by Shan Sa
I slip outside, and the wind blows the subtle scents of nocturnal flowers over my face as I cross the training ground. It moves me to think that I belong to a selfless generation, which aspires to a sublime cause. It is in us and through us that the spirit of the samurais—stifled by all that is modern—finds its rebirth. We are living in a period of uncertainty, and the greatness that could be ours tomorrow makes the waiting all the more unbearable.
A mournful tune slices through the silence, the clear notes of a flute carrying on the air to me. I spotted a shakuhachi in Captain Nakamura’s room. Could it be he in his melancholy drunkenness tormenting the instrument?
With each successive note the tune becomes lower until it is inaudible, then one strident note pierces the skies, cutting through me like a moonbeam projected onto a dark ocean. Today I am alive; tomorrow, at the front, I shall die. This fleeting moment of joy is more intense than an eternity of happiness.
The flute expires in an endless sigh and then falls silent. There are leaves flitting in the wind around me, and my eye is caught by a cicada clinging to a tree. Its armor shell has split open, allowing the translucent body to emerge. The new life quivers throughout its length as it spreads, stretches, twists and sways. I wait for the moment when it breaks away from the husk, and I coax it to climb onto my finger. In the clear moonlight its soft, limp body looks as if it has been sculpted in jade by a skilled craftsman. Its wings spread along the silky skin like two drops of dew ready to fall. I touch the tip of its abdomen, but my finger barely comes into contact with it before its veins lose their coherence and its transparency is marred. The insect emits an inky liquid, its body slumps, and one of its wings swells and bursts, splattering black tears.
I think of the Chinese girl and of China . . . which we will have to crush.
75
Taking a bundle of thick fabric from the bottom of her bag and unwrapping it to reveal a teapot, Huong presents me the infusion. “I’ve also brought you some cotton cloth. Apparently it makes you bleed quite a lot. Hide all of this. Does it smell strong?” she asks. “I had to threaten suicide to get the matron to agree to boil up the ingredients at home. Take it before you go to bed, then lie down and wait. You should really drink it hot, but it should work cold, too—only the taste’s more bitter. I’d better go, otherwise your parents will get suspicious. Be brave! Tomorrow morning you’ll be rid of all your bad luck.”
Mother leaves us before supper: she is going to sit through the night with my sister, who has been in bed for several days. I eat alone with Father and, as usual, his voice soothes me. I ask about his translations and his eyes light up, he recites a few sonnets to me. I notice the silvery hair at his temples with a tinge of sadness. Why do parents grow old? Life is a castle of lies slowly dismantled by the passage of time. I regret not spending more time looking at the people I love.
Father asks me what I think of his poems.
“They’re very beautiful, but I prefer our ancient verses, which say:
When the flowers of spring fade,
The autumn moon,
So many memories come back to me! 21
Or this one:
What sorrow we know in this short life,
Tomorrow I shall leave,
With my scant hair in the wind,
At the prow of a boat.” 22
Father is angry, he can’t bear my indifference to foreign civilizations. As far as he is concerned, it is this sort of cultural egocentricity that will be the downfall of China.
“I hate the English,” I explode. “They fought us twice just to sell us the opium that they had forbidden in their own country. I hate the French, they pillaged, and then burned the Spring Palace, the jewel of our civilization. And ever since the Japanese have been laying down the law here in Manchuria, everyone cheers on the advances and the economic growth. I hate the Japanese! Tomorrow they will have invaded the whole continent, and then you’ll be relieved because China will be annihilated and it will at last be forced to shake off its backward attitudes.”
Hurt by what I have said, he gets to his feet, bids me good night and withdraws to his bedroom. I leave the dining room slowly and reluctantly: I was wrong to attack my father; his poetry is all he lives for.
I lock my door, draw the curtains and sit on the bed looking at the teapot in the middle of the table. I use scarves and handkerchiefs to make a strong rope. The gray smoke of the incense used to daze mosquitoes rises slowly under my window.
