by Naomi Holoch
from RED AZALEA
As the daylight faded, I found myself at the farm’s brick factory. Thousands of ready-to-bake bricks were laid out in patterns. Some stacks were eight feet high, some leaning as if about to fall, and some had already fallen. I could hear the echo of my own steps. The place had the feel of ancient ruins.
One day there was another sound among the bricks, like the noise of an erhu, a two-stringed banjo. I picked out the melody—
“Liang and Zhu”—from a banned opera; my grandmother used to hum it. Liang and Zhu were two ancient lovers who committed suicide because of their unpermitted love. The music now playing described how the two lovers were transformed into butterflies and met in the spring again. It surprised me to hear someone on the farm able to play it with such skill.
I followed the sound. It stopped. I heard steps. A shadow ducked by the next lane. I tailed it and found the erhu on a brick stool. I looked around. No one. Wind whistled through the patterned bricks. I bent over to pick up the instrument, when my eyes were suddenly covered by a pair of hands from behind.
I tried to remove the hands. Fingers combatted. The hands were forceful. I asked, Who is this? and there was no reply. I reached back to tickle. The body behind me giggled. A hot breath on my neck. Yan? I cried out.
She stood in front of me, smiling. She held the erhu. You, was it you? You play erhu? I looked at her. She nodded, did not say anything. Though I still could not make my mind connect the image of the commander with the erhu player, I felt a sudden joy. The joy of a longing need met. A lonely feeling shared and turned into inspiration. In my mind, I saw peach-colored petals descend like snow and bleach the landscape. Distant valleys and hills melted into one. Everything wrapped in purity.
She sat down on the stool and motioned me to sit next to her. She kept smiling and said nothing. I wanted to tell her that I had not known she played erhu, to tell her how beautifully she played, but I was afraid to speak.
She picked up the erhu and the bow, retuned the strings, bent her head toward the instrument, and closed her eyes. Taking a deep breath, she stroked the instrument with the bow—she started to play “The River.”
The music became a surging river in my head. I could hear it run through seas and mountains, urged on by the winds and clouds, tumbling over cliffs and waterfalls, gathered by rocks and streaming into the ocean. I was taken by her as she was taken by the music. I felt her true self through the erhu. I was awakened. By her. In a strange land, faced by a self I had not gotten to know and the self I was surprised, yet so glad, to meet.
Her fingers ran up and down the strings, creating sounds like rain dropping on banana leaves. Then her fingers stopped, and she held her breath. Her fingertips touched and then stayed on the string. The bow pulled. A thread of notes was born, telling of an untold bitterness. Slowly, she vibrated the string. Fingers dipped out sad syllables. She stroked the bow after a pause. The notes were violent. She raised her head, eyes closed and chin tilted up. The image before me became fragmented: the Party secretary, the heroine, the murderer, and the beautiful erhu player….
She played “Horse Racing,” “The Red Army Brother is Coming Back,” and finally “Liang and Zhu” again.
We talked. A conversation I had never before had. We told each other our life stories. In our eagerness to express ourselves we overlapped each other’s sentences.
She said her parents were textile workers. Her mother had been honored as a Glory Mother in the fifties for producing nine children. Yan was the eighth. The family lived in the Long Peace district of Shanghai, where they shared one wood-framed room and shared a well with twenty other families. They had no toilet, only a nightstool. It was her responsibility to take the nightstool to a public sewage depot every morning and clean the stool. I told her that we lived in better conditions. We had a toilet, though we shared it with two other families, fourteen people. She said, Oh yes, I can imagine your morning traffic. We laughed.
I asked where she had learned to play erhu. She said her parents were fans of folk music. It was her family tradition that each member had to master at least one instrument. Everyone in her family had a specialty, in lute, erhu, sheng with reed pipes, and trumpet. She was a thin girl when she was young, so she chose to learn erhu. She identified with its vertical lines. Her parents saved money and bought her the instrument for her tenth birthday. The family invited a retired erhu player to dinner every weekend and asked him to drop a few comments on the erhu. The family hoped that Yan would one day become a famous erhu player.
