Red Azalea (16 page)

Everyone in the ranks knew what Lu was insinuating.
They shot secret glances at Yan. Yan stood among the ranks like Mount Everest towering in a storm. I was surprised that she recited the poem loudly, showing no anger. I’ve warned all of you before, said Lu, and I’m warning you again. She paced back and forth, giving big arm gestures. A fly only parks on a cracked egg. She turned to Yan. Am I not right? Yan nodded humbly.

Lu smiled arrogantly. She took a piece of paper out of her pocket and announced a decision from headquarters: until the investigation team reaches its conclusion, there will be no candidate sent from our company to the film studio.

I looked at Yan. I could not hide my disappointment and shock. Yan was chewing down a corncob. Her features twisted, she looked like a wounded fighting bull. After staring at Yan for a moment, Lu asked whether Yan needed some aspirin for she did not look well.

Slowly turning toward the ranks, Yan questioned, How should a lamb respond when a wolf asks her to pay a New Year’s Eve visit? The soldiers dared not answer. They all turned to stare at Lu. Lu clenched her fist, then ordered the ranks to cite a paragraph of Mao’s teaching. “If the broom doesn’t arrive, dust won’t go away by itself. Same goes for wiping out the reactionaries.”

Yan said to the ranks before closing, Learn from me, comrades, learn from my stupidity. I took a fish eyeball as a pearl. She started to laugh. The soldiers watched her.

Lu smiled insidiously. Folding her arms in front of her chest, she said, The winner will not be the one who laughs the loudest, but the longest.

Helplessness enveloped me. Yan had stopped talking to me for days. I began to feel sick inside. How much would denying everything help? What could be more normal in this country than one would be made a reactionary if the Party decided to call him a reactionary? Although I had never doubted Yan’s fighting style, I was frustrated this time for she was not doing much except having lips-and-teeth combat with Lu. I asked myself again what could possibly be done. I was at the end of my wits.

I worked by a threshing machine the whole day. The noise was threshing my thoughts. My disappointment was so great that I could not stop thinking about my misery. The ears of grain were thin, thinner than mice shit, heaped around my feet, heaped up, burying me. I yelled at Orchid when she came to shovel the grain. She yelled back. It’s late autumn, you cricket. How many days can you keep jumping?

I began to have an intense headache. After midnight it grew worse. As I kept tossing, I suddenly heard a whisper. The voice was from underneath. Are you awake? It was Yan. She pricked my straw mattress with her fingers. I said, What are you doing? Her whisper was loud enough for Lu to hear. Yan said she wanted to meet me at the brick factory. I did not say anything. I kept quiet because I was thinking she might have gone mad like Little Green. I lay on my face. I wanted to cry. She pricked more. I whispered, Go back to sleep, please, people are going to hear you. She said she did not care. She said she wanted me.
She said, It’s midnight, it’s safe. She said, It’s been too long.

I noticed Lu’s bed shook a little. Are you going to come? Yan continued. I’m going to take the tractor and I expect you to be there with me. She opened the net curtain and sneaked out of the room.

Darkness jumped on my face as I stepped out of the room. I felt the end of my world as I followed Yan out of the room and got on her tractor. I was sure that Lu had heard everything.

I held the tractor bar. Yan drove like a watersnake moving through the reeds. She arched over the steering wheel like a jockey. Although the driveway was big enough for two tractors, when a heavily loaded tractor from the opposite direction passed by her, she jumped like a kangaroo rat.

The night was stiflingly dark. The tractor’s headlights and engine noises horrified me. Yan kept up a high speed. The tractor kept jumping. I screamed at Yan. I said, I don’t want to go crazy with you. I shouted, You go to hell, you go and die alone. I don’t want to be jailed. I don’t want to be Little Green. Yan shouted back at me. She shouted clichés, clichés like “Winners don’t quit, quitters never win.” I shouted that we would never win. Red Fire Farm was where we would be slaughtered. Lu would be slaughtering us. She said, Yes, Lu would be very happy to slaughter us.

The tractor zipped through reeds. My face was
whipped by the leaves. I screamed. She said that I was stupid and I dreamt too much. She shouted, I am teaching you to be a killer. Be a killer to win. Stupid, do you hear me?

