about the event after every contest.
Yan buried herself in hard work. A few times I found her looking at me from a distance with the saddest expression on her face. She rarely spoke, and when she did, her voice sounded tired. I did not know what to say. I tried to keep myself busy in weaving my new future. I did not want to deal with my feelings. I could not. I could not face Yan. It was too hard. I tried to forget before time separated us.
In the early spring of 1976, after the final contest, I was sent to the Shanghai Film Studio for a special class to test my ability to learn. Many of the people I had met and had thought were excellent, such as the girl with the cherrylike mouth from the Red Star Farm, had been eliminated. People who had showed a lack of performing skills were kept on. Later I was told that one of Jiang Ching’s principles was that she would rather have “socialist grass” than “capitalist sprouts.” The judges thought of me as having less talent but politically reliable.
In the class I was instructed to carry a plastic bag, pretending it was a heavy stone. I was described as having a plain background-that is, no one in my family had been an actor-but was quick in responding to instructions.
In another acting exercise I was asked to drink a cup of water. The instructor stopped me and said, No, no, no. You are not drinking the water right. He said I had two problems. He said that a person from the proletarian class would never hold a cup in such a superficial manner-using three fingers on the handle. He instructed me to grab the cup with my hand. He pointed out that a proletarian person would never drink water sip by sip like a Miss Bourgeoise with tons of spare time. He showed me how to drink down the water fast in one gulp and wipe my mouth with my sleeve.
The studio checked my family background and my political record and then sent me back to the farm. I was told that I had been accepted.
When I got back and told the exciting news to Orchid, she shocked me with a rumor: Headquarters was conducting an investigation of me and Yan. Lu was the investigation-team head.
I went to Yan to confirm the rumor. Yan looked like a desperado. She told me Lu had made secret reports on us to headquarters. The locust had begun its chewing. It had begun its destruction. Yan was ordered by headquarters to “put her cards on the table” of her own initiative before the masses’ force would be used.
I denied it, Yan whispered to me. I denied everything. I had mastered the Party’s tricks. I told the Chief Party Secretary that I couldn’t have had a more revolutionary relationship with you than with any of my comrades. I gave many examples of your achievement as an outstanding platoon leader under my leadership. I expressed our loyalty to the Party. I was shameless when I did that. In a madhouse I suppose one could say anything, couldn’t one? The Chief discharged the case because Lu was holding no concrete evidence. The bastard Lu went to file a report to the film-studio Party committee. The bastard was fantastically insane. I had to admire her.
The film studio sent a team down to check out the case. They had talks with Lu. They did not speak to me or Yan. The Chief seemed to be changing his mind about me. He set up a two-man investigation team and conducted a chain talk with everyone, one after the other, in the company. Yan worried. She said, They will seek out some spiders’ webs and horses’ tracks because, fortunately and unfortunately, the masses do have “brighter eyes,” I suppose.
I asked Yan what to do. She fell into silence for a long moment, then said, citing a saying, “If the tactics of a devil are a foot high, the tactics of Tao will be ten times higher.” I asked how she interpreted it. She told me to do two things: first, deny everything if interrogated; second, do as she told me. Do not ask any questions. When I asked why she could not discuss her plan with me, she replied that that was part of her plan.
Lu used the full scope of her power, as if Yan was already out of the picture. She stopped her Mao-work-study routine, saying that she had mastered the essence of Mao thoughts. She smiled her way in and out of the room and hummed songs at work. She ordered pork chops at lunch and dinner. She gained weight. A week after I was back, one clear morning, Lu gathered the company in front of the storage bins for a meeting. She ordered everyone to recite Mao’s poem with her and pay attention to its latent meaning. The ranks followed her:
Everyone in the ranks knew what Lu was insinuating.They shot secret glances at Yan. Yan stood among the ranks like Mount Everest towering in a storm. I was surprised that she recited the poem loudly, showing no anger. I’ve warned all of you before, said Lu, and I’m warning you again. She paced back and forth, giving big arm gestures. A fly only parks on a cracked egg. She turned to Yan. Am I not right? Yan nodded humbly.
Lu smiled arrogantly. She took a piece of paper out of her pocket and announced a decision from headquarters: until the investigation team reaches its conclusion, there will be no candidate sent from our company to the film studio.
I looked at Yan. I could not hide my disappointment and shock. Yan was chewing down a corncob. Her features twisted, she looked like a wounded fighting bull. After staring at Yan for a moment, Lu asked whether Yan needed some aspirin for she did not look well.
Slowly turning toward the ranks, Yan questioned, How should a lamb respond when a wolf asks her to pay a New Year’s Eve visit? The soldiers dared not answer. They all turned to stare at Lu. Lu clenched her fist, then ordered the ranks to cite a paragraph of Mao’s teaching. “If the broom doesn’t arrive, dust won’t go away by itself. Same goes for wiping out the reactionaries.”
Yan said to the ranks before closing, Learn from me, comrades, learn from my stupidity. I took a fish eyeball as a pearl. She started to laugh. The soldiers watched her.
Lu smiled insidiously. Folding her arms in front of her chest, she said, The winner will not be the one who laughs the loudest, but the longest.
Helplessness enveloped me. Yan had stopped talking to me for days. I began to feel sick inside. How much would denying everything help? What could be more normal in this country than one would be made a reactionary if the Party decided to call him a reactionary? Although I had never doubted Yan’s fighting style, I was frustrated this time for she was not doing much except having lips-and-teeth combat with Lu. I asked myself again what could possibly be done. I was at the end of my wits.
I worked by a threshing machine the whole day. The noise was threshing my thoughts. My disappointment was so great that I could not stop thinking about my misery. The ears of grain were thin, thinner than mice shit, heaped around my feet, heaped up, burying me. I yelled at Orchid when she came to shovel the grain. She yelled back. It’s late autumn, you cricket. How many days can you keep jumping?
I began to have an intense headache. After midnight it grew worse. As I kept tossing, I suddenly heard a whisper. The voice was from underneath. Are you awake? It was Yan. She pricked my straw mattress with her fingers. I said, What are you doing? Her whisper was loud enough for Lu to hear. Yan said she wanted to meet me at the brick factory. I did not say anything. I kept quiet because I was thinking she might have gone mad like Little Green. I lay on my face. I wanted to cry. She pricked more. I whispered, Go back to sleep, please, people are going to hear you. She said she did not care. She said she wanted me. She said, It’s midnight, it’s safe. She said, It’s been too long.
I noticed Lu’s bed shook a little. Are you going to come? Yan continued. I’m going to take the tractor and I expect you to be there with me. She opened the net curtain and sneaked out of the room.
Darkness jumped on my face as I stepped out of the room. I felt the end of my world as I followed Yan out of the room and got on her tractor. I was sure that Lu had heard everything.
I held the tractor bar. Yan drove like a watersnake moving through the reeds. She arched over the steering wheel like a jockey. Although the driveway was big enough for two tractors, when a heavily loaded tractor from the opposite direction passed by her, she jumped like a kangaroo rat.
The night was stiflingly dark. The tractor’s headlights and engine noises horrified me. Yan kept up a high speed.
