Becoming Madame Mao (12 page)

I had a long relationship with Kang Sheng, Madame Mao later says. A very special relationship. Fifty-two years. He played an important role in her life. He was her best friend and worst enemy at the same time. He helped her and betrayed her. Once upon a time he was her mentor and confidant. During the Cultural Revolution they became comrades in arms. They worked hand in glove. Have you ever heard the legend in which different kinds of wolves join forces to prey on cattle?

Kang Sheng and the girl are from the same Shan-dong province. Not only that, as they discover with amazement, they are from the same town. The girl can't clearly recall how they first met. He tells her that she was too young, about eleven. He was the principal of the Zhu-Town Elementary School. She must have known him through the townspeople, possibly her grandfather. Her impression was that he was a man of silence. He had a frozen expression. He gave only two words, yes or no. Once in a while he nodded at children and spoke a few words in a dry voice. He was respected by the townfolk because he got things done.

His skin is almost too fine for a man. Goat beard. He wears a pair of thick glasses with painted gold frames. Behind the glasses is a pair of fish eyes. The pupils protrude so much they are balllike. He is thin and moves elegantly. In old times he wore an ankle-length long gray gown. During the war he wears a Red Army uniform with extra pockets and after the liberation he will wear a Mao jacket.

When I hear that my fellow townsman Kang Sheng is the Communist security's chief in Yenan I am thrilled. I have been in Yenan three months and have been desperately trying to find my way. Feeling lucky I decide to visit Kang Sheng. One day during a break I slip away from my work team and make my way to his office. I walk straight through his door and beg him to take me under his wing. He is busy, leafing through a document, and glances at me through the side of his glasses. He doesn't recognize me at first. Then he looks at me again. I see the recognition but still he says nothing. He continues to stare at me. It is an analytical look. Bold, even rude. Like an antiques dealer checking on a piece—he spends time. It makes me uneasy. Then he says he'll do his best. You'll do fine in Yenan. He lies back and smiles suddenly.

He invites me to sit and asks about my life in Shanghai. I tell him a bit of my struggle and my career as an actress. He doesn't seem to be interested. But I don't have anything else to tell. He then interrupts me and asks about my relationships. Are you married or involved?

I say I am not prepared to talk about my personal life.

I understand, he says. But if you need my help I've got to know these things. You see, in Yenan, as a Communist, all your secrets belong to the Party. Besides, I intend to help you succeed. Not many people will have your opportunities.

I pause for a moment and then begin telling him about Yu Qiwei and Tang Nah. I skip my marriage with Mr. Fei. Kang Sheng asks me the details of my divorces. Are there any ongoing attachments?

I am through, I report.

Very good. He nods and glances at me through the side of his glasses again.

Kang Sheng makes me understand that in Yenan, background is more important than one's present performance. The Party believes in what you have done not what you promise to do. The Party puts everyone in constant check. The trick to getting ahead is to prove your loyalty to the Party.

I tell Kang Sheng that I have come to Yenan to renew my Party membership.

Well, good then, you will need to draw up a history sheet. We need names of witnesses.

I have no friends in Shanghai who can be my witnesses.

Are you still in touch with Yu Qiwei?

Before I reply, he tells me that Yu Qiwei has recently arrived in Yenan from Beijing.

I am suddenly stirred. It takes me a moment to ask if Kang Sheng knows how Yu Qiwei has been doing.

He is doing fine, Kang Sheng replies. He has changed his name from Yu Qiwei to Huang Jing and is the Party's general secretary in charge of the entire northwest area. In fact, Comrade Lan Ping, Yu Qiwei can be a good person to help you build your history. Seeing me a bit confused and lost in a moment of memory he advises, Come on, let the past be past. He takes off his glasses and looks right into me. Did you pay attention when I said the word "build"?

So I understand.

I am grateful, Kang Sheng
Ge.
I call him "big brother" in Shandong dialect.

No trouble, he replies. Keep me posted. And forget Yu Qiwei.

From that moment on Kang Sheng and I become friends. The friendship quickly turns into a partnership. He is probably the only person in my life I have trusted completely. Decades later my secret-keeper decides to make a ring for my neck—when I become his boss and am about to step onto the throne, he fires a fatal bullet behind my back.