Dying is so simple. A fleeting moment of suffering. In the blink of an eye you are over the threshold, into another world. No more pain, no more fears. You sleep so well there.
Dying is like rubbing snow together, setting fire to a whole winter of cold and ice.
I take up the rope and attach both ends to the posts on my canopied bed. The knot is firm and steadfast, like a tree that has been growing there for a thousand years. I sit back on my heels and look at it until my eyes hurt. I only have to get to my feet to stop this train of thought.
There isn’t a sound. I lean forward to check that the knot is firm. I put my head through the loop, but the rope under my chin is uncomfortable. What I want is the emptiness, to fall through the air. I am terrified by the dizzying pleasure of it: I am both here and over there; I am me and I am no longer me!
Am I already dead?
I take my head out of the noose and sit back down on the bed.
Drenched with sweat, I get undressed. I dampen a towel in the basin and wash myself; the cool water makes me shiver. I pick up the teapot and drink the infusion, but it is so bitter that I have to stop several times to catch my breath. I put the cotton wadding between my legs, undo the knot, take apart the rope, and lie down on my bed with my hands on my stomach.
I wait, with the light on. Since Min’s death I can’t go to sleep in the dark. I am afraid of his ghost. I don’t want to see it.
I dream of a forest where the dazzling sunlight filters through the trees, and a magnificent animal walks between them. It has a smooth golden coat, a mane like a lion’s and the fine, slender body of a well-bred dog. I am furious that it has trespassed onto my property, and I call to a leopard, which leaps out from the trees and throws itself at the intruder. I suddenly become the injured animal, the leopard is tearing at my insides and plowing through my entrails with its fangs.
I am woken by my own moaning. There is an unbearable pain running down from my swollen stomach and into my thighs, then it suddenly subsides. I get to my feet with some difficulty and head for the basin to cool my face in it. I drag myself to the kitchen, where it takes ten whole ladlefuls of water to slake my thirst.
Later my sleep is interrupted by the pain again. I fall off the bed, dragging the sheets and pillows with me. On the ground I cling to the table legs and struggle in vain against the intolerable cramps.
When the pain has abated, I bend over to see whether the blood has started flowing between my legs. The wad of cloth is still spotless, and I think I can see Min mocking me in this stubborn whiteness. I can no longer feel the weight of my limbs. After the agony an obscure warmth runs from my toes all the way up my body, but instead of feeling pleasant, this comfort makes me shiver. I lie there, stretched out on the ground, looking at the mess in my room with perfect indifference.
A new spasm of pain, then another. The night seems so short, I am afraid it will come to an end and I will be found in this pitiful state. I should have killed myself.
The dawn has already tinged the curtains with white, and the chirping birds are announcing the new day. I can hear the cook sweeping the courtyard. Any minute now someone will find me, any minute now I will have to look into my father’s eyes and I will die of shame.
I gather the last of my strength and get to my feet. My arms are shaking. I couldn’t lift a feather if I tried.
I slowly tidy up my room as the morning sun blazes down, cooking the floor tiles. My back is in agony and, whether I stand up or lie down, I can’t escape the feeling that I am goin
g to give birth to a ball of lead. I sit down in front of the mirror, which shows me my devastated face. I put on some powder and a little makeup.
The blood comes as we are having breakfast, when I have stopped thinking about it, when my mind is completely empty. A scalding river courses between my legs. I rush to the bathroom and find a frothy black liquid on the wadding. I feel no joy and no sadness.
Nothing can make me feel anymore.
It is time for school. To avoid the dishonor of staining my dress, I stuff the napkin with everything I can find, cotton wool, fabric, paper. I put on two pairs of underpants, one on top of the other, and choose an old linen dress of my sister’s, which I have always hated for its drab color and shapeless cut. I do my hair in a single plait and tie it with a hankie.
