Always in our classes Soviet Wong would be very abstract in what she asked me to do so that I would find it difficult to follow her. Then she told me that I reacted to her teaching too quickly. You have not been really listening to me, she said. You refuse to listen. But I do listen, I said. She was teaching us how to improvise in the character of Red Azalea. What are you wearing? she asked, suddenly pointing at my feet. A pair of self-made straw shoes, I replied, satisfied with my own sharp wit. She smiled almost bitterly. What do the shoes look like? They look like the ones Chairman Mao wore in a photo filmed by our foreign friend Anna Louise in Yanan cave, I said.
Soviet Wong looked even more bitter. She told me to watch Cheering Spear practice. Watch each other, she ordered. Watch carefully. I did watch carefully. Even when I closed my eyes, I could see how Cheering Spear played Red Azalea. Cheering Spear was an ardent performer, an energetic spirit. She exhausted herself. She gave all of herself. She was lavish with her emotions. She had no use for subtlety in performance. She loved to be melodramatic. Soviet Wong asked me to watch, so I watched. I learned what was not working and I knew I would not perform the same way. When Soviet Wong asked me what I had learned for the day, I answered honestly. And I ruined myself. When I realized that I had ruined myself, it was too late.
The air in the studio became chilly. The chilliness penetrated my bones. Soviet Wong suddenly pointed at me and asked me to explain the concept of the proletarian dictatorship over revisionism in art. It did not take me too long to form an answer. In order to discard revisionism, I said, we must exercise the dictatorship over the enemy in our own head first. My voice was clear. The content was from Red Flag magazine. Soviet Wong commented, We must be careful of those who are giants in language but midgets in practice.
Soviet Wong picked on me. She picked on me whenever she could, over the smallest things. One day she misplaced a prop—a tea mug—and pointed me out to the class as the one who must have lost it. I told her I had seen her place the mug in her drawer. I went to point at the particular drawer backstage. She came and pulled the drawer out. In it was the missing mug. Soviet Wong was furious. She recited Mao’s teaching: “The one who thinks she is smarter than the masses is the one who will be abandoned by the masses.” I was confused and angry.
Soviet Wong never regarded us as a teacher did her students, but as an old concubine did newcomers. She did not know how to confront the danger we represented. Comrade Jiang Ching’s desire to change the image of movies and her affection for working-class-looking youngsters killed Soviet Wong’s future as an actress. Her ancient beauty was considered out of date. She never truly liked Cheering Spear. In fact, she hated her. But Cheering Spear’s flattery made her feel less hurt.
Cheering Spear had a smoother look than I did. The harsh lines of my features irritated Soviet Wong. She was at a loss for Comrade Jiang Ching’s new esthetic of beauty when it came to my rough skin. Every morning when she saw me, she stared at me with an expression of having just swallowed a fly. Have you washed your face? she would ask disgustedly.
Soviet Wong would shake her head before I delivered my line. Nothing I did looked right to her. Many times her deep resentment turned to a hatred that expressed itself on impulse. Your irises are not big enough, she said, gazing at me. They won’t appear as bright as a heroine’s should on-screen. Comrade Jiang Ching’s requirement of a leading actress is that she have a pair of bright flaming eyes. Those eyes symbolize proletarian righteousness. I do not see that you have them. It’s a terrible pity. Really, maybe you should not have been picked up in the first place. It was definitely a misjudgment. Sloppiness will certainly spoil things.
Soviet Wong asked me to tell her whether I was nearsighted. I said I was not. She took me to the studio’s medical center and had a doctor check my vision. I had perfect sight. On our way out, Soviet Wong said to me, But you do look nearsighted, believe me.
I looked at myself in the mirror that night. After a half hour of studying the size of my irises, I started to believe Soviet Wong. It was true that my irises were not as big as they were supposed to be. From then on, I could not forget that I looked nearsighted. In my performance I became more and more conscious of my looks. My sense of self-confidence was disappearing. Soviet Wong yelled, Stop! before I even started my lines. She said, The way you stand is wrong. You forget that your feet should form a forty-five-degree angle. Day after day I felt more and more like I was too crippled for Red Azalea. Soviet Wong weakened my nerves. But I refused to quit. I knew exactly what she wanted and I just could not give it to her.
