Mm.

Grandfather, I can't walk anymore.

Just grit your teeth and keep walking.

Grandfather, my teeth are falling out.

You bad boy, stand up!

Grandfather gets down on his haunches and the naked child climbs onto his back. With the boy on his back, he totters a step at a time in the sand, his feet turned outward. The boy whoops with joy and kicks his little feet, as if spurring on an old horse. You watch your grandfather's back gradually recede into the distance and sink behind a dune. Then there is only you and the wind.

Voller has three of his team protecting him. Their solid bodies form a barrier, and it won't be easy to take the ball from him. At the edge of the sand, a line of yellow smoke rises, and like an invisible hand it brushes the big dune into a roll of unfurling silk. You are in a desert. It is a dry sea to the horizon, burning red, still as death. You seem to be flying in a plane over the great Taklamakan Desert. The towering mountain range looks like the skeleton of a fish. The vast mountains will certainly be swallowed up in this burning, dry sea, yet in March the Taklamakan can be extremely cold. Those few blue circles are probably frozen lakes and the white edges are shallow beaches. The dark green spots that look like the eyes of dead fish are where the water is deep. In the second half of the match everyone can see that West Germany has stepped up its attack and is in the lead. Argentina will have to strengthen its defense; everything depends on how they counterattack and take advantage of gaps in the other side. Good kick! Valdano has the ball and he scores! There is no wind, just the gentle rocking of the motor. Outside the cabin window, there seems to be no horizon. The Taklamakan looms up diagonally in so straight a line that it could only be replicated on a blueprint; it divides the window into two. Following the line of vision and direction of flight, it moves clockwise from 0:50 to 1:20 or 1:30. At the end of the needle is a dead city. Is it the ancient city of Loulan? The ruins are right below and you can see the collapsed walls. The palaces have all lost their domes: here the ancient cultures of Persia and China once fused, then sank into the desert. Look everyone! Argentina is making a rapid counterattack and the other side can't keep up. Argentina scores a goal. In fifty-one matches in the series 127 goals were scored, and if you count the penalties in extra time, 148. In today's match, there were 2 more goals. Not counting the penalties in extra time, the 128th and 129th goals have been kicked. Now Maradona has the ball. Shifting sands and the ball. With is a loud howl, yellow shifting sand slowly forms a mound, then trickles down in waves – waves that rise, fall, and ripple outward, like breathing, like singing. Who is singing with a kind of sobbing under the shifting sands? You want desperately to dig it out, the sound right below your feet. You want to make a hole to let out this sound tinged with sadness, but as soon as you touch it, it twists and bores downward, refusing to come up. It's like an eel, and you catch only what seems to be a slimy tail that you can't hold on to. You dig furiously with both hands into the sand. On the riverbank you had to dig only a foot deep and water would percolate up – cool, pure, sparkling river water – but now there is just cold grit. You put your hand into it and feel a tingling sensation, then touch something sharp and cut your finger, although it doesn't bleed. You are determined to find out what it is. You dig and scrape and finally pull up a dead fish. The head was pointing down and it's the tail that cut you. Stiff and hard, the fish is as dry as the river: mouth clamped shut, eyeballs shriveled. You prod it, squeeze it, step on it, throw it, but it doesn't make a sound. It is the sand that makes a noise, not the fish, and it whispers to mock you. The dead fish, stiff in the blazing sun, sticks up its tail. You look away, but its round eye continues to stare at you. You walk off, hoping that the wind and sand will bury it. You won't dig it up again. Let it never see the daylight; let it stay buried in the sand. Burruchaga is offside, loses a great opportunity, and the defense kicks the ball out. In the second half Argentina gets a third corner but West Germany takes it, goes for a goal, and scores! At the twenty-seventh minute Rummenigge kicks it right at Maradona. The score is 1-2, and everyone sees Maradona taking his team toward the goal -

Grandfather, can you kick a soccer ball?

It's the soccer ball that's kicking your grandfather.

Who are you talking with?

You're talking with yourself, with the child you once were.

That boy without clothes?

A naked soul.

Do you have a soul?

I hope so. Otherwise this world would be too lonely.

Are you lonely?

In this world, yes.

What other world is there?

That inner world of yours that others can't see.

Do you have an inner world?

I hope so. It's only there that you can really be yourself.

Maradona is taking the ball past everyone. There's a goal! Whose is it? The score is 2- 2, a draw for the first time. Doves of peace soar in the stadium. Seventeen minutes to the end of the match: time enough to have a dream. They say it only takes an instant to have a dream; a dream can be compressed into hardtack. I've eaten hardtack, dried fish in a plastic bag – without scales, eyes, or pointy tails that can cut your fingers. In this lifetime you can't go exploring in Loulan, you can only sit in a plane and hover in the air above the ancient city, drinking the beer served by the stewardess. The sound in your ears is music, eight channels on the armrest. Screeching rock and roll or a husky mezzo-soprano purring like a cat. Looking down at the ruins of Loulan, you find yourself lying on a beach; the fine sand flowing through your fingers forms a dune. At the bottom of the dune lies the dead fish that cut your finger without drawing blood. Fish blood and human blood have an odor, but dried fish can't bleed. Ignoring the pain in your finger, you dig hard and uncover a collapsed wall. It's the wall of the courtyard of your childhood. Behind it was a date tree, and once you sneaked off with your grandfather's fishing rod to knock down dates that you shared with her.

She walks out of the ruins and you follow, wanting to be sure that it is the girl with whom you had shared the dates. You can only see her back. Excited, you pursue her. She walks like a light gust of wind, but you can never catch up. Maradona is looking for a path, a path where none exists, and the other team watches him closely. He takes a fall, charges on, and now they are trying for a goal. It's in! You give a loud yell, and she turns around. It's the face of a woman you don't want to recognize. There are wrinkles on her cheeks, eyes, and forehead: a flabby old face without any color. You find it painful to keep looking. Should you smile? A smile might mock her, so you grimace, and of course it's not a pleasant sight.

Alone in the middle of the ruins of Loulan, you look around. You make out the brick room in the courtyard with the gate screen depicting Good Fortune, Prosperity, Longevity, and Happiness. It is where Blackie used to sleep and where my grandfather kept his little iron bucket for the worms: it is my grandfather's room. Before the wall collapsed, my grandfather's shotgun hung on it. That should be the passageway leading to the back courtyard, to Zaowa's home. Staring at me without blinking is a wolf crouched in the window frame of the collapsed wall of the back courtyard. This does not come as a surprise. I know that in the wilderness there is often little sign of human settlement, only wolves. But these crumbling walls around me are crawling with wolves. They have taken over the ruins. Don't look back, my grandfather once told me. A person attacked from behind in the wilderness must never look around. If he does, Zhang the Third will tear out his jugular.