The Girl Who Played Go

87

It is strange to look round your own room and wonder which are the most precious things in your life. At sixteen I have brushes for calligraphy, paper and vials of very rare ink given to me by my grandmother. Every year my parents had four dresses made for me. I also have coats, cloaks, muffs, embroidered shoes, patent-leather shoes, bracelets, earrings, brooches and necklaces. I have school uniforms, sports clothes, boxes of crayons, pens and erasers. I have toys, hand puppets, shadow puppets and porcelain animals that I would cry over if I lost one; and books I loved so much I wanted to take them with me to the grave.

There are valuable pieces of furniture inlaid with mother-of-pearl, a screen covered with embroidered silk, an antique canopied bed and a bonsai tree from Cousin Lu. There are mirrors, little boxes of tweezers and manicure kits, a bag of toiletries, antique vases and the calligraphies of my ancestors. There are needles, colored threads, tins of tea, glasses that still bear the imprint of my lips, sheets impregnated with my smell and pillows that cradled my thoughts. There are the frames around the windows that I used to lean against, and the plants in the garden that I caressed with my idle gaze.

Moon Pearl comes up to tell me that supper is ready. She has grown thinner and her face has lost all its expression. I ask her to stay for a while; she sits down at my dressing table without a word and the tears begin to fall.

My last supper at home is sadly ominous: no one speaks. My parents eat without looking at each other, both nursing their guilt over Moon Pearl’s condition. The cook, completely overcome, drops a pair of chopsticks, and the clatter reawakens my sister’s tears. I can easily imagine the evenings after I have left: a gloomy table at which my place will continue to be set (a custom meant to bring back those who are missing); the food that no one touches; my parents’ silence; my sister drowning in her own tears.

I stuff a few things into my bag: some pieces of jewelry to sell, two dresses and some cotton wool to absorb the blood that still trickles between my legs.

I put the two pots of stones down on my table. I want to take one white stone and one black stone with me… Then I decide that I shouldn’t be so sentimental.