om, but she could sense a man’s outpouring of feeling for a woman. Om’s singing always brought out her longing for Kejun, as if the sound waves could shake him out of hiding. Wen had no idea how an eighteen-year-old boy raised in such isolation could create such resonant melodies.
The oldest daughter, Ni, had just reached puberty and was the most animated member of the family. She was like a merry little bell, able to make her usually taciturn parents rock with laughter. But Ni always cried secretly at night. At first, Wen thought Ni was having nightmares. When she tried nudging her awake, however, she found that Ni wasn’t asleep. Wen didn’t understand how the girl sleeping next to her could be so different by day and at night. She could see a kind of despair in Ni’s tearful eyes. Wen avoided thinking about this. She herself was trying to hold off despair and refused to succumb to it even when, in her worst nightmares, she saw a blood-soaked Kejun. Wen wondered what had left this lovely, flowerlike girl so bereft of hope.
Ni’s younger sister, Pad, was so quiet she hardly seemed to exist. Nevertheless, she was always close by to lend a helping hand, passing her mother or sister the very thing they were looking for. If, after the evening meal, Pad was seen pressing their belongings to the edge of the tent to keep out the draft, Saierbao would give everyone an extra blanket for the night and, sure enough, later Wen would hear the wind roaring outside the tent. Astonished by Pad’s predictive abilities, sometimes Wen was tempted to ask Zhuoma if Pad might have some knowledge of Kejun’s whereabouts. But she was too afraid of what she might learn from such a revelation. She didn’t dare risk a forecast that could crush her hopes.
The little boy Hum seemed to be about eight or nine. He loved being around other people, always wanting to learn everything. Wen often watched him with Om, who was teaching him to play the lute. Om would show his little brother the fingering and how to pluck the strings by tying the little boy’s fingers to his own as he played. Hum also liked to pull the butter-churning pole from his mother’s hands, leaving Saierbao no choice but to place a pile of dung sacks under his feet so he could see how to stir the pole through the milk. He would even run into a flock of sheep his father was trying to round up, copying how his father threw the lasso and yelled at the animals. Zhuoma told her that Hum was eager to enter a monastery like his two brothers. Wen couldn’t understand how a little boy who had never left home could be so keen to become a lama. She noticed that Hum prayed with a devoutness far beyond his years. Such maturity of belief in a boy not yet four feet tall must, Wen realized, be a true spiritual vocation.
EVERY DAY Wen noticed surprising things about the Tibetan way of life, and was constantly amazed by the differences between Tibetan and Chinese customs. One day, she discovered that Gela and Ge’er, not Saierbao, did all the family’s needlework. The first time she saw Ge’er sewing a robe, she could hardly believe it.
“Zhuoma,” she shouted, “come over here! What’s Ge’er doing?”
Saierbao, who was standing nearby, couldn’t understand Wen’s reaction. What was so surprising about the men in the family doing the sewing? Zhuoma told her that Chinese men hardly ever touched a needle, that sewing and mending were invariably women’s work. Ni fell about laughing after she heard this. “Women, sewing?” she said to her mother. “Surely not.”
Saierbao shook her head, sharing in her daughter’s disbelief at this absurd idea.
So, it was the men’s stubby fingers that were responsible for the whole family’s clothes and bedding, and even Om could sew a decent seam. Ge’er was particularly skilled with a needle and Wen learned that almost every item of ceremonial clothing the family possessed had been made by him.
Zhuoma explained that the clothes of the earliest people in Tibet had been made out of animal skins and furs, which needed to be sewn with very thick thread. Only the men had the strength to sew with needles like iron poles and ropelike thread. Although it was now possible for women to sew clothing, the old tradition remained.
WEN WAS eager to be able to repay the family’s hospitality by helping them with their work. However, she rapidly discovered that, although Saierbao swayed and hummed as she went about her tasks, they were by no means easy.
At first she found it impossible to milk the yaks. It was a job that demanded a great deal of skill. Worn out and dripping with sweat, Wen got nothing but complaints, and certainly no milk from the yaks. Even Pad, who quietly passed her a cloth to wipe away the sweat, couldn’t stop a little smile from crossing her face.
