by Zoë S. Roy
Yezi’s lips were dry and hot when she heard a voice call out: “Popsicle! Four fen each.”
Turning her head, Yezi shouted, “I want a popsicle!”
Yao did not respond, and only quickened her steps.
“The Cultural Revolution—” The man in rags continued to sing in his high-pitched voice, but he was not looking where he was and suddenly walked into a pole, which knocked him flat on the ground.
“Ouch!” Yezi shrieked as if her own head had hit the pole.
Yao stopped and put her baskets down. She mistook Yezi’s scream as another cry for a popsicle. Her hand dipped into her pants pocket as she walked toward the vendor.
“What kind do you want, the cream or green beans?” asked the vendor.
“A four-fen one.”
“Only one?”
“Yes, please.” Yao nodded, handing some coins to the woman.
Yao trudged back to the baskets, a popsicle in hand. “Here you go.” She stooped over Yezi. “Don’t wait. It’ll melt.”
Yezi looked up at Yao in surprise. As soon as she grasped the stick, she licked the cool, sweet ice. Her face shone in the sun, her smile wide and happy. The noise from the street vanished as she focused only on the pleasure of her juicy treat.
Yao wiped the sweat from her face with her apron. Her dry lips fought the temptation of the ice stick. She turned to face the two heavy baskets and comforted herself with the thought of all the water she could drink once she got home. She squatted and placed the pole on her shoulders. Her hands gripped the rope at the pole’s ends in front and behind her, as she tried to stand. She muttered under her breath, “One, two, three!” The numbers squeezed out from her clenched teeth. Her legs were shaky, but she managed to stand and then resumed trudging back home.
Two years later, in September 1972, Yezi became a first grader at the elementary school affiliated with Spring University, where her mother used to teach. In a music class, all the students were chanting in unison: “Little friends join us in telling stories.” Yezi’s eyes blurred; the sheet of paper with the music score hanging on the blackboard seemed to be fluttering.
The teacher tapped on the blackboard with a pointer, catching Yezi’s attention. The young voices filled the room singing the song “The Young Pioneers of China,” which they had been taught by their teacher. “We are the heirs of communism / Inheriting the glorious tradition of the forebears of the revolution/ We love our motherland and people / The crimson red scarves flutter at our chests….” Yezi sang with the others, sluggishly watching the teacher’s pointer. She was lost in thought, remembering last night’s game of hide-and-seek, picking through napa leaves with Popo Yao, and a juicy popsicle on a long walk home.
In the Chinese class, Teacher Li copied down two sentences on the blackboard with red chalk. The first one read: “Chairman Mao teaches us, ‘Fight against selfishness and criticize revisionism!’” It was followed by a second one: “Chairman Mao teaches us, ‘Carry out criticism and self-criticism.’”
The teacher turned to face the class and read the words aloud. As she flicked the red chalk powder away from her dark-blue khaki jacket, she announced, “Girls and boys, let us follow Chairman Mao’s instruction to criticize our own selfishness. Let’s take turns to speak up.”
The monitor, Kun, sprang from his seat. “Yesterday, after cleaning up the classroom, I dumped trash outside the window because I wanted to get home earlier.”
“Kun also snitched a broom from Class 2-A!” yelled another student. “We were told off because of his bad behaviour.”
“You got what you deserved!” a girl calls out, her voice shrill.
“Who saw him filching the broom?” asked one student.
“Me!” another answered.
“I saw you, Hong. You flung mud to students in Class 2-A,” said a boy, attempting to defend Kun.
Wen, seated next to Yezi, placed his elbow on the desk and raised his hand high. Yezi tilted her head to watch him.
“I want to fight against selfishness and criticize revisionism.” Wen stood up. “This past summer, my brother and I hung around the Red Flag Restaurant.” He straightened his back. “We licked a couple of dishes left by the diners.” His words provoked laughter and snickers.
Yezi could not help but laugh with the others in the class.
Unexpectedly, Wen turned to her and stomped on her foot. “You mongrel!” he shouted, indignant.
