The Girl Who Played Go

57

I have waited for Min at the crossroads for a whole week, and in the afternoons I have gone up and down the boulevard outside the university in the vain hope of spotting his face.

I find the address that Tang gave me; it is a run-down house in the poor, working people’s quarter. There are children running in the streets shouting to each other and an old woman wearily beating out her sheets.

A neighbor appears.

“I have a book to give back to Tang.”

“She’s been arrested.”

Fear is out stalking the streets of my town. The Japanese seem determined to arrest someone. I am amazed that I am still free, and I lie awake at night listening for the soldiers’ rhythmic approach, the bark of dogs and the muffled thud of a fist knocking on our door. The silence is more terrifying than any amount of noise would be. I look at the ceiling, the dressing table with its mirror edged in blue silk, the writing desk on which only a vase of roses stands out against the darkness… All of these might be broken, ripped apart, burned. Our house might soon be like Jing’s, a charred skeleton.

I remember Min as he looked in the street. He had been running, his hair was a mess, he didn’t know that prison was waiting for him just around the corner. He said, “He loves you, he’s just told me… you’ll have to choose between us.” I was annoyed-it sounded like an insult, an order, and it wounded my pride. All I said was “Don’t make such a scene”: those were almost my last words to him.

I miss Jing just as much as Min; his bad moods and his aloofness seem so endearing now. How can I save them? How can I contact the Resistance? How can I visit them in prison? To add to their miseries, they were born rich: the difference between their own bedrooms and the damp cells must be unbearable. They are bound to get ill. Apparently you can soften up the guards with money… I’ll give everything I have.

A few shots ring out in the street and a dog howls, then the town drops back into silence like a pebble thrown into a bottomless well.

I am hot and I am cold. I am frightened, but my hate gives me strength. I open a drawer in the chest and find a little sewing case, a present for my sixteenth birthday. I take out the scissors with their gold handles and sharp, pointed little blades.

Pressed against my face, the precious weapon feels colder than a stalactite.

And I wait.