Anchee Min - Red Azalea

I went to Yan to confirm the rumor. Yan looked like a desperado. She told me Lu had made secret reports on us to headquarters. The locust had begun its chewing. It had begun its destruction. Yan was ordered by headquarters to “put her cards on the table” of her own initiative before the masses’ force would be used.

I denied it, Yan whispered to me. I denied everything. I had mastered the Party’s tricks. I told the Chief Party Secretary that I couldn’t have had a more revolutionary relationship with you than with any of my comrades. I gave many examples of your achievement as an outstanding platoon leader under my leadership. I expressed our loyalty to the Party. I was shameless when I did that. In a madhouse I suppose one could say anything, couldn’t one? The Chief discharged the case because Lu was holding no concrete evidence. The bastard Lu went to file a report to the film-studio Party committee. The bastard was fantastically insane. I had to admire her.

The film studio sent a team down to check out the case. They had talks with Lu. They did not speak to me or Yan. The Chief seemed to be changing his mind about me. He set up a two-man investigation team and conducted a chain talk with everyone, one after the other, in the company. Yan worried. She said, They will seek out some spiders’ webs and horses’ tracks because, fortunately and unfortunately, the masses do have “brighter eyes,” I suppose.

I asked Yan what to do. She fell into silence for a long moment, then said, citing a saying, “If the tactics of a devil are a foot high, the tactics of Tao will be ten times higher.” I asked how she interpreted it. She told me to do two things: first, deny everything if interrogated; second, do as she told me. Do not ask any questions. When I asked why she could not discuss her plan with me, she replied that that was part of her plan.

Lu used the full scope of her power, as if Yan was already out of the picture. She stopped her Mao-work-study routine, saying that she had mastered the essence of Mao thoughts. She smiled her way in and out of the room and hummed songs at work. She ordered pork chops at lunch and dinner. She gained weight. A week after I was back, one clear morning, Lu gathered the company in front of the storage bins for a meeting. She ordered everyone to recite Mao’s poem with her and pay attention to its latent meaning. The ranks followed her:

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.