Becoming Madame Mao Read online

  I see my father hit Mother with a shovel. It happened suddenly. Without warning. I can hardly believe my eyes. He is mad. He calls Mother a slut. Mother's body curls up. My chest swells. He hits her back, front, shouting that he will break her bones. Mother is in shock, unable to move. Father drags her, kicks and steps on her as if to flatten her into a piece of paper.

  I feel horror turning my stomach upside down. I jump. I get in between them. You are no longer my father, I announce, my body trembling all over. I will never forgive you! One of these days you will find yourself dead because I put mice poison in your liquor!

  The man turns and raises the shovel over his head.

  My lips burn. My front tooth is in my mouth.

  ***

  During the production of her operas and ballets in the 1970s, Madame Mao describes the wound to the actresses, actors, artists and the nation. Madame Mao says, Our heroines must be covered with wounds. Blood-dripping wounds. Wounds that have been torn, punctured or broken by weapons like shovels, whips, glass, wooden sticks, bullets or explosions. Study the wounds, pay attention to the degree of the burn, the layers of the infected tissue. The color transitions in the flesh. And the shapes that remind you of a worm-infested body.

  ***

  Eight years old and she is already determined. It is not clear whether her father kicked her mother out of his house or her mother ran away herself. At any rate the girl no longer has a home. The mother takes the daughter with her. They walk from street to street and town to town. The mother works as a maid. A washmaid, lower in rank than a kitchenmaid. The mother works where she and the girl will be given a corner to sleep at night. At night the mother often leaves mysteriously. When she returns it is usually dawn. The mother never tells the girl where she goes. One day when the girl insists, she says that she visits different houses. She either peels potatoes or serves as a foot warmer for the master's children. She never tells the girl that she is a foot warmer for the master himself. The mother withers quickly. Her skin wrinkles up like ripples in a lake and her hair dries like a winter stalk.

  Some nights the girl gets bored waiting for her mother. She can't sleep yet she is afraid to go out. She lies in bed quietly. After midnight she hears bullets being fired. She counts the shots so she will know how many people have been killed.

  My number always matches the number of heads that hang on the gate of the town the next day. My schoolmates talk to each other like this: I'll slaughter you and hang your head on a hook and then I'll stick an opium pipe between your teeth.

  I hate school. I am an object of attack because I have no father and have a mother who works at jobs that arouse suspicion. I beg my mother to transfer me to a different school. But the situation doesn't change. It gets so bad that one day a classmate unleashes a dog.

  Madame Mao later uses the incident in both a ballet and opera of the same title, The Women of the Red Detachment. The villains come with vicious-looking dogs to chase the slave girl. A close-up of the dog teeth and a closeup of the wound. The bleeding body parts.

  My mother's face becomes unrecognizable. Her pretty cheekbones start to protrude and her eyes have deep pockets. She is so sick that she can't walk far. Yet we are still on the run. She has been fired from her job. She can't talk, she whispers in between breaths. She writes a letter and begs her parents for shelter and food. I wonder why she hasn't done that earlier. She won't explain. I sense that she wasn't her parents' favorite. There are probably bad memories of the past. But now she has no choice.

  ***

  My grandparents live in Jinan. It is the capital of Shan-dong Province. Compared to the town of Zhu, it is a fancy city. It is on the south side of the Yellow River, about nine miles away. The city is a center of business and politics. It is very old. The names of the streets reflect its past glory: Court Street, Financial Street, Military Street. There are magnificent temples and dazzling opera houses. I don't know until later that many of the opera houses are in fact whorehouses.

  ***

  My grandparents and I have never met and our meeting changes my life. My dependence on my mother begins to shift dramatically as my grandfather takes charge in caring for me. He is a kind fellow, a meek man actually, knowledgeable but powerless in handling reality. He teaches me opera. He asks me to recite after him. Phrase by phrase and tone by tone we get through the most famous arias. I don't like it, but I want to please him.

  Every morning, sitting on a rattan chair with a cup of tea, my grandfather begins. He tells me what the story is about first, the situation and the character, and then out his voice comes. He is a terrible singer, which makes him quite funny. I follow him, not remembering exactly what I am singing. I purposely imitate his poor tone. He tries to correct me. After a few efforts, he discovers that I have been naughty and threatens to be upset and then I behave. I hit the notes in a perfect voice. He claps and laughs. With his mouth wide open I see a hollow with all the teeth gone.

  We move on. Soon I am able to do passages from The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, especially The Empty City. My grandfather is pleased. He lets me know that I count. A boy or a girl, to him it makes no difference. There is only one condition: as long as I follow him and learn. He lets me do whatever I want around the house. My grandmother is a quiet little lady and a Buddhist. She echoes her husband and never seems to have an opinion of her own. She always covers up for me. For example, when I accidentally break Grandfather's favorite ink bottle, she uses her own savings and hurries to the town on her lotus feet and buys a new bottle to replace the broken one. She does it quietly and I adore her.

  My grandfather continues his cultivation. His head swings in circles. I do the same. When he is in a good mood, he takes me to operas. Not the good ones—he can't afford the tickets—but the imitations presented in the whorehouses. During the performances fights often break out among the drunkards.

