I reach the villa and go straight to the kitchen, knowing I’ll find Kumei there. We speak in clipped sentences to save energy.
“Yong died,” she announces.
“What are you going to do?” I ask.
“Hide her. Hope she isn’t found.”
“But the brigade leader lives here.”
“He moved out of the villa a few days ago. He’s gone to the leadership hall.” This is more than I’ve heard Kumei say in ages, and I can see the toll it takes. “He says he needs to protect what’s left of the commune’s grain supply.”
I think he had a different reason. The villa has twenty-nine bedrooms, but the leadership hall gives him total privacy. People will do anything for food. Many women in the commune have walked or crawled to the villa to prostitute themselves to the brigade leader in exchange for a single bun. Now they’ll go to the leadership hall, where Brigade Leader Lai won’t have to worry about anyone watching him. It’s a long way, and I wonder how many women will die either going or coming.
“The villa has lots of places to hide a body,” Kumei continues. “Yong’s too withered to stink. I hope I have the strength to keep moving her and still collect her food ration.”
Many families are doing this, hiding the corpse of mother, father, brother, sister, wife, husband, grandma, or grandpa in the house, so an extra ration can be picked up each day at the canteen.
I bite my lower lip, thinking of the old woman. She suffered so many indignities in the last ten years of her life. I swallow, and then say, “I’ll help move her, if you want.”
Starving is a grim business, but Kumei nods, grateful.
“Ta-ming is very weak,” she informs me. “He hasn’t gotten off his mat in two days.”
“Do you have anything to give him?”
She doesn’t respond. We both know the answer: no. And now that Brigade Leader Lai is gone, she can’t give his scraps to her son.
Kumei takes me to see Yong, who lies curled like a baby. Even in death she wears the white ribbon of denunciation. Kumei and I sit on the edge of the bed. I put a hand on Yong’s ankle, and then tell my two friends about having sex with Tao. Yong doesn’t respond, of course. Kumei tries to look sympathetic, but I know what she’s thinking: I need food.
We’re caught in the jaws of hunger, and our minds are tortured by this thought. And as hungry and weak as we are, we know that tomorrow and for the next six days, until next Sunday, we’ll have to work, pulling plows, digging wells, planting, and weeding from six a.m. until six p.m., followed by a political meeting or struggle session, with just a bowl of mirror soup—so thin you can see your reflection in it—to sustain us.
I catch a glimpse of myself in Yong’s mirror. My body is as thin as a ginseng root. My hands are as bony as dried twigs. My skin looks translucent. My hair hangs lifeless. My lips, which were soft and full, have shrunk to almost nothing. I’ll turn twenty-two on the twentieth of this month, but hunger has turned me into an old woman nearing death. I think of my friends Hazel and Leon back in Chinatown. Hazel’s probably gotten married, and Leon will have graduated from Yale by now. If I’d stayed home … What would be happening? Maybe I’d have a job, my own apartment, my first car…
Later, I take the long, slow walk back up the hill to my house. There’s still no activity on the terrace, but I can see my mother-in-law has put a pot of water on the outdoor stove: breakfast.
Inside, Tao, Fu-shee, Jie Jie, and some of the children are up and dressed. They sit on stools and boxes around the table. They don’t talk or make sounds. They don’t squirm or push each other. Their concentration is totally focused on something in the middle of the table. They’re waiting and watching. Their eyes somehow manage to gleam like those of animals and yet be dull as dirt.
I peer over their shoulders to see what they’re looking at. It’s something small and wrapped in a blanket.
“Samantha!” I scream.
Could she have died in the few minutes I was away? The bundle moves. As I reach forward to pick up my baby, I hear a strange barking sound. My hands draw back. It’s not Sam. I know her cry.
All the while, my husband has not moved. His eyes are like coal—dead and opaque. My body shakes as I reach over one of the children and pick up the bundle. I open the blanket. It’s Sung-ling’s baby, who looks hours, maybe minutes, from death.
“Where is Sam?” I ask.
