A Lover's Discourse Read online

  A Lover’s Discourse

  BY THE SAME AUTHOR

  Village of Stone

  A Concise Chinese–English Dictionary for Lovers

  20 Fragments of a Ravenous Youth

  UFO in Her Eyes

  Lovers in the Age of Indifference

  I Am China

  Once Upon a Time in the East

  Nine Continents

  Xiaolu Guo

  A Lover’s Discourse

  Grove Press

  New York

  Copyright © 2020 by Xiaolu Guo

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Scanning, uploading, and electronic distribution of this book or the facilitation of such without the permission of the publisher is prohibited. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated. Any member of educational institutions wishing to photocopy part or all of the work for class-room use, or anthology, should send inquiries to Grove Atlantic, 154 West 14th Street, New York, NY 10011 or [email protected].

  Jacket design and illustration © Suzanne Dean incorporates Woman, Bonfanti Diego © Getty images; Man, DEEPOL by Plainpicture/Oleksii Karanov; illustrations of black elderberry by Mary Eaton © National Geographic/Bridgeman; Swallow © Bridgeman; Wasp by John Curtis © Bridgeman Images and Elderberry by Walther Muller from Hermann Adolph Koehler’s Medicinal Plants © Florilegius/Bridgeman

  From A Lover’s Discourse by Roland Barthes. Published by Jonathan Cape Reprinted by permission of The Random House Group Limited © Roland Barthes 1979. From Empire of Signs by Roland Barthes. Copyright © Skira., 1970. Translation Copyright © Farrar Strauss and Giroux. First published in Great Britain in 1983 by Jonathan Cape. Reprined by permission of The Random House Group Limited.

  ‘Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head’ Words and Music by Hal David and Burt Bachrach © 1969 BMG Gold Songs (ASCAP) / New Hidden Valley Music Co. (ASCAP) All Rights Administered by BMG Rights Management (US) LLC. Used by Permission of Hal Leonard Europe Limited. All Rights Reserved. © 1969 WC Music Corp. (ASCAP) Licensed courtesy of Warner Chappell Music Ltd.

  ‘Wind of Change’ Words & Music by Klaus Meine© Copyright 1997 BMG Rights Management GmbH BMG Rights Management (UK) Limited, a BMG Company.

  All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

  Used by permission of Hal Leonard Europe Limited.

  Published simultaneously in Canada

  Printed in the United States of America

  First Grove Atlantic Hardcover edition edition: October 2020

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data is available for this title.

  ISBN 978-0-8021-4952-7

  eISBN 978-0-8021-4954-1

  Grove Press

  an imprint of Grove Atlantic

  154 West 14th Street

  New York, NY 10011

  Distributed by Publishers Group West

  groveatlantic.com

  Language is a skin: I rub my language against the other. It is as if I had words instead of fingers, or fingers at the tip of my words. My language trembles with desire.

  —Fragments d’un discours amoureux,

  Roland Barthes

  Contents

  Prologue

  One – 西 – WEST

  Two – 南 – SOUTH

  Three – 东 – EAST

  Four – 北 – NORTH

  Five – 下 – DOWN

  Six – 上 – UP

  Seven – 左 – LEFT

  Eight – 右 – RIGHT

  Acknowledgements

  Notes on Citations

  Prologue

  Love at first sight is a hypnosis.

  —Roland Barthes

  – I don’t believe in love at first sight.

  – What do you mean? Wasn’t it clear the moment you picked the elderflowers by the park and we looked at each other? Or was it in that book club?

  A few years after we moved in together, we had this conversation about love at first sight. I remember you said:

  ‘I don’t believe in love at first sight.’

  I was taken aback. I thought we were definitely in love at first sight.

  ‘What do you mean? Wasn’t it clear the moment you picked the elderflowers by the park and we looked at each other? Or was it in that book club?’

  You gave me a damp smile, as if my confusion proved that you were right.

  But doesn’t love always start from first sight? I mean, before one reaches one’s thirties or forties. It’s only when we have a second thought about our first sighted love, that we might change our mind. You might ask, why does this happen before one reaches midlife? I don’t have a theory yet, but I think when we are young, our impulses take over our mind. Romantic love is always an impulse in my case. I am not old or wise enough to understand yet what else love could be.

  All I knew in that first moment at the park was that you saw the way I had looked at you. Perhaps I should not be so sure that you saw how I looked at you. Well, you were still a complete stranger. You were from a culture I had no know­ledge or deep understanding of. Besides, you were very tall and I was short. Height sometimes disorients our perspective.

  ONE

  西

  WEST

  The Elderflowers

  – What will you do with them?

  – The elders? I will head them and boil them up.

  I didn’t know your name when we first met. No one introduced us. The only thing I remember is that you were picking roadside elderflowers.

