He took me as I continued to recite. It was Wild Ginger's favorite paragraph: "Volume three, page thirty, 'Rectify the Party's Style of Work.' 'So long as a person who has made mistakes does not hide his sickness for fear of treatment or persist in his mistakes until he is beyond cure, so long as he honestly and sincerely wishes to be cured and to mend his ways, we should welcome him and cure his sickness so that he can become a good comrade.'" I rode him as he moved gently inside me. Through the sound of his breath I stared out into the night. I envisioned Wild Ginger. She stood in uniform with her front b.u.t.tons open. Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s were two steaming buns.

I took Evergreen's hands. I asked him to close his eyes. I asked him to touch me, to feel me, feel Wild Ginger. '"We can never succeed if we just let ourselves go and lash out at the comrade with shortcomings. In treating an ideological or a political malady, one must never be rough and rash but must adopt the approach of curing the sickness to save the patient, which is the only correct and effective method.'"

And then I closed my own eyes and once again I was in Wild Ginger's closet.

21.

Finally the rally came. The afternoon was cold and windy. The temperature continued to drop. A big crowd milled in front of the stadium. The singing groups started to arrive. My group head, a guy nicknamed "Shorty," was upset with me. "Don't take it so lightly! It is a political a.s.signment. It is much more important than finishing your lunch." He asked if I was wearing a white shirt underneath and whether I had brought the straw hat that he had requested. I reported that I had the white shirt but had forgotten the hat. "Go home and get it!" he yelled. "You know, our group has been appointed to play peasants. Wild Ginger will shower my face with spit if I have my members wear the wrong costumes. Her reputation is on the line. She's giving us our chance to show loyalty toward Chairman Mao. It is an honorable a.s.signment! And there is no room for mistakes. Please sing as loudly as you can. Sing at the top of your lungs!"

After I fetched my hat my group entered the stadium. It was dim and smelled filthy. Sitting on benches that circled from bottom to top, thousands of people were preparing themselves. The noise was deafening. I stood on the west side at row thirty-seven. As I looked around for Evergreen, Shorty came with props. They were sunflowers made of cardboard. He asked me to help distribute them. "Sway the flowers from side to side when singing. Now let's practice 'Talks at the Yenan Forum on Literature and Art.' Ready? Begin. 'Our great savior, great leader, great helmsman, and great commander Chairman Mao teaches us..."'

As our group practiced the drill, other groups joined in. All of a sudden, the air boiled. I swayed my props and sang, "'In the world today 11 culture, all literature and art belong to definite cla.s.ses and are geared to definite political lines'" I looked for Evergreen and located him way up in the back by an exit door. '"There is in fact no such thing as art for art's sake, art that stands above cla.s.ses, art that is detached from or independent of politics.'" He was not reading The Electrician's Guide The Electrician's Guide this time. But he looked terribly bored. He had been attending electricians' workshops and cla.s.ses. His mind had already gone to the remote village. He told me that we had to prepare for a place where no one had ever seen a lightbulb. He had a dream of putting lights in village kitchens and motors in farming machines. I encouraged him. I had been spending my savings to buy him pliers and wires. this time. But he looked terribly bored. He had been attending electricians' workshops and cla.s.ses. His mind had already gone to the remote village. He told me that we had to prepare for a place where no one had ever seen a lightbulb. He had a dream of putting lights in village kitchens and motors in farming machines. I encouraged him. I had been spending my savings to buy him pliers and wires.

Evergreen saw me. He waved his sunflower. I waved back and sang, '"Proletarian literature and art are part of the whole proletarian revolutionary cause; they are, as Lenin said, cogs and wheels in the whole revolutionary machine.'" He smiled and cautioned me with his eyes not to stare at him. I thought about the dinner my parents had invited him to several days ago. It was a way for them to acknowledge him as their future son-in-law. The day before, he had offered to install a shower bath for my family. My mother was pleased. It was her dream to have a shower. Evergreen came in the morning with three of his friends. The men didn't stop working until late night. They put up a giant wooden bucket in the corner of our kitchen with plastic draperies. When it was time to demonstrate the shower, not only did the showerhead not work, the fuses blew. Evergreen was embarra.s.sed. It turned out that in his nervousness he had misconnected the wires. My parents were impressed by his effort. The shower finally worked and my parents started to help me pack for my life's journey with Evergreen.

