THE GREAT GATE: Fragrant Hills
In which an American teacher gets a taste of the untamed outdoors in the company of two tough men from Inner Mongolia. (excerpt from a novel in progress)
IN THE FRAGRANT HILLS
The swagger was gone, the menacing air not in evidence. I found Big Ten waiting for me at East Gate, standing alone on a cluttered sidewalk, tattered jacket draped over his shoulders, looking more like a taxi driver than a black market tycoon. He led me to a beat-up, two-door car so dusty and dented I thought he was joking when he said it was our ride. What happened to the shiny Cadillac?
When the driver popped out and slid his seat forward to let me in the back, Big Ten gently blocked my way, inviting me to sit up front.
“Bucket seat,” he said, ushering me to the other side of the car with out-stretched arm.
“Oh, that’s okay. I don’t mind sitting in the back.”
“I insist,” he added firmly. “You are my guest.”
I sat in his seat as instructed. You wouldn’t know the man was a gangster, you really wouldn’t. Especially today. Huamei must have gotten to him, and I hadn’t even given him her note yet. He was on his best behavior, as tame and contrite as a bad puppy after a good thrashing.
As we tooled toward the Fragrant Hills, the big muscular man curled up uncomfortably in the back shifted position constantly. Not only was the rear seat narrow to begin with, but a big picnic cooler took up most of what little space there was.
It was a sight too pitiful to countenance, so I kept my eyes on the road, chatting mostly with the driver. He said the car was a Mustag which I took to mean Mustang. It was one of the only ones in all of China, he related with quiet relish. It had been in an accident, and Big Ten wouldn’t let him park it in the garage, but it ran well, and it was less likely to attract police attention than the big Caddy or the slick European sports cars belonging to his boss.
He related to me his early morning ordeal of picking out “Western food” for me at a deli located inside a German-run hotel. Not knowing what to get me he ordered a little bit of everything: croissants, danishes, donuts, four varieties of sliced imported cheese, brown bread, rye bread, dinner rolls, smoked salmon, roast beef and potato salad. He even ordered a Napoleon. He liked the name of that one, though he had no intention of eating it after he saw what it was.
There was a pack of dry ice to keep cool things cool, and there were canned soft drinks and two thermoses of hot coffee, along with a container of fresh milk. I knew well by now the driver had simple tastes, he preferred rustic Mongolian fare to fancy European food, so he must have gotten help ordering, something to the effect of “give me a gift basket for a picnic, you know, the kind of food laowai like.”
I said yes to a hot coffee with fresh milk, graciously served to me by my hemmed-in and contorted host who didn’t seem to mind pouring hot drinks while the vehicle was in motion. He also plied me with two chocolate croissants and a wad of Swiss cheese, which he commanded me to make a sandwich of. Big Ten didn’t touch a thing, nor did the driver. Their pointed lack of appetite for the Western fare didn’t lessen the awkwardness of nibbling in front of them, but it did guarantee me a sizable doggy bag at day’s end.
When we reached the entrance gate to the Fragrant Hills Park, the driver pulled over to the curb and killed the motor. But we didn’t enter the park, instead we started walking in the opposite direction. Big Ten, who was clearly anxious to stretch his legs, led us briskly downhill along a tree-lined street crammed with tourist shops and souvenir stalls. He seemed to be thinking I might want to buy something—what was he thinking? None of the cheap curios or bric-a-brac novelties interested me in the slightest, but he had his wallet in hand, at the ready. I got the feeling he would snap up and purchase anything that my gaze rested for more than a few seconds, so I was careful not to look at things too intently or linger at any one point-of-sale.
Most of the shops were stocked with junky toys, rustic knick-knacks, crude wood carvings, kitschy key chains, stuffed animals and gaudy baubles designed for the hordes of repressed urbanites who came here to commune with nature on weekends. Big Ten wasn’t much of a shopper, but he was quick to spot a good con.
“Look at that!” he said, jabbing his finger at a sidewalk display. An abundance of plastic-laminated leaves, red leaves, real maple leaves, were on sale, some framed, others adorned with calligraphy for ‘Red Leaf Festival’ and ‘Fragrant Hills.’
The famous autumn foliage that tourists came from afar to see had already been picked clean from its branches and monetized so thoroughly that most of the trees around us were bare.
Despite the abundance of food in the picnic cooler, Big Ten would settle for nothing less than a hot lunch, which was code for Chinese food. So even on this day dedicated to making amends and enjoying the outdoors, he insisted we go to a hotel.
