The Girl Who Played Go

36

I went back to the prostitutes: I found them reassuring and I was certain they would give me an erection, but I was so haunted by the image of Sunlight that my moment of ecstasy was shot through with pain. The geisha now had a banker as her protector, and she was beginning to make a reputation for herself. It was not long before she moved only in the most elevated circles and I lost track of her.

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.