  It is my grandfather's wish that I complete elementary school. You are a peacock living among hens, he says. He is fixing the arm of his rattan chair when he says this to me. His head is on the floor and his rear end points toward the ceiling. The phrase has an enormous effect on me.

  My grandfather enrolls me in a local school a block away. He gives me a formal name, Yunhe—Crane in the Clouds. The image is picked from his favorite opera, The Golden Pavilion. The crane is the symbol of hope.

  The new school is a terrible place. The rich kids beat the poor whenever they like. Yunhe endures as much as she can until one day she is hit by a boy and a group of girls applaud. It enrages her. For days afterwards she is chewed by an incredible pain. I would have endured as usual if it were just the boys taking advantage of the girls, Madame Mao says later. I wouldn't have felt so alone and betrayed. I wouldn't have taken it so personally because mistreating women was considered a tradition. But it was the girls, the women, the grass, the worthless creatures themselves, laughing at their own kind that hurt, that opened and dipped my wounds in salt water.

  2

  SLOWLY MY MOTHER FADES from my life. It is said that she is married. To whom? She never introduces us to the new husband. She just disappears. Gone. The door is shut. I don't hear from her. She is done with parenting. I don't know what to do, only that I don't want to end up like her.

  I watch operas and copy the arias. The Legend of Huoxiao Yu and Story of the West Chamber. I dream about the characters in the ancient tales, the rebellious heroines, women who fight fiercely for their happiness and get it. I decide that I shall be an opera actress so I will get to live a heroine's life on stage. But my grandfather opposes the idea. To him, actresses and prostitutes are the same. I don't give in. My grandfather regrets that he ever introduced me to opera. He threatens to disown me. But it is too late.

  The girl is not sold to the opera troupe as she later claims. She runs away from home and delivers herself to a local troupe. She begs to be accepted. She is pretty, already a full-size young woman, already attractive. She claims to be an orphan. She runs away before her grandpar
ents get a chance to disown her. This becomes a pattern in her life. With her husbands and lovers, she takes the initiative. She abandons before being abandoned.

  The girl becomes an apprentice. While learning her craft she washes the floors, cleans makeup drawers, fills water jars and takes care of the leading actress's wardrobe. She gets to sit by the curtain during performances. Like a spring field in the season's first rain, she absorbs. During the New Year's Eve performance she gets to play her first one-line role. The line is: Tea, Madame.

  For the role she dresses up in full costume. Her hair is up, pinned with pearls and glittering ornaments. In the mirror, in the painted face, in the red lips, the girl sees herself in the world she has been imagining.

  Yet the place shows its ugly face. At night, after the performances, the girl hears sobbing. After her mistress takes off the makeup and costume, the girl sees a withered face. A young woman of twenty but who looks forty. A face of wood, carved heavily with wrinkles. There must be a ghost's hand working on this face, the girl thinks to herself.

  When the girl goes out to fetch duck-blood soup on her mistress's order, she sees men waiting. Each night, a different man. They are the troupe owner's friends. Most of them are old, and a couple of them have a mouthful of gold teeth. The mistress is told to entertain them, to help them realize their fantasies. It doesn't matter that she is exhausted, doesn't matter that she wants to spend time with the young man of her heart.

  The girl is waiting. She waits for a bigger role. For that she works hard, does everything she is told, endures an occasional beating. She tells herself to be patient, to perfect her skills. She is aware of the changes in her body. Aware that it is blooming. In the mirror she sees her eyes become brighter, her features ripening. Her waist grows smaller while her chest blossoms. She believes that her chance is coming her way. At night she dreams of the spotlight tracing her, only her.

  I follow my grandfather and we head home. I am not giving up acting. I was not given the role I wanted to play. I was bored.

  The wait was too long. I became sick of cleaning backstage. Sick of my rubber-faced mistress, her complaining, long and smelly words, like foot-binding cloths. My grandfather has paid a large sum to get me out of the troupe.

  But when the moon buries itself in the deep drifts of cloud, my thoughts get busy again. I thought I had caught a glance, heard a tone, seized my dream, but ... I stay wide awake in my old bed trying to figure out where to go and what to do next.

  The sticky-rice-pasted wrapping cloths. The swelling toes. The inflammation. The prickling pain at the ankles. The girl remembers how she saved herself.

  My grandparents are busy traveling from town to town and from matchmaker to matchmaker. They are trying get rid of me. I am sixteen years old, already beyond ruling. Because of my size, I am often mistaken as eighteen. They should have my feet bound. Now I can walk and run on this pair of—what my grandmother calls—liberation feet. My feet feel strong, as if they are on wings.

  I run to free myself. I find another opera troupe. It is called the Experimental Theater Troupe of Shan-dong Province. It's bigger and better known, headed by a Confucius-looking man named Mr. Zhao Taimo.

