Wild Ginger

  I didn't realize that Mother had been standing behind me until she softly asked me what got me up so early.

  "Wild Ginger is sweeping the lane for her mother."

  Mother came behind me and looked. She sighed deeply.

  I closed the window and went to put on my clothes and shoes.

  "Where are you going?" Mother asked.

  "Mama, may I take the broom with me?"

  "It is the work for ... enemies," Mother warned. "Don't get yourself in trouble."

  She was wearing a cloth surgical mask and her mother's indigo canvas jacket with worn corners. She had two sleeve cases on each arm and was in her own army boots. I approached her quietly. She collected the garbage, swept it into a bag, and then carried it to a bin. Lifting the lid, she deposited the trash. She then laid her broom on the ground and went to an old well and looked in.

  "Wild Ginger," I called.

  She turned around. Her eyes asked, What are you doing here? When she saw that I was holding a broom she understood. She took her mask off. "This is none of your business, Maple."

  "You won't be able to cover the lanes all by yourself before school."

  "Go home, please."

  "What are you doing sticking your head in the well?"

  "I'm trying to fetch a dead cat."

  "Dead what?"

  "Cat, a cat."

  "It drowned?"

  "It's some activist's trick to give my mother a hard time. They want to be able to say that she loafed on the job, on the cleaning, so they can torture her more."

  "What if you just leave it there?"

  "It will rot and smell."

  "It's not your fault."

  "Like I said, my mother is in no position to defend herself."

  With two brooms working like a pair of giant chopsticks, we got the dead cat out of the well. After we deposited it in the garbage bin Wild Ginger went on to finish sweeping the rest of the lane. I went to the other end. I swept quickly. All my joints participated in a race against the breaking daylight. Soon my arms were sore and blisters were forming on my palms. My shoes were wet from dew. Finally, Wild Ginger and I met in the middle. It was six-thirty. The sun was up.

  "See you at school," I said.

  She nodded and turned her face away.

  Each dawn I came out. We met in the darkest moment of the day. Wild Ginger no longer rejected my help. In school we stuck together like one person and her shadow. In Hot Pepper's eyes, we had become a two-member gang. She had stopped attacking me and Wild Ginger. It was hard to believe that Hot Pepper didn't call her wolfy brothers. I guessed that, after all, her brothers couldn't come to the school to fight every day. Hot Pepper had learned that Wild Ginger was a desperado who would risk her life to win a moment.

  6

  The news of the Americans' invasion of Vietnam was on everyone's lips. Taking it as a threat to China, Mao called for "an entire nation in arms; every citizen a soldier!" Within a week our school was turned into a war camp. Every class became a military training program with soldiers from the People's Liberation Army as instructors. We learned wrestling and bayonet stabbing. To build up our strength, the school set out on a month-long hiking trip called "the New Long March." It was an eight-hour-a-day, weight-carrying trip around Shanghai's suburbs. We would pass places like Xinzhuang, Pingzhuang, Lihu, Minghang, then take the ferry across the Huangpu River and travel into the Fengxian agricultural area.

  Our bags were thirty-pound bundles stuffed with blankets and necessities for the month. By the time we reached Xinzhuang, many of us had blisters on our feet and shoulders, and severe back and neck aches. The army instructor taught us how to fix our blisters. At every break, I sat down and took out my needles. Raising my foot, I poked through the blisters with a needle. After that I pulled out one of my hairs and routed it through the broken blister, then made a knot on each blister to keep the fluid draining until it dried up by itself. Soon my feet were full of mosquito-like hair knots.

  After the city scene faded, the countryside took over, but we were too exhausted to appreciate the landscape. We walked through the rice paddies, farmhouses, and animal barns longing desperately for the next break.

  The bundles on our shoulders were getting heavier. Hot Pepper tried to strike up a song to lift our spirits, but no one responded except Wild Ginger.

