by Vivian Yang
This was the first time I heard the name of my mother’s employer.
As soon as Mami returned from the post office the next day she pushed me in the direction of our room.
“You go inside and close the door, Mami has to talk to Ah Bu.” She was so serious that I didn’t dare to linger. I placed my ear on the door but their voices were too low to be made out.
When Mami came in, she placed me on the edge of the bed, squatted down before me, and gazed into my eyes as though she had never seen me before.
“What is it, Ma-mi?” I attempted.
Rising, she scooped me up and said, “I’m taking you to Shanghai where we will have a better life. Are you happy about it?”
I pressed my lips together and asked, “Is Ah Bu coming with us?”
“She has to stay to help in the church … sorry, forget about that word I just said. She can’t come.” Mami abruptly turned towards the desk, her slender but strong fingers starting to tear off the cardboard keyboard, bending the strip into two, then four, and then eight. Like a kung fu master breaking a stack of bricks into half with a bare hand, Mami chopped her makeshift piano repeatedly.
When she was done, the edge of her palm was crimson. I saw a glitter of tears in her eyes. She thrust the cardboard to me and said, “Go give this to Ah Bu. That wobbly dining table of hers could use a prop.”
“Thank your Mami for me, my little treasure,” Ah Bu said, blotting an eye with her sleeve.
“Why can’t you come with us? Don’t you miss Shanghai like Mami does?”
She held my hands and said, “I cannot return because I’m a Christian. The church’s been banned in China. Hopefully one day I’ll be like a fallen leaf that returns to its roots.”
Ah Bu hugged me and choked back a sob. “Your Mami is smart and capable and Shanghai is her home after all. I really cannot do what she’s asked or I would. I’m in God’s hands … you’re so clever and beautiful, you’ll be fine in the end.” She raised the lower hem of her apron to cover her face and nudged me towards our room.
Mami was putting her musical scores in piles. She didn’t raise her eyes.
“Ah Bu said thank you but she’s very sad. What did you ask her to do?”
She sat me down on the edge of the bed and said, “You’re too young to understand my circumstances. Just do as I say and no more questions.”
When I opened my eyes, a chunk of the sandwich was solid in my fist. Our train was pulling into Shanghai Station. Firecrackers celebrating the Year of the Horse were going off nearby as we exited. I had expected to see something similar to Hong Kong’s Central District but was overwhelmed by the ocean of people dressed in blue or gray clothes.
Mother sat me down on one of her boxes and craned her neck as other passengers dispersed. I noticed her eyes misting up and thought she must be moved to see her native city. Then I saw what she saw: parked across the street, amidst an ocean of pedestrians, was a singular black sedan.
Mother waved.
A middle-aged man in a navy tunic and matching cap rolled down the backseat window and nodded in our direction. His youngish, wizened chauffeur got out and ran towards us. His clothes were in faded blue and had patches all over. Flashing his crooked teeth with a smile, he called out, “Welcome back, Teacher Mo! Oh, what beautiful little girl you have! Come. Let me get your luggage. Bureau Chief Chen has been waiting.”
“Thank you, Old Wang.”
As Mother and I approached the car, the back door was flung open. The man came forth, lifted me up at the waist and exclaimed, “Ah! This must be our beautiful little Mo Mo!”
Mother cast a fleeting look at the beaming man and said, “Call your Uncle Chief.”
“Un-uncle Ch-chief …” I muttered.
“Yes, my beautiful clever Mo Mo!” He held me against him, inadvertently squashing the pack of cigarettes in his chest pocket. It was the same Tiananmen Gate brand that the men on the train smoked.
As Old Wang loaded Mother’s things in the trunk and the front seat, we sat down in the back. Uncle Chief put me on his lap and reached over to hold Mother’s hand.
“Comrade Mo, on behalf of the Municipal Cultural Bureau, welcome! You made the right choice to return.”
Mother withdrew her hand and stared at Old Wang’s back. Raising her voice, she replied, “Thank you, Bureau Chief Chen. I’ll work hard and serve the people well to deserve the Party’s trust and to repay your generosity.”
