The Lover

The Lover

ONE DAY, I was already old, in the entrance of a public place a man came up to me. He introduced himself and said: ‘I’ve known you for years. Everyone says you were beautiful when you were young, but I want to tell you I think you’re more beautiful now than then. Rather than your face as a young woman, I prefer your face as it is now. Ravaged.’
I often think of the image only I can see now, and of which I’ve never spoken. It’s always there, in the same silence, amazing. It’s the only image of my-self I like, the only one in which I recognize my-self, in which I delight.
Very early in my life it was too late. It was already too late when I was eighteen. Between eighteen and twenty-five my face took off in a new direction. I grew old at eighteen. I don’t know if it’s the same for everyone. I’ve never asked. But I believe I’ve heard of the way time can suddenly accelerate on people when they’re going through even the most youthful and highly esteemed stages of life. My ageing was very sudden. I saw it spread over my features one by one, changing the relationship between them, making

And then he told her. Told her that it was as before, that he still loved her, he could never stop loving her, that he’d love her until death.

My hair’s heavy, soft, burdensome, a coppery mass that comes down to my waist. People often say it’s my prettiest feature, and I take that to mean I’m not pretty.

said: ‘Cut it off’. And he did. All at once, a clean sweep, I felt the cold scissors on the skin of my neck. It fell on the floor. They asked me if I wanted to keep it, they’d wrap it up for me to take away. I said no. After that people didn’t say I had pretty hair any more, I mean not as much as they used to, before. Afterwards they’d just say, ‘She’s got nice eyes. And her smile’s not unattractive’.

It must have been at night. I was afraid of myself, afraid of God. In the daylight I was less afraid, and death seemed less important. But it haunted me all the time.

Rather than your face as a young woman, I prefer your face as it is now. Ravaged.’

Soon I’ll have a diamond on my engagement finger. Then the teachers will stop making remarks. People will guess I’m not engaged, but the diamond’s very valuable, no one will doubt that it’s genuine, and no one will say anything any more, because of the value of the diamond that’s been given to this very young girl

Inside the limousine there’s a very elegant man looking at me. He’s not a white man. He’s wearing European clothes – the light tussore suit of the Saigon bankers. He’s looking at me. I’m used to people looking at me.

I wanted to do it to remove from my mother’s sight the object of her love, that son of hers, to punish her for loving him so much,

So, I’m fifteen and a half.
It’s on a ferry crossing the Mekong river.
The image lasts all the way across.
I’m fifteen and a half, there are no seasons in that part of the world, we have just the one season, hot, monotonous, we’re in the long hot girdle of the earth, with no spring, no renewal.