The Girl Who Played Go

60

The Square of a Thousand Winds has laid its scents upon me. I now know its every tree, each checkered tabletop, each ray of light.

There are old men, diehards, who spend all day here with a fan in one hand, a teapot in the other and their birdcage hanging from a tree. They arrive at dawn and leave in the mid-afternoon. When one’s two pots of stones stand open, it means that he is expecting someone; if they are closed, he is waiting for someone to challenge him.

I was afraid that with time they would be able to tell a fake Chinese man, but I have swept aside this fear. Speech loses all its importance here, handing over its authority to the gentle clatter of the stones.

A false identity has been invented for me, but I have never had to use it. The girl has not even asked my name.

Probably thinking that I have already taken the bait, she no longer tries to charm me. She now seems to be saving her smiles and mischievous comments for the next player she will manage to ensnare.

And for some unfathomable reason she seems to be sulking. She has dispensed with all greetings except for a quick nod of the head, and she emerges from her silence only at the end of each session so we can arrange the next one.

In the first few days I saw something of Sunlight in her, but now there is nothing, either from a distance or close up, that reminds me of the refined geisha. She moves lugubriously, her hair messily plaited, black crescents at the ends of her nails. I take her untidiness as a sign of her complete disdain for me. Pimples have appeared on her forehead, and her face has lost all the simple grace that first attracted me. The whites of her eyes have lost their beautiful bluish gleam and her expression has darkened. Her lips are cracked and her hollowed cheeks suggest a hardened soldier. The Chinese girl is changing into a man!

I overcome this disappointment by triumphing in the first direct conflict. The whites, tightly surrounded in the southern corner of the board, are gradually surrendering.

Apparently indifferent to this loss, she makes a note of our positions and hurries away.