She was fifteen years old when the Cultural Revolution began in 1966. She joined the Red Guards and marched to Beijing to be inspected by Chairman Mao at Tienanmen Square. As the youngest Red Guard representative, she was invited to watch an opera, newly created by Madam Mao, Jiang Qing, at the People’s Great Hall. She liked the three-inch-wide belts the performers were wearing. She traded her best collection of Mao buttons for a belt. She showed me her belt. It was made of real leather and had a copper buckle. It was designed by Comrade Jiang Qing, my heroine, she said. Have you read Mao’s books? she asked. Yes, I did, I said, all of them. She said, That’s wonderful, because that’s what I did too. I memorized the Little Red Book and know every quotation song.
I told her that I was a Red Guard since elementary school, my experience much less glorious than hers, though I would not be fooled about how much one knew about Mao quotation songs. She smiled and asked me to give her a test. I asked if she could tell where I sang.
The Party runs its life by good policies….
Page seven, second paragraph! she said.
If the broom doesn’t come, the garbage won’t automatically go away….
Page ten, first paragraph!
We came from the countryside….
Page a hundred forty-six, third paragraph!
The world is yours….
Page two hundred sixty-three, first paragraph!
Studying Chairman Mao’s works, we must learn to be efficient. We should apply his teachings to our problems to ensure a fast result….
She joined my singing.
As when we erect a bamboo stick in the sunshine, we see the shadow right away….
Where are we? I shouted.
Vice Chairman Lin Biao’s Preface for Mao Quotations, second edition! she shouted back, and we laughed, so happily.
…
I wrote to my parents in Shanghai. I told them about the Party secretary, Commander Yan. I said we were very good friends. She was a fair boss. She was like a big tree with crowded branches and lush foliage, and I enjoyed the cool air sitting under her. This was as far as I could go in explaining myself. I told my mother the farm was fine and I was fine. I mentioned that some of my roommates’ parents had made visits, although the farm was not worth the trip.
My mother came instead of writing back. I was in the middle of spraying chemicals. Orchid told me that my mother had arrived. I did not believe her. She pointed to a lady coated in dust standing on the path. Now tell me I was lying, she said. I took off the chemical container and walked toward my mother. Mom, I said, who told you to come? Mother smiled and said, A mother can always find her child. I kneeled down to take off her shoes. Her feet were swollen. I poured her a bowl of water. She asked how heavy the fungicide-chemical container was. Sixty pounds, I said. Mother said, Your back is soaked. I said, I know. Mother said, It’s good that you work hard. I told her that I was the platoon leader.
Mother said she was proud. I said I was glad. She said she did not bring anything because Blooming had just graduated from the middle school and was assigned to a professional boarding school. Her Shanghai resident number was also taken away. We have no money to buy her a new blanket; she still uses the one you left. It’s good to be frugal, don’t you think? Mother said. What about Coral? I asked. Will she be assigned to a factory? Mother nodded and said she had been praying for that to happen. But it’s hard to say. Mother shook her head. Coral is afraid of leaving. The scho
ol people said that if she showed a physical disability, her chances of staying in Shanghai would be much better. Coral did not go to see a doctor while she was having serious dysentery. She was trying to destroy her intestine to claim disability. That was stupid, but we were not able to stop her. A lot of youths in the neighborhood are doing the same thing; they are scared to be assigned to the farms. Coral is very unhappy. She said she had never asked to be born, she said that to my face. My child said that to my face.
I placed Mother in Yan’s bed that night. I wanted to talk to my mother but instead fell asleep the minute my head hit the pillow. The next morning Mother said she’d better leave. She said that I should not feel sorry for myself. It shows weakness. And her presence might have increased my weakness and that was not her intention in being here. She should not be here to make my soldiers’ homesickness worse. I could not say that I was not feeling weak. I could not say my behavior would not influence the others. I wanted to cry in my mother’s arms, but I was an adult since the age of five. She must see me be strong. Or she would not survive. She depended on me. I asked if she would like me to give her a tour of the farm. She said she had seen enough. The salty bare land was enough. She said it was time for her to go back.