  Although Mr. Zhao Taimo has the look of Confucius, he is not a man of tradition by any means. He is a man of Western education. He is the torch that lights Yunhe's early life. Later on Madame Mao refuses to credit him for his guidance. Madame Mao takes all the credit for herself. It is because she is expected to prove that she was a born proletarian. But in 1929 it is Mr. Zhao Taimo who grants the girl admission even though she lacks important qualifications. Her Mandarin is poor and she has no acrobatic skills. Mr. Zhao is attracted instantly by the rebellious spirit in the girl. The bright almond eyes. The burning passion behind them. From the way the girl marches into the room, Mr. Zhao discovers a tremendous potential.

  The circle of literature and arts in Shan-dong regards Mr. Zhao as a man of inspiration. His wife, the elegant opera actress Yu Shan, is popular and adored. Yu Shan is from a prestigious family and is well connected. The girl Yunhe comes to worship the couple. She becomes a guest at the Zhaos' open house every Sunday afternoon. Sometimes she even comes early in the morning, skipping her breakfast, just to watch Yu Shan go through her opera drills. Yunhe's modesty and curiosity impress Yu Shan and the two become good friends.

  At parties, Yunhe is usually quiet. She sits in the corner chewing sunflower seeds and listens. She observes the visitors. Most of them are students, professors, musicians and playwrights. There are mysterious visitors too. They are the left-wingers—the underground Communists.

  My first encounters with the revolutionaries take place at Mr. Zhao Taimo's parties. I find them young, handsome and passionate. I look at them with respect. I can never forget those bloody heads hung on the poles. What is it that makes them risk their lives?

  In Mr. Zhao Taimo's house I find the answer. It is their love for the country. And I think that there is nothing in life more honorable than what they do.

  The girl suddenly has the urge to join the discussion. It takes her a while to finally gather her courage and project her voice.

  I was never told that the foreign occupation was the result of our nation's defeat, the girl says. In my schoolbook China is as glorious as it has always been. But why are foreigners the masters of factories, owners of railways and private mansions in our country? I remember once my grandfather sighed deeply and said that it was useless to learn to read—the more one was educated, the deeper one felt humiliation. I now understand why my grandfather loves opera. It is to numb himself. In opera he relives China's past splendor. People are fooling themselves.

  At the school Yunhe proves herself to be an ardent student. Her shirt is constantly wet with sweat. Bruises are visible on her knees and elbows from practicing martial arts. During voice class she spends hours studying one aria and won't quit until it is perfect. The teachers are pleased by the high expectations she sets for herself and she is adored. After classes one can hear Yunhe's laughter. It sounds like bells. The male students find it extremely pleasant. They find themselves unable to take their eyes off the girl. There is something about her that is utterly irresistible. It catches their attention and has a mysterious effect on them.

  Not only does the girl love drama, she creates drama in her daily life. It becomes her interest first, then it extends itself to become a need, an obsession and an addiction. Finally her entire existence is based on it, her fantasy—she has to feel dramatic, has to play a role, or she gets restless, stressed and sick. She doesn't get well until she assigns herself another role.

  It is midnight. The Temple of Confucius is said to be a visiting place of abandoned ghosts—the ghosts who had disobeyed tradition during their breathing time and have been punished. No temple will collect them. It is said that if the long grass sways in the empty courtyard after dark, bricks will drop from corners of the eaves. The statues of Confucius and his seventy-two disciples will come to life. They will lecture the ghosts and help them find their way back. The statue of Confucius is the tallest figure and is located in the deep end of the temple. It is covered with thick dust and spider webs, all the way from his feet up to his head scarf.

  The boys of the opera school are afraid to go into the temple at night. One night they invent a game and set up a reward for anyone who dares to enter the temple after midnight to fetch the scarf from Confucius's head.

  All week long, no one answers the challenge. The fifth night, someone grabs the scarf.

  To everyone's surprise, it is Yunhe.

  With two thin pigtails and a naughty grin on her face, the girl smiles toward the clapping audience.

  The girl has a feeling that Mr. Zhao and his wife will do her good—for example, introduce her to someone or provide an opportunity. She relies on her instinct. Later in her life, on many occasions, she does the same.

  She continues to practice her trade. She is taught Qingyi, traditionally a beautiful tragic female character
. The girl's good looks earn her the role. Her movements are expected to be filled with elegance.

  There are already rivals. Yunhe realizes that she has to fight to get chances. There is a part in a new play by a well-known Shanghai playwright, Tien Han. It is entitled The Incident on the Lake. Yunhe participates in the audition but is unlucky. The part goes to her roommate, a thin-haired girl whose brother is an instructor at the school.

  Yunhe feels depressed during the opera's opening. She is unable to deal with her jealousy. Her discomfort is written all over her face. During the performance she forgets her job—to pop out of a tree. Inside she is tortured. She thinks of herself as a much better performer.

  Some evil hands are always there trying to bind my feet, Madame Mao will say.

  Even when winds buffet me from all directions, I never give up hope. This is my biggest virtue. Someone said that it was by accident that I sprouted. No. It was no accident. I created my own opportunity. Raining or snowing, I never missed one show. I was always there and always made myself available. I was never late or gave myself an excuse to retire early. I didn't waste time on gossiping or knitting sweaters by the stage curtain. I watched the leading lady.