by Xiaolu Guo
Real Love – Wahre Liebe
– Once love is brought down to earth, and weighed, it’s over. It’s dead.
– But don’t you agree that real love is the love that’s brought down to earth? It’s only real when it’s mixed up with dirt and sweat. Otherwise, it’s just for puppies and adolescents!
After spending the weekend with your parents, we went to the Pergamon Museum on Monday morning. There was an exhibition of crafted rugs from the Middle East and Asia.
‘It’s not an exhibition I would normally go to,’ you said, ‘but at least you can see the scale of the museum.’
You led me through the Babylon Gates (quite impressive), and the remaining ancient European relics (less impressive I must admit), and took us upstairs to the exhibition.
I stood in front of a large piece – it was perhaps the biggest wall rug I had ever seen. It was entitled 50kg of Eternal Love. The label explained that it was the heaviest handmade Persian rug the collectors had ever found. The flowery patterns were elaborate with three distinctive colours: red, brown and blue. And all the rectangles, octagon and circles were also woven with different shades of red, brown and blue.
I loved what was hanging in front of me, and tried to get you to see it. But you were not impressed.
‘Well, you can’t measure love,’ you said.
‘For a non-romantic, that is a very romantic thing to say,’ I replied, imitating your sardonic way. Then I felt a bit annoyed, and continued: ‘But this is not about measuring love!’
‘So, the title is a joke? This must have been a love affair at its end. Once love is brought down to earth, and weighed, it’s over. It’s dead.’
‘But don’t you agree that real love is the love that’s brought down to earth? It’s only real when it’s mixed up with dirt and sweat. Otherwise, it’s just for puppies and adolescents!’
You looked at me, then suddenly produced a line I had heard somewhere before:‘I think we will have to agree to disagree.’
I was speechless. I now understood what this line meant. I had not understood it when my professor spoke the same sentence before.
‘Look, I prefer this one.’ You pointed to the piece that was now in front of you. It was a colourful rug with extremely busy patterns of leaves and flowers, titled Die Organisation des chaotischen Geistes – the Organisation of a Chaotic Mind. An interesting title for a rug, as far as I was concerned. All the patterns showed a perfect picture of mess. But the mess stopped by the margin of the rug, as if expressing the fact that the material rules the mental.
The Organisation of a Chaotic Mind, I murmured to myself. It was exactly how I felt about my life now – the PhD research, the rented London home, my life with you, and our future child. But I could only organise details and patterns of daily tasks in order to move to the next stage. My thoughts remained chaotic.
Superstitious
– Well, I hope she won’t turn out to be some monster.
– Shush! Don’t squawk like a crow. I am superstitious about these things!
Our flight back to London was on a Tuesday night. I was surprised to find out that you had arranged a gynaecologist appointment for me before we left.
‘Why? Don’t we have the NHS in England?’ I asked, when the taxi dropped us in front of a building with a sign: MD M. Roos, Facharzt für Gynäkologie und Geburtenhilfe.
‘Yes. But we might have to wait for a few weeks to be seen in London. In any case it’s good to have a German doctor to examine you. So we have a second opinion.’ You then pressed the doorbell.
In the quiet, white reception room, you read today’s Tagesspiegel. My hand rested on my belly as I waited anxiously. I could feel the foetus moving actively.
The gynaecologist was a man in his late forties. He spoke a mix of German and English to me in your presence. He scanned my stomach, informing me everything was in good order. Then he paused a bit with his ultrasound machine, and looked at the monitor carefully.
‘Ah, so it is she,’ the doctor said: ‘Ein Mädchen!’
We looked at each other. This was a real surprise. When we were in London we told our doctor not to tell us the sex of the baby.
‘Are you sure?’ you asked.
‘Yes, I think so,’ he said, taking another look at the monitor. ‘Es ist ein Mädchen.’
I looked up at the monitor. But the image was so blurry, it was almost impossible for me to make sense of what was what.
On the way from the clinic to the airport, we sat in the taxi, studying a scan of the foetus – our supposed baby girl at the gestational age of twenty weeks. The black-and-white picture looked odd – a rough resemblance to a future human. Her tiny body was already formed, with limbs. Even the toes were visible. Her legs were tightly hugging her upper body like a cave-dwelling creature. Though there were no facial details (did I see her eyelids or was it just my imagination?) her head seemed to be quite large compared with her other body parts.
‘Her big head must be from you, since I have a small head,’ I said to you.
‘Well, I hope she won’t turn out to be some monster.’
‘Shush! Don’t squawk like a crow. I am superstitious about these things!’
When we arrived at the airport, the picture was worn out. It was almost torn apart by our excessive study.
A Perfect Reproduction
– What is the difference between a perfect reproduction and an original?
– There is no intrinsic difference between the perfect reproduction and the original. The only difference is the exterior difference, and that is to do with its history.
So this was it, I told myself. Nearly three years of PhD research and writing would come to an end, and after that I would be free. But free for what, though? For motherhood? For a woman’s role in the house and outside the house?
