The Sisters Mao

by Gavin McCrea

  —Put this in a vase in my study.

  She lay a finger across the stem, a third of the way up:

  —Water to here.

  The attendant made a mark with his fingernail.

  —Find a good place for it. On the rose-shaped table, perhaps. Or—

  —On your desk?

  —No, not there. Then call for my cars.

  —To come directly?

  —No delay. I’ll visit Comrade Song myself, speak to him man to man, which in these times, it seems, is the only way to make oneself heard. It’s what I should have done in the first place.

  —I’ll have to get authorisation for the cars, Commander.

  —Then do so.

  —The reason for your journey? For the form?

  —Important Propaganda Committee business. Related to the imminent gala performance in honour of the First Lady of the Philippines. No need to be more specific than that. I’ll use my seal to sign off on it.

  Jiang Qing walked the line of the cameras, closing the viewfinders one by one.

  —Tell me, Soldier, she said on her way back, is Comrade Song’s dossier too heavy to carry?

  —I shouldn’t say so. A single binder. Full but portable.

  —In that case, put it on my desk where I can see it. I’ll take it with me to read on the way.

  —Right away.

  —And, Soldier, get the Volgas.

  —Commander?

  —The Volgas. Rather than the Fords. The Russians are no longer our friends, but, provenance aside, they’re good cars and plainer. This is a personal visit and a delicate situation. I don’t want to make a splash. Once you’ve done all that, find my daughter please. I’m going to need her help.

  —Will your daughter be accompanying you, Commander?

  —She will, so she’ll have to get changed for the Outside. Inform her of this, and if she doesn’t like it, well, she has no choice. Is that clear?

  The attendant saluted.

  Jiang Qing waved him off:

  —Oh and have someone take these cameras in. As soon as possible. I don’t want them left out here to be shat on.

  Excited, she hurried back. These days she rarely got out of the Compound, and it was only when the opportunity for an excursion arose that she remembered how claustrophobic it was in here, amongst all of this splendour, and how much she enjoyed to ride in the car through the city, and to see the masses, and to be with them. She took a different route to her Separate Residence: over the bridge as she had come, but then around the bamboo thicket rather than through it, and along the edge of the lake, avoiding the central courtyards — a greater distance to walk, but unlikely to be populated by people she did not want to see. And indeed her only encounter before reaching the sentinel at the entrance of her Residence was with a gardener, on his knees scraping moss from the base of an imperial tablet. Jiang Qing had wanted these tablets dug out, or at least their evil inscriptions polished away, but her husband had intervened to keep them. Leave them be, he had said. No one is going to see them.

  The gardener bowed his head as she passed.

  —I’m no one, Comrade, she said to him. Labour is the master.

  Back in her bedroom, she wiped her arms to the elbows and her neck to the armpits with hot towels handed to her by a female attendant. She changed out of her jumper and skirt into a navy Lenin suit. To replace her white plastic sandals, she picked an old pair of low-heeled leather shoes. She brushed her hair, but only lightly for fear of slackening her perm, then tied it into a bun and covered it with a flat cap.

  Hot chicken broth had been prepared for her as a pick-me-up and placed on a side table in the study. She sipped at this but did not have the patience to finish it.

  —Go and see what’s keeping my daughter, she told a third attendant.

  The chrysanthemum had been put in a thin porcelain flute and placed on the rose-shaped table. Shaking her head, no, she moved it to the desk. There, without sitting down, she opened Song Yaojin’s dossier and flicked through it until the attendant returned.

  —Your daughter has asked me to tell you that she won’t be leaving the Compound this afternoon.

  Jiang Qing resumed her flicking:

  —Won’t she now.

  —She said she was busy. That her hands are full with the baby.

  Jiang Qing shut the dossier. Lifted it. Held it in both palms as if to weigh it. Then put it under her arm. Turned to face the window. Outside, beyond the roof tiles of the neighbouring building, and framed by the ornamental gate, autumn’s first colours were emerging from the green. Purple. Red. Orange. Yellow—

  —All right, I’ll deal with it. You can go.

