Anchee Min: Red Azalea

I jumped down from the table and carefully picked the egg from the wreath. It was warm. The shell was thin, almost transparent. There were blood dots on the shell. I looked at Big Beard. She looked back at me modestly. I hugged her as she began to sing. Go-go-go La! Go-go-go La! Her cackle was so loud, so proud.

Coral carried Big Beard to the bed. She thought this would provide her with a good rest after such a hard labor. We all kneeled in front of the bed and talked to Big Beard. We passed the egg around. Space Conqueror got a pen and I wrote the date on the egg. Blooming went to find a shoe box and carefully put the egg in with soft papers and stored it under her bed.

When our parents got in, we told them the big news. We said since Big Beard started to produce eggs, there was no reason to kill her anymore. Eggs were the most expensive thing in the market. My parents agreed but said they would not eat Big Beard’s eggs. We said we would save the eggs for houseguests.

Big Beard became the center of our attention. Each day after school we went to dig worms. Space Conqueror climbed the trees for bigger worms. Big Beard became picky in taste. She began to only take live worms. She produced one egg every two days and soon the shoe box was full.

But Big Beard’s good life did not last. That summer the neighborhood Party committee launched a Patriotic Public Health Campaign and all the dogs, ducks, and chickens had to be killed in three days. We tried to hide Big Beard, but we could not shut her up every time after she dropped an egg. She had to pronounce her mother’s pride. The committee, a group of retired old people, came to our door to shout slogans to mobilize us. We pretended not to hear them at first. When they came nearer, waving their little paper flags in their hands, we got nervous. We held Big Beard under the window and covered her with blankets. The old people shouted their voices hoarse and their breaths broken. The slogan was “Do not raise duck and hen in the city!” It later on became “Do not raise duck…”-the old man who was leading the shout lost his breath here, he stopped, catching his breath, he went-“raise hen in the city!” The slogan shouters did not care what they shouted, they just repeated where the old man had stopped, so they went “Do not raise duck!” After the old man regained his voice, they followed: “Raise hen in the city!”

The head of the neighborhood Party committee came to talk with me. He asked why I was not behaving as a head of the Little Red Guards should. He asked if I still wanted to be voted as a Mao’s Loyalist in the coming year. I understood what I had to do. I promised to kill Big Beard the next morning. He said that he and his committee would come and check on me by seven-thirty. He wanted to have Big Beard’s head.

I had a bad sleep as I had expected. I got up at dawn. Big Beard was already up eating her breakfast in the dark. Hearing me come in, she made her go-go-go sound. I took a pair of scissors and picked up Big Beard by the wings. I went down to the yard. Upstairs Little Coffin had already come back from the food market. I asked her what time it was. She replied that it was five to seven. I kept telling myself, No big deal. Big Beard is only a hen, an animal, an enemy of public health. I raised up the scissors and put the scissors back down. I went back upstairs to fetch a bowl to collect Big Beard’s blood. It was seven-fifteen. I came back down to the yard and realized I had forgotten another thing. I went back upstairs to boil water. I let Big Beard free in the yard. She seemed glad. Shaking her feathers, she used her mouth to chop open my fist. She was playing with me. I went back up and the water was boiling. I took the hot-water container down and placed it next to the bowl. I grabbed Big Beard, but she struggled away as if she sensed some danger. I chased her. She kneeled down in front of me. I picked her up and folded her head under her wing. I was using my full strength. I began to pull her beard off. My hands were weak. I made myself ignore it. I kept pulling until Big Beard’s neck showed. I picked up the scissors. My arms were stiff. It was seven twenty-five. Big Beard pulled her head out from under her wing. She looked at me, her face was red. She kept struggling. I heard the neighborhood committee’s drum beating in the next lane. I folded Big Beard’s head back under her wing. I raised my scissors and aimed at her neck. She struggled violently. It was seven-thirty. The bell of the Wu-Lee Hardware Workshop rang; the women poured in. The committee people arrived at the door; the slogan shouting was like waves raising and falling. I clapped the scissors. Big Beard pulled her head out and made a go-go-go sound. She pushed an egg out of her body.

I could not look. I brought the scissors down. When I could look again I saw Big Beard flying over everybody’s head, dripping blood on her way. My sisters and brother were looking down from the window. Big Beard was on a tree, almost as high as our window, then she dropped down on the white cement ground.

I ran upstairs. I said I could not touch the hen again. No one in my family would. Big Beard lay dead on the cement yard, next to the bowl and a container of boiled water. The egg was stepped on. When the water got cold, Little Coffin came to me and asked what I was going to do with the hen. It’s going to spoil, she said. I begged her to take it. I said it would make a good dish to go with wine. I knew her father and grandfather were alcoholics. She took it.

I went upstairs after dinner. Little Coffin’s family was in a Mao seminar section. Big Beard had become a handful of bones lying in a garbage can in the corner. Little Coffin told me that Big Beard tasted excellent.

In school Mao’s books were our texts. I was the head of the class on the history of the Communist Party of China. To me, history meant how proletarians won over the reactionaries. Western history was a history of capitalist exploitation. We hung portraits of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin next to Mao in our classrooms. Each morning we bowed to them as well as bowing to Mao, praying for a long, long life for him. My sisters copied my compositions. My compositions were collected slogans. I always began with this: “The East wind is blowing, the fighting drum is beating. Who is afraid in the world today? It is not the people who are afraid of American imperialists. It is the American imperialists who are afraid of the people.” Those phrases won me prizes. Space Conqueror looked up to me as if I were a magician. For me, compositions were nothing; it was abacus competitions that were difficult. I wrote compositions for my brother and sisters, but I felt I had not much in common with the children. I felt like an adult. I longed for challenges. I was at the school day and night promoting Communism, making revolution by painting slogans on walls and boards. I led my schoolmates in collecting pennies. We wanted to donate the pennies to the starving children in America. We were proud of what we did. We were sure that we were making red dots on the world’s map. We were fighting for the final peace of the planet. Not for a day did I not feel heroic. I was the opera.

I was asked to attend the school’s Revolutionary Committee meeting. It was 1970 and I was thirteen years old. I discussed how to carry on the Cultural Revolution at our Long Happiness Elementary School with the committee people, the true revolutionaries. When I raised my hand and said I would like to speak, my face would no longer flush. I knew what I was talking about. Phrases from People’s Daily and Red Flag magazine poured out of my mouth. My speeches were filled with an impassioned and noble spirit. I was honored. In the early seventies my being a head of the Little Red Guards at school brought our family honor. My award certificates were my mother’s pride, although she never hung them on the wall. My name was constantly mentioned by the school authority and praised as “Study Mao Thoughts Activist,” “Mao’s Good Child” and “Student of Excellences.” Whenever I would speak through a microphone in the school’s broadcasting station, my sisters and brother would be listening in their classrooms and their classmates would look at them with admiration and envy.