The Incarnations

by Susan Barker

  The tragedy of Comrade Po’s life under the Nationalists reduces our class to tears. Red Star weeps on to her desk lid, and Soviet Chen shakes with her head in her hands. My eyes remain stubbornly dry, and I panic because I don’t feel sorrow for Comrade Po as he stands on the teaching platform, wiggling a finger about in his nose. So I think of my father, sent to a labour camp in Qinghai because his department had to expel a quota of rightists in the latest Anti-Rightist campaign. Ma and I haven’t had a letter from Father in over a year. Though we daren’t say it, we fear he is dead. Tears drip on to my desk and I am relieved. Now in the eyes of others my conscience is politically correct.

  A spinster devoted to Communism, Teacher Zhao is deeply moved by Comrade Po’s tales. Behind the thick magnifying lenses of her glasses, her eyes well up.

  ‘Comrades!’ Teacher Zhao cries. ‘Let Comrade Po’s tragic story remind us why we must be revolutionary and fight!’

  Teacher Zhao punches her fist to the ceiling, a damp patch of revolutionary fervour in the armpit of her chalk-dusty Mao jacket, and our class applauds. Comrade Po grins and flicks his nose pickings and, above the blackboard, Chairman Mao watches approvingly from his gilded frame.

  The winter sun is setting, the alley shadows lengthening into dusk. I walk briskly, my satchel bouncing at my side, my breath fogging in the freezing air. I am nearly home and out of the cold when a shout turns my head.

  ‘Yi Moon! Stop!’

  Red Star, Long March, Patriotic Hua and all their hangers-on stride down Vinegar Makers Alley towards me. Hair in braids. Padded-cotton jackets buttoned up. Trousers long and grey. They crowd around me, exhaling white clouds of contempt and backing me up against a wall.

  ‘Why were you smirking during Comrade Po’s story?’ Long March asks. ‘You thought he was smelly and backward, didn’t you? You thought his daughter’s suicide was funny.’

  Though speaking back to Long March only makes matters worse, I say, ‘I wasn’t smirking. Comrade Po’s daughter’s suicide was very sad. I was crying like the rest of the class.’

  ‘No, you weren’t,’ Resist America says. ‘I saw you and you didn’t shed a tear.’

  ‘I cried.’

  ‘How dare you accuse Resist America of being a liar?’ Long March says, her eyes flashing in outrage. ‘Rightist bitch! Your father deserves to be worked to death in that labour camp!’

  ‘Everyone saw you laughing at Comrade Po,’ says Red Star.

  The others nod and chime in that they saw me laughing too, and I shrink back. There is not one girl not complicit in this group lie. A shy girl called Socialist Flower steps towards me with a glass bottle of red paint. Socialist Flower’s shyness, and the fact that her father was once condemned as a rightist too, had led me to think she was a secret ally of mine. But I was mistaken. Socialist Flower’s nose twitches as she holds the bottle, excited to be one of Long March’s gang.

  ‘Yi Moon is a capitalist parasite, sucking the blood of the masses!’ Red Star says. ‘The time has come to cure her blood thirst once and for all!’

  I look at the red liquid in Socialist Flower’s glass bottle, sedimented at the bottom, clearer at the top. That’s actual blood, I think, shocked. Resist America and Patriotic Hua grab my arms. ‘Please! No!’ I cry. Socialist Flower giggles nervously as she moves the bottle to my lips.

  ‘Drink, Rightist!’ Long March commands. ‘Drink!’

  I jerk my head back and clamp my lips.

  ‘Throw it at her!’ Resist America shouts.

  There are gasps of horror and delight as Socialist Flower splashes blood over my mouth, down my chin and cotton jacket. The stench of blood fills my nose. Blood drips on the ground as I bend over and retch.

  ‘Pour the blood over her, Socialist Flower!’ Long March orders. ‘Over her head!’

  Socialist Flower giggles as she lifts the bottle, still three quarters full. Resist America yanks my head back up by my hair, and I squeeze my eyes shut tight.

  ‘Drink, Rightist!’ she orders. ‘Open your mouth . . .’

  Bells jangle and brakes screech, and I open my eyes instead.

  ‘Hey!’