She made a sharp turn next to the irrigation channel. I almost fell off the tractor into the river. She encircled my waist with her right arm and controlled the tractor with the left. After she completed the turn, she slowed down. I heard another tractor coming from behind. She told me to jump off as she loosened her grip on my waist. I did not move. I thought I heard her wrong. She repeated. I heard her say, Jump off the tractor, go back and order your platoon to make an emergency search at the brick factory. I said, What do you want to do? She yelled, Was my order clear? Before I answered yes, she pushed me off the tractor.

I fell into the reeds. When I rose, I saw that the other tractor had passed in front of me like a tiger sweeping over the bushes. Without seeing clearly, I knew the driver was Lu.

I was shaking. I could not think. I ran as fast as I could back to the barracks and gathered my platoon on three tractors. I kept saying, Brick factory, brick factory. I did not say anything else. I did not know anything else to say. I took my rifle and loaded it.

In half an hour the platoon reached the brick factory. My squad head came and reported that two tractors were found parked ten yards away from each other in the reeds. As I ordered the search, I started to realize Yan’s plan. I
was wrapped in fear. The shadows of the soldiers moved between the brick lanes.

A memory emerged of Yan playing the erhu for me. The touch of the music. I kept walking, and a strange feeling rose slowly in me telling me that I was going mad. I cried out nervously. I said, Stop. The word came out of my mouth and caught me off guard. The soldiers took the word as an order. They all stopped and got down on their knees. Before I gathered up my mind, I heard a noise in the distance. I began to believe that I had really gone mad, because I thought I was hearing Little Green’s murmuring and the sound of bodies thrusting.

The squad head asked me if we should move forward. I heard myself say, Load! in Yan’s voice. We followed the sound. Noises increased. I began to lose my sense of reality. I let the soldiers pass me. I heard the sound of something, like a bag of potatoes being tossed. I heard odd steps mixed with animallike sounds. My fear deepened.

It was at that moment when I heard my squad head shout
Freeze!
that my heart was paralyzed. The squad head reported to me that he had caught the evildoers. Flashlights and rifles were raised in the air. The spot was brightened as if the moon had dropped. I adjusted my eyes from the dark to the light and the image that faded into my sight split my heart in half.

Yan and Lu were locked together, half naked, like a pair of grotesque mating silkworms. The strong flashlights whitened their bodies. Shadowing her eyes with a hand, Yan got up. She made a move pretending to run. The soldiers tightened their circle, and she was made to give up.

A petrol tractor came; the Chief Party Secretary
stepped down. The soldiers made a path for him. I stood in amazement. I was amazed by Yan’s plan. I understood that Yan would always be my ruler.

Yan put her shirt back on slowly. She looked around and picked up Lu’s shirt. She went to cover Lu with it. She performed elegantly. Lu lay motionless, in shock. It has nothing to do with her, Yan said calmly, pointing at Lu. I seduced her and I’ll take the punishment for my crime.

Lu screamed, No! She screamed, It is not what you see. Not at all! I am Yan’s victim. Yan kept silent and then said, I am sorry. She kept saying, I am sorry, as if she had lost control of her nerves. Lu cried and said, It’s not that. It’s a trap. A trap in which two reactionaries had planned to murder a revolutionary. She pointed at me. She said I was the ally.

The soldiers looked confused. Anybody in the company who had a brain would not have believed for a minute that Yan would have a relationship with Lu. The two were as incompatible as fire and water. Yet the Chief would not notice the subtlety. He fell right into Yan’s trap. Yan moved forward. She was taking advantage of everyone’s shock. She fell down on her knees and covered her face with her palms as if deeply embarrassed. She convinced the crowd that what they had caught was an unbelievable truth. The truth that seemed so much like a bad puppet show.

I took Yan’s hint and rode on the confusion. I pointed at Lu’s nose, I said, Lu, you will double your crime by making unfounded and scurrilous attacks on an innocent. I said to the Chief, The real reactionary has begun her attack. The Chief nodded and said, Let her perform. Lu
yelled, Chief, I am asking for justice. Yan said, Chief, it’s not Lu, it’s me. Lu said, Chief, you can’t let them get away. We can’t be soft on treating the reactionaries. The Chief locked his hands behind his back and began to walk back to his tractor. A robber cries, Stop the thief! He sneered. Lu crawled to his feet. I swear I’ve never cheated on the Party. You must trust me. The Chief got on the tractor and signaled the driver to start the engine. You two—the Chief pointed at Lu and Yan—my best officers in the entire farm, have shamed me. He stopped as if it hurt him to go on. Lu begged for a chance to explain. The Chief said, How do you explain when I have seen all this with my own eyes? The tractor began to pull away as the Chief pronounced his sentence: To make a clean field, one must pull up weeds by the roots.

