Wild Ginger

by Anchee Min

  Her hands were still warm. I took them.

  The sea inside my head started moaning. My world became white, like the negative of a photo.

  Slowly her blood came, soaking my trousers.

  Hot Pepper emerged from the crowd. She rushed to Wild Ginger and began to search her pockets. Before she went further a policeman stopped her. He searched Wild Ginger's pockets himself and took out a blood-soaked envelope.

  27

  I don't remember how I got back to the cell. When I woke, I found myself lying on the bare concrete. It was chilly but I was sweating and running a high fever, slipping in and out of consciousness. I kept hearing my mother's voice. "Maple, go and take a look; Wild Ginger is calling you." I felt detached from my body. I couldn't lift my fingers or move my toes. My head spun threads of memory. Still unable to move, I started to recite Mao quotations uncontrollably. '"Communism is a complete system of proletarian ideology and a new social system. It is full of youth and vitality; it is the most complete, progressive, revolutionary, and rational system in human history. It is sweeping the world with the momentum of avalanche and the force of a thunderbolt..."'

  The image of Wild Ginger jumping off the building repeated itself in front of my eyes. Her leap was like a child's acrobatics, like hopping off a fig tree. I could hear her laughter. Also Evergreen's. I kept seeing their faces. They came to me like the moon's reflection in the water. When I woke, the reflection broke. And when I fell asleep it was a new moon again. I could hear the sound of the water, splashing the stone edge of the pond. I remember the moment I turned to look at Evergreen. In the sound of Long live Chairman Mao! his smile froze. It was a hideous expression, like a person who gets his head chopped off in the middle of telling a joke.

  In my faintness the guard came. "Get up and say long life to Chairman Mao!" When I raised myself up he came to unlock my cuffs. "Get out, you are free." He cleared his throat and spat his phlegm on the ground.

  I asked what was going on; he replied, "How would I know?"

  At the prison office I received an explanation.

  Wild Ginger had admitted her guilt in the letter. She confessed that she and Hot Pepper were responsible for the singing rally incident. However, Hot Pepper denied the accusation. She claimed to be Wild Ginger's victim.

  "What about Evergreen?" I was so overwhelmed that I choked. "He was on his way to be executed when the letter was finally read!"

  "He's alive. He is a very lucky man. Once again this proves Chairman Mao's teaching, 'Our party will never mistreat a good comrade,'" the officer said expressionlessly. "Comrade Evergreen was rescued at the last minute. It is another victory of the revolution."

  ***

  Lying in bed at Evergreen's house we wept. We tried to celebrate our new lives but it was impossible. Wild Ginger was constantly on our minds. Our bodies were locked so much in the pain of missing her that they became immune to desire. We looked at each other, but all we saw was Wild Ginger. And we heard her voice too. The passionate reciting of Mao quotations. I held Evergreen. Slowly we drifted into a deep sleep. In my dream Wild Ginger put me back into her closet. Once again I felt her.

  Days, weeks, and months passed. Evergreen and I were unable to make love.

  My mother told me that on the day Wild Ginger's body was cremated, she had volunteered to collect the ashes. Against the authorities order, she took the ashes and secretly went to a temple in the mountains. She prayed for Wild Ginger's soul to be at peace and burned incense. She mixed the incense with Wild Ginger's ashes and left the remains in a monastery under an altered name suggested by the head priest. Instead of "Wild Ginger" she wrote "Land Found." She gave me the address of the monastery.

  Evergreen left Shanghai. He went to fulfill his dream of becoming a village teacher. I remained behind. We had decided to give up the relationship. We hadn't been able to make it work no matter how hard we tried. There was not much to say. We couldn't mention Wild Ginger and yet we couldn't stop mentioning her either. She died taking a big part of us with her. Every night I could smell the earth's mold and every morning its fragrance.

  I didn't go to the train station to bid Evergreen farewell. He didn't ask me. It was as if we both were trying to forget ourselves before we were able to forget Wild Ginger.

