I went to the train station at two o’clock in the morning. It was as crowded as a bee’s nest. I turned sideways and squeezed my way into the Beijing Express zone. I looked in carriage after carriage, then I saw him. In carriage number twenty-four. The Supervisor was standing in between two familiar men in security-guard uniforms. He kept looking out the window. I came up to the train. But I did not wave my hand like all the other people did. Then he saw me, though his face was still expressionless. His eyes just stopped searching. He did not make a move to say goodbye to me. He could not. He was too important. We stared at each other. Then the train started to move. The men laid an off-white-colored embroidered tablecloth before him. A train hostess came with a mug of fresh tea. I tried to smile at him. He tried to smile back, but one of the men rose and rolled down the window curtain.
The almost completed production was shut down suddenly. It was said that Comrade Jiang Ching had problems with the cast. We were given stacks of readings on the Party’s policy on the arts by the National Cultural Bureau. We came to the studio at eight in the morning, sat through readings, engaged in self-examinations, discovered each other’s political errors and projected them for criticism. The meetings lasted until five in the evening. A cigarette, a cup of tea, a war of lips and teeth became the nation’s lifestyle.
In addition to mopping, I was ordered to fill up the office hot-water containers, copy the records of everyone’s speech and deliver them to the studio’s Party committee. I had been a set clerk for only a few months, but the emptiness in me had become intolerable. It felt like an ulcer that grew larger each day. After the day passed, when I lay down in bed at night, I would feel the ulcer spread.
I never heard from the Supervisor, but wherever I went in the studio, I could see his shadow and hear his voice. The maple tree delivered his spirit. The memory of the night of his departure held me each evening. Alone in the emptiness, my body lay hopelessly on a field of desire, like a bird with clipped wings.
I missed Yan though she never answered my letters. We never spoke about our affair. We never dared to admit to ourselves and to each other that it was love that we had shared. Instead, we shared the embarrassment and the guilt. We gave each other our deep shame. I had never thought of having her only to myself until the moment I saw Leopard touch her. It was in that moment that I realized my shame. Because it was at that moment that I wished to be loved so much.
Yan made it look like she had deported me. It was like what we did to the baby rice shoots in early spring- broke the intertwining roots, tore them apart to ensure the individual’s growth in the future. Most of the rice shoots survived, but a few of them died in the process. When I broke the roots with my hands, I listened to the sound of tearing and wondered if the roots felt the hurt. Yan never listened to this sound. She did what she thought was necessary without a blink of the eye. She was cruel. She had to be the way she was. She threw me out to save me. She sent me away to have me remember her. And I did. Yan had become a part of me. I knew this when I touched the Supervisor. My relationship with the Supervisor, though it happened unexpectedly, was logical; it was within the realm of expectation. The difference was that I had been, strangely enough, aware of every move I made with the Supervisor. If it was love I shared with Yan, it was ambition I shared with the Supervisor, to exceed ourselves, our time, to reach beyond our spoiled minds.
The Supervisor had left without any promise. But my eagerness to excel made me want nothing but the impossible. Yan was the impossible. I could not escape from paying for it. And I was paying for it. I became my mother. Like my mother, I lived in the dream of a world I believed in. I longed for the return of the Supervisor. I longed for the moment of his presence. The endless longing-lonely, bitter, vaporous, yet so very vivid.
Cheering Spear became very sick. It was said that Comrade Jiang Ching’s comments on the cast were a denunciation of her future. It was said that Comrade Jiang Ching inspected the rough cuts and commented, “All is not gold that glitters”-meaning she had seen no real talent in the cuts. The phrase was printed on a red-headlined document. It was read in meetings at the studio. Cheering Spear went to Sound of Rain and Soviet Wong for help. She poured out her tears. But they said nothing. Not a word.
Your name has been called, the guard One Ounce told me. Sound of Rain and Soviet Wong were checking with Beijing to confirm the news. Whose name? Who was called? I heard every word he said but asked as my heartbeat quickened. For a moment I felt deaf, as if my ears were blocked by successive bangs of firecrackers. In the afternoon I was called into the office of the studio heads. Sitting before a huge wooden desk, I was told by Sound of Rain that I was chosen by the upstairs in Beijing for an important assignment, a screen test as Red Azalea.
