Qiu Miaojin - Last Words from Montmartre

But the loneliness following Bunny’s death caught me off guard, knocked me flat, deprived me of any fleeting sense of recovery. I was like a tripod newly balanced, then a leg suddenly gets sawed off. The death-filled afternoon air thickened with misery and I couldn’t eat or drink. Maybe you wonder why I torture myself like this, why I don’t have even the slightest immunity to it. I don’t know. I’m too receptive by nature, what Buddhists might call a kind of openness. It’s my disease and it’s my gift. It’s my treasure and it’s my fatal flaw.

This morning I was anxious about burying Bunny. I had promised you an earth burial rather than a water burial for Bunny, so that you could visit the grave. But my friends all said I’d never find a good spot. And the pet cemetery was too expensive. Camira even went so far as to suggest throwing the body in the garbage. The body had been sitting there for two days already. If I had put off the burial any longer it would’ve started to decay and I would’ve failed to fulfill your wishes. This afternoon I finally resolved to just pull myself together and lay Bunny peacefully to rest. Then you wouldn’t have to worry about either of us. Daddy would take care of Bunny.

I woke up to send my first letter to you and then on the way home bought ten champagne roses (I gave three of them to Ying), a squat blue candle (sitting beside me now), and a shovel. I put yesterday’s wet laundry in the dryer (I am now wearing dry pants). Then I wrapped the gifts I’d bought for my family at Narita airport (three ties each for my father and brother-in-law; a pair of purses for my mother and sister). While I was at the post office to mail your letter, I impulsively bought you thirty sets of gorgeous stamps with four different designs. The books and CDs you sent me were an unexpected delight. I tried to call Shui Yao on my way home to let her know I was safe and well but couldn’t get through. Then I left a message on Weng Weng’s answering machine to tell him my impressions of Chungking Express and Vive L’Amour . I returned home around dusk and made scrambled eggs with beef and onion and macaroni, and some rice. After watching the news on TV, I went back to my room and stuck the stamps on envelopes already addressed to you while listening to the arias you had sent me. I felt curiously blessed. And I called Qing Jin to arrange a time to talk with Xin Ping about learning to play the violin. White Whale called before dinner, too, to ask where I ended up burying Bunny, so I took that opportunity to press her about my taking tap-dance lessons with her, and told her a bit about the progress of my thesis.

At the stroke of eleven, I picked up the box with Bunny in it, put on my backpack full of tools, and stole out the door…. All the gates to the park were locked shut. So that nobody would see me I chose a remote corner, climbed over the wall, made my way into the wooded area, and — keeping an eye out for the police — hid behind some of the thicker bushes and began to dig. The soil was soft and loose from the rain. After I dug the right size hole, I decided to take Bunny’s body out of the box and place it directly in contact with the earth so it would decompose more quickly. I figured Bunny would enjoy becoming nourishment for those big plants. The picture of father and mother, the pair of farewell letters that they wrote, the plant that had preceded Bunny in death, the big hairbrush, and a ball of toilet paper that Bunny liked to play with — all were buried with the body. The body was still in good condition. It even seemed softer than two days ago. I covered it in a blue blanket, put some of Bunny’s food pellets on top, then pushed all the dirt back into the hole and tamped it tightly with my foot.

Suddenly I wanted to cry, thinking how I hadn’t failed you, how I’d never again see that adorable little white body, how I’d finally experienced firsthand what it means to “bury with your own hands,” how Haruki Murakami had described burying two cats in six years. How many Bunnys and how many secret loves would I have to bury in the beautiful, lonely city of Paris? What I was burying “with my own hands” was actually my love for you and Bunny. Has my love for both of you really ended up in the ground, with nothing left but fantasy and echoes? Xu, you’ve misunderstood me. Perhaps I wasn’t completely fit to be Bunny’s daddy, but I had never been abusive. I cared for Bunny with my whole heart, and when Bunny died I was a brave daddy! The sixth track on your CD — Saint-Saëns’s “Softly Awakes My Heart”—speaks to my feelings about Bunny’s death…. Xu, enter the park through the gate on the church side and look for the tall tree behind and to the right of the second bench. The final resting place of our beloved Bunny, and of our love, is beneath a little mound of earth with a few scraggly weeds and a little champagne rose, in the little triangular park near rue du Mont Cenis!

APRIL 29

Xu,

Someone called around four o’clock this afternoon. I was up late last night writing letters, so I was still lying in bed with the day yet to begin. For a moment I thought it could be you, calling to find out about Bunny’s funeral, but the phone stopped ringing before I could get up. I immediately dropped the idea that it was you calling. Since you have been trying so hard to abandon me, as I’ve become such a great scourge to you, it’s unlikely you would squeeze out even a few reluctant tears of genuine concern.

Xu, what you’ve done to me this month is wrong. I have to tell you this. From the point of view of interpersonal relationships, even if I’m older and more mature than you, and even if there are things you’re too young to understand, everyone is still responsible for their actions and the wrongs they commit against others. In their heart of hearts, no one can escape this responsibility. I can’t, and so I’m trying to make up for the wrongs I’ve committed.

I believe that two individuals always share a basic human bond. The depths of this bond depend on an unspoken agreement or oath between the two. The more stable their inner life and personality, the more honestly they can thrive within this genuine unspoken agreement. When there is too little of this kind of consistency, they will continually wrong others, either by creating chaos in their inner life, or by leaving themselves no choice but to close off their own soul from the rest of the world. This kind of “consistency” is at the core of Gabriel Marcel’s investigation of fidélité (loyalty). This past month, when I started really applying myself to understanding Marcel, I discovered that in my own life I had matured enough to have a better grasp of the overall spirit of his work, and that I identified with the entire range of his concerns. I’m delighted. It’s like finding a best friend. Part of the reason I want to study violin is that I’m moved by him and want to be a kind of disciple.

Who knows if I’ll ever have the chance to tell you more about his philosophy and art? Who knows if you would even enjoy it and find it moving? I may not be able to interpret your life for you, to speak for you or make choices for you, but starting with my first letter to you, I have offered you a vivid internal blueprint, an illumination of the coordinates of your inner life, haven’t I? Your inner life and mine are symbiotic. Unless you want to shut it down completely — to castrate it — your inner life will never be complete with anyone but me. Always it will remain, thirsting to communicate with me. As long as I’m still alive, it will thirst to hear the sound of my voice and thirst to hear the music emanating from the wellspring of my spirit.

You could of course just suppress this thirst, this desire, become insensate. Yet once it has swelled inside you, you’ve already had a taste of it. The existence of this “spirit” is a fact. Your spirit and my spirit are made from the same material, one tuned to the other. Eventually you’ll realize that this part of you is the fruit of our careful irrigation and cultivation. It is a blessing. Through our violent outbursts, we have ultimately blocked, run aground, and sealed off our spirits from each other. In this world there’s no bond of love formidable enough; not even the enduring, permanent bond between life and body, or anything else, is formidable enough. Instead, the most formidable — and indestructible — bond of all is that mutual belongingness of souls that share an originary home (or “womb”). This bond will always be vital, so humans are condemned to suffer the pain of failing to transcend it even as we are compelled to break and deny such a bond.