The Girl Who Played Go

49

I watch the moon through the window and the trees outside. In my mind, I see Jing again with his hands on the doorposts and a strange gleam in his eye. He is thanking me for coming.

He has seemed wild and aloof for such a long time, and I haven’t dared to tease him once. Now that I have had this confession, via Min, I am no longer afraid of his apparent disdain. He is an open book to me: I could write every word of him.

Why did Jing say that Min didn’t deserve me? How did the two of them end up confronting each other? What persuaded Jing suddenly to make his confession? Did they have an argument? Did they fight?

Min says he wants to marry me, but I am afraid that he will eventually be like my father and my brother-in-law. A man’s passion wanes more quickly than a woman’s beauty.

He asked me to choose, but how could I stop seeing Jing who feeds my attraction to Min? I can’t betray Min, he made me a woman; it is my gratitude, and not his jealousy, which makes me faithful. My relationship with Jing is more subtle than any physical excitement… abstinence is the sensuous pleasure of the soul. I know that Jing is watching us, that he is experiencing with me the dazzling discovery of the pleasures of the flesh, and when I look at him all his resentment melts away. When I turn to him, his pale face fills with all the color of life again: he is my child, my brother with whom all physical contact is forbidden. This purity is the beginning of a boundless and defenseless affection that I can’t bring myself to give to Min.

Without Jing, my couplings with his rival would somehow become vulgar. Without Min, Jing no longer exists. Compared to my lover’s flippancy, his arid character seems serious and full of mystery. If I choose one I would have to forgo the other, and I would lose them both.

In this sort of situation in a game of go, the player opts for a third solution: attacking the opponent where he least expects it. When Min comes to get me on the Square of a Thousand Winds tomorrow I will pretend not to see him. When the game is over I will count up the stones, bid my opponent good-bye and watch him walk away until he has disappeared. I will stare at the checkered tabletop as if I am exhausted and then I will ask, “Min, who is Tang?”

He will swear he is faithful to me. I will pretend to be angry, I will stamp my feet and sigh-I remember Moon Pearl’s cries clearly and can play the part to perfection.

To calm me down he will take me to Jing’s house. I will accept his kisses, he will climb on top of me, our two bodies will be wrapped in the crimson sheet like two pine trees bound together by ivy. The bed will be our palanquin, carrying us off to another world.

A deafening sound wakes me from my dreams. Looking out of the window I can see my parents in their pajamas out in the courtyard. The cook has been woken too and has come out of her room with a candle in her hand.

“Put it out!” my father orders her in a hoarse whisper.

“I hope it’s just a military exercise,” says Mother.

Father sighs.

There are more explosions, they sound like the firecrackers we light to celebrate the beginning of spring. Our town counters the explosive din with a stubborn silence: not one footstep, not a single whisper or a sob.

Then everything goes back to the normality of a starlit night. My parents return to their bedroom and the cook shuts the door.

The moon watches us, motionless.