Making dung cakes looked easier but Wen soon found out that this was very deceptive. Before the dung could be dried, it had to be collected. She was supposed to scoop up the dung with a special curved shovel, and swing the droppings into a basket carried on her back. Then it had to be kneaded and patted into cakes, dried in the sun, neatly piled into sacks, and stored inside the tent. Wen usually ended up throwing the fresh dung all over herself instead of into the basket on her back. She howled at Zhuoma about how bad her aim was.
Being pure physical labor, fetching water required the least skill of all the chores. But it demanded great strength. Wen could hardly bear the weight of the water cask and would stagger along. More often than not, she would lose most of her load before she was halfway home.
Wen most wanted to master the butter churning. Saierbao said that her mother used to tell her that this was a woman’s most exhausting task-but also one of the skills for which she was most respected, because butter (and the yogurt and curds that were made from what was left over) was the essential ingredient of all three daily meals. Churning involved stirring milk in a wooden tub with a wooden pole hundreds of times, until the fat separated and could be ladled off to make the butter. Another process involved separating the curds and whey. The dried curds could be made into cakes with tsampa and were often used as religious offerings.
The equipment and methods used in churning reminded Wen of the chemistry experiments she used to do at the university. However, after half a morning helping Saierbao, she could hardly raise her arms, and by evening, her hands were too weak even to pick up her food and eat.
Wen recalled her mother telling her that an educated young Chinese woman should have a thorough grounding in six things: music, chess, calligraphy, painting, needlework, and cookery. A Tibetan woman was valued for a very different set of accomplishments. Wen blushed at the thought of her own incompetence. Even her medical training was of little use here. The family made their own herbal remedies, very different from those in Chinese medicine. Zhuoma showed her the mysterious caterpillar fungus and the saffron crocus, which were of great medicinal value. She understood now why Kejun had needed to undergo special training in how to use Tibetan herbs.
Zhuoma was also suffering with the work. Although she had a better understanding of what was expected, she was not used to physical labor and tired easily. Gela was kind to the two women and told them not to expect too much of themselves. The four seasons allowed people to move their homes, and yaks and sheep to mate and molt. They should take life a day at a time.
ONE DAY, Ni bounded up to tell her mother that Om said the grasses were budding. Saierbao screwed up her eyes and sniffed, as if to seize hold of the smell of summer. She told Zhuoma that Gela would shortly give the order to move to summer pastures on higher slopes. Again they would be traveling northward. Wen was in awe of the family’s understanding of the landscape. The concept of a map was utterly alien to them. They moved around by instinct, obeying the wisdom of ancient times: “In spring go to pasture by water, in summer on the mountains; in autumn go to pasture on the high slopes, in winter on the sheltered plains.” She realized that even if a map of this uncharted terrain had existed, she wouldn’t have been able to use it. She had absolutely no idea where she was and all the mountains and plains looked the same to her.
Everyone was excited at the thought of the summer move. The days had been growing warmer and longer, the sun was getting hotter and, at the midday meal, they would leave their fur jackets open. Wen, who was now comfortable on horseback, felt a new sense of self-confidence. She was sure that she was on the road to finding Kejun and imagined him bundled up in Tibetan clothing like her, struggling to survive and find his way home. She fantasized about a horseback reunion amid a flock of sheep and the pleasure of drinking milk tea with Kejun in a tent. She surprised Zhuoma with her happiness.
THEIR LONG trek north took them over the Bayan Har mountains to the northern foothills, where they set up camp on the lush, grassy slopes. To the north, Wen could see the snowy peak of an immensely high mountain. Through Zhuoma, Gela explained that it was Anyemaqen, a sacred mountain and the most important of the thirteen holy mountains at the source of the Yellow River. Anyemaqen was the god who watched over this region with its many lakes threaded onto the newborn Yellow River like pearls on a string. In ancient times the Tupo tribe called this area the Hundred Lakes, and nomads often still used this name.
“This is the place where Wencheng, the Chinese princess of the seventh-century Tang dynasty, married the Tibetan king Songtsen Gampo,” Zhuoma added. “All Tibetans know the story of the alliance between China and Tibet. Wencheng introduced crops and medicines to Tibet, and showed us how to grow barley. The king and his bride honeymooned at the source of the Yellow River before making the arduous journey southward to the capital, Lhasa There Songtsen built the Potala Palace for his queen. In Qinghai there is a temple built to commemorate the arrival in Tibet of Princess Wencheng.”
