The Moon Over Changsha

My beloved Mei,

I am writing this by the light of the moon, on a piece of scrap paper that once wrapped our rations. The Japanese are on the other side of the river. I can hear their voices carried across the water, a language I do not understand but whose intent I know perfectly.

The Xiang River is red again. It has been red for three days now. The rains came yesterday and washed some of it clean, but by evening it was red once more. I have stopped counting the bodies. There is a number beyond which counting becomes a kind of madness, and I have passed it.

This morning they shot a deserter. He was seventeen years old, from a village not far from my own. He ran when the Japanese came through with flamethrowers. I do not blame him. I wanted to run too. But something held me here. Maybe it was your face. Maybe it was the memory of my father telling me about the 1911 Revolution, about the old China that died so a new one could be born. Maybe it was just shame. I don’t know anymore.

The war is devouring our souls, Mei. I feel pieces of myself vanishing. The part that laughed easily. The part that believed in tomorrow. The part that could sleep through the night without dreaming of fire. They are gone, one by one. But the part that loves you remains. That part is made of iron.

The Japanese say China will break like a teacup. They do not understand us. A teacap can be mended with gold lacquer and become more beautiful than before. And our nation is not a cup at all. We are the river. Cut us, and we flow around you. Burn us, and we rise as mist and fall as rain. We have been here for five thousand years. We will be here when they are dust.

I want a son, Mei. I know this is a strange thing to write, here, in this place, with death all around me. But I want a son to whom I can teach the old poems. I want a daughter with your eyes. I want to grow old in a house that has walls of stone, not of fear.

If I die tomorrow — and I think I will, the morning attack will be fierce — do not mourn me too long. I have lived a full life because I knew your love. That is enough for any man.

If I die, my bones will become part of China’s earth. That is not a tragedy. That is a promise.

Your husband, Liang Weiguo

如果我死了，我的骨頭將成為中國大地的一部分。這不是悲劇，而是承諾。