Qiu Miaojin - Last Words from Montmartre

June 1994, Xu flew to Paris and we realized our idealistic dream of a loving union, until February 1995 when I accompanied her back to Taiwan and our union disintegrated with each passing day…. You could say that the one before my eyes was no longer a “her” I recognized, and when she returned to France to live, her final promise to me, she had already left her body and I had already lost a Xu who loved me 100 percent. I’ve often thought that she returned to Paris not to love me but to torture me. The more she tried to treat me well, the more she lashed out. Our relationship crumbled. After she started being unfaithful to me in August, I fell into a state of insanity, destroying myself bit by bit, tearing myself down, twice planned to die so I could escape from the gory narcoleptic nightmare that was my life…. And she grew colder and colder, more frightening, committing more serious acts of unfaithfulness…. I was unable to stop myself from hurting her…. The deepest feelings in me had been gutted, and it was as if I was confronting my most ferocious enemy…. She too seemed nearly destroyed, terrified that I’d crossed the point of no return….

In March 1995 I returned to France to continue my studies. To persuade me to leave Taiwan, Xu promised we’d work together to revive our love and try to recover and that she would wait for me with hope…. I was too vulnerable and too fragile, and couldn’t imagine that she was no longer the “she” I had trusted and respected, though in fact that “she” with integrity had already been destroyed by my own hand…. (Yes, destroyed by me, a month before she came to France I had already destroyed the deepest part of her that she had opened to me, and when I realized she didn’t want to care for my heart and didn’t want to return to France — and that she herself couldn’t acknowledge this — I turned away and flung her love root and branch down to the ground, and I resolved to go live alone in France, to stop waiting for her, and in despair I locked myself in my little apartment, pulled out my phone cord, and blocked her out…. By then her heart was broken, and the spirit of her love had flown away…. Before a month had passed she rushed to Paris to get me back, to save our relationship. Oh, it was a she that wasn’t even recognizable to herself, for she really did not want to leave home!)

Until the day before I “died” for her, I still believed in her integrity, her sincerity, and I still trusted her…. On March 30, ten days after leaving Taiwan, she was sleeping in someone else’s bed…. In the telephone booth I died in the blink of an eye, experiencing in one moment the entire cumulative effect of the violence and murder of half a year of her unfaithfulness. Yes, I died… true death. Happening. Death. Death. Happening.

Crazy screaming uncontrollably, striking the glass and the metal frame of the phone booth uncontrollably, blood streaming from my numb head…. I howled at her through the receiver, “Tonight I’m going to die!”… A police car was parked nearby and four officers wanted to take me away, but I insisted on finishing my call…. In the midst of this turmoil I heard Xu crying that she would leave the other person’s place immediately and go home and call me right away, each lie she told putting my life even more in jeopardy…. Beyond the lies there were only more lies…. Two policemen pulled me from the telephone booth and I resisted them, trying to pick up the receiver again…. I was taken to the police station; my brain felt like it had exploded and I just sat there catatonic on the floor, feeling as if there were many pairs of feet treading on my body, which felt severe pain yet was numb…. I forget how I managed to stand up and march out of the police station, or how I walked home. I’ve forgotten everything except the deep spiritual scars. I felt my spirit pushing me to go home quietly, go home and sit near the phone to wait for Xu’s call…. I arrived home and my whole body felt swollen with a dislocating ache and my vital organs felt as if they’d been squeezed, and I vomited continuously…. In the darkness of early dawn as I sat next to the telephone in the living room a voice exploded into my ear: “You’re really going to die!”

I thought about the portrait of van Gogh, after he had cut off his ear, with the bandages wrapped on his head, and I thought about “Apollinaire’s head bandaged in white” that Osamu loved so much.

“Someone lives with an unfaithful ‘woman.’ He kills the ‘woman,’ or the ‘woman’ kills him. This is an inevitability.”—Angelopoulos, Reconstruction

(Marital dark ages: Xu is in Paris, Zoë is in Paris)

When you told me that L. had said I’d aged, my tears, which were about to pour out, spilled freely. Today at the subway stop I had the same mood, the same sorrow, and the catalyst for this “aging” was that Xu would never be my beloved again, never again.

Once my family had a pet bird, a bird that matured into a brilliant variety of colors, but when young was just dullish yellow. But the bird died before it could transform into its multicolored maturity; and I, too, a stunted, prematurely decrepit old woman.

I’m sorry I exhausted your patience, wasted away your love; but when you stopped giving me your focused attention, your unqualified benediction, the arrogance of the gods collapsed, and I could only keep silent.

· · ·

… thinking back to when I was twenty-five and had accomplished little, I was always expecting things to just exist, already done. Others took care of things for me, our love being a representative example. I was always carried in the palms of both hands. You spoiled me more than anyone in the world, and truthfully, your love and indulgence made me proud…. Clichy silently mirrored me, empty except for the few tangible scars left by your love. I think of the stack of letters you returned to me, incredulous that someone in this world could be so ridiculous as to take back something so precious that had been given. Zoë, I’m not greedy, but I am extremely proud, too proud.

I’ve already cleansed myself of my willful resentment toward you. But I don’t know how to rid you of the venomous resentment I’ve created in your heart… and last night when you rejected me, in your anger you moved away from Clichy. I sent a letter to you in Montmartre, and you wouldn’t let me come upstairs…. I participated willingly in your project of forgetting me and finally, no more leaving it to chance, no more avoiding responsibility, Zoë, I owe you for life. I don’t even know if I’m worthy to have what we once had. It makes no difference to you if I’m helplessly unfortunate or disgracefully unfortunate, right?

Zoë, you can do it, come on, stand up straight, you shouldn’t have been knocked down like that in the first place.

· · ·

I only neglected you so badly because you were my strictest teacher.

Yesterday I returned to Clichy. Every object that passes through one’s hands holds a story. I fondled with awe the complete set of habits and governing principles underpinning the objects. That day you came from Montmartre to see me and as you were about to leave carrying a load of stuff, it was as if you were standing onstage and shouting: Clichy is my home! Now I stand here sighing softly: “Home” for me, as in “building a home,” I lack the imagination, so that even when I’m physically there and have been given countless explicit instructions and hints, I still am incapable of making a real “place” of Clichy. For Clichy I have mopped the front courtyard, tending to every detail. Why is it always better when you buy her a bowl, put up a shelf, bring back a jar of jam or butter? Will my soft sigh bring things to a close? I carried out my business as usual in Clichy, assuming I was doing housework there and being cared for and paid attention to by my “wife,” when it turned out that I had already brought her, Clichy, to the brink of destruction through my “chores.” I wanted it to “end well” for her, but my steps grew increasingly heavy and sluggish and the residual emotions came out looking like a sneer as I wished in vain that together you and I could, with our presence, pay homage to her.