Ran Chen - A Private Life

I took hold of him, and gently guided that lost and hungry lamb into the sweet pasture of its yearning…

Ah, his love! So young, so vital!

Our half hour was too soon over, and it was time to bid each other good-bye.

As we separated from our last burning embrace, I felt the unaccountable rush of a winter chill sweep over me. The open pores of my hot skin shrank shut at its touch.

With the approach of our last moment, I began to tremble uncontrollably.

Yin Nan had his hand on my shoulder as we made our way out of the warehouse. As I moved toward the door, I kept thinking that in another hour that hand would be reaching out in the blue empyrean, making its way westward to Europe, to that city of profound speculation and philosophy, Berlin. Never again would I be able to touch him. The heat I could feel at that moment from the hand on my shoulder would have dissipated within less than a minute, perhaps, of his last good-bye.

I very clearly remember the weather that day. It was as gray and listless as the exhausted faces of people on the street, who had endured more than a month of tortuous summer temperatures. To pull up my spirits, I began hoping that Yin Nan would suddenly change his mind or that something unexpected would occur, making it impossible for him to leave me so soon. Even just a day would be good.

Only at the very last moment, when his back finally disappeared at the end of the street, did I give up this hope.

By the time we parted, the light had already started to fade, so I set off toward the hospital where Mother was convalescing.

Again my silent tears began to flow. But I didn't know whom I was shedding them for, because I was quite aware that our relationship had not been so long or deep-rooted that it was to be cut forever into my soul. But after Ho's death, this young man with whom I had shared such intimacies was the only close friend I had left. Having departed, he was to become a memory that I would cling to desperately, a lifeless cloak that I was to invest with vitality. This "cloak," which from the moment of Yin Nan's last good-bye would never again be real, enclosed an image of him that was to become ever more perfect. All those intimacies obscured in shadow because they were too private were wrapped up, locked within that perfect, shining, inviolate outer "cloak." It took on an eternal radiance that had a more lasting allure than the actual person. This sudden, unexpected termination of our love gave it an enduring beauty, like the eternal beauty of the living flow arrested in marble.

Of all the ways that human relationships can end, this is the most moving.

It was for this that I shed my tears.

At last, I lifted my head to look in the direction of the airport, and sure enough, I could make out a silver-gray object that looked like a huge kite floating against a blue backdrop, dancing at the end of an immensely long cotton string that I held in my hand. Little by little, I pulled it in until it was directly above where I stood.

As it came slowly toward me, its shape became clearer and clearer.

Eventually I could see that it apparently was not an airplane, but not until it was very near did I realize that it was a person. And what was strange was that it was not Yin Nan. The person soaring up there like some huge bird was myself.

There on the ground was the real me holding a kite string, controlling another self-same me up there in the blue…

One summer many years later, to my total surprise, I once again encountered this fleeting illusion, which had been very much like a scene from a film.

In the hottest part of the summer of 1993, when I quite by chance saw the Italian movie 8 1/ 2, it seemed like the gods had arranged this meeting with Federico Fellini, the film's eccentric director, who had created the same illusion.

Again, in the summer of 1994, I embraced the work of Ingmar Bergman, another male who was to infatuate me, when I saw in multitrack sound his films Wild Strawberries and The Seventh Seal.

But all of this happened later.

They and I lived in different, mad ages, but for a fleeting moment our minds had shared the same visions.

Wild Strawberries:

… I think it was also on a bright summer day. An old man dreamed that he was walking on a quiet, deserted street in a strangely desolate city. His shadow was outlined by the sunlight, but he felt very cold nonetheless. As he strolled down the broad, tree-lined street, the sound of his footsteps echoed uneasily from the surrounding buildings.

He felt strange, but he had no idea why.

While he was passing an optometrist's shop, he noticed that there were no hands or numbers on the big clock on the store's sign. He took his watch out of his breast pocket and checked the time. But the hands of his very accurate old gold timepiece had also disappeared. His time had run out; those hands would never again indicate time for him. He held the watch next to his ear to check that it was still ticking, but all he heard was the beating of his own racing heart.

Putting his watch back in his breast pocket, he looked up at the optometrist's sign, only to see that the big pair of eyes on it had almost totally rotted away. Frightened out of his wits, he turned around and started walking in the direction of his home.

At a street corner, he at last saw another person standing with his back to him. He rushed over and bodily spun him around, only to discover that under the floppy brim of his hat there was no face, and as his body turned it collapsed as if it were nothing more than a heap of dust or wood shavings, leaving an empty suit of clothes crumpled on the ground.

Only then did he discover that everyone along that tree-lined street that connected with the city square had died. There was not a living soul… A hearse clanked by, its wheels rumbling loudly as it lurched along the rough street. Just as it reached him, the coffin fell off as three of its metal wheels rolled over, and clattered down beside him. As he was looking at the coffin, its lid sprang open. There was not a sound or a breath coming from it. Curious, he ventured slowly over to it. As he did so, an arm suddenly shot out from those splintered planks and clung to him desperately. Then the corpse slowly arose. He stared at it transfixed. The corpse standing there in the coffin in a swallowtailed coat was himself.

Death was calling…

The Seventh Seal:

Overhead, the dull gray sky was dead as the vaulted ceiling of a tomb.

A black cloud stood motionless on the horizon as the curtain of night began to fall. A strange bird hung aloft, severing the air with its unsettling cries.

The knight Antonius was seeking the road back home through fields littered with corpses in a pestilence-ridden land.

He surveyed the scene around him.

There was a man standing behind him all dressed in black, his face an unusual ashen gray, his hands hidden in the deep folds of his cloak.

Turning to him, the knight asked, "Who are you?"

The man in black with the ashen face said, "I am Death."

The knight: "Have you come looking for me?"

Death: "I have been watching you for a very long time."

The Knight: "I have known this – it is your way."

Death: "This is my territory. Are you ready to 'set off' with me now?"

The knight: "My flesh is a bit frightened, but I myself don't give it much note."

Death spread open his black cloak to enclose the knight.

The knight: "Wait a moment."

Death: "I cannot delay your time."

The knight: "You like to play chess, don't you?"

Death: "How did you find that out?"

The knight: "I have seen it in paintings, heard it in people's songs."

Death: "You are right, of course. I am an excellent chess player."