Anchee Min - Becoming Madame Mao

At the moment Ye is the woman I need to replace Wang Guang-mei. Ye indulges in rumors. She goes door to door to collect them. She digs up garbage and analyzes her gatherings like a backyard rat.

Mao gives no greeting when Marshal Chen Yi, Tan Zhen-lin, Ye Jian-ying, Nie Rong-zhen, Xu Xiang-qian, Li Fu-chun and Li Xian-nian enter the room. Premier Zhou is used to Mao's unpredictable temper and he starts the meeting anyway. By making light jokes he tries to relax everyone. Suddenly he is interrupted-Mao fires.

What are you boys up to? Conducting a coup d'état? Trying to remove me? Has Liu always been your secret choice? Why the conspiracy? Why vote for the Cultural Revolution in the first place? Why don't you vote against me and live with the honesty you claim as your principle? Why act like cowards?

The old boys are speechless.

Marshal Tan glances at the opposite side of the table where Madame Mao Jiang Ching sits sandwiched by Kang Sheng and Chun-qiao.

Tan breaks the silence. I am sticking to my view. I don't get it, to be honest with you, Chairman. What is the Cultural Revolution if its goal is to abolish order? Why torture the founding fathers of the republic? What's the point in creating factions in the army? To tear down the country? Make me get it, Chairman!

The old boys nod in unison.

Mao seems to be shocked by Tan's frankness. Good Tan! Here the devil comes to show its true face! You know what? There is no way I will allow you to bring the Cultural Revolution to a miscarriage! The Red Guards have my full support! What they are doing is what China needs. A soul operation on a mass scale! We need chaos! Absolute chaos! Violence is the only choice to turn the situation. A new China can only be born upon the ashes of the old.

She praises Mao in her heart. What a performance! Chaos, absolute chaos. She smiles although her face continues to look grave. She turns to Kang Sheng, who is nodding with the same we-are-winning glance.

Let me make myself clear, Mao continues. If the Cultural Revolution fails, I will retreat. I will take Comrade Lin Biao with me. We will go back to the mountains. You can have everything. I am sure that's why you are here today, aren't you? You want Liu and you want capitalism. You want to give the people's China back to landlords and industrialists. Fine! You shall watch our children being sold, exploited and worked to death again. Have it all! Why aren't you talking? What's wrong? What is the silence and bitter expression? You have been giving my wife Comrade Jiang Ching a hard time. You never acknowledge her as my representative and a leader in her own right. What's the truth behind this? How do you pretend that this is not directed toward me? Take over the power, then! Hey, Marshal Tan and Chen, you, the loudest, the most opinionated. Why don't you arrest my wife? Take her out! Shoot her! Pull the trigger! Destroy the headquarters of the Cultural Revolution. Put Kang Sheng into exile, get rid of me once and for all. Go ahead if you have such hatred for Comrade Jiang Ching and me. Why don't you boys fart!

Like a bug who throws himself into the fire, Tan gets up and starts to swear. Shame!

Mao clenches his teeth. A cigarette breaks between his fingers. When he speaks again, his voice has a strange throaty sound as if coming up with phlegm. It's fine with me that you choose to turn yourself into a reactionary. Fine with me that you make yourself an enemy of the people. What can I do? Thirty-three years ago I saved the army because the army was ready to be saved. Am I right, Premier Zhou?

Premier Zhou and the old boys lower their heads. Mao stirs the memory of the past, of the horror without his leadership, of three fourths of the Red Army destroyed in months, of the shame of the Party's misconduct by men including Premier Zhou himself, and of how Mao single-handedly turned defeat into victory.

The seventeen-year-old Nah stands in front of her mother.

Tea or turtle broth? the mother asks.

I don't want to talk about my marriage. The daughter puts down her bag.

Do I have the right to learn the young man's name? The mother's voice is high-pitched.

Call him Comrade Tai. He's twenty-eight years old.

Are you aware that he is a low-ranking officer?

I thought that every human being created under the sky of Mao is equal.

Would you sit down?

No.

Well, have you ever questioned the reason why he gets no promotion?

He is retiring.

You mean dropping out.

Whatever.

I hope he is not going back to the village.

Well, he is and I am going with him.

The mother's breath halts. She tries to control herself. After a long pause she manages to ask where the place is.

A village in Ninxia Province.

Ninxia? The ghost place?…You are doing this to me… Why?

The daughter keeps her mouth shut.

The mother breathes deeply as if she will pass out if she stops. What… what did your father say?

He blessed me and said that he would be behind me even if I chose to enter a monastery.

A choke takes hold of the mother. She begins to cough.

The daughter fetches a cup of water and goes to give it to her.

Heartless! The mother pushes her away and yells, banging her chest. Heartless!

You haven't presented me with the in-laws. Who are they?

The daughter makes no reply.

Nah!

I am not going to answer your question when I know that you are going to insult me.

Well then, I will have to put up a protest at your wedding.

There will be no wedding, Mother. We have… The daughter turns away and looks out the window. We have already married and I can get it for you if you would like to see a copy of our registration.

Stunned, the mother gets up, goes to the wall and begins to bang her head.

We are leaving for Wunin tomorrow. The daughter watches her mother and trembles in tears. After a while the scene becomes unbearable. Without saying a word, the daughter leaves.

The mother curls into a ball at the corner of the wall. She then crawls over the floor and onto the sofa, suffocating herself with a pillow.

I am trying to close my eyes on Nah, but I am unable to. Regret is eating my heart alive. I wish I had tied her shoelaces, packed her lunches and made her skirts when she was a little girl. I wish I had given her birthday parties and invited her friends to our home. I wish I had spent more time talking to her and learning to help with her troubles. But all is too late and out of control. She must be so lonely and desperate to marry herself off as a way out. She wants to punish me. She wants me to witness how she destroys her future-my future. I used to think that being Mao's daughter was Nah's biggest fortune… Have I taken out my anger toward my mother on my daughter-neglecting her the way I was neglected? I've abandoned my own wish to be a good mother.

And I hear my heart's cry. I am willing to give up everything to reclaim my daughter's love. But I can't. I am running Mao's business. It is like riding on a tiger's back-I am unable to get off. I live to please Mao. I am selfish and can't escape what made me. I can't live without Mao's affection. In that sense I am pitiful, a hostage of my own emotion. I have been trying to beat this pitifulness. I am a bloody heroine.

It didn't turn out right. Now I'm missing my little girl. Her little arms around my neck. The way she tiptoed into my bed at night. I want her back and I am going crazy thinking about what I have done… What happened? What's wrong with me that I refused to kiss her at every departure? I have taught her to deaden her own emotions. I meant to make her strong so she could have a life that's better than mine.

It's fate, my mother would have said. There isn't much one can do to change the way it is meant for her to live. I dream of my being killed as Mao's woman. It is the role I play with passion. It is the dance I was born to finish.