THE LOST GIFT OF INSIGHT


It all started years ago when I was at the university. A professor told us about a site called Dunhuang in China. I can't even remember what the class was about. History of something. He showed us a large-format picture book with photos of murals in caves that the Buddhist monks walled up when the Muslim invaders were approaching. They were discovered only a hundred years ago or so.

I yearned to visit Dunhuang from that moment on. Fast forward ten years, and there I was, in the city in the middle of a desert after two nights on the Beijing–Ürümqi train.

The next morning I was eagerly waiting in the minibus with half a dozen other tourists. One young couple was Italian, the others spoke varieties of English. A Chinese woman accompanied us as a guide-nanny. She didn't speak a word of English, but foreign tourists had to be kept an eye on.

* * *

We stand near the entrance to the caves site and wait. A big sign says in Chinese and English that cameras have to be left in the wardrobe along with bags and such. A few middle-aged women with name tags idle nearby. The local variation of Chinese sounds like Arabic to me. I can recognize a word occasionally, one of the few dozen Chinese words I know, but the phonetics are completely different from Beijing or Shanghai.

They ask me where I'm from, America? I shake my head and say the name of my country. It doesn't seem to mean anything to them, or maybe I can't pronounce it correctly. I say "Ouzhou" which means "Europe" and they nod in understanding and smile, and I smile.

Now our guide returns with the tickets. She looks at my bulging trouser pocket. She knows I have a camera in there and she would evidently like to tell me I can't take it with me, but she doesn't speak English. So I just go in with the other tourists while she remains waiting for us. I'm not going to use the camera. I don't want any trouble. I'm just reluctant to give it out of my hands.

We wander off, each on their own. There are many caves. The lighting could be better, but I can imagine they want to protect the thousand-year-old murals from fading away. Many of them are quite discolored already. There are countless tens of meters of landscapes, buildings, deities, people, animals... It's an amazing place. And the Lonely Planet book says only a small part of the compound is open to the public.

When I return into the open air, looking for the exit, an old man with a name tag approaches and says something I can't understand. I believe he offers to show me something special. So I follow him. He unlocks a wooden door and motions me to enter.

A corridor leads to a cave somewhat wider than the others. There's a large mural depicting two female figures flying above a bizarre landscape of mountains and buildings. The man tells me they're called "apsara". I remember vaguely having heard the word. It's something from Indian mythology.

I'm stunned by the vivid colors, strikingly different from the faded murals I saw in the other caves. Why are they keeping this from the tourists?

The more I stand there, the more I'm drawn to that outlandish, yet so alluring scene. It's all so foreign, yet so marvelous. I feel connected to the universe itself. Everything makes sense. Everything is the way it's supposed to be. I suddenly remember a stray dog who wanted to make friends with me at a bus stop many years ago, then the cheeky sparrow who kept flying into my kitchen last summer whenever I was away and the balcony door was open. I have to smile, and I could swear the flying apsaras smile back.

I feel like I'm home. This is where I belong. I want to stay here forever.

Something tugs on my arm. What? I tear myself loose from the hypnotic mural and look surprised at the old man who motions that it's time to leave. Oh. Sure.

After locking up behind us, he asks me to give him 10 yuan. Is he crazy? I give him a 100-yuan banknote. He shakes his head. He has no change. I say in English it's all right and he seems to understand and bows. He leads me to the exit where the other tourists are already waiting in the hotel minibus.

* * *

For the next few days, I strolled aimlessly in the city. I looked in the faces of people of all ages. I watched the cars drive over a bridge across a wide riverbed without a single drop of water in it. I went everywhere like I was a part of it, and people told me things with their gestures, their facial expressions and their incomprehensible guttural dialect. And I understood everything they said.

Too soon I had to get on a train to Shanghai to catch my flight home.

That bliss stayed with me for something like two weeks. I can recall what it felt like, but I'm no longer able to feel it. Every time I read a book about China, I long to return to Dunhuang, to somehow get to that cave again that is not open to the public. But I know it's not going to happen. People like me are no longer welcome in China. Not for some time to come.

And here I am once more, looking at the sparrow sitting on the edge of my kitchen balcony. It has become too cold to keep the door open.



(C) Olavi Jaggo
First published: 2022-09-13
This version: 2023-03-20

The first version of this story tied for the 3rd place out of 16 in the monthly Literary Maneuvers competition.




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