They look at me, hungry, desperate, as though I’m holding their last meal. I step back in horror. I am holding their last meal! I’ve heard whispers about something the villagers have been doing in Black Bridge Village. They call it I Tzu, Erh Shih—Swap Child, Make Food—when mothers trade infants, let them die, and then feed them to their families.
“Where is Sam?” I shriek in terror, but no one responds.
I hold Sung-ling’s daughter close to my chest and run to her parents’ home. I push through the door and find a scene similar to the one I just left. Party Secretary Feng Jin and Sung-ling—who once were portly but now are wasted and waxy looking—stare at Sam. At least they have the decency to weep.
I hand Sung-ling her infant and swoop up my daughter. I hold her so tightly, she cries. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a happier sound. I begin to back out of the house.
“Please don’t report us,” Feng Jin says weakly. “If you do, we’ll be sent away for reeducation through labor.”
“What does it matter?” I ask. “You’re going to die anyway.”
It’s a curse, but it’s also a pronouncement of truth. My heart is racing and I feel more weak and terrified than I thought imaginable, but I manage to step back into the morning air. It’s spring. I can see the day is beautiful. We should be out planting, but we’re dying and becoming animals in the process. I may have failed as a daughter, but I can’t fail as a mother. My mother used to tell me that Heaven never seals off all exits. There has to be a way out of here. I return to Tao’s hut. Fu-shee and the children have gone back to the mats on the floor. The children have coiled into little clumps against their mother, waiting to die. I don’t care. Tao still sits at the table, his legs spread, one arm dangling, his jaw slack.
I get a piece of cloth and tie Samantha to my body. I won’t let her leave my touch again. I step over and around those on the floor. Their eyes look up at me like sea creatures. I pack the last of the baby formula, get my American money and a few clothes for Sam and me. I go outside and pour some of the boiling water into bottles. Then, without looking back, I walk down the hill, past the villa, up the next hill, and down again. I don’t have written permission to leave, but no one stops me. Eventually, I’ll reach the main road. From there, I’ll walk to Tun-hsi. It’s not a big town, but I’m sure I’ll find someone desperate enough or dumb enough to change some of my American dollars into yuan. Then I’ll take a boat to Shanghai and my mom.
MANY TIMES DURING the last few weeks, I’ve wondered if only the Dandelion Number Eight People’s Commune has suffered and if our food shortages were merely a matter of bad leadership. I don’t walk very far before I get answers. I just left what I thought was the ultimate horror, but I pass many other frightening sights on the road. A man offers to sell me “rabbit” meat. His wife sits a few feet away, her eyes blank, two large, wet splotches on her blouse from the milk that drips from her breasts. Others pull themselves hand over hand along the road, through the fields, and around dead bodies. Are they looking for food? Are they trying to escape? Are they so deranged and weak from hunger that they don’t know what they’re doing? How can the dead and dying be out here at all when we’ve been told runaways will be caught and sent away for reeducation? Maybe the number of people fighting razor-sharp hunger is too great for local authorities to do anything about. Maybe the famine has spread across the country. If so, then millions of people must be dead and dying.
When I can walk no farther, I sleep by the side of the road with Sam tied tightly to my body. In the morning, I continue on to Tun-hsi, where I go straight to the river landing
to buy a boat ticket for Shanghai. I’m turned away at a checkpoint by a guard, who tells me that the schedules have been cut in half because there’s no fuel. But even if a boat were scheduled, I wouldn’t be allowed to board.
“You’re a country woman,” he says brusquely. “You don’t have an internal passport or a travel permit. You aren’t allowed to go to a city. Forget about Shanghai. Go home.”