  Your Flying Pigeon skids to a halt and the girls turn to look at you: Zhang Liya, leader of the Beijing No. 104 Middle School for Girls’ detachment of the Communist Youth League. You straddle the saddle of your bike, hands squeezing the brakes. You arch your eyebrow at our scuffle. ‘Comrades,’ you say, ‘what are you up to with Yi Moon?’

  Socialist Flower smiles uncertainly. She holds the bottle over my head, not sure what to do.

  ‘We are disciplining Moon for laughing at Comrade Po during today’s lesson in “Recalling with Bitterness the Exploitation of the Peasant Classes by Evil Landlords”,’ explains Long March. ‘Moon’s laughter is evidence of her counter-revolutionary views.’

  ‘Moon’s too timid to raise her hand, never mind laugh at a speaker in class,’ you say scornfully. ‘Leave her alone now. You’ve splashed blood on her already. You’ve gone far enough.’

  Frustration twists Long March’s pretty face into ugliness. ‘But Liya,’ she says sharply, ‘Yi Moon is a class enemy and must be punished!’

  ‘I said, “Leave her alone,”’ you repeat.

  Silence. They let me go, and I wipe frantically at my mouth and chin. Long March fumes as though she wants to snatch the bottle from Socialist Flower and smash it over your head. But she doesn’t dare protest. Your father is a high-ranking Party official, chauffeured to Zhongnanhai every morning in a black car that glides through the streets of Haidian. One word to your father and higher Communist powers would come down on Long March like a People’s Liberation Army boot stamping on a cockroach. You command respect and obedience from every student in our school. But power hasn’t corrupted you. Recognizing that Long March’s pride has been wounded, you say in a conciliatory tone, ‘Go on ahead, Long March. Go and start the Youth League meeting without me. You can lead the meeting tonight.’

  Long March nods, placated to be put in charge. ‘Capitalist parasite,’ she hisses at me.

  And our classmates walk away. They turn the corner of Vinegar Makers Alley, and we are alone. I stammer my thanks and you lean on the handlebars of your bike and regard me with your clear, strong gaze. Your short hair frames a striking face, with high cheekbones and eyes as determined as those of a heroine in a propaganda poster. Every year you are cast as the revolutionary lead in the school play, but this is as much down to your birthright as your good looks. Before he became a Party official, your father fought the Nationalists, then served as a commander in the Korean War (sacrificing his right eye during hand-to-hand combat with an American soldier in Pyongyang). Some people are born to stand out from the crowd and lead, I think, gazing at you in admiration. You gaze back as though thinking the opposite of me.

  ‘Pig’s blood,’ you say. ‘You better rinse your clothes in cold water when you get home.’

  Pig’s blood. Nausea turns my stomach, and I wipe again at my blood-smeared mouth.

  ‘Long March goes too far,’ you admit. ‘I’ll speak to her. I’ll ask her to stop these attacks.’

  ‘Why does she hate me so much?’ I ask.

  I expect you to say it’s because Long March is a staunch Communist and vigilant with class enemies. But instead you say, ‘Long March is an unhappy person. People who are unhappy often hurt others.’

  I consider this, and then say dismally, ‘But I am unhappy. I don’t go around bullying people.’

  ‘That’s because you haven’t had the chance.’

  Then you are gone. Pedalling up Vinegar Makers Alley to catch up with your friends, leaving me with the pale wisps of your strange remark lingering in the freezing air.

  When I get home, I go straight to the communal standpipe in our courtyard and crouch by the spluttering tap to wash the blood from my hands and face. I strip off my jacket and throw it in the bucket underneath. Shivering in my vest, I plunge my hands in the near-frozen water to scrub out the blood before my moth
er catches me. But my timing is bad, and she emerges from our room with a bowl of carrots to be rinsed.

  ‘Why are you washing your jacket, Moon?’ she asks.

  ‘I spilled red paint in art class,’ I say. ‘We were painting political slogans and I knocked the paint pot over.’

  The wrinkles deepen around my mother’s concerned eyes. ‘Little Moon,’ she says, ‘tell me the truth. What happened? Are your classmates picking on you again?’

  I stare into the bucket, watching the blood eddying in the water. My mother puts down the soil-muddy carrots, places her hand on my shoulder, and asks, ‘Do you love Chairman Mao with all your heart?’

  I nod. Of course I do.

  ‘Well, Moon, you must let your love of Chairman Mao shine out. When those girls recognize that love, shining for Chairman Mao in your heart, they will leave you alone.’

