Translator’s Observe

by Fion Tse

“Dusk, Past Phrases” is extracted from a chapter of Lo Yu’s novel Yung Yung, initially written in Chinese language and revealed in Hong Kong and Taiwan. Yung Yung follows the narrator, Yin, by problems with language, identification, and love by the germination and dissolution of her romantic relationship with one other girl, Yung. Yin and Yung meet on a relationship app and sparks fly immediately, however Yung already has a girlfriend whom she’s unwilling to interrupt up with. All through the novel, Yin contemplates her intense attraction to Yung in addition to the unwelcome actuality of all the time being second greatest. 

“Dusk, Past Phrases” comes midway by the novel. On this chapter, Yin and Yung spend time collectively in preparation for Yung’s upcoming monthlong journey, throughout which they will be unable to see one another or be in contact in any respect. Yin displays on their sexual relationship and her position as the opposite girl, and the space between them continues to develop as their relationship approaches its finish.

Saturday

She says the primary time we met she might have slept with me. I wouldn’t have mentioned no, on the very least. She all the time sees proper by my stiff façade. Do you wish to come to my place to try my ceramics, she requested; and when you sat down on the sofa I might have seduced you, she says in my ear, whisper-like. Her fingers caress me the entire time. And she or he’s proper, as a result of the primary time I noticed her I wished to sleep along with her. 

I get to her place Tuesday night after work. She’s happening vacation the day after tomorrow and we received’t see one another for an entire month, so we every took break day work to spend extra time, now unrestricted, with one another.

She makes dinner. By the point we end and head to her room it’s previous twelve, and once we fall to the mattress we cuddle and kiss. We are able to’t assist it, the best way magnets and metals are drawn to one another. At one, we lastly fall asleep, however in fact we will’t go to sleep with out making like to wrap up the night time, or maybe all of the nights we’ve ever spent collectively. 

We are able to’t assist it, the best way magnets and metals are drawn to one another.

I do my greatest to fulfill her, and she or he’s happy certainly. However we’ve fallen out of sync. She doesn’t appear to have seen it—that factor I can’t even convey myself to say out loud—however it’s exactly as a result of she hasn’t seen it that I do know for sure she’s not acutely attuned to me. Her pleasure, really easy and direct; my wallowing sensitivity, so pure in its development: both sides of the story increasing, floating away, and so we’re adrift in our personal imaginations. 

Or maybe it was that we’ve every solely ever had “I” in thoughts, and never “we,” although all alongside I assumed “we” had been a factor. Who had left first? Was it that I had been the primary to drift off, or was it that she hadn’t requested me to remain? Both method it doesn’t matter, as a result of what occurs subsequent will decide my sorrow and my pleasure—if I find yourself with out her, does it matter who stepped away first? 

She’s advised me earlier than that there appears to be one thing in between us that stops her from diving headfirst into the bodily ecstasy of the second. However the best way I see it, she’s realized to take pleasure in it an increasing number of, taking complete pleasure in my physique in my presence. I’m the one who prefers an lively position: to keep away from her taking on my physique, my ideas; and to keep away from my discomfort with my physique that expands the membrane between us. I don’t need her to the touch me or enter me. She might already occupy each inch of my pores and skin and my nervous system, however I don’t wish to play this occupation out over and over just for it to finish up being an excessive amount of to resist. I don’t wish to give her up. We now have a lot extra to expertise collectively, a lot additional to undergo collectively.

It’s as if no language can really and precisely describe our contradictions and complexities. Intimacy and indifference go hand in hand—it’s by no means totally good or totally unhealthy. Typically it seems like we’ll be collectively perpetually. Different occasions, we’re nothing greater than a shimmering mirage. 

Intimacy and indifference go hand in hand—it’s by no means totally good or totally unhealthy.

Her burning ardour is unprecedented. She’s rising lighter and lighter, whereas I develop quieter and quieter; she’s having an increasing number of enjoyable, whereas I’m a balloon that shrivels up with out love, wilting away. Not noticing, she drags me behind her as she skips alongside. There are elements of me wilting with disappointment, however they received’t blossom once more, not for anybody on this world. They’ll even destroy the elements of me that stay. 

I maintain her at arm’s size. She returns to her girlfriend, or perhaps she by no means says no to her. We travel like this, some form of trial by fireplace. I can’t fulfill her, however I preserve letting it occur. I let her caress the folds of my pores and skin, dig into my heat, take what she wants from my physique. In satisfying her, I neglect myself. We transfer to the ground, repeat: burn brightly, rot, fall into silence; and once we can not preserve going we go to sleep. Sleep is nice, no have to suppose once we’re asleep. 

Two passageways can’t ever join seamlessly; one thing all the time will get caught, perpetually unable to maneuver ahead. Intercourse, for me, is a non secular expertise past bodily ecstasy. And in contrast to with my ex-girlfriend, I can’t appear to transcend bodily exercise to non secular satisfaction; I can’t tunnel into the depths of myself; I can’t fling open the gates to my coronary heart and place a rose inside. Or perhaps she’s by no means had the depth I used to be trying to find, however on the similar time I’m wildly infatuated with this probably incomplete individual. 

I suppose solely love can excite me, my very own love. 

The subsequent morning a moist odor lingers within the room, trapped subsequent to the soundless sediment of previous need—the uniquely salty scent of intercourse. We awaken and neglect all the things else: neglect the thorniness between us, neglect the pleasureless touches, neglect that she returned to her girlfriend’s aspect. That wave of sleep washes away my recollections, long- and short-term—what else can I do? Seeing her, holding her, she takes over me. I’ve all the time discovered it exhausting to reside within the second. I’m all the time occupied with the previous, however now as a result of the second is her I take pleasure in it, forgetting the previous—my previous, and hers, too. 

Translation from the Chinese language