But this wasn’t the kind of fun hotel we frequented in Beijing. Neither high end nor seedy, it was more of a family destination, when it wasn’t being used for tier-two conferences and party meetings. Situated on the edge of the woods at the end of the road, it was nestled discreetly at the foot of a thickly wooded slope. Its low-rise guest wings were done up in ersatz Suzhou style, a southern whitewash only slightly incongruous against the dark of the evergreen forest. The rear courtyard had a sedate fish pond backed by a whimsical formation of gnarled rock so artfully placed it looked native to the untamed hill.
The exterior color scheme found its match in the understated interior décor. Prim, white-shirted waitresses greeted us as we strode into an empty dining room done up in green tablecloths.
During the pleasant, low-key meal that followed, I laid a quiet claim to knowing the architect, a famous Chinese American from New York. I had in fact met the man, in passing, at one of those fancy friends-of-China fetes in Manhattan, but I left out the part about me being mistaken for the pizza delivery guy.
After a filling lunch, the three of us hit the trail with heavy steps. The hills were deemed fragrant on account of the occasional mists that supposedly looked like curls of incense smoke, though we saw none of that. We threaded our way along a partially paved path through a dense pine-cypress forest, hugging the contours of the centuries-old circuit that had been tamped smooth by innumerable footsteps over time. The dusty walkway was buttressed here and there with paving stones and rough-hewn steps carved out of living rock. The fall foliage got better the higher up we went, but even up here there were denuded trees that looked as if locusts had descended upon them.
Tailing the endless procession of hikers ahead of us while being tailed by the equally endless procession of hikers behind didn’t leave much room to commune with nature, let alone linger. We sallied upwards in lockstep with the others, like a human escalator, passing through wood and dale and clearings and thickets, barely pausing until we reached the top.
The tile-roofed pavilion perched on the penultimate level of the stony outcropping offered a broad view of the hills enfolded by hills around us. On a good clear day, and this was one such day, the distant vista of Beijing revealed itself, a toy city of building blocks and bric-a-brac rising from the flat hazy plain.
The pavilion was awash with sweaty hikers of all shapes, scents and sizes, some of whom were quite noisy. We drifted towards the back of the hill seeking out a relatively secluded refreshment stand. We settled on a no-frills rustic tea shack at which the driver did most of the work. He procured a thermos of hot water, three tin cups and a handful of loose tea.
Big Ten and I settled down on low-to-the ground benches. It was just one step removed from squatting, but a relief for aching legs. I’d never seen Big Ten in such humble surroundings, but he looked thoroughly at home in the dim-lit interior, sipping the astringent tonic with more obvious pleasure than the French champagne he guzzled down at our usual outings.
Both of the men in my company had the timeless knack for sitting at length in abject silence, but it didn’t jibe well with my idea of being sociable, so I tried making conversation. The cable car that ran up and down the eastern slope bugged me for some reason, so I started to yammer about how its wires and pylons were a scar that desecrated the natural beauty of the mountain face.
“It’s ugly, it’s a waste of money, I mean, who needs it?”
My anti-development views were not always well understood in developing China, and often provoked discussion, but this tirade was let pass without comment.
“More tea?” The driver broke his silence, refilling my cup.
I think Big Ten might have sat there for hours in a fugue-like state were it not for the interruption of his phone.
He took the call, and rattled off instructions, something to the tune of “did you tell him I know the boss of his boss?” but after the interruption, the vacant look was gone. He stood up anxiously and started pacing, announcing it was time to haul ass.
We worked our way back through the crowd clustered around the main pavilion and headed to the building housing the cable car machinery. The ticket line was long, and I must have made a face or something, because just before joining the line, Big Ten turned to me.
“You don’t like it, right?”
“What?”
“Lan-che…the cable car.”
“Well, I guess it’s okay, I mean, okay if you’re in a rush, or too tired to walk down.”
Big Ten, who had a strong physique for someone with such a dissipated lifestyle, was not one to complain about being tired. But he did sometimes complain about being around other people, and this was one of those times.
“Too many people…” he muttered, and turned away in disgust.
As we retreated from the long idle line backed up behind the ticket booth, I saw him check his phone twice.
He paused to make a quick call, standing back from the busy path under a bilingual sign that warned: Do Not Ride On The Animal!
Like many signs in China, even the ones in English, especially the ones in English, it made no sense at all until it made complete sense. No sooner did he get off the phone than he started talking to a ragged-looking pair of touts who were lingering near the sign, offering some kind of service for a fee. I assumed they were scalping cable car tickets to enable one to jump to the head of the line but it was something else.
“Pony…” Big Ten explained.
I thought I misheard at first, but when he repeated the words for “little horse” I got it.
The touts were offering a pony ride down the mountain, so it was about ponies after all.
It might not have been legit, there evidently were rules in place prohibiting rides on ‘animals,’ but oh, to see Big Ten bargain the buggers down.