I’m not going to do that. I hire a pedicab to take me to the bus station, where again I’m not allowed past the entry checkpoint. I take another pedicab to the train terminal. A train is not the easiest or fastest way to Shanghai, but it’s my last option. A checkpoint is set up here too, but I find a way around it by waiting until the guards are distracted by an entire starving family making a ruckus and then ducking around them. Inside the station, I’m told, once again, that the schedules have been curtailed, but this time I’m lucky. I only have to wait three hours for the train. I buy more hot water and mix some formula for Samantha. Once aboard, I hold my baby to my breast, cover her with a blanket, and surreptitiously feed her the bottle. I’m still hours from Shanghai, but already I feel tremendous relief. How could I have not done this sooner?
But before we can pull out of the station, uniformed guards enter the car and demand to see everyone’s papers. In truth, it’s not hard to pick out those who shouldn’t be on the train. We’re the ones dressed in rags, our bodies artificially bloated or our arms, legs, and faces just skin over bones. Still, the guards follow a process, going from person to person, checking documents and identification cards. I look around. Is there a place to hide? No. Is there anything I can do to prevent myself from being kicked off the train? Maybe offer a bribe, but the risk is great. I could be arrested.
The oldest of the guards approaches.
“Please,” I say, folding back the blanket to reveal Samantha’s face.
“You’re a runaway. You have to get off the train,” the guard says, not without sympathy. “You have to go back to your village.”
I pull out a hundred-dollar bill, hoping he’s old enough to recognize American money. He looks around to see how close the other guards are.
“Put that away before they see you,” he whispers. “Besides, it won’t do any good. The authorities don’t want anyone to know how bad things are in the countryside, so even if I let you stay on the train, you’ll be turned back later. And those guards might not be so understanding.”
I start to cry as he lifts me up by the elbow and guides me to the exit. After he helps me down to the platform, he opens a satchel slung over his shoulder, pulls out two wheat buns, and tucks them in the blanket between the baby and me.
“Go home,” he says. “That’s the best thing.”
I’ve never felt such despair. I walk out of the station, sit on the steps, and eat half a bun. The taste is amazing and I’m very hungry, but I have to be careful. After being on a starvation diet, my stomach has shrunk. Plus all the food substitutes I’ve eaten have ruined my digestion. I’m unsure how much food my stomach will hold or my intestines can handle, but this little bit of sustenance gives me more energy—physical and mental—than I’ve had in weeks. I walk down alleys, looking for a safe place to sleep.
The next morning, I fill Sam’s bottles at a hot water store, feed her, and eat the other half of my first bun, making sure I catch every crumb. I consider whether I have the strength to walk to Shanghai. Impossible. I still have money, but it’s hard to spend. I don’t have the necessary coupons, and I’m turned away at store after store, café after café. Finally, I’m able to buy some dried sweet potato flour. When I get back to Green Dragon, I’ll make a batter with water and grill small cakes. If I share them with my husband and his family, we may live a few more days.
ON MY WAY back to Green Dragon, I sleep again by the side of the road. Only three nights have passed, but there are more bodies, including those of the man and woman who were trying to sell their dead baby as rabbit meat. I enter Green Dragon in a state of utter defeat. Every time I think things can get no lower, something worse happens. I walk into the house and discover Tao sitting alone almost as I left him four days ago. The house is eerily quiet. The children are gone. Tao’s mother is gone.
“You shouldn’t have come back,” he says.
“I have nowhere to go.” I sit on the floor, hold Samantha to my shoulder, and pat her back. “Where is everyone?”
“After you left, I went to work in the fields.” He squeezes his eyes shut. “When I came home, Brigade Leader Lai’s men were burying …” He opens his eyes and stares at me.
My stomach, which for the first time in weeks is not rumbling and crying out with hunger, sinks in fear and apprehension. “What happened?”
“They dug a pit. They put my mother and the little children in it. Then they threw dirt on top of them. They buried them alive.”
This is dreadful, sickening news, but I think, maybe they’re the lucky ones. They’re out of their suffering now.
“You said the little children. What about Jie Jie and your other older brothers and sisters?”
“Brigade Leader Lai had them marched out of the village along with Party Secretary Feng Jin and Sung-ling.”
“To where?”
Tao shakes his head. “No one will tell me.”
“What about you?”