He is on his deathbed then. Colon cancer in its last stage. And he wants to drag me down with him. He wants to punish me for not putting him in the big-brother position which he expects and thinks he deserves. I refuse to make Comrade Kang Sheng the chairman of the Communist Party because I intend to take the position myself. I have earned my right.

I don't think I owe Kang Sheng. We have been each other's steppingstones when crossing Mao's river. We are even.

As history reveals itself in the official documents Kang Sheng wrote nothing in his will but eight characters. They read,
Madame Mao Jiang Ching is a traitor. I suggest: Immediate elimination.

But in Yenan as the partnership begins to form he looks at the beauty with a pimp's eye—he is in it for a good-deal profit.

***

I am aware of my feelings toward Yu Qiwei. Although I have long stopped pursuing him, I would be lying to say that I don't care anymore. I write him. I keep him posted of my whereabouts. It is something I can't help. A ghost hand writes for me. In those moments I am scared of myself.

For the rest of his life Yu Qiwei never demonstrates his feelings toward me. He never utters a word about our past. He avoids me by being extremely polite. He lets me feel his wall. The distance he places between us. I have to admire him. He is a man of determination. He makes up his mind and carries it out. He doesn't answer my letters. Not once.

He is doing well and has become powerful. I am not surprised at his achievement. He is unlike Tang Nah. Tang Nah makes me appreciate Yu Qiwei, makes me regret what I did to him. I should have endured the loneliness. But how could I know that he would come out alive while others of his status were killed?

I am curious about Yu Qiwei's feelings. I want to know if he ever misses me. We were part of each other's youth. It can't be erased.

I locate Yu Qiwei. He is in Yenan's hotel for outer-state officers. I am sure he is aware of the effort I made to see him. Yet he is cold when receiving me. He makes me feel that I am bothering him. He keeps his official smile. Sit down, Comrade Lan Ping. Tea? Towel? He asks what he can do for me.

He is a mature-looking man now. Very sure of himself. His confidence makes me crazy. I am in pain to see him. He makes me feel like I am a prostitute trying to make a sale. I remember who he was. I remember the way he liked to be made love to.

We are so close, sitting inches away yet oceans apart. I don't see myself in his eyes. A mosquito's eyelash maybe. He doesn't want me there. He gives me a tired look to show me that his fire has long since died. He tells me without words that I should stop embarrassing myself.

It makes me angry. Makes me want to win. Win hard, win big, win to prove that he was wrong to give me up.

But I know not to show my rage in his office. I say that I come for business. I need a witness on my record as a Communist. Can you help? You were my boss in Qingdao. He understands and says that he will fill out the forms for me. Tell the investigator to contact me if he has any questions.

Thanks, I say. Thanks for taking the trouble.

Then I leave. I leave him alone for the rest of his life. I don't see him for the next thirty years. But I make sure my husband sees him. I make sure Mao gives him a job, and orders him around. He worked for Mao as his regional Party secretary. He was made the mayor of Qingdao. I don't know anything about why he died in his prime. I have no idea of his happiness or unhappiness. I know his wife, Fan Qing, hates me. The feeling is mutual. Whatever happens in the end is no longer my concern. Losers give me a bad taste.

***

The young woman is getting to know midland China, the rising swell of the Shan-Bei plain. It is a bleak landscape. Next to a snakelike little river is a gray town where houses are made of mud with paper windows. There are roosters, hens and chickens on the side of the street that break the silence of the otherwise dead town. Here donkeys are the only means of transportation, and wild grain is the main source of food. On top of a hill is the Yenan Pagoda, built in the Sung dynasty around
A.D.
1100.

This is where China's future ruler Mao Tse-tung lives, in a cave like a prehistoric man. He sleeps on a bed laid with half-baked bricks, broken ceramic pots and mud. It is called
Kang.
Although the brown-skinned soldiers are wood-stick thin, they are tough minded. They live for the dream Mao created for them. They have never known cities like Shanghai. Each morning, on the grounds of a local school, they practice combat. They might only have primitive weapons but they are led by a god.

