Anchee Min - Red Azalea

I placed Mother in Yan’s bed that night. I wanted to talk to my mother but instead fell asleep the minute my head hit the pillow. The next morning Mother said she’d better leave. She said that I should not feel sorry for myself. It shows weakness. And her presence might have increased my weakness and that was not her intention in being here. She should not be here to make my soldiers’ homesickness worse. I could not say that I was not feeling weak. I could not say my behavior would not influence the others. I wanted to cry in my mother’s arms, but I was an adult since the age of five. She must see me be strong. Or she would not survive. She depended on me. I asked if she would like me to give her a tour of the farm. She said she had seen enough. The salty bare land was enough. She said it was time for her to go back.

Mother did not ask about Yan, about whose bed she had slept in the previous night. I wished she had. I wished I could tell her some of my real life. But mother did not ask. I knew Yan’s title of Party secretary was the reason. Mother was afraid of Party secretaries. She was a victim of every one of them. She ran away before I introduced Yan.

Mother refused to allow me to accompany her to the farm’s bus station. She was insistent. She walked away by herself in the dust. Despite Lu’s objection to a few hours’ absence, I went to follow my mother through the cotton field. For three miles she didn’t take a rest. She was walking away from what she had seen-the land, the daughters of Shanghai, the prison. She ran away like a child. I watched her while she waited for the bus. She looked older than her age: my mother was forty-three but looked sixty or older.

When the bus carried Mother away, I ran into the cotton fields. I exhausted myself and lay down flat on my back. I cried and called Yan’s name.

The day she was expected back, I walked miles to greet her. When her tractor appeared at a crossroad, my heart was about to jump out of my mouth. She jumped off and ran toward me. Her scarf blew off. The tractor drove on. Standing before me, she was so handsome in her uniform.

Did you see him? I asked, picking up her scarf and giving it back to her. Leopard? She smiled taking the scarf. And? I said. She asked me not to mention Leopard’s name anymore in our conversation. It’s all over and it never happened. I asked what happened. She said, Nothing. We didn’t know each other. We were strangers as before. Was he there? I was persistent. Yes, he was. Did you talk? Yes, we said hello. What else? What what else? We read our companies’ reports, and that was all.

She did not look hurt. Her lovesickness was gone. She said, Our great leader Chairman Mao teaches us, “A proletarian must liberate himself first to liberate the world.” She scraped my nose. I said, You smell of soap. She said she had a bath at the headquarters. It was their special treat to branch Party secretaries. She had something important to tell me. She said she would be leaving the company soon.

I closed my eyes and relaxed in her arms. We lay quietly for a long time. Now I wish you were a man, I said. She said she knew that. She held me tighter. I listened to the sound of her heart pounding. We pretended that we were not sad. We were brave.

She had told me that she was assigned to a remote company, Company Thirty. They need a Party secretary and commander to lead eight hundred youths. Why you? Why not Lu? It’s an order, she said to me. I don’t belong to myself. I asked whether the new company was very far. She said she was afraid so. I asked about the land condition there. She said it was horrible, the same as here, in fact worse, because it was closer to the sea. I asked if she wanted to go there. She said she had no confidence in conquering that land. She said she did not know how she had become so afraid. She said she did not want to leave me. She smiled sadly and recited a saying: “When the guest leaves, the tea will soon get cold.” I said my cup of tea would never get cold.

Lu turned the light off early. The company had had a long day reaping the rice. The snoring in the room was rising and falling. I was watching the moonlight when Yan’s hands tenderly touched my face. Her hands soothed my neck and shoulders. She said she must bear the pain of leaving me. Tears welled up in my eyes. I thought of Little Green and the bookish man. Their joy and the price they paid. I wept. Yan held me. She said she could not stop herself. Her thirst was dreadful.

She covered us with blankets. We breathed each other’s breath. She pulled my hands to touch her chest. She caressed me, trembling herself. She murmured that she wished she could tell me how happy I made her feel. I asked if to her I was Leopard. She enveloped me in her arms. She said there never was a Leopard. It was I who created Leopard. I said it was an assignment given by her. She said, You did a very good job. I asked if we knew what we were doing. She said she knew nothing but the Little Red Book. I asked how the quotation applied to the situation. She recited, “One learns to fight the war by fighting the war.”

I said I could not see her because my tears kept welling up. She whispered, Forget about my departure for now. I said I could not. She said I want you to obey me. You always did good when you obeyed me. She licked my tears and said this was how she was going to remember us.

I moved my hands slowly through her shirt. She pulled my fingers to unbutton her bra. The buttons were tight, five of them. Finally, the last one came off. The moment I touched her breasts, I felt a sweet shock. My heart beat disorderly. A wild horse broke off its reins. She whispered something I could not hear. She was melting snow. I did not know what role I was playing anymore: her imagined man or myself. I was drawn to her. The horse kept running wild. I went where the sun rose. Her lips were the color of a tomato. There was a gale mixed with thunder inside of me. I was spellbound by desire. I wanted to be touched. Her hands skimmed my breasts. My mind maddened. My senses cheered frantically in a raging fire. I begged her to hold me tight. I heard a little voice rising in the back of my head demanding me to stop. As I hesitated, she caught my lips and kissed me fervently. The little voice disappeared. I lost myself in the caresses.

Yan did not go to Company Thirty. The order was canceled because headquarters was unable to connect the drinking-water pipe there. We shouted “A long, long life to Chairman Mao” when we got the news. Lu was unhappy. She would have taken Yan’s position if Yan had gone. She said it was the rain. It rained too much and it spoiled her luck.

It was May. The crops were shooting. For the past five months headquarters had ordered the company leaders to pay attention to their soldiers’ political awareness. Only when the minds have politically advanced will the quantity and quality of the products be advanced. This is the key to our economic success. Lu read the instruction loudly to the company. She said that every soldier was required to give a speech at the nightly self-criticism meeting. Lu became angry during these meetings when, as usual, two-thirds of the people dozed off. Lu said that there must be a class enemy hiding in the ranks. We must stretch tight the string of the class struggle in our minds to stay invincible, she said.

To push us to work harder, Lu also passed down an order: one would be allowed to pee or shit only two times a day during working hours and could stay in the restroom no longer than five minutes. Anyone who broke this rule would be seriously criticized. Only the lazy donkeys shit more than that, Lu said. And lazy donkeys deserve to be ruthlessly beaten!

When Lu asked Yan to give mobilization talks to the masses, Yan stepped in front of the ranks and said, Please repeat after me: Chairman Mao teaches us, “Trust the people.” She dismissed the meeting in less then one minute. Lu said, We can’t expect the studs to be straight if the beams are not. Yan said, What’s your problem? Tapping her pen on her notebook, Lu said, Comrade Secretary, I think you’ve got spiritual termites in the house of your mind. Yeah? Yan looked at Lu sideways. You know where I got those termites? From you. You’ve got termites fully packed in your head. You have no clean beams or studs in the house of your mind. They were eaten up a long time ago. And now your termites are hungry, they are climbing out from your eyes, earholes, noseholes and asshole to eat up other people’s houses. Yan walked away, leaving Lu purple.