Red Azalea (19 page)

I emptied my bag. I laid cookies I brought for her in her net. Her net was washed clean. I remembered the time when we did not wash the net so no one would see what we were doing inside. I remembered her passion. I touched her pillow and suddenly found there was hair, her hair, scattered all over the bed. Her hair had been falling out and I was not doing anything about it. I wanted to run, to run away from my shame.

The wind blew the door open. Yan’s towel dropped from the towel holder by itself. I picked up the towel and saw her rifle leaning against the wall. I suddenly missed Little Green. I missed her singing “My Motherland.”

Yan’s rifle was rusty. I looked out the window. The
field was lifeless. The sun was drying up the earth. The earth looked like a bald-headed man. The crops bent with the salty wind. I realized that I did not belong here anymore.

I stepped out of the room. Some young women saw me and whispered to each other. They walked by me, carrying hoes. I asked them about Orchid. One of the women said she was at the brick factory.

I walked through the reeds. I felt fortunate that I was free of this hardship. The more fortunate I felt, the more the guilt grew in me. Yan is left behind, I kept thinking. How could I leave her behind? I came to eat a cake in front of a starving child. How shameful. I remind her of her misery. I am a hypocrite. I came to comfort her. It did not cost me anything to speak kindnesses.

The brick factory was the same as when Yan played the erhu here for me. I walked through the brick lanes and saw Orchid and a team laying the unbaked bricks down in patterned walls. I asked a young man if I could help him push the cart. He said the work needed a man’s strength. I said I knew that. I had worked here before. I knew the way around. I took up the loaded cart. It contained a hundred bricks. The man watched me. I pushed the cart onto an iron track and made a turn down a lane. The man yelled, Where are you from?

Orchid saw me. She did not come to greet me. She stood where she was, holding a stack of bricks, mouth half open. I said, Hello, Orchid. She did not say hello back. She said, What are you here for? I said I came to visit. She went back to laying the bricks. Her sweat soaked her from back to waist. We worked side by side. After she finished
laying a cart of the bricks, she straightened her back, wiped the sweat off her cheeks and said, Yan is not here. I said I knew. She said, I know you did not intend to visit me. I said, I missed the farm. She gave a sarcastic smile and pushed the empty cart along the track. I noticed that she was crippled. I followed her. We stopped at the loading zone. Fresh bricks were pushed out of a slicer like cakes. I helped Orchid load. We loaded the bricks carefully. We pushed the cart down a lane and began to lay the bricks. I asked, What happened to your foot? She said, A reed pricked through it. She said, You were there, weren’t you? I said, Yes, I remember I was there. Hadn’t it healed? Orchid said, Yes. This is how it healed.

I straightened my back. I saw the kiln chimney exhaling white smoke. It fell last summer, the kiln, said Orchid. Three people died, two were injured. I don’t know how long the brick factory will stand. Why did you come? Before I could explain, she said to my face, I don’t like seeing you. I really don’t. She said she wanted to be honest with me. She said nobody wanted to see me. A movie star. An old-time acquaintance who took a ladder to the clouds. Nobody wanted to be reminded of how bad life was for them.

I did not say anything until we emptied the cart. Before Orchid pushed the cart back to the loading zone, she said, Do you know about Leopard and Yan? They have been seeing each other. She made a gesture meaning “underground.”

I was feeling better as I waited for the bus to go back to
Shanghai. Yan was seeing Leopard. I knew she had always thought of him. I felt a little bit relieved. I wished she had been in love with Leopard, yet immediately I thought myself nasty because I knew she was not in love with him. She was miserable. I remembered how gay, open and forgiving she could be. I knew how she behaved when she was in love.

The sky darkened and no bus came. My stomach began to shrink inside. I had not eaten a thing since morning. I went to a roadside stand and sat down by it. I heard the crickets singing. I thought of how I lied to Soviet Wong and hoped nothing went wrong. I could cover my lie if I made it back to the studio dormitory tomorrow morning before dawn. I knew a secret path behind the sheds that led to the room.

I sat breathing the dark air. The countryside had a quietness that seemed sacred. I looked into the night. I heard the whistle of a steam engine from far in the distance. The darkness smelled wet. I then saw a light dot. At first I thought it was a lightning bug. But it was moving closer, and then I found the light did not go off as a lightning bug would. It was a flashlight. Someone was walking in the dark. I stared at the dot of light. It came toward the bus station. I sensed something. I kept staring for a few minutes. I saw the figure of the light holder. A familiar figure. A horn blew; the bus was arriving. The light dot began to jump up and down. I heard her breath. It was Yan.

The bus entered the station. She was steps away. I waited until our hands touched. We did not have time to say anything to each other. She had walked miles. She took out a wrapped bag from her inner pocket and passed
it to me. The bag smelled of cookies. She was gasping hard. The bus took off.

When I got to my parents’ house, they told me that Soviet Wong and Sound of Rain had just left. They came to check up on me. They came to find me. Did you tell them where I had gone? I asked my mother. I did not know where you were and I told them so, she said. They said your mother was lying, said my father. They said harboring a wrongdoer was a crime. Father turned to Mother. You stubborn woman, you shouldn’t have argued with them! I must argue because they were being unreasonable, said Mother. What did they say? I asked Mother. Mother looked at me and said angrily, They said you had been a bourgeois individualist, they said you always acted alone, you had no sense of groupism, you’re selfish so you should be eliminated. Yes, that’s what they were trying to say. They said they had come for my opinion, for the parents’ opinion of their child. They came to nail you down. They came to accuse, to lock the dunce cap on your head.