As a comrade with a good record, my case was dropped. I was to be sent to the Shanghai Film Studio to be trained as an actress.

The headquarters held a farewell party for me. Everyone made a toast to congratulate me. The Chief awarded me a red flag with golden embroidered characters. I was the Honored Soldier. Our Red Fire Farm is proud of you being chosen, said the Chief. You must live up to the people’s earnest expectations.

Not for a minute could I stop thinking of Yan. She was detained and shut in a dark room in a water tower with Lu. I could not imagine leaving the farm when Yan was not
safe. But I knew by giving up my chance I would not help Yan’s situation. It could only reveal more evidence of the truth that Yan and I were the real evildoers. I realized that for Yan’s sake I had to go.

I began packing. I had taken Yan’s life. What would be left for her at the farm? I could just imagine her lying in the cold net alone at night with nothing to look forward to the next day.

I got up in the early dawn when it was still dark. I climbed down into Yan’s empty net and sobbed while embracing her things. I took her Mao button collection with me as I left the net for good.

It was still dark as I waited for the first truck to Shanghai at the crossroad. The wind was strong. The churned-up sand and dust were like thousands of tiny whips hitting my face, drilling through my collar down to the spine. In saying goodbye to the fields, all the experiences I had had with Yan rushed up to me, beginning with the first day I had arrived at the farm and saw her appear at the horizon.

The truck came. I got on. As it pulled away, I felt the world surrounding me begin to spin like a wheel. When the truck passed by the water tower, I saw in my blurred vision a figure standing on top of the water tower with a red flag fluttering behind her.

T
he dust and dampness had gelled my hair. I had been sitting on an open truck for four hours now. The cold wind cooled my burning insides. The cow-hair rain mixed with the descending fog wet my scarf. The loose threads of the scarf touched my chin, reminding me of Yan’s wet braids. Fields of green rice paddies flew past my eyes. My mind kept going back to Yan. I was a shell with its pearl missing.

I swallowed a mouthful of cold air. My red scarf was blown away. I failed to catch it. The truck kept running. The scarf carried my sorrow. It descended on a wet field. A cow had been plowing not far from it. An old peasant held a whip high. The whip made a crisp roaring sound above the cow’s head.

I called my mother at work from a public phone. I told her that I was in Shanghai. Mother went speechless. She was too excited. She picked me up at the bus station. She ran
toward me and almost fell. When she regained her balance she looked me up and down. Mother took my hands in hers and said I had grown. Through the bus station window spring was flourishing. Leaves were dripping dew. Mother said that the fresh green leaves always brought her hope. Taking my hand, she looked at my fungicide-dyed nails and tried to scratch the brown color off. I told her not to bother. Mother put down my hand and said, You have gained quite a bit of weight. I said I weighed a hundred and fifty pounds. Your face is the shape of a pea now. Mother laughed. She was so happy. I said, Do I look like a real peasant? Yes you do, very much.

We transferred onto another bus heading home. Mother told me that Blooming was assigned to a design school where she was being trained to paint propaganda posters. Coral was in the process of graduating from middle school. If nothing went wrong, she should be assigned to be a factory worker, Mother said. Let’s hope that she’s the luckiest person in the family. I asked about Space Conqueror. Mother said he had become a young man now. He was quick in math, but that still did not promise him a good future. He had to go with the policy. He would be assigned either as a peasant or, if he was lucky enough, a worker at a factory outside of the city. I asked Mother what happened to those youths who did not go with the policy. Mother reported that none of these people met a good end. They were shamed in the neighborhood. Their families were bothered every day until the appointed youth moved to the countryside. Mother said to me, You are a good kid. You went as you were supposed to. You have been behaving properly as a big sister. You never
caused any trouble since you were born. I did not tell my mother that being a big sister wore me out.

The moment I showed up in the neighborhood, the neighbors acted strangely. They stared at me as if they had never seen me before. She’s going to be a movie star, they murmured. The Old Tailor, Little Coffin, Big Bread, Witch Chao, the women downstairs commented behind my back. I heard them say, She’s really not that good-looking at all.

The neighbors visited me, group after group. The most frequent question they asked was whether I had now received my permanent city residency. My father had to explain that there was no such thing yet, that I was just picked up and had to go through more tests.