After some time we arrived in a neighborhood with many trees. Old Wang carried our belongings up to a European-style house. We remained in the car.
“So when can she start boarding school as you promised?” Mother asked flatly.
Uncle Chief moved me in between them and sighed. “Look, it’s not as easy as you think –she’s too young for the music program. Anyway, aren’t you happy that I managed to get you this flat?”
She didn’t reply but continued to ask, “What about as a child actor at the Studio?”
He shook his head. “Things have changed -- yes the Bureau still heads the Conservatory and the Studio, they’re sending someone to run the Studio as we speak. Why don’t you settle down first. Try out the ‘turtle’s head’ I went into great lengths to get you.”
“Oh, you managed to get one?”
“What’s a ‘turtle’s head’?” I asked.
He burst out laughing.
“Not funny,” Mother said sternly. “It’s a gas-cooker that resembles a turtle Mo Mo will use to cook meals for us from now on if Uncle Chief doesn’t enroll you in boarding school.”
“Enough, Comrade Mo! This is not Hong Kong.”
Scared seeing Mother biting her lip white, I said, “I don’t mind cooking, Ma-um-Mother. I’ll learn to cook Russian food for you, too.”
Uncle Chief gave Mother a harsh look. Neither spoke.
A moment later, Mother looked at the rear view mirror with a sulking face. “Old Wang is back.”
Uncle Chief smiled at me and said, “So little Mo Mo, this is goodbye for now. Listen to your mother and be a good girl!”
With an exaggerated nod, Old Wang opened the car door for Mother and me. He then turned to look again at the house we were about to enter, his eyes full of envy.
Seeing this, I could not wait to check it out myself.
2 Down with the Chief Dog
Our second floor two-room flat had white casement windows, wooden venetian blinds, and whitewashed indoor fluted columns. Mother moved all her “important things” to the bedroom and told me never to enter it. She stationed me in the outside room where a twin bed separated me from the area where the “turtle’s head” was. A flush toilet sat in a small space near the entrance.
“Before they partitioned the house into faculty living quarters, this used to be the powder room,” Mother explained.
“To store baby powder?” I asked, recalling the after-shower astringent Ah Bu applied on me in humid Hong Kong. “We want to protect your silky fair skin, don’t we?” she used to say.
Mother seemed to realize something. “No. I don’t think baby powder is sold here anymore. Anyway, a powder room is a bathroom without a bathtub.”
“I like it here because I have my own bed. This is so much better than in Hong Kong,” I said, bouncing on the springy mattress.
“I forbid you to mention that place again, you understand? Now, you’re right this is a wonderful place. You are lucky because I work for the Conservatory and the faculty housing is right here in the former French Concession.”
“French Concession?”
“People sometimes still call the European neighborhoods by their old names like the British or the French Concession although few Westerners can be found in Shanghai since Liberation.”
“Except for us now.”
“Correct. And you know, a thing is valued in proportion to its rarity, so I want to get the most out of this asset.”
“What asset?”
“Never mind. For you, just remember to ignore the stares f
rom others.”
On the first Monday morning after our arrival, Mother went to work. She balanced me on the bare middle bar of her bicycle before mounting it herself.
“Don’t talk or you’ll distract me,” she ordered.
Later, at the side door of an imposing European-style building, I was handed over to Old Wang. “Uncle Wang will have a playmate for you. I’m going to the office.”
Old Wang led me up some marble stairs and hallway to a broom closet. Inside was a chubby girl with dirt-caked cheeks. She gawked at me first then announced, “Hello, foreign princess!”
“How do you do? My name is Mo Mo -- the Chinese characters for jasmine and the fragrant white flowers with evergreens.”
Her mouth was opened when I described the written words of my name but she quickly followed suit. “And my name is Wang Hong, Hong as in revolutionary red. Now we can play.”
“Good. I am returning to work.”
“Bye-bye, Uncle Wang, and thank you.”
“Why did you say ‘thank you’?”
“Why? Because I should be polite to people.”