Soviet Wong sat next to Sound of Rain, her eyes filled with envy. Do you know anyone in Beijing? she asked. Her voice pronounced heavy suspicion. As I shook my head, she said, You must tell the truth, nothing but the truth. The Party’s needs are my priority, I replied. But I could stay as a set clerk if the Party needs me to. Hypocrite! Soviet Wong shouted at me.
Strangely, it pleased me to see Soviet Wong acting like this. Why do I have to be a hypocrite? I said lightly. No! We can’t let her go, Soviet Wong said firmly to Sound of Rain. We must be responsible for the upstairs. My instinct tells me, said Soviet Wong, that she is seriously corrupted, like a stone in a manure pit-smelly and hard! There must be a man, a lover of some sort, behind the curtain! It is necessary to strengthen the dike before the water rises!
Sound of Rain wore Soviet Wong down. The girl is bacteriaproof-we had doctors check her, remember? I don’t think she has a crafty lover behind the curtain. She is virgin soil. She is a tough little shit, I agree, but maybe-who knows?-that’s what the upstairs likes about her. Our Chairman always praises the spirit of rebels. The upstairs always said they liked youngsters who carried the rebel flavor. Who knows?
Soviet Wong yelled at Sound of Rain, You just don’t want to go through the trouble to investigate her; you’ve been irresponsible to the Party. Don’t you have a principle? Sound of Rain sat down in his chair and said slowly, “Always
I did not know where I was being taken. I only knew that I was in Beijing. I had been riding in different fancy cars. I had never been in a car before, yet being in a car did not make me feel nervous. All the drivers wore white nylon gloves. They did not answer my questions on directions. I figured that they were not allowed to. When they said, Please, the accent was strongly northern, which revealed that they must be the sons of peasants. They had sincere and tolerant features like carved stone.
I was in Yan’s clothes, the washed-white army uniform. I wore that when I was either afraid or proud. My senses told me that my being chosen by the Beijing upstairs had to do with the Supervisor. His secrecy excited me and frightened me at the same time. I did not like the fact that I was obsessed with him, because I smelled danger in him. We were on an unequal footing. I could see the spell he cast over me. I decided that if I were to see him again I would break the spell. I would count on myself. And I knew I must. I was twenty. I had courage.
White nylon gloves guided me out of the car. I was surrounded by a park of peonies encircled by a forest. What a land! The streams under my feet sang through the stones. A clear path through the pink peonies led into the hills of green. The driver told me to follow the path and he walked back to his car. The car pulled off like the shadow of a bird. Fields of grassland expanded to the end of the sky where the sun was setting. A breath of wind stirred the forest. Clouds swam in the mirrorlike river. My steps were light as if I were riding the wind. Although the nodding of peonies was pleasant, the flowers’ splendidness reminded me of their owner’s social status. I suddenly remembered Yan’s first order upon my arrival on Red Fire Farm: Act like a soldier! I forced myself on.
An old mansion appeared, draped with ivy and brightly colored flowers. There was a dark narrow door. I stopped by the door. A young man with white gloves in a green army uniform opened the door for me. He smiled silently at me and guided me into the hallway. There was another man who was in the hallway before I stepped in, but I failed to notice him at first because he stood motionless by the doorway like a piece of furniture. Just like the first man, he had a smile that was well trained. He gestured me to follow him to a tearoom where a row of black and white photographs were exhibited. I was seated on a sofa that commanded a master view of the garden. The young man left the room with noiseless steps. Another pleasant-faced young man appeared with a white tray. Trained smile. He offered me a warm wet towel. He left just as the fourth pleasant-faced young man stepped into the room and placed a cup of perfumed tea in front of me. Trained smile. Trained steps. White gloves. Shaved chins. Petallike mouths. Carved-stone features. They swam in and out of the room like fish in seaweed.
As I sipped the tea, I began to look at the photographs. Most of the subjects were flowers and many of them were peonies. Peonies in fog, in rain, at sunrise, sunset, under the moonlight and in the dark. Peonies in snow, in white. Withering peonies, passionately shot. It touched me and for a moment I forgot where I was. As I looked carefully, I found that the photographs were not exactly black and white. They were hand-colored, slightly brownish. The color of yawning petals was delicately handled. I was moved by the way the artist had emptied himself into these pictures.
