The Supervisor said that the doorman was a sign. A sign of urgency, a sign of danger. We were being watched. He said, Now it is time for me to tell you something important. Something I must tell you before it is too late. The Supervisor’s voice trembled as the sentence landed. A strange light brightened his almond eyes. A devotee’s eyes. He took a sip of the tea and asked me whether I cared to hear a story, the true story of Red Azalea. I said, I am waiting.
She was the daughter of a woman who was abandoned by her husband, the Supervisor began. She was taught that to be born a girl was a shame. She tried to believe this the same way her mother did. But she could not. She was sixteen. She was a Communist. She joined a local opera troupe and went to Shanghai. She played Nora. She was Nora. She heard about Mao and his Red Army. His ideals were exactly hers. She went to meet her hero in a remote mountain area, in Yanan cave. She carried nothing with her but her youth. She was twenty-three and she was an actress. There she met Mao, the heavenly dragon, the red sun, the hope of China, the hope of women. She met her soul mate. He became her life and she never loved again after that. She could not forget him. She could not forget the passion in the midst of gunfire. She could not forget their bodies climaxing next to a bomb explosion. She could not forget the smashed pieces of the roof showering down on their naked bodies at midnight. They saw through the roof. There was the black-velvet sky. The sky of the Middle Kingdom.
She could not forget his laugh. He was a born poet, a born lover and ruler. He told her that it was the best performance he ever gave in his life. He did it again and again with her, in gunfire. He told her that she was his war empress. He told her that she was his life, his goddess of victory. He said that they must unite spiritually and physically. She must grant him the wish to marry her for the sake of battling for a new China, a China where a girl’s birth was cause for celebration. They joined together in the cave of Yanan. The whole Red Army celebrated the union with rice wine, peanuts and sweet potatoes.
It was the time of the Red Army in the 1930s. His troops were few. He was recruiting men, women and horses. The new couple fought together side by side. They went through fire and water, braved countless dangers. She went through battles with him. Battles which almost cost her her life.
When she walked out of one long battle in the West, her stomach was filled with leaves. Her thighs were the size of arms, her chest was a washboard. Her horse was the size of a big dog. They killed her horse to fill the stomachs of the starving Red Army leaders. Soldiers died of wounds and hunger. They died on the road. Women and babies. She survived. Her blood count was so low that she could barely stand. It was the faith of her ideals that carried her along the death-packed road. She could not describe her happiness on the day—October 1, 1949—when her man stood on the top floor of the Heavenly Peace Gate declaring to the world that China had come to the era of independence.
The Supervisor’s tone changed. His voice became hoarse. His eyes looked like two red spiders. He continued: She did not know him the way she thought she did, however. When she was presented with a contract, it was already too late for her to realize her naïveté. She was forced to sign a contract with the Party in which she was given no right to be a part of China’s political decision-making. Her battles meant nothing to the Party. She was shocked. She did not want to believe it. She turned to Mao, to the man of her strength.
Mao said that it was the Party’s decision and he must set an example for his comrades. He said that the individual must obey the decision of the group. It was the principle on which the Party was based. And she, as he emphasized it, should be no exception. She never understood his excuse. She only knew that he owned this kingdom. She began to realize that he was in the mood for a change. His love for her had faded with the smoke of the roaring cannon. She was thrown away. He moved out of their bed and never came back. She waited day and night for him, for the love she used to have. She never doubted his love. She wrote. He never answered. She went to see him but was stopped at the door by his bodyguard. His words were knives. She phoned because she did not believe his bodyguard. A young nurse, his mistress, answered the phone. She was polite but the words pierced her heart. The nurse said, Mao would like to see his wife rest quietly at the East Wing Palace. Mao said that you must remember to take your medicine on time.