When I get out of the rickshaw I walk slowly towards the school building, taking small steps. All around me girls are running: in the morning the young are as noisy as a flock of sparrows. One of my classmates taps me on the shoulder: “Hey, you look like an old woman of thirty!”
76
I have been waiting an hour for the Chinese girl.
When I was still a regular soldier, I loved guard duty. Standing with my gun clasped to my breast, I would spend the night listening for the least sound. When it rained, I had a hood that cut me off from the outside world, and I became a fetus floating in its own world. When it snowed, the soft, fat flakes swirled down like so many syllables, white ink on black paper. As I stood there motionless, I felt as if I were turning into a bird or a tree; I was a part of nature in all its immutability.
The Chinese girl appears at last, sketching a smile by way of a greeting. I stand and bow. She is slightly hunched, her eyelids swollen and her face like that of one just woken from a long, deep sleep. There are heavy lines at the corners of her mouth, and the hair that has strayed from her plait has been clawed behind her ears. She looks absent, dreamy, the way my mother used to look when she folded my kimonos.
She invites me to start. After the two hundredth move, the black and white stones now form a series of intertangled traps where those that lay siege are themselves besieged. We are battling for narrow corridors, cramped corners of territory. The Chinese girl answers my move after a few minutes, her stone shattering the silence between us.
I am surprised at how little time she gives herself to think. I have such unpleasant memories of my anxiety the last time we played that I have steeled myself to resist any form of external influence. I allow myself half an hour of meditation before I respond. Three minutes later the white stone has been played. Amazed by this brutality, I look up.
She quickly shifts her eyes and pretends to watch the other players over my shoulder. My heart beats faster, but I look down and try to concentrate. Incredibly, when I stare at the black and white pattern on the board I see the image of my own face!
I have hardly moved my black stone before her white one takes over a neighboring intersection. She has never reacted so quickly and yet the move itself is irreproachable. I look up again, our eyes meet and she stares at me. A shiver runs through me and, to hide my uneasiness, I pretend to be thinking.
She carries on staring at me; I can feel my forehead burning under her gaze. Then suddenly her voice rings out: “Would you do me a favor?”
“How could I be of use to you?”
“Let’s leave this place, I’ll explain.”
I help her make a note of our positions and put the stones away in their pots. When she has put everything away in her bag, she asks me to follow her. She walks ahead, and I follow behind. She takes small steps and a few strands of her hair beat the rhythm in the air as she walks on.
My heart feels heavy and a strange feeling of anguish comes over me. Where is she taking me? The trees part before her slender form and close in again behind me. The roads weave a vast labyrinth, and I am lost.
Sometimes she looks round and smiles; the coolness in her eye has gone. She lifts her arm to hail a rickshaw, and tells me to sit down next to her.
“The Hill of the Seven Ruins, please.”
The sunlight streaming through the blind throws a golden veil over her face. Tiny motes of dust fall twinkling from the ceiling and come to rest on the ends of her eyelashes. I try desperately to keep to the far end of the narrow bench seat, but even so when we come to a bend in the road my arm brushes against hers. Her icy skin leaves its imprint on mine as if I have been bitten. She pretends not to notice. The distinctive fragrance of a young girl wafts from her neck, a blend of green tea and soap. The rickshaw trundles over a pebble and my thigh presses against hers.
I am strangled by my feelings of arousal and shame.
I so much want to hold her it is killing me! Since I cannot put my arm around her shoulders and rest her head on my chest, I would be content just to brush my hand over her fingers. I watch her face carefully out of the corner of my eye, ready to surrender myself like a moth drawn to a light. But the Chinese girl’s face remains closed. She sits there with her brows knitted, watching the back of the rickshaw boy as he runs.
I keep my hands clamped on my knees.
The rickshaw stops and we get out. I throw my head back and my eyes climb up a wooded hillside. At the top, lost in the sunlight, I can just make out a pagoda overlooking the exuberant vegetation.
