A Fortune-Teller Told Me (60 page)

If someone is able to look back at the history of humanity a few centuries from now, he will surely see the end of Chinese civilization as a great loss: because with it ended a great alternative, whose existence could perhaps have guaranteed the harmony of the world.

Not by chance was it the Chinese who discovered that the essence of everything lies in the equilibrium between opposites, between
yin
and
yang
, between sun and moon, light and shadow, male and female, water and fire. It is by harmonizing differences that the world works, reproduces itself, maintains its tension, lives. So in fact there is some reason
to regret the end of Communism—not for itself, but as an alternative, a counterweight. Now that it no longer exists there is a great disequilibrium, and even the side that thinks it has won no longer has the tension that stimulated its creativity.

We left Kunming at dawn, and spent a day crossing a landscape of beautiful nature and forlorn humanity. The mountains, the rivers, the rice terraces and tea plantations were magnificent, but those who lived in the mud huts along the road were in a deplorable state—dirty, dusty, poor, disheveled—the people who never figure in the statistics of economic growth.

I had heard that as a response to the rise of materialism in China, besides a renewed interest in the occult there had been a notable increase in the number of hermits. More and more people were abandoning society and seeking refuge in the mountains. Yunnan was one of the classical destinations. I saw a couple of hermits marching along with pilgrims’ staffs at the edge of the road, dressed in the old style, their feet wrapped in cloth strips and their hair plaited and tied in buns on top of their heads. I would have liked to talk with them, but it was impossible to stop the convoy. For a long time those figures remained in my mind, like apparitions.

On the journey back the convoy stopped again in Kengtung. The first time round I had asked a Burmese woman to help me get in touch with the best fortune-teller in town, and she had made an appointment for me with a young man who was said to have exceptional powers.

He lived in one of the many wooden houses lining a beautiful cobblestoned street. When we arrived he was standing at the door waiting for us: a thin young man of about thirty, with a fine head of thick, rebellious hair and a look of exaltation. He took us up a rickety stairway to the first floor. We sat on wooden floorboards covered with a piece of green and brown plastic. After the usual questions and the usual calculations, he began talking about my life. He said that at fifty-five I was facing a major turn, that I had decisions to make, and that recently I
had received a sum of money which had nothing to do with my salary. I said yes, thinking of a prize I had just been awarded, and this seemed to encourage him.

“During the next two months you will meet a person at a much higher level than yourself, not in terms of power or money but of spirituality, and that person will improve your life. This will happen between the end of January and the beginning of February.”
(I thought of the meditation course I had decided to attend, just in that period. Was it I who told him about it, or was it he who “saw” it?)
“In your hand there are two life lines. Both are very strong. You have the possibility of living long and of advancing spiritually. It depends on you, but you may still fail. In the next six months there will be many changes in your life.”
(Certainly, I thought, by May I have to be in India.)
“From next year on your life will continue to improve from day to day, from year to year, for a long period, until you die.”

He took my hand and held his own an inch or two above it. He closed his eyes as if to concentrate, and after a few moments his hand began to tremble.
“I feel heat,”
he said.
“You have great strength. You have the capacity to become a seer. I feel it; we are in communication. You have something to do with India. Have you been there?”

That was striking. I did indeed have something to do with India, but how did he discover it? I had just mentally formed the word “India.” But how had he heard it?

“Yes, I’ve been there, but why do you ask?”

“Because she is behind you. I see her,”
he said, still with his eyes closed.

“Who?”

“An Indian goddess, a goddess who protects you, who is always with you. What is your religion?”

“None, really.”

“In your past life you were a Buddhist, and now you are tending to return to the
dharma,
the way of Buddha. When you arrive in India, make a donation at once. Not a charitable gift to the poor, but a donation to a Buddhist institution, to Buddhism. Do you meditate?”

That too was a word that had just been in my mind. Was it I who suggested it to him?

“Not yet.”

“Do it, because in this life, or at most in the next, you will reach
Shamballa
and you will have the power to help others … and then your life will lengthen and you will be able to control your death. Take care, everything will be decided in the next six months. It all depends on you. You have always had a sixth sense, an instinct that has always helped you. You have been in war zones and survived because you were able to see the danger in your future and avoid it, but now you have only a short way to go, and soon you will be able to see the future of others.”

This was certainly one of the strangest characters—but also the most authentic—among the many fortune-tellers I had spoken to. And I myself felt that we were “in communication.” But who was speaking to whom? And in what way?

“My children?” I asked, returning the conversation to something concrete so as to have a way of checking his capacities. He seemed to understand.
“You have two children. The first is a boy and the other a girl,”
he replied, after concentrating—or after having read that answer in my head?

“Do you see any problems in their future?” I asked.

“No, none. Not even that of your daughter worries me.”

“What problem?” I asked, knowing well that I was thinking of the witch in Bangkok.

“That she won’t marry. But she will marry, fear not.”

It was remarkable how he seemed able to read my unspoken replies to the questions I asked aloud.