In the drama of his artful haggling, I caught a glimpse of the bad boy from the desolate work farm in Inner Mongolia. The man had a gift; he could conduct the crudest of transactions with flourish and dispatch. He barely needed to raise his voice to let the men know he saw through them, through and through.
“I know your game. You hook honest tourists. You charge them a fair price, only you charge them twice. Once to get on the pony, once to get off. Am I right?”
The men cowered, nodding meekly in response.
“And if they don’t pay the extra fee, you abandon them halfway down the mountain, right?”
I didn’t catch every word he said, but some delicate threat must have been encoded in his smiling reprimand, for they nodded in eager assent to every insult he hurled their way, shivering with shame.
“Whatever you say, boss.”
Despite his lack of a formal education, Big Ten was good at reading people. Despite a tendency to brood, he had a formidable way with words when he wanted something. By the time the little negotiation was wrapped up, the peasants were abjectly bowing and kowtowing and saying they would like nothing more than to extend to us the use of their ponies entirely gratis, for as long as we liked, if only we would condescend to consider riding the humble, inadequate beasts.
Big Ten narrowed his gaze theatrically while rubbing the stubble on his chin.
“Hao!” he assented after a pregnant pause.
“Free of charge!” the men reiterated imploringly. What else are friends for?
“Oh, but how we inconvenience you, honorable masters,” Big Ten replied without a hint of conviction, eyeing me with a mischievous grin.
“Please, sir. Please take our ponies. It’s our extreme pleasure to be of service.”
The deal was simple. Once done with the ponies, we would leave them tethered to a tree at the bottom of the mountain, and, after a decent interval, the men were free to clamber down the steep rear slope to reclaim their stinking beasts.
Fair enough.
Was I the first to notice there were only two ponies for the three of us? Before I had a chance to point out the obvious, Big Ten told the driver to take a hike. After all, someone needed to go down on foot and retrieve the car so that we could be picked up in comfort on the far side of the mountain.
“Can’t he at least take the cable car?” I said, speaking up for the put-upon driver.
“It’s ugly! It ruins the natural beauty of the mountain!” answered Big Ten, echoing my words in a girlish voice with undue glee.
Checkmate. I swallowed drily, conceding the argument.
The implacable driver accepted his assignment without protest. After a curt nod of the head, off he went, in his usual diffident manner, even though he had well over a thousand steep downhill steps ahead of him.
Big Ten and I sauntered over to the thicket where the ponies were artfully hidden behind the shrubbery on the distaff side of the tourist zone, and we began our downhill adventure in earnest. Just trying to mount the back of a smelly, hairy animal made me nervous. The bedraggled owner of my pony humbly offered his cupped hands as a stirrup for me to step up upon, but even with his help, it was a struggle to balance myself on the back of the beast.
When the pony first jerked into motion, I almost fell off. It proved to be as resistant to bearing a reluctant rider as I was ill-at-ease astride its hairy back. With no guidance on my part, it began to follow Big Ten’s mount as he trotted forward to the precarious edge of the ravine. More troubling still, my pony detected the sum of my fears. Feeling I could fall, tumble or be thrown at any minute, and seeing the path, or more precisely, the precipitous unpaved slope that in no way remotely resembled a civilized path, I panicked.
I had assumed the ponies would follow the service road that snaked down the rear of the hill, but this was an illegal ride, so we had no choice but to cut straight through the forest brush at a steep angle of descent. I should have dismounted well before we reached the precipitous part, but I was still shaken from the trauma of climbing on.
The animal bucked under me belligerently. Then it just stopped, refusing to go forward. When I looked up, I saw Big Ten gliding along the ridge, riding his diminutive steed like a true horseman. He swiftly hurtled up and down the steep slope, looking over his shoulder and doubling back, running airy circles around me.
Erect and alert, he was in full control of his ride; the beast responded to his every kick, command and gesture. I’d even venture to say the beast liked it. It liked being ridden by someone who knew how to ride. Man and beast moved as one unit, not just smoothly, but with aplomb, at times rushing by within inches of me and my donkey ride.
Something about Big Ten’s deceptively relaxed physicality bolstered by a killer confidence reminded me of that iconic picture of Mao on horseback in Yanan. As for me, I was shaking like a landlord, a class enemy on trial, afraid of being thrown off the back of the beast I exploited and abused.
I twice tried to dismount but as soon as I began to lift my leg, the pony sped up, spitefully it would seem. It jerked and twitched and pitched its way down the steep part of the hill. I magnanimously signaled a willingness to walk the rest of the way, if I could only dismount in one piece, but the pony wasn’t cooperating and Big Ten wouldn’t hear it.
