Qiu Miaojin - Last Words from Montmartre

Clichy was the same as ever, standing there upright, sparkling white, and innocent, willing to maintain a tacit understanding with me. But how can I tell her she is about to get a new owner, that I am about to pass her along to someone else?

· · ·

I snuck over to Montmartre to sit at your desk, where I sat listening to Zhang Aijia talk, making me think of my birthday last year (well, the year before) when you gave me a tape of you singing and with a teary sniffle I remembered you singing for me and remembered the little boy’s bowl of porridge…. For half a year I’ve been contemplating the idea that people always imitate themselves growing up, and now here I was sobbing and wondering if I really understood the price of growing up. Zoë, wearing a gray wool cap, asks me if I know the meaning of “trauma.” But before I can or will or dare to answer this question, Zoë has already grown old and weak.

I just wanted to tell you how beautiful it felt to be sitting here since yesterday writing letters at your desk.

· · ·

I can’t face speaking to you. I can’t be myself. I’m sorry I have to write in this circular and torturously convoluted way.

Ma came to visit me in Paris. I repeatedly forced you to wait for me. Do you remember that phone call when it was snowing? I was in my room and Ma was in the living room and you were on the other end of the line sounding so full of sorrow, and the snow was falling and you told me not to come see you and on my end of the line, gripping the receiver, saying nothing but my thoughts transparent, I felt stricken, I threw you out into the snow, this was the first time I saw that what I wanted to escape wasn’t you but my own incompetence. My heart was heavy to feel your sorrow so near, but we can’t go back.

You told me I was incompetent and moved out, taking with you everything of me — my letters, my rabbit, my love, and saying I was weak to hold on to these things, angry that I would give everything up, but why? That you believed you were a victim and assumed the attitude of a great martyr of love; still, why did you pillage everything? That’s my question. I am the loser in this marriage, I’ve never denied it, my faith in this marriage was inadequate and I hurt you again and again and created unending animosity, my crimes unpardonable. But why do you pronounce judgment that I am not fit to possess these things? Why do you write me off in one stroke? From what evidence?

I must depend on others who care about me to take care of you and give you the attention you need, and I am ashamed. But in the midst of responding to your rage I didn’t know how else to go on, didn’t know what to do.

Ma said that I was enchanted by you. I was surprised at the appropriateness of this word. I was enchanted by you, enchanted by your world, enchanted by the state of crazy drunken love you put me in, enchanted by your vision of me, and I followed you dizzily into an idyllic Edenic garden of love, the likes of which I could never have imagined leaving, so suffused with love. And I was enchanted by you as I plunged with you into an emotional abyss, drowning in anger at Xu; I was enchanted by you as I recklessly dispatched troops against Xu, mistakenly believing that Xu’s survival depended on it, that it was a way out…. On my path of infatuation I discovered that I had arrived at the edge of a sea of fire, and I selfishly chose to sacrifice our relationship to save myself. And once my heart of selfishness opened up, so did the evil within it, and we were beaten black and blue….

Accompanying Ma back to Taiwan, leaving the airport, you were still willing to take my hand and my love, and for the rest of my life I will never forget how much love that small act signified — the resolve to love and the courage to seek nothing in return. But there wasn’t any way I could tell you how much I cherished that action; I was completely incapable of expressing any emotion in front of you. Why? Why? When did the give and take of emotions become so difficult for us?

I want to explore the cause of this detachment in myself, investigate how and why it is aimed at you. Is it a disloyal desire? Is it the selfishness of self-preservation? Is it the weary fickleness of passion? Is it society’s support and lack of support?

For a moment during our phone call as it was snowing, as I realized the extent of our sorrow, I knew that I loved you so much it was like I was practically crying out: Here is the location of the soul I have cared for, and here is the source of all beauty and love, but how heavy, how painful, how heavy, how painful.

JUNE 5

I dreamt of Laurence and the curve of her ass.

Laurence retrained my body. I felt my body coming into being in the same way that my artistic sensibilities and my eyes and ears and heart had been retrained and opened during my three years in France….

The day I met Laurence, we walked from the Bastille to rue Saint-Paul in the Marais after a party. Torch-like antique streetlamps illuminated the quiet twists and turns of the streets complementing the marvelous imposing forest of old Parisian architecture. The winding streets were empty. Laurence told me all about the architectural history of the Marais as if she were a tour guide. Though most of the restaurants and pubs were already closed for the night, she could still describe the cuisine and defining characteristics of each one, a smug expression on her face as if she were the master of all Paris.

If you want to know the Paris that Parisians love, for me, it’s the Marais , she concluded in a professional-sounding tone after a moment of consideration, her pointy chin slightly raised.

Were you born in Paris? I asked her.

No, I was born in Lyon. My father owns a castle there; he’s a renowned entomologist and philanthropist. The place is practically empty save a constant stream of vagrants and a cellar filled with insect specimens. The castle is in the suburbs of Lyon. There are no other houses within a hundred-meter radius .

So you don’t like Lyon? Why did you come to Paris?

Because coming to Paris was a given. She gave me a teasing glance.

Why, what was so important about Paris?

What wasn’t so important? Everything about me is a given.

Paris, women, politics — these are all a given?

Yes. Paris, women, politics — these are all just a given! She brushed aside her brown bangs and studied me seriously. That was when I noticed her blue-green eyes, blue inlaid with floating flecks of sea green. Really , she added emphatically, ever since I was little I was always especially drawn to politics. For me, politics is not about Marxism or left and right wing. It’s much simpler than that, but also more complicated. Politics is about pushing what is clearly wrong in relations between people in the direction of what is right, and trying to follow through on implementing this so-called “rightness.” So I’m particularly focused on those things that are “wrong.” I enjoy putting my energy toward changing those things that are fundamentally wrong. Everyone enjoys something different. For me, I enjoy politics — for me politics is not a choice. Can you picture a five- or six-year-old child cutting out pictures of politicians from Le Monde or Figaro ? Before she can even read the articles ….

It’s possible! But you still haven’t said why you came to Paris.

For a three-year best-friend relationship, and a five-year love relationship.

Your lover lived in Paris?

She lived in Lyon, too, and when we were young we were both Socialists. We worked together for three years at the Socialist headquarters in Lyon and were best friends. You have no idea how fulfilling it was. At the time I was still studying political science, but she was already a special assistant in the Socialist Party. I dropped by HQ practically every day to find out what the news was and to see if there was anything I could help with, and so I saw Catherine nearly every day too. Apart from sleeping with the occasional boy from school, I wasn’t involved with anyone seriously — politics was pretty much my life. Catherine and I shared and discussed all our opinions, great and small, our hopes and ideals. Both of us insisted that we wanted to stay in the Socialist Party so we could keep watch over traditional leftist ideals …. Oh Zoë, how exquisite it is to share an ideal! From the time I was eighteen until I was twenty-one, I didn’t realize that the relationship I shared with this woman who was five years my senior was a true best-friend relationship. But that’s how it was, really was, and I’ve never had another relationship like that.