Forbidden City, page 7
They broke new trails through forests so misty and dense they got lost if they didn’t keep up with the troops ahead of them. Skirted a treacherous swamp where a misstep plunged them up to their waists. If a soldier sank up to his chest, he was left for dead. At last, the soldiers staggered into Yan’an, where locals lived in its yellow hills pitted with caves like a honeycomb.
When Teacher Fan told us only one in ten who started the journey made it to the end a year later, I’d counted around the classroom, wondering which of us would have survived. Maybe none would have lived except for her.
The Long March, with its sacrifice and survival, had been the story from which our republic and we all sprang. Heroes immortalized in the poems we’d learned by heart as children. After the Communists established their base at Yan’an, they attracted aspiring revolutionaries from across the country like the Madame. Party leaders worked side by side with the peasants, I’d heard, gathering the strength for every challenge ahead. In my imagination, Yan’an seemed like the edge of the world—a place so barren, a place so wild, anything could happen. Mythical yet real.
There, the Madame had come to the Chairman’s attention: She could have raised her hand in political education class, asking a clever question. She might have lingered afterward, walking him to his next meeting. Their talks could have turned into walks along the river, where their heads tilted together in a kiss.
What the troupe did—what I’d done—with the Chairman must hurt her. Still, she reigned just as the empress had reigned over the concubines. Perhaps she might have accepted that she couldn’t satisfy his appetites, and as long as she remained his wife, people would respect her—fear her.
Midnight Chang kicked the back of my seat, jolting my jaws together.
I whirled around. “Quit it!”
“Quit what?” she asked. Her hands were folded in her lap, but her eyes were bright with mischief.
When I turned back around, she resumed kicking.
I twisted around again. “Help me,” I simpered, imitating her in the bathroom.
“What kind of girl can’t figure out a rag?” Busy Shan asked.
I’d told her, of course I’d told her what happened yesterday. As soon as I turned back around, my head slammed against the seat.
Midnight Chang had yanked my hair.
Busy Shan reared back, ready to strike. Up in a flash, Teacher Fan ordered us to change seats: Busy Shan had to sit with Dolly Yu in the back, and she marched me up front.
“But—” I protested.
“Now,” she said.
We were getting close, only a couple blocks from the Lake Palaces. After I sat down, Teacher Fan leaned in toward me. “I’m the youngest in my family, too,” she said.
I didn’t expect her to confide in me, to find me worthy of comparison even after I’d tangled with Midnight Chang. I almost fell off my seat; without noticing it, I’d been teetering on the edge.
She unscrewed her drinking jar, releasing the floral scent of tea leaves, and sipped the brew, the color of dark honey. “No one expects much from the youngest,” she said. “No one treats you like much of a threat.”
“Unless you’re Midnight Chang,” I said.
She flicked her free hand, as if shooing a fly: Don’t bother. The gesture sent me soaring.
“No one realizes you’re watching, listening. No one guesses how wily the baby can be.”
I felt like she’d seen clean through me. “When did you come to the capital?” I asked shyly.
“First I had to go to Yan’an.”
Yan’an! I might have guessed she’d been there, too, though she couldn’t have been much older than us when she arrived. I had to ask.
“Sixteen,” she said.
About the same age as me. “Did you go by yourself?” I asked.
She put the lid back on. “With friends. But they turned back the next day,” she said with the barest hint of a smile but a smile all the same. “They thought they had something to lose.”
“Weren’t you scared?” I asked. Eyes bored into the back of my head; Midnight Chang, and probably Busy Shan, too, would expect every detail of our conversation.
Teacher Fan looked out the window as we pulled into the gates of the Lake Palaces. Though I guessed that she wouldn’t deign to answer such a stupid question, she turned back to me. “If you have nothing, if people where you come from think you’re nothing, it’s a gift, isn’t it—to go where no one knows you?”
