by Qiu Miaojin
LETTER SEVENTEEN
JUNE 11
I could barely eat for the first week. Yong frantically wracked her brains each day to cook me meals or take me to different restaurants. She watched attentively as I ate, or peered at me out of the corner of her eye while she was eating to check if I was getting something down or if I liked anything. She laughed and said, “I don’t care if I go broke to get you to eat.” She wasn’t someone who expressed her concern for me directly, and sometimes would even say the opposite of what she meant. Since meeting her five years ago, I haven’t recalled her once saying “I love you.” Most of the memories I accumulated of her are of unemotional words she’d said, or even worse, of words so cold that we eventually screamed at each other. With her, the old adage of judging a person by their actions and not by their words is especially true. This is something that took me a really long time to grasp.
It was very painful for me to eat. Sometimes as soon as I swallowed a mouthful of food I’d vomit it all back up again. Yong noticed and stayed calm, but I could see in her eyes a flash of genuine worry overcoming indifference, of reason overcoming emotion (the expression in her eyes I’ve always appreciated). I could sense her determination to keep me alive, and that she would do whatever it took to save my physical body, to help it to eat again, sleep again, so it could survive. . . . I had been depressed for so long, I couldn’t remember when my depression started. Over the last year it had developed more specific symptoms like anorexia and insomnia, turning my life bit by bit into a shell, sucking my life dry of blood and flesh, like two sentries of the angel of death sent to follow me all year until I reached the point of no return and they could steal me away.
I’ll never forget that evening we sat in the second story of a café and I told her I had come to see her in Tokyo because she was the only one who could understand the deepest parts of me and that these parts were intimately connected to her. In my time of deepest suffering I trusted her alone, knowing she could understand. I wanted to spend the last moments of my life with her. I wanted to see just her because she alone could give me the desire and the courage to live. I could only imagine living for her because only her existence truly needed me, needed my existence to live. I wanted to live for her and be confident and courageous for her. I wanted to live to take care of her. . . . Her eyes flashed as she watched me closely. Through the windows the sky had gone from nightfall to pitch-dark.
When we left the café hand in hand, it was drizzling. The narrow streets were dotted with little shops closing for the night. The outside air was warm.
We ducked into a cozy sushi restaurant, where we saw many people sitting on barstools around an oval-shaped sushi counter behind which a chef in a white cap and uniform smiled as he prepared the fish. His technique was so quick and precise, it was as if all the different kinds of sushi flying onto the conveyor belt were doing a dance for the customers. The front of the restaurant was rectangular. A line of people were waiting, facing the chef, and Yong and I squeezed into line with them. Everyone seemed confined by a sadness within the prison of their bodies, as waiters called out orders, hurrying around the bustling space that seemed hermetically sealed. . . . I sat down, my hands folded together over my knees, not daring to turn and glance at Yong next to me, not daring to move, afraid that this feeling of joy I couldn’t breathe in quick enough might dissipate. I was like a bashful bride or a shy groom, my head in a cloud of face powder. . . .
I want to kiss you, I said softly.
Okay.
But I can’t.
After we were seated she carefully chose some dishes I might like and keep down. Every plate had two pieces of sushi on it. She would eat one first before removing any wasabi from the other one, then placed her chopsticks down to watch me and keep me company as I chewed, swallowed, and began to digest the sushi she had given me before she turned again to choose more food.
In the three years we’d been apart, a period when a pair of heartless yet loving people were kept apart by time and space, she had actually grown into a mature adult, quietly transformed into a grown-up capable of bearing the weight of another’s life. She dispensed with words, or at least communicated in a language free of the emotional burden of words, while showing genuine concern for me; and when I was close to breaking down, she did everything she could to lift my problematic life and make me feel loved.
There will often still be joy and beauty, I murmured to myself.
Shoulder to shoulder we stepped slightly drunk into the dim light of the night and headed for the bus stop that would point the way home.
The three weeks I was in Tokyo happened to coincide with the ephemeral cherry-blossom season.
Yong thought it would be unhealthy for me to spend all day at home and often took me out for a walk at dusk, or for a bike ride to the trolley station in the afternoon, and then to run some errands and ride home singing merrily in the rain. A few days before the cherry blossoms bloomed, we searched for signs of life on the branches, and once the buds had opened, she instructed me in the way to observe the blossoms as they burst forth each day. . . . I remember riding our bicycles around many bessou villas and country roads, as well as down many dilapidated alleyways before riding along a pencil-straight, desolate highway to a small village outside the city. A riotous energy rushed through the town akin to the streets, crowds, vendors, vehicles, and atmosphere of the Tokyo metropolis area. . . . During these journeys, we were two friends who had known each other for a long time and had loved each other and separated and then reunited, our old bicycles on this trajectory of life in this season of blossoming. . . . What kind of risks were we taking and what were we chasing? Two people so far from home, far from our loved ones, each of us having gone to live in a foreign country, reuniting on a foreign-beyond-foreign highway, pedaling on our rusted bicycles, one of us on the verge of death—what was this exile, roaming, and homecoming we were enacting?
