Anchee Min - Becoming Madame Mao

No reply.

I will charge you with first-degree murder if you lie, Doctor.

I let the threat sit for a while and then repeat my question.

No. The man finally cracks. It won't be safe.

So he's got syphilis.

I didn't say that, Madame! He suddenly acts hysterical. I've never said that Chairman Mao had syphilis!

With his medical bags in hand Dr. Li flies in on a military jet at seven-thirty in the morning. Madame Mao receives him in a cottage surrounded by the West Lake in Hang-zhou. She is in a skylighted drawing room taking photos of roses.

Dr. Li wipes his brow and begins to unpack his equipment. She stops him. I sent for you to answer me one question. What have you done to cure Mao?

The man's fingers begin to play nervously with the zipper on his equipment case.

You see, Doctor, I don't exist if Mao gets chewed up by bugs.

Dr. Li lets out a breath. Forgive me, Madame… The Chairman… he is not particularly fond of my treatment.

She laughs as she takes apart her tripod. That's typical!

Dr. Li smiles humbly. Well, the Chairman is always busy. He has a country to run.

He is an old smelly-rotten-stone from the bottom of a manure pit, she says loudly. I know how you feel, Doctor. I have been trying to change his diet for years without a single success. He loves fat pork with sugar and soy sauce. The greasier the better. But the syphilis bug is a different matter, isn't it? What will happen if he continues to be the virus carrier? Will the other parts of his body be infected? Will he die from the disease?

No, Dr. Li confirms. It does much less damage to a man than to a woman.

Are you saying that he'd be fine without taking any medication?

The doctor chooses to remain silent again.

Is it difficult to get rid of the bug?

No, not at all. All the Chairman has to do is to receive a couple of shots.

Did you explain this to him?

Yes I did, Madame.

What happened?

The man's mouth drops and he won't utter another word.

She passes him a towel to wipe his sweat. Again it's typical. My husband couldn't care less about what happens to his partners. Sit down, Doctor. You don't have to make a sound. Just correct me if I am wrong. Please believe that I know Mao inside out. Did he say that there was no way you could make him suffer the shots? I bet he said exactly that. Yes? You see. He has to continue the practice of longevity and you think what an awful human being he is, don't you?

No no no no. The man springs up from the sofa. I've never thought… I'd never dare…

She smiles as if finding the situation comical.

Dr. Li continues like a bad actor reciting his lines. I would never think of Chairman Mao in such a way. I am a one hundred percent revolutionary. I devote my life to our great leader, great teacher, great commander-our Great Helmsman.

Poor man. Putting her camera into its case she teases, Then you must think that these girls deserve the bugs, don't you? No? Why not? It's their punishment, isn't it? I understand that some of the victims of syphilis can never bear children? Am I wrong? All right, I am right. Do you sympathize with the girls? I would be surprised if you didn't. I was told that you are a decent doctor. Do you believe in the Chairman's practice? Have you encouraged him? Then you discouraged him? No? Why? Why not? You are a doctor. You are supposed to cure, to heal, to stop the virus! What? You don't know? You see, you have come to understand my situation now. Because you are experiencing what I am experiencing. It is all about how a decent person gets stripped of his dignity.

UNLIKE MAO, WHO HAS LITTLE TASTE for art and architecture, Madame Mao Jiang Ching finds herself touched by the Forbidden City, especially its Summer Palace. Her favorite spot is the Sea of Magnolia Fragrance, its forest of flowers behind the Hall of Happiness in Longevity. The plants were transplanted from southern China two centuries ago. During its blooming season Madame Mao spends hours wandering in what she calls "the pink clouds." The other spot is the Peony Terrace, built in 1903 by the old empress dowager. The flower beds are made of terraced carved rock.

In the winter, "Strolling through a picture scroll" becomes her favorite activity. She orders the guards and servants to make themselves "disappear" before she enters the "scene." The complex of buildings stands on the hillside west of the Tower of the Scent of Buddha. She loves the view: three towers, two pavilions, a gallery and an arched gateway. She listens to the wind and finds herself calmed. The third day of the snow she comes again to look at a magnificent building that has a large octagonal two-story open pavilion with a double-eave roof of green and yellow glazed tiles. It is now blanketed by snow. She weeps freely and feels understood-a great actress's disappearance.

The whiteness, the sorrow. Alone in the picture world.

I order servants to bring me cloth-bound picture books. I have begun studying the personalities of the Forbidden City. I share an interest in opera with the empress dowager. On splendid days I come to visit her glories. I walk directly toward the Hall of Health and Happiness. The hall stands opposite the stage at a distance of less than twenty meters. It was here that the empress enjoyed theatrical performances. I sit down on her throne. It is a gold-lacquered chair with a design of a hundred birds paying homage to the phoenix. It is comfortable. The chair is kept like new. The spirit of the woman is touchable.

I come to adjust my mood. I come to dream, and to feel what it is like to be the empress dowager and to have true power. I don't need a troupe to play for me. I see myself as the protagonist in an imagined opera. The scenes are vivid as I leaf through the empress's opera manual. They are the classic pieces I grew up with, the ones I learned from my grandfather. The Diary of the Imperial Existence. I can hear the tunes and arias. It was said that the empress didn't sit on the throne to watch the performances but reclined in bed in her wing and observed from the window. She had seen the opera so many times that she had memorized every detail.

I get on that bed too. I imagine her watching Emperor Guangxu sitting on the front porch to the left of the entrance accompanied by princes, dukes, ministers and other high officials, who sat along the east and west verandahs. What kind of mood was she in? A woman born to a terrible time, who lost her territories each day to foreign and domestic enemies. Was the opera her only escape?

I find it soothing when facing the Great Stage, which was constructed in 1891. The largest stage of the Ching dynasty, it is a three-story structure, twenty-one meters high and seventeen meters wide on the lowest floor. There are chambers above and below it, with trapdoors for angels to descend from the sky and devils to rise up from the earth. There is also a deep well and five square pools under the stage for water scenes. In connection with the stage is the Makeup Tower, a magnificent two-story backstage building.

I miss my role. I miss my stage.

For a while the beauty of the place occupies her. Then she becomes bored. She retreats. Visits less. Soon she stops coming. She shuts herself in the Garden of Stillness and grows depressed. She is desperate for an audience. She talks to whoever is around. The servants, the chef, the new pet-a monkey she was recently presented as a gift from the National Zoo, or the mirror, the wall, sink, chair and toilet. Gradually, it becomes an act in which she takes pleasure. It is to deal with herself, to find things to do, to forget the pressing unhappiness.

It is not that I am an expert, but Mao is definitely a science illiterate. I respect doctors, especially dentists. But Mao doesn't. He hates them. Poor Mr. Lin-po. Every time he came to clean the Chairman's teeth he would tremble. It's like he was asked to peel the skin off a dragon. The Chairman can be frightening to an ordinary person. The dentist was shaking so hard that the Chairman thought his jaw was going to fall apart. So the Chairman asked him to fix his own jaw first.