A terrible thought came to my mind. Mother had been taking our belongings to the black market to trade for coal and rice. Had she traded it for things? Maybe people from the countryside could still wear clothes with bright colors.
That night seemed to never end. Mother wouldn’t trade my blouse without asking me, would she? When the sky outside the window turned pale, Mother came home with a slightly swollen face.
Running up to her, I tried to sound as sweet as I could. “Momma, do you know where my blouse is? I hid it under my mattress.”
As she walked toward her bedroom, she said with a blank expression, “I traded it for the eggs you ate yesterday.”
“How could you do that?” I cried.
Mother closed the bedroom door behind her.
My sobs echoed in the apartment. How could she trade my blouse without asking? I stomped, hoping the noise would bring her back out. But the door stayed closed.
I ran to my room and pressed Father’s scarf to my face, hoping the last bit of his smell would give me comfort.
The Long White Rope
The days slowly moved on. Mother and I struggled to get enough to eat, coal for our little stove, oil for the lamp, and water for cooking and washing. Yet we rarely spoke to each other.
Outside, green buds quietly turned to full leaves on the milk trees. One morning after work, instead of going to her room, Mother sat down at the table. “Come here, Ling. I need to talk to you.”
I was so pleased that she wanted to talk. There were so many things I wanted to say to her. I wanted to tell her she was the only person I had left in the world. And I wanted her to know I even forgave her for trading my precious blouse.
“Listen carefully.” Mother placed a list on the table. “You’re almost twelve now, and you need to learn how to do these chores.” Her bloodshot eyes stared at me like a pair of daggers. I looked away.
She paused for a moment, rubbing the button on her jacket, as if deciding how to tell me the rest. “In case I am gone—”
“What do you mean, in case you are gone? I’m too young to be by myself.”
Mother’s glazed eyes stared at Chairman Mao’s portrait above the fireplace.
“Answer me, Mother … please!” I started to cry.
She continued. “Soak the dirty clothes first before putting on the soap. Use the washboard—”
“I don’t want to hear it. I’m too young to learn.” I ran to my room and closed the door.
I shivered with fear. My mouth let out all the bad words I knew. Outside my window, three sparrows drummed their wings. I wished I could fly away from this miserable place. What did Mother mean by “in case I am gone”? Were they going to take her away, too? Or was she going to try to kill herself by walking into the river like Mr. Ji?
The sparrows shot away. Someone staggered into the courtyard. I recognized her as the doctor known for delivering babies. On one side of her head, the hair had been cut close to the scalp and the other half was shoulder-length. A streak of blood flowed from her forehead. One of the sleeves was missing from her white sweater, showing her bare arm. She was approaching the three-story building across the courtyard when Mother joined me at the window.
“Oh, no! They gave her a yin-yang haircut at today’s public criticism meeting,” Mother whispered. Her fingers reached again for her button.
Fear and pain stirred in my chest. What crime could the baby doctor have committed? I’d always seen her either holding a baby or walking with a pregnant woman. Were they afraid she would turn babies into antirevolutionaries? An awful thought filled me. Would Mother be strong enough to endure a public criticism meeting? Did she tell me “in case I am gone” because she believed something was going to happen to her?
Soon, the doctor’s two teenage sons and their grandmother rushed into the courtyard from the street. The skinny grandmother stumbled on her tiny crippled feet. Mother had told me that in the old days girls were forced to bind their feet to keep them small.
The older boy had a little black mole on the left side of his chin and was half a head taller than the younger one, who had a wide face and flat nose. They both were strongly built. The family had moved in about a year ago. I had overheard that their father had died of cancer.
Now the boys were on each side of their grandmother, helping her along. Their faces were pinched with worry. A moment after they went in their building, I heard the grandmother’s wailing. The older boy ran out screaming, “Help! Help my mother!”
Mother clutched my arms with both her hands. Just when I was trying to decide if I should break away from her grip to help the doctor, Comrade Li ran into the courtyard, followed by Pink Cheeks, Short Legs, Pimple Face, and Mouse Eyes. His amplified voice shrieked through the loudspeaker at the boy. “Get your antirevolutionary mother down here now!” The boy froze for a second, then ran back inside the building. Short Legs, Pimple Face, and Pink Cheeks chased after him.