Soviet Wong gradually dropped my lessons. She arranged for me to work in the cafeteria to help shell peas. She made me wait at the bottom of the list to receive acting lessons. Sound of Rain did not seem to object to what Soviet Wong was doing to me. He seemed to trust her judgment. They both began to say that they did not want to ever produce capitalist sprouts. I knew what was happening as did everyone else in the studio. But no one said anything. No one dared to oppose Soviet Wong.
I kept myself composed. I stopped pretending to be who I was not, because there was no way to please Soviet Wong anyway. She had convinced Sound of Rain and now everyone around me to dislike me, and they did. They all wanted to please Soviet Wong. They began to say that Cheering Spear seemed to be the only qualified candidate, because she acted with passion. By passion they meant how many tears an actor could shed. I had to admire her talent in reciting dry, sloganlike lines with such passion. Cheering Spear was a big tear machine. Shedding tears was the only thing she pursued when acting. Not only did she shed tears; she could make the right amount of tears pour out at the right moment without dragging out the snot. Getting the tear to drop was Cheering Spear’s concept of acting.
I was jealous of Cheering Spear’s talent. Soviet Wong said to me, You see, it is not a matter of acting technique. It is a matter of who has more feelings for Chairman Mao. We need a real Communist to play a Communist.
Cheering Spear and Soviet Wong had become more and more close. They ate together at every meal. Soviet Wong helped Cheering Spear learn her lines into the night. They made a good image of the teacher-and-student relationship. But to me they were two tacticians.
I forced myself to hang on.
No one was giving up, not Firewood, Little Bell or Bee OhYang. Firewood had hurt her vocal cords due to excessive voice exercises every day. She believed that if she could blow a pit on the wall she would gain a silky voice. She believed that her problem was her voice. Karl Marx became Karl Marx because he read so many books that his feet rubbed a pair of footprints on a library floor, Firewood told me. Success belongs to the strong-willed. Firewood took this story from Red Flag magazine as her inspiration. Her practice was encouraged by Soviet Wong, who would sometimes offer to accompany her on the piano. Firewood’s singing was like a rooster under a blunt knife. Soviet Wong played the piano with her eyes closed as if Firewood’s howling massaged her sour nerves.
Firewood ended up developing a knot on her vocal cords. I secretly felt good that her chances to win the role now were zero. My other classmates must have felt the same way, but we hid our feelings. We all brought Tiger Balm for Firewood. We care for you greatly, we all said, and smiled melodramatically.
A gale of wind had blown down two maple trees that day. I went to the bushes to brush my teeth and found the trees lying flat with their roots out. Before I finished brushing, the gale started howling again. I rushed back and found One Ounce sitting in the center of the room. Ten o’clock, he said, erecting all his fingers slowly. You will be brought to see him—the arm-in-arm comrade of the greatest standard-bearer—the Supervisor.
Bee OhYang sat down on her bed and began to sob. Little Bell made a strange sound in her throat. Firewood went out and came back with a bowl of water. Cheering Spear dripped some hair oil into the water and recombed her hornlike hair with oil water. Both Firewood and Bee OhYang rebraided their braids. They looked shining and new from head to toe.
Th
e gale continued. It lifted dust and leaves from the ground. It tore off the old Mao posters from the wall. We walked carefully on our way to the cafeteria, making sure that we did not step on Mao’s face. An hour later, Sound of Rain and Soviet Wong showed up with a van. The windows of the van were covered by black cotton curtains. Soviet Wong conducted us into the van. I coughed as I got in. The smoke in the van was heavy. It was a Party high ranker’s personal van. In astonishment we sat down quietly. The driver was a young man in a People’s Liberation Army soldier’s uniform. He wore white gloves. Sound of Rain waved at Soviet Wong to shut the door. The van took off smoothly. Firewood, Cheering Spear, Little Bell, Bee OhYang and I sat in the dark.
