| She makes me want to be a painter. She makes me | | | | though. She spent a few months in a town near |
| acutely aware of my inability to paint. Every time I | | | | Xi'An, the ancient capital of China, with one of her |
| see her I wish I had a brush, a canvas, palette and | | | | former classmates. She rented a room near his |
| colours with which I could record her for | | | | university in Xi'An and paid a mere seventy yuan a |
| posterity.Something about her is ethereal and | | | | month as rent. The people there were very kind and |
| something about her is tragic. She looks so sad it | | | | welcoming, she informed me, more than the people in |
| makes my heart want to cry, to cradle her in my | | | | Huainan, a fact I have noticed more than once about |
| arms and wipe all her future tears away.I met her | | | | the city where I am located.There's much I can write |
| some months ago. She is one of my students' | | | | about her oval face, milky skin and light brown, sad |
| girlfriend and her name is Peace. Perhaps, there is | | | | eyes and dishevelled hair but all that writing would be |
| truly something about her that is at peace and there | | | | nowhere near a patch on a painting that captured her |
| is also something about her that is chaotic...She | | | | beauty.If I were a painter, I know, I would have |
| stopped attending classes at her university, a | | | | created a masterpiece had I painted her. 'You have |
| teachers' college, some months ago and had to be | | | | painted me in your heart and that makes you a |
| hospitalized for, what I suspect was, psychiatric | | | | greater painter,' she spoke enigmatically when I told |
| care.She came dressed in a short Qi Pao, that | | | | her of my regret...I wonder if she is right...I wonder if |
| loveliest of sexy dresses ever invented by human | | | | she thinks I have her picture in my heart...I wonder if |
| beings. And, the Qi Pao has now been around for | | | | she somehow knows more than I do...I wonder if she |
| over five hundred years, or so she informed | | | | is a painter who can paint her own picture wherever |
| me.White, with blue flowers, her dress ended a little | | | | she wants...I wonder why she looks sad...Had |
| above her stockinged knees. And from the upper | | | | Leonardo Da Vanci seen her, Peace would certainly |
| thigh down it was slit down the sides and I couldn't | | | | have been his Monalisa...Rajesh Kanoi (Jack) is a |
| help gaze at the creamy skin, despite my reluctance | | | | published writer, now living and working in China. Many |
| to do so.She continues to live away from home and | | | | of his short-stories, poems and articles have been |
| her parents send her a few hundred kuai (RMB) | | | | published, including a book of short-stories, 'From |
| every month. It's enough, she says, for her to meet | | | | China With Love' (Lipstick Publishing). |
| her expenses. It's not enough for her wanderlust, | | | | |