I grab my pistol and I hold it to the Chinese girl’s temple. She looks up at me and there is no longer any fear in her eyes. I see the indifference she had always accorded to strangers.

I shudder and press my weapon a little more firmly.

“Do you recognize me?”

She closes her eyes.

“I know that you hate me, I know you can’t forgive me. At this moment, I couldn’t care less. I’m going to kill you and then myself afterwards. For your sake I’m going to turn my back on this war and betray my own country. For your sake I will shame my own parents, I will sully my ancestors’ honor. My name will be uttered only as a curse, never to be inscribed in the Temple of Heroes.”

I cover her in kisses and now I feel tears on her cheeks. And she lets me kiss her.

The ground trembles as the men drum it with their rifle butts.

“Lieutenant? I’m going to count to three! One…”

There is no time to ask her why she left her country, why she cut her beautiful hair. I have a thousand questions for her but I’ll never learn the answer to a single one of them.

“Two…”

“Don’t worry,” I whisper in her ear, “I’ll follow you. I’ll care for you in the afterlife.”

She opens her eyes and stares at me:

“My name is Song of the Night.”

But I have already pulled the trigger. Her dark eyes quiver, her pupils dilate, the blood spurts from her temples. With her eyes still wide open, she falls backwards to the ground.

The door opens and I can hear footsteps behind me. I realize with despair that I don’t even have time to cut open my entrails as would befit a samurai.

I put the blood-splattered pistol into my mouth.

A loud noise, the ground trembling beneath my feet.

I fall onto the girl who played go. Her face looks pinker than it did earlier. She is smiling.

I try very hard to keep my eyes open so that I can look at my beloved.

About Shan Sa

Shan Sa was born in Beijing, China, to a scholarly family. Her real name is Yan Ni Ni; she adopted the pseudonym Shan Sa, taken from a poem by the Tang dynasty poet Bai Juyi. At age 8, she published her first poetry collection, and went on to obtain the first prize in the national poetry contest for children under 12 years, an event that created a public upheaval. After graduating from secondary school in Beijing, she moved to Paris in August 1990 thanks to a grant by the French government. Settling there with her father, a professor at the Sorbonne University, she quickly adopted the French language. In 1994, she finished her studies of philosophy. From 1994 to 1996 she worked as a secretary of painter Balthus. Thereafter she published her first two novels and a collection of poetry, meeting with great critical acclaim. In 2001 she reached the top of her success with the publication of her most famous book so far, "The Girl Who Played Go" (a.k.a La Joueuse de Go). The book received good feedback from readers and was awarded a number of prizes, including the Prix Goncourt des Lycéens (Prix Goncourt of the High-school students).