Anchee Min - Red Azalea

I was jealous of Cheering Spear’s talent. Soviet Wong said to me, You see, it is not a matter of acting technique. It is a matter of who has more feelings for Chairman Mao. We need a real Communist to play a Communist.

Cheering Spear and Soviet Wong had become more and more close. They ate together at every meal. Soviet Wong helped Cheering Spear learn her lines into the night. They made a good image of the teacher-and-student relationship. But to me they were two tacticians.

I forced myself to hang on.

No one was giving up, not Firewood, Little Bell or Bee OhYang. Firewood had hurt her vocal cords due to excessive voice exercises every day. She believed that if she could blow a pit on the wall she would gain a silky voice. She believed that her problem was her voice. Karl Marx became Karl Marx because he read so many books that his feet rubbed a pair of footprints on a library floor, Firewood told me. Success belongs to the strong-willed. Firewood took this story from Red Flag magazine as her inspiration. Her practice was encouraged by Soviet Wong, who would sometimes offer to accompany her on the piano. Firewood’s singing was like a rooster under a blunt knife. Soviet Wong played the piano with her eyes closed as if Firewood’s howling massaged her sour nerves.

Firewood ended up developing a knot on her vocal cords. I secretly felt good that her chances to win the role now were zero. My other classmates must have felt the same way, but we hid our feelings. We all brought Tiger Balm for Firewood. We care for you greatly, we all said, and smiled melodramatically.

A gale of wind had blown down two maple trees that day. I went to the bushes to brush my teeth and found the trees lying flat with their roots out. Before I finished brushing, the gale started howling again. I rushed back and found One Ounce sitting in the center of the room. Ten o’clock, he said, erecting all his fingers slowly. You will be brought to see him-the arm-in-arm comrade of the greatest standard-bearer-the Supervisor.

Bee OhYang sat down on her bed and began to sob. Little Bell made a strange sound in her throat. Firewood went out and came back with a bowl of water. Cheering Spear dripped some hair oil into the water and recombed her hornlike hair with oil water. Both Firewood and Bee OhYang rebraided their braids. They looked shining and new from head to toe.

The gale continued. It lifted dust and leaves from the ground. It tore off the old Mao posters from the wall. We walked carefully on our way to the cafeteria, making sure that we did not step on Mao’s face. An hour later, Sound of Rain and Soviet Wong showed up with a van. The windows of the van were covered by black cotton curtains. Soviet Wong conducted us into the van. I coughed as I got in. The smoke in the van was heavy. It was a Party high ranker’s personal van. In astonishment we sat down quietly. The driver was a young man in a People’s Liberation Army soldier’s uniform. He wore white gloves. Sound of Rain waved at Soviet Wong to shut the door. The van took off smoothly. Firewood, Cheering Spear, Little Bell, Bee OhYang and I sat in the dark.

We all carried our own thoughts, thoughts of how to kill one another. I missed Yan so much. Once the van arrived we waited for hours in a carpeted meeting room. A secretarylike young man came to the room and made the announcement: The Supervisor had just left for an important call in the Capital. The meeting was canceled.

I broke the rules. I lied to Soviet Wong. I asked for a three-day leave. I said my mother was sick and needed me to take care of her. Soviet Wong said no at first. I tried again. I said there were no peas for me to shell today. The cafeteria people had gone to a rally. Soviet Wong then said yes.

I went back to Red Fire Farm. I went to visit Yan. I saw her working in the middle of the rice field among the others. The soldiers looked me up and down. I saw envy and distance in their eyes. I waited by the edge of the field as Yan walked over. She washed her hands in the irrigation channel and then dipped in her bare feet. She looked at me. She did not smile. She took up my bag and we walked toward the barracks.

Yan was no longer the company commander. Her case with Lu ended without anything definitive. No one believed that she could possibly have Lu as a lover. Yan later admitted to headquarters that it was her way to get even with Lu. What she had put on was a show. The Chief was displeased with the nasty way she took revenge but did not want to carry the case further. Lu insisted on pursuing the case. She insisted on having me reinvestigated. But the Chief would not reconsider my case. I was gone and he was the one who had personally granted me the title of Honored Soldier. To denounce me would have meant to expose his poor judgment. The case vanished as if it had never happened. Yan had resigned and now was a squad head. Lu was transferred to another company and became a commander.

Yan was the eldest in the squad. The new soldiers looked the way I used to look. They sang “My Motherland.” They worshiped Yan. She had her food on the table at mealtime. They brought it to her. Her bowl was full. The young soldiers served her. They said, Here is your hot-water container, I just filled it up for you. Yan lived alone, in the same room we used to live in. All the other beds were gone. She set her bed in the middle of the empty room. With the white rectangular mosquito net, the room looked like a funeral home.

I sat opposite her by the door. I looked at her face. Her skin was deep brown. She almost looked like an African. She had aged. Wrinkles deepened. A thread of white hair in her braid. She used to have thick braids, but now they were thin like mouse tails. She took out a package of flour, poured the flour into a pot, added water and lit a kerosene stove. She cooked the flour with sugar. She was offering me the best food she had. The taste was awful but I tried not to show it. She sensed it. She asked me how good the food was at the film studio. I did not answer. I did not know how to answer her. She said it must be beyond comparison. She pulled over my bowl, pushed the door open and poured the flour paste outside. Shutting the door, she said, I am sorry. Can’t help it. She went to wash the bowl in a water jar. She washed the chopsticks and she dropped them twice. She put the bowl and the chopsticks into a cotton bag and hung it on a bamboo stick. When she did that, her back bent sadly. She mopped her face with a muddy towel. Sadness attacked me. She turned around and said, Thanks for coming. She smiled and my tears welled up. She said, What do you want me to do?

She sat back down. She tried to get the conversation going. She said, Say something. I said, Say what? Anything. I said, Where is your erhu? She said she had given it away. I could not say more. She clapped a mosquito on her leg and rubbed and cracked mud off her feet. She said the soldiers were new but they were smartasses. The minute they were assigned to the farm, they started to work their way back to the city. They made excuses to take leaves shamelessly. Some of them took leaves without asking for permission. They pretended to be sick all the time. They were a bunch of hypocrites. Their hearts were never in the farm, not for a second. They served her meals to flatter her. They know how to use me, she said. They make me sick.

I wanted to say, Forget about them-let’s talk about you. But I could not. What could I say? She was trapped. No way out. She was twenty-five, a squad head at twenty-five would have no future. This was her future. I wanted to embrace her and comfort her but felt ashamed to do so.

She said, Tell me about the film studio, tell me about the new people you met. I said there was not much to tell. She said, I want to know. I told her about Cheering Spear, Firewood, Little Bell, Bee OhYang, Sound of Rain and Soviet Wong. I told her about what we do. She listened, pacing back and forth in the room. She stopped, staring outside into the fields. Before I finished, she suddenly said, We should forget about each other. It did not shock me. I understood why she had said that.