The Girl Who Played Go (20 page)

“You’ve lost weight,” says Mother.

My heart sinks: what is she saying?

“You don’t look well. Let me take your pulse.”

I slowly extend my left arm to her, and carry on eating with my right. Might she discover my secret?

“Weak and irregular,” she says after squeezing my wrist awhile. “I must take you to see my doctor. Girls your age are weakened by the changes in their bodies. That’s why the ancients used to marry them very young, to stabilize them.”

I don’t dare argue with her.

“You must have some swallows’ nest soup,” she says, getting up, “it warms the blood and the intestines, it harmonizes the ebb and flow of energy. And tomorrow we will go see old Master Liu for some medicinal infusions. Perhaps I’ll take you to the American hospital as well. The holidays start at the end of this week. Your sister is coming home, and I’ll keep both of you under my roof to get you both back to health.”

Panicked, I tell her that I won’t have time to go to the doctor tomorrow.

“You don’t have lessons at the end of the afternoon,” she replies.

“I have to finish my game of go. It’s very important.”

Mother is angry, but her voice stays calm.

“I have given you too much freedom, you and your sister. It does you no good. Forget your game,” she says, heading from the kitchen, then she turns in the doorway and says, “That dress belongs to your sister, it’s too long for you and the color doesn’t suit you. Where are the dresses I had made for you a couple of months ago?”

Back in my room, I slump down onto my bed. I lose less blood in the night, but I still sleep fitfully. Huong, dressed in red and covered in jewels and embroidery, bows to a horribly ugly man. She is in tears and she looks like a goddess who has been banished from the heavens. A stranger notices how sad I am, and takes my hand. His hand, rough as a pumice stone, soothes my agitated nerves. Behind him I can see Min under a tree before the Temple of the White Horse. He smiles at me before disappearing into the crowd.

In the morning my whole body feels slack and my skin dry. To please my mother I put on one of the new dresses and the stiff fabric chafes me.

At the temple crossroads I glance over at the tree where Min was standing in my dream. There is a man crouching there and when I meet his eye, my blood freezes: it’s Jing!

I jump out of the rickshaw. He has lost ten kilos, his face is hidden under a hat and has sprouted a black beard, but still I see it’s badly scarred. When I go towards him, he backs away. For a long time he says nothing, just staring at the ants climbing up the tree in an unbroken line.

“I betrayed them,” he says in a sullen voice that makes me shiver. “Their bodies were thrown into a common grave. I couldn’t even go and make my peace at their tombs.”

Jing bangs his head against the tree trunk. I take his arm, but he shakes me off.

“Don’t touch me,” he says. “I confessed it all, told them everything. It was easy as pissing, I had no shame. I wasn’t thinking about anyone. The words just came out, I couldn’t stop them. It was intoxicating, destroying everything…”

Jing bursts out laughing, shakes his head violently.

“You’re the only one who doesn’t look at me as if I were a monster,” he says. “My father prays for my death and forbids my mother to see me.”

He punches the tree so hard that his hand splits open.

I pass him a handkerchief and he whispers, “I can’t go back to the university now. I’m so ashamed. I live like a rat, hiding from my friends and frightening children in the street. I can’t sleep at night-the Resistance Movement will send out their killers for me. ‘In the name of the Resistance, in the name of the Chinese people, in the names of the victims and their families, we send you on your way to hell…’ You’ll see my body left at the crossroads, with a sign round my neck: ‘He betrayed, now he’s paid!’ ”

I can find no words to comfort him. He looks at me searchingly, then throws himself at me and squeezes my hands so tightly that it hurts.

“You should know the truth. Min was married to Tang in prison so that he could be united with her to face death. But I’ve only ever loved you. Of the two of us, Min committed the first betrayal: he betrayed you and I was disgusted. And so I refused to follow him. I wanted to marry you, I wanted to protect you, I wanted to see you before I died, to tell you how much I loved you. I traded dishonor for love. Tell me you understand! Tell me you don’t despise me!”