* * *
—
In the time of Yan’an, if teenagers rejected their parents, if they felt lost, if they were against tradition, they found their way there, where one could also achieve greatness, or if not, the greatness of having tried.
I tell you this in the hopes it might explain who I was in the time before we met—a girl in search of her own Yan’an.
* * *
—
At lunch, we gossiped about the Chairman: He was traveling. He was ill. We would get dismissed soon.
Dolly Yu pushed the noodles around in her bowl with her chopsticks, nothing reaching her mouth. She tore at her rosebud lips, which were chapped and bleeding; she always picked at herself. Though she was a year older than me, she seemed younger, flat-chested with a voice high as a little girl’s. “I wish he’d come back.”
“That’s not for you to decide,” Midnight Chang said. “Only the Chairman can.”
Our table fell silent, our conversation replaced by the ticking of chopsticks against our bowls. But not for long.
“What did you do to make the Chairman pick you?” Midnight Chang asked me. She possessed an easy confidence, but she had failed in one respect, the most important in our new lives: The Chairman had ignored her at the last dance.
I took my time curling a bundle of noodles and slurped a mouthful of the tender and springy strands. After I looked around the table, I leaned in. She couldn’t hide the eagerness in her face.
“I followed Teacher Fan’s instructions,” I said, my voice hushed.
Frowning, she sat back. “So did everyone else.”
“I’ve told you what I know,” I said airily.
She set down her chopsticks. “I’ll help you remember.”
“You were gone for a long time,” she added. “What did you say to him?”
“Not much, I bet.” Busy Shan shot me an apologetic glance. She never could resist a quip.
“Tell me,” Midnight Chang asked.
“You’ll be spoiled, if I say too much. He wants to meet us as if he were to meet us in our villages, in our factories,” I said.
“Where we might as well be,” she said. “If he doesn’t come back soon, we’ll all get sent home.”
Dolly Yu picked at her noodles, her body tight with worry. We hadn’t seen the Chairman in two weeks. Even though Teacher Fan had told us that the parties raised the morale of top cadre, they never took place without him.
If anyone wanted to leave the troupe, no one admitted it. From our talk, you would have thought we’d wrestle one another for a chance to sleep with the Chairman again. With everyone wanting like that, anything else sank and disappeared.
“His wife must have canceled the parties,” Busy Shan said.
“You don’t speak for his wife,” Midnight Chang said.
Dolly Yu looked up. “Neither do you,” she said, which surprised everyone—maybe Dolly Yu most of all.
Midnight Chang slapped her so hard that the timid girl hiccuped, holding back tears. Some girls gasped, and a few giggled nervously. Though Teacher Fan seemed irritated, she didn’t intervene. Midnight Chang locked eyes with me.
I ignored her, but could feel her daring me to fight. I led Dolly Yu to the bathroom, Busy Shan following. I splashed water on Dolly Yu’s face, the dark red mark throbbing on her cheek.
“You confront her, she hits back twice as hard,” I told Dolly Yu, who examined herself in the bathroom mirror and touched her cheek. She’d gnawed at her fingernails until the tips had gone raw. Busy Shan combed her fingers through Dolly Yu’s tangled hair and re-braided it.
I thought about the look Midnight Chang had given me. She’d slapped Dolly Yu to strike at me, and I had to stop her. Nothing would cut harder than if she doubted herself. How, though? I pictured her shoulders thrown back, her chest thrust forward, showing off her narrow waist. Yes. She’d panic if she thought she’d fattened up.
In addition to our dance party outfit, we each had two uniforms, a dark blue skirt, white short-sleeved blouse, and red neckerchief, each labeled with our surnames at the waistband and on our collar. We had one to wear, and one to wash that we stuffed into a basket each night and left downstairs for the laundress. Some girls complained that the clothes were rough and scratchy—and they were—but the fabric was still nicer than anything spun in my village.
