The Year of Rice and Salt

The trip took over a month. The roads and tracks they followed were dry, and they made good time. Partly this was because Kang asked to ride in a cart rather than be carried in a palanquin or smaller chair. At first the servants were convinced this decision had caused some discord in the new couple, for Ibrahim took to riding in the covered cart with Kang, and they heard the arguing between them go on sometimes for whole days on end. But Pao walked close enough one afternoon to catch the drift of what they were saying, and she came back to the others relieved. 'It's only religion they're debating. A real pair of intel lectuals, those two.'

So the servants travelled on, reassured. They went up to Kaifeng, stayed with some of Ibrahim's Muslim colleagues there, then followed the roads paralleling the Wei River, west to Xian in Shaanxi, then over hard passes in dry hills, to Lanzhou.

By the time they arrived, Kang was amazed beyond amazement. 'I can't believe there is so much world,' she would say to Ibrahim. 'So much China! So many fields of rice and barley, so many mountains, so empty and wild. Surely we should have crossed the world by now.'

'Scarcely a hundredth part of it, according to the sailors.'

'This outlandish country is so cold and dry, so dusty and barren. How will we keep a house clean here, or warm? It's like trying to live in hell.'

'Not that bad, surely.'

'Is this really Lanzhou, the renowned city of the west? This little brown windblown mudbrick village?'

'Yes. It's growing quite rapidly, actually.'

'And we are to live here?'

'Well, I have connections here, and in Xining, a bit farther to the west. We could settle in either place.'

'Let me see Xining before we decide. It must be better than this.'

Ibrahim said nothing, but ordered their little caravan on. More days of travel, as the seventh month passed, and storm clouds rolled overhead almost every day, never quite breaking on them. Under these low ceilings the sere broken hills looked even more inhospitable than before, and except in the irrigated, terraced central flats of the long narrow valleys, there was no more agriculture to be seen. 'How do people live here?' Kang asked. 'How do they eat?'

'They herd sheep and goats,' Ibrahim said. 'Sometimes cattle. It's like this all over, west of here, all the way across the dry heart of the world.'

'Astonishing. It's like travelling back in time.'

Finally they came to Xining, another little walled mudbrick town, huddling under shattered mountainsides, in a high valley. A garrison of imperial solders manned the gates, and some new wooden barracks had been thrown up under the town walls. A big caravanserai stood empty, as it was too late in the year to start travelling. Beyond it several walled ironworks used what little power the river provided to run their stamps and forges.

'Ugh!' Kang said. 'I did not think Lanzhou could be beaten for dust, but I was wrong.'

'Wait for your decision,' Ibrahim requested. 'I want you to see Qinghai Lake. It's just a short journey farther.'

'Surely we will fall off the edge of the world.'

'Come see.'

Kang agreed without argument; indeed, it seemed to Pao that she was actually enjoying these insanely dry and barbarous regions, or at least enjoying her complaining about them. The dustier the better, her face seemed to say, no matter what words she spoke.

A few more days west on a bad road brought them through a draw to the shores of Qinghai Lake, the sight of which took speech away from all of them. By chance they had arrived on a day of wild, windy weather, with great white clouds floored by blue grey embroidery charging overhead, and these clouds were reflected in the lake's water, which in sunlight was just as blue green as the name of the lake would suggest. To the west the lake extended right off to the horizon; the curve of its visible shores was a bank of green hills. Out here in this brown desolation, it was like a miracle.

Kang got out of the cart and walked slowly down to the pebbled shore, reciting the Lotus Sutra, and holding up her hands to feel the hard rush of the wind on her palms. Ibrahim gave her some time to herself, then joined her.

'Why do you weep?' he inquired.

Sothis is the great lake,"' she recited,

NowI can at last comprehend The immensity of the universe; My life has gained new meaning! But think of all the women Who never leave their own courtyards, Who must spend their whole lives Without once enjoying a sight like this. -

Ibrahim bowed. 'Indeed. Whose poem is this?'

She shook her head, dashing the tears away. 'That was Yuen, the wife of Shen Fu, on seeing the T'ai Hu. The Great Lake! What would she have thought if she saw this one! It is part of "Six Chapters from a Floating Life". Do you know it? No. Well. What can one say?'

'Nothing.'