  Wild Ginger was walking behind me. It was the first time we were allowed to participate in a group activity. We were benefiting from Mao's new teaching, "To expand our force, we must unite with people of gray backgrounds, which include the children of the denounced." Wild Ginger was excited. She was singing loudly, "The sky is big but not as big as the power of the Communist party..."

  By evening a break was ordered. The school stopped in a village called Yichun. The peasants were ordered by their local party boss to provide us with rooms to spend the night. Our class got a coffin room. The empty coffin was for the family's great-grandfather. It was considered a blessing for a man to see his coffin made before he died. Hot Pepper was afraid of the coffin. She took the spot at the far thest end of the room away from the coffin. Wild Ginger laid her stuff right by the coffin, and I took the space next to her. As we finished unpacking we heard a whistle. We were ordered to fetch yecai—leaflike grass—for dinner. Yecai was what the Red Army ate during Mao's Long March in 1934. The point was for us to taste the bitterness in order to deepen our admiration for Mao.

  Wild Ginger and I were assigned as a group to look for yecai. We set out toward the west end of a cornfield. Halfway across the field we were struck by a strange fragrance. As we followed the smell, we entered a leafy enclosure where yecai was growing everywhere. It was a thick-leaved plant with tiny yellow flowers on its top. The sun was setting. There was no one around. We started picking. Quickly we filled up our bags.

  The farmhouses with straw tops were dyed orange by the golden sunbeams. The large oil-bearing plants bent down heavily. The smell of yecai thickened. Wild Ginger and I decided to take a break. We put our bags to the side and sat down to enjoy the fragrance. Within a few minutes the sky turned dark and the stars began to glow.

  "Look at the moon." Wild Ginger pointed at the sky. "Like a guilty face it keeps burying itself behind the drifting clouds."

  "A face? Whose face?"

  "My father's," she giggled.

  "I don't think the face looks guilty," I said. "It looks rather sad to me."

  "Sad? Well, if only the moon could argue."

  "The air is sweet."

  "It's so quiet here."

  "Don't you feel like breaking the silence?"

  "Wanna sing?"

  "I don't have a good voice."

  "Who cares!"

  "I do. I would like to have a nice voice like Wild Ginger."

  "You know what my mother said? 'That French-head had a good voice.'"

  "You mean your father?"

  "My mother told me that he liked to put out the lights and sing in the dark."

  "Did you ever hear your father sing?"

  "I don't remember. My mother says I did. My mother sang me his songs. She wants me to remember him. But who wants to remember a reactionary?"

  "What about your voice?"

  "I sing all right ... Well, I love to sing, in fact."

  "Would you sing me something?"

  "Of course not."

  "You have shown me how your father looked, now if you sing I might get an idea of how he sounded."

  "I have to go, Maple. I have to go to the restroom badly. But there is no such place."

  "Just squat down. Do what the peasants do."

  Wild Ginger wandered around for a while and disappeared from my sight.

  I lay down on my back. The night was broad and wide. I began to think about my father. I missed him terribly. As my mind wandered the sweetness of the air disappeared. I became uncomfortable. I felt the sky turn into a broad palm and press itself upon my face. A nameless anxiety crept up on me. I worried about my future. I thought about the wor
d "escape." I wanted to escape school and my family. I wanted to be a Maoist. I understood that it was the only path to a good future. One had to be a Maoist to get a good job. But on the other hand I was confused. I was not sure whether being a Maoist would make me happy. I was not looking forward to graduation. I didn't see a future as bright as the one Chairman Mao promised. Maybe it was the daily hunger, the hardship, that stressed me. And my father. The way he was treated. My family was never enthusiastic about participating in the Cultural Revolution. All my siblings were considered politically nearsighted. I didn't see where it was all leading. Anyhow, Evergreen's record as the Mao-citing champion impressed Wild Ginger more than it did me.

  I heard singing. For a brief moment I was sure that I was imagining it. The voice was silky, pure and penetrating. It was in a foreign language. The strangeness grabbed me. Wild Ginger. What was she singing? French? She sang it as if she knew the language. But she didn't. I knew she didn't.

