Shan Sa - The Girl Who Played Go

“I’m sorry, I never drink during the day.”

He bursts out laughing.

“A prison is always a kingdom in its own right. We make our own laws here. Sake activates the brain. Without it our imaginations would run dry and we’d soon be exhausted.”

I take my leave, claiming that I am nearly late for a meeting. On the doorstep he says, “You will come back soon, won’t you?”

I nod vaguely in his direction.

Back in my room, I write my report for Captain Nakamura, and in it I praise Lieutenant Oka: “He is a meticulous man who is devoted to the Emperor. He must be left to act as he sees fit and with the complete cooperation of his assistants. An outsider would disrupt the precision of his work and would interfere with the smooth running of the interrogations. I myself would ask you not to send me there again, Captain. My visit there fortified my conviction that we must never allow ourselves to be taken alive by the enemy.”

Three days later a soldier brings me a message from Lieutenant Oka, who would like to talk to me about something, so I go straight over to see him. Despite the heat, the officer is wearing a new tunic over his shirt, and a pair of boots that shine in the sunlight.

He greets me with a smile.

“I have good news for you. The man you saw hanging in the courtyard cracked. In our last raid we caught a fifteenyear-old boy and his interrogation will take place this evening. Would you like to attend?”

The word “interrogation” makes me feel sick. I compliment him on the competence of the Chinese interpreter and explain that my presence would be pointless. Quite unperturbed, he looks me in the eye and insists, “You really don’t want to come? What a shame. He’s a very good-looking boy and I’ve already chosen several good strong men who’ll keep him talking all night. It’s going to be marvelous.”

It is eighty-five degrees in the shade, but the Lieutenant’s words make me shiver. My only reply is to mumble something about not liking that sort of spectacle.

“I thought you liked that sort of thing,” he says, amazed.

“Lieutenant, your job is difficult and very important to the expansion of Japan and the glory of the Emperor. I wouldn’t want to distract you from it. Allow me to decline your thoughtful invitation.”

I can see the disappointment flit across the man’s face and he looks at me sadly. Lieutenant Oka has shaved so closely that the little mustache on his upper lip looks as if it is quite separate and might fly off at any moment.

“Come on, Lieutenant,” I say, patting his shoulder, “you get back to your work. The glory of the Empire depends on it.”

I have waited for Min at the crossroads for a whole week, and in the afternoons I have gone up and down the boulevard outside the university in the vain hope of spotting his face.

I find the address that Tang gave me; it is a run-down house in the poor, working people’s quarter. There are children running in the streets shouting to each other and an old woman wearily beating out her sheets.

A neighbor appears.

“I have a book to give back to Tang.”

“She’s been arrested.”

Fear is out stalking the streets of my town. The Japanese seem determined to arrest someone. I am amazed that I am still free, and I lie awake at night listening for the soldiers’ rhythmic approach, the bark of dogs and the muffled thud of a fist knocking on our door. The silence is more terrifying than any amount of noise would be. I look at the ceiling, the dressing table with its mirror edged in blue silk, the writing desk on which only a vase of roses stands out against the darkness… All of these might be broken, ripped apart, burned. Our house might soon be like Jing’s, a charred skeleton.

I remember Min as he looked in the street. He had been running, his hair was a mess, he didn’t know that prison was waiting for him just around the corner. He said, “He loves you, he’s just told me… you’ll have to choose between us.” I was annoyed-it sounded like an insult, an order, and it wounded my pride. All I said was “Don’t make such a scene”: those were almost my last words to him.

I miss Jing just as much as Min; his bad moods and his aloofness seem so endearing now. How can I save them? How can I contact the Resistance? How can I visit them in prison? To add to their miseries, they were born rich: the difference between their own bedrooms and the damp cells must be unbearable. They are bound to get ill. Apparently you can soften up the guards with money… I’ll give everything I have.

A few shots ring out in the street and a dog howls, then the town drops back into silence like a pebble thrown into a bottomless well.

I am hot and I am cold. I am frightened, but my hate gives me strength. I open a drawer in the chest and find a little sewing case, a present for my sixteenth birthday. I take out the scissors with their gold handles and sharp, pointed little blades.

Pressed against my face, the precious weapon feels colder than a stalactite.

And I wait.

In uniform and in civilian clothes, I am two different people. The first dominates the town as a conqueror, the second is conquered by its beauty.

This Chinese man here is me… I am amazed to see him taking on the accent, changing his looks and inventing an image for himself. When I put on my disguise I lose my normal points of reference, I am distanced from myself. It has almost made a free man of me, a man who knows nothing of commitment to duty.

As a child I would often have the same dream: dressed as a black Ninja, I would creep over the roofs of a sleeping town. The night was at my feet, and the occasional lights that twinkled were like the beacons on distant ships on a dark ocean. The town was not Tokyo, it was a place I did not know, and that made it all the more frighteningly exciting. In a narrow deserted street there were lanterns hanging under the eaves, their menacing glow swinging in the wind. I would step softly from one tile to the next, right up to the edge of the roof, then I would leap into the abyss.

I resent Captain Nakamura for making me do this dirty work. I lack the intuition, the cynicism or the paranoia to be a spy and I certainly lack that professional eye that can pick out a darker mark on a dark piece of paper. I feel as if I am being spied on myself. Despite the stifling June heat, I wear a thick linen tunic to hide a pistol in my belt, and when I sit at the go-board I put my hands on my knees so that my right elbow covers the weapon, which obstructs the fall of the cloth.

When I raise my right hand to move one of the stones, I can feel the steel brushing against me. The weapon is my strength and my weakness: I can open fire on anything that comes my way, but I can just as easily be shot in the back by a member of the Chinese Resistance.

I learned the strict rules of the game of go in Japan, where I would play in silence in the benevolent calm of a natural setting. I would be physically relaxed and my inspiration would diffuse its energy through my body, the rhythm of my breathing guiding my thoughts, and my soul would fleetingly grasp the universal duality of things.

There is nothing spiritual about the game I am playing today. The Manchurian summer is as harsh as the winter. Anyone who has not been burned and dazzled by its sun can never know the sheer power of this black land. After the merciless training sessions, which leave me dehydrated and physically exhausted, the time I spend playing go with the Chinese girl is like an escape to a land of demons. The June heat permeates my dilated blood vessels and sharpens my senses. The smallest detail gives me an erection: her naked arm, the crumpled hem of her dress, the way her buttocks sway under the silky fabric, a fly buzzing past.