Years of Red Dust (7 page)

During the previous year, we had heard of the “stinking-for-thousands-of-years” death of Vice Chairman Lin Biao, Chairman Mao's hand-picked successor, who perished and was condemned as “a heap of dog poop” after an unsuccessful coup attempt. Lin was said to have been against the visit of the American president. Then early this year, Confucius, having been dead for more than two thousand years, was dragged out of the grave as a target for revolutionary mass-criticism. Confucius too had been against foreign barbarians. We figured that all this might have something to do with the change in attitude about Americans.

The neighborhood committee believed it necessary to explain the historical and political significance of the visit to the lane residents. After a two-hour meeting, we remained lost in clouds and mists as before. However, understanding or not, we had to follow any strategic decision made by our great leader Chairman Mao.

Red Dust Lane was listed as one of the highest alert areas during the visit of President Nixon, since it was possible
he would pass by here on his way to the Bund or to the City God Temple Market. Security measures had been studied and restudied by the city government.

First of all, each and every potential troublemaker was to be removed. To keep the most vigilant watch over the class enemies, or the “five black classes of people”—landlords, rich peasants, counterrevolutionaries, bad elements, and rightists—as well as the capitalists, the neighborhood committee put them together like straw-bound crabs in the back room of the neighborhood committee office. They were not allowed out of sight for one single minute until the official dismissal notice was given. Of course, that measure alone was by no means enough. At such a crucial juncture of the Cultural Revolution, many could turn into agents for the KGB or CIA, intent on sabotage. Comrade Jun and Comrade Yin, two full-time Party cadres of the committee, would patrol the lane like a couple of wound-up toy soldiers, watching out for any suspicious strangers skulking in or out of the lane. The lane was further divided into four sections, each of which was supervised by a part-time committee member, with Old Hunchback Fang guarding the main lane entrance like Zhongkui, the fierce spirit portrayed as jumping out of the traditional door sign.

But the political responsibilities confronting the lane could be far more complicated. For one thing, troublemakers were not necessarily limited to the class enemies. Curious, people could surge out like human waves looking to get a glimpse of the Americans—which was potentially
a diplomatic disaster, interpretable as a sign of China's intense interest in the West. It would be a serious loss of face, to put it in the common language. So the lane residents were ordered not to leave the lane during the day unless it was approved by the neighborhood committee.

President Nixon was supposed to see a clean, beautiful, prosperous city of Shanghai—“in the normal way.” Which did not mean that things were to be left as they were, needless to say. Some things were to be left alone, and some were not. For instance, the beggars on the streets had to be made invisible. So would be the dripping clothes on the bamboo poles outside the
shikumen
houses, as well as the peeling big-character posters on the walls and the spiraling smoke from the woks. In addition, the district government demanded that runny-nosed kids, who could unexpectedly run into traffic, be kept off the streets as well.

In short, the order of the day was to follow the Party authorities' instruction to the letter: “China should show the best of the proletarian during the first American president's visit.”

To ensure the visit's success, the district government assigned Commissar Liu as a mobile coordinator for several adjoining neighborhoods, including Red Dust Lane. Newly discharged from the army, where he was a reconnaissance platoon head along the China-Vietnam border, Liu appeared to be the most qualified man for the job. Starting at nine o'clock on the morning of the visit, Liu would come equipped with a walkie-talkie and a shining red armband,
patrolling every lane and sublane in the area, checking with security people stationed here and there, and passing the latest information around. He was responsible for coordinating with the metropolitan police force and the city authorities and for keeping the neighborhood committees informed of progress during the day or of any change in the schedule. By three o'clock in the afternoon, when the Americans would have returned to the hotel, Liu would come over to announce the lifting of the high security alert.

Still, all this would not have had too much of an impact on us but for a suggestion made by Commissar Liu. He argued that not only preschool kids but also grade school students like us could unexpectedly lead to problematic situations. Schoolteachers might not successfully keep those Little Red Guard students quiet and still in the classrooms. So an urgent notice was given to parents that they were responsible for their children under the age of ten and must either stay with them at home or put them under the collective surveillance of the neighborhood committee. Consequently, a group of the kids from Sublane 3, including me, were gathered together at Lulu's home under the supervision of her grandmother. A decision made on the grounds that her son was a Party cadre.

But Lulu's place was not large. A room of fifteen square meters, with three beds squeezed in for the three generations that lived under the same roof, along with the furniture and odds and ends. For the day, there were nine of us
packed in there like sardines. I noticed a transistor radio on the nightstand, but Granny was under special orders not to make any noise. So Qiang and I started a game of army chess on a slip of floor between two of the beds. Lulu made an exquisite red paper cutout of the Chinese character of loyalty, and she danced with the character held high, in front of the portrait of Chairman Mao. Intent on showing her loyalty, she jumped up, missed her footing, and stamped the chess pieces under her feet. Granny suggested that we read our textbooks instead, without knowing that our one and only textbook was
Quotations of Chairman Mao
, most of which we had memorized. I recited to her an appropriate quote for the occasion: “Be determined and not afraid of any sacrifice. Overcome all the difficulties and win the victory.”

The victory in question would come around three o'clock, we calculated. Long before noon, however, time started to weigh heavily on us, like the blackboards hung around the necks of the class enemies. For lunch, each of us had a steamed white-flour bun with minced pork and vegetable stuffing, as a delicious incentive from the neighborhood committee. But it did not change the fact that we were stuck for so long in a small, stuffy room with the windows closed. Pig Head Jin started coughing, pressing a fist against his mouth. Little Monkey Xu suffered from bad hiccups. To cover up the unwelcome chorus, Granny sealed the windows with tape and drew the curtain too, which made the room even more like a steamer.

In the semidarkness, the curtain hung motionless like a movie screen, upon which we began to project our imagined images of the outside world. Not far from the lane, Yan'an Road would be becoming a hustle bustle as a part of the anticipated route. Some people would be stationed there, probably not a lot, but at least as many as in a normal day. It would not do for the Americans to see a deserted street. The people chosen would be wearing their spic-and-span Mao jackets, as would the plainclothes cops stationed at each and every corner. Pig Head Jin and I started arguing about one particular detail. He declared that he had once seen a Red Flag limousine during the Romanian president's visit to China. The limousine was made of special bulletproof steel, shining like a black dragon in the sun. Jin thought the American president must be riding around in the same limousine. I differed, saying that the American president and Chinese premier must have come in a convertible, waving their hands to the Chinese people, so that the American people could see it on their TVs across the ocean. TV was said to be something common in the United States, even though there was not a single TV set in our lane yet. We could only stay in the room like caged cats, curiosity-crazed.

Liming then fell to studying the water stains up on the ceiling. The stains appeared to be miraculously connected into dotted lines, merging into a contour of the Rocky Mountains, he maintained in earnest, having recently caught a glance of the mountains in an old textbook
map at a recycling center. Qiao, a freckled girl from next door, busied herself hiding-and-seeking among a sweep of drying socks, which Granny had to air inside the room for the day. Qiao developed a Dacron allergy, and she began rubbing her eyes and nose as if suddenly lost to a world of unfriendly, American pollen. (I have heard that she was dumped, years later, because of her incessant sneezing, which caused her then ex-lover to suffer severe insomnia.) As for me, I imagined myself in an airplane on a successful espionage mission unreported in the official newspapers. But my paper airplane knocked itself down against the bare wall of Lulu's room.

What made things even worse was an inconvenience totally unanticipated. There was not a single private bathroom in the lane, as was the case with many other neighborhoods, so at home, people used chamber pots, or went out of the lane to a public bathroom, which was now totally out of the question. In Lulu's place, there was a small cabinet partition made for this purpose, but I found it too hard to excuse myself while in a room packed with several girls my age.

Finally, it was almost two in the afternoon. Granny mumbled to herself. Commissar Liu would soon come to the lane, briefing the neighborhood committee on the status of the tour. If the Americans had passed by, the security alert would be reduced to a less intense level. She stretched her neck out of the window, only to see Old Hunchback Fang crouched at the lane entrance, motionless, more like a disabled cat in the distance.

Granny began to be worried. She had heard a story told by Pony Ba about the assassination of another American president. How true the story was, we did not know. Pony Ba's father was a Bad Element—and was locked in together with other class enemies in the neighborhood committee office at this very moment—who had gotten into trouble for listening to the Voice of America. The tension was building up in the room, and now in the lane too. Soon the uncertainty grew to be almost unbearable.

Still, not a chicken was flying, nor a baby crying, nor a cat jumping. Red Dust Lane held its breath, as if awaiting resurrection. Some wondered whether Commissar Liu could have lost his way, but others brushed aside the possibility. Commissar Liu was a reliable, experienced Party cadre.

As the old clock's hand moved to three thirty, Granny became panicky. Something must have happened. Lulu turned on the radio. No special news. Normally, news about a distinguished foreign guest's visit to the city would not be broadcast until seven o'clock in the evening. She volunteered to go to the neighborhood committee for the latest information, but Granny could not let her go. Every move had to wait until Commissar Liu's arrival, though according to the schedule, the whole thing should have been finished half an hour ago.

Granny was no longer able to contain her anxieties. She had another responsibility: to cook dinner for the family. A punctual soul, she had to start preparing around
four, or her day would be totally derailed. She was also seized with an asthma attack, possibly induced by the deteriorating air quality in the room or by her frustration over the impossible dinner. Her lips livid, she desperately needed to breathe fresh air, but her political responsibility demanded she stay shut up in the room. To our surprise, she produced a clay Buddha image hidden in the closet, and she started hugging the image in earnest:
Come back, Commissar Liu, oh Buddha, please allow us to cook, to cough, and to cope.

Miles away from Red Dust Lane, Commissar Liu did not hear any of those desperate messages. At that moment, he was catching a glimpse of a waitress becoming a legend in Green Waves, a restaurant located by the nine-turn bridge in the City God Temple Market.

Earlier in the afternoon, the Americans had come to the restaurant, which was celebrated for its Shanghai-style delicacies. President Nixon had been very satisfied, offering to shake hands with a young waitress who served at the table and describing her as “delicious” while still smacking his lips over a mini pork-and-crab-stuffed soup bun. The interpreter did an excellent job in translating the compliment. Such an epithet was a revelation, like a magic wand waving in a foreign fairy tale, shining over the waitress in her transparent crystallike plastic sandals. Several reporters rushed over to the one and only pay phone in the restaurant to share the latest news, which then spread quickly, especially
among those security personnel with mobile communication equipment, with details being added or modified in quick succession. In one version, President Nixon forgot to bite into the soup bun at the sight of her. In another variation, he bit, but so forcibly that the soup spilled out, and his wife scowled beside him. In every version, the waitress was a graceful beauty beyond description.

The moment the American president left the restaurant, people rushed over from all directions. The waitress was standing behind a large window, cutting crisp-skinned roast pork on a huge stump with a sharp knife. She looked flushed—possibly with the American's praise, though unaware of its instant rippling effect throughout the city. People immediately had excuses for being at her window—to buy some cooked food to bring home after a day's hard work. A queue soon formed outside the window, looking through the glass at this “delicious” girl. Commissar Liu arrived in a great hurry, but he still had to stand at the end of a long line, waiting for an hour before his turn to come to the window. The sun radiated patience in the afternoon as the line inched forward. A fungus appeared out of a wall cranny close to his left foot. Finally, he moved up to the small opening in the window. She was now cutting a Beijing roast duck with its fat still dripping from the stitched ass. An iridescent-eyed fly sucked the sticky duck sauce on her bare rounded toe, delicious as the scallop buns in the banquet in honor of the American president.