  The singing went on for a while and then stopped. Wild Ginger reappeared.

  "Was it weird?"

  "I liked it. A lot."

  "It's a spy code," she teased.

  "Then why do you sing it?"

  "Just to show you what my mother rubbed my ears with, though she has stopped since the revolution."

  "What are the songs about?"

  "I have no idea."

  "You're lying. Your mother must have explained them to you."

  "All right, she did. She said they were about love. The lyrics are disgusting and poisonous."

  "I think they are beautiful."

  "Don't be stupid, Maple."

  "It's true. It shows how much you miss your father."

  "You don't know French."

  "You don't either."

  "What makes you think that I miss him?"

  "Your voice."

  She paused, as if surprised.

  "I really like your voice," I continued.

  "You'd like it better if I sang 'I Am Missing Chairman Mao.' I can sound as good as the radio."

  Before I could tell her that I had been bored with that song and its constant repetition on the radio and at ceremonies, she turned toward the field to sing with her full voice:

  I raise my head to see the Big Dipper.

  I am missing you, Chairman Mao.

  Longing for you I strive,

  Thinking about you I find light in darkness,

  Thinking about you I gain my strength.

  I owe you my life,

  I owe you my happiness.

  Deep in the fields moonbeams sparkled overhead. The white rays silently spread, in rushing streams, bathing the corn.

  We had yecai as dinner. It was boiled in a wok and mixed with wild sandy-brown rice. The color was exactly manurelike. Many of us threw up before forcing it down our throats. One hour after eating the chamber-pot room was crowded.

  "Wild Ginger, I think I like the French song better," I whispered to her after we got into bed and the light was off. "Especially now that you've told me that it was a song your father sang."

  "Maple, please, don't bring up that French ghost."

  "Well, it helps me to fight the urge to throw up."

  "From now on you can mention anything else but the ghost."

  "The ghost is in your own voice, Wild Ginger. But I prefer to see it as a fairy."

  She turned over and threw a fistful of wheat she had brought back from the field in my face. It shut me up. After a while she said, "Actually, for your information, my ability to memorize is a true gift. My eyes easily store everything they see."

  "Well, then you should explore your talent."

  "I am working on it. Wanna know a secret? I've been planning to take the championship from Evergreen."

  "You mean the Mao Quotation-Citing Contest?"

  "Do I surprise you?"

  "You talk big."

  "Just watch me."

  "Silence!" Hot Pepper's voice. "Let's say good night to Chairman Mao and wish him a long, long life."

  "Page four hundred and eleven, paragraph one, 'The American imperialism is a paper tiger..."' Wild Ginger woke me up at midnight reciting Mao loudly in her dreams.

  7

  The noise of cicadas pierced the noon heat. I sat in the classroom and worried about Wild Ginger. She was absent. I decided to pay her a visit after school. I thought she probably was caught up in the preparation for the Mao Quotation-Citing Contest.

  I passed Chia Chia Lane and saw that Wild Ginger's door was wide open. To my surprise, I saw that Mrs. Pei's plants were crushed and lay scattered around the yard. Strangers were coming in and out of the house. A group of men carried things out—woks, pillows, kitchenware, and toilet paper. They loaded the goods in tricycles and then rode away. I drew near. I didn't recognize these people. They had Red Guard armbands and spoke Mandarin with a northern accent. "Get out of the way!" One of them yelled at me. I moved to the side and saw my neighbor One-Eye Grandpa, a retired veteran, standing by the corner watching. He was eighty-one years old. His left eye had been poked out by a Japanese bayonet during the war. He usually did nothing but walk around the neighborhood all day.

  "What's going on, Grandpa?" I went up to him.

  "Don't get involved, child."

  "I'm Wild Ginger's friend."

  "Oh, Wild Ginger. Poor girl. Zuonieya! Buddha above, may your eyes open."

  "I need to know what's going on, Grandpa. I beg you to tell me. A long life to you. May Chairman Mao grant you good luck."