It was a kind of journey with her—in Taiwan, in Paris, in Tokyo—that I could not see clearly. For more than five years it had presented itself to me as broken fragments of spine and limb, always hazy suffering and sorrow without end or pause, without restraint or silence, and endless separation, a journey into an endless vacuum from which even our mutual tears and cries had been extracted. . . .
Do fated connections exist between people? Does someone in the remotest corner of the world have a fated connection with me that I must pursue? I’ve been asking myself these questions for eight years.
A friend once casually told me that life is just a big pile of coincidences, and that if I insist on believing in the fatedness of connections it’s merely my own fantasy. If I still believe my life has an absolute value or meaning then I’m an anachronism, old-fashioned. I still believe in fate, but hasn’t fate often smashed me to bits? Smashed me to bits toward annihilation, each collapse worse than the last? Yong, am I but a boldly excessive gambler?
On the way home, we walked one to the left of a bicycle and one to the right of a bicycle along a stretch of desolate highway, the fiery red sunset shining over the distant orchards and farms and farther beyond, a clear matchless immensity, the delicate beauty of her face illuminated, and I said that in this life all I desire is to walk with her in this evening light and I’d be okay.
I didn’t want her to see me off to the airport; I didn’t want to face the spectacle of saying goodbye to her again. I stumbled my way through Shinjuku on my own to take the express train to the airport. (If there is ever another earthquake in Tokyo and identities are lost, I will not claim my own name during reconstruction. I won’t speak until you lead me out from the crowd, for you will recognize me in my silence.) Her voice echoed in my ears; I saw her face through the train windows as it lurched forward and my tears streamed down. This time the sound of uncontrollable sobs and more tears. . . .
LETTER EIGHTEEN
(The period of tender love: Xu is in Taiwan, Zoë is in Taiwan)
Book of Odes I.3 (31):
In life or in death, however separated
We pledged our word to our wives
We held hands
We would grow old together
LETTER NINETEEN
(The Golden Age of Oaths I: Xu is in Taipei, Zoë is in Tours)
From 2:58 a.m. on, I woke up every five minutes. We rose from bed, packed the luggage, got into the car, watched the Jianan fields pass by in the darkness until we reached the Chiang Kai-shek International Airport, checked in, and waited for customs to open at eight o’clock. Maybe you called to say goodbye to your family, or ate some breakfast, dozed off . . . little things. Airport security wouldn’t let me see you to your gate and the plane finally took off and you were gone forever away.
I wanted to board the plane with you, to show our boarding passes to the flight attendant together, eat the awful meal together, ask for our drinks together, sit side by side and talk until I put my head on your shoulder as you read and slept, and then wake up together and listen to music, watch a movie, go to the bathroom. . . . Maybe we’d fall asleep again and then wake up to another meal only slightly more appetizing than the first and watch the shifting cloud formations outside the window together, and hear the captain announce that we were about to land in Hong Kong, about to land in Malaysia, about to land in Paris. . . .
Do I think too much? All I really want is to fly with you.
· · ·
Around the world
I’ve searched for you
I traveled on
When hope was gone
To keep a rendezvous
I know, somewhere, sometime, somehow
You’d look at me
And I would see
The smile you’re smiling now
It might have been
In country town
Or in New York
In gay Paree
Or even London Town
No more will I
Go all around the world
For I have found
My world
In you.
“Around the World”
In late 1992, I enjoyed three long months to myself, thanks to you.
· · ·
When I received the first four shots of the twenty-one gun salute (the letter from Paris, the poster of a musicians’ family tree, the Klimt postcard, and the photograph), the sky exploded with fireworks and the festivities were under way—the March festivities that Zoë had prepared for me. I was piously welcoming the celebration like a crying newborn opening her eyes for the first time.
As I unfolded the poster of the musicians’ family tree in my room and began to look up some names, Ciacia Her’s song “We Keep Going, Happily” slipped out of my mouth unconsciously, and I was startled to hear the purity of my own voice. My mind and eyes glowed with golden light, reflecting the clothing of the woman in the Klimt painting. So that is what a happy woman looks like. What would become of this woman when the twenty-one gun salute finished?
It was only when I looked at the photograph that I realized how long it had been since I’d seen you. My wound was still fresh. I wanted to go back to the Leofoo Inn to examine it more closely; you were wearing that huge backpack; your new glasses were refined but the lenses smudged. I adored that photograph of you standing under the statue of Napoleon as if you didn’t know whether to climb up or jump down; your pretty figure, your cute expression; actually, all the photos from Pont Napoleon were wonderful; Centre Pompidou; the deep expression in your eyes in the photo of “Duchamp’s Toilet”; ah, look at you in Les Halles, I wanted to hold you tight, cheek to cheek, and check if you clipped your fingernails. . . . Zoë, I haven’t seen you for so very long now!
Good night, Zoë, tonight I’ll watch you, and listen as you fall asleep. (I have a million treasures under my pillow.)
· · ·
I regret telling you about my eyes and making you worry. Don’t worry. I’ll take good care of my precious eyes for you.
