All the Flowers in Shanghai

by Duncan Jepson

  Madam Zhang took hold of my shoulders and gave them a shake. She came around the other side of the table and, leaning on her elbows, spoke gently but firmly to me.

  “Now stop. If you are going to survive here, you must be stronger. I don’t know what you did . . . you can tell me when you’re ready and not until then. I’ve often traveled the country, working for families like yours, and like all those who move around, I have seen death, killings, disease. Have watched others lose their children and lost my own. We must swallow down such bitterness and keep living, hoping that fortune will help us.” She paused then said assertively, “Everything is for the Party now. We’re too old to follow the youth who will lead us to the world of devils, so we must remain practical if we want to survive.”

  I looked down. I thought of all that had happened to bring me here. I had run away to this place, with no idea of how I was going to live. I had been lucky already, finding her and these old women. I could have been lost like so many others . . . like Bi. I bit my lip. I knew I did not deserve this luck. I closed my eyes, but could still feel the stirring of Madam Zhang’s breath as she continued to watch me closely. A few tears rolled slowly down my cheeks and dropped on the table below. Madam Zhang remained still. I saw Lu Meng limping when he was a small boy, practicing his martial arts so bravely and, later, rescuing his sister from the violence of my belt. I imagined Xiong Fa sitting alone, slumped against the back of a chair in his apartment, trying to understand what had happened, his eyes bloodshot from tiredness. I thought of you and the scar I gave you.

  Chapter 24

  I opened my eyes and Madam Zhang was still there.

  “Are we doing something good?” I asked her. “I need to do something good.”

  “Feng Feng, I don’t know if what we’re doing is good. Like when I made your wedding dress, there is no choice but to do it with every good intention and then hope. I think we Chinese don’t think so far ahead. We leave that to the Emperor . . . that is why we have such a long history.” She laughed.

  I laughed a little, too.

  “Go get some buttons and cloth and practice for a while. I have some things to do myself,” she said finally.

  I sewed for forty minutes and became competent enough to be trusted with the task while Madam Zhang finished her books. When she eventually locked up, we went out into the street. We walked for half a mile and turned into a narrow road. The whole town was very quiet. There were houses to either side, built of the same gray brick, and through the windows we could see the same weak candlelight. From each roof protruded a metal pipe from which soot drifted into the air and filled our nostrils with the smell of coal dust. There were no streetlights so we walked carefully and slowly. After fifteen minutes we turned right into a small lane, just wide enough for two people to walk together. Looking up, I could see thousands of stars and a great moon. This was the peaceful beauty that Bi had described. Although I had not found him, he was still not lost to me.

  We reached a house, like all the others.

  “Here we are,” Madam Zhang whispered, opening the door and disappearing inside.

  I followed her and for a moment we stood in complete darkness before candlelight revealed the interior. The house had only three rooms. The bedroom lay immediately to the left of the front door, with two single wooden beds covered in thin cotton summer sheets. Madam Zhang must have slept here with her husband once. The living room was rectangular with a low ceiling, its longest side facing the street. It had a small bed in the far corner, where Bi had slept. Seeing the lonely little thing, I understood he had never married, never had a family of his own. I wondered if I had been his only chance?

  Above the bed was a drawing of him, perhaps done by someone in the town. It was drawn when he was older than I remembered him. His hairline was more adult and his features more pronounced; he had a sharper jawline and the artist had made his eyes more intense than the expression of wild innocence to which I had been drawn. He looked kind but strong. It seemed like a long time ago since I had known him; unreal and blurred, like a half-remembered dream, yet intense in the images that still remained in my mind. As my years in Daochu passed, further memories and sensations from our time together in the gardens would be awoken for a while and then return to the deep sleep of oblivion, fading in and out of my mind, untainted. I would quietly enjoy them, like a child carefully picking its first flowers. I began to understand that everything we had been together, in that short summer, was more than Ma could ever have felt or imagined. Bi’s bed only took up a small part of the room; the clay kang oven, which was nearly eight feet long by four feet wide and stood immediately outside the bedroom door, took up a quarter of it. I would later find it more than adequate for keeping the room warm in the harsh winters. There was a thick red, yellow, black, and dark blue mosaic carpet across much of the floor, in the center of which stood a wooden table to seat four and two heavy armchairs. On the wall above the kang was a picture of Chairman Mao, which had become gray from soot and smoke. The door in the back wall adjacent to the kang led to a large bare room used for keeping foodstuffs and occasionally chickens. It had a hard-baked mud floor with a tub in one corner, where I was told we could wash after we had fetched the water.

  Madam Zhang boiled some water for tea and we sat together at the table.

  “We didn’t always live here,” she explained. “We used to live on a farm but then my husband suffered a terrible injury to his chest and died a few months afterward. Bi and I tried to keep it going but we were not experienced farmers. I was a seamstress and he was on his own. Then the local leaders suggested we give it up for the People and allow others to farm it.”

  She sat looking down at the table, running her right hand over it as if reassuring an old friend. She stared into the dark grain of the wood and sighed.

  It was quiet here. There were no Sangs demanding my attention. There was no need to speak. I was at peace. My pain would be dulled for a while.