  Fires in dreamland.

  Across the courtyard, in the guest rooms, she found her daughter, Li Na, sitting spread-legged on the bed, playing Patience with dominos. She was in her pyjamas and must have recently painted her toenails, for there were folded tissues slotted into the spaces between her toes, and the smell of lacquer in the air. On the bedside table, a tape recorder was playing a Linguaphone lesson. Li Na’s daughter, Jiang Qing’s granddaughter, was on a blanket on the floor, surrounded by wooden bricks with which she was too young to do much except suck.

  —Get changed, Jiang Qing said.

  The tape-recorder bleeped, and Li Na said something in English.

  —Did you hear me? Jiang Qing said.

  Another bleep, and Li Na again spoke, louder this time.

  Jiang Qing searched the machine for the stop button, but the script was in Russian so it was easier just to unplug it.

  —Ma? Li Na said then without turning from her game. What are you doing, Ma?

  —You shouldn’t be listening to such tapes.

  —They’re from the research library. I have Babba’s consent.

  —The Chairman’s consent.

  —I have the Chairman’s consent.

  —You have no such thing.

  Jiang Qing walked round the bed to face her daughter:

  —Now up and into your clothes. I need your help.

  —Put the tape back on.

  —Up, I said.

  —I don’t get it, I thought you wanted me to be able to speak to Mrs Marcos. Impress her with my fluency.

  —The Chairman’s Sayings are idiomatic and available in English. Everyone else uses those to learn. Are you special or something, that you need another way?

  Li Na leaned back onto her hands, bent her knees and planted her feet on the mattress; her nails gleamed but showed no colour; that the varnish was clear did not make the offence any less egregious. Drawing her chin into the pouch that hung down from under her ears, and pursing her lips into a shape expressing defiance, Li Na fixed on Jiang Qing through the pillars of her shins. Her pyjama top, purchased at a different juncture in her life, was now a couple of sizes too small and strained against the bulge of her breasts and belly. From the gaps between the buttons where the two edges of silk did not meet, stretch-marked patches of flesh peeked; though she tried not to, Jiang Qing could not help studying them.

  —Ma?

  Feelings of pity contracted Jiang Qing’s heart. If her daughter was in this state, it was not wholly her daughter’s fault. Li Na belonged to the least fortunate generation. Li Na and her peers had not seen with their own eyes the difference between before and after. They had not witnessed the difficult process of transformation; the hard and bitter struggles. They thought China’s current greatness had just fallen out of the sky, and therefore they could not understand anything.

  —What are you looking at, Ma?

  In their ignorance, they spent their time knocking back good food and drink, and did not have a care in the world.

  Li Na kicked the dominoes off the mattress and onto the floor:

  —Ma!

  Jiang Qing flinched:

&
nbsp; —Do you think you’re better than your mother, is that why you won’t do as she says?

  —Oh goddess of mercy, hear me.

  —I asked you to come to Beijing to help me. You were glad to be asked. You said you needed a break from the countryside. Anything I might give you to do, you said, couldn’t possibly be as tedious as farm work. Weren’t those your words?

  —Not exactly.

  —Yet now that you’re here, when I ask for your help, you refuse.

  —I want to help, Ma—

  —Oh you do.

  —but if you want me to do something, you’re going to have to give me more notice. I can’t just drop everything in a flash. You just shout and expect me to be ready.

  —An army would be dressed and in formation by now. The truth is you’re unwilling to lift a finger. I hope you’re not like this with your husband.

  —My husband is fine and has plenty of help.

  —What would he say if he saw you here with me, hmm? being so stubborn and lazy? a bad example of a daughter?

  Laughing, Li Na swiped a sheet of paper from the side table.