After lights-out, we could dig up Midnight Chang’s uniforms and Busy Shan could alter them over the course of a week, moving the button on her waist over a couple millimeters each time. She could also nip in Midnight Chang’s field drill pants and pajama bottoms. Over time, she would strain to button her clothes, the waistband digging into her.
Because Dolly Yu couldn’t keep a secret, I waited to tell Busy Shan until after we finished lunch and changed into our uniforms for the field drills: cotton tunics, pants, and slip-on canvas shoes with rubber soles.
Twice a week, on a patch of grass outside of our dormitory, Teacher Fan led us through military exercises. “The imperialists are relentless,” she told us. “But so are we. In an attack, every one of us must take up the fight.” She wore an outfit much like ours, but while we seemed like children in baggy hand-me-downs, she had an authority about her.
We touched our toes, ran in place and did jumping jacks, hurled wooden grenades and swung wooden rifles. If I squinted during the drills, I could imagine thrusting myself into battle. The grenades had heft and a purpose, even if they didn’t explode, and our moves were another kind of dancing, giving order and an outlet to our restlessness. Eventually, I’d realize we would have been useless in battle, but back then, the training reminded us to be vigilant.
If people had peered over the wall, they might have ridiculed us, girls dressed all alike, playacting at war. Even still, the ferociousness of our screams might have chilled them.
That day, by the rack stacked with wooden grenades and rifles, I motioned for Busy Shan to hang back while the rest of the girls went onto the practice field. When I told her the plan, she shook with silent laughter.
Then she hesitated. “What if she catches me?”
“She won’t,” I said. I tossed a grenade from hand to hand. The green paint was chipping off, the wood beneath worn dark and smooth from years of handling. “She’s like a rock once she falls asleep.” Early one morning, Teacher Fan had surprised us with a fire drill and Midnight Chang had failed to wake up until her bunkmate shook her. “I’ll sit up with you. If anyone finds us, we can say we’re studying. I’ll listen for anyone coming.” I touched her wrist. “She jabs and she jabs, and no one stops her. We will.”
I dropped the grenade, which bounced in the grass. Knotting my mouth, I sucked in my gut and pretended to struggle with the buttons. When I poked Busy Shan on her waist and tickled her, she laughed. Midnight Chang would never admit she couldn’t fit into her clothes. She’d lose too much face.
“Stop dawdling!” Teacher Fan called out, waving us over. She stood where the row of girls began, in lines behind the five targets.
As Busy Shan and I trotted toward the line behind the first target, each of us clutching a handful of grenades, Teacher Fan shouted at us. “Get in different lines.”
I chose the target in the middle while Busy Shan remained on the end. Though I took aim, my grenade went so far off course, it smacked the bullseye to the immediate right of mine.
“A blind granny could aim better than you,” Midnight Chang shouted from the other end.
Turning away, she whispered to one of her followers. Moments later, a grenade came flying at me from that direction, ricocheted off the ground, and hit my shin.
Apologizing, the recruit trotted over, but it had been no accident. She had the best aim, with a stillness about her that you’d want in the pitched confusion of battle.
Kicking the grenade aside, I fought the urge to fire back at Midnight Chang. A shadow fell in front of me—Teacher Fan’s.
“You’re letting her get to you,” she said quietly. “You asked about Yan’an. You wonder who lived and who didn’t? It was luck, but practice, too. Practicing so many times…”
“You didn’t have to think about it?” I asked.
“You train yourself how to shut things out,” she said. “The ones who didn’t, who got distracted, ended up dead.”
* * *
—
That night, the moon rose, golden and unblinking as a cat’s eye. Within a day or two it would be full. Tomorrow was our day off, when we swept and cleaned the dormitory, and gossiped under the scholar trees, which grew all over the capital, their slim branches curled like twirling ribbons against the high white walls.
