Gao Xingjian - One Man

On the tape, Martina's speech was slurred. She had been drinking all afternoon, and, when Sylvie arrived, there were already quite a few empty beer bottles on the table. Martina often just drank beer instead of eating and drinking water. She started laughing loudly, and her voice on the tape was hoarse. Sylvie said this woman friend of hers used to have a good voice, a natural mezzo-soprano, and, before she was admitted to the psychiatric hospital, she had been a reserve member of a choir. Once, when she sang Fauré's Requiem at Saint-Germain Church, it was recorded by the France-Musique radio program and played on the air.

You never met Martina. She died some months before you met Sylvie. The only thing she left Sylvie was this small cassette tape, and, in the second half, the battery had almost run out as the tape was being recorded. Their voices were muffled and barely audible, and Martina's hoarse voice really sounded like a man's.

At the beginning, there wasn't anything serious. "Have a drink?"-"All right."-"I've also got half a bottle of red wine."-

"Won't it have gone off?"-"No, it was only opened yesterday…" After that, there was the sound of glasses, then some scratching noises, probably the table was being wiped. Sylvie said Martina's home was a filthy mess, and there was nowhere to set your foot down. But it was only like that after she came out of the psychiatric hospital, it hadn't been like that before. Martina said she hated the psychiatric hospital and hated her mother; it was her mother who had put her there. The tape also said that she came across this man on the street and took him home. Afterward, there were the two of them laughing, the high-pitched laugh was Sylvie's and the throaty one was Martina's. They laughed for a long time, and then there was the sound of glasses again. "What happened?" It was Sylvie asking. "Did I throw him out? He hung around until the afternoon of the next day, but was scared off after I said I'd call the police." There was the sound of laughing again.

"How old was she when she died?" you ask Sylvie.

"She was older than me… by nine years, she was over thirty-eight when she died."

"That's young. Was she ever married?" you ask.

"No, the two of them lived together, then separated."

"How did she die?"

"I don't know, her mother phoned me four days after she died and said she had this tape. When I asked for it, her mother wouldn't agree at first. I told her it had my voice on it and that I wanted it as a keepsake."

"Didn't you ask her mother about it? How she had died?"

"Her mother wouldn't say much, except that she had committed suicide. She refused to see me, even though she knew me. Anyway, she sent the tape; Martina, of course, had my address in her phone book."

She showed you a photograph of Martina, a young woman with gentle eyes and clearly defined lips. Her mouth was wide-open, and she was laughing. Probably because of her makeup, her eyes looked more deep-set than Sylvie's pale-brown eyes. It was taken the summer when they were traveling in Spain together, almost ten years ago. At Martina's side was a lean man with deep-set eyes and a black stubble, Vincent. At the time, he was living with Martina. They had a small van and had taken along her and Jean, the good-looking young man behind Sylvie's head. Sylvie had just started university, and Jean was two years older. Jean said Sylvie was his first real lover, and she preferred to believe him. But she knew that he'd had such experiences before, of course, sexual experiences. She showed you another album, there was a photograph of Martina taken a year before she died. The corners of her lips drooped, and she looked like an old woman. Sylvie said Martina looked much better in person, that she had the sensuousness of a mature woman, a sad weariness.

It was hard for her to describe her feelings for Martina. They used to talk about everything, although, for a few years, they had avoided one another. It was after returning from Spain that she hated her, Sylvie said, she hated Martina. She and Jean had taken a tent with them, and one night it started pouring rain. They were totally wretched, and it was impossible for them to sleep, so Martina got them to come into the van. At first, Sylvie and Jean sat in the front and slept leaning against one another. Martina got her to come into the back, to sleep next to her, but then proceeded to make love to Vincent. Sylvie felt uncomfortable and pretended to be asleep. Afterward, Martina climbed into the front and left her sleeping with Vincent, she was half-asleep, and it was raining heavily outside. As it was just starting to become light, she heard Martina doing it with Jean; next, Vincent had put his hand into her clothes, and she and Vincent started doing it. The rain pelting down on the roof of the van had turned everything into a vast rustling chaos, and it all seemed so very natural. The next day, they took a room in a hotel, and Vincent requested an additional bed for the room. Martina gleefully gave the big bed to Vincent and her, she didn't object, and Jean didn't say anything. The first time she heard Jean call out while making love, she, too, called out. It was then that she started to engage in oral sex.

Life is like that. Martina and Vincent split up, she didn't love the man anyway. She never asked how long Martina had continued with Jean, but she herself no longer loved Jean, she wasn't interested in what he was doing, she already had another boyfriend.

"Do you want to go on listening?" she asks with a sarcastic look on her face.

She also said she wondered if Martina had already made up her mind to commit suicide when she was making that recording with her. And why hadn't she spoken to her about it? She no longer resented Martina for having killed herself, that had passed a long time ago, she was no longer sickened by feelings of disillusionment and anger. Was it Martina's own rotten idea, or was it a trap Vincent had set? If it was a trap, Maritna had jumped into it herself, she hated no one. Martina had savored both the intoxication and the bitterness of life, for her guilt and ecstasy were above ethics. It was impossible for Sylvie to describe her feelings for Martina, yet it was only Martina in whom she could fully confide.

"Men don't understand, men aren't capable of understanding. Don't go misconstruing the feelings between two women." She said she wasn't a lesbian, that with Martina there was never what all you men imagine, she knew what you were thinking. But she could tell you that she had a sort of longing for Martina. She knew why she had killed herself; she didn't have a mental problem, but her family insisted on her being treated for a mental disorder. It was because of the family's reputation, her mother couldn't allow her daughter to be a slut. But she wasn't a whore, she never was. It was just that no one could understand her, people just were not willing to try and understand her.

"The people are victorious!"

This had been announced on all the walls in Tiananmen Square.

However, the victory was not the people's, it was still the Party's, the Party had smashed yet another anti-Party organization. Less than one month after Mao's death, his widow, Jiang Qing, had been arrested, and the people had been summoned to Tiananmen Square to celebrate the victory. The Party is forever right! Forever glorious!

And everlasting, because it was still Mao Zedong who was sleeping peacefully in a crystal coffin for people to view.

After a deluge of old cadres were exonerated, reinstated, and promoted, some cadres he had once protected, especially Comrade Wang Qi, had given some thought to old friends, and he, this insignificant person, was brought back to Beijing. It was on that old narrow street in Dashanlan, beyond Qianmen, that he ran into Big Li, who, back then, had been in the rebel Red Guards with him.