  —Lazy and stubborn? Let’s have a look, shall we, at the evidence? The famous itinerary?

  She unfolded the sheet and held up its printed side.

  —See those ticks? I’ve agreed to everything you’ve assigned to me. You’ve heard no argument from me about any task you’ve given me for the coming week. But what’s this here? A blank space. Nothing in the box for today. A beautiful bit of white, which I understood to mean time off. I thought you were being kind and giving me a day to recuperate after my long journey.

  —That was the intention, daughter of mine, but heaven forbid you might be a bit flexible, or put yourself out. You’ll have plenty of time to recuperate once Mrs Marcos is come and gone.

  Li Na scrunched the sheet and threw it off the side of the bed:

  —Well, thank you, mother, for your generosity.

  Jiang Qing put Song Yaojin’s dossier down on the bed. Bent over and picked up the itinerary. Smoothed it onto the surface of the table. Took a long breath. Her daughter was pushing her into a corner from which she would then be unable to liberate herself without being vicious.

  —You know how important this event is to me. You know what it represents. And how much needs to be done to make it perfect.

  —It’s all I’ve been hearing from you for weeks. Late-night phone calls to the farm. Urgent telegrams.

  —Shouldn’t I call? Counting on my daughter’s advice and support, is that wrong of me?

  Li Na sighed:

  —No, Ma.

  Family feelings were not always correct. Sometimes they were a cloak for selfishness and counterrevolutionary urgings. How often over the years had Jiang Qing witnessed otherwise sane and rational people affording protection to perpetrators of heinous anti-Party offences for no other reason than their being a relative of some kind? What utility did these attachments have in revolution, where actions, not blood, proved one’s worth? The good revolutionary had to be prepared to draw a line of demarcation between herself and any member of her family found guilty by the people of harming the cause. To this end, she had to learn to cut back on family feelings, and when necessary to get rid of them altogether. No one ever said this was easy. One had to work hard to keep one’s system clear.

  —Look, daughter, said Jiang Qing with some sadness, I don’t mean to bother you. Or to be on top of you. But I don’t think you realise what it’s like either.

  —What what’s like?

  —The Compound. Living here. There are people around all the time, yes, but even so, it can get—. Well, it can be—

  —Lonely?

  —I wouldn’t use that word.

  —What word would you use?

  —I don’t know. Not that one.

  —Whatever, Ma. You don’t have to tell me. I remember what it was like.

  —Ach, it was different when you were here. We used to have those picnics in the pavilion, do you remember? and your father would recite his poems.

  Li Na shrugged.

  —It’s another world since you left and your father got bad. I spend my days in the company of strangers. The attendants are changed so often, I’m forever having to get used to new faces. I have my friends in the Party, plenty enough. But they have jobs and are busy, and anyway too much socialising can put a strain on more important purposes. I’m not complaining, revolutionary daughter, I don’t as a rule. It’s just that from time to time it feels like—

  Exile. A kind of exile. And the woman in exile is weak.

  —What, Ma? What does it feel like?

  Jiang Qing sensed suddenly that they had veered into dangerous territory.

  —Nothing, she said for the benefit of the bugs which might or might not be hidden in the room. I don’t know what I’m saying.

  Jiang Qing began to pick up the dominoes that her daughter had kicked off the bed.

  —Ma, said Li Na, for fuck’s sake. Stop picking things up.

  Jiang Qing held out a handful of the tiles to her daughter:

  —I just wish you would show me some understanding. This is a busy time, the busiest, and I’m depending on you, my only daughter, my only child, to remember her obligations to her mother.

  Li Na took the dominoes from her mother and dropped them into her lap.

  —It’s just not a good moment, Ma. Travelling with the baby has me worn out, and the dinner last night went on late. Can’t you get someone else, just for today? So that I can relax for a little more?

  —You’ve had all morning to relax. Do you know how many in this world aren’t in possession of such leisure?