We all carried our own thoughts, thoughts of how to kill one another. I missed Yan so much. Once the van arrived we waited for hours in a carpeted meeting room. A secretarylike young man came to the room and made the announcement: The Supervisor had just left for an important call in the Capital. The meeting was canceled.
I broke the rules. I lied to Soviet Wong. I asked for a three-day leave. I said my mother was sick and needed me to take care of her. Soviet Wong said no at first. I tried again. I said there were no peas for me to shell today. The cafeteria people had gone to a rally. Soviet Wong then said yes.
I went back to Red Fire Farm. I went to visit Yan. I saw her working in the middle of the rice field among the others. The soldiers looked me up and down. I saw envy and distance in their eyes. I waited by the edge of the field as Yan walked over. She washed her hands in the irrigation channel and then dipped in her bare feet. She looked at me. She did not smile. She took up my bag and we walked toward the barracks.
Yan was no longer the company commander. Her case with Lu ended without anything definitive. No one believed that she could possibly have Lu as a lover. Yan later admitted to headquarters that it was her way to get even with Lu. What she had put on was a show. The Chief was displeased with the nasty way she took revenge but did not want to carry the case further. Lu insisted on pursuing the case. She insisted on having me reinvestigated. But the Chief would not reconsider my case. I was gone and he was the one who had personally granted me the title of Honored Soldier. To denounce me would have meant to expose his poor judgment. The case vanished as if it had never happened. Yan had resigned and now was a squad head. Lu was transferred to another company and became a commander.
Yan was the eldest in the squad. The new soldiers looked the way I used to look. They sang “My Motherland.” They worshiped Yan. She had her food on the table at mealtime. They brought it to her. Her bowl was full. The young soldiers served her. They said, Here is your hot-water container, I just filled it up for you. Yan lived alone, in the same room we used to live in. All the other beds were gone. She set her bed in the middle of the empty room. With the white rectangular mosquito net, the room looked like a funeral home.
I sat opposite her by the door. I looked at her face. Her skin was deep brown. She almost looked like an African. She had aged. Wrinkles deepened. A thread of white hair in her braid. She used to have thick braids, but now they were thin like mouse tails. She took out a package of flour, poured the flour into a pot, added water and lit a kerosene stove. She cooked the flour with sugar. She was offering me the best food she had. The taste was awful but I tried not to show it. She sensed it. She asked me how good the food was at the film studio. I did not answer. I did not know how to answer her. She said it must be beyond comparison. She pulled over my bowl, pushed the door open and poured the flour paste outside. Shutting the door, she said, I am sorry. Can’t help it. She went to wash the bowl in a water jar. She washed the chopsticks and she dropped them twice. She put the bowl and the chopsticks into a cotton bag and hung it on a bamboo stick. When she did that, her back bent sadly. She mopped her face with a muddy towel. Sadness attacked me. She turned around and said, Thanks for coming. She smiled and my tears welled up. She said, What do you want me to do?
She sat back down. She tried to get the conversation going. She said, Say something. I said, Say what? Anything. I said, Where is your erhu? She said she had given it away. I could not say more. She clapped a mosquito on her leg and rubbed and cracked mud off her feet. She said the soldiers were new but they were smartasses. The minute they were assigned to the farm, they started to work their way back to the city. They made excuses to take leaves shamelessly. Some of them took leaves without asking for permission. They pretended to be sick all the time. They were a bunch of hypocrites. Their hearts were never in the farm, not for a second. They served her meals to flatter her. They know how to use me, she said. They make me sick.
I wanted to say, Forget about them—let’s talk about you. But I could not. What could I say? She was trapped. No way out. She was twenty-five, a squad head at twenty-five would have no future. This was her future. I wanted to embrace her and comfort her but felt ashamed to do so.