“Boy brother, don’t be afraid!”
“But the horse won’t go.”
“It’s just a pony!”
“It doesn’t listen.”
“Brother! I have seen you make this mistake before.”
“What mistake?”
“You are too soft. You let the pony ride you.”
“I’m trying to ride it.”
“Kick it.”
“I don’t want to hurt it.”
At his insistence, I kicked the pony, a kick that probably hurt me more than it hurt it.
Big Ten then swooped down in a perfectly executed loop and sidled up to my steed, this time to scare it into doing what I was supposed to be getting it to do, and at last we started to make progress. My pony tamely followed his pony at a controlled pace and we descended in tandem. When we hit a really steep, stark decline, Big Ten instructed me not to look down but to keep my head up and stare confidently at the horizon. If I had more time to think, I might have said that summed up his attitude to life pretty well, but I was on the verge of blanking out from vertigo. Staring at the distant pink haze in the sky turned out to be good advice, but it was dizzying in its own way.
Out of the blur of passing trees, a stern voice chided me. “The pony is not riding you anymore, but you are still not riding the pony.”
“I’m not?”
“Kick it.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Slap it.”
“I can’t.”
His attempts to teach me fell flat, but his commands helped take my mind off the vertiginous view as animal and man plowed downward. It was like a free fall. I surely would have tumbled off if my ride wasn’t also falling at the same rate of descent.
Then the ground began to level out and soon we were riding side by side on an unmarked route on a leaf-littered path, but there was still one more surprise ahead. My guide reached out and put a firm hand on my shoulder, steadying me through a thicket so narrow I was getting scraped by branches on all sides. I ducked my head as low as I could to avoid banging into low branches and then squeezed my eyes shut. Seeing my extreme agitation, Big Ten led my pony to a clearing where I could pause to catch a breath and get my act together.
“You’re a good horseman,” I yelped gratefully, looking up at his beaming face.
“Up on the border,” he said, gazing off in the distance. “People ride horses every day.”
“Every day?”
“Like city people ride cars.”
“Sounds nice.”
“There is nothing like galloping across the open grasslands.”
“Yeah.”
“So fast, so free.”
“I know. Huamei told me about it.”
“She did?”
“Yeah. She told me about that time. That time when, that time when you went with her. Galloping horses on the road to Shangdu.”
“Shangdu?”
“Yeah.”
“She told you that?”
We resumed our descent at a gentler rate of attack than before. When we reached the bottom, the end of the ordeal came with a profound sense of relief for both of us. I wanted to get off my pony and Big Ten wanted to get off the topic of going bareback in the grasslands of Inner Mongolia.
We followed a stretch of unpaved road until we reached a fence. When it came time to dismount, Big Ten leapt off the back of his ride like a strong silent cowboy while I tensed, struggled, slid and eventually tumbled off, walking away with a limp.
We sat on a log in the shade which gave my shaky legs a break. Gathering I wasn’t much of one for the great outdoors, he suggested I should come visit him sometime at his office. Downtown, near Beijing Station.
The crunch of tires on gravel and a rising cloud of dust signaled the arrival of the driver. He parked the red jalopy a short distance from where we sat, popped open the trunk and went to work setting up three collapsible canvas chairs in the shade of an old cedar. From the back seat he extracted that capacious cooler stocked with Western delights, sweet and savory, from the deli.
A few minutes after that, he even had hot towels at the ready. How he did that I don’t know, but the face cloth was so hot it emitted steam. I wiped my sweaty neck and brow, then draped the wet towel around my neck.
Big Ten and the driver drank cool chrysanthemum tea, while I helped myself to hot coffee from the thermos with a generous pour of milk from the cooler. Most of the pastries were purchased in threes, but they declined their share after trying a nibble or two. That left me to polish off a cool, creamy Napoleon all by myself while they cracked watermelon seeds between their teeth, spitting the hulls on the ground.
I was the ultimate hairy barbarian, eating the custard with my hands, wiping the crumbs of flaky crust from my mouth and licking the sticky icing from my fingers.
As a fresh beneficiary of Big Ten’s tough love and rough stewardship, I was beginning to understand how the brilliant and accomplished city-dweller Huamei had fallen, not once, but twice, for the uneducated bottom-dweller from the steppes. Being stubborn and proud was not much of a defense against someone even more stubborn and perhaps more proud. He might be a bully and a jerk, but if you were locked into his good graces, it really felt secure.
When Big Ten gave the word to go, we broke camp with military vigor.
Relieved to be reunited with modern transport, pleased to be ensconced in a bucket seat up front with room to rest my legs, I took the liberty of dozing off, napping all the way back to my dorm.