  —So I’m to be denied it too, is that it? We’re all to be equally denied?

  —Your problem is you’ve been denied too little. You grew up on comfort and have been spoiled by it. You’re too little used to giving anything of yourself.

  Jiang Qing knew that in the long run Li Na was unsuited to life outside the city and would eventually be beaten by the roughness of it. What Li Na ought to have done was follow Jiang Qing’s advice and attach herself to a high Party cadre, an older man who would have helped her to advance — an intelligent woman knew how to do this without becoming subservient. But no, it was contrary to Jiang Qing’s guidance that Li Na ran, and a farmer that she took, a man who treated her well but was not much to look at and would never truly satisfy her. To Jiang Qing, the ugly child they had produced was a testimony to their incompatibility.

  —I can’t be blamed for how I was raised, said Li Na now.

  —This again? Jiang Qing said matter-of-factly, with no ire in her voice.

  —You’re right. Forget I said anything.

  —You’re accusing me of being a bad parent, is that it? Are you going to give me the stick, now, about my not being around enough? Of neglecting you and, crime of all crimes, sending you away for a good education?

  —No. I don’t want to talk about any of that.

  —Well good. Spare your breath. Because I already see in your eyes that’s what you’re thinking.

  Unbelievably, her daughter did not think her upbringing had been easy. On occasion, during a quarrel, or with her mouth loosened by drink, Li Na would complain that Jiang Qing and the Chairman — but especially her — had not shown her enough warmth. I never heard any loving words in the home, she would say. I was hugged only rarely. Kissed even less. And slapped even less than that, Jiang Qing would reply, for your father forbade it. But this was not good enough for Li Na. She wanted what she could never have: a mother and a father who were just a mother and a father.

  —All right, Ma, Li Na said, say I go with you. What about the baby? What would I do with her?

  Shaking her head, Don’t even try that one with me, Jiang Qing pressed the buzzer to call the attendant.

&nbs
p; The attendant opened the door and stood, too casually Jiang Qing thought, with a hand resting on the knob. Jiang Qing gestured to the child.

  —She needs to go to the creche. Sign her in for two hours. Actually, make it three, to be on the safe side.

  The attendant picked the child up underneath the arms, and left the room holding it at arm’s length.

  Watching this, Li Na tilted her head to one side and scratched her scalp fiercely with a single finger.

  Jiang Qing picked up Song Yaojin’s dossier and wrapped both arms around it:

  —I’ll wait for you in the car.

  The chauffeur started the engine as soon as Jiang Qing got in.

  —You can leave it off, she said to him. We’re waiting for my daughter.

  He obeyed, and they sat in silence for a few minutes.

  —Is it the same with your children? Jiang Qing said then.

  —I haven’t been blessed with children, he said.

  —Oh well, she said in a commiserating tone, it’s not everyone’s fate.

  Li Na got into the car wearing prescription shades and a fake fur collar on her jacket. Attached to a strap slung around her body was a small leather bag.

  —Where are we going anyway? she said, heaving herself onto the seat opposite.

  Jiang Qing did not answer. She and her daughter were like iron and steel. Unless they tried to compromise with each other, they would just continue to crash heads, and both would feel the pain. The car moved off, and Jiang Qing drew back a corner of the lace window blind, so as not to have to look at her.

  They left the Compound by the West Gate, where the Party complaints office was located. From the office doors, long queues of people snaked out the gate and down the road along the Compound wall. Many of those waiting were peasants, who would have travelled a long way to be seen and have their grievances heard. In all likelihood, this was their first trip to the capital, and in all likelihood their last. When the chauffeur sounded the horn in an effort to herd some of them out of the car’s path, Li Na sank down in her seat and put a hand over her face, as if anyone could possibly see her in here.

  —What are you embarrassed about? Jiang Qing said, unable to hold herself in any longer. Look at you. How you’re dressed. Like a rich woman in an American movie. Yet you want us to think you have shame?