Red Azalea (31 page)

I never used to believe that the Supervisor lived only to worship Comrade Jiang Ching. Now I believed it. He was her spiritual lover. I believed his obsession with her, because she represented his female self. Because she allowed him to achieve his dream—to rule China’s psyche.

I saw no line between love and hate. That night there was no line between love and hate, between him and me.

The Supervisor had charged me with his lust the night before. I was like a bullet lying in the chamber of a gun. I still felt his warmth inside me. My ambition multiplied my strength. I looked at myself in the mirror in the makeup room under fluorescent lights. I saw Red Azalea. In her Red Army cap. Spicy eyes. Equipped. Perfectly in control. She carried Yan’s determination and the Supervisor’s spirit. I believed my makeup. I believed that I was who I was supposed to be. I was creating history.

I am Comrade Jiang Ching and the Supervisor’s physical substance. I display their thoughts. I am my ambition.
There is an energy that comes from heaven and earth and unites in me.

Tomorrow the name Red Azalea will be in the mouth of every person.

I am the embodiment of Red Azalea. I am my role.

The crew had been waiting. I was in costume and makeup. The lights were on and the camera was in place. We had been waiting for our director, the Supervisor, to show up. But he did not. My makeup was put on and was taken off.

The crew kept waiting. The maple leaves were still, as if listening to the unusual quietness. The members of the crew grew suspicious. Gossip started. The lighting crew made excuses to take off before the appointed closing time. The makeup crew followed. Then other departments began to make excuses. People said they had waited long enough and their waiting should be respected. I sat by the camera, waiting. The cameraman had been napping since lunch. No one was in charge. The atmosphere was strange. The way people talked—heads glued together, as if biting each other’s ears.

The studio went silent. Then the streets. The city and then the country. A sign of danger emerged with the Supervisor’s absence. I tried not to feel the surroundings. I was an ant crawling on a heated wok. I tried not to notice that the explosion was near. I asked myself to remain in control.

Then the news of the century came. It was September
9, 1976. The reddest sun dropped from the sky of the Middle Kingdom. Mao passed away. Overnight the country became an ocean of white paper flowers. Mourners beat their heads against the door, on grocery-store counters and on walls. Devastating grief. The official funeral music was broadcast day and night. It made the air sag.

Like everyone else, I was given white paper flowers to wear. I wore them the way all the other women did, tied to my braids, on my blouse and shoelaces. We looked like moving cotton plants. The studio people gathered in the main meeting hall to moan. The sound of sobbing stretched like a hand-cranked gramophone at its spring’s end. I had no tears. I cupped my face with my hands to hide my face. Through the space between my fingers I saw Soviet Wong. She tossed her face in wet handkerchiefs. Her nose was a blower. She was crying so hard. I wondered what she was crying about. Her faded youth, I was sure. She must be crying for her could-haves. She was celebrating; her misery had finally come to an end. She glanced at me as she blew her nose. I felt she could see through me. She must have guessed that I was not thinking of the greatest loss of our nation. I was thinking of Comrade Jiang Ching.

It was said that the man was murdered by his wife. Mao was murdered by Comrade Jiang Ching. It was said that Comrade Jiang Ching had replaced Mao’s doctor. Mao was poisoned to death. Comrade Jiang Ching pulled the air mask off Mao’s face. She could not wait for the man to die. She ended him herself by asking him to sign a paper at his last breath. The gossip grew fat, greasy, like a dish of pork neck.

Men began to talk about hanging the bitch. The bitch who was running the country. The bitch who made the citizens’ lives so miserable. How could we let the plague run China? Aren’t we truly insane? Let’s push the bitch into a jar of boiling water. Let’s drown her. Slice her alive. And sacrifice her on the altar of our great ancestors.

The media published a photo of Mao’s first wife, a young woman who was killed by the Nationalists half a century ago. They said the woman was Mao’s only true wife. The photo was posted everywhere. Even in nursery schools, where the little babies were taught to say the woman’s name and sing songs in praise of her.

