by Gavin McCrea
She shook her head sadly.
—He understands everything that’s said to him, and mouths his responses, which Margot then speaks. An interpreter. Like your daughter here. Can you imagine? A sublime dancer brought to the level of a—? Were my Ferdie in the same condition, would I be so devoted? You can’t ever really say, can you? until you’re actually put in that position.
The sun had sunk down into the vegetation; the jagged treetops nibbled at its lower edges. Power was passing to the lanterns, whose glow was beginning to settle on Mrs Marcos’s skin.
Jiang Qing gave her assistant the signal, and Wenge was summoned from where she was waiting out of sight amongst the trees and ushered into the pavilion.
—Come on, Wenge, don’t be shy, Jiang Qing said.
The girl, head bowed, stood in front of the two women. She was wearing her everyday clothes, but, having just finished the final run-through of that evening’s performance, her face was heavily made up and still damp with sweat.
—This, said Jiang Qing to Mrs Marcos, is my rising star. She plays the ARMY CAPTAIN tonight.
—Did you say she? Forgive me, she just looks so, well, I thought she was—
—I personally chose her and prepared her for the role.
Wenge stood absolutely still, her eyes cast down. Mrs Marcos asked her a few polite questions about her work — when did she start dancing? who is her favourite dancer? is it harder to perform a male part? — which she answered by shaking and nodding her head.
—I’ve always found it amazing, Mrs Marcos said then, turning to Jiang Qing, that some people in this world are born to perform, and that it’s only in order to perform that they live. Whenever I have the honour of being in the company of such people, I like to turn the tables and do a little performance for them. It’s my way of giving back to those—
She turned back to the girl.
—such as yourself, young Wenge, who work so hard to make the world more beautiful.
—Did you hear that, Wenge? said Jiang Qing. What do you say, child?
—Thank you, Wenge said.
—In making the world more beautiful, you improve it, said Mrs Marcos. Art and culture and a taste for beauty leads people to goodness, that’s a fact. Or maybe I’m just prejudiced. We Filipinos are for beauty. It’s in our wiring. So what do you say, Wenge? Shall I sing a song for you? The only question is, what’ll I sing?
She called out something in Filipino, and her guard responded.
—That’s a good idea, she said now in English. I’ll do ‘Ako’y Isang Ibong Sawi’, which is a traditional Filipino love song depicting the tragedy of a felled bird. Do you like the sound of that? It’s sad but, I hope you’ll agree, all the more gorgeous for it.
In a single fluid movement, she raised her hand and her guard stepped forward and took it, helped her out of her seat and led her to the centre of the pavilion.
Wenge surrendered the space by taking two steps back.
Jiang Qing waved at her, irritably, and the girl retreated as far as the balustrade.
Mrs Marcos stood with her legs apart like a man and sang like a trained soprano.
Look at her well. This is a goddess of beauty and love.
When Mrs Marcos was finished, Jiang Qing leapt to her feet and began to clap. By twisting round and raising her clapping hands, she indicated to her assistants that they ought to join in. The assistants moved into the lantern light in order to be seen doing so. Mrs Marcos bowed, not in the learned and exaggerated manner of a theatre actor but with total naturalness, exactly as a rural woman of her age would be expected to, having sung a song for her family after dinner. Seen from this close, with the naked eye, Mrs Marcos was really nothing like her image on television. Her gestures — the cameras did not pick this up — were unmistakably those of a provincial peasant.
Jiang Qing kept the applause going until Mrs Marcos had sat back down again. She then dismissed Wenge, telling an assistant to get the girl back to the Great Hall as quickly as possible.
—You’re right, Mrs Marcos, she said once Wenge had gone. Even without understanding the words, the song broke my heart. Is it a popular song?
—I suppose you could say that.
—Does that mean the people in the Philippines are sad?