  I was assigned to work as a clerk at Shanghai Number Thirteen Department Store. I sold pencils, notebooks, and school bags. Once in a while when there was a clearance sale I would think about buying something to send to Evergreen. But I never did buy anything. I didn't have his address. He never wrote. At any rate, I wouldn't contact him even if I had his address.

  28

  Over the years, I had other men in my life. I dated the ones who knew nothing of my past. Yet I often felt emptiness. I guess subconsciously I longed to unearth the part of myself that I had buried the day Wild Ginger died. None of the relationships I pursued were consummated. There were a couple of failed engagements. I was twenty-nine years old. I felt ninety-two.

  My mother died of uterine cancer in 1981. One of her last wishes was to have me visit the temple annually to light incense for Wild Ginger. "We owe Mrs. Pei that," she said. My father never said anything. Released from forced labor camp after seventeen years, he had turned into a man of very few words. He hated the ex-Maoists.

  My family members were spread all over the country. Most of them were married and had children. Two of my brothers had become railway workers and one served in the army as a radio technician. My younger sisters were working too. One was a nurse and the other the head of a remote labor collective. We gathered in Shanghai every New Year's Eve. While the children played hide-and-seek under the table, my siblings began to crack jokes about the Cultural Revolution. They joked about Mao, his followers, and the ex-Maoists. The tone was cynical. I was never much of a participant. To me, the Cultural Revolution was a religion, and Wild Ginger was its embodiment.

  This year at the New Year's Eve table my father toasted me with heavy rice wine. He said forgetting was the best way to be happy.

  After the fireworks I went to visit the house at the end of Chia Chia Lane. It had been turned into a storehouse for preserved vegetables. It belonged to the market. All the Mao murals, paintings, and calligraphy of Mao quotations and poems around the neighborhood had been scraped and coated over with layers of cement. There was no trace of Wild Ginger except the fig tree. Its trunk was bucket thick now and it bore a tremendous amount of fruit in the summer.

  I made my first visit to the temple on the fourth day of the spring. The temple was located in the midst of the mountains. The climbing was difficult. The Buddha's statue sat within a large cave. Behind the statue was a monastery where Wild Ginger's ashes were kept in a tiny ash drawer by the altar, which was covered with red silk fabric; in front of it hundreds of candles were burning.

  Not until then did I understand my mother's intention. It was her way to help me to come to terms with my loss and sorrow. She knew that I could never forget Wild Ginger and Evergreen. She knew that I had to reconcile with them in order to go on with my life. Mother had waited patiently for my enlightenment.

  The walls surrounding the altar were covered with quotations copied from Buddhist scriptures. In essence, they seemed to be about moving and floating through life without stopping and without letting bitterness get in the way. Was I bitter?

  It had been almost nine years since Wild Ginger's death. The country had pulled down its mask after Mao. Being an ex-Maoist brought one embarrassment. The Cultural Revolution was officially criticized as madness and destruction although Mao was not yet questioned for his responsibility. In the neighbors' mouths, the incident at the Mao quotation-singing rally was a sad story. No one remembered Wild Ginger as a heroine, only as a foolish girl.

  It was big news in the paper that the Russian-style city hall was scheduled to be demolished on October 1, the National Independence Day. A new hotel that had Japanese investment backing was to take its place. The year was 1994, twenty years after Wild G
inger's jump.

  I felt distracted that morning. The city hall was in front of my mind's eye. I was eating breakfast when I heard the announcement from the radio in the cafeteria where I worked that the explosion would take place at nine o'clock. I found myself imagining the explosion. I had an urge to be a witness. The feeling became so strong that I had to excuse myself. I left work without permission. Taking a bus, I headed to the People's Square.