I always thought he had such a beautiful smile. Now his face sets into the death mask I’ve seen on so many corpses on the road—emaciated lips pulled back, too much gum exposed, and teeth looking like dried bones.
“I’m a lesson to others in the village.”
I should ask how the brigade leader found out about Tao’s family’s plan to Swap Child, Make Food, but I really don’t care. I want to weep for the children, but I have no tears. For the others, maybe I should feel more compassion, but I don’t. These people were willing to trade my baby to eat. Beyond that, I’m already calculating how much farther my sweet potato flour will go with only two of us to feed instead of eleven. Because I’m not going to give up. Heaven never seals off all exits. I have to believe that.
I force myself to stand. I pull out everything I own, almost all of it things either my mother or aunt have given or sent me: sanitary napkins, but my system has been so weakened that I haven’t had a period since Samantha was born; the pouch with three sesame seeds, three beans, and three coppers that was supposed to protect me but may become my last meal; the pretty baby clothes from Bullock’s Wilshire that I doubt Sam will live long enough to wear; and my mother’s camera, which she left along with the film to inspire me to take photographs of my new life but which, until this moment, has seemed a useless instrument.
I put together one last, desperate plan. I take out a piece of paper and write a letter to my mother. I have to couch my words in a way that will encourage Brigade Leader Lai to let my letter go through and that my mother will still understand what I’m telling her. I read the letter again and put it in a padded envelope stitched from a piece of cloth. Then I tie Samantha to my chest, pick up the camera and the unsealed letter, and leave the house.
I pass the villa and keep going along the path that borders the stream. I stop at the turnoff to the Charity Pavilion. This has always been a lonely stretch, which is why it was so easy for Tao and me to duck onto it without many people seeing us. I sit on a rock, pull out the other bun the guard on the train gave me, and eat it. My mind needs to be powerful and quick. I drink from the stream, and then I continue on to the leadership hall. I walk all the way around the building, praying I’ll find what I need. Just outside the door to the brigade leader’s private kitchen, I spot a few chicken feathers. None of us have seen an egg, let alone had a bite of chicken, in months, but the brigade leader has had live chickens specially brought in and slaughtered for his meals. I take a few of the feathers and carefully slip them into the bottom of my cloth envelope. I don’t think my mother will know what they mean, but I hope she’ll ask someone. Then I walk around to the front of the building, knock o
n the door, and ask to see the brigade leader. The smell of cooked food permeates the halls as I’m led to his office. Of everyone in the Dandelion Number Eight People’s Commune, Brigade Leader Lai alone has not lost weight. A pistol lies in plain view on his desk. People are too weak to rebel, so is it here to remind those who come begging of his dominance?
“Comrade,” he says, “how can I help you?”
I raise my voice in an effort to project full Great Leap Forward enthusiasm (and not seduction!). “My mother and father must see the mural our commune produced.”
“You want to invite them to visit?” His grimace lets me know that this is not even a remote possibility.
“I’m not inviting them to return.” (But, oh, God, please make them understand I need them to come here.) “I want my father to show our mural to the authorities at the Artists’ Association. I’m sure this organization, the most important for artists in the country, will recognize Tao as a model comrade—”
“You want that after what he and his family just did?”
“Please let me finish. I want the Artists’ Association to recognize the Dandelion Number Eight People’s Commune as a model commune. And, of course, it must also recognize our farsighted brigade leader,” I add deferentially. “We never could have created the mural without your guidance.”
He taps a fingernail on his desk, considering. His first comment is the very one I expect.
“Your husband said the mural’s content was black.”
“He only said that because he was angry with me. I embarrassed him with my request for a divorce. But now, if I help him get recognized as a model artist, he’ll forgive me, as both of us should forgive him. He has lost almost his entire family. The baby and I are all he has left. Besides, your leniency can bring you great honors. As you can see yourself, the mural is very patriotic. Have you not seen the spaceships, the giant radishes, the … Oh, you’ll receive much acclaim!”