Mother let go of me and ran into her room. I hurried after her and found her shivering on the floor, leaning against her bed, eyes closed. “They are coming for me! They are coming for me! It’s my turn now!” she murmured.
Hiding my fear, I cupped her face in my hands and said gently, “Mom, Mom, they are coming for the baby doctor, not you! Not you!” She slowly opened her eyes and looked at me without blinking.
“Everyone report to the courtyard at once! To the courtyard now!” Comrade Li’s angry voice cut through our closed windows. Mother let me move her about like a puppet. I helped her put on her jacket and go down to the courtyard.
To our horror, there in front of the doctor’s building lay a stretcher covered with a blue sheet, a body outlined beneath it.
What was underneath the sheet? The baby doctor’s body? How could that be? She had just run across the courtyard. I didn’t want to believe what I saw.
The two sons supported the unsteady grandmother, standing next to the stretcher. She wept vigorously, and tears trickled down her cheeks. She seemed about to fall to the ground if not for the two boys. The older boy kept wiping his puffy eyes with the back of his free hand. The younger one stared into the distance, as if his mind was far away.
My heart trembled with fear and sadness. If they took her to the hospital now, could she be saved? I pushed my tears back. I didn’t want Comrade Li to see them.
Surrounded by Red Guards, Comrade Li stood next to the older boy, smoking his cigarette as he waited for everyone to assemble. When he noticed us, he gave me an evil leering grin. Mother kept her eyes half closed.
About twenty neighbors stood silent in the cold spring wind. It had rained the day before, so the ground of the courtyard was muddy. Small puddles had formed in a few places. Branches stretched to the sky like desperate arms, pleading for help.
Comrade Li shouted through the loudspeaker. “Everyone, take a close look at the number one traitor!” He pointed at the figure beneath the sheet. “By committing suicide,” he continued, “she refused to be reeducated and showed her hatred for Chairman Mao and the Revolution!”
Why did the doctor kill herself? Did she do it because they cut her hair and tore her clothes? Could I have done something to save her? My vision blurred.
“Show your love for Chairman Mao. Draw a class line between yourselves and this traitor,” Comrade Li shrieked at the doctor’s family.
“Never!” The older boy thrust up his fist and spat at Comrade Li’s face. “You drove her to this. You killed my mother!” The black mole on his chin moved up and down as he cried. Surprised, Comrade Li backed up a few steps and wiped the spit off with his sleeve. The whole courtyard fell silent. I could hear Mother’s heavy breathing. From the river, a boat sounded its horn and gave out several short blasts. My head pounded.
“You antirevolutionary insect!” Comrade Li lifted his metal loudspeaker and smashed it down on the boy’s head. It gave out the clanking sound of metal hitting rock, followed by a short squeal of static. Blood gushed from a cut above the boy’s ear. H
e fell to his knees, dragging down his grandmother, who struggled to remain standing and then collapsed on the ground beside him.
It felt like someone was kicking me from the inside.
“I’ll teach him a lesson.” Pimple Face furiously kicked the boy as he fell flat on the ground, groaning. Mouse Eyes stomped on his chest. Blood flowed from his mouth. His arms and legs stretched in and out as if pulled by invisible ghosts.
Tears welled in my eyes. Shivering, I gasped for breath. A young nurse standing next to me began sobbing. Mother wrapped her arm around my shoulder. I could feel her weight on me. I wished someone would stop the beating. If Father was here, he’d save the boy like he saved Mrs. Wong.
Suddenly, the grandmother threw herself over the boy. She pleaded in her high-pitched voice, “Please, please forgive us. We will draw a class line between us and my antirevolutionary daughter. Forgive my grandson. I will take my daughter’s place to be re-educated.”
The beating stopped. The air smelled of blood. A few drops of cold rain fell on my face. How could they cruelly beat the boy after he had just lost his mother? The grandmother must have felt so desperate to denounce her daughter to save her grandsons.
