Anchee Min - Red Azalea

I cleaned the mop after everyone else had gone. I did not go to the dinner. I could only be reminded of my misery if I went. I decided to stay. I decided to be by myself. I went to the room to smoke. The Supervisor was not there. Strangely, at this moment, in darkness, I found my thoughts went to him. I wondered what kind of person he was, his background and purpose. I admired his devotion. If I had not been in such a bad situation, I would have made friends with him. I liked him. I liked his strange mind. I began to think, If we were friends, would I tell him everything? Would I talk to him about Yan? I wondered what made him, the creator of Red Azalea, so fond of Cheering Spear.

The doorknob turned. A familiar figure ducked in. Good evening, he said. You haven’t had your dinner, have you? No, I said. The cafeteria is closing, he said. I know, I said. But I am not hungry. Why didn’t you go to the dinner? he asked me. I am sure you were invited. Was it because you don’t care to meet our greatest standard-bearer? Of course I care, I said. But I am sure no one would be bothered by the absence of a set clerk. He said, You can never be too sure of that. Comrade Jiang Ching cares very much for ordinary people.

He smiled and sat down opposite me. He laid two egg rolls in front of me. Eat while they are still warm, he said to me. I took an egg roll and stuffed it into my mouth. I was starving. I did not know what made me so daring in front of him. Was it his praise of Cheering Spear that deadened my hopes, so I no longer cared to please him anymore?

The Supervisor sat down and took the cigarette I passed to him. It is a stifling world, indeed, he exhaled. You are not a bad person. Not bad? I sneered. What about not being bad? What about it is not significant, he said. You are serving a purpose. I wanted to know: What kind of purpose? He said, It’s better if you don’t know it. I turned to him and said, I do not care to know anything.

That is very well, he said. Let the sun keep shining. Let heaven and earth share… share the myth and beauty of the unknown. You see, it doesn’t make much difference, to know or not to know, he said, as if to himself. It is the nothingness that makes the ideal state of things. He turned and looked at me. He looked at me in the dark. I saw his glittering irises. He got up, switched on the light and left the room. He left me thinking about him.

Sound of Rain and Soviet Wong came to the set the next day. A new document from the Central Party Committee was issued which said that the direction Red Azalea was going in had created some political problems. Comrade Jiang Ching was in the middle of decision-making. The shooting was not yet to be effected.

The last exterior scenes were to be shot in the West Lake district of Southern River province about two weeks later, in March. I came in just before the bus took off. The only seat left was the seat next to the Supervisor. I hesitated, but decided to take it. I could feel a strange tension between us. He passed me a cigarette. We did not speak on our six-hour journey. Cheering Spear and Soviet Wong sat in front of us. They sang operas along the way. One after another. The bus broke down right before we entered the West Lake district. When the other crew members went out to stretch their limbs, the Supervisor and I began talking.

I carefully asked if he had a family. He said yes, but he was basically alone by himself all these years. I asked him where he lived. Here and there, I go where my job takes me, he said. He asked how I had been coping with my life and whether there was some happiness in it. I said no and asked him the same question. To my surprise he said that he was as dry as a fish lying on salty land. He said he was tired, but obligated to a mission. What mission? To fight for the people, he said. People who have the same fate as mine, he added. I thought the statement was like some sort of slogan. I told him so. He laughed and said that he was impressed by my daring.

Why do you fight for the people? Who do you mean by the people? I asked. He said I should learn more about him. I said I would like to learn that. He began his revelation. His family was from the Mountain East province in the North. His mother was a maid before the Liberation. He never knew his father. Throughout his childhood he and his mother were kicked around by the rich and had no roof over their heads. His mother had to prostitute herself to feed him. The rich kids beat him and had their dogs bite him. He’s hated dogs ever since. His mother died of syphilis when he turned twelve. His mother could not be buried in her own village with her ancestors. A man from the village said that her bad spirit would chase the village’s good fortune away. The man who said that had once taken pleasure from her body. She was buried right outside the village gate. Wild dogs raked her up and ate her to the bones.

Though charged with anger, the Supervisor was calm. After Mother died, I went to Shanghai, he said, to a relative who was an underground Communist. He introduced me to a left-wing theater organization in which I became the youngest opera singer. I joined the Party that same year. I missed my mother. She left with a great part of me. I have never escaped from loneliness since. In memory of my mother I produced and directed an adaption of a western play called A Doll’s House. It was the highest moment in my life. Raising his hand to touch the brim of his Red Army cap, he said, I played Nora.

Before I completed the picture he had painted in my mind, the Supervisor interrupted me. He asked me how I felt about being a female in this society. Seeing my hesitation, he said that it should be every female’s responsibility to promote righteousness. I disliked the question, because I saw that there wasn’t much righteousness being promoted. But I did not tell him so. I said, purposely, that I was confused by this question. I said that the Chairman had taught us everything about equal rights. Equal rights between men and women, equal rights among human beings. Such equal rights as Cheering Spear and I had been given. The Supervisor smiled vaguely. You again are not speaking your true thoughts. I said, Maybe, but, well, why don’t you tell me your name? Why can’t you announce your true identity? Have you ever spoken your true mind? He said, But we are talking about you. We are talking about how you feel, how you have been bothered by your own resentment. The resentment you often dip yourself in, like a dumpling being dipped in vinegar sauce.

Sweet? Sour? He laughed. He touched my very unhappy nerves. I said, I am well and I am nobody else’s business.

You are a poor liar, he said. You can’t hide your feelings-that shows that you know nothing about the art of living. You are stressed. As stressed as a rabbit in a sack. Your eyes are telling me you dislike everything you have been assigned to do. You are miserable. You hate Sound of Rain and Soviet Wong. You hate them because they imprisoned your ambition. You are jealous of Cheering Spear. You can’t trace your ambition and you are tortured by it. You want to be somebody, you want to be history. You deserve to be capped as a bourgeois individualist. You can’t be better described. Tell me if you disagree with my description. Tell me the truth, will you? Would you? The Supervisor noticed my quietness and said, Watch out, your mind is too complicated.

In the basement of the West Lake Hotel, where we went to smoke every day after shooting, the Supervisor told me that Comrade Jiang Ching was getting criticized for her creations. Her opponents say that when a female gets on a boat, the boat sinks right away. The Supervisor asked me if I was surprised. I said, In light of five thousand years of tradition, I am not surprised. Ah, yes, history, he said. All the wisdom is man’s wisdom. That’s Chinese history. The fall of a kingdom is always the fault of the concubine. What could be more truthful? Why should Comrade Jiang Ching be an exception?