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 betrayaclass="underline" 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.
82
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.
83
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.”