The Girl Who Played Go

43

In my country the mild and luminous month of May is more fleeting than the leap a frog makes from the bank into the water: summer is already on its way.

The first waves of heat irresistibly move my parents to take a long nap after lunch. I tiptoe through the house, slip out into the garden and leave by the back gate. I follow winding roads where the trees provide patches of shade as the sun pours its molten gold onto my head. I’m sweating and not thinking about anything.

At Jing’s house we are intoxicated by the scent of lilacs. Min is waiting for me in the bed; he has sprinkled himself from head to foot with water from the well. He is icy-cold like a pebble taken from the bottom of a stream. I throw myself at him and my burning skin almost steams as it comes into contact with his.

As I gradually discover Min’s body, inch by inch, it becomes an infinite territory to explore, as I listen to the sighs of his skin and read the map of his veins. With the tip of my tongue I write characters on his chest and he has to guess what they are. I bring my stomach to his mouth, my breasts to his forehead. Min climbs onto me in a position of prayer and, with every move he makes, he has to recite a poem. His hair tickles me and I laugh, and to punish me for making fun of him, he thrusts hard into me. The whole world is torn open, my eyes go hazy, my ears hum. I bury my fingers in my hair and bite the corner of the sheet. My eyes are half-closed and in the shadows I think I can see bright blocks of color like flags waving. Contours emerge and disappear, creatures loom out of the dark and melt away again. I am going to die. I suddenly feel as if there are two of me: one part of me leaves my body and floats in the air. She watches me, listens to my moaning and my rasping breath, then rises and disappears into some high unknown place like a bird swooping over a mountain pass, and I can no longer see her.

Min slumps down and goes to sleep with his arm over my breast. He has left a few white droplets on my stomach. They’re warm and slip smoothly over my fingers like silk threads. Men are spiders who weave traps for women from their seed.

I get up gently. I am filled with a new energy and I feel ready to embark on a game of go. With a straw hat over his face Jing is snoozing on a chaise longue under a tree in the garden. I don’t know when he arrived or whether he watched our exploits. I am just about to leave when he suddenly lifts the hat and stares at me pointedly. I am secretly delighted by the look of despair and contempt I can read in his face, and I meet his eye defiantly. His lips tremble and he can’t say a word.

The long drawn-out cries of a fruit vendor reach us.

“I’d like some peaches,” I say.

Jing punches his chair with his fist, gets to his feet and runs off. He comes back with a basket of fruit and cleans them over by the well before choosing the biggest one for me. We eat our peaches in silence. The juice sprays out of Jing’s mouth and runs down onto his shirt.

The cicadas sing their strident song: the smell of leaves burned by the sun mingles with the smell of my hair. A carp pirouettes in a large jar that serves as an aquarium.