Red Azalea Read online

  Yan one day came to me and told me that Orchid had become Lu’s watchdog. She had been following us secretly. I disagreed. I said Orchid was a good human being. Yan said no one in this company was human anymore. We were dogs. We fought for other’s meat. Weren’t we willing to do anything to buy comfort? Lu’s been assigning light jobs to Orchid, and that is suspicious. I said to Yan, You see an enemy behind every tree. She said she did perhaps. It’s a madhouse. The Red Fire Farm.

  One morning while I was hoeing in the cotton field with my platoon, a white van drove by and stopped on the path. A group of well-dressed people in green army coats got out and walked toward us. As they passed, they looked at us from head to feet with critical eyes. You—a man suddenly pointed his finger at me. I wiped the sweat off my face and said, Me? Yes, you. The man came closer and asked, How old are you? He was about forty years old. He spoke in standard dialect, like a broadcasting announcer’s Mandarin. I told him I was twenty. He asked me if I could give directions to the headquarters. A woman in the group was taking notes of our conversation. As I was giving them instructions, they encircled me, observing my profile, squatting on their heels, narrowing their eyes to measure my body length and features. The man asked me if I had blisters on my hands. I showed them the blisters on each of my hands, my shoulders and my knees. They studied the blisters and took a close look at my nails, which were all dark brown because of working with the fungicide. I heard the man whisper to a woman. The woman wrote something down in her notebook. A few minutes later they went back to their van. They did not take the directions I had given them.

  That night, during the study meeting, instead of dozing off, the soldiers were gossiping about who those people were and why they came. Finally, a girl whose aunt was working in the government’s cultural bureau explained the cause: Comrade Jiang Ching, Madam Mao, was reforming the movie industry and had sent a group of her associates to find correct-looking young men and women to train as China’s future film actors. The type of look which could convince the masses that if there were a pair of enemy bayonets set across his neck, he would not renounce his Communist beliefs in exchange for his life. The chosen few would be taught to play the leading roles in movies. As a political requirement, the candidates had to be outstanding workers, peasants or soldiers.

  I told the news to Yan and she thought it was fantasy talking. Our faces were in no way close to beauty. We were brown potatoes. The chance of being chosen was like setting out to find a needle in an ocean.

  Someone in my room hung a broken mirror next to the door the next day. Everyone began bending sideways to take a look at herself before leaving the room. At noon I saw Lu making faces at herself when I opened the door. After a few embarrassing moments, Lu told me to take the mirror down. I said it was not my mirror. She said, Do as I say. She added that she would hold a meeting tonight on what we need to do to stand clear of bourgeois influence. I took the mirror down and gave it to Lu. Lu hung the mirror in front of the company bulletin board and painted a large slogan behind it as a reminder: “The collapse of a dam begins with an ant hole.” That night Lu lectured for two hours on how important it was to fight the invisible ideological enemies.

  Lu’s lecture did not stop people’s movie-star fantasies. They wore their best clothes and made all kinds of excuses to go to headquarters to pass by the windows of these unusual guests. Orchid and I were assigned to go to the headquarters’ shops to buy preserved vegetables. We saw that headquarters was full of people. Everyone was discussing where the film-studio people would be and I heard someone say they would take the Red Heart Drive to come back.

  Orchid asked me whether we should get on the Red Heart Drive when she saw others moving that way. I hesitated. You never know, Orchid encouraged. She then told me that, the day before, a girl was picked when she was brushing her teeth in Company Thirteen. They asked her to put on more toothpaste and to continue brushing while they did the interview with her.

  Orchid and I went to the Red Heart Drive. We waited, like many other people, pretending that we were just taking a walk. After half an hour we saw the white van appear. Everyone suddenly became animated and began to smile at the van. I smiled as it passed.

