Ten days later I receive a letter from Lu. He tells me he has obtained a passport for the inner territories, [6] and that by the time I read his letter he will have left for Peking. I feel strangely sad as I decipher his words. I go to the Square of a Thousand Winds, where the players, unperturbed, abandon themselves to their accustomed passion.
As a little girl I used to follow my cousin wherever he played. Once he was so much consumed by a fever that he passed out on the go-board, and I won the tournament for him, a victory by which I became the only woman to be admitted into the exclusive society of true enthusiasts.
Years have passed and now I am anxiously watching the twilight of my childhood, quietly sinking, never to rise again.
Lu doesn’t understand. He wants me to join him in the adult world, but he doesn’t realize that I think it is a sad place full of vanity, and it frightens me.
<a l:href="#_ftnref6">[6]</a> As Manchuria is often called “the country outside the Great Wall,” the areas inside the Great Wall are also known as the “inner territories.” In 1932, when Manchuria became independent, the Japanese instituted a system of passports so that they had more control over movements between the zone that was under their influence and the rest of China.