Qiu Miaojin - Last Words from Montmartre

Xu, it’s my turn to be the ox. You’ve been my ox for so long. You used to say that it was a blessing to be the ox. I beg you, please don’t do anything to drive it away, okay? I’m willing to be your ox, so you just have to make a comfortable place for it to stay, okay? You may be cruel, but could you bear to drive away the ox that you have loved, the one who has loved you for three years? Could you bear to drive it away in agony, never to return, never to exist again? Is this old ox really not worth your tenderness, your care? I’ve loved you madly for three years now. For three years I’ve given myself to you utterly, loving you completely and totally. Now my hair’s a mess and I can’t put one foot in front of the other, but I’m prepared to return to your side and keep on loving you. Is this ox just any old beast? Tell me, if you feed and nurture an ox that has already proven itself, won’t it produce for you the kind of livelihood, life, and love that you want?

At this stage I’ve been through so much, witnessed many relationships, weathered the storms of life, and have remained true for a long time. That’s what I want to cultivate, that’s what I would pay any price to offer and to nourish. True love makes it through any ordeal. I yearn to be in a relationship that can shake off the frosty wind and the couple still stands hand in hand. I yearn for a love that, because of devoted vigilance, can withstand time’s ceaseless erosion and come out alive. Xu, I’m not young anymore. I’m no frivolous, impulsive, immature child. I long to be your stalwart ox, eternally loyal in love and always dependable. I can picture it so clearly. I’ll prove it to you. I’ll find a way to make you understand how tremendous my love is for you. I swear I’ll transform myself into your loyal ox. I know what this will mean.

“If a couple’s love is truly eternal, then does being together day and night really matter?” I used to love this saying. Now I can finally live it for myself.

I grew a lot between 1992 and 1995 and came to understand and put into practice the rules of love, didn’t I? But my heart is still on fire. Xu, you have no idea how little I care that you left me for someone else. Nor do I care how many others have possessed your body. I understand that I can’t stop loving you just because you left me or betrayed me. You are the same to me and this won’t change. This is the most important thing I could say to you, and I’ve suffered the worst trials this past month. I’ve suffered, but somehow survived with my love intact — now it’s even deeper, calmer within, less constrained.

And that’s the reason I can be so open with you and write to you like this. Do you understand? It doesn’t matter what forms your indifference takes or how deep your betrayal might be; if we see each other again, nothing will get in the way of my love for you, whatever pain or obstacles. I could never articulate this before; this is the first time I’ve been able to put it into words because Bunny’s death has brought me to a very deep place. It has made me realize how much I need to love you, and made me realize just how much I am capable of loving you.

If we ever meet again in this lifetime, my passion for you will be unchanged, even if you’re not mine anymore, even if you’re married with children. You’ll always be the one I get down on my knees for, whose whole body I will kiss and whose whole being I’ll desire. If you still don’t want me, I’ll probably find someone else to be with. My love is fierce and my desire is at its peak. If you want me, I can stay true to you and temper my physical desires with whatever you can give me. But if you don’t want me, please don’t tell me because I’ll already know. I’ll offer my body and my life to someone else and try to live a life full of joy and creativity. But my soul is determined to belong to you; she is determined to keep loving you and to keep talking to you. If my body and soul can never be integrated — if I can’t reconcile the desires of my soul and body — that will be my tragedy. I’m prepared to live with this tragedy, but I can’t disregard the needs of my body. Without the pleasure and creativity I need to live, I’ll vanish.

You ask me what I mean by “devotion.” Devotion means I give you both my body and soul; it means I place both in your hands, and so in turn I desire your body and soul. And you ask me, “Why you? Why not someone else?” Because I can never give myself body and soul so completely to anyone else, and I can never desire someone else, body and soul, so completely.

It’s a matter of experience. Maybe I could love a number of others, whether physically or spiritually. But I know that it would never reach the depth and completeness of my love for you. I could never want to belong to someone else the way I want in both body and heart to belong to you. I could never desire someone else the way I want you with my body and heart. No. It’s a matter of degree. My desire for someone else could never reach the degree of want I feel for you. Do you know all this? So it’s you, just you. There can never be anyone else for the deepest reaches of my body and soul. Even if you don’t want me anymore, don’t love me anymore, and don’t belong to me anymore, I will still say to you with a loud voice: No love can ever replace the love that we shared, our mutual belonging, what we gave to each other, our openness, the communication we realized between our body and soul. What I’m trying to say is that you are the one who accepted Zoë’s body and soul most deeply. And you were the one who loved and understood me best, body and soul. It’s precisely because you’re the only person to have loved me and accepted me as I am, to have understood my songs, that you had Zoë truly, wholly on fire in the palm of your hand…. How could I not love you? And this is also why, when you left me and I couldn’t keep burning for you, my life was thrown into agony and turmoil! You’ve already decided that we can’t travel together anymore. Maybe someone else will come into my life, maybe she will be able to give me more than you can right now and understand me better. But I have to keep telling you: What you gave me and what you shared with me and the depth of our love for each other can happen with no one else — it’s totally unique. So though I’m desperate and my love unrequited, I persist in loving you with every last part my soul.

Tu es le mien, je suis le tien.

You are mine, and I am yours. Forever. No one can ever take you away from me, and no one can ever take me away from you.

You say that for you it’s like walking in the desert now. I sense that you aren’t totally numb toward me, not totally unfeeling or apathetic. For me the most important thing is this: As long as I can feel the finest thread of your acceptance, I can still tell myself that I have something to give you.

I don’t know if I still have what it takes. I can’t stand the thought of you walking in the desert. I want to give you a little patch of solid ground to stand on, or at the very least some small green oasis you can look at in the distance, to keep you from drifting away from reality, from escaping back into your mind. It’s all my fault! I missed my chance. But let me see if — using these words as a little plot of land and my life as a cornerstone — I can build you a center. Okay?

APRIL 28

Xu,

It is now one o’clock in the morning of April 28, 1995. Two hours ago I buried Bunny.

I buried Bunny in that little triangular park near rue du Mont Cenis, just like you asked. I didn’t feel depressed — I felt satisfied. Bunny’s body had lain there in my room for two whole days. It was the first time I’d ever experienced the death of a loved one, of a life connected to mine. Extinguished, just like that, gone from existence.