  "Does it matter? I'm tired of living, tired of seeing anyway," he murmured. "There was a letter from France addressed to Mrs. Pei but it got caught by the post office. They turned it over to the authorities. Next thing Mrs. Pei got arrested. She was escorted to the detention house."

  "What's the letter about?"

  "Who knows! I'm sure Mrs. Pei didn't even get to read it. I would guess it's from the grandparents. It's only natural that they wonder about their granddaughter."

  "Where is Wild Ginger?"

  "I haven't seen her. She's probably hiding somewhere. She fought with these strangers until she was pushed out."

  "Who are these people?"

  "Hooligans in Mao jackets!"

  "Where are they from?"

  "I have no idea. What I can tell you is that it's the fourth bunch. The first bunch was sent by the local authority. They took the books, letters, and photo albums. The second bunch came from the opera house. They took clothes and furniture. The third bunch was from the outer province. They took food, coal, and blankets. Now it's everybody's land."

  It wasn't until evening that I saw a big, snakelike creature sitting in the crook of the fig tree. It was my friend. "Wild Ginger!" I cried out.

  She didn't answer me. Her head was hidden in leaves.

  "Wild Ginger, what are you doing up there?"

  "Waiting for my mother."

  "Have you ... have you eaten?"

  "I am not hungry."

  "Get down. Come with me to my house."

  "Leave me alone."

  "Come on. You don't want me to come up and get you, do you? You know I am a poor climber."

  Finally she began to climb down but she had no strength.

  "Wild Ginger!"

  "I'll be fine, Maple," she uttered.

  I stretched out my arms to help her.

  "I am dizzy, Maple. My head ... Damn." Before she finished her sentence her body slid down like a soft noodle. She passed out in my arms. I held her with all my might and pushed her up against the tree trunk. Turning around I squatted down. I let her fall on my back. Slowly, I stood up and started walking toward my house.

  "Buddha above, may your eyes open!" One-Eye Grandpa sighed loudly behind me.

  Wild Ginger woke. She was lying on the floor—our family bed. My mother offered her a cup of water while my sisters wiped her limbs with hot towels.

  Wild Ginger tried to sit up, but Mother stopped her. "You're too weak. Go back to sleep if you can."

  "I c
an't."

  "Well, child, you have to. Your mother would demand it. I am treating you as I would Maple."

  Wild Ginger lay back down.

  "Maple"—Mother passed me a letter as she went to wipe the table—"your father's. Said he's not allowed to return until New Year's."

  I was greatly disappointed. But it was not the first time I'd experienced such disappointment. I tried to remember what my father taught me, to think positively. "So Wild Ginger can stay here then. She can sleep in Father's spot."

  Mother pulled me aside and whispered, "We've run out of food. I have sold everything. I was hoping your father..."

  "Mama, we can just keep eating one meal a day and drinking water when we're hungry. I'll go to the market to search through the garbage bins. I always get lucky on Tuesdays. They have new workers then who prepare the vegetables carelessly. There are a lot of half-rotten leaves thrown away. They are perfectly edible!"

  "I am not sure. Your little brother has a bladder infection. The hospital bill took all my salary this month and the money I had borrowed from your aunt. Your grandmother refuses to come to visit because she sees that we can't afford an extra mouth."

  "How many yuan do we have left?"

  "Six."

  "We've got seven days left in the month. Six divided by ... it's eighty-five cents per day. I will try to manage it. Twenty-four cents for the noodles, twenty cents for rice, fourteen cents for squashes, three cents for vegetables, three cents for beans..."

  "Are you feeding ants?" Mother shook her head.

  I kept going. "One cent for scallions. And Mama, we have about twenty cents left for meat!"

  "Twenty cents for meat!" Mother laughed bitterly. "That will be paper thin."

  The light outside the windows had disappeared. Mother hurried us to go to sleep. We all lay down next to one another. Wild Ginger was sandwiched between me and my younger sister.