“You really are smart and fancy! No wonder my dad said your mom is the most beautiful person in the whole school.”
“Thank you,” I said, relieved that she didn’t seem to know that we’d just come from Hong Kong.
“You’re nice. Nobody’s ever thanked me before. Can I be your friend?” she asked, moving her hand tentatively in my direction. Ah Bu would be appalled by her nails as they had dirt caught in them.
I hesitated, asking, “What should we play?”
“Hopscotch,” she said, withdrawing her hand. “If I win, you’ll let me hold your hand?”
“What if you lose?”
“I won’t. I play alone in the marble corridor here everyday.”
“Just in case.”
She considered for a moment. “I’ll take you to the Piano Building and find an empty practice room to roll on the carpet.”
“The Piano Building? And it’s carpeted?”
“Of course. You don’t know? Well, I can show you everything. Deal!” She grabbed my hand, catching me off-guard.
“But you’re not playing fair,” I said, shaking her hand nonetheless.
“You agree to be my friend?”
“Sure, as long as you don’t call me a ‘foreign princess’. I’m just Mo Mo.”
“Hello, Mo Mo!”
Since then, Wang Hong and I met at the broom closet every morning. I taught her to fold origami animals and little people. She told me about the nooks and crannies of the campus. Old Wang would fetch us at noon and drop us off at the faculty canteen. Mother had offered to pay for Wang Hong’s lunch.
“Mo Mo, you are my best friend. I’d never dreamed of dining here before. My mom used to pack us steamed bread sandwiches with pickled mustard plant for lunch: two for dad and one each for me and herself. I now make her mouth water when I tell her what I eat here.”
“I’m glad you enjoy the food here,” I said, thinking instead of the dishes Ah Bu used to make and how I could cook tastier food than what the canteen offered.
Since early summer of 1966, the PA system had been broadcasting news about a nationwide political campaign known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, launched by Chairman Mao. As a kid, I had no idea that the disarray on campus harbingered a decade-long social upheaval and economic chaos. All Wang Hong and I knew was that the students had stopped making the pleasantly repetitive deedle deedle dee sounds of music practice. Instead, they were “making revolution” by “defeating the counter-revolutionary academic authorities.”
Then one mid-morning, Old Wang whisked us out of the broom closet to the school lawn. “Did you not hear the PA broadcast? Everybody on campus must gather immediately for the denunciation rally.”
When we arrived, the lawn area was all but taken over by a fist-waving crowd. To allow me to see, Old Wang mounted me on top of a cardboard box by a tree. I tiptoed and craned my neck: in the center of the stage was someone whose dunce hat identified him as “Counter Revolutionary Cultural Bureau Chief Dog Chen”, his mouth gagged and arms pinioned by two male students with Red Guards armbands. The words on the placard hanging from his neck read: “Down with the Capitalist-Roader within the Communist Party!”
My heart lurched into my throat.
Just then, Old Wang lifted Wang Hong up next to me. She squealed, “It’s Bureau Chief Chen!”
The box under our feet gave and we fell into each other, sending off a scream.
Numerous heads turned in our direction, with some asking, “What happened?”
As we helped ourselves up, I saw Old Wang staring at someone in the front of the crowd, his mouth half open. The next thing I knew, I heard Mother’s cracking voice barking from the microphone on the stage:
“Comrades-in-arms, don’t look towards the back! Look at me here! I am a direct victim of the Chief Dog and I’ll expose his imperialist-worshipping true colors right now! Chief Dog Chen personally forced me to perform in the British imperialist Hong Kong because he said it was the best way to continue our school’s European tradition since it was modeled after the Leipzig Conservatory of Music. But I couldn’t stand the British capitalist decadence there and returned to our great socialist motherland to make revolution. Comrades-in-arms, Chief Dog Chen is an out-and-out counter revolutionary capitalist-roader! Down with Chief Dog Chen!”
The crowd shouted: “Down with Chief Dog Chen!”
