She does not once look in my direction. I get up and leave.
73
Chen tells me that Cousin Lu is now teaching go in Peking.
“And he’s married, too,” he says, watching my reaction, but the news leaves me cold.
Chen lives in the New Capital and claims to be my cousin’s best friend. He says that he presented Lu to the Emperor. To hear him you would think he was the most powerful man in Manchuria.
He is a Minister’s son and insufferably pleased with himself and with his carefree life. The past comes back to me in little snatches; it feels as if it was a hundred years ago: life was sweet. We were like him, my cousin and I: we thought we were the best players in the world. It was before my sister was married and we were both virgins; she would come and interrupt our games, bringing us tea and little cakes. The twilight would take its time, slowly weaving its crimson net across the sky. I knew nothing about betrayal.
Chen returns that day to the New Capital. He leaves me a perfumed card with Cousin Lu’s new address on it, and promises that he will be back soon to challenge me to a game of go.
I return to my chair, but the table is deserted, my opponent has gone without leaving a note. I am so exhausted that I don’t even feel angry. People come and go on this earth-each has his time.
I put the stones away as the sun lingers in the west and the clouds trail across the sky like long, cursive strokes. Who can decode these words that predict my fate?
I pick up one of the black stones, its shiny surface reflecting the sinking light. I envy its stony heart and icy purity.
Cousin Lu has fled from his disappointment into a new love, and I am glad that he has found happiness again so quickly. The Stranger has walked away from our game; I suppose that for him, go is just a distraction. Men don’t live for passion, they overcome periods of emotional turbulence quite comfortably and casually. Min proved that to me. The core of their lives is somewhere else altogether.
My rickshaw comes to an abrupt stop. There is a man bowing down to the ground in the middle of the road: it is the Stranger. He asks me to forgive him and begs me to carry on with our game the following afternoon. I nod vaguely at him and tell the rickshaw boy to carry on.
I have to leave him there, on his way.
74
“In this world we walk upon the roof of hell and contemplate the flowers.” [20]
Only looking upon beauty can turn a soldier’s mind from his stubborn determination. But flowers care nothing for those who admire them; they flourish so briefly, only to die.
The latest dispatches have provoked a great excitement in the barracks: having inflicted a series of defeats on the Chinese, our divisions have advanced to the outskirts of Peking. Song Zheyuan and Zhang Zizhong’s armies are now isolated and weakened, and they are more afraid of Chiang Kai-shek than of the Japanese. The generals fear that Chiang Kaishek’s troops will head north again to annex their territories, so they are refusing offers of Chinese reinforcements and suing for peace.
At the Chidori restaurant the anger builds from one table to the next. The most hawkish of the officers maintain that Peking should be conquered, while the more cautious are fearful that the Soviet Union will intervene, and recommend first and foremost that the Japanese presence in Manchuria be reinforced.
I did not go to see Orchid today so my body still feels fresh and supple, and I have not eaten much so my head is light and lucid. I do not allow myself to be dragged into the heated discussions, and I try in vain to stop my fellow officers from fighting.
The commotion goes on late into the evening and even back into some of their quarters. A few fanatical lieutenants open their shirts and swear that they will commit seppuku if the imperial army negotiates a peace with Peking, and this mention of blood fires the men up all the more.
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: