by Anchee Min
“It could cost my job—worse, my life—if you are not careful,” he warned. He asked me to promise to never mention that I knew any foreigners like Pearl and her family. “In Yenan, who one was is more important than who one is,” Dick said. “You must be pure in order to be trusted.”
My daughter was called Comrade Rouge Lin in kindergarten. Like every other toddler, she had to wear the gray, poorly tailored cotton uniform. After she grew out of it, she passed it on to a younger child. Rouge was taught combat skills the moment she learned to walk. Her first spoken line was “I am a brave soldier.” By the time Rouge was two, she could sing “My Red Army Brother Is Coming Back.” She had no interest in learning “Silent Night.” She thought that I was strange and was closer to her father. When she was four, she won a competition reciting Karl Marx’s famous phrase “Capitalism is a greedy monster.”
Although I told Rouge how I grew up and she knew that Pearl Buck was my best friend, she didn’t know any foreigners and never saw anyone dressed differently from herself. Even the way people cut their hair at the Red Base was the same. Everyone was focused on the revolution and nothing else. Rouge’s world was red and white. One was either a comrade or an enemy. By the time she was eight years old, she was clear about who she was and what she wanted to do with her life. She worshipped Mao and wanted to liberate the poor.
It bothered me when Dick told our ten-year-old daughter that Communists and Christians were enemies.
“Not all Christians believe that China is evil until it accepts God,” I argued. “Pearl Buck, for instance. She is a Christian and she criticizes Christianity’s worst practices.” To prove my point, I read an essay Pearl had published in Southeast Asia Missionary Magazine a few years earlier. In this essay, Pearl pointed out that she had seen missionaries lacking in sympathy for the local people: “So scornful of any civilization except their own, so harsh in their judgments upon one another, so coarse and insensitive among a sensitive and cultivated people that my heart has fairly bled with shame.”
Dick was surprised. “Absalom’s daughter wrote that?”
I nodded.
“That’s unexpected,” he admitted.
“If only Mao could be more open-minded . . .”
Dick interrupted me and whispered, “My darling wife, you are not in Shanghai or Nanking. Remember, I have rivals. Jealous hearts do murder. Remember your Shakespeare?”
Dick believed that Mao would be more relaxed and allow more freedom when he became sure of his power.
“For now we must unite as one to survive.” Dick turned to Rouge. “No more criticism of the Communist Party, because it will be considered disloyal and a betrayal.”
Rouge’s eyes widened. She nodded seriously. “Baba is right and Mama is wrong,” she said.
“What about your name, Dick?” I challenged. “It definitely doesn’t sound proletarian!”
“My comrades know that Dick is my work name.” My husband smiled.
“What do you mean, work name? Do you have another name?”
“Yes.”
I laughed. “Why don’t I know it? After all, I am your wife.”
“Such is the life of a Communist.” Dick extended his arms and rocked his head from side to side, stretching his neck.
“What is your real name, Baba?” Rouge asked curiously.
“Well, we call it the work name or the current name.”
“So, what is your current name?” I asked.
“Well, it is Xinhua.”
“Xinhua? New China?” I laughed. “I think Old China would fit you better. You come from a background of scholars, landowners, and Capitalists! You studied Shakespeare and Confucius in college! Old China is in your blood! You have Western friends and you speak English!”
“No comment.” Dick was embarrassed.
From the few letters that reached me, I learned that Pearl had settled into a life of sorts in America. Although the United States was in a financial depression, she published and her books sold well. In 1932, she had won the Pulitzer Prize for The Good Earth while still among us. In 1938, she won the Nobel Prize for literature. In her letters, she mentioned her new awards casually. Her tone was no different than when she told me how she admired the American plumbing system, and she never explained how important the awards were. It wasn’t until many years later that I discovered that Pearl had become an international celebrity. The subject Pearl asked about most was Rouge. She wanted to know what my daughter’s life was like and if she had friends. She said that she had never realized how fortunate we had been to have each other as childhood playmates.
I wanted so badly to talk to Pearl about my daughter, but I didn’t want to remind her of what she didn’t have with Carol. Instead, I asked Pearl about her writing methods. She replied that her trick was to think like a Chinese farmer. “Before planting, the farmer already knew what, where, and how much to grow, the budget for seeds, fertilizer, animals, and field hands,” she wrote. “In other words, I try to make the best use of my material.”
About her daughter, Pearl reported that American doctors confirmed Carol’s early diagnosis that she would never have a chance to lead a normal life. There was nothing new in this news, but Pearl still sounded devastated. “The conclusion took away any happiness I would have felt in my accomplishments,” she wrote.
She did gain some comfort knowing that the income from her writing enabled her to provide permanent care for Carol. “Since Carol loves music, I made sure that the cottage, which my money helped build, was equipped with a phonograph and a collection of records,” she continued.
She talked about the farmhouse she had bought in Pennsylvania. “It is gigantic by Chinese standards!” she wrote. “I have been renovating the place so that I can adopt more children.”
Pearl and I still talked about Hsu Chih-mo. She let me know that she had finally been able to grieve and move on. “A new man has appeared on the horizon of my lonely love life,” she reported. “But I can’t do anything until my divorce with Lossing is finalized.”
The new man was her editor and publisher, Richard Walsh. Pearl was proud of the fact that they were best friends before they were lovers.
I was so happy for her and wrote to congratulate her. In my letter, I complained about Dick and the Red Base.
To my shock, the letter was intercepted by Communist intelligence agents. It got Dick in trouble.
“I have warned you!” Dick hissed at me. “We Communists don’t trust the Americans! Our enemy is supported by the Americans! Why is it so difficult for you to remember that? Yenan’s security is about Mao’s survival!”
In the past Dick had discouraged me from writing to Pearl. Now I was ordered to stop.
I refused to sign the Communist membership application Dick put in front of me. No matter how many times Dick explained the benefits and the necessity, I wouldn’t pick up the pen.
Finally, after months of struggle, I agreed to sign. I did so out of loyalty to my husband. Without my being a member of the Communist Party, Dick would never gain Mao’s full trust.
My biggest problem was following the Communist Party’s rules. I seemed to always say the wrong thing at the wrong time. I would praise the wrong people and criticize the right ones. For example, I remarked that I felt sorry for high-ranking heroes because they had achieved their rank only by killing a great number of people. I also said that all war was wrong. Because of these mistakes, I was ordered to criticize myself in public.
Dick was demoted as a result. His temper was no longer containable. Instead of fighting with me, Dick exploded at work. He applied for a transfer to be nearer the fighting. He was eager to join the battles. He wanted to be the first to engage the enemy and the last to retreat. The irony was that it turned out to be good for his career. He earned medals and promotions. His courage earned him the respect of the Communist leadership. He was restored to his former job. Mao welcomed Dick back and praised him as “the Red Prince.”
“Does that mean th
at Mao is the Red Emperor?” I joked the moment Dick entered the cave.
Dick didn’t find my comment funny, and warned me not to say such things again.
My life, as a fortune-teller had once predicted, was about the constant turning of feng shui, meaning that my fortunes were always changing. My future as a Communist would soon prove the fortune- teller’s wisdom. I had never imagined that there would be a benefit to claiming my background as a beggar. For the family background section in the party’s membership application, I truthfully wrote “Beggars.” This qualified Papa as a proletarian, and that included Rouge and me. If my grandfather hadn’t lost all his money, my father would have inherited his land and become the enemy of the Communists. I would have been denounced and perhaps shot as a spy.
The strain between Dick and me had much to do with the innocent souls Mao murdered at the Red Base. It happened before my eyes. People were arrested in broad daylight, sent away, and disappeared for good. These were young people, former college students. They were independent thinkers—people whom Dick had personally recruited. They had joined Mao to fight the Japanese. Overnight they were labeled as enemies, arrested, denounced, and murdered.
Dick said that my Christian values had ruined me. I told him that he was ruined, not me. Dick refused to see Mao’s flaws and the fact that he had become a bully. Mao had learned from Stalin, a man who murdered whoever disagreed with him. Half of Dick’s friends were detained and questioned and one third executed as traitors.
“How can you sleep at night?” I asked my husband.
Dick encouraged me to make friends with Madame Mao. “She is a better choice than Pearl Buck,” he insisted.
I tried, but I couldn’t get Madame Mao to like me. She was the opposite of Pearl, judgmental and opinionated. Blessed with good looks, she was also flashy, pretentious, and egotistical. As a former actress, she knew her craft. She called herself “Chairman Mao’s humble student” and was proud to be his trophy. She was not shy about her “capital.” Her skin didn’t turn potato brown as the rest of ours did in the desert sun and harsh wind. Her eyebrows were as thin as a shrimp’s feelers. She and Mao made a perfect couple. They both wanted power and fame. Madame Mao loved to say that she was a peacock among hens. By hens, she meant the women of Yenan, and that included me.
My biggest disappointment was that Mao didn’t turn out to be the hero I had expected. Under the guise of a scholar, Mao sold confidence to people. He made the peasant soldiers hear their own voices when he spoke to them.
When I listened to Mao, I watched his eyes. They appeared to be smiling even when he uttered the most violent phrases. Mao had a broad forehead, a rice-patty-shaped face, and a feminine mouth. He never looked people in the eyes when he talked with them. Mao let people observe him. Never once did I hear him answer a question in a straightforward manner, although he encouraged others to do so. Mao was a master when it came to the art of beating around the bush. He even said himself that he enjoyed catching his enemy by surprise, whether in conversation or on the battlefield.
Dick made the best conversational partner for Mao in the inner circle. He and Mao often talked deep into the night. “We simply enjoy each other’s minds,” Dick told me. Yet Dick failed to learn one important lesson, which was that Mao hated to lose.
Dick had yet to find out that Mao wanted absolute power, though he appeared to desire the opposite. Mao repeated the same phrase over and over again to foreign journalists: “My dream is to become a classroom teacher.” He would open his conversation with a Chinese poem and close by reciting Marx or Lenin. People were easily charmed by Mao. His broad knowledge and sharp wit disarmed. Once, Dick helped Mao issue a telegram to the war front. He was shocked that Mao insisted on ending the communiqué with a line from a poem. “Only flies are afraid of winter, so let them freeze and die.”
Dick told me later that when Mao had trouble giving direction during battles or was unsure of his next move, he would telegram poems to his generals. The confused generals would have no choice but to make up their own minds about whether to charge or retreat.
“Such is Mao’s brilliance,” Dick said admiringly.
* * *
Dick brought Madame Mao the local singer who wrote the song “Red in the East.” Dick never guessed that one day the tune would become China’s unofficial national anthem.
I went to listen to “Red in the East” being performed at a weekend party for high-ranking officials. Madame Mao introduced the singer, whose name was Li You-yuan. Li was a peasant dressed in rags with a dirty towel wrapped around his forehead. He was in his forties and had three missing front teeth. Dick did a background check and found that Li was not one hundred percent proletarian, because his family owned a half acre of land.
When Dick reported this to Madame Mao, she said, “If I say Li is a peasant, he will be a peasant.”
The song “Red in the East” was Madame Mao’s birthday gift to her husband.
When the peasant opened his mouth, the listeners’ jaws dropped. Li’s voice was like a goat’s cry.
Mao remained seated, because he had the good sense to trust his wife’s magic-making abilities.
After Li exited the stage, Madame Mao presented her version of “Red in the East.” The singing was performed by the Yenan repertory group conducted by Madame Mao herself.
Red in the East
Rises the sun
China has brought forth Mao Tse-tung
Creating happiness for the people
He is our greatest savior
Li You-yuan didn’t write more than the first line of “Red in the East.” The peasant had no knowledge of the Red Base or its leader, Mao. He hummed the tune to pass the time when he plowed his field. Dick happened to cross his path and heard him singing. Dick foresaw the usefulness of the tune and brought Li to Madame Mao’s attention.
To demonstrate his modesty, Mao rejected Madame Mao’s proposal to list “Red in the East” as a “must-learn song” for the troops.
Madame Mao insisted that it was the people’s wish that Mao be regarded as the rising sun of China.
Madame Mao asked Dick to send me a message. She criticized me as arrogant. I tried to hide my disgust for the sake of Dick.
Madame Mao was unaware that I had some knowledge of her past. Before coming to Yenan, she had been a third-rate movie actress in Shanghai. She had had an affair with a newspaper reporter who happened to be Dick’s friend. At the Red Base, Madame Mao’s past was a stain on an immaculate embroidery. Desperate to get rid of the stain, she behaved like a passionate revolutionary. She invited me to watch her perform a newly learned skill—making yarn out of raw cotton.
I was instructed by Madame Mao to follow her making yarn instead of spending time with my daughter. Sitting next to Madame Mao, I was miserable. She recited her husband’s phrases as she rolled the wheel. “We will never understand peasants if we don’t soak our hands in manure, make yarn out of raw cotton, and sweat in the fields. We won’t be qualified to be a member of the proletarian class until we smell like manure and garlic instead of perfume.”
I did something behind Dick’s back. I bribed the base’s special postman who traveled between Yenan and Shanghai as a merchant. The man smuggled my letters out to Shanghai and then mailed them to Pearl in America using a secret address. In my letters, I reported that I had begun telling Christian stories to Rouge. I told Pearl that my day was brightened when Rouge started to fall in love with “Amazing Grace.”
Like raindrops in the middle of a drought, I received a letter from Pearl. It comforted me and soothed my anxiety, for I had been friendless. Pearl told me that she had been traveling the world and had spent a great deal of time in India, Southeast Asia, and Japan. The line that filled my eyes with tears of happiness was that she was “dying to return to China.”
CHAPTER 26
When Mao defied Stalin and crossed the Yangtze River in pursuit of Chiang Kai-shek in 1948, Dick told me that the Communists would win China. By M
ay 1949 it was a reality. The people had suffered for twelve years: eight years fighting Japan and then four years of civil war. It was hard to believe that the wars were over. Russian and American advisers on both sides had to admit that they had been wrong. Mao believed that there ought to be only one lion on the mountain. He would never share power with Chiang Kai-shek.
The day his capital, Nanking, fell, Chiang Kai-shek fled to Taiwan. Mao would have continued the chase until he captured Chiang Kai-shek if it hadn’t been for the American military forces on the island. Mao was cautious. He didn’t want to be stretched too thin, so he claimed a nation and named it the People’s Republic of China.
I was ordered to pack immediately and move north. Rouge was excited. The fifteen-year-old had never stepped outside of Yenan. She had joined the Communist Youth League the previous year and had been working as a frontier journalist for the Yenan Daily. Several times Rouge had received awards as an Outstanding Comrade and had been given a Mao Medal. Her favorite songs were Soviet anthems and she favored a Lenin jacket.
We were to meet Dick in Peking. Mao had decided to make the city his new capital, and he had its name changed from Peking to Beijing. Also seeing a change were troops from the Eighth and Fourth Army Divisions. Previously under the command of Chiang Kai-shek, they now fell behind Mao and were incorporated into the People’s Liberation Army.
Dick drove an American jeep to pick us up. Although he was dark brown and thin from the stomach ulcers he had developed, he was happy. He told us that the car’s former owner had been Madame Chiang Kai-shek.
The People’s Liberation Army was received joyously by the city residents. Dick’s American jeep was part of the parade when we entered Beijing. The cheering crowd beat drums. Children threw flowers. “Long live Chairman Mao!” they shouted. “Long live the Communist Party of China!”
October 1, 1949, was the day of celebration for the nation. Standing on top of the Gate of Tiananmen, Mao proclaimed China’s independence to the world. He promised freedom and human rights. From that moment on, Mao was regarded as the wisest ruler heaven had ever bestowed on China. Few knew that it was Dick who had negotiated the peaceful transition.