“Aiya! From the ancestral hall?”
“Bah!”
The women shake their heads in disbelief. If this weren’t a matter for women alone, Yong would probably be attacked during one of the political-study sessions or be forced to make a public self-criticism.
“You were of the landowner class,” someone says. “You could do whatever you wanted.”
“It may have looked that way to you,” Yong responds, “but I had to obey not just my husband but also the first, second, and third wives. How cruel they were—worse than the worst mother-in-law.”
It’s awkward for me to hear about bad mothers-in-law, since Fu-shee has not been as welcoming to my daughter as Joy would like. But then Joy doesn’t understand how some relationships are so deep and fundamental that they cannot change just because Chairman Mao says they must. She knows, but doesn’t understand, that on a bone-and-blood level mothers-in-law don’t get along with daughters-in-law. I’ve told her that the written character for quarrel is two women under a roof. I’ve recited the old saying—“a bitter wife endures until she becomes a mother-in-law,” meaning that a wife must slowly climb the ladder of position in a family before she can command respect. According to Joy, however, this kind of thinking has no place in the new social order. She can say what she wants, but mothers-in-law will be the same long after I’m dead, Joy’s dead, and that Chairman Mao is only a bad memory.
At eleven, we recess for breakfast in the canteen, which is one thing I absolutely love. In the New Society, women no longer have the burdens of cooking for their families. Everything is prepared for us. Some people grumble that communal dining halls are destroying the heart of the Chinese family. After all, the family is built around breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I say we’re still eating together, aren’t we? Since I’ve been here, the canteen has been expanded (which didn’t take much—just more cornstalks tied together to form walls and a flimsy roof over bamboo framing) so that it can hold about a thousand people at a time. This morning, as at every meal, children run between the tables, old women gossip, and everyone else talks about the weather and the coming harvest. In this way, every meal is like a banquet, except that, over the chatter and laughter, loudspeakers blast news from the capital, patriotic music, and encouragements to keep building a better China.
I find Joy, kneeling before her husband and father-in-law, tending their badly cut feet. I sit on the floor beside her to help. They have no leather shoes. They rarely even wear sandals. Their feet are tough, but not tough enough to walk through fields filled with glass shards. I look sideways at Joy. Her lips are set in a determined line as she picks slivers of glass out of her father-in-law’s callused, cracked, and bleeding foot. Doesn’t she see how insane this is? Doesn’t anyone here see the mistakes that are being made? Sensing me staring at her, she glances my way. Her mouth spreads into a smile, and I automatically smile in return. Is her smile an apology or an expression of embarrassment? I tell myself I’m not here to criticize, even though I want to very badly. I tell myself that Joy looks happier than the morning after her wedding. I tell myself she’ll confide in me, if I give her time.
BANG, BANG, BANG. A new week, a new month. I put on my same clothes and my same smiling face.
In the canteen, people ooh and aah about reports of extraordinary activities in other communes that come to us over the loudspeaker. “Go all out, aim high, and achieve greater, faster, better, and more economical results in building socialism,” the announcer reads enthusiastically. “In Hunan, they’ve produced radishes as big as babies. In Hopei, they’ve grown melons larger than pigs. In Kwangtung, schoolchildren have crossed a pumpkin with a papaya, farmers have crossed a sunflower with an artichoke, and government scientists have crossed tomatoes with cotton to produce red cotton!” These accomplishments can’t possibly be real, but everyone loves hearing them. We need to find inspiration wherever we can, if we’re to bring in what everyone says will be the best harvest in years.
Today the commune holds a contest. Which village—Moon Pond, Black Bridge, or Green Dragon—can harvest crops the fastest? I’ll be putting in my first full day in the fields, since every hand is needed if Green Dragon is going to win.
“Drink plenty of water,” Joy recommends. “When we break, eat some pickled vegetables. They’ll help with the loss of salt. Oh, and empty your shoes at every chance, because you don’t want to get blisters. I learned that the hard way!” She grins happily. “Stay with me. I’ll show you what to do.”