At Mao’s funeral, on TV, we hardly saw the face of the widow, the widow of the dead red sun. The camera showed the big heads of elderly men. The Long March cadres. Men with puffed faces whose eyes registered no emotion. The camera showed the faces of the closest associates of the widow. Those faces were thin and long. Pyramid-shaped mouths ready to say, Fire.

The Chairman looked unsatisfied lying on his deathbed. The mourners, the representatives of the people, were wailing in sorrow. By morning the floor opened, the crystal coffin rose from the ground and the dead was displayed. Hundreds of thousands of people met their beloved savior. Each of them held a thick handkerchief. They wiped and wiped, then fainted one after another, on TV. They were carried out, and their loyalty was praised by the media. The people’s beloved savior was in a brand-new gray jacket, designed by himself. The holy body was wrapped in a national flag, with its face painted, its interior emptied and spread with anticorrosive.

In the studio the crowd gathered in front of a new black-and-white TV set, watching. Behind the set a slogan still hung: “A long, long life to Chairman Mao!” The colors were as bright as roses in the summertime.

The words Comrade Jiang Ching no longer existed. She was called the whore, the worn slipper.

The amplifier tied to the maple-tree trunk outside my window was rebroadcasting Mao’s instruction. The dead’s instruction. The male announcer’s voice was smooth as a jellyfish. He repeated: “I am not in her eyes. Jiang Ching wants to be the Party’s Chairman. I am not in her eyes. She respects no one. She will stir everyone’s peace. After I die, she will cause the country trouble. She will. I am warning you. My beloved countrymen … I am warning you.”

I refused to be frightened. The disappearance of the Supervisor had prepared me for the worst. At night I waited. Waited for a nightmare. It came in the morning.

It was brought by Soviet Wong. She looked incredibly fresh and young. She gave me a stamped piece of paper. The paper said that the Party had decided to send me back to Red Fire Farm. The film crew had been dispersed. A van was assigned to take me to where I belonged.

I did not say anything to Soviet Wong, since I knew my words would only be wasted if I did. The train of history had changed its direction. I realized that I, regardless of the fact that I had never really chosen, belonged to the losing side. I began packing for Red Fire Farm, where I would be imprisoned.

My doorknob turned. A note was dropped in. I opened it. It was the Supervisor’s handwriting. I grabbed hold of a table leg to hold myself still. The Supervisor wanted to meet me at the Peace Park. Immediately. Urgent. You do not have to come, the note said. Our meeting will be very dangerous. I am wanted. The nation will not forgive me, not my type of sin. But I want to see you. Come, please, if it is still possible.

I went. In the dark. Riding a storm.

He said he had never said “sorry” in his life to anyone, but tonight he must express his sorrow. I disappointed you. I disappointed myself. I am ashamed. I want you to keep my shame, carve it in the stone tablet of your memory.

I looked at him. I went to hold him. In his hands I experienced a strong convulsive quiver. He felt sad because he was too old for the coming hardships. He doubted whether he could survive. But he must live for his ideal, he said as he clenched his teeth. He said that he had no right to disappoint himself. He must not surrender. To kill oneself was to surrender. It was unacceptable to a true Communist.

I told him that the studio had put me on a list as a follower of Comrade Jiang Ching. Black stains splashed on my dossier. He embraced me and asked if I would forgive Comrade Jiang Ching. I said I did not know her. He insisted that I did. He said that Comrade Jiang Ching had been a spectator of my passion. She was proud of you and, at the moment, she is counting on you. Because she herself is going to be hung by her Long March comrades one
of these days and she must count on her Red Azalea. She must see her ideal passed on.

I asked what his position was. He smiled strangely. He said, My best chance was to be on their list of mental patients. I am on the hanging rope, and I am becoming a black curse upon the Middle Kingdom, he said in a joking tone. My head is in the noose. That’s why I must give you this last message. Listen, you have done nothing wrong politically. This means that you are politically innocent. You should be categorized as a victim of Jiang Ching, a victim of the Gang of Four. You must declare that to the public. You must declare that you do not know me, period. You have not killed, you have not done anything criminal. The only thing they can accuse you of is your look, the look that was favored by Comrade Jiang Ching. As he said this, he looked at me under the bright moonlight. Gazing at every part of my face, his expression froze. But you knew nothing of her plan.

