64

Coming towards me is a woman in a huge hat and a dress that shimmers with every nonchalant sway of her hips. I scarcely have time to wonder who she is before she sits down opposite me, quite out of breath.

The sun filters through the weave of the hat, laying a mysterious veil over her face. A fine vein crawls over her left temple and disappears into her hairline. There are tiny, tear-shaped moles dotting her dark skin.

A sharp slapping sound-the girl has just played her turn. Her hand stays on the board for a moment and I see that her nails are clean and painted orange.

I always listen to the sound the stones make, it betrays what the opponent is thinking. Early on in our game the Chinese girl would hold the stones between her first and second fingers and smack them gleefully onto the board; then, as the impact became quieter, her darker moods revealed themselves to me. Today it is a short, crystal-clear sound- she has rediscovered her confidence and vitality!

And she has undertaken a very original counterattack.

While she pauses to take a walk through the nearby woods, I think about the game in a very particular way: we have exchanged more than a hundred moves, but I forbid myself any calculations and I look at the board as a painter would an unfinished canvas. My stones are patches of ink with which I draw places and gaps. In the game of go, only aesthetic perfection leads to victory.

The Chinese girl returns and when she sits down, the shadow of her hat caresses my chest. The ribbon around it flutters to the same accelerated rhythm as my heart. I cannot begin to imagine why she has dressed herself today as an adult. I do not know her name, how old she is, what her life might be. She is a mountain that protrudes from a cloudy sky, only to melt all the more surely into the fog.

A drone grows louder and interrupts my daydream. Our planes are overhead, bombs fixed below their steel wings. I watch my opponent out of the corner of my eye: she does not look up.

It is easier for my fellow officers to fly over China than for me to read the thoughts of the girl who plays go.

65

Someone comes into my room and shakes me violently. Is it Moon Pearl trying to wake me for the Sunday market? I turn my back on her, but she sits down on my bed, tugs my shoulder and starts to moan.

Irritated, I sit up abruptly, but when I open my eyes it is not my sister I see but Huong, in tears.

“Get up. The Resistance fighters are going to be executed this morning.”

My words catch in my throat. “Who… who told you?”

“The matron in my dormitory. Apparently the procession is going to go past the North Gate. Get dressed! I think it might be too late.”

I put on the first dress I find, but my fingers are shaking too much to button it up. I run out of the room still coiling my hair up into a chignon.

“Where are you going?” asks my father.

I find the strength to lie. “I’ve got a game of go, I’m late!”

At the far end of the garden I bump into my sister coming in through the gate.

“Where are you going?” she asks, catching hold of my arm.

“Let me go. I’m not going to the market.”

She gives Huong a fierce stare and takes me to one side.

“I’ve got to talk to you,” she says and it makes me shiver-does she know something about Min and Jing? “I haven’t slept all night…”

“Tell me what it is, please. I’m in a hurry!”

“I spoke to Doctor Zhang yesterday, I’m not pregnant. It’s a false pregnancy,” she says, her eyes streaming with tears.

“You must go see someone else,” I say to shake her off. “Doctors can make mistakes.”

She looks up, her face a twist of anguish, and says, “I got my period this morning.”

Moon Pearl throws herself into my arms and I drag her over to the house, where Wang Ma and the cook hurry to help me. I take advantage of the commotion to slip away.

There are hundreds thronging round the foot of the ramparts at the North Gate. The Japanese soldiers drive them back with the butts of their rifles. My blood freezes as I realize something terrible is going to happen before my very eyes.

An old man is jabbering away somewhere behind me: “In the old days the condemned would be blind drunk and they would sing at the top of their lungs before they died. The executioner’s saber would come down in a flash, and the body would often stay standing while the head rolled on the floor. The blood spurting from the neck sometimes shot two meters into the air!”

The men listening click their tongues; these people are here because for them executions are a supreme form of entertainment. Furious, I step on the filthy old pig’s foot and he gives a little cry of pain.

“They’re coming! They’re coming!” cries a child.

Standing on tiptoe, I can see a black ox pulling a cart bearing a cage with three men in it. Their mouths are full of blood and they are screaming out unintelligibly.

“They’ve cut out their tongues,” someone in the crowd whispers.

Now that they have been almost tortured to death, all the condemned look the same: just bloodied flesh still barely breathing.

The cart and others like it crawl through the North Gate. Huong tells me she can’t watch anymore and will wait for me in town. But I am carried along by some indomitable inner force and I want to watch them to the very end. I have to know whether Min and Jing are going to die.

The procession comes to a halt by a deserted stretch of wasteland. The soldiers open the cages and drive the prisoners on with their bayonets. One of them is nearly dead, and two soldiers drag him along like an empty flour sack.

There are cries in the crowd. With the help of two sturdy servants, a finely dressed woman pushes past the people in her way, and reaches the military cordon.

“Min, my son!”

Far over there, a man turns round, falls to his knees and kowtows three times in our direction. My heart stops. The soldiers throw themselves at him and beat him.

The condemned men kneel in a long line. One of the soldiers brandishes the flag as all the others raise their rifles.

Min’s mother faints.

Min doesn’t look at me, he doesn’t look at anyone. For him there is nothing except for the rustling of the grass, the quiet song of the insects and the breeze on the back of his neck.

Is he thinking about me-his child inside me?

The soldiers load their rifles.

Min turns his head and stares hungrily at the person to his left. I eventually realize that it is Tang! They smile at each other. Min leans painfully towards her and manages to put his lips to the young girl’s mouth.

The shots crackle loudly.

My ears buzz and I can smell rust mingled with sweat. Is that the smell of death? I sway as my stomach contracts and I bend forward to vomit.