I saw her again one misty evening two years later, climbing into a rickshaw on the other side of the road. She was wearing a heavy, rounded headdress and a sumptuous coat. She saw me, pretended not to notice and glided off into the darkness like a goddess returning to the heavens.
When I returned from my posting in Manchuria, I went to her house and her mother invited me in. I waited in a silent room, sipping sake for what seemed like a long time. Late into the night she came home from an official reception, wearing a black kimono which had golden waves embroidered along the hem over a hand-painted gray sea. Her hair was wet because of the thin, icy rain, and she wiped her handkerchief over it. I had not seen her for years: the slight hollowness of her cheeks accentuated the hard look in her eyes. She seemed exhausted, spent. As I studied her face- which had become the face of a woman-I felt I had been betrayed.
She sat down opposite me with her eyes lowered and her hands on her knees, and her shyness reminded me of our walk in the park. We sat in silence for a long time: a great river lay between us and neither of us had the strength to cross it.
“I’m leaving for Manchuria.”
Unmoved, she did not even blink.
“I shall never forget you,” she said.
Those words were enough; I bowed deeply and got to my feet. She stayed there motionless. There was not a tear or even the slightest sigh to mark this bitter, liberating farewell.
37
As I come out of school I see Min leaning up against a tree. I catch his eye and then lower my head and continue on my way.
“Do you mind if I walk with you for a while?” he says, running after me.
I don’t say anything and he shamelessly tags along and chatters away to me. In fact I don’t mind having him beside me; he is head and shoulders taller than me and I find the warm flow of his words soothing. He tells me about what he is reading, what he has been hunting and about his dreams of revolution. He asks whether I would like to go fishing on Sunday, whether I would like him to teach me how to know when fish are in love.
We go past the street where Jing lives.
“Come,” he says, pulling my arm, “I’ve got a key.”
Once we are inside, he turns to me and looks me up and down. His nerve is disarming and I huddle against the door, powerless.
He starts stroking my face and neck, his fingers brushing my shoulders. I succumb to a strange languorous feeling that sweeps over me. Min’s face is flushed and his eyes half-closed as he breathes in the smell of my skin. As his lips touch me they leave a trail of fever in their wake. When they reach my chin, I involuntarily open my mouth and Min’s tongue darts in. As his hand moves down to my breast, his touch becomes almost unbearable, the warmth of his embrace suffocating. I tell him to open the top of my dress. He seems amazed, but obeys me. His fingers fumble hopelessly with the braided buttons and I almost tear them open.
Min’s face twists into a grimace of admiration. He kneels down and buries his head between my breasts, rubbing his soft adolescent beard against them. His forehead feels white-hot, and makes me writhe as I clench my fists.
A scraping sound in the keyhole makes us both start, and I quickly push Min away. I have only just buttoned my dress when the door opens and Jing comes in, carrying his birdcage. The smile leaves his face when he sees us. He eyes me coldly and grunts a greeting to Min. I pick up my bag, barge past Jing and run off down the road.
Never before have I felt gripped by such sadness. The crows caw and wheel past each other across the sky where violet and orange gradually blend with the black of the clouds. The air is filled with the smell of flowers. With the arrival of the month of May, the poplar flowers fall to the ground like brown worms. As a child I used to throw them down my sister’s open collar and she would scream in terror.
Min kneaded my breasts so hard they are hurting. I stop under a tree to tidy my hair and to smooth out my dress with a bit of saliva in the palm of my hand. I look at myself in a little mirror: my mouth looks slightly swollen as if I have just woken from a long sleep. My cheeks are bright red, betraying my secret, forbidden dreams, and my forehead is glowing; I think that I can trace Min’s kisses on it, visible only to me.
38
We have polished our weapons and sorted out our creased uniforms before setting off again. Soon an ancient city looms on the horizon, surrounded by ramparts and with poplar trees lining the moat. Along the route there are Chinese people waving flags of the rising sun. Once we have passed through the main gate, the wealth of the town of A Thousand Winds spreads out before us: an endless expanse of tiled roofs, wide streets swarming with traders and salesmen, the deafening sound of the traffic and appetizing aromas of the restaurants. A colonel from the garrison comes towards us, flanked by lower officers and followed by the town’s mayor, a pudgy Manchurian with a mustache and his attendant representatives of the local bourgeoisie.
We cannot believe our eyes: on the pavement there are about thirty young prostitutes draped in kimonos, laughing, blushing, jostling each other and beckoning us. The shyest among them hide behind their hands as they pass comments about our faces and figures. The bolder ones string together a few words of Japanese: “So good-looking!,” “Come and see me at the Golden Lotus,” “I love you.” Forgetting how tired we are from marching, we look up proudly and take lungfuls of air to puff out our chests.
The barracks are over to the west of town, with barricades and machine guns on the gates, and barbed wire along the tops of the walls. The reserve detachment has lined up in four square formations on the parade ground to greet us.
After the welcoming parade comes the hot meaclass="underline" in the canteen we hardly wait for the speeches to end before throwing ourselves on the seaweed soup with spicy beef; we fight over the plump carp, the haunches of venison and the pheasant breasts. We gulp down rice balls, marinated vegetables, dofus and raw fish beautifully laid out on dishes.
With my belly distended as a balloon, I am still ruminating on the vanished flavors as I drag myself to my room and collapse on the bed.
39
Min puts on a mysterious expression and boasts that he has copies of books that have been banned by the government: he is trying to lure me over to Jing’s house. Just thinking about the place makes me giddy, but I really have to make up my mind. There will be no going back. I am no longer-nor do I still want to be- just a little schoolgirl, happy to sit and dream. Now I must take a leap into the unknown. When the irreversible starts to happen, then, in that moment, I will know at last who I am and why I am alive.
In the library Min exhumes his “dangerous” volumes from their hiding places under piles of old books. I turn the pages, devouring the words with my eyes. Min takes the opportunity to come behind me and wrap his arms round me. His hands roam under my dress and close over my breasts.
He undresses me as if he were peeling a piece of fruit. Still in my underpants and with my arms crossed over my breasts, I tell him to put my skirt on a hanger so as not to crease it. Then he undresses, throwing his clothes to the four corners of the room. With his underpants still on, he throws himself at me and rubs his chest against mine.