Before nightfall I make out a village on the horizon and I hurry towards it. When I get there it is eerily silent. In the darkness I can just see the doors hanging open and broken pieces of furniture strewn across the streets. A little farther on I come across some bodies: four peasants skewered with bayonets. Inside the houses there is not one living thing, not one grain of rice, not one piece of straw to fuel an oven. After the massacre the Japanese army must have stripped everything.
I don’t have the strength to carry on any farther, so I go into one of the cottages. Remembering a remedy of my mother’s, I cover my wound with cold ashes before binding it with some cloth torn from my hem. I huddle against the cold, dark stove and burst into tears.
In the morning I am woken by a terrible racket, then I hear men shouting at each other in some incomprehensible language.
I open my eyes.
Soldiers have their guns trained at me.
92
Peking is conquered.
We have been sent orders to scour the countryside for spies and injured enemy soldiers. They must all be executed.
This morning my men came across a questionable individual; in oversize student’s clothes he obstinately stares at the ground, remaining insolently silent in the face of our interrogation.
The soldiers are loading their rifles. Lieutenant Hayashi, who is running the operation with me, draws his saber and says, “You have always boasted about your family saber, which dates back to the sixteenth century. Mine was forged a hundred years later, but it was known at the time as the ‘Head-slicer.’ I’ll give you a demonstration.”
The soldiers are fired up at the thought of this display; they click their tongues and call to each other in anticipation.
Hayashi assumes the samurai stance from ancient engravings, spreading his feet as he flexes his knees and bringing the saber up over his head.
The prisoner looks up slowly.
I suddenly feel unsteady on my feet.
“Wait!” I cry, and I run over to the young man to wipe his face, which has been blackened by mud and smoke. I can make out the tear-shaped beauty marks.
“Don’t touch me,” she screams.
“A woman,” Hayashi cries, putting his saber back in its sheath. He pushes past me to knock down the prisoner and grope inside her trousers.
My heart turns to ice. What’s she doing here in this village? When did she leave Manchuria?
“A woman!” Hayashi confirms excitedly.
The young girl struggles, screaming shrilly. He slaps her twice, takes off her shoes and pulls down her trousers. He undoes his own belt and the soldiers, mesmerized, form a circle around him.
“Out of the way!” he orders them. “You’ll each have a turn!”
“You idiot!” I say, throwing myself at the Lieutenant. He turns to me furiously, but when he sees my pistol aimed at his forehead he starts to laugh good-naturedly.
“Okay,” he says, “you’d better have her first. After all, you found her.”
I say nothing. Thinking he understands why, he whispers, “It’s the first time, isn’t it? If you don’t want to do it in public, look, go over to the temple. I’ll keep watch by the door.”
Hayashi takes me over to the nearby temple, while two soldiers carry the girl and throw her to the ground. They shut the door, giggling to each other.
She is shaking from head to toe. I take off my tunic to cover her bare legs.
“Don’t be frightened,” I say in Chinese.
My voice seems to disturb her, she opens her eyes wide and scrutinizes me. A terrible agony floods across her features and suddenly she spits in my face before falling back to the ground in tears.
“Kill me! Kill me!”
Hayashi knocks on the door and I can hear him sniggering.
“Hurry up, Lieutenant. My soldiers can’t wait much longer!”
I hold my Chinese girl in my arms. She bites my shoulder and, despite the pain, I hold my cheek next to hers. Tears spill from my eyes and I whisper, “Forgive me, forgive me…”
Her only reply is to scream hysterically, “Kill me, please, I beg you. Kill me, don’t let me live!”
“Lieutenant,” Hayashi calls from the other side of the door, “you’re taking your time. Hurry up. Don’t be so selfish!”
I grab my pistol and I hold it to the Chinese girl’s temple. She looks up at me and there is no longer any fear in her eyes. I see the indifference she had always accorded to strangers.
I shudder and press my weapon a little more firmly.
“Do you recognize me?”
She closes her eyes.
“I know that you hate me, I know you can’t forgive me. At this moment, I couldn’t care less. I’m going to kill you and then myself afterwards. For your sake I’m going to turn my back on this war and betray my own country. For your sake I will shame my own parents, I will sully my ancestors’ honor. My name will be uttered only as a curse, never to be inscribed in the Temple of Heroes.”
I cover her in kisses and now I feel tears on her cheeks. And she lets me kiss her.
The ground trembles as the men drum it with their rifle butts.
“Lieutenant? I’m going to count to three! One…”
There is no time to ask her why she left her country, why she cut her beautiful hair. I have a thousand questions for her but I’ll never learn the answer to a single one of them.
“Two…”
“Don’t worry,” I whisper in her ear, “I’ll follow you. I’ll care for you in the afterlife.”
She opens her eyes and stares at me:
“My name is Song of the Night.”
But I have already pulled the trigger. Her dark eyes quiver, her pupils dilate, the blood spurts from her temples. With her eyes still wide open, she falls backwards to the ground.
The door opens and I can hear footsteps behind me. I realize with despair that I don’t even have time to cut open my entrails as would befit a samurai.
I put the blood-splattered pistol into my mouth.
A loud noise, the ground trembling beneath my feet.
I fall onto the girl who played go. Her face looks pinker than it did earlier. She is smiling.
I try very hard to keep my eyes open so that I can look at my beloved.
About Shan Sa
Shan Sa was born in Beijing, China, to a scholarly family. Her real name is Yan Ni Ni; she adopted the pseudonym Shan Sa, taken from a poem by the Tang dynasty poet Bai Juyi. At age 8, she published her first poetry collection, and went on to obtain the first prize in the national poetry contest for children under 12 years, an event that created a public upheaval. After graduating from secondary school in Beijing, she moved to Paris in August 1990 thanks to a grant by the French government. Settling there with her father, a professor at the Sorbonne University, she quickly adopted the French language. In 1994, she finished her studies of philosophy. From 1994 to 1996 she worked as a secretary of painter Balthus. Thereafter she published her first two novels and a collection of poetry, meeting with great critical acclaim. In 2001 she reached the top of her success with the publication of her most famous book so far, "The Girl Who Played Go" (a.k.a La Joueuse de Go). The book received good feedback from readers and was awarded a number of prizes, including the Prix Goncourt des Lycéens (Prix Goncourt of the High-school students).
