The Sisters Mao

by Gavin McCrea

  —Comrade Song, Jiang Qing said now, you’ve done your years of labour, yet I can see that in your heart you’re still a little master. You need someone to fawn on you and tell you you’re the best. All right, so you can’t dance the main part. So what? You don’t have to be the ARMY CAPTAIN. You could dance another, less taxing role. The LANDLORD, for instance. THE TYRANT And if that didn’t work, there’s nothing to say we couldn’t write a new scene, or a new character for you. I’m open to all kinds of solutions. My one worry is that, despite your expressions of gratitude, you’ve lost the ability to show respect to me, as a woman, and as your leader. I’m not convinced that you haven’t forgotten that it was me who made it possible for you to follow your calling. That I paved the way for you to do what you must do.

  —Please believe me, Commander, I haven’t forgotten.

  —Then you won’t have forgotten either, Comrade, that I’m not in the business of rehabilitation. As a rule, I don’t give people second chances. Yet here I am, out of the goodness of my heart, giving you a second chance. And what a second chance it is, wouldn’t you agree, old widow, hmm? performing for the First Lady of the Philippines? It would be glorious. Nothing less than the final act of your son’s reintegration. By stepping onto that stage, he’d be clean again, a revolutionary once more, don’t you want that for him?

  When perverts were discovered in the ranks, the convention was to send them to a pig farm to scrub their filthy minds. On their return, most cleaned toilets for the rest of their lives. But Jiang Qing — the generous, the innocent — had given Song Yaojin a choice: either he could go to the pig farm, and hazard never returning to the stage again; or he could send his mother and father away in his place, to a camp in the Great Northern Wilderness, and he could continue to dance without interruption. Jiang Qing presented this to Song Yaojin as a choice, but of course she was aware that it was no such thing. Boys like Song Yaojin, the good ones, the chosen ones, could never accept that class struggle ought also to be waged in the home. Opposing the family meant separating family feelings from revolutionary ones, and such a task, simple to most communists, was beyond them.

  —Do you think it’s a small hurt for a mother, to see her son in decline?

  The widow was speaking now, in the form of questions, but in a tone that made them unanswerable, the final word.

  —Every life ought to contain a turn and return, I’ll give you that, but can we call it glorious to put a broken man on the stage, for the world to leer at?

  She shook her head and tutted.

  —No, no. From such a thing, nothing furthers.

  Dark had fallen, and with it an uneasy muteness, by the time they got back to the Compound. In Jiang Qing’s Separate Apartment the lamps had been lit and the radiators turned on. Coming into the study — alone because her daughter had immediately scuttled off to her room — Jiang Qing cast about for a target. With the back of her hand, at full swing, she knocked the chrysanthemum off the desk. Which felt good in the doing, but once done was a let-down. The vase had not shattered. Only some water had chugged out onto the rug, and a few petals had scattered about. Unsatisfying. There was more in her that would have to come out. But as she watched her attendant clean up the spill, and as she imagined the violence that could in that instant so straightforwardly be inflicted upon her, she thought: no. That was what the attendant, what everyone expected of her. They had become so used to her rage that it had become for them just more of the same air. Some of them had even grown to enjoy it, it seemed: the act of turning their cheek, an excuse to feel superior. And if there was something that Jiang Qing knew about herself, it was that she was superior to anyone who felt that way.

  From the phone on the desk, she made two calls. The first was to the leader of her most trusted band of Red Guards, to whom she provided the address of the shoe shop in Dashilar and descriptions of its owner and his wife. Her order, which she said ought to be carried out without delay, was that these two be arrested, and a public tribunal staged at which they would be struggled against and purified.

  —How hard should we go? the Red Guard asked.

  —Hard, she said.

  Her second call was to Chao Ying, her director at the Central Ballet.

  —Call everybody, she said to him. All of the dancers and the entire crew. I want everyone in the Great Hall for rehearsals tomorrow.

  —

  —Hello? Director Chao? Did you hear me?

  A pause and then:

  —With respect, Commander, didn’t we agree that there was no need for rehearsals? The troupe has been dancing The Red Detachment of Woman for years. It’s the model. They know it back to front. Wouldn’t more rehearsals be a waste of time? All we’d be doing is gilding the lily.

  —This is not a discussion, Director Chao. I’m informing you of a decision I’ve made.

  —But Commander, I must ask you to reconsider. Most of the dancers are, as you know, just back from touring and need some rest. There is a danger that more practice now would lead to confusion, or, more grave, boredom and lethargy. In my professional view, it would be counterproductive.

  —The gala performance is Saturday week. That gives us nine days.

  —Nine whole days! But, but why?

  It was times when things were constantly changing, that the people liked to know about. When it came to periods of calm, they were bored and looked away. It was not that they liked chaos; rather, that a reign of peace could last long was unendurable to them.

  —I’ve come to the conclusion, she said, that the model is old and needs changing.