“Ouch!” Her foot ached; agony surged through her. Angrily, Yezi pushed Wen, who then punched her shoulder with his fist.
A student yelped, “American mongrel!”
Shocked, Yezi felt her face became hot and red. As Wen punched her again, this time on her head, tears began to stream down her cheeks.
“Stop it! This instance, Wen!” Teacher Li burst out. She made a beeline toward them, and placed her hand on Wen’s arm.
One of the students yelled, “Don’t abuse your teacher’s power! You bourgeois people!”
In astonishment, Teacher Li suddenly let go of Wen’s arm. As a teacher, she too was a target of the Cultural Revolution. She lowered her head, like a stooping sunflower.
Confused, Wen stopped hitting Yezi and sat down. Meanwhile several other students slapped their hands on the desks to protest the teacher.
“I’m … I’m Chinese!” Yezi uttered these words loudly and clearly after she wiped the tears with her cuff.
An idea dawned on Teacher Li. Her eyes gleamed. “Yezi, where were you born?”
“Kunming.”
“What about you, Jie?” the teacher asked.
“Beijing.”
The teacher eyed the class. “Were you all born in China?”
“Yes!” All their mouths opened at the same time.
“Are people born in China, Chinese?” The teacher looked solemn.
“Yes!” The students glanced at one another.
“Then, is Yezi Chinese?”
“Yes, she is,” answered Jian, a girl Yezi’s age, sitting just behind her. The voices of several other students shouted out in agreement.
“Chinese shouldn’t scold and hit other Chinese.” The teacher’s gaze fixed purposely on Wen’s face. “Isn’t that right, girls and boys?”
Sheepishly, Wen joined the other children, as they intoned, “That’s right!”
The personal criticism resumed. But the students became friendlier to one another, as if they had just discovered they were all from the same country.
At the end of the class, Yezi handed Wen a small piece of paper sheet with a picture of a downy chick poking its head out of a cracked shell. Wen quickly opened his stationery case and gave Yezi an eraser. “Let’s swap,” he said and stretched his hand, shaking his little finger. Yezi accepted the eraser and then hooked Wen’s finger with hers. Both chanted: “Hook on. Hook on. A deal comes along.”
At the door of the classroom, her brother, Sang, waved his hand. “Yezi, let’s go home,” he called out.
“I’m coming.” Yezi hurried away from the classroom and joined her brother on the walk home.
One October evening, Yezi and Sang were sitting around the table, working on their homework. Yezi’s routine was to copy new words from her day’s lesson into an exercise book. When she raised her head, she noticed Sang reading an issue of his now favourite medical periodical, Medicine for the Masses. “Brother, why aren’t you doing your homework?”
“I finished it long ago.” Sang did not look at her but said, “Hurry up and finish. Go to bed after you’re done.”
At about 8:30 p.m., they washed their faces and feet, and brushed their teeth. Yezi lay down on one end of the bed against the window while Sang slid into the other end near the curtain they used as a door. This was their shared nest.
Crickets chirped in the grass. Children pl
ayed hide-and-seek in the yard. Yezi listened. A child’s hurried steps, the chirp of a cricket, like a seesaw, one sound rose up, the other quieted down. The youngsters chanted: “One: attention; two: hide; and three: coming!” She imagined how frantic it would be to hide from a hunting “cat.” But Yao never allowed Yezi to play this game with the children in the yard. She had a good excuse: “We don’t have money for the hospital if you hurt yourself, or break your bones.” Feigning tears, Yao had pointed to Sang. “Look at your brother. Three stitches on his forehead! A girl can’t find a husband with a scar like that on her face!” Like a hen that stretched and flapped its wings around its chicks, Yao never let Yezi slip out of her sight.
Only once, for about half an hour, did Yezi manage to slip away.
It was on Yezi’s sixth birthday, several months earlier. After supper, Sang had said to Yao with excitement, “We’re going to watch a movie in the auditorium.” Yao was hesitant. Sang had explained, “The movie is free for kids. It’s because today is the International Children’s Day.”