She ties a kerchief over my hair and places a big straw hat on my head. She gives me a scythe. I’ve never held one before. Joy swishes hers back and forth to show me the motion. Then she picks up a basket and we take positions with others from the Green Dragon work teams in a field of golden rice stalks. Brigade Leader Lai blows a whistle. Joy and I work side by side as fast as we can. Slash, slash, slash. There’s nothing neat about what we do, and a lot of stalks aren’t cut.
“What about the grain that falls to the ground?” I ask.
“Don’t worry about it,” Joy answers. “Just hurry.”
It doesn’t make sense, but I’m with my daughter and she’s speaking to me. Every step brings me closer to her, doesn’t it?
Moon Pond Village wins the rice-cutting contest. Next, three small cornfields need to be harvested. Moon Pond rushes through their field—claiming another win, even though Green Dragon and Black Bridge fill more baskets with corn. And on it goes. We stop for lunch. The mood in the canteen is ebullient. I see sweaty faces streaked with dirt. I hear laughter and good-natured goading. We’re all hungry, and the meal is plentiful: melon soup, stewed beef in red sauce, tofu with cured ham, sautéed water greens with garlic and chilies, and shredded fresh baby bamboo shoots.
“You did really well, Mom,” Joy whispers to me in English. I hear the pride in her voice. This time when I smile, I actually mean it.
Then it’s back to the fields for another series of contests: more corn, more rice, and then a quick change of pace to pull old and tough leaves from tea plants. The morning’s enthusiasm dissipates as the afternoon wears on. We’re tired but still determined. The Black Bridge teams fall out of contention, but Moon Pond and Green Dragon win an equal number of contests.
“For the last challenge, you will harvest sweet potatoes,” Brigade Leader Lai announces.
It hardly seems fair to put this at the end of the day. It hardly seems fair to include this type of challenge at all! Sweet potatoes? These aren’t like the sweet potatoes we had in Los Angeles—big, fat, and orange. Even there I didn’t like them all that much, making them only once with mini-marshmallows, because Joy said that’s what we were supposed to eat on Thanksgiving. Here, sweet potatoes are grown as fodder for water buffalo and other livestock. Why should I be bending and digging under the sun for them? But I want to make Joy happy, so we race from one end of the field to the other, digging, pulling, and throwing sweet potatoes in our baskets but leaving plenty behind in the soil. We learned our lesson earlier today. Speed over quantity. Our Green Dragon team finishes first, winning the Dandelion Number Eight People’s Commune award for fastest and best harvesters. Our prize? Extra coupons to use for rice, which we already receive in plenty. I don’t understand it, but my daughter’s delighted. She hugs me and I hug her back. Over her shoulder, faces register disapproval at our affectionate display. I stare back at them, a big smile on my face. What can they do to me?
“Would you like to come back to the villa for a bath?” I whisper in Joy’s ear.
She pulls away and gives me one of those looks I’m hopeless to interpret. Then she says, “Yes, I’d like that. I’d like that a lot.” She lowers her voice to add in English, “Thanks, Mom.”
My muscles ache and I’m exhausted, but I go back to the villa, haul water, set a fire in the stove, and heat the water in our last big pot. Kumei helps me pull an old washtub into the kitchen, and then she steps out of the room. We may all be women, but naked flesh is too private to share even am
ong ourselves. Joy strips and steps into the tub. I notice she no longer wears the pouch around her neck. She sits with her knees drawn up under her chin. Her enthusiasm drains into the hot water. She seems unaware she’s let down her guard, as that low spirit I saw the morning after her wedding reappears.
“Do you remember when you were young and I used to wash you in the kitchen sink?” I ask. When she shakes her head, I say, “I guess you were too little—just a baby really. Your dad would sit at the table and watch us. Your grandparents too.”
I pick up a cloth, dip it in the water, lather it with soap, and wash my daughter’s back in long, rhythmic strokes.