At the bottom of the stands, Wild Ginger stood with the Shanghai Orchestra at her back. The conductor wore white gloves. His fingers spiked out like chopsticks. I recognized him. He was the young pianist whose hand had been destroyed by the Red Guards.

Wild Ginger directed the swarming crowds into their places. The microphone in her hand kept malfunctioning. One minute it buzzed, the next it was fine. A few minutes later it was dead again.

Hot Pepper ran around Wild Ginger's feet trying to reconnect the wires. She tapped the microphone to test the sound and then ran up and down the staircases to check the volume. I had no idea how Wild Ginger and Hot Pepper could possibly get along. I knew how little Wild Ginger used to think of Hot Pepper. She used to say that Hot Pepper would never need a cardiologist because she had no heart. Did she think Hot Pepper had a heart now? When Hot Pepper was accepted as a Communist party member she said, "I was a piece of s.h.i.t before Wild Ginger took me in." I wondered if Wild Ginger found the relationship fulfilling.

The lights brightened. The crowd cheered. Wild Ginger announced the opening of the rally. We sang the national anthem, "The Red in the East." The "workers" challenged the "peasants." Then the "peasants" challenged the "soldiers" and the "students."

"Wasn't that an awfully good song?" Wild Ginger shouted.

"Yes!" the crowd responded.

"Another one, yes?"

"Yes!"

The shouts were followed by thunderous applause.

The way our group sang depended on Shorty's gymnastics. When his arms swayed like a willow in a storm, we pitched. When the arms moved like a sweeping broom, we wailed. The paper petals of my sunflowers began to drop. The men and women next to me screamed as loudly as they could. It made Shorty happy.

The sound rose and fell in waves. After the "soldiers" sang "The People's Army Loves People," we came to our last song, "On Youth." My throat hurt badly.

"'The world is yours, as well as ours, but in the last a.n.a.lysis, it is yours. You are the young people. You are full of vigor and vitality. You are in the bloom of life..."' In the midst of the song I noticed a few foreigners in front of the stage with cameras in their hands. They were accompanied by a gray-haired man. The foreigners smiled as they flashed their cameras.

"It's the new general party secretary of Shanghai!" someone said.

"'...like the sun at eight or nine in the morning,'" I shouted, '"China's hope is placed on you..."'

Many years later when I recalled this scene, I asked myself why Wild Ginger hadn't introduce the gray-haired man and his guests to the rally. If she had, I might have figured out why she was so nervous. She was like the driver of a speeding train who suddenly realized that the track had been wrongly connected and that he was about to smash into a train speeding from the opposite direction. And there was no way she could stop the train.

"'...The world belongs to you. China's future belongs to you!'" I remember squeezing my gut to reach the high note.

Suddenly the lights went off. The stadium was a black hole. After a moment of shocking silence, we heard Wild Ginger's voice, shaky and disoriented. "Calm ... down, calm down, comrades, there is an ... an ... Anyway, we have sent someone to fix ... This is not a problem. I appreciate the loyalty toward Chairman Mao you all display. I am proud ... And you should be proud of yourself. Everything is fine, comrades. Listen to me. The lights will be on in a second." Her microphone buzzed and we could no longer hear her.

There were whistles in the dark. The crowd began to talk among themselves. Someone started to throw the props.

A moment later Wild Gingers voice rose. "Comrades! The darkness has shut our eyes, but it can't shut our voices, can it?"

"No!"

"Let's sing 'The world belongs to you and China's future belongs to you' one more time. Ready? Begin!"

We sang. I had no idea that my future had just been forever altered.

When the lights came back on I saw a group of security guards rush in. They escorted the general party secretary and his foreign guests out of the stadium. The secretary looked terribly upset. He kept pointing his finger at Wild Ginger. Wild Ginger tried to explain but he walked out.

Wild Ginger was abandoned right in front of the entire stadium. She stood with her microphone dangling at her side and her mouth half open, like a melting snowman under the sun.

The guards came back. They were led by Hot Pepper. The crowd watched them as they moved toward the top of the bleachers. They stopped at the last bench where Evergreen sat with his group.

My mind had a hard time interpreting what my eyes were seeing. I started to gasp in disbelief: Hot Pepper pointed at Evergreen and the guards went up and handcuffed him.

Before Evergreen could struggle the men took him away.

