58

In uniform and in civilian clothes, I am two different people. The first dominates the town as a conqueror, the second is conquered by its beauty.

This Chinese man here is me… I am amazed to see him taking on the accent, changing his looks and inventing an image for himself. When I put on my disguise I lose my normal points of reference, I am distanced from myself. It has almost made a free man of me, a man who knows nothing of commitment to duty.

As a child I would often have the same dream: dressed as a black Ninja, I would creep over the roofs of a sleeping town. The night was at my feet, and the occasional lights that twinkled were like the beacons on distant ships on a dark ocean. The town was not Tokyo, it was a place I did not know, and that made it all the more frighteningly exciting. In a narrow deserted street there were lanterns hanging under the eaves, their menacing glow swinging in the wind. I would step softly from one tile to the next, right up to the edge of the roof, then I would leap into the abyss.

I resent Captain Nakamura for making me do this dirty work. I lack the intuition, the cynicism or the paranoia to be a spy and I certainly lack that professional eye that can pick out a darker mark on a dark piece of paper. I feel as if I am being spied on myself. Despite the stifling June heat, I wear a thick linen tunic to hide a pistol in my belt, and when I sit at the go-board I put my hands on my knees so that my right elbow covers the weapon, which obstructs the fall of the cloth.

When I raise my right hand to move one of the stones, I can feel the steel brushing against me. The weapon is my strength and my weakness: I can open fire on anything that comes my way, but I can just as easily be shot in the back by a member of the Chinese Resistance.

I learned the strict rules of the game of go in Japan, where I would play in silence in the benevolent calm of a natural setting. I would be physically relaxed and my inspiration would diffuse its energy through my body, the rhythm of my breathing guiding my thoughts, and my soul would fleetingly grasp the universal duality of things.

There is nothing spiritual about the game I am playing today. The Manchurian summer is as harsh as the winter. Anyone who has not been burned and dazzled by its sun can never know the sheer power of this black land. After the merciless training sessions, which leave me dehydrated and physically exhausted, the time I spend playing go with the Chinese girl is like an escape to a land of demons. The June heat permeates my dilated blood vessels and sharpens my senses. The smallest detail gives me an erection: her naked arm, the crumpled hem of her dress, the way her buttocks sway under the silky fabric, a fly buzzing past.

It is torture trying to maintain my dignity in front of this opponent. Over the last week her tanned skin has taken on the smooth, dark texture of a grape. Her clothes are sleeveless and these Manchurian dresses are so close-fitting that the women could not be more disquieting if they were naked. Our heads almost touch as we lean over the board. Thanks to the strong will forged by years of military discipline, I struggle against my impulses and steel myself by playing the game.

My posting to China has taught me what greatness and what misery a soldier can know: on orders he moves from one place to the next without knowing where he is going or why. A pawn among many others. He lives and dies anonymously in the name of a greater victory. The game of go is changing me into a senior officer who uses his men coldly and with calculation: the stones make their steady progress, many condemned to die for the sake of a wider strategy.

Their loss becomes confused with the deaths of my comrades.

59

Huong schemes and cajoles to get me any news she can, but it is more devastating every day. Today she learned that Jing’s father has asked the Japanese authorities that his own son be given the death penalty and made a public example. I loathe her for this discovery.

My parents’ indifference brings me to despair. Moon Pearl thinks that I am in love and keeps digging for a confession.

“Are you upset about something, my sister?” she asks in a sugary voice.

“Not at all, Moon Pearl. It’s the heat, it’s making me ill.”

I find the servant Wang Ma’s monotonous lamentations maddening and in the end I burst out laughing. My parents stare at me; such scandalous behavior is beyond their understanding and they don’t know how to punish me. Wang Ma runs from the room in tears, and Mother slaps me. It is the first time she has, and my cheek burns, and my head buzzes. Mother brings her hand up in front of her face and trembles as she looks at it, before taking refuge in her bedroom. Father stamps his foot and then he too disappears.

On the Square of a Thousand Winds I can relax in front of this stranger. He is punctual, but never complains when I am late; he rarely speaks and his face never betrays any feeling. He stands up to the sun, to the wind and to my provocations. This internal strength of his must spare him from a good many forms of earthly suffering.

I am here to forget myself; no one here talks of arrests, or of the Japanese occupation. News of the outside world doesn’t reach us… only, the pain somehow manages to catch me out: a bird, a butterfly, a passerby, a simple gesture-everything brings me back to Min and Jing. I get up and walk around the square.

Under the trees the players are dotted about like earthen statues arrayed by Eternity. I am overwhelmed by a feeling of pointlessness. My legs feel shaky and my head spins. A gray curtain descends from the sky.

I stop the game.

My opponent looks up and peers at me from behind his glasses. He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t get angry. He plays without asking any questions. When I leave he watches me until I am out of sight. In my thoughts, my problems have acquired a poetic grandeur; I have become a tragic actor though my only audience is the stranger.

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!