She did not allow herself to cry. Her heart bled at midnight when she remembered the sky of Yanan. She could not bear to sit in the maddening house. She needed to work, to balance herself. She demanded to be with her people. But her mouth was shut by the Party’s central bureau. She was sent to Moscow under the guise of recuperation. She never liked Moscow. The cold froze her breath. She ordered Hollywood movies shipped to Moscow. She watched the movies until the last winter leaf fell on the ice. She sang her favorite old operas to get through the white nights. She never stopped petitioning. Year after year.
One day in the early 1960s she was allowed to go back to her motherland. But her husband refused to see her. He did not care how her nights went. He did not care whether she would go mad. He did not care. He told the Party that she was mad and he had nothing to do with a madwoman nor should any other members of the Party.
How did her nights go by? The Supervisor repeated the question with a voice of frightening sarcasm. The red spiders shrank in his eyes. It was like being buried, the Supervisor smiled, buried alive. But she did not accept what fate had brought her. She believed she was a heroine. She would crawl out of the grave with her bare bloody hands. Her one-time comrades had become her enemies. In fact, they had never liked her. They had never liked the actress from Shanghai. They could never trust that woman. She was too wild for them. She was never tame, never quiet; she bothered Mao after she had seduced him, they said. She had seduced China. The country was at war with her. She was attacked but she never surrendered. She did not know how. She refused to vanish. She was a reed shooting up under a heavy stone. She learned the art of war. She began her public speeches with the phrase “I am bringing you greetings from Chairman Mao.” She held the Little Red Book and shouted, “A long, long life to Chairman Mao! A long, long life to revolution!” She played it well. She was the greatest actress of her time.
The Supervisor lit another cigarette. His mind was far away. His hands were as cold as death. His voice swept through me and I was carried away. He continued: Time went by and an iron bar was shaped into a needle. It was hard for her to tell then whether she was a living human or the living dead, nor could she tell if she was a man or a woman. She just played the roles and changed colors like a chameleon. She was alive and dead. She had mansions all over the Middle Kingdom, but she was scared to sleep in one bed, in one place, for too long. Each night she lay on the bed and was chewed up by deep loneliness. She was drowning. The waiting maddened her. She sharpened her teeth and she was ready to kill. She could wait no longer. She was truly mad. The operas she sang sounded shrill. She cursed. She prayed. She laughed. She cried and she was transformed.
One morning Mao woke up and realized that his political bureau had become a capitalist’s headquarters. The dragon had become a bodiless creature. At an annual Party meeting his five-year great-leap plan received no support because his communes had starved thousands to death. His old cadres were going to throw him out. He was absolutely foundationless.
It was in this condition that he turned to her. When he had no one else to turn to. She said yes to him. She had her own plan. Both of them appeared on the Heavenly Peace Gate on a golden September day, in green army uniforms, inspecting millions of screaming Red Guards. It was here, at Tienanmen Square, that she felt her life come back to her. The old dragon was in madness. It was something she had been praying for. Mao was feverish once again, trying to make Communism a reality in China. Now the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution would reunite her with her past. She asked for his support. She created eight grotesque model operas. The operas of heroines. The operas of her deep emotions. She told him that they would secure his red kingdom. She
made the population of billions watch the same operas for ten years. She made the children recite the lines and sing the arias. She allowed them to watch nothing but her operas. She tamed them, she had to, and they became her pets. Because she represented Mao. She was pleased to hear a popular slogan in Szechuan that said: Better to sing a model opera than to have a body full of bullet holes. A generation of youngsters attached themselves to her. She was almost voted in as the Chairman of the Communist Party of China. The masses, the millions of fans, worshiped her opera heroines. And her. She had become their religion. The masses started to say, Long live Comrade Jiang Ching! in their morning ceremony before working. She was the morning star hanging over the rim of the nation’s world.