Mrs Marcos laughed:
—Madame Mao, in my country there are many poor people. It’s common knowledge that the Filipinos live in slums and hovels. But what counts is the human spirit, and the Filipinos are smiling. They smile because they’re a little healthy, a little educated, a little loved. That’s the formula. The real index is not the economic index but the smiles on people’s faces.
—In China, said Jiang Qing, the poor also smile, but in their case it’s because they have Mao. Thanks to him, they don’t need sad songs. They sing about their desire for change, for action and for revolution. They give thanks to Mao because he has shown them the way out of poverty.
—Yours is another world, said Mrs Marcos. In the Philippines, you go and talk to poor people, and what do they want? They want only to be successful. Is there a philosophy of success? If so, the Filipinos know all about it.
—Success is what a Filipino believes in, growing up?
—Why, yes, though personally I didn’t have to. I had the fortune and misfortune of being born into a powerful family, where success was taken for granted.
Jiang Qing kept a stone face: the dossier had clearly stated that Mrs Marcos had grown up in poverty, and the dossier was rarely wrong.
—The truth is that I’m not fit to be a poor woman. I often wish I was. I sometimes think it would be easier than carrying all of this responsibility on my shoulders.
—There’s no shame in being poor, Mrs Marcos. Mao himself was a peasant.
—Of course there’s no shame in it. Just as there’s no shame in being rich either. I happen to like rich people. I don’t mind saying it. I take pride in the contemporary unpopularity of that view. They’re charming, they’re generous, they’ve learned to appreciate the same fine things that I appreciate.
Jiang Qing glared at Li Na, who was obviously relishing having these words in her mouth.
—Wouldn’t you say that in order to eradicate poverty, you must eradicate private wealth?
—Logically speaking, that may be so, said Mrs Marcos. But the world isn’t logical. Societies aren’t logical. The rich, in fact, play an essential role in modern society. They keep the arts going, for one.
—We believe the masses should be in charge of the arts, said Jiang Qing. Culture should be produced by them and reflect their concerns.
—What the poor need are dreams.
Mrs Marcos’s face had hardened.
—I supply those dreams to them. That is what I work so hard to do. I fulfil their wishes by being a star.
Her smile returned, her teeth sparkling.
—Something you surely understand, Madame Mao, having been an actress yourself?
Before Liberation, people used to talk of dreams of youth. These were dreams which one acquired early in life and which, it was supposed, one never lost, regardless of one’s subsequent fate. Even if one ended up living a dog’s existence cowering under the landlord’s whip, one’s dream was meant to stay in one’s possession, deep within the psyche, untouched by the elements, pristine in the face of oppression, a source of hope even in hopeless places. What the Revolution showed was that, if such dreams did not die, it was only because they had never really lived. They were illusions whose power was drawn precisely from one’s certainty that they could never come true. Bred in capitalist laboratories — the so-called boardrooms — and injected by means of the popular media into the mind, they caused dissatisfaction to grow there. When she was young, Jiang Qing, too, had been a victim of such dreams. Not the dreams of a people, but an individual’s dreams. Dreams a revolution could not contain.
—Memories are depressing, she said now.
—You can’t cut off memories, said Mrs Marcos.
The guest had come to the edge of her seat. Taking hold of the armrests, she now tried to slide the chair forwards. Jiang Qing gestured to her assistants to help her. Mrs Marcos stood up in order to allow them to lift the chair and carry it closer to Jiang Qing’s. Seated again, Mrs Marcos was now close enough that Jiang Qing could see the lantern light shimmer in her lacquered hair, and to differentiate first between the sectioned waves, then every single strand.
—I don’t remember much about my acting, said Jiang Qing. I’m similar to a Western person in that sense. I look forward, seldom back.
—You must remember something.
—It’s not that I don’t remember, but, like a photograph of a dead friend, that time is painful to think about, and far away. Looking back, I find it hard to understand.
—We all did things when we were young.
—I prefer to think about positive things.