He was still holding his hand over mine, and at one point I too had the impression of feeling heat, something that passed from one to the other. Presumably it was a matter of suggestion. The place, the sounds and odors of the early evening, the smoke of cooking fires, the pleasant interlude of peace after days of cars and dusty roads, all put me in tune with the man. I certainly felt much more in common with him than with the “adventure tourists” with whom I had spent the past week.

“Have you ever heard anyone speak of U Ba Khin?”
he asked.
“He is a Burmese who founded a school of meditation that now has pupils all over the world. Follow his method. It is the best for people like you who want to go on living in the world—not to retire to a monastery, but to learn all the same.”
He told me he had been meditating for three years, but had only recently become aware of his powers. It had happened by chance: in a town in northern Burma the municipal safe had disappeared, and one
day, by concentrating, he had managed to see who had taken it and where it was hidden. Since that time he had heard voices and seen into people’s future. He no longer found it easy to work in the town’s economic planning office, where he was employed.

He escorted me to the door, and as I took my leave he said that we would meet again. I could not imagine how. In less than a year I had been to Kengtung twice, and I had the feeling that for me this was a farewell, not only to the old Shan capital but to a kind of Asia which I loved, and of which Kengtung had become a symbol.

The convoy was to leave at dawn. I waited until everyone else had gone to bed and the discotheque on the lake had closed, and took a walk alone around the city. It was deserted, but alive with shadows and ancient sounds. I walked as far as the city gate that had remained sadly standing, with a piece of old wall, in the middle of the widened road; I heard again the divine tinkling of the bells of the pagoda on the hilltop, and among the silhouettes of the trees against the white monastery walls I saw the shadow of a man, cast by the moonlight. He walked slowly, his head bent, like someone absorbed in useless thoughts about the meaning of life as he follows a funeral procession. It was myself.

The rest of the trip was monotonous. The next evening we were back in Thailand. In Chiang Rai, in one of the new deluxe hotels for “adventure tourists,” they had organized a banquet to celebrate the success of the “Friendship Rally,” distributing medals and diplomas—the sort of situation I always avoid like the plague. I went straight to the bus station and on toward Bangkok.

I was lucky. If I had not arrived that night in Chiang Mai I would have missed a magnificent opportunity: an invitation to spend New Year’s Eve with the Devil.

A
ll the message said was that I should go the next day to a certain inn in Maehongson, a town in northwest Thailand, and wait there for someone to contact me. That meant leaving immediately for another nine-hour bus ride through the mountains, but I didn’t think twice. The message was the response to a request I had made through some intermediaries in Bangkok. Together with my Swedish colleague Bertil Lindner, a walking encyclopedia on Burmese affairs, I had asked to meet one of the most wanted men in the world: Khun Sa, the “Prince of Darkness.” For decades Khun Sa has been the warlord of the Golden Triangle, the last great drug baron since General Noriega ended up in an American prison and Pablo Escobar in a Colombian grave. Here was another story I could write without having to take a plane.

The generals of the Rangoon dictatorship, trying to appease international opinion after murdering thousands of students and arresting Aung San Suu Kyi, had just announced a military offensive against Khun Sa. He for his part had declared the secession from the Burmese Union of the territories he controlled, and named himself president of an independent state called the “Land of the Shan.”

I used the long bus ride to get some sleep. In Maehongson I found the designated inn, took a room, and met up with Bertil, who had come directly from Bangkok. Of Swedish origin, he had come to Asia straight from university, and, rather like me, had found himself at home there. If ever there were a reincarnation of his compatriot Sven Hedin, the great explorer of a century ago, it might well have been Bertil. In 1985 Bertil walked for months through the mountains of northern Burma, married the telegraph operator of one of the guerrilla groups, and wrote the first of a series of books about the region.

Next morning, as we were having breakfast, a very Chinese-looking man of about thirty sat down at our table. He had the look of a prewar Shanghai gangster: leather jacket, hair slicked back, thin mustache. He said everything was organized. We should expect to hike for eight to ten hours. Were we ready? We should follow him.

We drove for about twenty miles in Bertil’s jeep on an asphalt road. The small compass I always carry indicated that we were going north. We came to a sort of farm surrounded by a high wooden fence, where we were handed over to some more strange characters, all apparently Chinese, who without saying a word showed us where to hide the car and offered us tea. Soon a young Shan appeared with three mules, and we set off. One mule carried our bags and water supplies, the other two were free in case we needed to ride. For the first few hours the going was easy. We passed a beautiful limestone mountain, then up and down a series of hills, crossing streams with water up to our knees. In the early afternoon we climbed a steep incline. The forest grew more and more dense, the trees taller. We followed a mule track, which made walking particularly difficult. The animals, sometimes in caravans of up to a hundred, all tended to put their hooves in the same places, producing a continuous series of holes. Along the way we encountered a banded krait, a yellow-and-black striped snake, very poisonous but not aggressive, and some huge, brilliantly colored millipedes.