Mother did not ask about Yan, about whose bed she had slept in the previous night. I wished she had. I wished I could tell her some of my real life. But Mother did not ask. I knew Yan’s title of Party secretary was the reason. Mother was afraid of Party secretaries. She was a victim of every one of them. She ran away before I introduced Yan.
Mother refused to allow me to accompany her to the farm’s bus station. She was insistent. She walked away by herself in the dust. Despite Lu’s objection to a few hours’ absence, I went to follow my mother through the cotton field. For three miles she didn’t take a rest. She was walking away from what she had seen—the land, the daughters of Shanghai, the prison. She ran away like a child. I watched her while she waited for the bus. She looked older than her age: my mother was forty-three but looked sixty or older.
When the bus carried Mother away, I ran into the cotton fields. I exhausted myself and lay down flat on my back. I cried and called Yan’s name.
The day she was expected back, I walked miles to greet her. When her tractor appeared at a crossroad, my heart was about to jump out of my mouth. She jumped off and ran toward me. Her scarf blew off. The tractor drove on. Standing before me, she was so handsome in her uniform.
Did you see him? I asked, picking up her scarf and giving it back to her. Leopard? She smiled taking the scarf. And? I said. She asked me not to mention Leopard’s name anymore in our conversation. It’s all over and it never happened. I asked what happened. She said, Nothing. We didn’t know each other. We were strangers as before. Was he there? I was persistent. Yes, he was. Did you talk? Yes, we said hello. What else? What what else? We read our companies’ reports, and that was all.
She did not look hurt. Her lovesickness was gone. She said, Our great leader Chairman Mao teaches us, “A proletarian must liberate himself first to liberate the world.” She scraped my nose. I said, You smell of soap. She said she had a bath at the headquarters. It was their special treat to branch Party secretaries. She had something important to tell me. She said she would be leaving the company soon.
I closed my eyes and relaxed in her arms. We lay quietly for a long time. Now I wish you were a man, I said. She said she knew that. She held me tighter. I listened to the sound of her heart pounding. We pretended that we were not sad. We were brave.
She had told me that she was assigned to a remote company, Company Thirty. They need a Party secretary and commander to lead eight hundred youths. Why you? Why not Lu? It’s an order, she said to me. I don’t belong to myself. I asked whether the new company was very far. She said she was afraid so. I asked about the land condition there. She said it was horrible, the same as here, in fact worse, because it was closer to the sea. I asked if she wanted to go there. She said she had no confidence in conquering that land. She said she did not know how she had become so afraid. She said she did not want to leave me. She smiled sadly and recited a saying: “When the guest leaves, the tea will soon get cold.” I said my cup of tea would never get cold.
Lu turned the light off early. The company had had a long day reaping the rice. The snoring in the room was rising and falling. I was watching the moonlight when Yan’s hands tenderly touched my face. Her hands soothed my neck and shoulders. She said she must bear the pain of leaving me. Tears welled up in my eyes. I thought of Little Green and the bookish man. Their joy and the price they paid. I wept. Yan held me. She said she could not stop herself. Her thirst was dreadful.
She covered us with blankets. We breathed each other’s breath. She pulled my hands to touch her chest. She caressed me, trembling herself. She murmured that she wished she could tell me how happy I made her feel. I asked if to her I was Leopard. She enveloped me in her arms. She said there never was a Leopard. It was I who created Leopard. I said it was an assignment given by her. She said, You did a very good job. I asked if we knew what we were doing. She said she knew nothing but the Little Red Book. I asked how the quotation applied to the situation. She recited, “One learns to fight the war by fighting the war.”