  The pot of water started to boil and I filled our cups. I watched the leaves rise to the surface and the steam drift from the water. I placed the lids on top and handed one to Madam Zhang. We sat saying nothing.

  The bedroom had no windows, which was how Madam Zhang liked it but it was also very warm with the kang on the other side of the wall. A mannequin stood proudly at the end of the little room, filling up the space between the beds. It was draped with the most brilliant colors, some large pieces of cloth and some merely scraps; she was in the process of creating a wonderful dress pieced together from each of these scraps and slivers. It reminded me of standing with Grandfather looking across the gardens in the summer and being struck by the myriad of colors we could see from the flowers in bloom against the lush greens of the grass and trees. And how, after a shower, the sun would emerge and the petals and grass, fresh with raindrops, would reflect rainbows of light.

  Madam Zhang pointed to a bed, removing some swatches of cloth and a few bobbins of thread. “You can sleep here until you decide whether you are going to stay.”

  I lay down and was immediately asleep.

  Finally, nothing.

  I learned slowly and carefully. I started with buttons on trousers and taking the inventory. Then, when the others agreed I was competent with the sewing machine, I stitched straight lines on trouser seams and hems. After a time, weeks or months, it did not matter, I learned to cut, and so eventually I was skilled enough to produce things on my own.

  Our days were filled with work. In the morning at home we cleaned, cooked, and washed; there were no servants to cook for me here or to help me bathe and I did not miss them, though I often thought of Yan’s plaintive expression, her half-smile and maternal concern. Perhaps she would even have approved of the way I lived now. In the evening, after locking up, we would go to the People’s Store or canteen and join the rest of the town for dinner or else take food home to prepare ourselves. The townspeople had become used to the Party and its demands, and all change becomes acceptable whate
ver the consequences once you are accustomed to change itself.

  The Party would hold many celebrations commemorating its own success and longevity and the way the country had been rebuilt. People would gather in the town square, the People’s Square, and accordion players and drummers would strike up marching music and Communist anthems that the local dance troupe would follow. There would be songs about the great examples of Maoist spirit sung by choirs of workers, as our ancestors had sung to welcome the coming of spring, and there would be readings about acts of great courage and Chairman Mao’s principles, and we would sit entranced, listening like villagers a thousand years before to tales about ancient heroes. But unlike them we had to unlearn everything we had ever known before: traditions, superstitions, and old philosophies were now forbidden and ridiculed, we were consumed by productivity.

  As the night grew later fires would be lit and still the celebrations would go on. People were banned from meeting together for purposes other than this by many policies and directives unless it was agreed in advance but, far from the eyes of Chairman Mao, in the alleys and the fields, you could see couples secretly meeting all around; groping, touching, and greedily devouring each other in clandestine but unfettered release. In the dark, with their identical clothes, you could not tell which was the boy and which the girl. Perhaps it did not matter and they only saw themselves as two members of the Party. At this time, only the words of the Little Red Book had the power to interfere in our lives.

  Madam Zhang and I became thought of as mother and daughter, and for a few years, before the madness, even though I was isolated from the city, I felt at home here. Provided our work was completed, we would have enough to eat and I would enjoy walks into the fields and woods outside the town. Sometimes I would go alone, at other times we would be together. We would talk about the other women, what work needed to be done, and then fall silent. The town stood at the edge of a mountainous wooded region; between the trees I found grass and wildflowers. With each flower an ancient name and a memory of Lu Meng. My mind has rarely strayed from either of you and on these walks, such short interludes of peace, I would forget nearly everything except your faces, young and soft, as they were that night in Lu Meng’s bedroom when you first came back to me.

  Only on a few occasions was I tempted to tell Madam Zhang all that had happened. During our walks, our silence would sometimes become so comfortable that I wanted to tell her everything about my life. It felt important that she should know and tell me what she thought. We would walk perfectly in step, and my mind would race, searching for an opening sentence to my story. I feared that she would hate me by the story’s end and so the beginning was extremely important. But I always stumbled over those first few words, and a small inner voice would always tell me that an acceptable opening sentence to this tale of cruelty was impossible. In the end, I could not force myself to say even one word about what I had done.

  You would appear in my dreams, sometimes just your face, smiling and looking up at me: kneeling in front of me as I sat on my old bed or appearing between the sheets hanging to dry in the courtyard. Or I would follow you at a distance as you skipped into the house and disappeared into its darkness. Other times I could feel my own body become filled with fear as I beat you. I would see the belt dig into your skin, blood covering both of us, then the old woman would appear and wash you clean. Lu Meng, Xiong Fa, and Yan would be next to me laughing, everything would be bathed in the red glow of the candle flames, the color I had seen throughout the night you were born.

  Our team became a full production unit under new Party rules. To us it didn’t matter whether we were a team, a unit, or a production regiment, we had become a family. The Party didn’t want such bonds of affection or love, it wanted only itself to be the beginning and the end. The Party cadres were possessed by their belief in man’s ability to attain perfection, like the gods themselves. Yet in our small town, as in villages, towns, and cities everywhere, we could see the many shortcomings and failures in this relentless pursuit of the unattainable. We were able to insulate ourselves a little in our workroom from the dehumanizing process. They were only small transgressions, amid all the endless repetition, but sometimes we embroidered special patterns for people, their initials, or even small flowers, concealed inside cuffs and hems.

