And finally, after crossing the wind-swept rock expanse of the desert, with my sleeping bag and rucksack, my provision of water, my compass and foldable tent, I was standing before what the Chinese had called the “Gate of Demons”, or the “The Gate of Sighs”. All exiles had passed through it, leaving China behind, into the unknown and the harsh environment of the Gobi Desert.
I was an exile in my own right, but had come from the opposite direction, from the Northwest, in search of proof that life was worth living. In spite of my attachment to survival, I had not found what I was looking for yet. I had left a comfortable home in Sweden, a wife and two children to embark on this journey.
I had made it through Russia, Siberia, and Mongolia.
I had seen simple villages and vast stretches of nowhere, land that bloomed into a timid spring and was cream coloured on my map.
Now, I prepared to walk along the Ming Wall for 5,500 miles. According to my estimates, it would take me four weeks to get to the Shanhai Pass, at the far east, where the Great Wall of China touches the ocean.
Before my eyes, the massive Wall stretched on for miles, beyond my capacity to conceive its extension. The Taolai River rushed in its Grand Canyon, its waters greenish and foamy.
I mounted my tent, as the sun slanted through the sky in its downward journey. I ate my canned meat and fell asleep exhausted. Exhaustion, with the feeling of forgetfulness and heaviness it brings about, was the closest I had come to bliss in a long while. At least, I could forget for a while.
I could hear the river running headlong into its gorge, down below. In the black night, it resounded like a watery hell, where slime and strange grimy creatures vied for my attention. I remembered some of the stories the Mongolian people had told me about ghosts and spirits hovering on bodies of water. I remembered the huge expanse of the Gobi Desert that once had served as battleground for the wars between the Chinese and the Mongolians. The latter had been blood-thirsty in battle and the warriors, who had died on the battlefield, had come back as ruthless revenants, preying on the stray flocks or the wanderer in the desert. I had made it across the Gobi because of my gear and the help I received from the mountaineers. They had said: “May the wind be with you.”
As I lay in the darkness as if in a tomb, I was aware of the Gobi Desert at my back and of the Guilin Mountains in front of me. Wind, river, small noises amplified by the silence and the vast solitude of the ridges and the valleys far below. I felt my face melt in a spasm of sadness, tears soon flooding my inner space. I was alone. It was a perfect moment to die. Yet, I waited for something I could not define. I suppose even in death I wanted a stage, for such an off-stage end was too stoical for me. I wanted drama, guilt, regret, anything that would guarantee my ability to feel, for what I feared most was being inert. As I cried, wallowing in my pain, I fell asleep.
When I woke up, it was dawning. I collected my sparse possessions. As I passed through the Gate at dawn, I could see the sorrowful inscriptions of Chinese outlaws and exiles. I was now entering the Celestial Empire. The strange stories I had been told came crowding my imagination. I hurried through the passageway. Everywhere I could sense the presence of spirits, lurching among the bastions, speaking with tongues of wind. I did not complain. They were my restless soul’s companions. I had learned to pay attention and listen to their voices.
***
I walked for a week, silent, alone, desperate. I only stopped at night, when the wind howled and my body needed rest. The green mountains, with their monotony, suited my mood.
On my seventh night along the Wall, I drowsed in front of the embers of a fire, for it can be cold up there even in June. I pulled out my pipe and smoked Russian tobacco the peasants had given me “for the long journey”.
As I reviewed my last year on the road, I saw faces and places. I had stopped calling home. Maybe Brigitte would care somewhat. Not that it mattered now that she lived with Eric and he had taken over my whole family. I stared into the black void. The night was so dark I could not see anything but for the embers. The sky was overcast, vast, pitiless. I shuddered and wrapped myself into my weatherproof jacket. “Sorry, Jen,” he had said. They had fallen in love, as simple as that. My wife and my business associate. And given my mental health condition lately, it would be better for the children to live with them. I agreed, except that in a blood rush I hit Eric’s jaw with an iron fist. He let it go and put up with it. It was to be expected, somehow.
I had long stopped taking my pills, since I had run out. Either I would find a reason for living, or I would end it all. I had made up my mind. I had only three weeks longer to give my lousy life a chance.
***
As I rummaged my mind, a swish caught my attention. I lit up my torch, which I used sparingly to save the batteries. I saw a shadow projected on the tent. I rushed outside. No thing and no man alive. The moon was a slender crescent, remote and frigid. I saw another shadow pass across the wall of the quadrangular bastion I had camped beside, to be protected from the night wind. A cloud or two obscured the pale moon. When I turned to get back, I saw it.
A black shape set against the scant light of the moon. I hesitated. It looked like a figure wrapped up in a hooded cloak. I was not used to bumping across strangers deep at night along the Great Wall. During the day, I had occasionally come across a group of tourists led by a tour guide, but at night…
As I stood there waiting, the figure did not move, yet with a swift movement of a pale hand it threw back its hood. I stood transfixed at the revelation: a woman’s face shone forcefully before my eyes.