Wang Hong had let the clasped box lean against the tree and begun to climb on it. Old Wang held me up onto his shoulders just in time for me to see Mother charging at Uncle Chief. Her body shaking, Mother slapped across his face and kicked him in the groin. Uncle Chief collapsed on his knees, face down. The Red Guards dragged him off the stage as the audience roared:
“Down with the Capitalist-Roader within the Party!”
“Death to the Counter Revolutionary Chief Dog Chen!”
Confused and frightened, I said, “I want to get down!” Old Wang put me down and scooped up Wang Hong. “This is not something little girls should see. We’d better get you to the canteen before everybody shows up.”
Wang Hong clapped her hands and said, “Good idea. Let’s go!”
But when we got there, we found it closed. As we returned to the Administration Building, now as quiet as a morgue, we could still hear the shouting of slogans from the other end of the campus.
Back in the broom closet, Old Wang said, “Teacher Mo is not only beautiful but also brave and revolutionary. She always knew the right thing to do.”
“What’s going to happen to …?” I attempted.
“My boss? Well, nobody knows at this point. One thing is clear. You girls won’t be able to play here anymore.”
“And no more faculty canteen lunches?” asked Wang Hong.
“No. Everything is going to change – big, or they wouldn’t call this the Great Cultural Revolution.”
Wang Hong let out a sigh. “I’m hungry.” Since starting lunch in the canteen, she was not given breakfast. Old Wang decided to take her home.
After they left, I waited for Mother while reliving the scene of her slapping and kicking Uncle Chief. Chills ran through me. The snug feeling of me sitting on the lap of the suddenly disgraced man returned. The odor of his Tiananmen Gate cigarettes, still very much drifting in the air of the building’s hallways, hit my senses. I wondered about my future now that I couldn’t play with Wang Hong anymore.
Then I dozed off.
Mother came to fetch me some time later, her cheeks flushed with excitement as she pointed at the Red Guard armband she was wearing. I wolfed down the streamed bread she brought and asked, “The Red Guards let you join them?”
“Yes! I’m one of the first faculty members to be admitted and the only one today! I’ve given up the bourgeois piano and taken up the revolutionary accordion for the Red Guard Revolutionary Propaganda Team.”
She then exhaled deeply and took both
of my hands in hers. “We’ll be fine now, Mo Mo – thanks to my smarts and quick-headedness!”
“You mean … Uncle Chief?”
She glared at me. “You saw? Were you also there earlier?”
I nodded.
“Now Mo Mo, listen to me, don’t ever call the capitalist-roader that anymore. Remember, you’ve never met him before and you only saw him being denounced at the mass rally today.”
“But I did meet him.”
A slap landed across my cheek, stunning me.
“Why on earth did I have such a stupid child?” she yelled. “Didn’t I just say you’d never heard of him? Do you want to associate your young self with the most vicious bourgeois running dog in Shanghai?”
So that was the end of him for me.
It was not until Wang Hong and I started primary school together several years later that she would tell me boastfully, “He hanged himself with the very piece of rope the Red Guards tied him up with, and I know that exact place where he died.”
It was a corner room in the Piano Building that the radical students had turned into a makeshift cell. But Wang Hong and I had never rolled on the carpet there.
I would nod absent-mindedly, remembering the slap Mother inflicted on me that same day she had condemned him.
He died.
I survived.
3 At the Pushkin Graveyard
I became what I am today at age ten, when domestic and international events first made me aware of my own peculiar position in this world. I also saw a masked man with engaging eyes sweeping the streets. Our communication was nonverbal, but everything seemed to have begun for me from that encounter.
Kids my age would have been in school already had it not because China’s political circumstances then at home and abroad. The Sino-Soviet border conflict and the death of Chairman Mao’s protégé and designated successor Lin Biao meant that the beginning of our schooling was postponed. I taught myself to read The Liberation Daily and to write as many Chinese characters as possible. The Liberation Daily was the only official paper in Shanghai and every business entity had to subscribe to it even though it was not always read. I got my copies for free at the nearby wet market where I shopped daily for groceries. A stack of them was always there to be used to wrap food in.