Looking around me, many women had their eyes shut like Mother. Three young doctors stood in a far corner, their faces tightened with anger. I wished they would do something to stop this! But no one moved. They must be afraid to bring trouble to themselves and their family.
Pimple Face wedged his club between the grandmother and the wounded boy. He stabbed her chest with his stick until she fell backward. Now the older boy lay there motionless, covered with dust. The younger boy lifted his grandmother to her knees. Tears trickled down his face.
The hair on my arms bristled, and I tried hard to push down the lump in my throat.
As the Red Guards dragged the two boys away, the grandmother threw herself on top of the body on the stretcher and wailed, “Why did you have to do this? Didn’t you know your boys would have to pay for your death?”
It was then I realized that death could not end the suffering. Would the baby doctor still have killed herself if she had known what would happen to her family?
As Short Legs and Mouse Eyes dragged the grandmother away, she gripped the blue sheet, and it trailed along behind her, revealing the baby doctor’s body. An old man broke into long howls of despair, sounding like an injured wolf. It echoed around the courtyard. The ground underneath me swayed. I gripped the milk tree for support.
A long white rope, just like the one under Mother’s mattress, was tied around the baby doctor’s neck. Her eyes were wide open.
Shopping with Mother
All summer, the baby doctor’s vacant face haunted me. In my dreams, she walked toward me with a white rope around her neck, carrying a baby in her arms. As I stretched my hand to take the baby, she faded away. I often woke in a cold sweat and couldn’t fall back to sleep. I lingered over the fear of what Mother planned to do with the rope under her bed. I wanted to take it away from her, but when I went to look for it, it was gone.
I couldn’t stop thinking about the two boys and the grandmother. I never saw them again after that horrible day.
Was the older boy able to recover from the beating? I had seen him around the hospital compound many times before. Except for the mole on his face, I thought he was handsome, especially his double-lidded eyes. When we had passed by each other in the courtyard, he’d look down, avoiding eye contact with me. I had sensed a sadness in him, which made me curious. Was he sad because he lost his father? Did he love his father as much as I loved mine? I wished I’d had the courage to talk to him and get to know him. Deep down, I hoped I could be as brave as he was when the time came to defend Mother.
I learned to do many chores. Mother hadn’t talked about going away again, but the thought of her rope still cast a shadow over me. I feared any misbehavior would make her leave me. I had grown tall and skinny. Would Father recognize me if he saw me in my patched-up Mao jacket?
When the fall rain turned to sleet, crusting the ground with ice, I learned from the newspaper that workers at the water plant worked only half days, using the rest of the time to study Mao’s teachings. When they were at work, they didn’t do a good job. The faucet in our kitchen dripped sandy water only at night. I wrapped two layers of surgical pads over the spout and in a day or two they filled with sand.
We kept our enamel washbasin under the faucet to catch drops at night. By morning, it was often only half full and covered with a thin skin of ice. I broke the ice with a metal spatula. On the bottom of the basin was a drawing of the sun surrounded by lines of words in red paint: LONG LIVE CHAIRMAN MAO! LONG LIVE CHAIRMAN MAO! One “Long” had faded off. I doubted Mao had to wash his face with cold, sandy water.
I learned to save water by first washing my face, then clothes, and last, mopping the floor.
I had become skilled at using a washboard—a wooden board carved with deep grooves. I pressed and rolled the clothes up and down on it. My hands grew numb in the icy water, and the small pieces of soap slipped out of my swollen fingers.
Many times, I promised myself that when I grew up, if bars of soap were no longer rationed, I would buy a box of them and use only the large pieces. If Mother still thought someone should use the small pieces, I’d save them for her. Then she would know how hard it was.
One chore Mother hadn’t asked me to do was shop in the market. She said I was still too young to fight for food. I couldn’t imagine how bad it might be. The days when she came home with an empty basket, I wished she had taken me with her. I would have bought anything edible to stop the hunger.
Finally, one Sunday in early February, she woke me.
“Hurry! There is meat today. I’ll show you how to shop.”