  We were in a park, Clapton Pond in north-east London. Some friends had arranged a picnic to celebrate a warm spring. But on that day, it was neither sunny nor warm. The clouds above London were making fun of us, with their fluffy cotton faces. The daffodils had faded, but the bluebells had just begun to bloom. Their clustered buds were nodding in the wind. Everyone was talking. And I was watching. Words didn’t come so naturally to my mouth. The English manner was something I found difficult to follow then. You were the only man who was not involved in any of the conversations. You walked away from us, and disappeared behind some shrubs by the roadside. I could see you were plucking milky-coloured plants by the edge of the park. When you came back, I saw that you were carrying a bunch of elderflowers. You glanced at me, with a look I could not quite read. Your eyes were blue green, and they didn’t dart about but were steady. I was not used to seeing a man holding wild flowers on an occasion like this. I thought there was perhaps something socially peculiar about you, or at least a little eccentric. Still, you had an air of normality. I noticed your blue denim jacket, and your muddy boots.

  ‘What will you do with them?’ I asked, pointing at the flowers.

  ‘The elders?’ you answered. ‘I will head them and boil them up.’

  You remained in my memory as the elderflower picker. Even though I later learned that men (especially European men) do pick wild flowers sometimes. But that day in the park was only a few months after I came to Britain, and I had never seen a man do that with such concentration in public.

  You were the elderflower picker. And that is how I still picture you, after all these years.

  Vote Leave

  – It says Vote Leave, but leave what?

  – Oh, leave the EU! You know, th
e European Union.

  I came to Britain in December 2015, six months before the Referendum. I had no idea there would be a referendum. I vaguely knew this word in a Chinese context. But in China we never had such an experience. I had never voted, because we were never asked to vote. Besides, we were told only countries like Switzerland or Iceland might be able to conduct a national referendum because of their tiny populations. Leaving aside politics, I had too many unanswered questions for myself when I came to England. After my MA in sociology and film-making in Beijing, I didn’t want to work in an office, nor did I want to stick around in China. I read a biography of the American anthropologist Margaret Mead, and decided to study visual anthropology in the West. I wanted to be a woman in the world, or really, a woman of the world – I wanted to equip myself with an intellectual mind so that I could enter a foreign land and not be lost in it. I would have a stance or mission, a way of navigating as an outsider. So I applied for PhD scholarships, and finally King’s College London accepted me.

  So here I was. I had arrived in the deep winter. It was cold, and mostly grey.

  I had booked a small Airbnb in south London for the first few weeks, and thought I would be able to walk to King’s College since it was close to the South Bank. I laughed myself to tears when I found out the distance was so great. It was almost impossible to walk in this city. There were hardly any straight avenues or boulevards one could orient oneself with, and the pavements were an uncomfortable public space to walk on. Once I almost tripped over what I took to be a pile of laundry, before I saw it was an occupied sleeping bag, a homeless person. Making my way through the dense city was like walking a tightrope strung across a raging torrent of traffic. It was so overwhelming that I chose to use the bus instead and perch myself by the window to view the world.

  Two and a half months had passed, and I moved to accommodation in east London. One morning, I was on a bus on my way to see my supervisor. I saw a poster with the word Brexit. I didn’t know what it meant. I hadn’t read any English newspapers since I arrived. I checked the word in my pocket Chinese–English dictionary. Oddly, it was not there. The traffic was bad. We were stuck in streets which were lined with other buses. Right beside us, a red bus stopped. There were no passengers on it. A slogan on the side read:

  We send the EU £350 million a week

  let’s fund our NHS instead

  Vote Leave

  I studied it for a while, and with my adopted anthropological spirit I wrote it down and photographed it. I pondered on the slogan. I had heard of the NHS – something to do with everyone getting free medical care in Britain.

  While I was scratching my head, I heard someone behind me say:

  ‘Look, there’s one of those stupid Brexit Buses again!’

  ‘Oh no!’ his friend responded, turning to look. ‘Will anyone believe this bullshit?’

  I thought this could be my opportunity to interview a few natives. So I stoked up my courage, and asked in my most polite way:

  ‘Excuse me, what is a Brexit Bus?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  The native informant stared at me, blankly. His friend laughed. I tried to hide my embarrassment. Clearly my question was stupid in some way. Nevertheless, I kept trying.

  ‘Sorry, I just arrived recently. I’m new here.’

  The native didn’t bother to answer. He just shrugged dismissively.

  But I was calm and cool, and didn’t give up. ‘It says Vote Leave, but leave what?’

  ‘Oh, leave the EU! You know, the European Union,’ he finally answered.

  Oh, the European Union. For us Chinese, the European Union seemed grand. And in fact, deep down, we always wanted to be part of something like that. But apparently, some people here didn’t want to be in it. Before I could continue my interview, we heard an announcement: ‘This bus is on diversion. The next stop will be London Wall.’

  I thought, London Wall? I knew of the Berlin Wall, but I had never heard of a London Wall. Was it also a Communist wall but between East and West London? With some curiosity, I got off the bus, and stood in a place called London Wall, but only found myself under a bleak-looking bridge with traffic lights in all directions. The Brexit Bus by then was gone too. Now I had to walk, but in which way?