We had dinner. I had not had one like this for a long time. We had sweet-and-sour pork, green vegetables and tofu. Blooming took a leave at the boarding school to be with me at dinner. I did not have much to say, nor did my sisters and brother. They had their future to worry about, especially Coral. If I were to be granted a permanent residence in the city, Coral would lose her chance to become a worker. She would be sent to a farm because our family needed to have one peasant to pass the policy.

Mother talked about the dishes. She tried to celebrate the moment. She never showed her despair. Father was proud of me being chosen, but was not optimistic about my soaring stardom. He said to me, One is crushed harder when one climbs high. The neighborhood kids called my name at the window during dinner. They all wanted to take a look at the movie star. But I could not forget Yan. Her face was in front of me all night.

The film studio was a palace of displayed slogans. It was surrounded by dark red maple trees. The leaves were like joined hands. They blocked my view. The leaves branched in and out of the building windows. The studio walls were painted white, with red slogans written on them. “Long live Chairman Mao’s revolutionary arts policy!” “Salute to our greatest standard-bearer, Comrade Jiang Ching!”

I presented a sealed official letter to the studio security guard. He told me to wait as he went inside. A few minutes later a man and a woman appeared in the hallway. They threw themselves at me enthusiastically. The man introduced himself as Sound of Rain, the head of the studio acting department; the woman, as Soviet Wong, his assistant. They picked up my luggage and asked me to follow them into the studio.

We passed through a series of gates. The sun was shining through the maple leaves. The leaves were spreading their pinkish rays onto the dustless pavement. The workers walking underneath the maple trees were covered in a translucent reddish light. They greeted us with flattery.

Sound of Rain had a pumpkin head with fat cheeks sagging on the sides. Soviet Wong had the face of an ancient beauty. She had slanting eyes, a long nose, a cherry-shaped mouth and extremely fine skin. She was about forty. It was the way she moved; her elegance drew me in. She spoke perfect Mandarin. She had a silky voice. Sound of Rain said that Soviet Wong graduated from the Shanghai Film Acting School in the fifties and was an extremely
talented actress. Sound of Rain said that I should be proud that Soviet Wong would be one of my four instructors. I asked how it was that I would have more than one instructor. Sound of Rain said it was Madam Mao, Comrade Jiang Ching’s order. Soviet Wong said that she was very happy to receive the assignment to be in charge of teaching me. I asked what I would be learning. She said I would be taking intensive classes on politics and acting. I asked if she would do any acting with us. She went silent. Her lips tightened and her head lowered. A lump of hair fell on her face. Her steps slowed down. The revolution’s needs are my needs, she said stiffly. Her resentment spit out between her teeth. She looked clearly unhappy. Flinging back her hair, she quickly sped up to catch Sound of Rain. Her graceful back bent slightly to the right side. She pretended to be very happy. She must be durable as bamboo—capable of bending in all directions in the wind. I walked carefully, watching my own steps.

Soviet Wong walked a half step behind Sound of Rain, never overtaking him or lagging behind him one step. They both wore blue Mao jackets with collars buttoned tightly at the neck. They nodded, Sound of Rain first, then Soviet Wong, at the workers who passed by. They paid the workers full-scale smiles. The smile made me nervous, although it was the most admired smile in the country. It was the smile that Mao had been promoting with the slogan “One must treat his comrades with the warmth of spring.” Lu at Red Fire Farm was an expert at that type of smile.

Finally, we arrived at an abandoned studio set. It was
the size of a stadium, engulfed by foot-high weeds. As we made a sharp turn, a single little house appeared in front of me. It was an old house with a cement sink on the ground. Wild plants climbed around the sink. This is where you girls stay, said Soviet Wong. This used to be an old movie set, Sound of Rain explained. There are more living quarters behind the house. It was built to be used as a horse shed for movies. We had it converted as a living space for the boys chosen. Twenty-five of you are assigned to live and work in this area. You will be guarded. No visits to or from families except the second Sunday morning of the month. Anyone who breaks the rules will be eliminated. We want no outside influence. Absolutely none, Soviet Wong echoed. My thoughts went to Yan.

What about letters? I asked. What’s so urgent about writing letters? Soviet Wong suddenly turned to me; suspicion rose in her voice. Her long thin eyebrows twisted into a knot in the middle. I reacted quickly to this sign of danger. I said, Oh, nothing, I was just asking.