The examination committee was made up of three people. My supervisor Grant was not included in the viva, as is standard procedure. I had met two of the examiners before, and the external supervisor was from the University of Manchester. Was I nervous during the whole session? Yes. And being six and a half months pregnant added to the stress level. Of course the professors didn’t stare at my belly, which was not that obvious under my loose shirt.
I gave an outline of my thesis; the committee proceeded with their questions. I tried to deliver my answers as well as I could. The external examiner had some concerns.
‘In your thesis you quote extensively from Walter Benjamin’s “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanic Reproduction”.’ The professor from Manchester leafed through my thick pages. ‘It’s interesting you suggest that Chinese labourers are the new mechanics to serve the reproduction, and that the art world has been transformed by this no-authorship industry. But I’m not convinced that you have understood that Benjamin wrote this essay in the early 1930s. He was in a desperate state, running away from Nazi Germany. His attitude towards the age of mechanical reproduction was ambiguous and complex, yet in your essay you don’t bring in any of that historical background.’
I stared at the professor who was speaking, sweat dripping down from my neck. Damn it, the Jewish/Nazi thing again – how could a Chinese person ever hope to get it right? This kind of mistake could be made only by someone like me – someone neither from a European background nor interested in analysing everything from a Western point of view.
‘Also, I am not entirely sure of your argument on fake and real.’ He leafed through my pages again.
At this point, another supervisor from the committee came to his help and found the passage:
‘. . . the argument of fake or real is a by-product of the copyright industry in the West. As long as the global market based on slavery – and on such a large quantity of Chinese labourers – continues to produce the products for world consumers, there will be no such thing as a “fake” or “genuine”. For exa
mple, all Mac computers are either made or assembled in China by the hands of cheap labourers. What is an original, and what is a copy? All fakes are real, as the so-called “quality control” and “intellectual property” are based on power and slavery, as Western democracy is also based on power and slavery . . .’
Now the third supervisor looked at me above his reading glasses, slightly alarmed. Before I could defend myself, he remarked:
‘What I don’t understand is why the fact that products are manufactured in a system of wage slavery means we cannot talk of “genuine” as opposed to “fake”. After all, a genuine Mac is just a Mac produced under certain conditions, legal and physical, which involve wage slavery. The presence of slavery does not mean we can no longer talk of “fake” as opposed to “genuine”. The same holds for paintings. If slaves had been part of Modigliani’s or da Vinci’s atelier then would that mean there were no genuine Modiglianis or da Vincis? ’
I was suddenly flummoxed. Before I could respond, he continued:
‘But Benjamin suggested art is reproducible. So if that was the case, what is the difference between a perfect reproduction and an original?’ The professor from Manchester paused and glanced at me.
I thought I was having a panic attack. I could not continue this. My mind was a chaotic place, and there was no organisation to it. My body was not helping either, and my stomach cramped. I felt like vomiting. All I could remember was that I managed to say:
‘There is no intrinsic difference between the perfect reproduction and the original. The only difference is the exterior difference, and that is to do with its history.’
I went on to answer more questions, but I didn’t know what I was saying. After the discussion, I was asked to leave the room for some moments. Staggering, I made my way to the bathroom. Alone, in front of a mirror, I saw a ghostly pale-looking woman. My vision dissolved into blankness. My sugar level was going down. I sat on the toilet, faintly, and swallowed a piece of chocolate. I must recover. The committee must have sensed my fragile state. Perhaps they would take mercy on me, and give me another chance? In the seminar room, I hadn’t wanted to explain that my nausea was a result of my pregnancy. It would be very unprofessional. And they were men. Men! After waiting in the lobby for about twenty minutes – it felt like a century – I was called back in. I was informed that I had successfully passed the viva. Passed? Did I mishear? I stared at everyone, and they were all smiling, nodding, confirming, as if I was the Virgin on the Rocks. But I had thought they’d wanted to fail me! I knew that examiners could be critical, but that critical? Or was it just my high oestrogen levels, a pregnant woman’s oversensitivity?
I knew that my essay was not the greatest thesis ever written. Still, it had some kernels of originality in it, even though the examiners didn’t seem to be very interested in my main argument. What was my main argument? Already it was beginning to fade from my mind. The idea was that slavery was at the heart of a capitalistic system where reproduction was the main engine. All the things I wrote about originality were kind of beside the point. Originality is a fetish of people who want to control the art market and the publishing industry. It’s also a fetish of academics, particularly the males and old farts. What I was really interested in – though right then even this was blurring in my mind – were the sweating workers in Chinese villages. It was their lives, their anonymity, their way of looking at Western classics, and their purely pragmatic attitude. I loved being with those artisans and feeling their energy and their lack of self-consciousness. They were not precious in any way about their work, or about their life. But they were full of heart, and at the same time they were not clinging to their achievements. They were part of the flow of life. I had come from the same culture, and I felt I could not make this clear or make Westerners understand. The Western language and mentality did not allow me to do it.
流水不腐 – liu shui bu fu
– In Chinese, we say liu shui bu fu – flowing water does not rot. If the water does not flow, it is dead water. It will rot.
