Mu Xin - An Empty Room

It is now February. Two more months remain. Sotheby’s has announced that the auction will take place under the most confidential conditions. Not even the list of guests will be made public.

Nearing the fifth tombstone. .

Ordinarily a coin would just pass between my fingers without my careful examination, but now I read, on the obverse side just above the Lincoln Memorial, that line in Latin — e pluribus unum — which figuratively eulogizes this country. The eulogy, however, certainly doesn’t limit the possibilities of what this can suggest.

Turning over the coin sends messages; not turning it over also sends messages, such as:

I am dead.

I have completely forgotten you.

I do not come anymore.

Apart from death, which is ordained by Heaven, the other two messages might be saying to the Other: I am frivolous and fickle. A judgment is then implied: the Other is a romantic fool, since only a fool will communicate for so long with someone frivolous and fickle.

It is also possible that the Other has fallen into the fated cycle and cannot break free from it. Or the Other is already tired of sneaking into the woods, morning and evening, just to turn the coin over. This possibility is my sorrow.

I’m afraid of the intrusion of a third person who might see the coin, pick it up, and throw it away. If this happens, there will be confusion and the messages will change:

Stop.

This is absurd.

Eliminate the absurdity.

If the coin is not there, the intrusion of a third person should be the first explanation. Then another similar coin should be placed there, with the portrait turned up.

I’m also convinced that if my Other finds the coin missing, my Other will, upon reflection, put another coin in the same place, with the Memorial turned up.

If so, is the essence of the situation not dissimilar to vows of love?

If the flipping of the coin is the work of either a divine will or a demonic will, it can be ignored — whatever tricks God or the devil plays on someone, this person can still be tenacious enough to deal with them. What is in question, however, is the human will. The gender, age, appearance, and personality of the Other are unknown. The more time that passes, the less I’m interested in knowing the personality, appearance, age, and gender of the Other. What I have in mind is a purely human thought. Is it not like the line in Latin: e pluribus unum ?

(In her letter, Sandra says that her daughter has been admitted to a school nearby so that she can at last devote herself to her work as a journalist. As if I were one of her regular sources, she asks without explanation:

Are you coming in April? I mean, of course, the end of March. I’ll be glad to take you to see those items the Duchess of Windsor has left behind. The most touching piece is, undoubtedly, the ruby necklace. Wallis Simpson was wearing it when I first met her at Mrs. X’s salon. She was forty then, pretty as a clear spring in the forest, a beauty unmatched by anyone of her generation. She belongs to the last century. Or, rather, hers is a nineteenth-century personality adrift in the twentieth.

I hope you can come. Of course you will have to resist the temptation of going to Sotheby’s. If you end up deciding not to come, I wouldn’t miss the six days of the exhibition, from March 17th to the 22nd, when it will be in New York. If you see it, at least you will have something to talk about later.

I imagine you must regret that the Duchess’s personal things will soon be scattered. Being scattered means they will be lost, but I won’t be able to persuade Mrs. X to purchase the whole lot. Oh, those wretched buyers! As for the ruby necklace, I have already lobbied the queen of platinum and made her furious enough to pledge that she will get it no matter what. How happy you would make me if you could come and see for yourself to whom the necklace will finally belong.

You know Wallis always lived in the shadows. Of course this means she also lived in David’s love. When the Duke died, she turned gray. He and she had no cause; they only had their love. Just as you once mocked, love was their cause. Well, what of those who take such love as their cause?)

(My letter in reply: I cannot come to Switzerland at the end of March. I’m not even sure if I can make the trip in April or May.

I will come though. When I come I will tell you what has been happening here.

Please don’t ask, and especially don’t try to do your detective work over the phone. I cannot make myself clear. I know I can count on your understanding. And please forgive me for not writing you for so long. I’ve stopped writing in my diary.

When I come to Geneva, I will bring something for you to compare with the ruby necklace. I wouldn’t speculate though — you won’t be able to guess what it is. It’s neither good nor bad. At any rate, I’ll stop mocking those who take love as their cause, but I will not stop mocking those journalists who uphold the news about love as their cause. You’re an exception because you know you always are to me.

When the ruby necklace is on display at Sotheby’s in New York, I will pay homage to it as you asked me to — it will still be a legendary and therefore sacred object. After that, after April, it will become a vulgar piece of commodity. Yes, I am slightly dejected. The world is so large, yet there is no hiding place for a woman’s jewelry. Why must they be dismembered like a corpse and scattered about? It is indeed a sentimental education. I remember the auctioning of Madame Arnoux’s belongings, which happened when she was still alive. That was cruelty, pure cruelty. Incidentally, literature is. . it will succeed when you exquisitely fail at writing .)

I visit the cemetery every Friday now. One afternoon, I found the coin had been turned over again. There was no mistake about it. Ecstasy stung me like needles.

A few heavy snowfalls have piled up snow, particularly in the north-west corner of the cemetery. I have now learned to see a difference between the naked trees: some can hold snow on their branches, others cannot. After a heavy snowfall, for instance, the arbor trees of varying heights still show their branches, clean and bare.

When the coin is covered by the snow, I have an ominous feeling that the fated cycle has come to an end. I reach out my palm to tenderly brush the snow aside like someone looking for treasure, or a dead body.

February 6th. I’ve spent an entire day in Manhattan handling my worldly affairs. Not until I’m finished do I realize the depth of the snow and the depth of the night. Traffic is difficult. When I drive up to the church, the gate at the entrance is lowered, prohibiting one from parking. The silver-colored plaza is wide and spacious. In one of the monastery’s upstairs windows, a light, seen through the snowflakes, glows a soft orange color. More than a month has passed since Christmas.

Falling snow on a windless day has a moist warmth. Under my steps, fresh white snow crackles, and I feel a strange mixture of guilt and gratitude. The silence on this snowy night is innocent the way the snow of a temperate zone has a childishness that won’t last.

A thick layer of snow covers the platform of the tomb. My hand reaches into the surface beneath the snow. I pull out the coin. By the flame of my lighter, I see it clearly. I turn it over, push it into the snow, making sure it’s flat on the stone.

The cemetery is enveloped in white, whirling snowflakes and seems quite foreign, recalling the snowy wilderness of my now distant childhood.

I light a cigarette. I already know and see that I’m known and seen.

(12:00 a.m., midnight. When we leave the cemetery together it is 3:30 in the morning. E pluribus unum . Snow keeps falling.)