The Girl Who Played Go

85

Each move sees my sinking soul take another step downwards. I have always loved the game of go for its labyrinths. Each stone’s position evolves as you move the others around it. As the relationships among them grow more and more complex, the transformations never quite tally with what you had conceived. Go makes nonsense of your calculations, and defies your imagination. Each new formation is as unpredictable as the choreography of the clouds, a betrayal of what might have been. There is no rest, you’re always on the alert, always faster, heading for some part of yourself that is slyer and freer, but also colder, more calculating and more deadly. Go is a game of lies; you surround the enemy with monstrous traps for the sake of the only truth-which is death.

Rather than go home, where Mother is waiting to take me to the doctor, I have resolved to brave the game’s crushing authority.

So, here I am facing the board and my stranger.

He looks so ordinary in his slightly outdated tunic, his hat and his glasses, but there is something about him that betrays a change in him. Though he has shaved carefully, the powerful growth of his stubble gives his tanned cheeks a bluish shadow. Nestled between his thick black eyelashes gleam two diamonds with thin ellipses of purple under these sparkling eyes. I remember Min’s eyes held the same fire after he had climaxed inside me.

Embarrassed, I look away. The other tables on the Square of a Thousand Winds are deserted. My countless games of go are rushing back to me: almost forgotten faces merge together in the mask of my opponent’s face. He has the nobility of a man who prefers the turnings of the mind to the barbarities of life.

If I leave with Jing I would be entrusting my new life to him. But I am no longer attracted to him. His dark face used to fire my imagination. His jealousy intoxicated me. The tips of my fingers still recall the smooth, firm feel of his skin that day he gave me a lift on his bicycle. Now he is nothing but a beggar plaguing me.

The convoluted spell that bound Min, Jing and me has been broken. I was fascinated by a hero with two heads: Jing is nothing without Min, and Min wouldn’t have meant anything without Jing. The love of a survivor would stifle me with its weight. How can I explain to him all that remains between us is a nostalgia for a lost happiness and a bit of affectionate pity?

But if I don’t run away today, my mother will force me to see the doctor and he will surely find me out. Huong has chosen to sell herself, but I refuse to see her wearing expensive clothes and an affable little smile. Min is dead and Jing has been struck down, diminished forever. This town is a graveyard. What is there to keep me here?

My opponent leans towards me and whispers, “I’m sorry, I have to go. Can we meet again tomorrow?”

I am devastated by these terribly ordinary words. The game of go has made it possible for me to overcome my pain; one move at a time I have come back to life. If I leave the game now I would be betraying the one man who has remained faithful to me.