Hot Pepper grabbed Evergreen's bag from underneath the bench. The bag seemed extremely heavy in her hand. I was sure it was filled with books and tools. When Hot Pepper reached Wild Ginger she held the bag high. Grabbing the microphone from Wild Ginger, Hot Pepper made an announcement to the crowd. Her mice eyes were lit with excitement. "Here is the anti-Maoist who is responsible for tonight's incident!" Hot Pepper took out Evergreen's pliers and wrench from the bag. "The tools for the crime are in this bag. He ruined the rally by sabotaging the power!"

The crowd was stunned.

Wild Ginger grabbed the microphone back from Hot Pepper and covered it with her hand. The two argued.

"Why can't we talk here?" Hot Pepper yelled as she turned toward the crowd. "Didn't Chairman Mao teach us, 'A true Communist has nothing to hide from her people'?"

Wild Ginger backed off. She moved like an old lady. Her posture slumped, and her legs began to shake.

22.

I was not aware of what I was doing when I plunged through the crowd and headed toward the back of the stage. I was driven by one thought, to speak with Wild Ginger. I was sure she was behind the incident. Surely she must be. And yet her reaction on the stage confused me.

When I pa.s.sed one of the prop rooms I heard an angry conversation behind the panels. My ear immediately registered the voices-Wild Ginger's and Hot Pepper's. Quickly I hid myself.

"Well, no use arguing now. The job is done." It was Hot Pepper's voice. It was filled with elation.

"Why did you invite the general party secretary without my permission?" Wild Ginger's voice was strained with anger.

"Don't you want to pull a weed by its root? You wanted to stain Evergreen in order to separate the couple and I helped you and did it thoroughly."

"You b.i.t.c.h! I specifically instructed you not to send an invitation to the secretary, didn't I?"

"Yes you did. I understood your intention perfectly. You didn't want to turn this into a political incident. You wanted to maintain control. You wanted to have him singed but not killed. You have feelings for him. You wanted to send your friend Maple into exile while you got your man back. What a wonderful plot! A reactionary discovered and you get to be the judge. Oh, you must really believe that you are powerful. But who is the fool here?"

"Hot Pepper!"

"Yes, Commander. I only spared a little creativity when carrying out your order. I invited the general party secretary and his foreign guests. I made it a political incident. I succeeded in ruining you! That's right, I have ruined you."

"You snake! For heaven's sake, I sponsored you to become a party member! How can you be so ungrateful?"

"Ungrateful? You must really think that I have forgotten how you took away my popularity at the school. I hate you so much I could drink poison. It is I who should have been the one to meet Chairman Mao; it is I who should have been called the heroine. You ripped away my opportunity and happiness..." Hot Pepper broke into tears. "Oh, Chairman Mao, today is my day, finally. Let me recite your teaching: 'If I am not attacked, I won't launch an attack. And if I am attacked, you can be sure that I will counterattack.'"

"I should have murdered you."

"Precisely. Now there is nothing you can do to reverse the situation. The incident was caught by the foreign cameras. It has now become a national embarra.s.sment. The general party secretary's shame. Evergreen has committed a crime that insulted Chairman Mao! I am thrilled. And the best part is that you can't afford to expose the truth. Because if you do, you'll destroy yourself. You have to keep bribing me to be silent."

"If I had the power to create this mess, I have the power to fix it."

"Of course you could turn yourself in. Won't that be my dream come true! Once you told me that I was too stupid to do basic logic and math, remember? Now allow me to show you the progress I have made: this is a recent example of the law of this country. On May twenty-second, 1972, a thief stole a citizen's purse. He was sentenced to one year in jail. In the same month, a different date, another thief who stole a foreigner's purse was given a death sentence. Reason? He brought shame to the nation. Chairman Mao has been trying to show the world that China is crimeless-his teaching has reformed a society into a great moral model of mankind. You see, I have been blessed."

Silence. I could hear Wild Ginger clench her teeth. "I will get Evergreen off the hook. Just watch me."

Hot Pepper struck a match and lit a cigarette. The smoke drifted over. "Remember how you took my umbrella away from me years ago? It's my turn to kick the dog."

I was caught by a strange force the moment Hot Pepper mentioned the word "umbrella." The image of Wild Ginger rescuing me from Hot Pepper's beating was before my eyes. Suddenly enraged, I rushed forward.

Both Wild Ginger and Hot Pepper heard the noise and turned around.

"Aha, Maple, are you here to congratulate me in my victory or share in the misery of Wild Ginger's defeat?" Hot Pepper took a long drag from her cigarette and smiled viciously. "Allow me to sign off, Commander."

Silently Wild Ginger and I stared at each other.

"What do you want?" Her voice was filled with ice.

