Despite his caution, I leave the police station feeling optimistic. Cook is the director of our home and is very powerful on the block committee. He’ll make sure I get a positive recommendation.
Except it doesn’t turn out that way. The two former dancing girls accuse me of being a secret capitalist. “She keeps vestiges of her decadent past in her room,” one of them tells our neighbors. “She brings home posters of herself and her sister from former times.”
“Even little pieces—an eye or a finger,” adds her roommate.
This is startling news, because it means they’ve been in my room when I’m not there. What else have they found?
“She wears clothes from before Liberation.” This comes from the cobbler. “She puts them on to teach one of our boarders English!”
“And she hides food,” the widow chimes in. “She only shares with us when it suits her.”
In my mind, I haven’t done anything wrong. After all, I strip posters off walls as part of my job, I wear my old clothes so I won’t be wasteful, I teach Dun because he asked me to, and I share food to be a good comrade. I’ve heard of others who fight back when they’re criticized, believing they’re innocent or morally, ethically, or politically right, and I want to fight back, but that won’t help me get a travel permit to visit my daughter.
Following the slogan “Leniency to those who confess,” I rush to make full disclosure: “I lived in an imperialist country, I’m too accustomed to weak Western ways, and my family was bad.” They seem fairly satisfied with that, but I’m sure I’ll be accused again. As worried as I am about Joy, I’m thankful she’s in the countryside, where she’s liked for who she is and not under suspicion for where she came from.
Of course, all this is reported to Superintendent Wu. “You have no hope of getting a travel permit right now,” he tells me when I see him. “Just wait. Behave. And maybe you’ll be able to get one in time for your grandchild’s birth.”
I’m horribly upset, but what can I do?
I WAS FOOLISH to keep the scraps of May and me I’d stripped off walls in the box under my bed, and I need to get rid of them in a way that won’t draw more attention to me. I used to knit and sew for Joy when she was a girl, and now I’ve hit on a project—making homemade shoes for her and her family—that will also prove to the boarders who complained about me that I was actually being a good and frugal socialist in gathering this particular paper and that I am arm in arm with our comrades in the communes. I have two friends in the house, and I decide to ask for their help. The following Sunday, I first approach Dun. I’ve come to rely on him for many things, and he is, as always, happy to see me at his door.
“We have a good time together, you and I,” I begin. “You’ve shown me all the places I can go for tastes of the past.”
And truly he has: to the last White Russian café in the city to serve borscht, to a little place to buy cream so I can make butter, to a flea market to buy bread pans so I can make my own bread for toast.
“I enjoy spending time with you,” he says. “I’d like us to do more things together, if you’d like.”
“I’d like that very much,” I respond. Then I tell him about my project.
“That’s perfect!” Dun says. “But do you know how to make shoes?”
“No, but Cook does.”
Even though Cook let me be attacked by the block committee, I know he loves me very much. In fact, as I think about it, he may have let the criticism against me be voiced so that I wouldn’t be attacked in a harsher or more dangerous way sometime down the line. Maybe Cook was planning ahead to the baby’s birth. After all, how many travel permits can one person get?
I go to my room, get my box out from under the bed, and then Dun and I go downstairs to the kitchen. Since it’s Sunday afternoon, most of the boarders are out—window-shopping, visiting friends and relatives, strolling along the Bund—but Cook is home, too old and frail for excursions. He gives me a toothless grin and rises to put on water for tea for his Little Miss.
“Director Cook,” I say, addressing him formally, “when I was a little girl you used to make soles for shoes right here on the kitchen table. Do you remember that?”
“Remember? Aiya! I remember how mad your mama used to get at me. She didn’t like the mess. She said she’d give me a pair of the master’s shoes if I’d stop mixing rice paste in her kitchen—”
“Do you think you could show us how to make soles? I’d like to make shoes to send to Joy and the children in her family. Most of them don’t have any shoes.”