A few weeks later, the girl will appear on the grassless hill. At sunset by the river, she will sit by a rock and watch the ripples spread in the water. She will wet her lacquer-black hair and sing operas. Although she is twenty-three she looks seventeen in the eyes of the locals. The girl has the finest skin and brightest eyes men here have ever seen. She will come and catch the heart of their god.

C
AVES, FLEAS, HARSH WINDS
, rough food, faces with rotten teeth, gray uniforms, red-star caps are my first impression of Yenan. My new life begins with a form of torture. In order to survive I forbid myself from thinking that this is a place where three million died of starvation in a year. I forbid myself from acknowledging that the locals here have never seen a toilet in their lives and have never taken a bath except at birth, wedding and death. Very few people know the date of their birth or where the capital of China is. In Yenan people call themselves Communists. To them it is a religion. The pursuit of spiritual purity gives them gratification.

I am assigned to a squad with seven female comrades. Five are from the countryside and two including me are from the cities. When I ask the peasant girls their reasons for joining the army, Sesame, the boldest one, says that it was to avoid a prearranged marriage. Her husband was a seven-year-old boy. The rest of the girls nod. They came in order to escape being sold or starved to death. I congratulate them. We spend the morning learning an army drill.

The other city woman has odd features. Her eyes are on the side of her face near the ears, like a goat's. She is arrogant and speaks imperial Mandarin. Her voice is manlike, syllables sliding into each other. The Red Army is not a salvation army, she remarks. It's a school for education. We are Communists, not a bunch of beggars. It's terrible that you have never heard of Marxism and Leninism. We are in the army to change the world, not just to fill our stomachs.

She irritates me. The peasant girls look at each other—don't know how to respond to her. She intimidates. I ask the woman her name. Fairlynn, she responds. I was named after the ancient woman-poet Li, Pure Reflection. Have you heard of her works? Gorgeous verses!

What are you? the peasant girls ask Fairlynn.

A poet.

What is a poet? What is a poem? Sesame still can't get it after an explanation is given.

Fairlynn throws her a book. Why don't you help yourself and find it out?

I don't read, Sesame says apologetically.

Why did you join the Red Army? I ask Fairlynn.

To continue my study with Chairman Mao. He is a poet too.

Fairlynn is a spiritual athlete. She needs a rival to exercise her mind. She calls me Miss Bourgeois and says Yenan is going to toughen me up. In the morning she leaves the door open and lets the wind bang it about. She gets a kick out of it. I hear her manlike laugh. The harsh wind will resculpt your bones and nerves! She is happy that she has made me speechless. Thank Buddha she is ugly, I think to myself. With such a chunky figure, I am sure she has plenty of loneliness to deal with. Her hairstyle, according to her, is inspired by Shakespeare. It looks like an open umbrella. Her long face has sharp lines. A chain-smoker's yellow skin. When she talks her hands are on your face.

I play
Qu
and
Pai
verse games with poems, Fairlynn says. I can't wait to play with Chairman Mao. I have heard he loves to be challenged. I am strong in Tang's and I hear he is strong in Song's. His specialty is
Fu.
Among the Song's, he prefers "Late North" and I "Early South." My specialty is in Zu Hei-Niang's four-tone-eight-line verses and the Chairman's is two-tone-five-line verses. The
pin-pin-zbe-zhe
stuff.

That will be a surprise if the Chairman receives her, I tell myself. Men must look for different kinds of stimulation in different women.

The place where I live for the next few months is called Qi Family Slope. The cave village has over thirty families and everyone's last name is Qi. Because of the valleys the wind blows harshly. My skin has already begun aching. I have been put in the new soldiers' training program. The village has only one street, which extends and connects to an open field. At the east end is a barn. At the west end stands a public well. The well has no bars and is covered with ice in winter.

My squad passes the street heading toward the training base. I see a young boy with applelike cheeks by the well. He is pulling up a rope with a bucket of water. The weight makes him bend dangerously over the well's mouth. He could slip and fall at any second. I shut my eyes while passing him. There is a blind man selling yams in the street. His yams look ages old. Next to him is a coal shop. A pregnant woman sits in front of a heap of coal washing clothes. Her two young children wear open-rear pants and are playing with the coal. Their butts are coated black. Next is a wood shop. A carpenter is making giant buckets. His young children help sand the surface of the wood.