by Sophia Terazawa
“Decolonizing Touch” is a monthly column about love and intimacy. If the revolution will not be televised, then the erotic, the heartbreaks, and interpersonal relationships most certainly will go unseen. But I believe that what happens in private is the most radical space of all. What does it mean to desire the Other? How does it feel to need the oppressor? I hope to answer these questions (and more) in my column.
What's Love Got to Do with It?
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| What's Love Got to Do with It?, Illustration by Sophia Terazawa |
He was nothing more than a street cleaner, but he sang beautifully―with such gusto and dignity, in fact, that no revolutionary could help but fall in love with this man, who swept Saigon’s dusty avenues by day and led Party rallies by night. If Uncle Ho had a canary, this man could lead an entire choir to liberation. He sang for the hearts of many. He sang for dear Vietnam. But why did he have to go and marry my sister, too?
Thus began my mother’s dreadful story of how romance should claim no space in war.
OHH, WHAT’S LOVE
GOT TO DO, GOT TO DO
WITH IT?
My aunt, the stubborn second daughter of a wealthy businessman, was much like me, or so I have heard. Her tongue was quiet but stung when needed, and she never cried during a beating.
She also believed in equality. Not the normal kind, my mother shook her head. She wanted to fight for decolonization. This brought her to the streets. This brought danger to our family. My mother paused and stared into my eyes as though to emphasize this point. Our family.
WHAT’S LOVE
BUT A SECOND-HAND
EMOTION?
True, there was danger all around. My mother already knew how to load an AK-47 by the time she was 16, and she already knew how to fire it, if necessary (with mami eyes, closed, she added with a giggle), but my aunt carried a bullet in each eye and a pin in her chest. My aunt was deliberate, her convictions for the Party, righteous. This was a dangerous time, indeed, to have a revolutionary as a sister, and when she married, we knew it was over.
At this point in the story, my mother sighed and looked into her open palms on the table between us.
Sophia, understand what mami try to say, she asked. And I said, yes, mami. I understand.
WHAT’S LOVE
GOT TO DO WITH IT?
I understand that history works in more intimate ways than we realize. I understand human touch as much as I understand grief. I understand the painful act of self-healing because I have spent my childhood watching my mother fall apart. This country fall apart. And I understand change.
It works in the heart. It can only work through melody or a serpent’s bite, the ambiguity of metaphor, madness, and matrimony. The whiplash of protest. Demands. A barricade. And I am not speaking of what happens in the open. For the people. The People.
WHO NEEDS A HEART
WHEN A HEART
CAN BE BROKEN?
He was nothing more than a man, but really, this was the story of heartbreak between two sisters. My mother started to cry as though to say, and that is when I lost her. As though to say, and now I will lose you, too.
THE DECOLONIZER
January 2016
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