His eyes are gleaming, his cheeks are frozen and look like two patches of dark-red cloth that have been stuck onto his ashen face. A thick layer of frost shimmers between his eyebrows and his fox-fur hat. I find his pathetic expression repulsive and I slip away, but he races after me and suggests that we go and see the lanterns sculpted in ice. I run all the faster. Lu strides on behind me and begs me to listen, his voice shaking and giving way to tears. I block my ears, but I am still haunted by his choked voice.
“What do you think about my letter?” he cries.
At this I stop, furious.
Intimidated, he does not dare come closer.
“Have you read it?” he goes on.
I give an unpleasant laugh.
“I tore it up,” I say, turning my back on him. He throws himself at me and crushes me in his arms.
“Listen to me!”
I push him away and say, “Cousin Lu, let’s play a game of go. If you win, I accept everything you propose. If you lose, we won’t see each other again.”
8
The terrorists keep slipping through our fingers, and we celebrated New Year among the wolves and the foxes.
Today’s snow is covering the snow that fell yesterday. We will pursue this enemy until he runs out of stores and ammunition.
How to describe the harshness of winter in northern China? Here the wind howls and trees are split in two by the weight of the ice. The fir trees look like funeral monuments daubed in black and white paint. Occasionally a fallow deer appears furtively, looks at us in amazement, then bolts.
We march on. It is such hard work that after an hour we are failing. We barely have time to catch our breath before the cold steals back inside our coats and freezes our limbs.
The enemy is cunning and knows the terrain well; he attacks when we least expect it, then withdraws. Despite our losses, we carry on, we persevere in this campaign of endurance.
Whosoever can resist exhaustion will be the victor.
9
The game begins at dawn in a corner of the living room. His eyes are bloodshot, his hair unbrushed, he drinks cup after cup of tea to stay awake and he heaves great sighs. This morning, having spent two days visiting friends to offer good wishes for the New Year, my parents have dressed in traditional garments and are at home to receive guests. We take refuge in my room in a vain attempt to escape the greetings. People keep coming to find us: for some, we have to kneel down to wish them a good year and good fortune; for others, a brief bow will do. Adults are always hungry for compliments, and when we have flattered them, they slip us some money in a red envelope and invariably say, “Run along, children, and buy yourself some sweets.”
Back at the go-board, Lu throws his envelopes onto the table scornfully. To annoy him, I open mine and count the notes, commenting on them as I do so.
“Stop it,” he says. “You’re not a child anymore.”
I pull a face.
“You’re going to be sixteen,” he mutters, exasperated. “That’s when women get married and have children.”
“Do you think you’re going to marry me then?” I ask, bursting out laughing.
He goes quiet.
At noon there are so many drums and trumpets and firecrackers that the earth shakes. Through the windows I can see over the walls to where men and women dressed in red are dancing on stilts, weaving past each other in the sky, up between the trees.
Lu blocks his ears, but I find that the popular music heightens my concentration rather than distracting me. The winter light, tinted by the bright colors in the street, plays on the go-board. All these festivities cut me off from the rest of the world. My loneliness is like a bolt of crimson silk stowed in the bottom of a wooden chest.
After lunch my cousin drifts off into some vague meditation. He wipes a few stray tears from the corners of his eyes. I can no longer play the fool, so I say nothing. A silence as heavy as a plate of cold, unsalted noodles descends on the go-board.
My cousin is uneasy; he rests his head on his hand and keeps sighing. Towards seven in the evening he makes a mistake, and later, before the game is even finished, I point out that he has already lost and that he must stick to our agreement.
He pushes back his chair and stands up.
The following morning I am told that he has left. His train is at nine o’clock, so I still have time to catch him up. At the station he seems to be waiting for me to show some remorse. Whatever he hopes, I will never beg him for anything-it would only encourage him in his stupid ideas. He has offended me and he must submit to the punishment. Later I will write to him, I will call him back to me when his impure thoughts have given way to the humility of the defeated.
10
Our platoon has surrounded a village shrouded in snow. The occupants were warned that we were coming, and men, women and children have fled, leaving just a few old people huddled in their tiny houses, which look all the more dismal with their scanty New Year decorations.
We round them up in the middle of the village. They have hardly any clothes, but they hide their skeletal bodies under darned old blankets, and their inane expressions under their fur hats. They shiver and moan, seeking to make us feel sorry for them. Try as I might to talk to them in Mandarin, they do not understand a word and answer in some unintelligible dialect. Exasperated, I threaten them with my pistol, and three of them throw themselves at my feet, clutching my legs and pleading their innocence in perfect Mandarin. Horrified, I try to break away by beating them back with the butt of my rifle, but they cling to me all the harder and press their heads against my thighs.
My obvious embarrassment makes the soldiers laugh.
“Come and help me, you idiot!” I call to one of them. His laughter turns to a grimace of resentment and, in one swift movement, he takes his rifle from his shoulder and plunges the bayonet into the leg of one of the old men.
The wounded man rolls on the ground, howling in pain, and his two terrified companions fall away from me. Having recovered from the initial shock, I yell at the soldier, “You bloody fool, you could have injured me.”
Another burst of laughter from the spectators.
The cruelty of our troops is fed by our harsh upbringing: slaps, punches and insults are daily reprimands for children. As a way of cultivating submission and humility in the army, officers beat the lower ranking officers and soldiers until they bleed, or they slash their cheeks with specially sharpened bamboo rulers.
I find it repulsive to torture innocent people, and I feel sorry for these Chinese peasants who live in ignorance, poverty and squalor. They would scarcely care whether they had to obey a Manchurian emperor, a Chinese warlord or a Japanese emperor so long as their bellies were filled every day.
I order my soldiers to bandage the wounded man and to take the threesome back to their homes. We search their houses and take all their provisions, down to the last pinch of flour. I promise to return everything if they tell us where the terrorists are hiding.