Anchee Min - Becoming Madame Mao

A number of producers are encouraging. They promise to keep her in mind for their next projects. Through clouds of smoke, they describe their projects in detail and renew her hope. Attractive men with attractive ideas. There are hints of ways to "secure" her place in line. She sees it in their eyes. But she will not sleep with them. She is cautious, still nursing her lost love. She doesn't want to get involved in a relationship that will end in her being nothing better than a concubine. She sees no harm in a little flirting, though, and accepts as many invitations as come her way.

After a few months without any real offers, she gets anxious. She is back in her apartment. The noises from beyond the walls irritate her now. She is tired of being nobody and tired of being poor. She is sick of people telling her that her look is not bankable. She sits on the floor and examines her face in a palm-size mirror. She hates to confront her imperfections: her lower jaw is too protruding and her lips are thin; the distance between her nose and upper lip is a few millimeters too long.

She calculates her chances and looks for alternatives. She has heard stories of stars whose careers have soared because of their participation in small-budget political films. The idea appeals to her. She is ready to combine her acting interest with her background as a Communist. She doesn't tell people that she is a Communist, not yet. She trusts no one. At the moment she simply feels the need to separate herself from the pretty girls who are known as rich men's pets and layabout starlets.

I have little money, but I would starve myself in order to buy good theater tickets. I watch movies and operas so I can learn from the finest actresses. I can't do without going to a performance for too long. Every time I walk out of an opera I feel magically charged and all my frustrations disappear. I tell myself that lack of willpower has led to more failures than lack of intelligence or ability. I push myself to meet more people so I can advertise myself. My audience must know that I have a soul and that I live with a sense of purpose.

The girl is disappointed in her contacts. She doesn't want to see Mr. Shi anymore. She finds herself wasting her time running from place to place and meeting one useless person after another. The part-time job she has at the theater only makes her more hungry for acting. But nothing is working. She can't make herself stand out.

I was a one hundred percent Communist when I was young. I risked myself, Madame Mao recalls. I spread anti-Japanese leaflets throughout the city for the Party. I was in Shanghai to reconnect myself with the Party. We took patriotic plays to the streets. I taught at night school where I preached Marxism. I encouraged workers when they put on a strike. Working at the grass-roots level has always been my interest. Just like Yu Qiwei, I stuck my neck out for China. I very well might have been a martyr. I might have died.

The truth is that she ceased her membership after Yu Qiwei's arrest. The truth is that she hides her identity as an ex-Communist. Mr. Shi and Tien Han think that she is merely sympathetic toward Communism. When she has no luck getting roles in the theater she assigns herself a role: a patriot. It makes her feel less fearful about her inability to make things work.

She plays her real-life role with the same passion she brings to the stage. She catches attention and develops an audience. She does her job creatively, with flair. She puts leaflets on men's backs and makes them walking posters. In the Chinese class she teaches she asks her students, What makes the word "heaven"? She writes the character on the board and explains: It's the combination of two words, "slave" and "man." If we treat ourselves like men, and insist that others treat ourselves as such, not like slaves, we become heaven itself. She illustrates and animates. Soon her class becomes the most popular class in the school. In the meantime, she attracts unwanted attention: she is now on the list of the police as a suspected Communist.

She is not aware of what's coming. She is at peace with her life: looking for a role on stage during the day and playing a patriot at night. She sees her name mentioned in left-wing papers. It's better than nothing, she comforts herself. She keeps praying, hoping the paper will catch the attention of the studio heads. Why not? She is different. A true-life heroine, like those the studios have begun to portray in their new movies. For a movie to be successful it now has to be political. China is under invasion. The public is sick of ancient romance and is ready for inspiring roles from real life.

She is waiting, making herself available.

The night is windless. The air is moist. She is wearing a navy blue dress, walking out after the Chinese class. She is happy. The students, especially the women textile workers, have developed a close relationship with her. They trust and depend on her. They make her feel that she is a star in their lives. They have brought homemade rice cakes for her. The pieces are still warm in her bag. She will not have to make dinner tonight. Maybe she can use the time to catch the second half of her favorite opera at the Grand Theater on the way.

When she makes a turn onto a dark street she suddenly notices that she is being followed by two men. She becomes nervous and walks faster. But the men follow her like shadows. Before she is able to make a sound, she is handcuffed and pushed into a car parked down the street.

At the detention house she is dragged out of the police car and thrown into a cell with a crowd of women. The inmates are waiting to be interrogated. One cellmate explains the situation to her. Until there is a confession, we won't be released. The women cough raggedly. The cell is cold and damp. Yunhe observes that every fifteen minutes one person is thrown back into the room and another person taken away. People gather around them trying to get information. Lying naked on the ground, the women are beaten and bruised. Water drips from their hair. In choking gasps they describe the interrogation. Head dunked in hot-pepper water. Blows to the back. I don't know any Communists, one woman sobs. I wish I did so I could go home.

Yunhe is scared. Yu Qiwei had a rich uncle to bail him out and she doesn't. She feels sick. She is sure that the woman who keeps coughing has tuberculosis. The blood-streaked spit is everywhere.

Two weeks pass. Two weeks of terrible sleep. Two weeks of living in terror, knowing that her head might be removed from her shoulders at any given moment. Where is the Party? There has been no sign of rescue.

Finally it is her turn. The interrogator is a man whose face is a mask of scars. He has a massive upper body and tiny legs. Before questioning he soaks her head in a bucket of hot-pepper water.

Yunhe shuts her eyes and endures. She confesses nothing. Back in her cell she witnesses the death of a cellmate. The body is dragged out to be fed to wild dogs.

At her next interrogation, Yunhe seems to be having a nervous breakdown. She laughs hysterically and lets saliva drip from the corner of her mouth.

It's my fifteenth day in prison. I am very sick, running a high fever. I pick up my trade and begin to play the convincing role of an innocent. I sing classic operas. The entire opera from beginning to end. It is for the guards.

The autumn moon is half round above Omei Mountain

Its pale light falls in and flows with the water of the Pingchang River

In the night I leave Chingchi of the limpid stream for the three canyons

And glide down past Yucbow, thinking of you whom I cannot see

The guards feel sorry for me. They begin to respond. One suggests to his supervisor that I seem to have nothing to do with the Communists.