Stranger.

Liu Xia

<TN>Di, Ming</TN>

to Camille Claudel It's winter. Even snow doesn't visit here anymore. But somehow you appear, sitting in front of me swallowing some raw eggs, your face swollen. Even the fire in the furnace doesn't make you shine. "I can't afford new clothes. All my shoes are worn out." You tell me repeatedly. I learn for the first time of your story with him. I'm surprised someone I've worshiped could have fear. The man is dead from now on. Your voice is clear, and calm. There's no melancholy anger sadness hatred despair whatsoever in your eyes. None. None of those as mentioned in the book. How shall I console you then? Some people say you are a footnote of him. What a footnote! It takes energy to be a long footnote. But I still have no clues as to how to read you. That's it. Your life gets intertwined with mine. We survive together. We go out to the busiest street to buy new clothes and beautiful shoes. How we stride on the street! We then sit by a small stove, drinking a cup of Chinese liquor. We sit here for a long time with no desire to get up. We watch the drunken world spinning around us.

Caption: ABOVE Liu Xia prepared her goodbye for her husband, Nobel Prize winner Liu Xiaobo (1955-2017), in a poem and a series of photographs called The Lonely Planets (courtesy of the author). For more on Liu Xia, turn to page 6.