Anchee Min - Red Azalea

By four o’clock I was able to dismiss my platoon. We were repairing a bridge. My policy-when the assignment was completed, they were allowed to take the rest of the day off. The soldiers liked me. In many cases, those who finished the work would stay to help the others, in response to my call “to carry forward the Communist collaborative spirit.” Lu didn’t like my policy; she called it “capitalist contract bullshit.” She asked me to change it and I had no choice but to acquiesce. But when she wasn’t inspecting, I did things my way.

When the work was done, I walked across the bridge. Along the canal side there was a huge slogan painted on canvas and mounted on thick bamboo sticks which said, “Do not fear death or hard work.” We had created the canal ourselves during my first winter at the farm nearly a year ago. I felt proud every time I walked by it.

This particular day, as I passed by the bridge I heard a local boatman calling me from his boat. He told me to come quickly; he had discovered a drowned body. I ran down to the boat. It was a female body. The boatman slowly flipped her over like an egg roll on a skillet. Before me was Little Green. I lost my breath. Her face was puffed. Her whole head had swelled like a pumpkin. There were traces of cuts on her arms and legs. The boatman said, It looks like she had a fit. You see these cuts? She struggled, but got tangled in the weeds. I stood motionless.

Someone brought the news to Yan. She came running down from the bridge like a mad horse, with her hair standing back on its roots. Her face was blue and red as if it had been beaten. She wouldn’t listen when the boatman told her that it was useless to attempt mouth-to-mouth lifesaving. She’s been dead for hours, the boatman said. Yan kept pumping and pumping at Little Green’s chest. Heavy sweat ran down her hair in tiny streams. Her shirt soon was soaked. She didn’t stop until she completely exhausted herself.

The Red Fire Farm headquarters held a special memorial service for Little Green. She was honored as an Outstanding Comrade and was admitted posthumously into the Youth League of the Communist Party. Little Green’s grandmother attended the service. She was beautiful like her granddaughter. She had an opera singer’s elegance. She hugged Little Green. She had no tears in her eyes; her face was paler than the dead. Lu, representing the farm’s Party committee, issued her a check for 500 yuan as a condolence. Little Green’s grandmother took the check and stared at it.

Yan left suddenly. She did not come back for dinner. I went to look for her, searching everywhere before I finally found her sitting under the bridge. The jar which she used to collect the snakes was beside her. A few days ago she told me in great delight that she had just reached the perfect number-one hundred snakes-and was expecting Little Green to come back to her senses magically.

I stepped closer to Yan and saw that she was pulling each snake’s head off its neck. The dark brown blood of the snakes spattered all over her face and uniform. When all the snakes were torn, she took up the jar and smashed it.

I went up to her. She crouched at my knees. I held her as she began to cry.

After Little Green’s death Yan was no longer the Party secretary and commander that I knew. She changed me along with her. We discussed the reasons why we were losing sight of the “brilliant future” the Party had drawn. We asked ourselves why we were getting poorer and poorer when we had been working so hard on the land. Our monthly salary of 24 yuan barely covered food, kerosene and toilet paper. I had never been able to buy any new clothes for myself. Were we going to spend the rest of our lives this way? The irony was bitter: the Red Fire Farm was a model Communist collective, the wave of the future. It was one of ten farms in the East China Sea region. All of these farms-Red Star, Red Spark, May Fourth, May Seventh, Vanguard, East Sea, Long March, Sea Wind, Sea Harvest and our farm-with a total of over 200,000 city youth sent to work and live in the area, didn’t even grow enough food to feed themselves. The farms had been getting food supplements from the government every year. And the government had made it clear to the headquarters that we would not get any help next year. We asked ourselves what it really meant when we shouted, “Sweating hard, growing more crops to support the world’s revolution.”

Yan lost interest in conducting political study meetings. She became vulnerable, weak and sad. We had fights. She said she wanted to quit her position. She said she was no longer the right person for the job. Lu fit it much better. I said I did not like seeing her become decadent. Dispiritedness would not save us. She said quitting was her way. I asked, What would happen after you quit and Lu took power? Would we be sleeping together? She said, I didn’t know you liked my power better than you liked me. I said, It’s not the power you have in hand, it is our lives. You can’t make it better but you can make it worse. She said her life was a waste, it was a jail here. I said, Where could we go? How could we escape? There were nets above and snares below. We run, we die. Mao and the Party had set our fate. We must drag on.

Yan left for seven days’ intensive political training at the farm headquarters. I slept alone. And I became upset. I was afraid of losing her when she and Leopard met again. It was a strange feeling, a feeling of continuous distraction. I dreamt of Yan at night. I looked forward to the sunset when the day announced its end. She became my lover in her absence. At sunset a new feeling was born, for her. Its color crossed out my heart’s darkness.

I wrote to my parents in Shanghai. I told them about the Party secretary, Commander Yan. I said we were very good friends. She was a fair boss. She was like a big tree with crowded branches and lush foliage, and I enjoyed the cool air sitting under her. This was as far as I could go in explaining myself. I told my mother the farm was fine and I was fine. I mentioned that some of my roommates’ parents had made visits although the farm was not worth the trip.

My mother came instead of writing back. I was in the middle of spraying chemicals. Orchid told me that my mother had arrived. I did not believe her. She pointed to a lady coated in dust standing on the path. Now tell me I was lying, she said. I took off the chemical container and walked toward my mother. Mom, I said, who told you to come? Mother smiled and said, A mother can always find her child. I kneeled down to take off her shoes. Her feet were swollen. I poured her a bowl of water. She asked how heavy the fungicide-chemical container was. Sixty pounds, I said. Mother said, Your back is soaked. I said, I know. Mother said, It’s good that you work hard. I told her that I was the platoon leader.

Mother said she was proud. I said I was glad. She said she did not bring anything because Blooming had just graduated from the middle school and was assigned to a professional boarding school. Her Shanghai resident number was also taken away. We have no money to buy her a new blanket; she still uses the one you left. It’s good to be frugal, don’t you think? Mother said. What about Coral? I asked. Will she be assigned to a factory? Mother nodded and said she had been praying for that to happen. But it’s hard to say. Mother shook her head. Coral is afraid of leaving. The school people said that if she showed a physical disability, her chances of staying in Shanghai would be much better. Coral did not go to see a doctor while she was having serious dysentery. She was trying to destroy her intestine to claim disability. That was stupid, but we were not able to stop her. A lot of youths in the neighborhood are doing the same thing; they are scared to be assigned to the farms. Coral is very unhappy. She said she had never asked to be born, she said that to my face. My child said that to my face.