Red Azalea

material. But she did it better. She added good details. I could hear nothing but the sound of a deafening tone in my head. Cheering Spear was doing my piece. I had nothing left to perform. If I performed what she did, everyone would think that I’d imitated her.

I lost my chance to win before the battle. I could not believe that Cheering Spear had done this to me. I could not believe that she was reciting my lines. It was so sudden, so devastating. The Supervisor was looking intensely at Cheering Spear. Soviet Wong was smiling. She looked so pleased.

Cheering Spear ended her performance. She landed her last phrase like a first-class acrobat who landed on tiptoe on the seat of a running bicycle. There was much applause. Cheering Spear bowed to the audience, to the Supervisor. Soviet Wong went up to the platform to congratulate her. The Supervisor looked impressed. He went to shake hands with Cheering Spear. He asked her whether she knew how to ride a horse. When Cheering Spear said yes, he asked whether he could see her perform on a horse in Shanghai Stadium. She said, Of course. When? She said that she had been longing for a horse ride for so long. The Supervisor invited Cheering Spear to sit by him. He talked about arranging a horse ride.

Then came my turn to perform. I had twenty minutes to fight back. I had twenty minutes to convince the Supervisor that I was better than Cheering Spear so he should pick me instead of her. But I was already beaten to the ground. I was bleeding inside. My time was slipping away. I went up to the platform. My legs were shaking. I gave the most stupid performance of my life. I performed “Azalea tells her story.” I recited the lines thinking how I could convince people that I was not imitating Cheering Spear. The audience began to yawn. Then it was finished. I was finished before I began. My limbs were cold.

I was going back to my seat in the audience when I heard Cheering Spear saying to an interviewer that her success was due to Soviet Wong. Soviet Wong had mothered her excellence. The next day the Party newspaper published a big picture of Cheering Spear on a horse led by Soviet Wong.

The revolutionary task needs you to be a set clerk-One Ounce delivered the message to me flatly. I was in my room idling. I had been idling for hours. If you do not like it, the studio would not mind your going back to Red Fire Farm. It took him thirty seconds to announce that order. No one in the room looked surprised. I realized that my good fortune had come to an end. I wanted to ask, Who made that decision? My tongue was so stiff that I could barely make a sound. Feeling a sudden weakness, I went out of the room. I held a maple trunk and sat down on the grass. The Party Committee, of course, One Ounce volunteered. Who exactly are those people? I looked at him. I am sorry I don’t know, he said. I am just a guard delivering the message from the upstairs.

I packed my things and walked out of the room. I was on my way to becoming a set clerk at the studio. It was early morning, around six-thirty. Cheering Spear, Firewood, Little Bell and Bee OhYang were already up doing their routine exercises. Their voices were clearer than usual. As I passed by, they stared at me. Behind the deadpan expressions, I knew they were happy. I kept walking toward the gate. The maples were swaying and birds were flying up and down picking their food under my feet. One Ounce went to open the big wooden gate when he saw me coming out. It’s all right, I can just go through the side door, I said. One Ounce insisted. The bolt was rusted after a few rains. One Ounce rotated the bolt hard. The rusty sound was hard on the ears. After he wrestled with the bolt, the door was pushed open. The birds flew away. One Ounce stretched out his right arm and made a humble gesture to let me pass.

I did not allow myself to feel. Firewood, Cheering Spear, Bee OhYang and Little Bell resumed their voice exercises behind me. They sang:

Who smashed the fetters for us?
Who saved us from the fiery pit?
Who led us to the golden road?
Oh, the sun above the sky,
Oh, the brightest beacon in the sea,
It is you,
The greatest Chairman Mao and the Party,
You are the savior of our lives.

The next day a producer at the Shanghai Film Studio gave me a big mop, a script, a notebook and a box of chalk. He asked me to memorize the script, which contained 1,042 shots. It was the shooting script of Red Azalea. My eyes hurt when I looked at the title. You see, said the producer, a set clerk is the person who records the set, and this means everything. If there is an ant crawling through the set, a good set clerk will record it. It is a big responsibility, because we shoot scenes in a disorderly fashion. For example, a man opens a gate and steps into the hallway. It may take two scenes to complete the action. We will shoot the outside scene in Hunan and then shoot the inside scene back in Shanghai in the studio two months later. You have to be able to remember exactly what clothes he is wearing, for example, and how he wears them at different locations-for example, was his collar open or closed? If you make a mistake, you will have a person enter with his collar open and all of sudden it is closed. The scene would be wasted, of course. One foot of the film, which costs our peasant a season’s grain, will be salvageable. The wasted film could be food for generations of our peasants. And you know what that means to the country.

I forced myself to listen hard to the producer. He asked me to make thirty copies of his notes to the crew. We have only three days left before shooting, he said. He asked me to put out the shooting board, draw up the shots, check the costumes, the props, and the extras. The floor, the producer pointed his finger down as if reminding me of something important. You should begin by mopping the floor first, he said seriously. When I took a mop, he said, Listen, we don’t need feeble labor. Each carrot has its own patch, or you will be sent back to Red Fire Farm.

I did not raise my head when I mopped the floor. I felt I had no face. There was a rehearsal going on in the recording studio. I heard someone yell repeatedly from a microphone. The voice had a strong Beijing accent. It was the Supervisor’s voice. I remembered this voice.

I finished my job by six o’clock in the evening and went to a back room to smoke. I had started smoking the day I was dismissed from the actor-training class. I sat on a bench. The surroundings were dark and damp. I did not switch on the light. I needed darkness. I came every day and smoked cigarettes in the dark until my lip numbed.

After the break I had to finish mopping the rest of the stairways in the building. The mopping seemed endless. I suddenly remembered an old saying. It said: “It is difficult for a snake to go back to hell once it has tasted heaven.” I was that snake now. Each day I felt worse than the one before. Every morning, the moment I woke up, my body and my soul went to separate places. The soulless body went to mop the floors and the bodiless soul went to the realm of vague hopes. A few times the body and soul joined momentarily when I felt the mop become a machine gun. As I mopped with it, it fired.

I inhaled deeply. I forgot time. Suddenly, a voice, a tender voice, rose from my back. Why do you like to sit in the dark? the voice asked.

I thought I had imagined the voice. I kept still. The voice repeated itself. The sound softer. A Beijing accent. I stood up and was about to switch on the lights. I’d like to smoke in the dark too, the voice said. Can I get a light? I kept still in the dark. Thank you, the voice said. I heard the noise of a person standing up and moving toward me. Who are you? I asked.

I am like you, a set helper, the voice said. How do you do? I saw a cigarette held out to me. I passed him my cigarette. The two cigarettes touched. The smoker inhaled. It was a gentle face that I saw. The face faded back into the dark. My mind went back to its own thinking.

I thought of my parents. I had stopped talking to them. You don’t deserve those dunce caps, my mother said to me over and over. I told her that I was sick of her sense of justice, her fantasy. I told my mother not to interfere with me. I said, Why don’t you ever learn? What’s wrong with you? Is it because your own life hasn’t been miserable enough? My mother said, said in her own logic, I don’t regret a bit about my way of living, because I have been truthful to myself. I could not stand her logic. I said, I don’t want to inherit your life. It is a terrible, terrible and terrible life. I yelled at her. My mother went to take pills. I said, Don’t you see? Can’t you see it’s not working? Your philosophy does not work for me. My mother refused to give up. She said she didn’t believe that evilness should rule. I said, It’s ruling. She said, It’s impossible. I said, I mop floors, don’t you see? She said, What did you