Anchee Min - Wild Ginger

Could she see me? Did she know that I was playing her? I clapped my hands so hard that my palms began to hurt. It didn't feel real. It felt like a dream.

Her new house was ordered to be completed the day before her return. Her favorite Mao quotations were copied onto the walls by the best calligrapher in the country. The roof edges were laid with ceramic tiles of sunflowers. The house stood out like a glistening castle among bleak rocks.

Would she miss her mother in the new house?

She was ahead of me. We had been apart for only a month but she seemed to have grown much taller than I. Her sunlit eyes were brighter than ever. She stood in a new pair of green army boots. We chatted endlessly, walking from her house to my house and then back to hers. Finally, we settled ourselves under the fig tree and carried the conversation into the night.

"You won't believe it, Maple. I am troubled." Her tune suddenly changed.

"Sure, you can't stand your luck."

"Seriously, I need your advice."

"Tell me, is it the frostbite that's bothering you?"

"Something terribly wrong has come between me and Evergreen."

"The last thing I knew about you two was you showed him your soap-paper collection and he showed you the wooden ship."

"That's exactly when it happened."

"What? What happened?"

"It's… how shall I put it… unhealthy."

"Unhealthy?"

"We were in my house."

"Yes?"

"No one was around."

"Yes?"

"You are sixteen."

"And he is eighteen. What are you afraid of?"

"Well," she sighed in frustration, "you don't understand."

"Well, talk to me."

"I don't know."

"You think I am an idiot."

"It's confusing."

"Did… did he…?" I didn't want to think in that direction.

"No, of course not. How could we… we are both Maoists!"

"Then what's the problem?"

"It's… me. I wanted to… I… well, it's awful, bizarre and fantastic at the same time."

"What did you do?"

"Nothing."

"So?"

"It's happening inside, in my head, everything changed from that moment on."

"I'm getting it."

"After we showed each other the collection and ran out of things to say, it was odd. We suddenly became awkward. He said that he must get going but he didn't move. I said goodbye, but my heart prayed for him to ask me to stay."

"Why didn't you talk about Chairman Mao? You love to talk about Chairman Mao."

"I was out of myself. I was not the same person I knew."

"I see."

"My eyes were eating him up. It was… as if I were seduced. I could feel it coming, trying to pull me down to the water."

"What about him?"

"He stared at me like a criminal who heard his death sentence."

"What time was it?"

"I don't remember. It was getting dark. I was kind of afraid of myself. I felt I was going crazy. Because I wanted-"

"What?"

"I wanted him… I wanted to have his lips on my mouth."

I stared at her.

"Shocking, isn't it?" she asked after seeing that I wouldn't or couldn't respond. "It was dreadful. Almost helpless. I couldn't stop myself. I knew it was not right. I am a Maoist. A model for the youth. I have promised the party and myself to be pure. But here I was, throwing my honor away, committing myself to a temptation."

"I envy you."

"Maple, what kind of nonsense are you uttering?"

"Our bodies are going to do what's natural."

Her expression changed. "Please stop it. You talk like a reactionary."

"Come on, Wild Ginger. You don't have to be on duty in front of me. I know who you are."

"You don't, really."

"Come on."

"I mean it."

I went quiet and turned away.

"Please, Maple."

"I can't tell you what you want to hear."

"Then don't."

"But I disagree with you."

"Everyone has to be guided by the principles of Chairman Mao."

"What about private matters? What about intimacy where you place trust in someone who will in turn guard it with honor?"

"Such intimacy doesn't exist in the world of the true proletarians. The rule is: we live for one thing, to serve and sacrifice for Chairman Mao."

"So you don't acknowledge love."

"That is a bourgeois word. You should delete it from your vocabulary."

We were standing by the garbage dump where Wild Ginger had stabbed her hand once. It seemed a safe place to carry on our discussion, where no one would be able to hear us.

The late autumn leaves were blown by the wind and danced in the air. In sandals, my bare feet were getting cold. To keep them warm, I crunched the leaves and hopped once in a while. Our discussion was going nowhere. We fought, trying not to raise our voices. I was surprised to learn that while she was in Beijing she had sworn her loyalty by writing a letter of promise. The idea was generated by the secretary in chief of the National Communist Youth League. The letter stated that she would give up her personal life, including marriage, to be a people's servant and a Maoist. The People's House of Letters and Literature had given her a contract to publish her diary of the next ten years. The text would be included in school textbooks and recited by students at all levels.

"It's such an honor that I was set to be an immortal," she said.

I asked if she believed that this was the right thing to do.

"No doubt I do," she answered.

"What about Evergreen?"

"I'll overcome my feelings for him."

"You mean you won't-"

"We are revolutionary soulmates."

"No, I mean, will you ever become… involved?"

"You mean like-"

"I mean like… lovers."

"Never."

"You expect me to believe you?"

"Chairman Mao teaches us, 'A true Communist is one who keeps her word.'"

"What do you want me to say?"

"Be proud of me."

"I am. But I also feel sad."

"Why?"

"I can't imagine your life being companionless. It'll be lonely."

"Loneliness doesn't belong to a Maoist. Don't you see I have people? I have one billion people loving me and looking up to me."

"You are missing my point."

"Grow up, Maple."

"You… you don't want to be with Evergreen, is that right?"

"Wrong."

"I don't get it."

"I'll be with him. We will spend a great deal of time, even our lives, together, but without any physical contact."

"Without any?"

She nodded, in full confidence.

"What about Evergreen? Will he accept your condition?"

"He has to, if he is what he says… if he cares about me."

"What if he discovers that love has to be expressed beyond spirituality?"

"Then he has to go."

"Would you let him?"

"Like I said, my loyalty toward Chairman Mao comes first."

"What about your desire?"

"That's where I need you, Maple. I am determined to fight the beast inside me and win. It will be hard at the beginning, but I'll pull through. Evergreen and I will get used to being with each other like-"

"A brother and a sister?" My tone was ironic.

She didn't mind. "We will have to work on reforming our thinking. Any bad thought will be nipped in the bud. We will conquer ourselves and then the world."

"What about impulse?"

"You'll be the one to help me to hold the leash."

"Well, I'll do my best to help, but-"

"You'll be all right."

"Describe my duty."

"Just be there."

"Be where?"

"Be where we are."

"We? You mean you and Evergreen? You want me to be a big bright bulb hanging in between you and him-"

"Exactly. With your presence, my instinct will be caged."

"But Evergreen will throw me out!"

"He won't know that you're there."

"What do you mean?"

"I'll hide you."

"Where?"

"In the closet."

After dinner she hurried me into her closet, which stood in the middle of a long wall. She had rearranged its colored glass panes so I could peek through without being seen. The closet was originally a living room fireplace. The remodeling knocked down the bedroom walls and turned the whole house into one big space. There were sets of red panels elegantly calligraphed with Mao poems. Wild Ginger said that these would be used to divide future Mao study groups into small discussions. The living area occupied a quarter of the space. Her bed was on its left, kitchen on the right, and her dining table with a set of benches was in the middle.