  Eva

  1968

  iii.

  The hitch thing was out. They paid their own fares now like everybody else. With an advance from the Wherehouse budget they rented a white van and bought a ticket for the ferry — to Ostend, it turned out, because the ports in France were closed. During the crossing, on the upper deck, surrounded by some British but by many more French returning, they performed a short piece from their repertoire.

  Entitled Agent Orange, it was what they termed ghost theatre, a performance which involved the public as participants in the action without their knowing it. To begin they sat separately on the benches, or mingled in the crowd, minding their own business and pretending not to know each other. Then gradually, one by one, they became aware of liquid raining on their heads, then of the smell of chemicals in the air, then of symptoms of an illness. They began to clutch their stomachs and groan, to gasp for breath, to shudder, to splutter, to blubber incoherent phrases, to double over, to wretch, to stagger about, until, as if overcome by panic, they dropped to the ground and writhed at the other passengers’ feet. During rehearsals for the piece, they had practised responses to every imaginable intervention from the public. They were ready to incorporate any kind of interruption, including acts of violence, though in previous performances these had occurred only rarely. Ideally spectators would mimic the group by joining them on the ground and thrashing about and screaming, in so doing lending substance to the work’s principal idea, which was that no one was immune to the horrors of Vietnam. But in this instance on the ferry, the spectators took them for clowns; instead of joining in they backed away, and from a safe distance by the railings laughed or clapped or shouted insults. Which for the group did not signify failure exactly. But neither could they claim a great success.

  From Ostend they drove to Brussels and stayed overnight at the Free University, where there was an occupation in progress. Half of the group slept in the van, the other half on the floor of dormitory rooms which the students had opened up to visitors. In the morning they performed a second piece in the quad. Some members had been fearful that the carnival atmosphere on the campus made performing impossible. They felt that, with so many bodies milling about, drinking and singing and chanting and cheering, any attempt to mount a scene or to communicate a message that was not a slogan would fail.
But Eva disagreed.

  —What on earth are we afraid of? she said, for she was a founder of the group and one of its more outspoken members. A bit of disorder? We need to trust each other, and the people here, the situation. Trust is revolutionary change.

  After some discussion they decided on Sayings because it was a piece in which they did not play characters but were themselves, real people going through a real experience. An exercise in authenticity is what they called it, which in the circumstances seemed suitable. Wearing their everyday clothes, they split up and spread themselves around the quad. Individually and according to their own impulses, they approached people — students, professors, members of the public, it did not matter — and told them a single fact about their own experience of living under the controlling powers of state and money.

  —I can’t live without a salary, they said.

  Or:

  —I’m not allowed to take my clothes off in public.

  Or:

  —I’m barred from travelling without a passport.

  Or:

  —I can’t do anything for the Third World.

  Or whatever came up when they abandoned the need to explain and dispensed with the category of right or wrong and instead just spoke the truth about their incarceration in the system.

  Eva, because she had good French, and because she was a woman in a predominantly male crowd, found that she had an advantage. She could get a man’s attention merely by stepping into his path and was able to hold that attention using an unforced look of concern until, with a single phrase well spoken, she convinced him not only of her presence but of her existence. In this way, she initiated a number of worthwhile encounters. The most rewarding of these was with an older man whom she approached outside the library, and whose shoulders she felt bold enough to grasp, and to whom she said:

  —I don’t know how to stop the war.

  The man, possibly a lecturer, responded by twitching his moustache as if in deep thought and, after a significant pause, saying:

  —I know that I should know, mademoiselle, but I don’t either. I’m sorry.

  Looking into his eyes, young into old, she felt the flash that came when one communed deeply with another person; hearing his words, it was confirmed for her that there were no longer strangers when one spoke simply and truthfully. Communication had power so long as one did what one was not expected to.

  Not everyone in the group had such promising experiences. At one point, Eva saw her boyfriend, Álvaro, accost a young student by shouting into his face in English:

  —Don’t you get it, Comrade, don’t you get it?

  Eva watched as the student violently jostled Álvaro and told him to fuck off, and then as Álvaro stormed away back to the van.

  When the group regathered there later, a number of the members were, like Álvaro, in a state of dejection. One after the other, they judged themselves unqualified to perform in such overheated conditions. The occupation, they said, was greater than any individual and beyond the control of any group; anything they did was bound to be swallowed up by it.

  Listening to them, Eva understood that they were unhappy because they wanted recognition instantly.

  —Have patience, she said to them. Our journey has only begun. We’re feeling our way in. Integration won’t come just like that. We’re going to have to work hard for it. We’ll find a way to make a contribution, you’ll see. In Paris there’ll be plenty of opportunities.

