The Girl Who Played Go (12 page)

“Here, a little present.”

Jing looks at the handkerchief and stammers, “I’m so glad I’ve met you. You’re special, you’re interesting… Min doesn’t deserve you…”

I ask him why and he stares right at me, biting his lower lip. I ask again, but he stamps his foot angrily and turns away.

It is hot and humid out in the street. The trees shine with moisture and the green drips from the ends of the leaves. The shop windows scatter their haphazard glints of the failing sun. Children run almost naked along the pavements, brandishing newspapers. To attract customers, they chorus: “Woman kills her lover! Body found by Buddhist priest!”

Just before I reach the house, Min suddenly appears and catches hold of my arms to stop me.

“Jing’s gone mad! What did he say to you earlier?”

“Nothing.”

“What did he say about me?”

“Nothing.”

Min is still not reassured, and he looks at me closely.

“He loves you,” he says, “he’s just told me,” and his words seem to pierce my heart.

“Leave me alone,” I say quietly.

“You’ll have to choose between us.”

“Oh, don’t make such a scene!”

“You can’t betray me. Your body belongs to me!”

“I’m free. I can give my body to whomever I like, even the devil!”

“Why did you say that? Why do you want to hurt me? You don’t love me!”

“Leave me alone,” I say again, “my sister’s waiting for me at home, I’ll talk to you when you’ve calmed down. Tomorrow I’m playing a game of go on the Square of a Thousand Winds. Come and pick me up at five o’clock.”

I have never seen Min in such a state: he is trembling, and I run off to get away from him.

After dinner we are ordered to sleep fully clothed, weapons to hand. At midnight we are woken by sharp blows of a whistle and I race outside.

Our unit divides into several sections and dives into trucks. We are told that the object of this operation is to arrest a group of terrorists who have gathered in the town this evening. We think that the infamous Colonel Li may be among them.

It is a heavy, humid night. Geometrid moths flap under the streetlights. In the wealthiest, most respectable district there are oil lamps lighting the imposing gateways. Suddenly there is a burst of gunfire. The terrorists know they are being cornered and are trying to escape; our scouts have opened fire on them.

A grenade goes off in a nearby road, and the smell of the powder makes me shudder. It is months since I have taken part in a battle: I have missed that sense of death.

We surround a huge residence. The rebels are inside, crouching below the windows, resisting our attack by throwing grenades. There are trees burning where their projectiles have fallen. The windows with their shattered panes are dark as the mouths of animal lairs.

The assaults made by our section have allowed one of our commandos to get up onto the roof, where he finds an opening. The fighting is over too quickly: I am only just warming up and I have to lower my weapon. The terrorists leave behind five bodies and eight wounded. The famous rebel colonel had the wisdom to take his own life before we broke in. There is much to plunder: in the cellars there are piles of rifles, cases of ammunition and stacks of Chinese currency that the terrorists have not had time to change into Manchurian money. We intervened just in time-a new insurrection was about to explode.

I count our losses: four soldiers and one officer have left their lives for the Emperor of Japan. There is something moving by the doorway of a nearby house: a soldier, hit by a grenade, is crawling along the pavement, taking long, agonizing breaths. His body is reduced to great chunks of mangled flesh, churned up with the shreds of his clothes. His entrails spew from his open belly. He gets hold of me suddenly and implores me, “Go on, kill me!”

He has had it. I know that this is how soldiers die, but I cannot bring myself to draw my pistol.

“Kill me, you bastard! What are you waiting for?”

I am not strong enough. I stand there with my hand on my pistol, feeling light-headed. The ambulance men run over and carry the injured man off on a stretcher, but he keeps on yelling, “Kill me! I beg you, please! Kill me!”

Back at the barracks I collapse onto my bed without undressing. The sleeves of my uniform are still wet with the blood of this stranger, who will die slowly and painfully in the hospital. His despair is haunting. I could not give him the gift of death, I was weak, a coward. Buddha would have committed the crime of deliverance. Compassion belongs to those who have strength in their souls.