My father waved at my mother. He sighed and sighed. Where have you been? To the farm, I said. What’s the matter with you? Didn’t you sense that they were after you? Why can’t you know your place and behave yourself? Can’t you see we’ve had enough trouble in the family? He pointed at the porch and raised three fingers, meaning Coral, his third child. She was on the porch and was mad at me. I asked what happened. Before my mother said anything, my father dragged me to the kitchen and shut
the door. He told me that Coral was assigned to Red Fire Farm because I had left it. My father’s voice was hoarse. It is very unfair to Coral, he said. But she was assigned and she had to go. My father said that he and Mother wished they could go for Coral, to save their child.

I was frustrated. I said to my father, What do you want me to do? To change places with her? it would be a lie if I told you that I would do that. I was at Red Fire Farm. I served my term. I made it by myself. If she had guts, she should … I stopped, realizing that I talked selfishly. It was timing and politics that decided my fate. It did not have much to do with any personal effort. I knew nothing of acting but I was made an actress.

I don’t want to hear your reasons, said my father. It doesn’t help Coral any if either of us wins the argument. I just want you to be aware of the fact, and the fact is that you’re no longer a peasant and the family needed to have a peasant to fulfill the government’s quota, and Coral, your little sister, is assigned to fill that hole.

I said, What can I do? How can I help? Accept your lot and stay in your place, said Father. Your mother and I can’t afford to have more losses. If you get kicked out of the studio, we will have two peasants at Red Fire Farm.

I wished I could have said it out loud, that I was not doing well at the film studio, but I could not let them down. I said, You just saw how my teachers dislike me. How can I stop them? My parents went silent. They were hurt.

I should have gone downstairs to personally see them off, my father murmured. Soviet Wong and Sound of Rain
must be upset about my impoliteness. You are an idiot if you think that would have made any difference, said Mother. They did not deserve to be treated as my guests. Not in my house. One should at least pay attention to its master when hitting a dog. I will never put on a smiling face when someone comes to spit on my daughter’s face. Hold back your bad temper now, yelled Father. Don’t you have to put up with enough bad treatment by behaving this way at work? I don’t regret it a bit, yelled back my mother. Live honorably or die—that’s my principle and I want my children to behave according to it.

But see what you have caused them? When they behave according to your principle, this idealistic nonsense, see what happens to them? They get crushed by society! Mother said I can’t believe it, you, the man I am married to, the father of my four children, disgrace my principles.

My father beat his chest, kicked his feet, swore that he did not mean that.

Coral did not speak to me. She was packing for the Red Fire Farm. It hurt me to see her leaving for the hardship I had gone through. I did not know how she would ever make out. I did not know what to say to her. Guilt filled me. I gave my salary to Mother and asked her to buy Coral some necessities. Mother told me that Coral had said that she did not want anything from me. I knew I could never pay the price for her sufferings.

I did not come home the day Coral was supposed to leave for the farm.

I expected Soviet Wong to question me. But she did not. She had conversations with everyone else in the room but me. I thought she would openly criticize me, but she did not. She talked to my classmates about Red Azalea, about the exciting energy the movie was about to generate. She gave out parts of the script, but did not tell me when and what to play. I was left out. No one was in charge of me. I was not told what was wrong with me. All of a sudden, I had nothing to do. I was assigned to watch everyone else rehearsing. I heard loud voices reciting the lines. I heard Cheering Spear reciting lines in her sleep. My pain felt like water penetrating into sand, soundless, into the core of my being. I did not seem to exist anymore.

Bee OhYang had been warned because she was playing too much table tennis with a male student. It was reported that they were flirting with each other as they hit the ball. Bee OhYang cried and denied that there was anything going on between her and the man. Soviet Wong had spoken with them separately. She called all of us to a meeting. She stated that she had discovered that the couple had not gone too far. She advised us. She said, A healthy mind is the most important thing in life. As I listened, I watched her face. Every nerve on it expressed righteousness. Her skin was very white. Her handkerchief smelled of Tiger Balm. She told us a story, a story she had witnessed. It was about how a former young actress corrupted and destroyed her own future by having an affair
with an older man. Soviet Wong pointed out that the actress had read too much
Jane Eyre. Jane Eyre
had destroyed her.

I immediately wanted to read the book
Jane Eyre,
although this was the first time I had ever heard of it. According to Soviet Wong, the couple was caught on Chow Family Pond Road. While they were hiding in the bushes late one evening, the woman was recognized by a passing comrade. As the saying goes, There is no such thing as a windproof wall. Their deed was brought out into the night. It was useless when the woman confessed that she regretted what she had done. Soviet Wong had heard her say it at a mass rally. But it was too late. She was considered a criminal for the rest of her life. She now worked as a restroom cleaner in the studio.

Soviet Wong said, I sincerely hope you do not follow her catastrophic road. She rested her sight on me and nodded lightly. I wanted to avoid her stare but forced myself to face her. My mind was picturing how the young actress was touched by the older man in the bushes. I now knew who Soviet Wong was talking about. I knew the young actress. She was a rare beauty with a pair of flowery eyes. The whole studio called her a prostitute. Anyone could joke about her. The male workers made dirty jokes about how they had had her. She became the joke. Strangely, I did not see a sad expression on her face. She had the face of a rogue. She did not care anymore. She joked back with the workers. She told the wives who had scorned her that she had slept with their men. She told the workers that she had slept with their bosses. She became a real whore.