Anchee Min - Becoming Madame Mao

She was the daughter of his mentor and the beauty of Changsha, her hometown. She was an intellect and a Communist. She lived for Mao. Not only did she support and help organize his activities but also gave him three sons. When Chiang Kai-shek caught her he ordered her murdered. She was given a chance to denounce Mao in exchange for her life but she chose to honor him.

The tailor wipes her tears, blows her nose and continues. Zi-zhen married Mao to fill up the emptiness in his heart. Zi-zhen used to carry around two pistols. She shot with both hands. In one battle she went out and took a dozen enemies. Mao adores her. She is his loyalist. She is the mother of all his children including the ones left by Kai-hui. In order to move on during the Long March they had to give away the children. You have no idea what it felt like to leave your children to strangers, knowing that you might never see them again.

The girl from Shanghai lowers her head and murmurs, I can imagine that.

No, you can't! If you could you wouldn't be doing what you are doing! You wouldn't be stealing other people's husbands!

The angry woman bites off the end of a thread with her teeth. The Chairman and Zi-zhen are separating only temporarily. Temporarily, do you hear me, Lan Ping?

Yes, I hear you.

With a strange light in her eyes the tailor's voice suddenly softens. She will, I am sure… Zi-zhen will get better and the couple will unite. No one gives up on Zi-zhen. Chairman Mao is a miracle maker. The victory of the Long March is a good example. The expansion of the red base is another and Zi-zhen will be the next.

The tailor's wrinkled lips fumble like a fish mouth. Words bubble out one after another. The candle begins to flicker. The room is suddenly brightened with a golden-orange ring. And then, a moment later, the candle goes out.

You have a scale and I have a weight, Mao says. There is a match.

Lan Ping nods, studying the face in front of her.

What are you looking at? An ancient skull? Am I a piece of salted dry pork that you are trying to buy?

I come to shake hands with you, she says. I come to wish you health and happiness.

He grabs her hands and tells her that his very soul demands her. It needs to be satisfied, or it will take deadly vengeance on its frame.

She is silent, but leaves her hand in his palm.

I expected you, he whispers.

What have I done?

Come to me.

She hesitates.

He begins to lose ground. His eyes see what they want to see. I have something to add to our talk by the riverbank. Would you care to hear it?

She moves to sit on the edge of his bed.

In the ditches of my hometown grew my favorite plant. It was a red plant called beema. Its leaf was larger than a lotus leaf, round in shape. Its fruit was the size of a fist, and its seed the size of a fig. You can crush it-the seed contains quite a large amount of oil. It's tasty, but you can't eat it. It causes diarrhea. What I liked about it was that I could use it as a light. It's brighter than candles and produces a nice scent. My folks all use it. When I was a kid I spent my afternoons shelling the beema seeds. I connected the seeds together with a long string, tied it on one end of my bamboo stick and stuck it in places where I did my reading. Sometimes I took it to the ponds to help me locate fish and turtles…

He continues talking and pulls her toward his chest, presses her hands.

She remembers the room had a high ceiling. The wall mud-colored. The floor was packed rock. It looked like the back of a giant turtle.

I like this face, a face with a full forehead. A marvelous head. A head that is worth millions in gold and silver to Chiang Kai-shek. I look into the eyes. The dark brown pupils. The shapes and lines resemble those of the Buddha. It reminds me of a distant landscape. The surface of a planet with gray rocks, emerald ponds. On this face, I detect an unconquerable will.

I see invisible guards behind the mask. The guards whose duty is to block anyone from entering the path that leads to the master chamber of the mind. The chamber where he is completely naked, vulnerable and defenseless.

He comes to hold me, pressing me against his ribs.

Bolts of silk spread in the air of my mind's picture.

It is in this room, on this bed, that she gives the performance of her life. She feels light filtering through her body.

The sky comes to devour the earth. Her pain from the past escapes.

Later on when he becomes the modern emperor of China, when she has learned everything there is to learn about him, when all the doors in his universe have been opened, walked through and shut behind, thirty-eight years later, on his deathbed in the Forbidden City, she sees the same pair of eyes and realizes that she had invented them.

He caresses her and whispers in her ear another story of his fatal survival. Tells her how he escaped from the mouth of death. It was September 1927. He was captured by Chiang Kai-shek's agents right after the Autumn Harvest Uprising in Hunan. He was traveling, recruiting members of Communist groups and enlisting soldiers from the workers and peasants. Chiang Kai-shek's terror was at its peak. Hundreds of suspects were killed every day. He was taken to the militia headquarters to be shot.

The listener wears a white cotton shirt she has made herself. Her hair is ear-short. Her slender body is ripe. She feels his massiveness. She feels that he picks her up from the dust. She takes time the way she would on stage.

Borrowing a few yuan from a comrade, I attempted to bribe the escort to free me. The ordinary soldiers were mercenaries, with no special interest in seeing me killed, and they agreed to release me, but the subaltern in charge refused to permit it. I therefore decided to escape. I had no opportunity to do so until I was within about two hundred yards of the militia headquarters. At that point I broke loose and ran into the fields.

Later on when Madame Mao becomes the executive producer of all China's stage productions, she orders an episode dedicated to the scene she hears today. The hero escapes on his way to execution. He breaks loose and runs into the fields, hides in a tiny island in the middle of a lake with tall grass surrounding it. The title is The Sha Family Pond.

I reached a high place, above a pond with tall grass covering me. I hid until sunset. The soldiers pursued me. They forced some peasants to help them search. Many times they came near, twice so close that I could have almost touched them. Somehow by fate I escaped discovery. I was almost certain that I would be captured.

Madame Mao's opera singer playing the leader of the guerrillas carries his voice to the highest note and stylishly pitches the final line:

The victory will fall into your hands

If you hold on to your faith

Even when the situation seems

Utterly out of hope and impossible to reverse

At last, when it was dusk, they abandoned the search. At once I set off across the mountains. I traveled all night. I had no shoes and my feet were badly bruised. On the road I met a peasant who befriended me, gave me shelter and later guided me to the next district. I had only two yuan with me and I used the money to buy a pair of shoes, an umbrella and six buns. When at last I reached safety, I had only one copper in my pocket.

He makes her see heaven's grace in his valor. In bed he is impatient, like a tomb robber grabbing gold. She presents herself, the gift of seduction. In the future the couple will do the same to the minds of a billion.

At daybreak when he asks her to repeat the pleasure she refuses. She has been awake and has been thinking about Zi-zhen. Her body is caught in the mind's struggle.