Seeing I was getting angry, she got me to sit down and play a game of go with her. I didn’t want to play because there was no way I was good enough. She paid no attention to me but started scrutinizing the board, black pieces in one hand and white pieces in the other, helping me to play against her. She looked like a complete lunatic talking to herself: ‘Ah, I knew you would take that spot … if you put your piece there then mine goes here … the next piece someone at your level would put here. Actually that’s a really stupid move, but what can you do, that’s the level you play at …’ In the end I was forced to take over my go pieces and start playing against her properly.

We played, and then the board ended up soaked in her tears: we were back to square one! She was asking me again why I didn’t love her.

‘Can we please talk about something else?’

‘But I want to talk about it. I want you to tell me why you don’t love me.’

I thought about it for a moment. ‘Because I love someone else.’

She looked at me. ‘Who? You mean … your late wife?’

I nodded.

‘Don’t you think that’s a bit weird?’

‘I think … until the dead person has been buried, to find someone new would be wrong.’

She smiled coldly. ‘Your wife is dead. Don’t you think it is disrespectful to leave her unburied, sitting on your little home-made altar?’

‘I’m waiting for the right day.’

‘When will that be, the anniversary of her death? Christmas? The anniversary of the founding of the PLA? Or are you planning to wait until National Day?’

‘No, none of those.’

‘You’re not telling me you’re going to wait until we’ve cracked RECOVERY?’

‘Yes.’

There was a strange light in her eyes, and she looked at me fixedly for a long time, then she said, ‘You mean … if I crack RECOVERY you will love me?’

I laughed bitterly. ‘You carry on about love day in and day out; is love really that important?’

‘Is there anything more important than love?’

‘Right now cracking RECOVERY is the most important thing for me, more important than everything else put together. If you’re talking about love, that’s the very greatest kind of love. It is the living embodiment of our love for the country, our love for the Party, our love for the people, and for Communism.’

‘But our Party, our country, our people and Communism don’t say that you can only love them; that you can’t love anyone else.’

‘All other kinds of love are subordinate to those. The only thing I care about right now is cracking RECOVERY: nothing else.’

‘I want to crack RECOVERY too, and I am sure that if you promise me one thing, I can do it.’