I open the box and dump the scraps of May and me on the table. Cook gives me another toothless grin. “Smart, Little Miss, very smart.”
Cook gets up and makes a paste from rice. Then he shows Dun and me how to glue sheet upon sheet of paper in a time-consuming process to build a sole. The final step involves sewing cloth onto the soles, which I’ll do later in my room. What could be tedious work becomes a bit of a game as we try to guess which mouths, eyes, ears, and fingers are May’s and which are mine. Dun is particularly adept at singling out pieces of me in the pile, which pleases me greatly.
“Paper collectors from the feudal era would have been very upset to see us doing this,” Dun says. I watch his fingers as he picks up another of my noses, brushes it with glue, and applies it to the sole he’s been making for Jie Jie, the oldest of Tao’s sisters.
I smile and shake my head. He can’t help himself. He’s such a professor. “Which part?” I ask. “That we’re making shoes or that we’re using these funny pieces of paper?”
“Both,” he replies. “Does a paper sole show reverence for lettered paper? Not at all! You should never tread on lettered paper.”
“But not all of this is lettered,” I point out. And it’s true. While there’s writing on some of the slivers of May and me, most of the writing was at the bottom or along the sides of beautiful-girl posters.
“Nevertheless, the whole piece of paper was an advertisement,” Dun responds. “In olden days, this would have been considered a deliberate act of disrespect. Our lives could have been shortened by five years—”
“Ten years!” Cook corrects.
“Because we’d go to jail?” I ask.
“Nothing so simple,” Dun replies. “Maybe lightning would find you. Maybe you’d develop runny eyes or go blind or be born blind in your next life—”
“I remember a woman in my village who hid coins in her socks,” Cook says. “The coins had words on them. She tripped, fell in a well, and died.”
“And I remember a warning my mother gave me as a boy,” Dun adds. “She said, ‘If you use lettered paper to kindle the fire, then you will receive ten demerits in the underworld and you will be given itchy sons.’ ”
“As a paper collector, I should be eligible for an incredible reward then,” I say.
Dun nods. “My mother always said that he who roams the streets, collecting, storing, ritually burning, and then depositing lettered paper into the sea will receive five thousand merits, add twelve years to his life, and become honored and wealthy. His children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren will be virtuous and filial too.”
I apply several paper fingers along what I think will be the arch of a shoe for Joy. “All I do is strip paper from walls and clean alleyways,” I admit. “So maybe I don’t have reverence for lettered paper. Even so, I think what we’re doing right now is good. Joy may never know what’s layered here, but I hope she’ll feel my love.”
We work companionably for a while, until Dun bursts out, “I have an idea! What is paper for? Advertising, of course.” His hand sweeps across the table where May’s and my eyes, mouths, noses, fingers, and earlobes lie in little piles. “But what else?”
“It can be burned, to keep us warm,” Cook offers tentatively. “You can sleep under it. Or on top of it.” He really is red through and through. “You can eat it, if you’re hungry enough—”
“You can use it to make cigarettes,” Dun jumps in, and
then he turns to me expectantly.
“For books,” I say hesitantly. “To make Bibles. To print money.” I’m still unsure where he’s going with all this.
“But what’s the most important thing?” he asks. “Why even have reverence for lettered paper? It’s because the words themselves have reverence. The things my mother taught me are what made me want to read books, become a professor, and teach others to love the written word. She considered words to be magical—”
“Like prayers that were written and then burned,” I say. “My mother believed that was the most effective way to communicate with her gods. Of course, at the mission we were taught that this kind of thinking was just another form of idolatry.”
“You made your mother very sad by visiting those people,” Cook reminds me.
It’s true. My going to the Methodist mission upset my mother and father, but I did it anyway. I learned English and manners, but what I learned most of all was faith. I don’t regret that for a minute.
Dun bunches a hand into a loose fist and taps it lightly on his lips, thinking. Then, “But don’t you think that we still believe in the efficacy of written characters? We still write peace, wealth, and happiness on red paper to hang on doors at the New Year. Pearl, you said you hoped Joy would feel your love, but what if you wrote that to her and then glued it in her shoes?”