Suddenly I am terribly light-headed, and I try to pull free from Jing’s embrace. He stares at me and pants, “I’ve got two passports for the inner territories. Come with me. We’ll go to Peking, we can continue our studies there. I’ll work to pay for your food, to make you happy. I’ll be a rickshaw boy if I have to. The train’s at eight o’clock tomorrow morning. I’ve already got two tickets. Come with me!”

“Let me go!” I say, fighting him off.

“You hate me,” he says with a sigh. “Go on then, look after yourself and forget about me.”

He staggers away as though from a blow to the head.

“Wait! I need to think,” I say. “Let’s meet here tomorrow.”

He turns back.

“Tomorrow or never!” he whispers, his broken figure moving away, hugging the temple walls. I notice that he is dragging his left leg like a rotten branch. The sight fills me with pain, I lean my forehead against the tree and close my eyes. The bark transmits the feeble heat of the morning sun. It feels as if Min is there next to me.

“I hate you.”

He smiles and says nothing.

A woman is bathing in thermal springs, her body glistening under the water where it writhes and twists like a slender leaf. Beside the pool a blue cotton kimono hangs from a branch, fluttering delicately in the breeze.

The strident wail of the bugle pierces my dream, and I reach mechanically for the folded clothes on top of my shoes at the foot of the bed. I heave on my backpack and hurry outside.

As the troops file in, orders whistle from every direction. The regiment sets off, then from the head of the formation comes the command to run. The barrack gates draw open and the guards salute us. Then the gates of the town open and the chill, gloomy air of the countryside whips my face.

I am already drenched with sweat, but instead of diving into the woods as we have done on our previous exercises, we continue along the main road. I choke with apprehension when I realize: we are heading for Peking.

When the sun appears on the horizon we are already far from the town. I struggle to ready myself, to see myself in battle. I call on Death to give me strength. Curiously, instead of fortifying me as it always has before, the prayer makes me only more nervous.

The warm, easy months I have spent in the garrison evaporate in a flash. Did the town of A Thousand Winds really exist? And what about the girl who played go, was she only the heroine in some wonderful vision? Life seems an infernal loop in which the day before yesterday has joined with today, and yesterday has been jettisoned. We think we move forward in time, but we are always prisoners of the past. To leave… that is always a good thing: to have remained in the Square of a Thousand Winds would be to court destruction by the most tenacious of instincts: to love, to live, to bring forth children.

I hear the whistle signal to halt the march, and our platoon bunches together like an accordion as we stop to catch our breath. I take my flask off my pack and pour the sun-warmed water down my throat.

A new order comes through: about face, the rear formation becomes the head of the column. We are going back to the town. Cries of joy run up along the line as we set off again. I abandon myself, carried along on this wave.

In class Huong is nervously digging her nails into the desk. I pass her a note: “Stop it! You’re driving me crazy with your scratching.”

“Please don’t be hard on me,” she replies in a careful hand, “I didn’t sleep at all last night.”

“Jing has asked me to go to Peking with him. Come with us! He’ll get you a passport and a ticket, and we’ll be free there!”

“You can never trust a coward,” she scrawls. “You should pity him, but don’t go with him.”

“Jing’s not like the others.”

“A traitor is a traitor. Be careful!”

“If you go back to the country with your father and you marry the stranger,” I write more slowly, “you’ll only betray yourself, then you’ll know how it feels to be a coward.”

“Leave me alone, I’ve made my choice, and I’m not taking a chance in Peking. You can’t run away from reality, you can’t run away from life. Stay here!” she begs. “War is about to break out here in the homeland. No one’s going to escape the horror.”

“Now you sound like a married woman. Has your father brainwashed you?”

“I’ve been thinking. All I want is a man in my life. That’s all.”

Huong seems different today, she seems strange.

“We’ve been tricked by fiction,” she writes. “Love and passion are just monstrous creations dreamed up by writers. Why would I dream of freedom if it isn’t the way to love? If love doesn’t exist, why not be at least a happy prisoner of life? Suffering’s inevitable, so why shouldn’t it be rewarded by the pleasures of clothes and jewelry.”

