Anchee Min - Becoming Madame Mao

This is where China's future ruler Mao Tse-tung lives, in a cave like a prehistoric man. He sleeps on a bed laid with half-baked bricks, broken ceramic pots and mud. It is called Kang. Although the brown-skinned soldiers are wood-stick thin, they are tough minded. They live for the dream Mao created for them. They have never known cities like Shanghai. Each morning, on the grounds of a local school, they practice combat. They might only have primitive weapons but they are led by a god.

A few weeks later, the girl will appear on the grassless hill. At sunset by the river, she will sit by a rock and watch the ripples spread in the water. She will wet her lacquer-black hair and sing operas. Although she is twenty-three she looks seventeen in the eyes of the locals. The girl has the finest skin and brightest eyes men here have ever seen. She will come and catch the heart of their god.

CAVES, FLEAS, HARSH WINDS, rough food, faces with rotten teeth, gray uniforms, red-star caps are my first impression of Yenan. My new life begins with a form of torture. In order to survive I forbid myself from thinking that this is a place where three million died of starvation in a year. I forbid myself from acknowledging that the locals here have never seen a toilet in their lives and have never taken a bath except at birth, wedding and death. Very few people know the date of their birth or where the capital of China is. In Yenan people call themselves Communists. To them it is a religion. The pursuit of spiritual purity gives them gratification.

I am assigned to a squad with seven female comrades. Five are from the countryside and two including me are from the cities. When I ask the peasant girls their reasons for joining the army, Sesame, the boldest one, says that it was to avoid a prearranged marriage. Her husband was a seven-year-old boy. The rest of the girls nod. They came in order to escape being sold or starved to death. I congratulate them. We spend the morning learning an army drill.

The other city woman has odd features. Her eyes are on the side of her face near the ears, like a goat's. She is arrogant and speaks imperial Mandarin. Her voice is manlike, syllables sliding into each other. The Red Army is not a salvation army, she remarks. It's a school for education. We are Communists, not a bunch of beggars. It's terrible that you have never heard of Marxism and Leninism. We are in the army to change the world, not just to fill our stomachs.

She irritates me. The peasant girls look at each other-don't know how to respond to her. She intimidates. I ask the woman her name. Fairlynn, she responds. I was named after the ancient woman-poet Li, Pure Reflection. Have you heard of her works? Gorgeous verses!

What are you? the peasant girls ask Fairlynn.

A poet.

What is a poet? What is a poem? Sesame still can't get it after an explanation is given.

Fairlynn throws her a book. Why don't you help yourself and find it out?

I don't read, Sesame says apologetically.

Why did you join the Red Army? I ask Fairlynn.

To continue my study with Chairman Mao. He is a poet too.

Fairlynn is a spiritual athlete. She needs a rival to exercise her mind. She calls me Miss Bourgeois and says Yenan is going to toughen me up. In the morning she leaves the door open and lets the wind bang it about. She gets a kick out of it. I hear her manlike laugh. The harsh wind will resculpt your bones and nerves! She is happy that she has made me speechless. Thank Buddha she is ugly, I think to myself. With such a chunky figure, I am sure she has plenty of loneliness to deal with. Her hairstyle, according to her, is inspired by Shakespeare. It looks like an open umbrella. Her long face has sharp lines. A chain-smoker's yellow skin. When she talks her hands are on your face.

I play Qu and Pai verse games with poems, Fairlynn says. I can't wait to play with Chairman Mao. I have heard he loves to be challenged. I am strong in Tang's and I hear he is strong in Song's. His specialty is Fu. Among the Song's, he prefers "Late North" and I "Early South." My specialty is in Zu Hei-Niang's four-tone-eight-line verses and the Chairman's is two-tone-five-line verses. The pin-pin-zbe-zhe stuff.

That will be a surprise if the Chairman receives her, I tell myself. Men must look for different kinds of stimulation in different women.

The place where I live for the next few months is called Qi Family Slope. The cave village has over thirty families and everyone's last name is Qi. Because of the valleys the wind blows harshly. My skin has already begun aching. I have been put in the new soldiers' training program. The village has only one street, which extends and connects to an open field. At the east end is a barn. At the west end stands a public well. The well has no bars and is covered with ice in winter.

My squad passes the street heading toward the training base. I see a young boy with applelike cheeks by the well. He is pulling up a rope with a bucket of water. The weight makes him bend dangerously over the well's mouth. He could slip and fall at any second. I shut my eyes while passing him. There is a blind man selling yams in the street. His yams look ages old. Next to him is a coal shop. A pregnant woman sits in front of a heap of coal washing clothes. Her two young children wear open-rear pants and are playing with the coal. Their butts are coated black. Next is a wood shop. A carpenter is making giant buckets. His young children help sand the surface of the wood.

Fairlynn and I are assigned to live with a peasant family. I have developed a crick in my neck from sleeping on the ground. When the master of the house comes to say good morning one day I mention my pain. The next day the master brings in two straw mats.

My hope for a good night's sleep is ruined by Fairlynn. It's our job to overcome bourgeois weakness, she says, and picks up the straw mats and sends them back to the master.

After a week of poor sleep I begin to feel sick. Fairlynn tosses all night long too. One morning after breakfast, the house master comes with a neighboring woman, who is a tailor. The master explains that he has asked the tailor to lend out her sewing room. It has beds, the tailor says. The city comrades who have fragile bones may prefer beds more than the ground.

This time Fairlynn accepts the offer without a word. We pack up and follow the tailor to her room. We are presented with two beds. One is a single bed made of bamboo and the other hangs down from the ceiling. It is actually a board. Fabrics and miscellaneous rags are laid over it. It is about four feet wide and eight feet long. And it is about seven feet up from the floor, nearly at the ceiling.

Fairlynn suggests that I take the board and she the bed. I'm not like you, light as a bird, she says. The board won't hold my weight-I will crush your bones if it falls.

When I look at the board, I immediately develop a headache. To reach it, I have to step on her bed first, then part my legs to climb onto a wooden stud. Then I have to reach out one foot as a support and lift the other onto the board. Once I lie down I will not be able to sit up, for my head will hit the ceiling if I do.

At night she rests her body against the wall and is afraid to turn. There are no railings to prevent her from falling. Many times she dreams of rolling toward the edge and falling. It takes her weeks to get used to the fear. In order to avoid getting down at night she dares not drink water after three o'clock in the afternoon.

After the dry corn is collected, the squad is sent to transport the field stalks with a single-wheeled cart. It takes Lan Ping a while to learn to use the cart. Once she figures out the tricks she holds the handles steady with both arms bent inward to gain control. She walks on her heels. When going downhill, she pulls the handles and squats down. The weight of her body serves as a brake. Sometimes she squats all the way and her rear end drags on the ground. Unlike her, Fairlynn tumbles over when making sharp turns going down the hill.