Shan Sa - The Girl Who Played Go

It is torture trying to maintain my dignity in front of this opponent. Over the last week her tanned skin has taken on the smooth, dark texture of a grape. Her clothes are sleeveless and these Manchurian dresses are so close-fitting that the women could not be more disquieting if they were naked. Our heads almost touch as we lean over the board. Thanks to the strong will forged by years of military discipline, I struggle against my impulses and steel myself by playing the game.

My posting to China has taught me what greatness and what misery a soldier can know: on orders he moves from one place to the next without knowing where he is going or why. A pawn among many others. He lives and dies anonymously in the name of a greater victory. The game of go is changing me into a senior officer who uses his men coldly and with calculation: the stones make their steady progress, many condemned to die for the sake of a wider strategy.

Their loss becomes confused with the deaths of my comrades.

Huong schemes and cajoles to get me any news she can, but it is more devastating every day. Today she learned that Jing’s father has asked the Japanese authorities that his own son be given the death penalty and made a public example. I loathe her for this discovery.

My parents’ indifference brings me to despair. Moon Pearl thinks that I am in love and keeps digging for a confession.

“Are you upset about something, my sister?” she asks in a sugary voice.

“Not at all, Moon Pearl. It’s the heat, it’s making me ill.”

I find the servant Wang Ma’s monotonous lamentations maddening and in the end I burst out laughing. My parents stare at me; such scandalous behavior is beyond their understanding and they don’t know how to punish me. Wang Ma runs from the room in tears, and Mother slaps me. It is the first time she has, and my cheek burns, and my head buzzes. Mother brings her hand up in front of her face and trembles as she looks at it, before taking refuge in her bedroom. Father stamps his foot and then he too disappears.

On the Square of a Thousand Winds I can relax in front of this stranger. He is punctual, but never complains when I am late; he rarely speaks and his face never betrays any feeling. He stands up to the sun, to the wind and to my provocations. This internal strength of his must spare him from a good many forms of earthly suffering.

I am here to forget myself; no one here talks of arrests, or of the Japanese occupation. News of the outside world doesn’t reach us… only, the pain somehow manages to catch me out: a bird, a butterfly, a passerby, a simple gesture-everything brings me back to Min and Jing. I get up and walk around the square.

Under the trees the players are dotted about like earthen statues arrayed by Eternity. I am overwhelmed by a feeling of pointlessness. My legs feel shaky and my head spins. A gray curtain descends from the sky.

I stop the game.

My opponent looks up and peers at me from behind his glasses. He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t get angry. He plays without asking any questions. When I leave he watches me until I am out of sight. In my thoughts, my problems have acquired a poetic grandeur; I have become a tragic actor though my only audience is the stranger.

The Square of a Thousand Winds has laid its scents upon me. I now know its every tree, each checkered tabletop, each ray of light.

There are old men, diehards, who spend all day here with a fan in one hand, a teapot in the other and their birdcage hanging from a tree. They arrive at dawn and leave in the mid-afternoon. When one’s two pots of stones stand open, it means that he is expecting someone; if they are closed, he is waiting for someone to challenge him.

I was afraid that with time they would be able to tell a fake Chinese man, but I have swept aside this fear. Speech loses all its importance here, handing over its authority to the gentle clatter of the stones.

A false identity has been invented for me, but I have never had to use it. The girl has not even asked my name.

Probably thinking that I have already taken the bait, she no longer tries to charm me. She now seems to be saving her smiles and mischievous comments for the next player she will manage to ensnare.

And for some unfathomable reason she seems to be sulking. She has dispensed with all greetings except for a quick nod of the head, and she emerges from her silence only at the end of each session so we can arrange the next one.

In the first few days I saw something of Sunlight in her, but now there is nothing, either from a distance or close up, that reminds me of the refined geisha. She moves lugubriously, her hair messily plaited, black crescents at the ends of her nails. I take her untidiness as a sign of her complete disdain for me. Pimples have appeared on her forehead, and her face has lost all the simple grace that first attracted me. The whites of her eyes have lost their beautiful bluish gleam and her expression has darkened. Her lips are cracked and her hollowed cheeks suggest a hardened soldier. The Chinese girl is changing into a man!

I overcome this disappointment by triumphing in the first direct conflict. The whites, tightly surrounded in the southern corner of the board, are gradually surrendering.

Apparently indifferent to this loss, she makes a note of our positions and hurries away.

“I might be pregnant,” my sister whispers.

After supper she follows me to my bedroom and I feel I have to congratulate her. I ask her when she saw the doctor.

She hesitates for a moment and blushes as she admits, “I haven’t been to see him yet. I’m afraid…”

“Well, how do you know then?”

Her period is ten days late.

My heart leaps. My period is ten days late, too.

“Are you sure?”

Moon Pearl takes my hands in hers.

“Listen, I’m normally very regular. This time it’s for real! When I go to bed in the evening I feel dizzy. In the morning I feel sick. All I can eat is pickled vegetables. They say that if you want to eat acidic foods you’ll have a boy. Do you think I’ll have a boy?”

I am unmoved by my sister’s happiness. I tell her she should talk to a doctor.

“I’m frightened. I’m terrified they might tell me I’m not pregnant. I haven’t told anyone about this. It’s a secret I can share only with you. Oh, my sister, I’ve discovered again this morning what it is to be happy! I put my hands over my belly and I could almost sense the baby feeding within me. With him to give me strength, I can endure the infidelity, the abandonment and the lies. With him I can start a new life!”

I find my sister’s exuberance chilling. She may long for a child, but for me to be pregnant would be death.

After Moon Pearl has left, I sit down at my calligraphy table. With a fine paintbrush I sweep black strokes on the rice paper, counting the days since my last period over and over again. It should have come exactly nine days ago.

I flop down onto my bed, my head buzzing. I don’t know how long I lie there in that state, but when I come round, the clock is striking midnight. I get undressed and go to bed, but I can’t get to sleep. It is so strange to know that a new life is germinating inside another, that my body will produce fruit!

It will inherit Min’s slanting eyes. If it is a boy, he will be happy and full of seductive charm like Min, wise and serious like my father. If it is a girl, she will have my lips and my soft skin, she will be demanding and jealous like my sister, and she will have my mother’s majestic bearing. Jing will take the child for walks, proud but still bitter. On the Square of a Thousand Winds it will learn to play go and will eventually be able to beat me.