  Orchid and I were using the restroom when we heard someone practicing a Mao poem loudly while taking a bowel movement in the men’s room. “Four seas stir float cloud water angry,” the man recited, then he stopped. I heard his shit drop. “Five continents shake flutter wind thunder fighting.” Again the sound of shit dropping.

  “The Communists are like the seeds.” A girl was singing Mao’s quotation song behind me. “The people are like the earth. We must integrate ourselves with the people wherever we go …” Orchid yelled, Don’t get too excited. You’re going to fall and integrate with the manure. “Bloom and grow roots in the people …” the girl continued.

  A week later Yan and Lu were called to headquarters by the farm’s Chief Party Secretary for an important meeting. They came back with an announcement: two women and one man had been selected from the entire Red Fire Farm to go to the film studio for the first regional contest. I was one of them.

  I looked at myself again and again with the tiny mirror. Imagining the mirror a huge screen, I practiced all kinds of expressions I thought would look good to the millions in the audience.

  Yan told me that I was given the choice of either dancing or reciting one of Mao’s poems during the contest. I decided to recite Mao’s poem “Praising the Winter Plum.” The Winter Plum was Mao’s symbol of the Communist Party and the Red Army. Yan watched me as I prepared the recitation. She sat there like a Buddha statue. When I asked her how I did, she said she saw a golden phoenix soaring out of a chicken coop.

  Three days later Yan was assigned by headquarters to take me to Shanghai for the contest. The night before we took off, Yan did not come back until midnight. Without saying a word, she took off her shoes, got into the net and closed the curtain tightly. I knew what was on her mind but could do nothing to help.

  Shut the fucking light off, will you, Comrade Lu? Yan yelled from the net. I haven’t done my study yet—Lu sat on her stool firmly. It’s bedtime! Yan shouted. Lu stood up and said, I am studying Marxism! Yan interrupted her: I don’t care if you’re studying capitalism! I just want the light off! Lu sat down, turned her pages and said, Stop acting like Hitler! Yan jumped off the bed, switched off the light and got back into her net. Lu went to switch the light back on. You whore! Yan shouted furiously, opening the net curtain. She picked up her erhu from underneath the bed and threw it at the light. The light bulb broke along with one of the erhu’s strings. I’ll report everything to headquarters tomorrow, Lu said in the dark.

  I kept quiet. What could I say? It was the possibility of my departure that upset Yan. Regardless of how much she wanted me to leave this place, my taking off would mean that she would have nothing else to rely on. Since her belief in Communism had begun to collapse, she was no longer emotionally strong. I had no idea where I would be taken if I won the contest.

  The next morning Yan appeared calm. She poured all her saved sugar into my porridge. Lu watched us as Yan went to pull out the tractor and hurried me on. The soldiers watched in silence. Yan took me to headquarters to get a stamp to leave the farm. We transferred to the truck to Shanghai.

  We sat closely together on the farm’s open truck. It began to rain after we crossed the country border approaching the city. I tried not to think too much about what was going to happen: whether Yan and I would be apart forever. Yan took out a plastic sheet from her bag to cover me from the rain. I tried to pull the sheet to cover her. Don’t bother, she said impatiently. I held her arm and said, Maybe I won’t even pass the regional contest. Don’t you dare to shit on my face, she said.

  Its gate was more solemn than I had imagined, the Shanghai Film Studio. In front of me was a big flower bed with two dark reddish buildings standing imposingly on each side. Yan and I walked through the studios where we saw painted ocean backgrounds and
wood and ceramic naval vessels. We lost our way and ended up in a place where we saw burnt houses and a collapsed bridge. We explored underground tunnels, artificial trees, plastic human body parts dressed in Communist Army uniforms and Japanese army uniforms, and a burnt Japanese flag.

  A security guard came yelling after us. We showed him our official letter. He directed us to the performance hall where I saw many young people gathered. We were guided to our seats. I looked around. A red slogan hung above the stage: “Devote all our energy to the Party’s cultural business!” There were two other slogans hanging vertically: “Follow Comrade Jiang Ching!” and “Long live the victory of Mao’s revolutionary line!” In front of the stage was a long narrow table covered with a white cloth. About fifteen judges were seated behind the table.

