for Xiao Hong

Clara came to school sometimes, and then left altogether when we were around 15, not saying why or where she was going. The teachers seemed to know that she wasn’t coming back before we realised, and her name was never mentioned again. I remember her, and I think of her often, even now, because she was different from anyone else I had ever met. Clara. The name my parents were planning to give me, until I was born and they didn’t think it suited my face or the cut of my body. Clara, who smiled when I told her that we might have been namesakes, as if it was unimportant what we were called; that it mattered more what we did and who we were.