“Have you gone mad? Why are you coming out with all this rubbish?”

A long time passes before Huong replies, her pen scratching squeakily on the scrap of paper: “I’ve never admitted this to you, but I met a banker two years ago and I became his mistress yesterday. He will come collect me from school later and he’ll set me up in one of his houses. He will pay my father a substantial sum and I won’t have to see the old man again.”

As I wonder which of the two of us has lost her senses, our frantic correspondence is interrupted by the bell. I put my things in my bag and leave the room without saying a word to Huong.

“You’re ashamed of me, aren’t you?” she says, stopping me in the street.

I shake my head and start to move away from her quickly. She throws herself after me.

“Please,” she begs, “don’t abandon me! Don’t go to Peking! I can feel something terrible will happen to you there. Swear to me that you won’t see Jing again. Swear to me that you’ll stay! I’ll tell your parents. They’ll shut you in…”

As I barge past her she trips and falls. I immediately regret knocking her down, but I can’t find it in myself to hold out a hand to help her up, and I run away.

Orchid is surprised and obviously very happy to see me. In no time she has slipped out of her dress and taken off my uniform. I let myself be manipulated. Her nakedness gives me an erection and the pleasure I experience as I penetrate her is as confusing as the half-day that has preceded it. The Manchurian girl screams, and her cries give me a headache. When suddenly she loosens her grip and tries to push me away, I do not retreat until I have reached a violent climax. She writhes on the bed, hiding her crotch with her hands and sobbing. I cannot believe it. This madwoman is still jealous!

Sitting on a chair I gulp down a cup of tea. With her still sniveling, I wash myself meticulously and dress to leave.

“Go away!” she shrieks in a cracked voice. “Go away, and don’t come back again.”

I head for the door, but she throws herself at me, showering my boots with her tears.

“Forgive me,” she moans, “don’t leave me…”

I push her aside with my foot.

As I head for the Square of a Thousand Winds I realize that I am the most pitiful man in the world-something in me has broken. It’s the same feeling I had as a child after the earthquake: an inescapable emptiness and a constant buzzing in my ears. Reason tells me I should not return to the go table, but my legs carry me there all the same. Though I want to run away from what I am losing, I rush headlong towards disaster.

The Chinese girl is already there, wearing a new dress. Her stiff collar, held tightly closed by two covered buttons, gives her face a dignity I haven’t seen before. My heart beats painfully fast and my face burns. Keeping my eyes fixed on the stones, I bow to her and sit down.

The checkered board is a violent sea with white and black waves chasing and crashing into each other. Towards the four shores they draw back, spin round and head for the skies. But where they mingle, they clash and come together in a fierce embrace.

As usual, she says nothing-silence is an impenetrable mystery of all women, but hers particularly stifles me. What is she thinking about? Why does she not talk to me? They say women have no memory… Has she forgotten everything already?

It is true that yesterday evening as we walked down the hill I lacked the courage to take her in my arms. She expected from me the love that a Chinese man would show a Chinese woman. But how could I open my heart without betraying my country? How could I tell her that we are separated by a looking glass, going round in circles, each in a world hostile to the other’s?

Her stones are soaring now. Her moves come faster and faster. Her varied stratagems multiply, filling me with awe.

Suddenly her rhythm slows.

Each move sees my sinking soul take another step downwards. I have always loved the game of go for its labyrinths. Each stone’s position evolves as you move the others around it. As the relationships among them grow more and more complex, the transformations never quite tally with what you had conceived. Go makes nonsense of your calculations, and defies your imagination. Each new formation is as unpredictable as the choreography of the clouds, a betrayal of what might have been. There is no rest, you’re always on the alert, always faster, heading for some part of yourself that is slyer and freer, but also colder, more calculating and more deadly. Go is a game of lies; you surround the enemy with monstrous traps for the sake of the only truth-which is death.

Rather than go home, where Mother is waiting to take me to the doctor, I have resolved to brave the game’s crushing authority.