I wasn’t like some of the other girls. I didn’t seek fame. It’s true I went to fine restaurants, but all I ordered was a portion of steamed bread, which I nibbled at slowly, one quarter at a time. And I never took anything from men.
—Your past is nothing to be coy about, Madame Mao. You’re the most powerful actress in history.
—No—
Jiang Qing spoke dead seriously.
—that is Greta Garbo.
Mrs Marcos laughed, which shocked Jiang Qing.
The shock must have shown, for Mrs Marcos immediately stopped laughing.
—The Americans have been unfair to Garbo, said Jiang Qing, by failing to give her an Academy Award. I believe this is the fault of those in power in the United States and not of the American masses. Capitalists are afraid of the likes of Garbo. Rebels. People with true dignity.
—Garbo? said Mrs Marcos. Let me see. When I think of Garbo, I think of how lonely she appeared. She projected this air of solitude. Maybe it’s inevitable. Everyone who strives to be unique has to come to terms with being alone. Look at us. First Ladies are the loneliest people of all.
The women had dropped their voices to a whisper, and were leaning into each other, scrutinising each other’s faces. By now it felt like there was a mental channel connecting them. Li Na, although she had dragged her stool right into the intermediate space, had disappeared from their view.
—Of the parts you played, said Mrs Marcos, which was your favourite?
—I don’t know. I was NORA once. In The Doll’s House.
—No, no, no, no—
Mrs Marcos shook her head and waved a finger in the air.
—you’re no NORA. No, that’s not right. You don’t leave the house. You don’t run away. If anyone, you’re a MISS JULIE. You see the fight through to the end.
—How can you be sure?
—I’m a MISS JULIE. It takes one to know one.
Mrs Marcos reached out an open hand.
Jiang Qing looked at it:
—What does she want?
—I think she wants you to give her your hand, said Li Na.
—I want to read your palm, said Mrs Marcos.
Jiang Qing glanced around the pavilion and out into the garden. In the radiance of the lanterns, her assistants stood in their designated places like marble statues in a museum. But they were alive, she had to remember that. They had eyes. And they had ears.
—I’ve always felt I had a gift, said Mrs Marcos. I can’t claim to be clairvoyant or anything like that, but I’m able to attain a certain perspective on the future. Little that I’ve foretold in the past hasn’t come true.
—My mother was superstitious, said Jiang Qing. She believed that when a person is sick, their soul is capable of slipping out of the body and wandering about. I’m not my mother.
—I’m not your mother either, said Mrs Marcos. Think of this as a game between friends. You don’t have to take anything I say seriously, if you don’t want to.
Jiang Qing glanced at Li Na, then back at Mrs Marcos, then back at Li Na, who urged her on by enlarging her eyes and twitching her lip.
—We must let history tell the future.
—Go on, Ma, it’s just a bit of fun.
Jiang Qing opened her palm and placed it in Mrs Marcos’s hands.
—What’s your date of birth? Mrs Marcos said.
Jiang Qing told her her birthday according to the solar calendar, the lunar calendar and the Gregorian calendar.
—Now close your eyes, said Mrs Marcos. Empty your mind. Breathe in through your mouth and let the energy rise to your hands.
Jiang Qing felt Mrs Marcos’s fingernail trace the lines in her skin.
—Here’s the sky line, said Mrs Marcos. Here’s the man line. Here’s the—. No, don’t look. Keep your eyes closed. Follow my finger with your mind. Yes, that’s it. This is the earth line. The sun line. The health line. The horizontal bracelet lines on your wrist are complicated.
Jiang Qing felt Mrs Marcos massaging the bones in her hand and fingers.
—Are your palms starting to sweat?
—Yes.
—Good. Now shall I tell you what I see?
