The Girl Who Played Go

50

As soon as dawn breaks we run tirelessly the three kilometers round the barracks. Our rhythmic footfalls send up clouds of dust and our patriotic songs ring out between the earth and the sky. Our collective enthusiasm warms the heart and dissipates night-mares.

Last night I was wandering through the ruins left by the earthquake. The sky was black with smoke. My ears had become so accustomed to the sobbing that they could no longer distinguish between people crying and the buzz of insects. I was exhausted and would have liked to stop and rest, but every inch of ground was splattered with blood. I stumbled with each step, cursing the gods and shouting imprecations that still rang in my ears after I woke up.

In the bathhouse my fellow officers spend hours in front of the mirrors shaving so that their mustaches are perfectly squared off. I splash my head with ice-cold water and turn to face the mirror. When my image appears I instinctively look away.

Is there a truth on the other side that we do not want to see?

I hold my breath as I look at myself, with my hair standing up in tufts and my bushy eyebrows. A bad night’s sleep has injected red into the whites of my eyes. I examine my naked torso: my skin is red and steaming sweat from the run; there are thick veins running up my neck; the muscles stand taut on my arms; there is a long scar on my left shoulder, a reminder of a bayonet exercise in which I was injured. The twenty-four years of my life have flown by. Who am I? I cannot find an answer. But at least I know why I am alive: my body, which is now ripe, and my mind, which has doubted, loved and then believed, will be my gift-like a cluster of fireworks-to the party. I will explode on the night of our victory.

A quarter to ten and I am knocking at the door of the Chidori. The manager makes me put on my disguise and, as a Mandarin, I slip out of a secret door and into the street.

From my rickshaw, the town still looks incredibly calm. Along the pavements the nonchalance of the Chinese contrasts with our soldiers’ marching as they move about in square formations. The shops have opened their doors and the traders have set up their stalls. The tireless street vendors intone their litanies. I ask the rickshaw boy whether he was woken by the firing in the night, but he pretends not to hear me.

On the Square of a Thousand Winds the players remain faithful to habit and have started their games. I keep half an ear on their conversations, but they open their mouths only to comment on the game.

The Chinese girl appears on the edge of the wood and runs over to our table, light as a bird. There are beads of sweat on her brow.

“I’m sorry,” she says as she sits down.

She unties a bundle of blue cotton cloth and hands me the lacquered pot with the black stones in it.

“Go on. It’s your turn.”

I am perplexed by the apparent indifference of these people to last night’s incidents.