Yezi had pulled the corner of Yao’s apron. “Please, Popo Yao. I want to watch the free movie. Can I go with Brother?”
“No,” Yao had said, grasping Yezi’s hand. “You’re too little. You’re not going anywhere.”
“Listen to Popo Yao,” Sang had said, smiling at her over his shoulder as he hurried away with his friend. “You can’t tag along with us.”
After Sang had left, Yezi had sat at the table, her eyes following the groups of children, hurrying past her. One called out, “Why don’t you come to the movie with us?”
Yezi’s heart had had skipped a beat. She had turned to look at Yao. She was washing dishes at the communal sinks. Her heart pounding, Yezi had scampered away with the group to the auditorium. After they had entered the hall, they had made their way through the crammed rows. Excited but exhausted, Yezi finally found a seat to plunk herself into.
Several minutes later, a gigantic sparkling star appeared on the screen, accompanied by lively music. The juvenile audience began clapping along with the rhythm of the melody. Yezi had trouble seeing the screen, so she knelt on her seat. The movie was about a battle. Bullets crisscrossed the smoky air, and bombs had exploded everywhere in a village. The shrieks of children resounded while squawking hens fluttered out of their coops. Barking dogs jumped over the fences.
“Japanese devils are coming into the village!” A shout had risen along with the sound of beating bronze gongs. Screaming and running, the villagers in the movie were fleeing their homes. Yezi’s heart was in her throat, her eyes glued to the screen.
Suddenly, an old, gruff voice burst into the hall, “Ye—Yezi!” Trembling with worry, Yao had clucked, “Where are you, little girl?” Like a baby chick, Yezi heard the mother hen’s voice and sensed the tears welling up in her eyes, but she was unsure where the hen was, in the village that was being attacked, or among the movie audience.
“Stop shouting!” A voice from the audience had cried out as the tone of Yao’s voice had become increasingly frantic.
Yezi had not known what was happening until a child shoved her and said, “That’s Popo Yao. She’s looking for you. You’d better go.” Yao was well-known to the children.
Squeezing out of the row and tumbling into the aisle, Yezi ran toward her hen, flinging her arms around Yao’s legs.Yao flapped her wings with joy. “Oh little one! You almost killed me!”
Yezi had then stared into Yao’s tearful face and was overcome by a sense of guilt. “I’ll never sneak away again,” she had said, her arms tightening around Yao’s trembling legs.
The bed shook slightly when Sang turned over. The crickets had become quiet. The children’s playful cries became distant, and their steps faded away. Will I wake up early tomorrow morning? Yezi wondered. Was it her mother’s face that came to her? She was not sure. Then she fell into a sound sleep.
8.
WILDCAT VALLEY
AT DAWN, YAO ROUSED THE children and asked them to get ready quickly. As they left, the apartment complex breathed like a sleeping giant.
Following Yao and Sang, Yezi walked under the dim light of the lampposts, which outlined the shadows of fir trees along the roadside. In a cozy restaurant at a street corner, a cook kneaded dough on a wooden counter. The flames from a stove flicked.
Her hand reaching for Yao’s, Yezi pranced to the rhythm of her brother’s footfalls. One-two-three-four. Going to see Mama. She repeated the words in her head and searched for her mother’s image in her memories. “Mama” made her think of a faraway figure with a beaming face and dark eyes in a yellow, faded photograph. “American spy!” echoed in her ears. That was how the Cultural Revolution portrayed her mother. She shivered, remembering the children at school who had called her an “American mongrel.” Mama is an anti-revolutionary! The thought haunted Yezi as she struggled to keep up with Sang’s footsteps.
The train station was still far, but Yezi could hear distant whistles blaring their arrival or departure. The three trudged along the road’s shoulder, disturbing the dreams of small toads that one by one hopped out of the ditch as they passed by. Her feet ached. One large step, one small. She dragged herself behind Sang, Yao’s hand pulling her along.