If I find Kejun, we’ll visit that temple together, Wen told herself.
In all the time Wen and Zhuoma had been with the family, the men had never traveled away from the tent for more than a day, so Wen was surprised when she saw Gela and Ge’er preparing to set off on a long journey. They were taking with them yaks and sheep, along with two white khata scarves from the store that the family kept as offerings. She asked Zhuoma where they were going.
“They are going to visit a stonecutter who will engrave the mani mantra into stone for them so that they are protected from evil and will prosper,” Zhuoma replied. “Have you noticed that we often pass boulders engraved with words and pictures?”
Wen had indeed been puzzled by the inscriptions she had seen on rocks, and the piles of smaller, carved stones that she saw everywhere. However, she had taken to heart the Tibetan taboo not to ask questions about religion and had not dared to raise the subject. The more time she spent with Gela ’s family, the more moved she was by their spirituality, so she was pleased when Zhuoma offered to tell her more about the mani stones while they walked to collect water.
Since their first long conversation in the cab of the army truck, Zhuoma and Wen had avoided talking too much about politics and religion, as if frightened that their growing friendship might be spoiled. But now, Zhuoma seemed eager to explain Tibet’s religion to Wen, as if in recent days she had developed a new trust in her.
“There are some men,” she said, “who feel a strong spiritual calling to go and live on sacred mountains and spend every day selecting rocks or rock faces in which to carve the mani mantra. Usually, whenever there’s a marriage or a funeral, a human or animal is ill, or there’s any kind of problem in a family, the head of the family will go to the mountain to make offerings and pray for compassion. They offer yaks, sheep, and other goods to the stonecutter, who then chooses a rock for them from the mountain and carves into it the six syllables of the great mantra. These carvings use many different kinds of calligraphy and can be painted a multitude of colors. Some mani stones are engraved with whole paragraphs of Buddhist scripture, while others are carved with images of the Buddha.
“People don’t take the mani stones away with them. They are simply a symbol of their faith and bring them spiritual comfort. That is why you often see great piles of mani stones in among the mountain rocks we pass.”
Wen listened carefully to Zhuoma’s explanation.
“More and more I feel how faith informs everything in Tibet,” she said. “Here, people place themselves entirely in the hands of heaven and nature. Even the mountains, waters, and plants speak of faith.”
“It is true,” said Zhuoma. “Even though, here in the north, life is very different from my family lands, where there are roads, agriculture, and more people, we Tibetans all have the same spirituality. Because we are isolated from the outside world, we believe that here all things between heaven and earth exist as they should. We believe that our own gods are the only gods and our own ancestors are the source of all life in the world. We are cut off from the march of time. When our farmers sow their seeds, they simply leave the fate of their crops to the heavens. There are no modern farming techniques. The farmers behave as their ancestors did hundreds or even thousands of years ago, as do the nomads. Both groups have a very difficult life. They are obliged to give away much of their crops and animals as offerings to the monasteries. This is a very heavy burden for people who have so little, but they must honor the lamas who protect them.
“People believe that the Dalai Lama of southern Tibet and the Panchen Lama of northern Tibet are the most senior human representatives of the spirits. When they die, a new reincarnation is sought through prayer and special rites: for example, khata scarves, precious bottles, and potions are thrown into a specially chosen lake, after which the surface of the water will reveal the map of the reincarnation’s birthplace. Once selected, the new Dalai and Panchen Lamas live out the rest of their lives in magnificent palaces.”
“It is so very different from China,” said Wen. “For us, religion is not a strong force. We obey only lay rulers.”
“But who controls and protects your rulers?” Zhuoma asked, puzzled.
“Conscience,” replied Wen.
“What kind of thing is ‘conscience’?”
“It is not a thing,” said Wen. “It is a moral code.”
“And what is a ‘moral code’?”
Wen reflected. She suddenly realized that this was a very difficult question to answer. She thought of Kejun, a man who had to find an answer to all questions and then a reply to all the answers. Perhaps Tibet had changed him too.
By this time the two women had reached the lake and they stopped to set down their water casks.
Wen turned to Zhuoma. “I cannot forget my Kejun,” she said.
Zhuoma nodded. “I, too, have been thinking of Tiananmen. I have seen that Gela’s family has built up their stores. Perhaps now that summer is here, we can ask Gela for food and horses. I will try to speak to him.”