  That night, after a majority vote in favour of continuing their journey, they travelled to Paris as a caravan: cars and motorbikes and vans and coaches, all crammed with students and their rucksacks and their rolled-up sleeping bags, everyone so young, so far from grown up that Eva marvelled at the occasion and the seriousness with which it was being enjoyed. Radios blared, horns blasted, drivers swigged from bottles of wine, passengers thrust their limbs out of windows, and several times they almost got killed on the road, driving through the mist in their vision. Nearing the Paris ring road, the Wherehouse group separated from the procession and left the van in a quiet street in Bagnolet, for they had heard that vehicles were being destroyed in the city itself. From there they walked through the Twentieth, into the Eleventh, past the Bastille, across the Pont de Sully, arriving at the Latin Quarter as the birds were beginning to sing and the sky to lighten.

  On boulevard Saint-Germain it looked like the morning after a giant storm. Rows of windows had been smashed. Shops boarded up. Trees felled. Cars overturned. Swathes of street converted to mud where the paving stones had been torn up. The smell was burnt rubber. The sting in the eyes was sleeplessness; tonight it would be tear gas.

  Álvaro had the map, so the group followed behind him in loose formation. Mimicking Álvaro, who himself seemed to be mimicking the spy heroes of Hollywood, or the guerrillas in the Vietnamese jungle, they moved quickly and kept close to the houses. When they heard a loud noise, such as a siren or a bang, they ducked into the doorways and crouched down. The intention was to obscure themselves and avoid danger, though it was uncertain what the danger was. As disorderly, as desolate as the scene appeared, it was not a war zone. There were no snipers on the balconies, nor mines buried in the ground underfoot, nor even a single flic to be seen. Instead there were bands of students lounging on the barricades, sharing pastries and coffee from flasks. Laughing couples sauntering past hand in hand. Old women walking their dogs. All the same, the group did not feel safe. They were foreigners. Not yet adjusted to events, they were vacillating now to confidence and now to fear.

  —There’s nothing to be afraid of, Eva would repeat from time to time.

  The ultimate reassurance and the ultimate terror.

  At Odéon metro station they turned off Saint-Germain and made their way through the Left Bank streets to the square of St-Sulpice Church. There, they took off their shoes and bathed their tired feet in the stagnant water of the fountain while they waited for Max. Their appointment with him was for ten o’clock. At twelve a man called Alain came. With brisk formality, he embraced each member of the group, repeating his name in turn so that everyone would know it.

  —Max sent me to get you. He couldn’t make it himself. He’s wrapped up in something else.

  —Where is he? said Eva.

  —I couldn’t tell you. By now, anywhere.

  —Did he say where we should meet him?

  Alain ignored her.

  —Hop hop hop, he said, and set off in a hurry.

  He took them to an attic room in a house a few streets away. The room — three paces wide and four long, without a toilet or a sink — was to accommodate the entire group.

  —It’s actually my storage room, Alain said. As a favour to Max, I’ve cleared it out so you can use it. Those are my boxes in the corridor, please don’t touch them. I live downstairs, 5A on the third floor? Normally you’d be welcome to stay there, but I already have too many guests. I can’t take in any more.

  He suggested that they lay their sleeping bags out on the floor and take turns to sleep. When they needed to shit, they should use the cafés.

  —Forget about washing, he said. This is no time to care about that.

  Switching rapidly between French and English, he gave a brief history of the uprising, why it started, and how and when, and who were the people and the parties putting their mark on it. On Álvaro’s map he drew red crosses on the centres of activity: Sorbonne University, the School of Fine Arts, the Odéon theatre.

  —Is that where we’d find Max? Eva asked. At the Odéon?

  —That’s the last place I saw him, Alain said.

  —So he isn’t staying with you?

  —Not this time. Max has so many friends. He could be staying with any number of people.

  —How about Doris Lever, do you know her? The body artist?

  —Of course.

  Alain sneered.

&n
bsp; —Everyone knows Doris. She’s not staying with me either, unfortunately. I wish she was. Imagine having Doris Lever as a guest. That would be an experience.

  —Do you know where we’d find her?

  —Are you trying to get a meeting with Doris Lever?

  —Well, she’s one of our contacts.

  Alain looked impressed first, suspicious second.

  —Really? he said.

  —Really.

  Alain frowned, disbelieving.

  —Well, if you do find her, good luck getting past her entourage.

  —Has she been around?

  —I saw her and Max together. I think they know each other from London? Maybe he could introduce you to her.

  —I don’t need an introduction to Doris Lever, Alain.

  Eva spoke firmly, as a demand to be taken seriously, but also out of fatigue; she was worn out from years of being told how big, how talented, how wild Doris Lever was by people who had seen her work maybe once and did not know anything more than that about her. Eva — yes, me, here, is anyone listening? — had known Doris before she was DORIS, back when she was still a nobody. Her father’s assistant at The East Wind theatre in King’s Cross. The secretary. The dogsbody. The bit on the side. What distinguished Eva from other people was her unwillingness to broadcast this around or feel triumphant about it.