You’ll let me fall in love again? I laugh as I write this. Don’t you realize I fall in love with you every day? On the bus home today I thought I wasn’t loving you consistently, nor was I loving you more and more; rather, I was falling in love with you again every day. Strange, isn’t it? What I want most of all is to give you a home, as figurative as it is real. The letter I most want to write to you is the ordinary “How’s everything going at home?” My only wish is to build you a home, the kind that would always just be there, whether or not you returned, whether or not you wanted it, whether or not you cared.
What I’ve worried about most in these past two days is that my mother would have to cope with yet another catastrophe. I’m overwhelmed thinking about it, and then about you. Zoë, what would become of you if something really happened to me? You used to say you’d go to Penghu to finish writing four hundred letters to me, but what would you do now? Would you treat it tenderly as something arranged by fate? And gently keep me company? You are the one I find hardest to let go of; I still haven’t given you a home! I’ve been working so, so hard on it, did you know that? But for the last two days, I could only observe helplessly that heaven did not want to give me the chance.
I should go to bed early for you and rest my eyes.
· · ·
Alone in my room I feel this time and space belongs totally to you. Willing to pause here, I let my tears slowly fall. . . .
Phoning you lately has become an exercise in missing you. I came home and after dinner I fell asleep clutching my pillow. I woke up at midnight, a silent moment. The phone was right next to me and I really wanted to call and say nothing, just have you on the other end of the line. Then I could just rest my cheek against the receiver and it would be enough.
Really this was all I wanted, to live a quiet life. To listen quietly to your voice from the backseat of your scooter, quietly let you button up my coat, quietly lean against you, quietly stroke your hair and part it with my fingers, quietly organize books with you, quietly enjoy things you liked or I liked or things we both liked together, really that’s all.
Can’t we? Unless you don’t want to, I can’t think of any reason why not to.
Good night, Zoë, a Zhivago-esque night.
· · ·
It was probably the spell you had cast on me by saying you would be back. When I left the office I felt like you and Dio were waiting for me and I could even see your smile. . . . It was as if the sky and earth had turned pure white with happiness. I love you, Zoë. Do you hear me?
I rushed home to shower and wash my hair. I wanted to be clean to write to you, give you my cleanest self, as if I were in search of the purest patch of ground on which to love you.
Good night, Zoë, you are my contentment.
· · ·
You’re insane. Ever since I received the letter about how happy you felt I should’ve been on guard. When you suddenly ran outside without your winter coat on and your nose running and your body shivering and you sprained your ankle, were you deliberately trying to alarm me? You exasperate me, you’re infuriating, I worry constantly about you. . . .
After work I took Xinsheng South Road to Shibao Square to buy you a copy of If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler and I couldn’t stop crying at the thought of you running a fever in Paris. What can I say? This time there really isn’t anything to say! I have nothing to say, only these falling tears. . . .
Good night Zoë, my air.
· · ·
In your loneliness, remember that I’m here waiting for you! I’m with you.
Good night, Zoë, I can’t bear your loneliness.
· · ·
Whenever I feel a confrontation of critical moments in this growing-up process, I feel you, reliable you, by my side.
· · ·
I feel like you’re going to leave sooner or later. Not the kind of leaving where you run away, but where I’m not really right for you. . . . Do you know what I mean? That I’m a temporary harbor for you, and all I’ll ever be for you is a temporary
harbor. One day you’ll see.
· · ·
I sometimes wonder what having my first love at age twenty-three means. Ever since the first time I resisted the truth after finishing college and then met you and had such a deep and beautiful relationship amid a tumult of conflicting values, I was unprepared to suddenly be propelled into a. . . . How should I put it? It was as if I needed to know and uphold what I believed in, but what that was wasn’t clear, with issues like human dignity, freedom, compassion, and open-mindedness . . . and also love, and purity. . . . Zoë, forget promises. I simply can’t imagine making a home with someone else, raising children with someone else, nor can I imagine ever giving myself so completely to someone else. Nor can I accept your “temporary harbor,” especially after having had such a perfect relationship with you. So if we can no longer be together, perhaps I really will go run an orphanage! So I’ll always have children to love, and I can give them freedom and dignity and tenderness.
· · ·
Starting a new job eases my mind, but a different kind of unease wells up as I confront all the uncertainties and anxieties of my new life, the fear and trepidation. Zoë, will you wait for me? Or will you run before I’m steady on my feet, leaving me on my own to stumble around? Today I sense a new kind of need, like that of a small child who has been sent into the darkness and must ask for directions, hoping that someone will be waiting at the glow at the mouth of the cave, yet I know deep inside one ultimately must depend on oneself. But that hand! The hand outstretched at the mouth of the cave offering direction, offering solace in confronting the darkness, such needed solace.
· · ·
I trust you. Before I realized certain things I had already been through so much with you. When I suddenly knew I trusted you, I also knew I would trust you forever, regardless of your promises of fidelity, or of love. I trust you, yes, I will trust you. I faintly sense that this “trust” relates to my conviction that I won’t ever change much, even if you were to leave me. If the day comes when you fall in love with someone else and don’t love me anymore, I might shut down and shrivel up and die, but I would not turn into a monster, because I would still trust you—the past, present, and future “you.” Do you see the cause-and-effect relationship between change and trust?