She belonged to the Mongolian race; her slanting eyes and amber skin were enhanced in the moon light. I mumbled the few words I had picked up on my journey. I welcomed her. She smiled, dimples forming on her cheeks. Her teeth and her eyes glinted. Her long black hair was a polished wave enwrapping her shoulders. I invited her inside my tent. I offered her a cup of tea. As I tried out my poor language skills, she took off her long cloak. She was wearing a corduroy tunic and goat-skin sandals. She took my hand and traced invisible signs on my palm. I did not understand. She smiled again. Then, she put my hand on her chest. My heart racing as I felt the softness of her breasts. She drew near with slow, deliberate movements. She loosened the strings of her tunic and discarded it in one swift go.
As she pushed me gently to the ground, she let my hands wander on her radiant, supple body. Her nakedness was intimidating. I had not been with a woman for more than a year. And her perfect body was a gift of endless bliss. Who was this magical creature, come out of the night to meet me at the extreme end of my despair and loneliness? By all standards and accounts, I was an outcast in a strange, vast land. Yet, it did not matter now. She was a desert woman, and she knew what she wanted.
Hypnotised by her moaning and movements, I did all she commanded with her eyes and gestures.
I loved her as the thirsty man loves water, as the blind man loves the light. All night long I drank of her plentiful well, inexhaustible like an underground river.
***
When I opened my eyes and stretched my arm to my side, she was no longer there. I looked around, put on my trousers and went outside. She was nowhere to be seen. A few steps away from the tent, a huge white reindeer was browsing among the grasses. It stopped when it saw me and came near. Its look was placid, its eyes two deep black ponds of tranquillity. I stroked the animal. It did not turn away. I assumed it belonged to her, for it was domesticated; but the more I looked for her, the more I grew uneasy, lest it had been only a dream.
I sat, holding my head. Yet, I was feeling restored, even if disappointed. The reindeer came near. Its presence was strangely soothing. Its huge teats made me realise it was a female. Maybe I could milk her. She let me do it. I gathered the milk in my bowl and drank it, its warmth and wild aroma were new to me. For the first time in a long stretch, I felt strong.
After a few hours, I realised my beautiful stranger would not come back and decided to make a move with the reindeer, which was bent on following me. I thanked the unknown woman in my heart.
We walked along the Wall for miles, the reindeer and I. She would stop from time to time, as to give me respite. She seemed animated by a nurturing intelligence.
***
I journeyed on, unencumbered by the past. In the following days, as I went along, mountains, rivers, hills were shining in my new awareness. The reindeer kept me company and provided me with fresh milk. At night, I felt lonely and missed the woman who had not even told me her name, yet had given me a new perspective. Wherever I looked, I saw the shining possibilities of life. I was alive for the first time in decades.
It was on the tenth evening since I had met her, when we arrived at J Pass, not far from Beijing, that I saw her again. The twilight had covered the sky with its velvet, the full moon hung high above. As I rested with my back against the Wall, my faithful companion, the white reindeer
gave out an unusual glow. Slowly, it changed its shape, and soon I recognised the figure of the desert woman that had visited my dreams all the time since I had lost her.
She smiled. She shone.
I thought I was going crazy, but joy overwhelmed me. I took her in my arms. Again, that night I loved her with even more ardour than before, for she was a magical creature who had come to rescue me from bleakness and from death the first time, and now had come back to me.
Her laughing eyes, her soft arms welcomed me. I loved her under the moon. She was beyond anything and anyone, even me, her human lover. She gave of herself and was never spent. I did not want to fall asleep; I wanted to be with her forever.
***
I was up soon after dawn. The white reindeer was watching over me. I stroked her and whispered sweet words in her ears. We continued in silence along the Wall.
In vain, did I wait for my lover the night after and all the nights that followed.
At the end of my journey, when I reached the Shanhai Pass and saw how its bastions end in the Bohai Sea, I saw her yet again. It was a dark, moonless night. Her love was fierce. Tears in her black eyes. I stroked her skin; I inhaled the perfume of her hair. That night we were camping on the beach; the ocean lulled our senses. Here, at the easternmost end of the Ming Wall, the elements were mingling and dividing all the time. Water and fire coursed through my limbs. I could feel the eons spin around us, like an invisible, inexorable vortex. My lover did not speak. She never told me her name. Nor did I tell her mine, though we knew each other in the most unconventional and profound way. I could feel the pulse of her blood, I could sense her bliss, mixed with a mysterious sorrow. I could not have asked questions anyway, for my verbal language was not her own language.
***
In the morning, I woke up content, expecting to find my faithful friend, the white reindeer. I had no clue what I would do next, for my journey along the Wall was accomplished. Yet, life was full of goodness.
As I sat up on the spot where we had made love, terror struck me dumb: in front of me lay a full skeleton with long black hair, holding a succulent red flower in its hand. As I stroke her hair for the last time and cried my eyes out, the skeleton crumbled to dust on the strand.
Only the red flower remained. It glinted in the streaming dawn. I was alive.