Snores started up around me. In the bunk beneath me, Busy Shan was so motionless I wondered if she’d fallen asleep. If I didn’t wake her up, we could drop the plan; maybe I shouldn’t make more trouble. Seconds later she was on her feet, and I pulled out the dirty uniform I’d balled up in my sheets.
Downstairs in the empty common room, as we settled onto the sofa, I glanced at the door, harboring the secret hope that Secretary Sun might come to fetch me. What the Chairman had done to me, I wasn’t certain I wanted again, but I also yearned to see him, more intensely than anything I’d ever felt.
Busy Shan snipped off the button. “When she tries on the skirt, she’ll panic! Can you imagine the look on her face?”
“Do you think it’s true?” I asked. “That we’re all about to go home?” My family, the entire village would know at a glance that I’d lain under a man. Teacher Fan, glad to be rid of me, would never invite me back.
She threaded her needle. “The only thing true is that Midnight Chang can spread a rumor. He’ll be back,” she added with a certainty that could only have been bluster.
“In time for the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival?” I asked. On that holiday, everyone in my village would hike up the hill to eat cakes stamped with the design of flowers, pray for blessings, and recite the legends about Chang’e, the woman who lived on the moon. Sometimes she was tragic, sometimes brave, depending on who told the story. I held on to these tales, an accidental gift at my birth. None of them were true, and all of them were.
“That’s my birthday.” I used to pretend the celebrations that day were for me, but it seemed too childish to admit now.
“Birthday! How old?” she asked.
“Sixteen.”
“A young lady,” she said, as if she were a matron and not two years older than me. “Shall we bake our little scholar a moon cake?” She always teased me for reading ahead in our lessons.
In the village, we’d spend weeks preparing moon cakes stamped with worn wooden molds, with simple blurred outlines of flower petals. Soaking, boiling, then grinding the lotus seeds and mixing them with oil and honey, and making the dough from sweet syrup, flour, egg, and lye water made from ashes. We wrapped dough around a lump of filling big as the palm of our hands, pressed it into the mold, painted it with egg yolks, and baked it in a clay oven. We made scores upon scores of cakes until we went cross-eyed keeping track.
“I hope we’ll get some in the canteen,” I said.
She puckered her mouth. “I can’t stand them. One bite sinks like a brick! The festival is so boring—the day feels like it never ends.”
Was she insulting me? “I liked staying up late.” I tried not to sound defensive. It could be that way with girls. Even the ones who were supposed to be your friends could have knives in their smiles.
“Listening to the same stories every year,” she said dismissively.
“It depends on who’s telling them.” I remembered our picnics on the night of the festival. Under the silvery moon, I would nestle behind Ma and my sisters, warming myself on the hearth of their backs, as Ba began his story.
“Long ago,” he would say, “ten suns rose into the sky.” I repeated his words. The people rejoiced at this new dawn, until the extra suns scorched the earth, withering grasses and shriveling animals. Chang’e’s husband, Hou Yi, an archer, raised his bow and shot down nine suns.
I hopped off the sofa to demonstrate. Ba always pulled back his arm at this point in the story, flicking his forefinger to imitate the archer, and now I did the same to entertain Busy Shan.
To reward Hou Yi, the Queen Mother of the West gave him two doses of an elixir of immortality. Though Ba called him a man blessed by the gods, others said Hou Yi had come from the heavens to save us.
He wanted to surprise Chang’e, and he hid the bottle of elixir before he left to hunt for their dinner. Finding the bottle, she uncorked the stopper and inhaled the heavy scent of peaches. She floated off the ground. With a shriek, she held on to a chair, then a table, which both tipped over, but then the wind gusted through the window and she drifted to the moon. The gods punished a woman for her cunning.
Stumbling around, I imitated Chang’e trying to keep herself from going out the window.
Though Busy Shan must have known this tale, she nodded with approval. I bowed. She didn’t hide when she lost interest; she didn’t care if she seemed rude. But when I caught her attention, it pooled like sunshine that felt intended for me and me alone.