She did not believe me. I could tell that she went on with her own thinking. You have dark circles under your eyes, which shows that you don’t sleep well. What’s your problem? We hope your promise to the Party was not a fake one. She turned to Sound of Rain and said, We must take preventive measures against possible calamities.

I was offended but I knew I must not show my feelings. The engine of my brain sped up to its limit. Nothing is more urgent than the assignment I have been given, I said, trying hard to sound sincere. It might be my late Mao study habit that causes the dark circles around my eyes. She asked, Why don’t you tell us the name of the
person you would like to write to so we could check to make sure that it is good for you to keep the correspondence?

Although I couldn’t see her motive, I sensed that Soviet Wong’s offer was insincere. I have no one to write to, really. I slacked off my tone to make the words carry no eagerness. Soviet Wong stared at me; eye-to-eye, we wrestled. Sound of Rain took a look at his watch and said to Soviet Wong, We should not worry. He went to whisper to her. I heard a phrase. A virus-free egg, he said to her.

Pushing open the door of the little house, Sound of Rain and Soviet Wong called, Come out, girls, let’s meet a new comrade. Four young women stepped out one after another like snowflakes dancing in the air. I blinked my eyes. Their beauty astonished me. They looked terribly alike, like sisters. I said hello. Sound of Rain and Soviet Wong stopped me and said, Speak in standard Mandarin. No local dialects. I introduced myself in an awkward Mandarin. I said I was from Red Fire Farm.

The young women gave their names shyly. The first one said that her name was Firewood. She was a worker in a steel factory and was the daughter of three generations of workers. Her head was the shape of an egg. Features spread out from the nose. She had a small thin mouth. So small that it looked like the anus of my hen Big Beard. Her double-lidded big slanting eyes were pleasant, though they were drawn very close together and reminded me of the eyes of a fox. She was in a bright vermilion shirt. Two long pigtails swung on her back. Her enthusiasm was like her name.

The second woman introduced herself as Cheering
Spear. Her look held a gripping power. One would submit oneself in front of her beauty without wanting to. She stood there and just shone. She was about my age. She had a low voice, cool eyes which sent out a message that she knew what she wanted. She was confident. Her hair was combed up like the horns of a sheep and tied up with brown rubber bands. She had thick eyelashes. She spoke to me but did not look at me. I stared at her moving mouth. I did not understand why she did not look at me. Her Mandarin was more than correct. She articulated each syllable making sure the “er” sound found its way into all the sentences. She spoke “dee-fang” (place) as “dee-er.” She said she was a journalist from the
Beijing Daily.
She said she was from the people. Finally, she turned and looked at me. She looked at me but showed that she was not interested. It was a pair of rival’s eyes. There was an unfriendliness behind the friendly face. She wanted to roll me over, I sensed. I used to be a horse rider, she said. I dealt with the toughest horses. I worked three years in Inner Mongolia raising horses for military usage. I could do acrobatics on horseback. I play accordion. She went and picked up an accordion from her bag and played out a string of notes. She sang:

She stopped, raised her head, looked at me. She said that it was difficult to describe herself. She gave a fabulous smile at Soviet Wong and asked her to help with the words. She said to Soviet Wong, You are the only one who knows me best. Soviet Wong looked pleased. She said Cheering Spear was a modest youth that everyone should learn from. Learn enthusiasm, learn healthy thinking, learn honesty from her.

Sure, I said. I moved to the third one in the rank. She was thin, wearing a golden-yellowish cotton shirt. She introduced herself as Little Bell. She said her father was a soldier who was an orphan before the Liberation. He was sold to a public bath station to work for the rich as a foot massager, she said. It was in his miserable memory of the past that I grew up. I don’t think I am beautiful, she said. I really don’t. Good looks don’t make a person beautiful. She made a shy smile toward Sound of Rain, who was staring at her. Please forgive my shyness, she said. Little Bell lowered her head, smoothing her hair down with her fingers.

Very well expressed, Little Bell, Sound of Rain said in a low muffled voice that sounded as if it came from a jar. Good looks don’t make a person beautiful. The matter is not about how you look, it is about how your looks can serve the proletarian purpose. This is said by our Supervisor from Beijing. I asked who was the Supervisor. Sound of Rain replied that he was the one who was solely responsible for Comrade Jiang Ching. A great genius of arts, he said.