Because they could not be seen arriving together, Jiang Qing and Mrs Marcos travelled to the Great Hall in separate cars. Jiang Qing told her driver to take the surface roads rather than the tunnel, and to tail Mrs Marcos. Dark had fallen on the city. Jiang Qing looked out through the windscreen at the rear lights of the limousine ahead. A mesmerising dance of red and orange lights, over which her own thoughts were layered; thoughts which appeared not as language but as a series of rapidly changing images: Did she enjoying looking at me? Did she like being near me? Did she think I was attractive? Did she think I was stupid? Did I bore her? Did she think I was talented? When she laughed, was it at me?
At the Great Hall, the two cars parted ways, Mrs Marcos’s to the main entrance where a welcoming committee was waiting for her, Jiang Qing’s to the officials’ entrance at the side. A hundred metres from the door, Jiang Qing banged on the car ceiling and told the driver to pull over.
—What’s wrong? said Li Na.
Jiang Qing turned to her daughter, who had her elbow on the window ledge, and her cheek resting in her hand. The darkness, suspended in the air like a powder, created lines on the skin of Li Na’s face — across her forehead and around her cheeks and under her eyes — which made it look as though the girl was being haunted by old age already.
—What do you think she meant?
Li Na flashed a look at the driver.
Jiang Qing pressed a button, and a pane of glass rose up, sealing them off from the driver’s seat.
—Don’t obsess, Ma. It was just a game. Forget it now.
Do you miss acting? Do you ever think you’d like to do it again? Because, you know, there will be life after Mao. Your fate line tells me so. This was what Mrs Marcos had said. How could Jiang Qing just forget that?
—Daughter of mine, I want you to know, she said now, that I don’t believe Mao could ever be replaced. Just as there aren’t two suns, there aren’t two Maos.
—So why even mention it? said Li Na.
—I just wanted to reassure you.
But had not Mrs Marcos also said that the people should honour the wife when the man had left his chair empty?
The proximity of your marriage line and your life line denote a person who would make an able prime minister. Which is not as outrageous as it sounds. The reason England is not as backward as the Eastern countries is because it has often been ruled by queens.
—Mao can’t be equalled, said Jiang Qing now to Li Na, just as the sky cannot be scaled. But do you know something, child?
What a husband does rubs off on his wife. She becomes like him. Colder. Harder. Less hesitating. Without fea
r of opinion. It’s enough that a wife simply be herself to the utmost, and she will win.
—I’m not afraid of anything. I’m not afraid of what comes next.
—What’re you talking about, Ma?
—I’ll do everything in my power to ensure Mao’s legacy isn’t betrayed. I won’t baulk at doing what’s necessary to keep the leadership of the Party in the hands of a true proletarian revolutionary.
—Ma, don’t talk like that out loud.
A wife had a choice: age obscurely or vie for a place in the community of leaders. By choosing the latter, she gave her nation a second chance to realise its ancient dream of being ruled by a being pure of heart. But a wife ought not deceive herself either. She had to struggle in order not to be trampled on. Outlasting her enemies required terribleness, which was part of greatness. Criticism of her would flare up while men who deserved such criticism would keep their good names. That was the way of things. But to her it would not matter. She wanted, above all, to be of use to her people. If that meant being a victim, she was glad to be a victim of this sort. I have always been criticised for being excessive, Mrs Marcos had said, but that’s what mothering is. You need a mother in government to make it whole.
Jiang Qing pressed the intercom button:
—Drive on.
A moment then and they had arrived. Jiang Qing did not wait for the car door to be opened but got straight out and bolted inside.
—Where are you going, Ma? Li Na shouted after her.
—Make your own way to the auditorium, Jiang Qing said. I’ll see you there in a minute.
She entered the backstage through the offices, bursting through double door after double door. The corridors outside the dressing rooms were filled with dancers milling about. On seeing Jiang Qing, they went silent and pressed their backs against the walls; once Jiang Qing had passed through, they dashed off in different directions. Jiang Qing opened the dressing room doors, one by one. Inside, the dancers putting on their make-up looked at her questioningly through their mirrors; those in the course of dressing themselves covered their nakedness with their hands.