  Afraid that my remorse would be unbearable I had avoided this place for years. And I had been right. My memory was as fresh as yesterday. My tears flowed the moment I stepped off the bus. The sight of the building brought Wild Ginger right back to me. I could see her speaking to me vividly. "Maple, don't ever feel sorry for me. I take the wounds as medals!" But I also heard her laughter. The sound of silver beads dropping on a jade plate. I was able to admit to myself that I had been lonely for her all these years. There was not one person who could understand and share my feelings.

  Suddenly I missed Evergreen terribly.

  I felt weak. My mind kept unleashing itself. Was he a village teacher? Did he ever miss Wild Ginger? Or me? Was he married? Who would she be? A village girl? His student? Or another woman, another village teacher who taught at his school?

  A worker at the square told me that the explosion would take place in five minutes. "It's an old ugly building. It no longer carries significance. We have brought down a lot of the same kind in Beijing. It's interesting that not many people have bothered to come to see the spectacle. When I was doing one in Beijing, the crowd was—"

  Suddenly I saw what I took to be an illusion. A man of Evergreen's figure walked into my view. I blinked my eyes and shook my head. The image was still there, still moving. My hands went to cover my mouth. I dared not breathe; it seemed that if I did I would break the illusion, as a drop of water would chase away the reflection of the moon in the pond.

  I stood, stared, unable to move.

  This is not a mistake, I heard my mind say. It's him.

  The worker turned toward the man. "Hey, you! Step out! It's too dangerous! Get out! You hear me? Out! This way! Hurry up!"

  The man turned toward us, smiling apologetically, and suddenly he saw me. His smile froze and he stopped in his tracks.

  The worker went and pushed him out of the area.

  29

  From his features I learned how I had aged. He was a real peasant with deep gaplike wrinkles and weatherbeaten skin. He wore a washed-out green army coat and a pair of worn boots. He was covered with dust. Yet he was solid.

  For a moment we were awkward. Words halted our tongues.

  The loudspeaker was giving the last warning about safety. And then came the countdown.

  Both Evergreen and I turned to look at the city hall. I was sure he saw exactly what I saw.

  Like a piece of silk fabric Wild Ginger fell from the building, descending in slow motion.

  My mind leapt backward. I saw her sixteen-year-old face.

  "You know what, Maple? I am burning fire, the heat itself. Nobody can extinguish my passion for Chairman Mao. I feel so happy and complete. It is Chairman Mao who saved me from withering and kindled my spirit into a glorious blaze!"

  Through my tears I felt Evergreen's hand. He came to hold me. I felt his breath on my neck.

  I turned to him. There was no hesitation in his eyes. He was determined to pursue what he was doing. His eyes were asking for my permission. I wanted to tell him that I had been waiting for him all along. I wanted to tell him that I was ready. I tried hard to push, to get the words out.

  He sealed my words with his lips.

  I closed my eyes.

  The sound of explosion came.

  I tasted her in my mouth.

  A PREVIEW OF ANCHEE MIN'S NEW NOVEL

  EMPRESS

  ORCHID

  The story of the infamous last Empress of China,

  by the author of the best-selling Becoming Madame Mao

  ***

  It is the final days of the Chinese empire. Trade in opium with Europe is slowly corroding the power of the Ch'ing Dynasty. Orchid, a beautiful seventeen-year-old from an aristocratic but impoverished family, is pushed into the maelstrom when she finds herself unexpectedly chosen to become a low-ranking concubine of the Emperor.

  The world inside the Forbidden City is erotically charged and highly ritualized, but beneath its immaculate face are whispers of murders and ghosts. The thousands of concubines will go to any length to bear the Emperor a son and become his Empress. Determined not to be a victim of jealousy and foul play, Orchid trains herself in the art of pleasing a man, bribes her way into the royal bed, and seduces the monarch. Little does she know that China will collapse around her, and she will be its last Empress.