  A girl who sat next to me was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen in my life. She told me that she was from the Red Star Farm neighboring mine. She had a cherrylike mouth. Compared to hers, my mouth was as big as a frog’s. She had hips that curved out from the waist. Mine were a straight column. When her name was called, she went on stage calmly and performed without rushing. Her piece was a combination of dancing and storytelling. As she performed, she laughed and cried like real life. I began to feel short of breath. The sounds around me were like layers of echoes. My rivals sitting beside me became blurry figures and heads. I knew nothing about professional acting; there was no way I could compete with them. I kept thinking that I couldn’t even speak Mandarin properly. When my name was called, I panicked. Instead of standing up and walking to the stage, I bent over the front chair and covered my head with my arms.

  Yan shook my arms and shoulders, but I could not make myself move. I was shaking hard. The announcer repeated my name and said that it was the last call. I felt that I was going to faint. I had double vision. My legs were strengthless. Yan yelled ferociously in my ear, Get your ass moving, you pig-shit-head! For our ancestors’ sake it’s your only chance to escape from hell! She cried, You pig-shit-head, you louse-won’t-touch corpse, you have disappointed and dishonored me.

  I jumped up. I wiped the sweat off my face. My army coat fell from my shoulders. I strode to the stage.

  I stood in front of the judges. I saw no expression on their faces. They looked me up and down. The one with the bald head in the center took his glasses off. I opened my mouth, but I was voiceless. My mind went blank—I forgot the lines. Yan rose up from the audience. Her face was purple.

  The words spilled out from my mouth by themselves. Chairman Mao’s poem. I was almost shouting, “Praising the Winter Plum”! The sound was resonant and clear like a bugle call. Yan smiled, her mouth was motioning with me:

  The wind and the rain sent the spring away

  But the snow has brought it back.

  There are ice columns a hundred feet long

  Hanging dangerously down from cliffs.

  There is a little plum flower blooming.

  The flower has no intention

  To compete with the spring.

  She is here only to announce

  The coming of the spring.

  By the time the flowers bloom

  All over the mountains,

  She will be hiding among the flowers

  And she will smile with great delight.

  Yan looked at me with gentleness. She held my hands throughout the trip back to the Red Fire Farm.

  As I waited for the results of the contest, the soldiers in the company began to distance themselves from me. I could sense their envy and bitterness. After two months, when I started to believe that I must have been eliminated, Yan brought back an announcement from headquarters saying that I had been selected for the second regional contest.

  My parents in Shanghai were glad to have the chance to reunite with me for the weekend. My father warned me not to believe anything. My father was older than his age. As was my mother. They had no more courage left. Their drive was greatly weakened by their experiences. My father was no longer the ambitious astronomer who named his son Space Conqueror. He was crushed under the unit Party secretary’s feet, trampled upon. He was timid as a mouse in shock.

  I was sent back to the farm and was called back for three other regional contests. I forced myself not to think about the event after every contest.

  Yan buried herself in hard work. A few times I found her looking at me from a distance with the saddest expression on her face. She rarely spoke, and when she did, her voice sounded tired. I did not know what to say. I tried to keep myself busy in weaving my new future. I did not want to deal with my feelings. I could not. I could not face Yan. It was too hard. I tried to forget before time separated us.

  In the early spring of 1976, after the final contest, I was sent to the Shanghai Film Studio for a special class to test my ability to learn. Many of the people I had met and had thought were excellent, such as the girl with the cherrylike mouth from the Red Star Farm, had been eliminated. People who had showed a lack of performing skills were kept on. Later I was told that one of Jiang Ching’s principles was that she would rather have “socialist grass” than “capitalist sprouts.” The judges thought of me as having less talent but politically reliable.