I opened my eyes. It was still dark outside.
“Now? What time is it?”
“Three-thirty in the morning,” Mother answered in her tired voice. I reached for my coat on top of my cotton blankets. The chill forced me to pull my hand back under the warm blankets. But the thought of Mother deciding I was old enough to shop in the market drove me to sit up. I took a deep breath and slipped into my ice-cold jacket.
Outside, thick fog swallowed us. The air felt damp. The streetlights gave out a soft yellow glow. Torn posters snapped in the chilly breeze. I couldn’t help shivering. My ears ached. Under layers of clothes, I couldn’t reach my itchy back. It had been weeks since my last bath. I dreamed of soaking in hot water and scrubbing off the grimy smell from my body. To keep my frostbitten hands warm, I tried to tuck them into opposite sleeves, but only the tips of my swollen fingers fit in.
The market was on the way to school. I’d never been there so early. Mother often shopped after her night shift. During the day, the shelves were empty. Occasionally, a line of cardboard boxes sat on the sales counters with notes on top. Once, when no one was in the shop, I went in to look. Names were written on the notes. Inside were clean vegetables, eggs, and chunks of meat. One of them was addressed to Comrade Li.
The fat saleslady had rushed from behind and yelled at me, “Get away! No more food today.”
I shot her a disgusted look and ran. What did she mean, no food? Were those boxes only for powerful people?
I had never seen so many people near the shop as there were this morning. A long, twisted line started two blocks away. No wonder Mother rarely brought meat home.
“Any meat today?” Mother asked the last person in line. He was wrapped up in a gray scarf, only showing his eyes.
“Who knows? I saw them unload a rickshaw of meat half an hour ago. But this snake line hasn’t moved.” He stamped his feet to keep warm. “I suppose it depends on whether or not they have enough for the back door.” His voice cracked with anger. People sat on the concrete street, asleep under big coats. One old man snored and wheezed like a bicycle pump. Empty baskets and big rocks sat in the line between them.
“What are those for, Mom?” I whispered and pointed t
o a big rock.
“People came last night and used the rocks and baskets to hold places for themselves. Everyone will come back by seven, when the shop opens,” Mother explained.
I could sense angry glares following us as we moved toward the front of the line. My body tensed.
“Ah. Here’s our basket.” Mother pointed to a familiar bamboo basket beside a woman. “Say hello to Aunt Wu.”
“Good morning, Aunt Wu.”
Aunt Wu was a middle-aged woman. Her faded Mao jacket was so tight around her waist it seemed about to burst. Her buckteeth forced her upper lip to pull a little toward the right side of her face. She didn’t look at me when I greeted her. Her eyes were fixed on the entrance to the shop.
Mother picked up the basket and took her place in line. “Next month it’s our turn to wait in line.” She said it loudly, as if she wanted to make sure Aunt Wu heard.
I had never seen Aunt Wu around the hospital. Mother must have met her at the market. As time dragged on, I stamped my feet and blew into my hands to keep them warm. My coat became damp and heavier. How had Aunt Wu stayed out in this cold all night without becoming a block of ice?
Gradually, the whole line grew restless. An old man made horrible grunting noises as he rinsed his mouth with his tea and then spat on the sidewalk. Two young women braided each other’s hair.
“It starts!” yelled Aunt Wu, jutting her neck toward the entrance.
The line broke apart. People rushed toward the door. Mother held the basket in front of her, ducked her head, and pushed forward.
Someone stepped on my left shoe. Struggling to free my foot, I lost my shoe. “My shoe, my shoe!” No one paid attention to me.
Worrying I would lose the other one, I slipped it off and stuffed it into my pocket. Aunt Wu had fallen to the ground next to me.
“Give me your ration ticket and money. Let me help you.” I pulled her to her feet and grabbed her basket and the roll of damp money and tickets from her hand. I pushed myself through the wall of bodies in front of me. More people pushed from behind. The force lifted me off the ground. I saw Mother ahead of me but still far from the meat counter.
Revolution Is Not a Dinner Party Page 9