Anchee Min - Red Azalea

When the trucks pulled away, the crowd moaned. Parents would not let loose of their children’s arms. I looked away. I thought of my heroic past, how I had always been proud to be a devoted revolutionary. I forced myself to feel proud, and that way I felt a little better. Comrade Lu saw me, saw that I did not wave goodbye to my family. She came to my side and said, Good guts. She asked us to sing a Mao quotation song. She led: “Go to the countryside, go to the frontier, go to where our country needs us the most…”

We began to sing with Lu. Our voices were dry and weak like old sick farm cows. Lu waved her arms hard, trying to speed up the singing. People paid no attention to her. It was a moment when memory takes root. The moment youth began to fade. I stared at my parents who stood like frosted eggplants-with heads hanging weakly in front of their chests. My tears welled up. I sang loudly. I screamed. Lu said into my ear, Good guts. Good guts. Her arm was holding the flag of Red Fire Farm. The trucks advanced, facing the blowing wind. The dust blurred, the image of Shanghai faded.

On the truck no one introduced himself to the others. Everyone sat right next to his luggage, listening to the roaring sound of the wind. We sat, as if mourning. In a few hours we were greeted by the night stars of the sky. I started to miss my father. I thought of the night he dragged me, Blooming, Coral and Space Conqueror out of our beds at midnight to observe the Milky Way and the stars. He wanted us to be astronomers. The dream he had not had a chance to complete himself. It was as clear as tonight, the sky, the Milky Way, Jupiter, Mars, Venus and a man-made earth satellite in orbit…

It was in drowsiness that I smelled the East China Sea. Lu told us that we had arrived at Red Fire Farm. It was late afternoon. There was an ocean of endless sea reeds. The trucks spread out in different directions. Like a little spider our truck crawled into the green. The sky felt so murky and short. Short like a reachable ceiling.

I got off the truck with tingling legs. There were two rectangular gray-brick barracks standing on each side of me. Between the barracks there was a long public sink with many taps. I saw people walk in and out of the barracks. People who looked tired, bored, in dusty clothes, with greasy hair. They paid no attention to us.

I was picking up my suitcases when I heard someone shouting suddenly, Assemble! The commander is coming!

Commander? Was I in a military camp? Confused, I turned to Lu, who was staring tensely toward the east. Her smile had disappeared completely. She looked hard. I followed her eyes toward the open field. A small figure appeared on the horizon.

She was tall, well-built, and walked with authority. She wore an old People’s Liberation Army uniform, washed almost white, and gathered at the waist with a three-inch-wide belt. She had two short thick braids. She had a look of a conqueror.

Stopping about five feet away from us, she smiled. She began to examine us one by one. She had a pair of fiery, intense eyes, in which I saw the energy of a lion. She had weather-beaten skin, thick eyebrows, a bony nose, high cheekbones, a full mouth, in the shape of a water chestnut. She had the shoulders of an ancient warlord, extravagantly broad. She was barefoot. Her sleeves and trousers were rolled halfway up. Her hands rested on her waist. When her eyes focused on mine, I trembled for no reason. She burned me with the sun in her eyes. I felt bare.

She began to speak. Her words carried no sound. People quieted down and a whisperlike voice was heard. Welcome to you, new soldiers to Red Fire Farm who join us as-she cleared her throat and spit out the words one by one-as our fresh blood. She said she welcomed us to break out of the small world of our personal concerns to be part of an operation on such a grand scale. She said that we had just made our first step of the Long March. Suddenly raising her voice, she said that she wanted to introduce herself. She said, My name is Yan Sheng. Yan, as in discipline; Sheng, as in victory. You can call me Yan. She said she was the Party secretary and commander of this company. A company that was making earth-shaking changes in everything. She lowered her voice again to a whisper. She said she did not really have much to say at an occasion like this. But she did want to say one thing. Then she shouted, Don’t any of you shit on my face! Don’t any of you disappoint the glorious title of “The Advanced Seventh Company,” the model of the entire Red Fire Farm Army! She asked whether she had made her point clear. And we, startled, said, Yes!

Fanning her hand in front of her nose as if to get rid of some bad smell, she asked did we wish not to be as weak as we were. She repeated her phrase again. She wanted to hear us say Yes! in the proper manner of a soldier. And we shouted in one enthusiastic voice.

She said, That’s better, and then smiled. Her smile was affectionate. But it lasted only three seconds. She looked hard again and told us that the farm had thirteen thousand members and our company four hundred. She said that she expected every one of us to function as a screw in a big revolutionary machine. Keep yourself up. Run, run and run, said she, because if you stop, you rust. She wanted us to remember that although we would not be given formal uniforms, we would be trained as real soldiers. She said, I never talk nonsense, never. This phrase of hers stuck in my mind for a long time, for it was expressed in such a roughneck way.

As if blanketed by shock, no one moved after Yan called us to be dismissed. Lu raised her hand at Yan. And Yan took a step back from the ranks and introduced Lu as her deputy commander.

Lu said that she had a couple of things to say to the ranks. She marched in front of the ranks. Big smiles piled up on her face before she opened her mouth. With a surgical voice she said that although she was newly transferred to this company, she was an old member of the Communist Party family. She started to recite the history of the Communist Party, beginning with its very first establishment meeting on a small boat near Shanghai. She talked and talked until the sun drew back its last ray and we were covered by the descending fog.

I was assigned to house number three, occupied by females. My room was about nine by fourteen feet, with four bunk beds. I had seven roommates. The only private space was within the mosquito net that hung from thin bamboo sticks. The floor was packed earth.

The next day we were ordered to work in the rice fields. The leeches in the muddy water frightened me. A girl named Little Green was working alongside me. A leech was on her leg. When she tried to pull the leech out, it went deeper. It soon disappeared into the skin, leaving a black dot on the surface. She screamed in horror. I called up an experienced soldier named Orchid for help. Orchid came and patted the skin above the leech’s head. The leech backed itself out. Little Green was very appreciative for my help and we became good friends.

Little Green was eighteen. She had the bed next to mine. She was pale, so pale that exposure to the sun all day did not change the color of her skin. Her fingers were thin and fine. She spread pig shit as if she were organizing jewelry. She walked gracefully, like a willow in a soft breeze. Her long braids swayed on her back. She looked down at the floor whenever she spoke. She was shy. But she liked to sing. She told me that she was brought up by her grandmother, who used to be an opera singer before the Cultural Revolution. She inherited her voice. Her parents were assigned to work in remote oil fields, because they were intellectuals. They came home once every year on New Year’s Eve. She never got to know her parents much, but she knew all the old operas though she never sang old operas in public. In public she sang “My Motherland,” a popular song since Liberation. Her voice was the platoon’s pride. It helped us to get through the tough labor, through the days we had to get up at five and work in the fields until nine at night.