“For what purpose? She’ll never know it’s there.”
“But you will.” Dun gets up, opens a drawer, and pulls out paper and ballpoint pens so the words won’t smear when they get wet. “Let’s send messages to everyone for whom we’re making shoes. You said the shoes I’m making are for Joy’s oldest sister-in-law, a girl of about fourteen or fifteen.” He starts to write, reading aloud his message. “You are very pretty. I hope you get married and have a happy life.”
Since Cook is illiterate, I help him with his note. Then I write a secret message to Joy and paste it into the middle of the sole. I feel the warmth from Dun’s gaze as I quickly paper over my words with a pair of my eyes.
Joy
LAUNCHING A SPUTNIK
I’VE PREPARED EVERYTHING as best as I can: I’ve rehearsed my request. I’ve made drawings and mixed pigment samples. I’ve washed my hair and put on clean clothes. I wish I could go to the leadership hall to speak to the village cadres about my idea now, while it’s still cool and I’m still clean, but that’s not possible. I pack my satchel and then join my husband and his family as they leave the house and walk down the hill. It’s summer again. It’s already porridge hot and with about as much visibility. I swat at the mosquitoes that buzz around my head and land on my arms, but what’s the use? There are more of them than I could ever kill.
As the others continue along the path toward our new work site, I stop at the villa to pick up Kumei. Yong, thankfully, won’t be coming with us. After Brigade Leader Lai made a fuss in front of the whole commune, he confiscated Yong’s bindings and hung them outside the villa, where they flutter like streamers in the breeze. He also took her bound-foot shoes—all tiny, all in brilliant colors, all with fine embroidery—and nailed them to the main gate, where they’re fading from the sun and rain. Now Yong is reduced to crawling on her hands and knees to get from room to room. The good life in the commune is not good for everyone, which has helped me focus more strongly on my plan.
Kumei doesn’t have much to say this morning as we walk together, and I’m too nervous about my plan to make small talk. We reach the work site and go our separate ways. A few weeks ago, when Brigade Leader Lai announced we would be building something together—as a commune—I hoped it would be a proper canteen. Instead, he ordered us to construct a road from the place where the bus lets people off several miles from here to the center of the commune. Weeding, aerating furrows, and picking away the pests that attack the crops have been abandoned so we can dig out boulders, shovel dirt, and compact earth. All this work is done by hand, and we’re still getting by on reduced rations, so the sun makes me woozy, and my shoulders, back, and legs quickly tire from the labor. I’m luckier than most. As a pregnant woman, I’m given extra food. Fortunately, I’m over the worst of my morning sickness and have been able to keep my meals in my stomach. My belly is slowly swelling, but it’s not terribly noticeable under my loose cotton blouse. Everyone knows everything in the commune, though, so I get plenty of advice.
“Don’t attend magic shows,” a woman struggling to lift a basket of dirt next to me recommends, “because if you see through any of the magician’s tricks he’ll cast a spell on you out of embarrassment.”
“Don’t climb any fruit trees,” another counsels, “because if you do, they won’t bear fruit in the coming year.”
And on it goes. I shouldn’t quarrel with anyone (but I should accept criticism), go on any journeys (which I can’t do anyway since I don’t have an internal passport), or step on any goose droppings (I tried not to do that even before I got pregnant).
A whistle announces the lunch break. While the others line up for rice and vegetables served by the side of the new road, I hurriedly grab my satchel and set out for the leadership hall. How different everything looks from when I first came here two summers ago. This year’s corn crop should be shoulder high, with the kernels filling the air with a warm and fragrant scent, but what I see is short, stubby, and patchy, as though the fields have severe cases of mange. The reasons are simple and all tied together.