She said, Tell me about the film studio, tell me about the new people you met. I said there was not much to tell. She said, I want to know. I told her about Cheering Spear, Firewood, Little Bell, Bee OhYang, Sound of Rain and Soviet Wong. I told her about what we do. She listened, pacing back and forth in the room. She stopped, staring outside into the fields. Before I finished, she suddenly said, We should forget about each other. It did not shock me. I understood why she had said that.
I said, You know I can’t disobey you. She said, Then take off now. I said, I made the trip to see you. It wasn’t easy for me. I lied to them. I am risking my future. If they find out, I will be eliminated. She put on her muddy rain shoes and said, Not easy? You must think my life is easier. I said, I had never thought that way. She interrupted me. She said she did not want to start an argument when she was feeling down. I said, I didn’t come for this. She said, I didn’t ask you to come. I said, I’m taking off. She stepped out.
I emptied my bag. I laid cookies I brought for her in her net. Her net was washed clean. I remembered the time when we did not wash the net so no one would see what we were doing inside. I remembered her passion. I touched her pillow and suddenly found there was hair, her hair, scattered all over the bed. Her hair had been falling out and I was not doing anything about it. I wanted to run, to run away from my shame.
The wind blew the door open. Yan’s towel dropped from the towel holder by itself. I picked up the towel and saw her rifle leaning against the wall. I suddenly missed Little Green. I missed her singing “My Motherland.”
Yan’s rifle was rusty. I looked out the window. The field was lifeless. The sun was drying up the earth. The earth looked like a bald-headed man. The crops bent with the salty wind. I realized that I did not belong here anymore.
I stepped out of the room. Some young women saw me and whispered to each other. They walked by me, carrying hoes. I asked them about Orchid. One of the women said she was at the brick factory.
I walked through the reeds. I felt fortunate that I was free of this hardship. The more fortunate I felt, the more the guilt grew in me. Yan is left behind, I kept thinking. How could I leave her behind? I came to eat a cake in front of a starving child. How shameful. I remind her of her misery. I am a hypocrite. I came to comfort her. It did not cost me anything to speak kindnesses.
The brick factory was the same as when Yan played the erhu here for me. I walked through the brick lanes and saw Orchid and a team laying the unbaked bricks down in patterned walls. I asked a young man if I could help him push the cart. He said the work needed a man’s strength. I said I knew that. I had worked here before. I knew the way around. I took up the loaded cart. It contained a hundred bricks. The man watched me. I pushed the cart onto an iron track and made a turn down a lane. The man yelled, Where are you from?
Orchid saw me. She did not come to greet me. She stood where she was, holding a stack of bricks, mouth half open. I said, Hello, Orchid. She did not say hello back. She said, What are you here for? I said I came to visit. She went back to laying the bricks. Her sweat soaked her from back to waist. We worked side by s
ide. After she finished laying a cart of the bricks, she straightened her back, wiped the sweat off her cheeks and said, Yan is not here. I said I knew. She said, I know you did not intend to visit me. I said, I missed the farm. She gave a sarcastic smile and pushed the empty cart along the track. I noticed that she was crippled. I followed her. We stopped at the loading zone. Fresh bricks were pushed out of a slicer like cakes. I helped Orchid load. We loaded the bricks carefully. We pushed the cart down a lane and began to lay the bricks. I asked, What happened to your foot? She said, A reed pricked through it. She said, You were there, weren’t you? I said, Yes, I remember I was there. Hadn’t it healed? Orchid said, Yes. This is how it healed.
I straightened my back. I saw the kiln chimney exhaling white smoke. It fell last summer, the kiln, said Orchid. Three people died, two were injured. I don’t know how long the brick factory will stand. Why did you come? Before I could explain, she said to my face, I don’t like seeing you. I really don’t. She said she wanted to be honest with me. She said nobody wanted to see me. A movie star. An old-time acquaintance who took a ladder to the clouds. Nobody wanted to be reminded of how bad life was for them.
I did not say anything until we emptied the cart. Before Orchid pushed the cart back to the loading zone, she said, Do you know about Leopard and Yan? They have been seeing each other. She made a gesture meaning “underground.”