“Cheer up! March!” Yao called out. Her feet stomped on the ground in rhythm: One two! One two!
Yezi raised her head to look at the dark trees that framed the road. The nearby buildings seemed to move along with them, as if they had become alive. When she paused, they remained still. As she quickened her gait, they followed her again. Hide-and-seek. It was her own private game. She grasped Yao’s hand to help her leap forward, her hair rising and falling to the motion of her steps. Then she ran into her brother’s foot.
“Ouch!” Sang stumbled and stepped aside to pull up his shoe. “Watch what you’re doing.”
Yezi giggled.
“Yezi is strong,” Yao encouraged her. “Ha! Your brother’s a slowpoke,” she said with a chuckle.
After walking about four kilometres in the morning dew, they finally arrived at the train station. A solitary lamppost stood by the track, its bulb glimmering in the pale dawn before sunrise. Staring at the light, Yezi watched the bulb turn into overlapping spheres. Her eyes blurred as the glinting circles expanded and merged into the ashy, gray-blue sky. A train finally rumbled toward them, a piercing whistle announcing its arrival. Sang led the way and boarded the train. Yao followed, carrying Yezi on her back. Passengers sat or stood, occupying all the space available. Making their way down the aisle of several cars, they finally found a place where if they squeezed closely together they could sit on the floor. Yezi was content to huddle against Yao and soon drifted off to sleep despite the train’s constant rattling.
In her dream Yezi was a baby swallow that was hopping tentatively around the rocking car. Many children chased her. Her wings flapped, but she did not know in which direction she should fly. She could not see through the air; fog had spread through the congested car. Wanting to scream, she opened her mouth but could not make a sound, her throat dry. Fluttering her arms and kicking her feet like a swallow, she strove to flee her captors. She felt her square-ended tail droop and began to panic. Then she felt herself falling, falling.…
“Yezi! Are you alright?”
Her eyes opened. She found herself in Yao’s arms, a damp towel wiping her forehead. Threads of cool air spread on her hot face, but Yezi felt thirsty.
“I want water,” she said, sitting up. Yao, slouched on the floor where the cardboard boxes of train supplies were stacked, picked up a mug on the floor next to her and lifted it to Yezi’s lips. “Have some. You’ll feel better.”
Yezi drank the lukewarm water. Her dry throat was soothed. The smell from the washroom mixed with cigarette smoke filled the air and made her nose crinkle up. It stunk. She drew a shallow breath and tried to see if she could spot Sang.
At Yao’s request, Sang stood by the window, keeping an eye out for their station sign. When it was their stop, he pulled a bag onto his shoulder and toward his chest. “We should get off here,” he said as he made his way over to them.
“Go ahead. We’ll catch up,” replied Yao as she pulled herself to her feet. The strap of a patched, worn-out bag slung over her shoulder, Yao grabbed the mug with one hand and Yezi’s hand with the other. With a jerk, the train screeched to a stopped. They pushed through the crowd to the door, and finally stepped down onto a narrow platform in front of a small hut surrounded by a rusty, metal fence. On a paint-peeled board, two words proclaimed they had reached “Wildcat Valley.”
Yezi had been in the first grade for only two months. The first sentence she and her classmates had learned was “Long Live Chairman Mao!” She had memorized some of Chairman Mao’s directives. With her brother’s help, she could recognize the name of the station associated with her mother’s labour camp, though wildcats seemed exotic and mysterious to her.
The station name reminded Sang of Wild Boar Woods, a place in a novel he was reading called Water Margins. He had been excited when he read how the Robin Hood figure, Lu Zhishen, had rescued another hero, Lin Chong, from the woods. Maybe I could do the same for my mother. “Let’s go,” he said, kicking impatiently at pebbles on the ground.
Yao could not read any of the words, but she recognized the aged maple tree near the station. It was the sixth year she had been greeted by this old maple, which was now turning a withered orange. Staring at the fallen leaves dancing in the whirling wind and dust, Yao sighed. I’m old. She felt as if she were watching her own weathered skin drop to the ground.