My mother’s words ring in my ears: “If you have to choose between death and cowardice, don’t hesitate: choose death!”

I watch the moon through the window and the trees outside. In my mind, I see Jing again with his hands on the doorposts and a strange gleam in his eye. He is thanking me for coming.

He has seemed wild and aloof for such a long time, and I haven’t dared to tease him once. Now that I have had this confession, via Min, I am no longer afraid of his apparent disdain. He is an open book to me: I could write every word of him.

Why did Jing say that Min didn’t deserve me? How did the two of them end up confronting each other? What persuaded Jing suddenly to make his confession? Did they have an argument? Did they fight?

Min says he wants to marry me, but I am afraid that he will eventually be like my father and my brother-in-law. A man’s passion wanes more quickly than a woman’s beauty.

He asked me to choose, but how could I stop seeing Jing who feeds my attraction to Min? I can’t betray Min, he made me a woman; it is my gratitude, and not his jealousy, which makes me faithful. My relationship with Jing is more subtle than any physical excitement… abstinence is the sensuous pleasure of the soul. I know that Jing is watching us, that he is experiencing with me the dazzling discovery of the pleasures of the flesh, and when I look at him all his resentment melts away. When I turn to him, his pale face fills with all the color of life again: he is my child, my brother with whom all physical contact is forbidden. This purity is the beginning of a boundless and defenseless affection that I can’t bring myself to give to Min.

Without Jing, my couplings with his rival would somehow become vulgar. Without Min, Jing no longer exists. Compared to my lover’s flippancy, his arid character seems serious and full of mystery. If I choose one I would have to forgo the other, and I would lose them both.

In this sort of situation in a game of go, the player opts for a third solution: attacking the opponent where he least expects it. When Min comes to get me on the Square of a Thousand Winds tomorrow I will pretend not to see him. When the game is over I will count up the stones, bid my opponent good-bye and watch him walk away until he has disappeared. I will stare at the checkered tabletop as if I am exhausted and then I will ask, “Min, who is Tang?”

He will swear he is faithful to me. I will pretend to be angry, I will stamp my feet and sigh-I remember Moon Pearl’s cries clearly and can play the part to perfection.

To calm me down he will take me to Jing’s house. I will accept his kisses, he will climb on top of me, our two bodies will be wrapped in the crimson sheet like two pine trees bound together by ivy. The bed will be our palanquin, carrying us off to another world.

A deafening sound wakes me from my dreams. Looking out of the window I can see my parents in their pajamas out in the courtyard. The cook has been woken too and has come out of her room with a candle in her hand.

“Put it out!” my father orders her in a hoarse whisper.

“I hope it’s just a military exercise,” says Mother.

Father sighs.

There are more explosions, they sound like the firecrackers we light to celebrate the beginning of spring. Our town counters the explosive din with a stubborn silence: not one footstep, not a single whisper or a sob.

Then everything goes back to the normality of a starlit night. My parents return to their bedroom and the cook shuts the door.

The moon watches us, motionless.

As soon as dawn breaks we run tirelessly the three kilometers round the barracks. Our rhythmic footfalls send up clouds of dust and our patriotic songs ring out between the earth and the sky. Our collective enthusiasm warms the heart and dissipates night-mares.

Last night I was wandering through the ruins left by the earthquake. The sky was black with smoke. My ears had become so accustomed to the sobbing that they could no longer distinguish between people crying and the buzz of insects. I was exhausted and would have liked to stop and rest, but every inch of ground was splattered with blood. I stumbled with each step, cursing the gods and shouting imprecations that still rang in my ears after I woke up.

In the bathhouse my fellow officers spend hours in front of the mirrors shaving so that their mustaches are perfectly squared off. I splash my head with ice-cold water and turn to face the mirror. When my image appears I instinctively look away.

Is there a truth on the other side that we do not want to see?