I said I could not see her because my tears kept welling up. She whispered, Forget about my departure for now. I said I could not. She said, I want you to obey me. You always did good when you obeyed me. She licked my tears and said this was how she was going to remember us.
I moved my hands slowly through her shirt. She pulled my fingers to unbutton her bra. The buttons were tight, five of them. Finally, the last one came off. The moment I touched her breasts, I felt a sweet shock. My heart beat disorderly. A wild horse broke off its reins. She whispered something I could not hear. She was melting snow. I did not know what role I was playing anymore: her imagined man or myself. I was drawn to her. The horse kept running wild. I went where the sun rose. Her lips were the color of a tomato. There was a gale mixed with thunder inside of me. I was spellbound by desire. I wanted to be touched. Her hands skimmed my breasts. My mind maddened. My senses cheered frantically in a raging fire. I begged her to hold me tight. I heard a little voice rising in the back of my head demanding me to stop. As I hesitated, she caught my lips and kissed me fervently. The little voice disappeared. I lost myself in the caresses.
Gerd Brantenberg
This selection from Norway, an excerpt from the novel Four Winds (1989) by the contemporary lesbian-feminist writer Gerd Brantenberg, presents a narrator, Inger, who embodies the profound changes that have occurred since the publication of Ebba Haslund’s pioneering work, in the 1950s. In this excerpt, Inger, an eighteen-year-old lesbian, is on her way to Edinburgh, Scotland, to work as a maid. Here, the problem of language faced by Inger is a complex metaphor for crossed boundaries, for lost homes and newly acquired freedoms. Set in northern Europe of the 1960s, Four Winds, the final book in a three-volume semi-autobiographical series, portrays a growing passion, a loving but tormented family, and the beginnings of the Scandinavian gay liberation movement.
from FOUR WINDS
6. ABERDEEN ROAD
In the bar on the M/S Blenheim was a charming Danish woman who was at least thirty. She had fair, curly hair in a casual style, a cigarette holder, and slender silk-stockinged legs, one placed impertinently over the other on the bar stool. On the whole it was simply a matter of bad luck that she hadn’t ended up in Hollywood, but instead she had a ruined marriage behind her; she told her whole life history to a young girl on the stool beside her. Straight to the point. The girl also told selected portions of her own: it was clear she’d led a trouble-free life so far. For her part, the girl marveled over how older people can tell the most horrible things to a perfect stranger, but she felt like she’d ended up in the middle of a world adventure already. The bartender poured drinks, and the woman treated. Everything was exciting. But then they neared Horten. Already here the boat was beginning to make s
ome slow sideways movements, back and forth, that made her incapable of following the story of how the lady’s ex-husband had tipped over the table on Christmas Eve—with roast pork and everything, she couldn’t catch all the details of the menu. “Have a whiskey, honey! It’s good for the waves!” the lady said, and the girl believed her. She downed whiskey and drank toasts with the lady, who by now was in the middle of an attempted strangling off the Atlantic coast, and as they rounded Færder Lighthouse, there was only one possibility in the whole world. The toilet.
Inger didn’t see anything more of her fellow passengers until she stood, dazed and chilled, in a large, gray hall on Tyne Commission Quay a day and a half later.
The new country was flat and gray with unending railroad tracks, chimneys, tiny lawns with laundry hanging out to dry, and a dark, flat sky above. And suddenly the sea opened up. “Berwick!” called the conductor with rolled r’s unlike any English she’d ever heard before, and that’s how it was with everyone who said anything. It was as if they had the language inside their mouths; it wasn’t supposed to be pronounced clearly! The industrial revolution.
She walked toward the gate at Waverley Station with the neck of her guitar leading the way. She’d checked the rest of her luggage. Seventeen pieces in all. Why’d she have to bring along her guitar? It seemed completely out of place. A guitar is always out of place until it ends up in your lap at a party. Here there was nothing to indicate a party. A mob of people all hurrying along under the roof of an enormous train station.