is deep in thought. The stones have been laid out on the board with considerable skill, and I am drawn in to examine them more closely.
She looks up, wide forehead and slanting eyes like two finely drawn willow leaves. It is as if I am looking at Sunlight aged sixteen, but the illusion is short-lived: the apprentice geisha had a shy, closed sort of beauty, but this Chinese girl sits watching me unabashed. At home, elegance is associated with pallor and women avoid the sun; this girl has spent so much time playing outside that her face glows with a strange charm. Her eyes meet mine before I can look away.
She invites me to a game of go, and I pretend to hesitate to make my character more believable. Before I left the Chidori restaurant, Captain Nakamura’s collaborator told me that over the last ten years my country has become a window on the Western world for the whole of Asia. If I claim to be one of those Chinese students who has spent a long time in Tokyo, that will justify my manner, my accent and my ignorance of some topical issues.
The Chinese girl doesn’t much like talking; without asking me a single question, she urges me to start. Her very first move establishes a perverse and extravagant strategy. I have never played go with a woman; I have never been so close to one except for my mother, my sister, Akiko, geishas and prostitutes. Even though the checkered tabletop lies between me and my opponent, her young-girl smell makes me uncomfortable.
She looks as if she is dreaming as she tilts her head to one side, completely absorbed in her thoughts. Her soft face contrasts sharply with her prickly maneuvers-I find her intriguing.
How old is she? Sixteen? Seventeen? Her flat chest and her two plaits suggest all the ambiguity of adolescence, which makes girls look like transvestite boys. And yet the first signs of femininity are just emerging, like snowdrops in early spring: there is an indolent roundness to her forearms.
Night is falling quickly now and I have to get back to the barracks. She invites me to come again, and this invitation from any other woman would be somehow immodest, but this young girl knows how to put her innocence to good use.
I do not answer. She puts the stones away in their pot, clattering them against each other, a racket that is clearly a protest against my indifference. I laugh inwardly: she would be a great player if she could moderate her aggression and apply herself to a more spiritual path.
“Ten o’clock on Sunday morning,” she says.
I like her perseverance: I offer no further resistance, and agree with a nod.
At home, when women laugh they hide their faces behind the sleeves of their kimonos. The Chinese girl smiles without embarrassment or artifice. Her mouth opens with all the irresistible power of a grenade exploding.
I look away.
47
A group of pilgrims walks along an apparently endless wall and, finding a breach, they step into the enclosed area. Inside there are thousands of trees around a sparkling, rippling lake. A child is playing with a kite inside a ruined pavilion.
He smiles maliciously at the pilgrims and greets them, telling them that his kite can predict the future.
“Does it know where we are going?” asks the oldest in the group.
The kite flies off towards a corner of the ceiling, then changes direction and hurtles towards the opposite corner. Like a bird trapped in a cage, it flaps against the walls, crashes into the windows and suddenly plummets to the ground.
“Into the Darkness!”
I wake up.
This morning Min on his bicycle catches up with my rickshaw and thrusts a book into my hand. I leaf through it and find a note folded into four. He is inviting me over to Jing’s house in the late afternoon to celebrate his friend’s twentieth birthday. I decide to introduce Huong to Jing- their meeting can be my birthday present.
In the garden of Jing ’s house students are smoking, drinking and chatting. The boys, with their white silk scarves round
She looks up, wide forehead and slanting eyes like two finely drawn willow leaves. It is as if I am looking at Sunlight aged sixteen, but the illusion is short-lived: the apprentice geisha had a shy, closed sort of beauty, but this Chinese girl sits watching me unabashed. At home, elegance is associated with pallor and women avoid the sun; this girl has spent so much time playing outside that her face glows with a strange charm. Her eyes meet mine before I can look away.
She invites me to a game of go, and I pretend to hesitate to make my character more believable. Before I left the Chidori restaurant, Captain Nakamura’s collaborator told me that over the last ten years my country has become a window on the Western world for the whole of Asia. If I claim to be one of those Chinese students who has spent a long time in Tokyo, that will justify my manner, my accent and my ignorance of some topical issues.
The Chinese girl doesn’t much like talking; without asking me a single question, she urges me to start. Her very first move establishes a perverse and extravagant strategy. I have never played go with a woman; I have never been so close to one except for my mother, my sister, Akiko, geishas and prostitutes. Even though the checkered tabletop lies between me and my opponent, her young-girl smell makes me uncomfortable.
She looks as if she is dreaming as she tilts her head to one side, completely absorbed in her thoughts. Her soft face contrasts sharply with her prickly maneuvers-I find her intriguing.
How old is she? Sixteen? Seventeen? Her flat chest and her two plaits suggest all the ambiguity of adolescence, which makes girls look like transvestite boys. And yet the first signs of femininity are just emerging, like snowdrops in early spring: there is an indolent roundness to her forearms.
Night is falling quickly now and I have to get back to the barracks. She invites me to come again, and this invitation from any other woman would be somehow immodest, but this young girl knows how to put her innocence to good use.
I do not answer. She puts the stones away in their pot, clattering them against each other, a racket that is clearly a protest against my indifference. I laugh inwardly: she would be a great player if she could moderate her aggression and apply herself to a more spiritual path.
“Ten o’clock on Sunday morning,” she says.
I like her perseverance: I offer no further resistance, and agree with a nod.
At home, when women laugh they hide their faces behind the sleeves of their kimonos. The Chinese girl smiles without embarrassment or artifice. Her mouth opens with all the irresistible power of a grenade exploding.
I look away.
47
A group of pilgrims walks along an apparently endless wall and, finding a breach, they step into the enclosed area. Inside there are thousands of trees around a sparkling, rippling lake. A child is playing with a kite inside a ruined pavilion.
He smiles maliciously at the pilgrims and greets them, telling them that his kite can predict the future.
“Does it know where we are going?” asks the oldest in the group.
The kite flies off towards a corner of the ceiling, then changes direction and hurtles towards the opposite corner. Like a bird trapped in a cage, it flaps against the walls, crashes into the windows and suddenly plummets to the ground.
“Into the Darkness!”
I wake up.
This morning Min on his bicycle catches up with my rickshaw and thrusts a book into my hand. I leaf through it and find a note folded into four. He is inviting me over to Jing’s house in the late afternoon to celebrate his friend’s twentieth birthday. I decide to introduce Huong to Jing- their meeting can be my birthday present.
In the garden of Jing ’s house students are smoking, drinking and chatting. The boys, with their white silk scarves round
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