  Family History

  – What’s your family history?

  – Why do you want to know?

  In the beginning I was very lonely.

  I thought it was obvious I would be lonely. I had just come to Europe. But I asked myself: had I always felt lonely even when I was in China? Even when my parents were around? Yes, I had. Maybe because I was an only child. Or maybe because the burden of study had killed any other kind of life. But here it was different. Here it was the feeling of desolation. Evenings were difficult to pass. English nights were long, and they didn’t belong to the non-pub-going people. Nor did they belong to foreigners, especially those friendless and familyless foreigners. What were we supposed to do at night in our rented rooms, if we didn’t drink or watch sports?

  There was an area by the canal I often passed on foot. It was a little green patch next to De Beauvoir Town, by a lock-keeper’s cottage. I didn’t know how many lock-keepers’ cottages were in use by Regent’s Canal. And I never managed to walk all the way along the canal. I was afraid to walk through the grim part of it. I didn’t trust it. But around this cottage I had a certain feeling of homecoming. So I went back there one evening, with my bag full of library books and a packet of biscuits.

  The cottage was minute, as if it were built for dwarfs. There was neither a lock-keeper nor anyone else living in it. It was always locked. There were some dead sunflowers by the wall. I sat on a tree stump next to a wild nasturtium bush, and my eyes fixed on the rusty water. It was not that I could see the nasturtiums but I could smell them. We used to eat their peppery leaves as well as their sour-tasting flowers in my home town. My mother would pick them. So with that peppery smell in the air I knew what plant I was sitting next to.

  A small waterfall was rushing down from the upper level of the canal. The sound was loud, but peaceful. In the near distance, the lights were on in one of the boats. A warm glow in the grey green. It was a mournful place. I never thought it was beautiful. For me, the idea of a beautiful scene was associated with a typical Chinese landscape – bamboo and water lilies by a temple, or a wild mountain. Never this kind of industrial landscape. But this lock-keeper’s cottage and ­quietly flowing water soothed me somehow, made me feel less alien in this city.

  As I was sitting there, staring at the water, my mind began to wonder. Should I just give up and fly back on the next plane? My parents were recently dead, so they could no longer say anything about it. Maybe my aunt would be surprised to see me return. But she had no say in my future life. You feeling lonely? It’s too hard? Too cold? Were these real problems? Everyone in China would ask. For them, these were perhaps happy problems, since everyone in China was either dying of cancer or suffering from some traumatic family history. And their children would bear the weight of that wherever they went, even abroad.

  I thought of the week before when I had first met my GP. I registered myself at the clinic and the GP asked me:

  ‘What’s your family history?’

  I didn’t understand why she had asked this. Because in China, the question of family history means whether you were born in a family whose status was either peasant or city dweller, and whether they were Communist Party members or not. These details were recorded officially throughout your life. And I didn’t expect I would have to carry all this old baggage to England.

  ‘Why do you want to know?’ I didn’t hide my irritation.

  The GP was taken aback. She glared at me, then after a few awkward moments, she explained:

  ‘Your family history is about whether your mother or your father had cancer, heart disease or rheumatism, or . . .’

&nb
sp; I then understood what she was asking. I just nodded my head.

  But the doctor was confused. ‘So . . . what conditions, then?’

  ‘Everything.’ I nodded again. ‘Everything you just said.’

  ‘Everything?’ she asked back, like I was a person with a low IQ.

  ‘Yes, everything!’ I raised my voice: ‘Cancer, heart disease and rheumatism!’

  A Desirable Immigrant

  – You are now a desirable immigrant, as they say!

  – Ha, a desirable immigrant! Since when did I become an immigrant?

  The second time we met was a few days after that strange event – the Referendum. Clearly things were happening in this country, but I did not understand what they were. I remember walking around my neighbourhood the next day and seeing the looks on people’s faces. Some looked tired and despondent and others a bit wild. This all added to my feelings of disorientation and confusion.

  One day, an Englishwoman who worked in the university library mentioned in passing that I could join her for a weekend gathering. The pub was near where I lived. I said I would definitely come.

  ‘What’s the exact address in Hackney Down?’ I asked her.

  ‘Hackney Downs,’ she corrected me.

  At that time I didn’t know Downs was a proper word, a meaningful word.

  ‘It’s a pub called People’s Tavern – we’ll meet there at five.’

  When I got there that day, I saw the sign Hackney Downs by the park. I wondered about that word. Downs, not Down. Plural. Then I found you in the pub. I was surprised. Your curly hair, straw-coloured, was a little shorter than the first time I met you. Your eyes, the same blue green I remembered.

  You recognised me too. I thought you were directing a slight smile towards me, but I could have been imagining it.

  It was a book-club meeting. They say book clubs are for lonely people, or middle-aged women. I was definitely lonely, but neither of us was middle-aged. You were the only man in the group. Most women there were new mothers of small children. I didn’t feel I could blend in. I didn’t like the idea of having children, or marriage.