In front of us a slate path snakes between shrubs and tall grasses, and disappears as it climbs upwards through the shade of the trees and the reeds.
77
In class Huong passes a note to me under the table. I unfold it: “Well?”
I tear off a sheet and reply: “!”
A few minutes later another missive arrives, and the writing is so violent that it has broken through the paper in places: “My father arrived this morning. He’s taking me away with him at the end of the academic year. I’ve had it!”
Our lessons end this week. I despair at the thought of Huong being married off to the son of some minor country dignitary, and the effect of this emotion brings on the contractions again. As soon as the bell sounds, I bow to my teacher and hurtle to the toilets with my bag full of wadding.
Huong has followed and is waiting for me outside the door. Her lips are trembling and she can hardly speak. I drag her away from the other pupils and she bursts into tears. My stomach hurts, but Huong throws herself into my arms so that I can’t bend over to repress the spasms. I hold her to me and my sweat mingles with her tears.
She has to have lunch with her father, and she begs me to go with her. She wants to negotiate a year’s reprieve.
With his silk tunic and his watch on the end of a gold chain, my poor friend’s father is a farmer dressed up as a gentleman. He takes us to a luxurious restaurant and we have hardly sat down when he starts enumerating the expenses of her education, all that money earned by the sweat of his brow.
“Anyway,” he says, striking the table with his fist, “all that nonsensical investment is coming to term. You’re packing your bags.”
His yellow teeth are disgusting. Huong is white as paper, she daren’t open her mouth.
I feel terrible. Every now and then the clatter of plates and conversation swells to a deafening thrum. I drop my chopsticks and bend over to pick them up. Huong leans over and whispers, “Go on! Say something!”
What should I say? Where do I start? My friend is putting all the weight of her happiness on my shoulders. Struggling against the pain gnawing away at me, I drink three cups of tea in quick succession and, feeling a bit stronger, I try to explain to the old crook that his daughter really should finish her studies and get a diploma.
“How much does a diploma cost?” he splutters in my face. “I can’t read and I’m doing well enough! I’ve had enough of plowing my money into this chamber pot. She needs to show me a bit of a return now! And as for you, Miss Stick-your-nose-in-everything, you should think of your own future. You’re not bad-looking, your parents should hurry up and find you a good match.”
I stand and leave the restaurant.
Behind me I can hear the old man shrieking with laughter.
“Is that your best friend? Little bitch. I’ll tear your eyes out if you see her again. After lunch I’m taking you to buy some dresses. You’ll see, you’ll have the best dowry in the region.”
I hail a rickshaw in the street.
There has been less blood since midday, but I am exhausted. I long to sink into a deep sleep. Mother is at home: to return now would mean being exposed to her sharp eye. If I go to bed it would be like admitting that I am ill, and they would soon find the cause.
I snooze in the rickshaw and, after making the boy wander around for a long time, I remember I have arranged to play go. I return home immediately but remain hidden in the rickshaw and send the boy to ask the housekeeper to get the two pots of stones.
The terra-cotta statue is already there on the Square of a Thousand Winds.
Our game is moving towards its final phase, and I regain some of my old energy and dignity as I play. But time is against me: I am dazed by the sunlight while my opponent meditates at length. I close my eyes, but my ears are filled with endless waves of muffled rustling. There is a huge clearing opening at my feet, and I lie down on the cool grass.
I am woken by the click of a stone on the board: my opponent has just played his turn. Our eyes meet.
“Would you do me a favor?” I have hardly formulated this request in my mind before it leaves my mouth. He doesn’t even know my name.
I get up, feeling feverish and racked by the pain in my stomach. I need to run away from these players, from the game of go, from the whole town.
I get into a rickshaw and my opponent sits down next to me. He has more pronounced muscles and wider shoulders than Min; and so the bench seat seems narrow. Lulled by the rolling motion, I feel as if I am setting off on a long journey. I am no longer myself, I am floating.