Mao became ill. His shaking tongue almost fell out of his mouth. Comrade Jiang Ching was the Yellow River overflowing. She stopped at nothing, destroying whatever was in her way. Mao’s empire was shaking. It had become his party and her party. She rose above his men. When she disliked a man, he would be jailed and his family tortured. The old sun was setting helplessly. Mao appealed to the congress. He wailed, “Unite and do not split, be open and aboveboard, do not intrigue or conspire.” In his Forbidden Palace he gathered his men and issued an open telegram to the public. His appeal was desperate. Watch out, comrades, I am not in her eyes, stated Mao. Jiang Ching wants to be the Party Chairman. I am not in her eyes. She respects no one. She will stir everyone’s peace. After I die, she will cause the country trouble. She will. I am warning you, my beloved countrymen. I want you to know that she does not represent me. She does not.
For half a century Mao ruled her. But she was stubborn. She was foolish that way. But she was such a heroine. Although her loneliness was thicker than the cocoon of a silkworm, she had no intentions of giving up her ideal. She wanted to see it passed on, even if one day she would turn to ashes.
It must happen her way, for the people, the Supervisor said. Mao is over eighty-three. The mud is reaching his neck. His lower jaw hangs and his hands shake. We do not have any time. We must hurry. Comrade Jiang Ching is in a hurry. She must relieve the pain of her love for the people. We must lose no time. We must resurrect Red Azalea. You. The heroine. The fearless, the diabolical, the lustful, the obscene heroine. Red Azalea.
He drew away from my face with a nervous toss of his hair, then came again, darkly, near. The heat from his mouth touched my earlobe. As if in touch with a great power, his red-spider-like eyes glittered. Give yourself to the people, he whispered. Give yourself to Comrade Jiang Ching.
I never used to believe that the Supervisor lived only to worship Comrade Jiang Ching. Now I believed it. He was her spiritual lover. I believed his obsession with her, because she represented his female self. Because she allowed him to achieve his dream—to rule China’s psyche.
I saw no line between love and hate. That night there was no line between love and hate, between him and me.
The Supervisor had charged me with his lust the night before. I was like a bullet lying in the chamber of a gun. I still felt his warmth inside me. My ambition multiplied my strength. I looked at myself in the mirror in the makeup room under fluorescent lights. I saw Red Azalea. In her Red Army cap. Spicy eyes. Equipped. Perfectly in control. She carried Yan’s determination and the Supervisor’s spirit. I believed my makeup. I believed that I was who I was supposed to be. I was creating history.
I am Comrade Jiang Ching and the Supervisor’s physical substance. I display their thoughts. I am my ambition. There is an energy that comes from heaven and earth and unites in me.
Tomorrow the name Red Azalea will be in the mouth of every person.
I am the embodiment of Red Azalea. I am my role.
The crew had been waiting. I was in costume and makeup. The lights were on and the camera was in place. We had been waiting for our director, the Supervisor, to show up. But he did not. My makeup was put on and was taken off.
The crew kept waiting. The maple leaves were still, as if listening to the unusual quietness. The members of the crew grew suspicious. Gossip started. The lighting crew made excuses to take off before the appointed closing time. The makeup crew followed. Then other departments began to make excuses. People said they had waited long enough and their waiting should be respected. I sat by the camera, waiting. The cameraman had been napping since lunch. No one was in charge. The atmosphere was strange. The way people talked—heads glued together, as if biting each other’s ears.
The studio went silent. Then the streets. The city and then the country. A sign of danger emerged with the Supervisor’s absence. I tried not to feel the surroundings. I was an ant crawling on a heated wok. I tried not to notice that the explosion was near. I asked myself to remain in control.
Then the news of the century came. It was September 9, 1976. The reddest sun dropped from the sky of the Middle Kingdom. Mao passed away. Overnight the country became an ocean of white paper flowers. Mourners beat their heads against the door, on grocery-store counters and on walls. Devastating grief. The official funeral music was broadcast day and night. It made the air sag.