"May I speak to you?"

"No." She turned around and marched out.

23.

There was no way to obtain statistics, but 1973 was a year of severe sentences and countless executions. The nation reeled from forces within and without owing to the nation's instability. Internationally, the Vietnamese Communists battled the Americans just to the south. There were riots in Russia and food shortages in North Korea. The domestic picture was bleak too. Mao's disciple, his most trusted comrade in arms and his chosen successor, Vice Chairman Lin Biao, was suddenly p.r.o.nounced an a.s.sa.s.sin and a Russian spy. Every week new execution lists were posted around the neighborhood. In Chia Chia Lane alone, two young people were executed and eleven more arrested. The criminals' faces were printed on the bulletins and their names were split so that the word "convict" could be inserted. Their faces were photographed in the moment of shock. The expressions were distorted, with lips drawn back over stained, crooked teeth. Mothers would not let their children go near the posters. n.o.body told us that the party was under tremendous pressure because the Cultural Revolution had led to the collapse of the country's economy. Mao worship dissipated and the nation began to lose faith in Communism.

The central Politburo's nervousness began to spread. The local authorities were instructed to apply "heavy drugs" to combat the "anti-Mao virus." Wild Ginger was caught in the spinning of this whirlpool. Not only did she fail to get Evergreen off the hook, she herself was questioned by the general party secretary. Evergreen's case was taken out of her control and transferred to the people's munic.i.p.al court. The court declared Evergreen an anti-Maoist and ordered him put to death.

My conscience told me to expose Wild Ginger the moment I learned the news. It was the only way to save Evergreen. But when I pictured Wild Ginger's execution, my determination crumbled. I couldn't escape the image of her sweeping the lane at four o'clock in the morning. Again and again in my dreams I felt her tears running down my cheeks and heard her cry, "Maple, my mother hanged herself!"

Would I be able to live with my decision and the torture that came with it if I turned her in?

"I'm not going to wash my hand from now on." I woke up in the middle of the night remembering what she had said to me the day she got back from meeting Chairman Mao. She was in rapture.

"I shook hands with Chairman Mao. It was the happiest moment in my life! This is the hand. Touch it, Maple. My right hand. This is what the great savior touched. Look at this, feel it, the warmth, Maple, doesn't your heart feel the power? Shake it, shake it again. I have shared this great warmth with over a thousand people just today. I have been shaking hands from morning to evening. One old lady fainted in joy after she barely touched my fingers. She said she felt the current. She said it was the Buddha's power."

I looked at Wild Ginger's glowing face. Was she talking to me? Those red cheeks, those happy almond eyes. The sweetness of her mood touched me. Within the yellow bursts of her pupils I saw Mao waving his hand.

She had then told me of the picture she had taken with Chairman Mao. She was among three hundred other young delegates. It was in the Great Hall of the People. The crowd lined up in five rows on an expansive terrace. In the background hung an embroidered landscape of the Great Wall. She was in the middle, two heads away from Chairman Mao. They had stood waiting for him for three hours. When he finally arrived all the delegates screamed in tearful joy. She told herself not to blink when the cameraman called for the shot. This was the picture of her life and she didn't want to ruin it. But the more she wanted to control her blinking, the worse it got. Then the camera shutter clicked and it was over. Now she had a picture with the nation's greatest savior, her eyes half open and half shut-in the middle of blinking.

I wandered the streets for hours trying to come up with a plan to save Evergreen without destroying Wild Ginger. I felt crushed by a great weight. I b.u.mped into bicycles. At one point I became lost. Finally I had an idea. It was the only thing I could think of.

I decided to turn myself in.

I decided to confess to being a co-conspirator, to "share" Evergreen's crime in hope that his sentence would be reconsidered and reduced. I had no idea whether or not the plan would work. But I knew for sure that without Evergreen, my life would not be worth living. At this point, the idea of being in jail meant being closer to Evergreen. On another level, I see now, I also felt a need to punish myself-for not being able to turn Wild Ginger in.

I dared not speak to my family about my plan. It would be more than shame and pain I would bring them. I was sure that my parents and siblings would try to talk me out of it. I was a coward but I was in love. I loved Evergreen and Wild Ginger, and I couldn't bring myself to give up either one of them.

I was eating my last meal with my family. Eight of us sat around the table under the bare lightbulb that hung down from the ceiling. We ate salted bean curd with porridge. We were all quiet for a while. Then my sisters and brothers began to talk about Evergreen's sentence.