  I nod. ‘Okay, Ma.’

  My mother smiles a drained, tired smile. Since my father was sent to Qinghai, her belief in Chairman Mao and the Party has become very devout. It’s not enough, she says, to be revolutionary merely in action. It’s not enough to take up a spade and toil for sixteen hours a day when the Party conscripts you to dig a reservoir by the Ming Tombs. It’s not enough to spend every waking hour chasing sparrows, rats, mosquitoes and flies when the Party tells us the Four Pests must be eradicated. It’s not enough to melt our pots and pans in backyard furnaces when the Party tells us our national iron production must overtake the West’s. To be revolutionary merely in action is not enough. If you don’t love Chairman Mao in your heart of hearts, the Party will find out, like they found my father out. They will arrest you and send you away to Qinghai.

  My mother squats down and gently nudges me from the bucket. ‘Let me wash that for you, Moonbeam,’ she says. ‘Go indoors and warm up by the stove.’

  My mother plunges her arthritic hands into the pig’s-blood-tainted water and scrubs. Shivering, I stand up, and as I cross the courtyard to our room, I see Granny Xi glaring at me out of her window. After my father was convicted as a rightist, Granny Xi organized a petition, calling on the Residents’ Committee to evict us. Though the petition was signed by the other families in the courtyard, we haven’t yet been served an eviction notice. Offended that we are still here, our neighbours refuse to look at my mother and me. Granny Xi glares right at us, though. She makes her hatred of class enemies known.

  The next morning I wake at six, wash and get dressed. Mother serves breakfast, then scolds my lack of appetite as I struggle to eat her rice porridge (‘Think of all the starving children in America!’). At seven I say goodbye and leave. But instead of going to the Beijing No. 104 Middle School for Girls, I go to the local junk yard and wait until my mother leaves for her cleaning job. Then I return to our room and daydream the rest of my day away.

  I don’t go to school for three days. I know that Teacher Zhao will send a letter to my mother, and I will be caught. But whatever punishment lies in wait is worth the respite from my classmates’ hate.

  There is a knocking on our door in the evening. Mother stiffens and lowers the woollen sock she is knitting, and we exchange nervous looks. Since father was sent to the labour camp, no one has come to visit us. A knocking in the night can only be bad news.

  ‘Who is it?’ my mother calls anxiously.

  ‘Zhang Liya. I have come to speak to Yi Moon.’

  My mother leaps up and throws open the door, as though to keep you waiting for even a second would be a grave discourtesy.

  ‘Zhang Liya!’ she cries. ‘What an honour! Come in!’

  My mother trips over her feet as she fetches you a chair, then apologizes profusely for the chair’s wobbly legs. You sit down and Mother brings you a cup of tea, which you politely accept and sip beneath my mother’s astonished gaze. Though I am embarrassed by my mother’s bowing and scraping, I am just as stunned to see Zhang Liya, daughter of an eminent Communist official, in our dingy, cramped room of broken furniture and smoke-sooty walls. Sensing that you want to talk to me privately, my mother says brightly, ‘Excuse me, Zhang Liya, but I must go to the store to buy some eggs!’ And before we can point out that the shops closed hours ago, she grabs her coat and dashes out into the freezing night.

  You sit, hands in lap, in the wobbly-legged chair. Your deep-set eyes drift over the used tea leaves Ma has spread out to dry on newspaper (to brew second or third pots), and our damp underwear pegged on a line above the coal-burning stove, which leaks headachey fumes. Your gaze comes to rest on me.

  ‘Yi Moon, Teacher Zhao wants to know why you haven’t you been in school.’

  ‘Oh . . .’ I say, flushing. ‘Stomach flu . . .’ I am a clumsy liar, and I look down at my lap, flustered.

  ‘I spoke to Long March,’ you say, brushing aside my lie, ‘and Long March has given me her word that she won’t bully you any more. I spoke to Teacher Zhao too, and she has promised that if you are back at your desk tomorrow, you won’t be disciplined for missing school.’

  I stare at you, speechless. How did you convince Teacher Zhao to bend the rules for another pupil? How can a fifteen-year-old have such power and sway?

  ‘You must go back to school, Yi Moon,’ you urge, ‘or you will make everything worse for yourself . . .’

  What could be worse than school? I think. But I nod and say, ‘Thank you, Zhang Liya. I will be back in class tomorrow.’