  In the class I was instructed to carry a plastic bag, pretending it was a heavy stone. I was described as having a plain background—that is, no one in my family had been an actor—but was quick in responding to instructions.

  In another acting exercise I was asked to drink a cup of water. The instructor stopped me and said, No, no, no. You are not drinking the water right. He said I had two problems. He said that a person from the proletarian class would never hold a cup in such a superficial manner—using three fingers on the handle. He instructed me to grab the cup with my hand. He pointed out that a proletarian person would never drink water sip by sip like a Miss Bourgeoise with tons of spare time. He showed me how to drink down the water fast in one gulp and wipe my mouth with my sleeve.

  The studio checked my family background and my political record and then sent me back to the farm. I was told that I had been accepted.

  When I got back and told the exciting news to Orchid, she shocked me with a rumor: Headquarters was conducting an investigation of me and Yan. Lu was the investigation-team head.

  I went to Yan to confirm the rumor. Yan looked like a desperado. She told me Lu had made secret reports on us to headquarters. The locust had begun its chewing. It had begun its destruction. Yan was ordered by headquarters to “put her cards on the table” of her own initiative before the masses’ force would be used.

  I denied it, Yan whispered to me. I denied everything. I had mastered the Party’s tricks. I told the Chief Party Secretary that I couldn’t have had a more revolutionary relationship with you than with any of my comrades. I gave many examples of your achievement as an outstanding platoon leader under my leadership. I expressed our loyalty to the Party. I was shameless when I did that. In a madhouse I suppose one could say anything, couldn’t one? The Chief discharged the case because Lu was holding no concrete evidence. The bastard Lu went to file a report to the film-studio Party committee. The bastard was fantastically insane. I had to admire her.

  The film studio sent a team down to check out the case. They had talks with Lu. They did not speak to me or Yan. The Chief seemed to be changing his mind about me. He set up a two-man investigation team and conducted a chain talk with everyone, one after the other, in the company. Yan worried. She said, They will seek out some spiders’ webs and horses’ tracks because, fortunately and unfortunately, the masses do have “brighter eyes,” I suppose.

  I asked Yan what to do. She fell into silence for a long moment, then said, citing a saying, “If the tactics of a devil are a foot high, the tactics of Tao will be ten times higher.” I asked how she interpreted it. She told me to do two things: first, deny everything if interrogated; second, do as she told me. Do not ask any questions. When I asked why she could not discuss her plan with me, she replied that that was part of her p
lan.

  Lu used the full scope of her power, as if Yan was already out of the picture. She stopped her Mao-work-study routine, saying that she had mastered the essence of Mao thoughts. She smiled her way in and out of the room and hummed songs at work. She ordered pork chops at lunch and dinner. She gained weight. A week after I was back, one clear morning, Lu gathered the company in front of the storage bins for a meeting. She ordered everyone to recite Mao’s poem with her and pay attention to its latent meaning. The ranks followed her:

  Around the little globe

  There are a few flies bouncing off the wall.

  The noises they make

  Sound shrill and mournful—

  An ant trying to topple a tree—

  How ridiculous the way they overrate their strength.

  Everyone in the ranks knew what Lu was insinuating.They shot secret glances at Yan. Yan stood among the ranks like Mount Everest towering in a storm. I was surprised that she recited the poem loudly, showing no anger. I’ve warned all of you before, said Lu, and I’m warning you again. She paced back and forth, giving big arm gestures. A fly only parks on a cracked egg. She turned to Yan. Am I not right? Yan nodded humbly.

  Lu smiled arrogantly. She took a piece of paper out of her pocket and announced a decision from headquarters: until the investigation team reaches its conclusion, there will be no candidate sent from our company to the film studio.

  I looked at Yan. I could not hide my disappointment and shock. Yan was chewing down a corncob. Her features twisted, she looked like a wounded fighting bull. After staring at Yan for a moment, Lu asked whether Yan needed some aspirin for she did not look well.