“The way you giggled! I loved that sound and I’ll never forget it. You used to slap the water with your hands until I was soaked and the kitchen floor was a mess!” I laugh at the memory.
“Grandpa Louie didn’t mind?”
“You know how he was—Pan-di this, Pan-di that. He made a lot of noise, but he loved you. Your yen-yen loved you. Your baba loved you. I loved you most of all.”
A tremor shivers through her body. Stop before you go too far, I tell myself.
“As long as we’re here, let me wash your hair.” I ladle the warm water into Joy’s hair. I wash and rinse it, letting the water cascade down her back.
“I’m not saying we didn’t have hard times,” I go on. “We did. But, Joy, when I took you out of the sink all pink and slippery, wrapped you in a towel, and put you in your baba’s lap, no one in the world was happier than we were in those moments.”
I wish I had clean clothes to give Joy. Instead, she puts on the same dirty, sweaty clothes she wore today and will again tomorrow. We walk together to the front gate.
“Will you come again?” I ask, almost as though she’s an acquaintance, knowing enough as Joy’s mother to keep a little distance.
She gives a slight nod.
IN MY FOURTH week at the commune, during lunch one day in the canteen, Brigade Leader Lai asks a group of farmers how much wheat they can produce per mu.
“We don’t grow wheat,” Tao’s father answers. Several of the other men nod their heads in agreement. “We’ve never grown wheat. We grow rice in the paddies, tea on the terraces, and cotton, rapeseed, and vegetable crops elsewhere.”
“Yes, but this fall how much winter wheat will you grow per mu?” Brigade Leader Lai still wants to know.
Tao’s father consults with the other farmers before answering. “Maybe three hundred jin.”
“Three hundred jin? Make that eight hundred or a thousand jin!”
“That’s impossible,” observes Party Secretary Feng Jin, who’s resistant to the city cadre’s ideas even though it’s risky to go against him.
“Nothing’s impossible in the Great Leap Forward!” Sensing the farmers aren’t with him, the brigade leader asks, “How much grain do you need to eat?”
“We’ve always had at least one and a half jin of starch a day.”
That’s not a lot. A single jin of grain makes one steamed bun, a bowl of rice porridge, plus rice for lunch and dinner.
“You’re eating far more than that now,” Brigade Leader Lai points out.
And it’s true. Every meal has more than enough rice. In fact, I’m sure I’ve gained weight since coming to the commune.
“Here’s what we’re going to do with our first winter wheat crop,” the brigade leader continues. “It’s called close planting. You plant six times the normal grain in a single field.”
The men groan.
“It won’t work,” one of them says. “If you sow seeds too close, then the plants will die from a lack of sun and not enough nutrients.”
“You’re wrong there,” the brigade leader replies. “Chairman Mao says that close planting will be like getting the masses to form a solid flank in the war against the advances of imperialism. Think how much wheat we will grow! More than seven hundred jin per mu.” (At least he’s dropped his estimate.) “We’ll have so much wheat we’ll have to give it away. We’ll be a model commune!”
“Where are we going to plant this wheat?”
“You’ll tear out some of the tea plants and change over the vegetable fields,” Brigade Leader Lai snaps. “Our great Chairman says he wants wheat. Wheat we will give him.”
The radio announcer broadcasts the time. The farmers slowly rise, shaking their heads. How can you reason with someone who’s lived in a city his entire life about the crops and soil that you and your ancestors have worked for generations? Even I know, from my little garden in Los Angeles, that what the brigade leader suggested won’t work, but everyone is afraid to voice too much criticism or skepticism. No one wants to get in trouble. No one wants to be singled out. Those who have little to lose don’t want to lose what little they have. We all put on smiling faces as we go back into the sun to rejoin our work teams.
This afternoon, the women on the gray-power team share stories of giving birth. I hear one harrowing story after another. I tell them about losing my son during his delivery. To lose a daughter is sad, they tell me. To lose a son is tragic. They weep with me, and I feel part of a community in a way I’ve never experienced before.