  You nod back, satisfied. Then you stand and go to the door. Out in the courtyard, I watch you kick up the kickstand of your Flying Pigeon. Your eyes obscured in the darkness, I am suddenly emboldened enough to ask, ‘Zhang Liya, why are you being so kind to me?’

  You look at me uncertainly. Then you wheel your bicycle out the gate, leaving my question unanswered in the night.

  Back at school, everything is as you said. Teacher Zhao nods her salt-and-pepper head in approval when she sees me at my desk. Though I have no note from my mother, she doesn’t ask about my absence. Long March and her gang don’t ask either and go on braiding each other’s hair and singing ‘The East is Red’ before the morning bell. The day goes on and no one shoots me any hateful looks. No one ‘accidentally’ barges into me or trips me up. No one hisses ‘Stinking Rightist’ in the hall. There’s no opening of my desk lid to find a pot of glue poured over my books. It’s as though there’s an invisible circle around me that no one dares cross.

  During the breaks from lessons, I roam the playground on my own then read in a corner of the library. Most girls would be miserable to be cast out by their classmates. Most girls would be forlorn. But after Long March and her gang’s long campaign of hate, I am relieved.

  On Sunday morning, I am studying a history book about the Communists’ defeat of the Japanese devils in the War of Resistance against Japan, when there is a knock at the door. My mother puts down the handkerchief she is embroidering with ‘Long Live Chairman Mao’ and goes to answer. I hear your strong, distinctive voice, but don’t catch your words.

  ‘Wait a moment!’ my mother shrills in excitement. ‘I’ll ask her!’ She turns back into our dark hovel, skirt and apron flaring. ‘Zhang Liya wants to know if you’ll go on a bike ride with her!’

  ‘But I don’t own a bike.’

  Bells are trilling outside. I put my homework aside and go to the door. In the courtyard you stand holding two shiny, brand-new Flying Pigeons by the handlebars. Your short hair is tucked behind your ears and you look military and tough in your father’s hand-me-down People’s Liberation Army jacket.

  ‘Which bicycle do you want, Moon?’ you ask. ‘The red one, or the blue?’

  We cycle through Haidian, past Tsinghua University, to the ruins of the Old Summer Palace, torched by the British and French devils during the Qing Dynasty. We climb off our bikes and push them by the handlebars as we walk amongst the collapsed pillars and arches of the once-majestic palace, now desolate and overgrown with weeds. We trample through the withered grasses and you say sombrely, ‘These ruins symbolize how weak China was before Libera
tion. How fortunate we are that Chairman Mao taught our nation to stand up and be proud!’

  I nod. I vehemently agree.

  ‘Chairman Mao would never have let the foreign devils ransack our palaces! He would have sent out the People’s Liberation Army, one million strong, to destroy them!’

  You smile at this. The wind blows your short hair up from the roots, and your eyes shine with patriotic pride. ‘After high school I am going to join the army and fight to defend our motherland,’ you declare. ‘And when I can no longer fight, I will serve the people by becoming a Party official. I’m not going to university. I’d rather have adventures than learn from books.’

  Though I have no desire to be a soldier or politician, I envy your ambition. I envy your confidence that your ambitions will be fulfilled. ‘What about you, Yi Moon?’ you ask. ‘What will you do after school?’

  ‘The government will assign me a job,’ I say quietly. ‘I will most likely end up as a cleaner like my mother.’

  You frown at me, concerned. ‘Why are your ambitions so low?’ you ask. ‘You are very clever. You could study at Tsinghua if you wanted. You could be more than a cleaner . . .’

  I want to explain that I will never go to university because of my father. But I remember my mother’s advice: Before you so much as breathe, think about whether it could be misconstrued as a criticism about the Party. ‘Misconstrued’ because my mother and I have no criticisms. We support everything the Party does.

  ‘Ordinary workers are important,’ I say. ‘They serve the people and the motherland too. I will be proud to be a cleaner, and will work my hardest at the job.’

  You nod, accepting that I will be content to mop floors for the rest of my life. And suddenly I am heavy of heart, for my future looks as bleak and hopeless as my life now.

  At dusk we cycle to a noodle shop in Wet Nurse Alley, where the owner greets you like a visiting dignitary and immediately serves us two bowls of noodles with ground beef.