I went. In the dark. Riding a storm.
He said he had never said “sorry” in his life to anyone, but tonight he must express his sorrow. I disappointed you. I disappointed myself. I am ashamed. I want you to keep my shame, carve it in the stone tablet of your memory.
I looked at him. I went to hold him. In his hands I experienced a strong convulsive quiver. He felt sad because he was too old for the coming hardships. He doubted whether he could survive. But he must live for his ideal, he said as he clenched his teeth. He said that he had no right to disappoint himself. He must not surrender. To kill oneself was to surrender. It was unacceptable to a true Communist.
I told him that the studio had put me on a list as a follower of Comrade Jiang Ching. Black stains splashed on my dossier. He embraced me and asked if I would forgive Comrade Jiang Ching. I said I did not know her. He insisted that I did. He said that Comrade Jiang Ching had been a spectator of my passion. She was proud of you and, at the moment, she is counting on you. Because she herself is going to be hung by her Long March comrades one of these days and she must count on her Red Azalea. She must see her ideal passed on.
I asked what his position was. He smiled strangely. He said, My best chance was to be on their list of mental patients. I am on the hanging rope, and I am becoming a black curse upon the Middle Kingdom, he said in a joking tone. My head is in the noose. That’s why I must give you this last message. Listen, you have done nothing wrong politically. This means that you are politically innocent. You should be categorized as a victim of Jiang Ching, a victim of the Gang of Four. You must declare that to the public. You must declare that you do not know me, period. You have not killed, you have not done anything criminal. The only thing they can accuse you of is your look, the look that was favored by Comrade Jiang Ching. As he said this, he looked at me under the bright moonlight. Gazing at every part of my face, his expression froze. But you knew nothing of her plan.
Do not fall into their trap, he continued. Remember there will be traps, excellently designed, well tested. But it will be nothing new. I have always outwitted them until this day. I lose to history, not to them. They will toss everything I praised in shit. Logically, of course. They will criticize you, and the day will pass if you clench your teeth and bear with the peeling of your skin. Tell me now you are a heroine. Promise me you can bear it. Don’t you disappoint me.
But I was already ordered to go back to Red Fire Farm, I said. What could I do? The order has been changed, said the Supervisor calmly. A friend of mine in the studio has arranged this for me. You will be given a position at the studio. It will be a lousy position. But you do not have to go back to the farm. Your city residence number has been restored. I know you are not capable of going back to Red Fire Farm. I am sorry that I could not protect you more. I have brought you more harm than happiness. I only wish … He stopped and looked at me for a long time. You are so young, and beautiful. It is good that you do not know many things.
I asked about his relationship with Comrade Jiang Ching. I demanded to know. He said that it was better I did not know. He said he was protecting me from being harmed. He asked me to remember the darkness of the night, to watch the marching steps of history, to watch how it was altered, to see how the dead were made up and made to speak, how they never complained about what was put in their foul mouths. He said that it was this power of history that had charmed him. He asked me to admire history. His voice pervaded me. Red Azalea will be born in another time, another place, I am sure, very sure, he murmured. I love Red Azalea. Do you?
In the shadow of the bushes, the Supervisor told me that the operas were created out of Jiang Ching’s unfulfilled desires. He said it was that very same desire that made ancient tragedies stir the souls and foster civilizations. And it was that very same desire that sparked the flame of the Great Cultural Revolution. He stopped and looked around, then said he was a little disappointed that there were not many secretive lovers and masturbators present tonight. He said that the singing of the maple leaves should be fully enjoyed. He asked if I could imagine the green hills and pink peonies in his garden back in Beijing. He asked if I could imagine him and me sitting by the valley between the bosoms of Mother Nature. He asked me to close my eyes to smell the fragrance of the flowers. He said, Let it remain with you all your life. Open the hidden path of your mind, experience it, be completely in touch with it. He asked me to tell him how the wind puffed away the clouds. In his warmth I drifted. I told him his hands were wind, and in his hands my body became clouds. He said he was fierce and his passion was as strong as death.
He said he always liked to watch the smoke spiraling upward from the chimney of the Dragon Sight Crematorium. He said death was never frightening to him. He had never trusted the Chinese history books. Because those books were written by people who were impotent of desire. People who were paid by the generations of emperors. They were eunuchs. Their desires had been castrated.
He wanted to see me live. He wanted to see me live his life. You know my secret wish, and now keep it and nourish it for me. I wept, shivering. I said, I will, I promise. He said, Let’s hold each other and say nothing.
We held each other. I felt Yan—we were walking out of the darkness.
A week later Jiang Ching, Madam Mao, was arrested and denounced. The arrest was conducted by the new Party Central Bureau in Beijing led by Hua Guofeng, a man appointed by Mao. It was handled nobly and with good manners. The arrest was swift and clean. The public was greatly satisfied. They celebrated, bought crabs and boiled them, to go with wine. The female crabs symbolized Jiang Ching. She was eaten now. China was exuberant. Rallies, monster parades and fireworks all night long. Millions poured into the streets, beating drums and dancing like dumplings in boiling water. A year later Hua’s government was taken over by Deng Xiaoping, one of Mao’s Long March cadres. More rallies, parades and fireworks. Hua’s portraits were torn off the wall and replaced with the slogans that praised the new man. Jiang Ching was caged in the City of Ch’ing national prison waiting to be sentenced. People celebrated and shouted, Down! Down! Down!
EPILOGUE
For the next six years I worked once again as a set clerk at the Shanghai Film Studio. I copied scripts, put up shooting boards, recorded sets in various locations, mopped floors and filled up hot-water containers in offices. In six years of severe loneliness and abandonment, my health broke down. I coughed blood and fainted on the set. I had tuberculosis. I was not allowed to take a leave. In the Party’s dossier I was executed permanently. At night I felt so defeated that I lost my courage. I missed Yan and the Supervisor. In six years I had become a stone, deaf to passion.
One day in 1983 an overseas letter came from a young friend whom I used to know in film school. She had left China three years before and was now living in Los Angeles. She asked me whether I had ever thought of coming to America. The idea was as foreign to me as being asked to live on the moon, the moon as my father described it—icy, airless and soundless. Yet my despair made me fearless. Though I spoke not a word of English, though I hated to leave my parents, my sisters, my brother, and to fight for permission to leave would take all my energy, I knew that escaping China would be the only solution.
I fought for my way and I arrived in America on September 1, 1984.
Chicago, Christmas 1992
Anchee Min, Red Azalea
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