Anchee Min - Red Azalea

The film began to roll. The projectionist adjusted the lens. The blurred image came into focus. The round starting cue looked like a huge eye spying on me from behind. The Supervisor’s face was inches away. I could smell his perfume. He began his translation. His voice reminded me of bushes shivering in the wind.

The voice of the Supervisor mixed with the sound track of the movie. His voice filled with sorrow as he interpreted the ending of the story. It was about the fall of an empire and the suicide of its princess. The music was tragically austere. I saw the glittering in his bright almond eyes. Pearls dripped slowly down his cheeks like a broken necklace. His interpretation became fragmented and then his breath came harder. He stopped, unable to continue as the movie went on.

I received a document with red characters on the cover. The characters said “Top Secret Instructions.” It was an order from the Supervisor. I was ordered to view one of the stage versions of Red Azalea. I was sent to see a local theater troupe which had been playing Red Azalea for years. The troupe rehearsed the play without being given a date of performance. The actress who played Red Azalea was three inches shorter than I and did not wish to talk to me. It seemed that all the troupe members knew who had sent me. Behind their politeness was distance and cold feelings.

Every morning at eight o’clock the actors began reading aloud from their memories. The play had no energy. The actresses brought knitting to the set and the actors smoked packs of cigarettes. At lunchtime I asked a troupe member why everything seemed so slow. He asked if I would allow him to escape from Red Azalea for a second. I was confused by his attitude. He nodded at me and then asked me to listen when he turned on his radio. He turned the dial back and forth, exploring every station. It was opera, opera and opera. The operas we knew by heart for years. Kids in the street joined in the music, singing. The man said, smiling bitterly, The revolutionary operas are what we breathe. He spat on the ground and wiped his nose with his fingers. I turned away. Excuse me, he said drowsily. He drifted off to his nap, leaving the radio on. It was boredom he exhaled.

I was not bored by the operas, nor bored with Red Azalea. I paid a price at Red Fire Farm to get to play the role. Yan and millions of youths were still struggling with leeches. Just to think of it sent a chill through me. I no longer cared whether other people would enjoy Comrade Jiang Ching’s opera heroines. Red Azalea had become my life.

I put on a respectful face each morning. I stepped into the rehearsal hall elegantly and sat down modestly. At lunch I ate a bowl of rice topped with a few pieces of preserved sour vegetables. I did character studies. I ran through the lines until I could recite them by heart. I continued my waiting.

The Supervisor sent for me. He sent for me with a set of new army uniforms he wanted me to wear. Later in the afternoon I went to him in a new outfit. He smiled. He was a peony. He was in uniform as well. A piece of long hair lingered on his face. He greeted me by the gate, and suggested that we take a long walk in his garden. We dipped ourselves in the green, into parks of peonies. We arrived at a stone boat beside a lake. He told me the fable of the stone boat. It was the gift of a son to his mother. The son was an emperor. He asked his mother what she wanted for her ninetieth birthday. The mother said she had always been fascinated by boating but was afraid of water. The son built the boat in stone right by the dock so the mother could be on a boat without water. The mother enjoyed her birthday boating party immensely, and the fable spread through the nation as an example of piety.

We sat in the stone boat. I watched the reflections in the water. You should be thinking about the big picture-the Supervisor suddenly interrupted my scattering thoughts. The life of a true hero is like acrobatic dancers on a tightrope. You can never be fully prepared.

The sun dropped and the sky looked like a golden fan. The rosy clouds, as if painted with ink and water, were glowing and tinting the sky. We are the hands that should be writing history, he said, standing up and walking toward the edge of the stone boat. He stared into the water. The water had changed color from dark green to deep black. I am not afraid of water, he said as he lifted his chin, gazing far into the sky. I looked at this gaze. I saw pure devotion. The gaze condensed the evening fog into dew. He asked me to abandon my old self to live up to the Party’s expectations. Mao asked his people to forget the self totally. He told me that sacrificing one’s life for the people’s ideals expands one’s life. He said that he wanted me to kill a devil in me. The devil that makes you yield to your emotional need, he said. He asked me to forget about my little self. He said he was asking for a full commitment. His religious tone scared me. I could not understand what he was talking about. Even though he loved me, and loved me partly for the independence of my mind, he wanted me to sacrifice my old self to his-and my-ambition for the film.

He asked me please not to disappoint him. He said he had been counting on me so much that his mission would not be complete without me. He said he had never learned to take rejection well. He asked me to be on guard. All his life he had been taught to hate individuality, even while he was attracted to it. He asked me to keep him from becoming harmful to me, because no matter how much he loved me he would not let me stand in the way of his dreams. He would replace me if he had to. He asked me to obey him, because to obey him was to obey my own ambition. Because he and I were inseparable now.

The Supervisor took me back to Shanghai. He said he would have had too much difficulty filming Red Azalea in Beijing. There was a political current that was against him, against the greatest standard-bearer, Comrade Jiang Ching. Shanghai was a better place, he said. In Shanghai, Comrade Jiang Ching’s operas were daily spiritual meals. Radios all around the neighborhood played operas. The Wu-Lee Hardware Workshop downstairs had their radio on all day. Most women sang along with the radio as they welded wires together.

On the flight he told me that one day I would remember him as a genius.

I was living at the film-studio guesthouse during shooting and was allowed to visit my parents once every few days. I was fascinated with my costume-the Red Army uniform and coat-so I visited home wearing it. When I walked through the alleys, I knew my neighbors were looking at me through windows. Now they dared not speak with me. I had become too big.

When we did run into each other, they would speak in a flattering tone. They would say, Oh, we knew a long time ago that you were going to be somebody someday. We knew that since you moved into this district.

I found that I could not say much because I still remembered the days when I was called Flea.

I spoke with Little Coffin when I saw her come to visit her parents. She had become a factory worker and had married a colleague and moved away. Little Coffin never flattered me. She just looked at me with admiration. I knew she was proud of me and I told her, I’ll make you more proud.

From this moment on, I want you to forget your family name. You are Red Azalea now, said the Supervisor. Let me hear your name, please. I shivered and pronounced it loudly: I am Red Azalea. He nodded with satisfaction. I want you to be aware of what you are creating, he continued. You are creating an image which will soon dominate China’s ideology. You are creating history, the proletarian’s history. We are giving history back its original face. In a few months, when the movie is all over the country, you will be the idol of revolutionary youths. I want you to memorize Chairman Mao’s teaching, “The power of a good example is infinite.”