As the end of the day approaches, people straggle into the village from the jobs they’ve been assigned. Joy and Kumei enter the village square together. Joy’s shoulders are hunched, and she has a hunted look.
“I have a letter from Father Louie’s village,” Joy says, holding out an unopened envelope and pointing to the return address. “Why would anyone there write to me?”
“It probably contains a letter from May,” I say. “I wrote to her and told her we were here.”
Joy thinks about that.
“Why don’t you open it?” I suggest.
Joy rips open the envelope. A photograph flutters to the ground. I pick it up, and there’s May, standing in our backyard. Cecile Brunner roses cascade around her in an abundant display of Southern California fertility. She holds a small, fluffy dog, what I would call a yappity-yap dog.
“Let me see,” Joy says.
I give her the photograph, and the others crowd around to look too. The gray-power women gaze incredulously at the image. They point at May’s clothes—a skirt made extra full with a big petticoat, tiny belt cinched at her waist, and silk stilettos dyed to match her blouse. They comment on her makeup and touch her hairstyle with their fingers.
“Why is she holding a dog?” Fu-shee inquires.
“Why would she have a dog?” Kumei asks.
“It’s a pet,” Yong, the onetime Shanghai girl, answers.
“A pet? What’s that?”
“An animal you keep for fun,” Yong explains, sounding worldly. “You play with it.” Seeing the looks of disbelief on the other women’s faces, she adds, “For fun?”
Snorts of disapproval greet that response.
“What did Auntie May write?” I ask.
Joy releases the photograph to the women, who continue to comment and stare in a combination of disgust, wonder, and excitement. It’s as though they’re looking at a movie star from olden times, except that these people (apart from perhaps Yong) have never seen a movie, let alone a movie star. Joy holds the letter close to her chest, and it’s not because she doesn’t want the village women to see what’s written there. May was never good at Chinese characters, so I’m sure the letter is in English. Joy doesn’t want me to see what’s written.
“Dear Joy,” my daughter reads, slowly translating, “I understand congratulations are in order. I hope you are deeply in love. That is the only reason for marriage.” Joy’s brow draws into tight little lines. These are hardly wholehearted good wishes. “I’ve enclosed a photograph. The dog’s name is Martin. My friend Violet gave him to me. She says the dog will help me with my loneliness. She doesn’t know that I named the dog after one of my special friends.”
Oh, May. I shake my head. She mentions her friend Violet. Violet is my friend! She’s been my only friend apart from my sister. And then there’s the bit about t
he dog. I tell myself that Violet was just being kind to my sister, and that I can bear. But who is this Martin—the special friend, not the damn dog? Doesn’t May realize she’s a widow?
I know the real reason for these words. They’re to get back at me. I’ve been writing May regularly and she’s been deliberately silent. I don’t blame her. I’m here with Z.G. and she isn’t.
“You must write to me of your new life,” Joy continues reading. “Tell me about your father. I long to hear of your time together.” Joy doesn’t have to read this part aloud, but she does. It seems this letter has brought back some of her anger at May and me, and she’s always known how to drive a wedge between us. “Please write to me …” Joy looks up from the letter, glances at the faces around her, and says, “It ends with congratulations on our bumper harvest.”
I have no idea what May wrote, but I’m positive it wasn’t that. Joy’s eyes remain hooded as we walk to the canteen, and she’s quiet throughout dinner. After the meal, Joy comes back to the villa for her bath. These evenings have become a ritual I look forward to. Some nights Kumei and Yong—having gotten over their initial reticence—sit on stools in the kitchen near us, and we all chat, drink tea, and let the hard work of the day ease out of our bones. Ta-ming sits on the floor plucking the strings of a violin. From what I’ve learned, his father was educated. The violin—one of only a few of the landlord’s personal possessions not destroyed or confiscated during Liberation—belongs to Ta-ming now. Sometimes he picks at the violin strings, as he is now, or he’ll hold it like an erhu—upright in his lap—and run the bow across the strings. It sounds terrible but not as bad as some of the military marches we hear over the loudspeakers.