Qiu Miaojin - Last Words from Montmartre

A MEMORANDUM

My life in Paris also started to blossom. Even Shu Ren, who had always refused to open up to me and had disappeared for such a long time after moving, dropped by to say he had enjoyed reading my first novel. (This is the second person to tell me this recently. The other is an editor at my publishing house. Strange to realize that the book could provide some solace to others.) Shu Ren liked the book so much that he even bought my earlier short stories, though he couldn’t get through them. I told him the new novel I was writing was an even better novel and that another collection of stories would come out soon. I told him not to bother with the stories and that I’d give him a copy of the new novel. We also made a plan to meet at his new place on Friday. I’m looking forward to learning more about him and what he really thinks about my novel. Maybe one day he could be my number-two fan after Weng Weng.

AN ARCHIVE

For dinner Sunday, Qing Jin took me to a seafood restaurant called Le Criée (“street peddler”). She asked me:

Why bother writing to someone who doesn’t deserve your love?

Maybe it has nothing to do with the other person but is for my own love. Qing Jin, you know marriage is more than just a certificate or a ritual. It’s a kind of commitment to oneself.

Yes, I agree. But you realize this person is not worthy of your love anymore?

I know!

Then what can she offer you?

There’s nothing she can offer me.

It was my last chance to see Qing Jin. I had returned from Tokyo, but on May 10 she would fly back to Taiwan for work and also see her son and daughter. At the end of June she would return to France and move into her new apartment. We had spent many nights talking candidly and were totally at ease with each other. A week earlier she sent me a letter, but I put off sending her my reply until yesterday, Sunday. Qing Jin’s feelings for me could not be more obvious. I only needed to respond. We talked until half past midnight, and then I saw her home but we didn’t kiss good night or say anything that would take it further. But my sense was that, like Xuan Xuan, she could love me without regret or complaint. The streets glowed with lights on the taxi ride home. I think I was in Strasbourg when I prayed for a woman who could really love me and now she had miraculously appeared! As I thought back to her mysterious appearance a few weeks ago to now, I still wasn’t sure if I could truly love her or not. But I was sure she was the first woman in years of stumbling around who could be right for me. I didn’t tell her I was waiting for her to return from Taipei. Nor did I reveal any sign that I might change the nature of our relationship when she returned. I had been trying to persuade her that my desires could never transform instantaneously. I’ve behaved like a self-righteous friend…. My reserve led her to mistakenly believe that I was sensitive about her age, that my feelings for Yong and for Xu had to do with their youthful female bodies. I dropped so many hints that she was wrong in thinking the situation hopeless and the obstacles insurmountable, though she’s also listened to way too many monologues about my love for Xu. Facing the “tombstone” of my love, she was at a loss. But not everything I said was true. She would be a pretty good match for me, and it’s possible I could fall in love with her. Age and physique don’t matter to me. What I need is time. I need time to be sure that my love and desire can never harm her the way I harmed Xuan Xuan.

She has no clue what a huge blessing it would be if I could fall in love with her, for I’ve never encountered many of her qualities in other women I’ve been involved with, and yet she could still love me; she has not stood in my sorry shoes and cannot know that my troubles result from what’s missing in these younger women. Maybe what’s missing in them can only be found when they reach Qing Jin’s age. Though not many people who have lived a life as rich and full as Qing Jin’s can later shake off all the bewildering and oppressive chains of the secular world and emerge on her own wings, unscathed, with a crystal-clear perception of what’s real…. She isn’t aware that her spirit is precisely what I need. I’ve never found it anywhere else and it’s much more important than age or physique.

Qing Jin asked me what kind of woman I was looking for, and I said one whom I can really love, and one who equally loves me through whatever adversities. All others need not apply…. She smiled. She acted so humbly toward me, not because she was self-conscious about her body and age but because she admired my spiritual concerns and creative gifts. I was really touched by her admiration and her appreciation of these things that must have grown out of her own rich life experiences with other people, her values a sum of all her experiences. But she doesn’t realize that she doesn’t have to act with such humility. I could only tell her in a letter: I want you to be proud of yourself and to thrive, chin up and chest out! What I didn’t tell her, however, was that if I could eventually love her, my love could let her more fully experience her own self-worth and ignite within her an unknown part of herself. I would make her understand that nobody who loves her would fail to love her body or abandon her because of her age! Just thinking about it pains me: that a woman like her could be branded and bound by such a profound sense of inferiority. She doesn’t believe that real love will have any effect on these things. But I do — I’ve already had a love that purifies everything. Real love isn’t something directed at a particular individual. It’s a kind of inner capacity, it’s something that must already dwell within oneself!

I told Qing Jin that I planned to visit Greece alone after my thesis was finished. She wanted me to write more slowly so that she could come with me when she returned from Taiwan. She had always wanted to travel around Europe with me. I said okay. We also agreed to visit Deauville-Trouville one weekend in July. It was a place where she and her French husband used to spend most weekends; I’d been to the beach there twice. She had bought a 250,000 franc sailboat for her husband and had a sailing license herself. She said that she would teach me how to sail, that we’d walk on the beach all night, and that she was the ultimate tour guide…. But she couldn’t know that I was biding my time, waiting for the coming two months, preparing for her, preparing to reincarnate into my new identity as Zoë. In July I want to present her with a Zoë who smokes cigarettes, who has long hair, who rides a bicycle, who is immersed in learning the violin, who has returned to the novel and who is writing poetry regularly, who stays locked in the office to finish the thesis, whose French is catching up with hers, whose social life is busy, who has a light, easygoing personality, a Zoë who is handsome and beautiful…. She couldn’t know that I was yearning to learn from her, a teacher and a leader in work as in life…. She couldn’t know that once I gave her my soul, I would love her body passionately too, which was precisely my greatest secret I couldn’t bring myself to say out loud…. And on the beach at night in Deauville-Trouville, if my reincarnation was a success, she wouldn’t see my kiss coming…. She wouldn’t know any of this.

MAY 2

Xu,

I just watched the second round of presidential debates between Chirac and Jospin on TV with my roommates. I interpreted for the whole group because my French was the most proficient among us, though there were still details I missed about the second economy and unemployment problems. It was enough to satisfy everyone’s curiosity about the content of the debate. At this point my listening skills give me tremendous pleasure in watching the news — my reward for surviving three years here in France. After Bunny died, I confided in Ying a little more, which slightly eased the tension between us. Now Ying and I have a lot to talk about, like cooking, gardening, animals, or shopping and art. We even have plans to make little gifts together and set up a stand at the market. She’s also been cooking meals for me, so living here has felt more family-like. Last week, I bought a cat-shaped bronze candleholder that I’d been eyeing for Ying’s birthday. The flower shop gave me a beige candle for it. I also bought a card with a cat on the front and wrote a few sweet lines inside it and got a cake. She was thrilled, and so was I. I feel like I’m slowly getting better at expressing my love for other people, and in turn my capacity to love is also greater. It’s as if my life in Paris is entering a blooming thicket. I could really grow to adore Parisian life, its inspiration, as well as the work I’m doing here, the friends I’m meeting, this incredible banquet the city offers. I feel like I’m ready to become an adult here, someone worthy of my own respect.