Do not fall into their trap, he continued. Remember there will be traps, excellently designed, well tested. But it will be nothing new. I have always outwitted them until this day. I lose to history, not to them. They will toss everything I praised in shit. Logically, of course. They will criticize you, and the day will pass if you clench your teeth and bear with the peeling of your skin. Tell me now you are a heroine. Promise me you can bear it. Don’t you disappoint me.

But I was already ordered to go back to Red Fire Farm, I said. What could I do? The order has been changed, said the Supervisor calmly. A friend of mine in the studio has arranged this for me. You will be given a position
at the studio. It will be a lousy position. But you do not have to go back to the farm. Your city residence number has been restored. I know you are not capable of going back to Red Fire Farm. I am sorry that I could not protect you more. I have brought you more harm than happiness. I only wish … He stopped and looked at me for a long time. You are so young, and beautiful. It is good that you do not know many things.

I asked about his relationship with Comrade Jiang Ching. I demanded to know. He said that it was better I did not know. He said he was protecting me from being harmed. He asked me to remember the darkness of the night, to watch the marching steps of history, to watch how it was altered, to see how the dead were made up and made to speak, how they never complained about what was put in their foul mouths. He said that it was this power of history that had charmed him. He asked me to admire history. His voice pervaded me. Red Azalea will be born in another time, another place, I am sure, very sure, he murmured. I love Red Azalea. Do you?

In the shadow of the bushes, the Supervisor told me that the operas were created out of Jiang Ching’s unfulfilled desires. He said it was that very same desire that made ancient tragedies stir the souls and foster civilizations. And it was that very same desire that sparked the flame of the Great Cultural Revolution. He stopped and looked around, then said he was a little disappointed that there were not many secretive lovers and masturbators present tonight. He said that the singing of the maple leaves should be fully enjoyed. He asked if I could imagine the green hills and pink peonies in his garden back in
Beijing. He asked if I could imagine him and me sitting by the valley between the bosoms of Mother Nature. He asked me to close my eyes to smell the fragrance of the flowers. He said, Let it remain with you all your life. Open the hidden path of your mind, experience it, be completely in touch with it. He asked me to tell him how the wind puffed away the clouds. In his warmth I drifted. I told him his hands were wind, and in his hands my body became clouds. He said he was fierce and his passion was as strong as death.

He said he always liked to watch the smoke spiraling upward from the chimney of the Dragon Sight Crematorium. He said death was never frightening to him. He had never trusted the Chinese history books. Because those books were written by people who were impotent of desire. People who were paid by the generations of emperors. They were eunuchs. Their desires had been castrated.

He wanted to see me live. He wanted to see me live his life. You know my secret wish, and now keep it and nourish it for me. I wept, shivering. I said, I will, I promise. He said, Let’s hold each other and say nothing.

We held each other. I felt Yan—we were walking out of the darkness.

A
week later Jiang Ching, Madam Mao, was arrested and denounced. The arrest was conducted by the new Party Central Bureau in Beijing led by Hua Guofeng,
a man appointed by Mao. It was handled nobly and with good manners. The arrest was swift and clean. The public was greatly satisfied. They celebrated, bought crabs and boiled them, to go with wine. The female crabs symbolized Jiang Ching. She was eaten now. China was exuberant. Rallies, monster parades and fireworks all night long. Millions poured into the streets, beating drums and dancing like dumplings in boiling water. A year later Hua’s government was taken over by Deng Xiaoping, one of Mao’s Long March cadres. More rallies, parades and fireworks. Hua’s portraits were torn off the wall and replaced with the slogans that praised the new man. Jiang Ching was caged in the City of Ch’ing national prison waiting to be sentenced. People celebrated and shouted, Down! Down! Down!