First, although scientists have announced that sparrows eat more insects than seeds, Chairman Mao has insisted we continue to kill the birds. Now the only things getting fat around here are the swarms of locusts and other insects that eat contentedly at the free canteen that our fields have become. Second, close planting. When any of the farmers who grew up in this area ask Brigade Leader Lai about the wisdom of this practice, he says, “Trust in the people’s commune.” Third, when we inquire what he’s promised the government this year, he answers, “We’ll deliver ten times the normal grain yield!” That’s where our fear comes in. How can we possibly give that much grain when our yield has gone down not up? If we turn over our harvest to meet the brigade leader’s “exaggeration wind,” then this winter will be far worse than last. To protect ourselves, we deliberately left as much in and on the ground as we could when we brought in the early crops, in case we need to rely on gleaning the fields for food next winter.
I reach the center of the commune. I take a breath to calm my nerves and give me courage. Then I stride purposefully to the leadership hall in the cinder-block building. A guard stands before the door.
“May I see Brigade Leader Lai?” I ask.
“Why?” the guard, a young peasant from Moon Pond Village, asks in response.
“I’d like to present something to the brigade leader as well as to Party Secretary Feng Jin and his honorable wife.”
I haven’t answered the guard’s question, only expanded my request. His jaw muscles tighten. Give a low man one ounce of power and he’ll throw ten thousand pounds of bricks on your head. He yells at me. When he loses steam, I state my request again. He gets angrier. Brigade Leader Lai comes to the door. He wears a cloth napkin tucked into his shirt.
“What’s this noise? Don’t you know I’m eating?”
“Brigade Leader, I want to launch a Sputnik,” I announce.
“You?”
I give a sharp nod, exuding confidence.
“No,” he says.
“Please hear me,” I persist. “My idea will bring important cadres to the Dandelion Number Eight People’s Commune.”
This is a bold claim, but one I hope will elicit a good response from the brigade leader. In the New China, no one is supposed to seek personal glory, but individual recognition is something all cadres desire. He looks me up and down, calculating: she’s a backsliding imperialist, but she’s also the daughter of a famous artist, she looks professional, she has a satchel slung over her shoulder that contains … what?
“Let me finish my lunch,” he says, having made h
is decision. He orders the guard to fetch Party Secretary Feng Jin and Sung-ling. “Have them come here in fifteen minutes.” To me, he adds, “Wait here.” Then the brigade leader closes the door and goes back to his meal.
Fifteen minutes later, the guard escorts the three of us into the building’s private dining room. The smell of food—meat—is tantalizing and painful at the same time. I glance at Sung-ling. As Kumei suggested, Sung-ling and I have become friends. When Sung-ling says her baby likes to kick, I tell her my baby kicks even more. When I say I’m going to have a son, she tells me she’s going to have twin boys. I’ve worked hard to establish this good-natured banter, because I need Sung-ling to help me. But now, as I look at her, I wonder if she can. She was plump when we first met. Now she’s pregnant and losing weight. As village cadres, she and her husband should have the same benefits as the brigade leader. Instead, they’ve decided to continue eating with the rest of us in the canteen.
The brigade leader motions for them to sit. I’m meant to stand before them as the supplicant I am.
“All right then,” Brigade Leader Lai says in his rough voice. “What do you want?”
“We should launch a Sputnik by painting a mural to show our pride in our new road,” I begin. They stare at me, sure I have more to say. “Chairman Mao says murals can teach people. They’re visible reminders of what the masses should and shouldn’t do.”
“We don’t have money to buy supplies,” Brigade Leader Lai says.
What a strange response. Is he fishing for a bribe?
“That’s all right, because we’re going to make our own pigments.” I open my satchel and pull out little jars of color. “This yellow I made using the flowers from the scholar’s tree in Green Dragon’s main courtyard. This red comes from the red soil in the hills. The black comes from the soot left over from the blast furnaces. We can use lime for white. I made blue and purple from flowers. Green is easy. I soaked some of our tea leaves to extract the color.”