Like everyone else, I was given white paper flowers to wear. I wore them the way all the other women did, tied to my braids, on my blouse and shoelaces. We looked like moving cotton plants. The studio people gathered in the main meeting hall to moan. The sound of sobbing stretched like a hand-cranked gramophone at its spring’s end. I had no tears. I cupped my face with my hands to hide my face. Through the space between my fingers I saw Soviet Wong. She tossed her face in wet handkerchiefs. Her nose was a blower. She was crying so hard. I wondered what she was crying about. Her faded youth, I was sure. She must be crying for her could-haves. She was celebrating; her misery had finally come to an end. She glanced at me as she blew her nose. I felt she could see through me. She must have guessed that I was not thinking of the greatest loss of our nation. I was thinking of Comrade Jiang Ching.
It was said that the man was murdered by his wife. Mao was murdered by Comrade Jiang Ching. It was said that Comrade Jiang Ching had replaced Mao’s doctor. Mao was poisoned to death. Comrade Jiang Ching pulled the air mask off Mao’s face. She could not wait for the man to die. She ended him herself by asking him to sign a paper at his last breath. The gossip grew fat, greasy, like a dish of pork neck.
Men began to talk about hanging the bitch. The bitch who was running the country. The bitch who made the citizens’ lives so miserable. How could we let the plague run China? Aren’t we truly insane? Let’s push the bitch into a jar of boiling water. Let’s drown her. Slice her alive. And sacrifice her on the altar of our great ancestors.
The media published a photo of Mao’s first wife, a young woman who was killed by the Nationalists half a century ago. They said the woman was Mao’s only true wife. The photo was posted everywhere. Even in nursery schools, where the little babies were taught to say the woman’s name and sing songs in praise of her.
At Mao’s funeral, on TV, we hardly saw the face of the widow, the widow of the dead red sun. The camera showed the big heads of elderly men. The Long March cadres. Men with puffed faces whose eyes registered no emotion. The camera showed the faces of the closest associates of the widow. Those faces were thin and long. Pyramid-shaped mouths ready to say, Fire.
The Chairman looked unsatisfied lying on his deathbed. The mourners, the representatives of the people, were wailing in sorrow. By morning the floor opened, the crystal coffin rose from the ground and the dead was displayed. Hundreds of thousands of people met their beloved savior. Each of them held a thick handkerchief. They wiped and wiped, then fainted one after another, on TV. They were carried out, and their loyalty was praised by the media. The people’s beloved savior was in a brand-new gray jacket, designed by himself. The holy body was wrapped in a national flag, with its face painted, its interior emptied and spread with anticorrosive.
In the studio the crowd gathered in front of a new black-and-white TV set, watching. Behind the set a slogan still hung: “A long, long life to Chairman
Mao!” The colors were as bright as roses in the summertime.
The words Comrade Jiang Ching no longer existed. She was called the whore, the worn slipper.
The amplifier tied to the maple-tree trunk outside my window was rebroadcasting Mao’s instruction. The dead’s instruction. The male announcer’s voice was smooth as a jellyfish. He repeated: “I am not in her eyes. Jiang Ching wants to be the Party’s Chairman. I am not in her eyes. She respects no one. She will stir everyone’s peace. After I die, she will cause the country trouble. She will. I am warning you. My beloved countrymen … I am warning you.”
I refused to be frightened. The disappearance of the Supervisor had prepared me for the worst. At night I waited. Waited for a nightmare. It came in the morning.
It was brought by Soviet Wong. She looked incredibly fresh and young. She gave me a stamped piece of paper. The paper said that the Party had decided to send me back to Red Fire Farm. The film crew had been dispersed. A van was assigned to take me to where I belonged.
I did not say anything to Soviet Wong, since I knew my words would only be wasted if I did. The train of history had changed its direction. I realized that I, regardless of the fact that I had never really chosen, belonged to the losing side. I began packing for Red Fire Farm, where I would be imprisoned.
My doorknob turned. A note was dropped in. I opened it. It was the Supervisor’s handwriting. I grabbed hold of a table leg to hold myself still. The Supervisor wanted to meet me at the Peace Park. Immediately. Urgent. You do not have to come, the note said. Our meeting will be very dangerous. I am wanted. The nation will not forgive me, not my type of sin. But I want to see you. Come, please, if it is still possible.