  ***

  Available from Mariner Books

  Prelude

  THE TRUTH is that I have never been the mastermind of anything. I laugh when I hear people say that it was my desire to rule China from an early age. My life was shaped by forces at work before I was born. The dynasty's conspiracies were old, and men and women were caught up in cutthroat rivalries long before I entered the Forbidden City and became a concubine. My dynasty, the Ch'ing, has been beyond saving ever since we lost the Opium Wars to Great Britain and its allies. My world has been an exasperating place of ritual where the only privacy has been inside my head. Not a day has gone by when I haven't felt like a mouse escaping one more trap. For half a century, I participated in the elaborate etiquette of the court in all its meticulous detail. I am like a painting from the Imperial portrait gallery. When I sit on the throne my appearance is gracious, pleasant and placid.

  In front of me is a gauze curtain—a translucent screen symbolically separating the female from the male. Guarding myself from criticism, I listen but speak little. Thoroughly schooled in the sensitivity of men, I understand that a simple look of cunning would disturb the councilors and ministers. To them the idea of a woman as the monarch is frightening. Jealous princes prey on an cient fears of women meddling in politics. When my husband died and I became the acting regent for our five-year-old son, Tung Chih, I satisfied the court by emphasizing in my decree that it was Tung Chih, the young Emperor, who would remain the ruler, not his mother.

  While the men at court sought to impress each other with their intelligence, I hid mine. My business of running the court has been a constant fight with ambitious advisors, devious ministers, and generals who commanded armies that never saw battle. It has been more than forty-six years. Last summer I realized that I had become a candle burnt to its end in a windowless hall—my health was leaving me, and I understood that my days were numbered.

  Recently I have been forcing myself to rise at dawn and attend the audience before breakfast. My condition I have kept a secret. Today I was too weak to rise. My eunuch came to hurry me. The mandarins and autocrats are waiting for me in the audience hall on sore knees. They are not here to discuss matters of state after my death, but to press me into naming one of their sons as heir.

  It pains me to admit that our dynasty has exhausted its essence. In times like this I can do nothing right. I have been forced to witness the collapse not only of my son, at the age of nineteen, but of China itself. Could anything be crueler? Fully aware of the reasons that contributed to my situation, I feel stifled and on the verge of suffocation. China has become a world poisoned in its own waste. My spirits are so withered that the priests from the finest temples are unable to revive them.

  This is not the worst part. The worst part is that my fellow countrymen continue to show their faith in me, and that I, at the call of my conscience, must destroy their faith. I have been tearing hearts for the past few months. I tear them with my farewell decrees; I tear them by telling my countrymen the truth that their lives would be better off without me. I told my ministers that I am ready to enter eternity in peace regardless of the world's opinions. In other words, I am a dead bird no longer afraid of boiling water.

  I had been blind
when my sight was perfect. This morning I had trouble seeing what I was writing, but my mind's eye was clear. The French dye does an excellent job of making my hair look the way it used to—black as velvet night. And it does not stain my scalp like the Chinese dye I applied for years. Don't talk to me about how smart we are compared to the barbarians! It is true that our ancestors invented paper, the printing press, the compass and explosives, but our ancestors also refused, dynasty after dynasty, to build proper defenses for the country. They believed that China was too civilized for anyone to even think about challenging. Look at where we are now: the dynasty is like a fallen elephant taking its time to finish its last breath.

  Confucianism has been shown to be flawed. China has been defeated. I have received no respect, no fairness, no support from the rest of the world. Our neighboring allies watch us falling apart with apathy and helplessness. What is freedom when there has been no honor? The insult for me is not about this unbearable way of dying, but about the absence of honor and our inability to see the truth.

  It surprises me that no one realizes that our attitude toward the end is comical in its absurdity. During the last audience I couldn't help but yell, "I am the only one who knows that my hair is white and thin!"

  The court refused to hear me. My ministers saw the French dye and my finely arranged hairstyle as real. Knocking their heads on the ground, they sang, "Heaven's grace! Ten thousand years of health! Long live Your Majesty!"