  Chapter 25

  The months and years of routine wore on; we carried our cards, badges, won production awards, set new targets, assisted other teams . . . yet in the tiniest stitches we found creation and companionship. Our lives were uncomplicated as long as we met the Party’s requirements; seasons were irrelevant, production schedules defined our calendar. Then, early in the new year of 1958, the leader of the local cadres came into the workroom in the middle of the afternoon. He stood at the door. Fortunately we were all working then, not talking among ourselves. He glanced down the room at Madam Zhang and walked quickly over to her. She remained seated while he stood over her, his left hand leaning on the desk and the other waving in a very animated manner. They looked as though they were deliberately keeping their voices low but the noise of the sewing machines helped. He seemed very concerned; she merely nodded calmly in reply. When he stopped speaking, she said only two or three words to him and nodded. He looked at her and we could see there was regret upon his face. Although he wielded authority over us, we had all grown to like him very much. He made life easy for us; so long as we slightly exceeded our targets, he would be happy. He had obtained my papers very quickly, and then when he had got married, about seven months after I arrived, we had made his fiancée a plain but traditional wedding dress and a smarter suit for him. We had even used some red scarf fabric for a traditional veil. Now he finished talking to Madam Zhang and offered her his hand. They shook and he turned immediately for the door. It seemed to me that as he was closing it, he glanced back for another look at us all.

  Madam Zhang got to her feet.

  “Come here, quickly!” This was the only time I ever saw her panic. “The team leader has just told me that he is to be replaced . . . a new leader is coming. He says there are new instructions and we’ll find out more tonight. He was very concerned about this, though he doesn’t know anything more. He says he has heard that huge changes have taken place across the country . . . there’s been violence in many places.” She paused to catch her breath. “It’s not just the greedy and the selfish, like the capitalists, who are the targets now. Many other people, guilty in different ways, have become enemies of the Party as well. Please, everyone, be very careful. He said we should work hard, make sure that whatever happens we exceed our targets, and most important of all . . . keep quiet.”

  As I listened I wondered whether you, Lu Meng, and Xiong Fa would already have left the country, like Ming had. Against everything I had seen and still believed, I now just hoped blindly that Xiong Fa had always known you were his daughter and that somehow he had saved you and Lu Meng from the terror that was descending on the country. I watched the other women look at each other then return silently to their desks. They had already seen and lost enough to understand that our only course now was to keep working.

  After an hour there was a lot of shouting and screaming in the street outside. Madam Zhang went to the door and stepped out for a moment. She reappeared with a young angry-looking boy who was carrying a large stick.

  “All of you, get outside! The new team leader wants to see you.”

  The boy was not much older than sixteen. He came forward and thumped the stick against the nearest worktable, which was mine. The end of it caught my box of pins, sending it into the air and raining pins across the table and over the floor.

  “Pick them up, pick them up!” He was screaming at me, his face strained and red with anger, but he explained nothing of the reason for his anger, just continued screaming, “None of this work is good enough . . . pick them up!”

  As he shouted he brandished one end of the stick, swiping the other through the air. We watched it and recoiled for fear of
being hit.

  “Why are you afraid? Why are you afraid? You would only be fearful if you had something to fear. The Party is for the people, you should not fear the people . . .” He kept screaming until his words became one endless howl.

  Ah Sui and I bent down to start collecting the pins. He came forward and grabbed Ah Sui by the hair, dragging her across the floor. Initially she kicked out her legs behind her. He smacked her kneecaps hard with the stick and she screamed and kicked again. He hit her harder and she stopped kicking. As he dragged her across the floor to the door, she shrieked like a tortured animal. I froze, crouching down with my hands full of pins, and watched. It was like a hunter dragging an animal he had caught; he had not yet decided when and how to make his kill. I looked up at the other women, but they remained frozen behind their tables.

  The boy took Ah Sui out of the door and Madam Zhang walked behind. I got up and followed her. Outside there was a circle of about a hundred youths, all dressed in our clothes but wearing different scarves and badges. They had the previous team leader and his wife down on their knees at the center of the crowd and had hung wooden signs around their necks. The signs said they were traitors to the Revolution and enemies of the people. Young people leapt out of the crowd to beat them, smashing their heads and backs with sticks and pummeling them with fists. They bled freely. The boy who seemed to be the new leader was shouting and holding up one arm. People in the crowd looked around as the young man who had burst into our workroom dragged Ah Sui through the howling mob. They did not have a sign ready for her but hit her anyway.

  “Here is the woman who helped them engage in old practices! These are forbidden.” The new team leader threw the wedding clothes we had created for them in their bleeding faces. The clothes slid to the ground, stained with blood. “Do you understand?” the new leader screamed. “To be forgiven, you must admit that you were wrong . . . will you do that? No false pride before the people,” he shouted.