I hold my breath as I look at myself, with my hair standing up in tufts and my bushy eyebrows. A bad night’s sleep has injected red into the whites of my eyes. I examine my naked torso: my skin is red and steaming sweat from the run; there are thick veins running up my neck; the muscles stand taut on my arms; there is a long scar on my left shoulder, a reminder of a bayonet exercise in which I was injured. The twenty-four years of my life have flown by. Who am I? I cannot find an answer. But at least I know why I am alive: my body, which is now ripe, and my mind, which has doubted, loved and then believed, will be my gift-like a cluster of fireworks-to the party. I will explode on the night of our victory.

A quarter to ten and I am knocking at the door of the Chidori. The manager makes me put on my disguise and, as a Mandarin, I slip out of a secret door and into the street.

From my rickshaw, the town still looks incredibly calm. Along the pavements the nonchalance of the Chinese contrasts with our soldiers’ marching as they move about in square formations. The shops have opened their doors and the traders have set up their stalls. The tireless street vendors intone their litanies. I ask the rickshaw boy whether he was woken by the firing in the night, but he pretends not to hear me.

On the Square of a Thousand Winds the players remain faithful to habit and have started their games. I keep half an ear on their conversations, but they open their mouths only to comment on the game.

The Chinese girl appears on the edge of the wood and runs over to our table, light as a bird. There are beads of sweat on her brow.

“I’m sorry,” she says as she sits down.

She unties a bundle of blue cotton cloth and hands me the lacquered pot with the black stones in it.

“Go on. It’s your turn.”

I am perplexed by the apparent indifference of these people to last night’s incidents.

When I woke up this morning the sun had already reached the top of the pear tree. The sprigs of new leaves on every branch look like flowers lolling open.

I am happy, but this happiness doesn’t draw on a feeling of peace, it is fed by contradictory emotions. The cicadas, acutely aware of the secrets of my soul, chant gleefully. The light of a pale sky spills onto my bed through the open curtains. I imagine my town, offered up to the light, as a naked woman waiting for her lover.

Mother has gone to the market with my sister. Father has shut himself in the library where he battles assiduously with Shakespeare’s language. The house is cool and calm, the doors and windows stand open and the smell of leaves mingles with the heady fragrance of jasmine that permeates our rooms. In the sitting room Wang Ma, the maid, is busy with a feather duster.

The poor woman’s son died of tuberculosis six months ago. She goes over and over the memories of him, and the dead boy is now more alive than ever. Father listens to her- while he goes on thinking about his books-and offers her some completely meaningless comfort: “You must have strength, my dear.” She can communicate her pain more easily to Mother and Moon Pearl. Her endless reminiscences elicit their sighs and sometimes even tears, and this is what Wang Ma wishes.

This morning my compassion has changed to uneasiness. I am carrying my happiness in my belly as if I were pregnant, and I don’t want it ruined by Wang Ma’s sobbing, not at any cost. Before she even opens her mouth, I rush outside.

“I’m going to the Square of a Thousand Winds,” I say. “I’ll be back later.”

The Stranger is already waiting for me. His face is hidden by his glasses, but I can see that it is stiff and motionless like his body. Sitting bolt upright on his stool, he looks like a guard at the gates of hell in some ancient temple.

We position our soldiers at the intersections. The Stranger delimits his territories on the outer edges of the checkerboard with prodigious economy and precision. Go reflects the soul: his is meticulous and cold.

My generosity in letting him play first gives him an advantage: he is one step ahead of me in occupying the strategic positions. Disputing these with him would disadvantage me further. I decide to take a risk: sure of my base in the northwest corner, I set out to conquer the center.

It is hot and I flap my fan in vain. I am impressed by my opponent: opposite me he sits exposed to the sun and lets it burn down on him without any sign of irritation. He sits completely motionless, his face streaming with sweat, his hands on his knees and his fan held tightly closed.

The sun is reaching its highest point. I ask to break for lunch and make a note of our positions on a piece of paper. We agree to meet after the pause.

The Chinese girl has gone home for lunch and I choose a Korean restaurant that seems to have very few customers. I order cold noodles, and sit in a corner overlooking the whole room so that I can keep an eye on the comings and goings of the waiters as I write the beginnings of a letter to my mother.