– Water does not rot or die. It can be polluted or stagnant, but the water itself is always water. It’s just molecules.
Something had happened to the lock-keeper’s cottage. I was passing one day and noticed building work. It was scaffolded. At first I thought they were destroying the house. Really? Were they knocking down my favourite house in this country? My heart was in my throat, and I jumped onto a pile of rubble in front of the house and got as close as I could. Through the dusty scaffolding, I could see inside. It seemed to be reconstructed. No. It would be called a renovation. Two builders each stood on a ladder, drilling and hammering. The noise was unbearable.
I found myself on my bench beside the cottage. The nasturtium bushes were no longer there, nor the dead sunflowers. Instead, there was a pile of cement on the ground. And the lock-keeper’s cottage was no longer a cottage. I could see a brand-new second floor being added, with big shiny windows reflecting the sky. The brick walls of the old part of the house still remained a rusty brown, but the new part was painted black. It squatted on the old cottage like an evil bird. A For Sale sign had been erected in front of the house. A few cyclists passed, paying no attention to the new building.
There were masses of dandelion seeds floating on the canal, mixed with a thick layer of duckweeds. The water was not moving at all. It was like a piece of patterned marble, imposing itself in front of me.
‘The canal water is dead,’I once said to you, when we were still living our boat life.
‘What do you mean?’
‘In Chinese, we say liu shui bu fu – flowing water does not rot. If the water does not flow, it is dead water. It will rot.’
You didn’t agree: ‘That sounds a bit weird in English. Water does not rot or die. It can be polluted or stagnant, but the water itself is always water. It’s just molecules.’
That’s a very scientific way of thinking about water. You didn’t see the life and death in water. That’s just like saying a rainbow is only a spectrum.
If we had some money, we could have bought the lock-keeper’s cottage. I could get up and stand by the window upstairs, drinking coffee and watching the water flow before leaving for the day. And I would catch sight of night falling after I came home from work. Well, the work that I hoped for was still in the future. I felt a cramp in my womb. Another cramp. I would have to wait a while before using my PhD. I stretched my legs. The large cotton skirt I was wearing fit tightly around my swollen belly. It was loose on me two months ago, but not now. The fabric had been stretched and I could see two threads hanging loose, from a ripped seam at the waist.
EIGHT
右
RIGHT
Skin to Skin
– Touch her and bring her close to your breasts. Skin to skin. So that your hormones will respond and stimulate the milk.
Lying on an operating table, I was under a local anaesthetic reaching up to my chest. My head was clear, but it swelled up with inexplicable fear while the nurses prepared for the surgery around me. You sat beside me, trying to look as calm as you could. But your hand gripped my hand so tight that it almost hurt. The information I received was that the baby was in the breech position. And, I had a low-lying placenta. Caesarean section was necessary. The doctors were dealing with the machines around me. I could sense some frightful movements were going on in the lower part of my body but I could not feel anything. No, I felt nothing, not physically. There was a curtain blocking my view. So I could not see anything but I could hear everything. What was going on? Were they actually opening me up now? Metal tools hitting a table. The sound of scissors cutting something. A machine beeping.
I closed my eyes, and I visualised a scene where my lower body had been cut open: two hands (but not mine) pulled out the baby. Then suddenly I heard a woman’s voice:
‘Here she is!’
What was that? Was that my mother
speaking? I opened my eyes, petrified. No. I saw nothing. Only the white medical curtain and your anxious face.
‘What a lovely girl!’ Another woman’s voice.
A lovely girl? Was she out? Or was I hallucinating?
No, this was not a hallucination from the anaesthetic. It was real. Something had just happened. But why did I not hear crying? Was the baby alive?
At first the baby did not cry. And they didn’t give her to me immediately. But I understood she must be out of my body now, because I saw you standing up and moving towards where the action was. Someone must have been holding the baby, perhaps one of the nurses? Then they inserted some device into my womb. Something alien. Were they trying to suck up the placenta? The equipment was causing my chest to heave and throb violently. A strong pressure had come up through my body and I was freaking out. I began to yell. They paused the sucking machine for a bit, perhaps to check if I was okay. But after a few seconds it started again. Then the throbbing finished and I was lying on my back hearing my baby cry.
Yes, it was the cry of a newborn – bawling. It was very different from any other cry I had ever heard in my life.
‘Is she okay? Can I see her?’ I begged, feeling totally out of my body.
‘Yes, she is fine. Don’t worry.’
I heard your voice speaking somewhere near me. Then you added:
‘They are just checking the baby, weighing her.’
Suddenly someone (was it you or a nurse?) laid the baby on my chest, and told me to hold it. This was a very strange moment, impossible to describe. There she was, this tiny human, eyes closed and hair wet, lying on my chest and bawling in a loud voice. Her umbilical cord was cut and clamped with a strange knot hanging down from her small belly. Did the cutting hurt the baby? I wondered. What if they left the cord uncut? Could she survive?
‘Touch her and bring her close to your breasts. Skin to skin.’ A woman’s voice said. ‘So that your hormones will respond and stimulate the milk.’