No Makeup Removal

She had worked as a Chinese laborer, had seen death, and had sworn an oath in a basement in Lyon. Now she is a reporter for the "Beiping Morning News", covering social news and writing about people who no one remembers - the murdered prostitutes, the burned apprentices, the washerwomen with bad hands. There is a theater in the south of the city called Tianyuan Garden. She goes there often. It's not because I love listening to plays, it's because there is a corner backstage where I can sit and feel at ease. There was an opera singer there who spoke little and had deep eyes. Every time she came, he asked his apprentice to pour tea. Piping hot, jasmine tea. He looked at her in the mirror and never asked any questions. She didn't say anything either. Then the Japanese came. The theater was closed, the newspaper office was smashed, and those people she had written about began to follow her.