Finally, I discovered that she was ill. I had just returned from the countryside one evening. It was already late, the house was dark and the lights had been turned off. I turned on a lamp and noticed my mother’s bedroom door was ajar, but she didn’t come out to greet me as usual. I called out but there was no answer. All I heard was the quiet sound of someone moving about. I went into her room, turned on the light and saw Mum squatting down on the floor, her head propped up against the bed frame. Her face was distorted with pain, it was unnatural-looking. Tears streamed down her cheeks, her hair was a tangled mess. I rushed over to her. She grabbed me and immediately began to weep like a child. I asked her what was wrong. She cried out in a choked voice that she was dying. She called out again, asking me to take her to the hospital. Her tears and sweat glittered under the light of the lamp. I’d never seen Mum cry out in pain before. I had never seen her in such a state – her body had gone limp like vegetable leaves wilted by a frost. In the dusky glow emanating from the lamp, she looked like a mass of wrinkled clothes. The following day the doctor told me that my mother was suffering from liver cancer, already in its terminal stages – there was simply nothing that could be done.

To be honest, to write this hurts … it hurts so much! I was never willing to talk about it before, but talking about it now … I somehow feel a little better. I think, it doesn’t matter if Mum was somehow a part of Father; it seems as though we all belonged somehow to that red-walled compound, we are all somehow a part of it. Mum was Father’s wife, but she was also his comrade-in-arms; she had given her whole life to him. When I light an incense stick in memory of him, I must remember to light one for her as well, and to cry …

Day Four

Darkness has already shrouded the courtyard, but still the smells and sounds of it creep in past the metal window frame. The glow from the lamp is soft and indeterminate, it illuminates my mood. Staring at the draft paper next to the lamp, I notice that at some point it had become a kifu, a record of go games. An image of Father appears in my mind – his hand seems to move in and out from the shadows in a confused way. He longed to play a game of go again.

But who could play with him?