Wild Ginger (16 page)

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.

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 passed 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 bitch! 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 embarrassment. 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.

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 pronounced an assassin 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. Nobody
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 municipal 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 bumped 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.

"It was too heavy," said my sister.

"Too heavy?" my father sneered. "In 1957, your seventh uncle was sentenced to twenty years in jail just because he
was a policeman before the Liberation. They said that he served the wrong government. Thank heaven that other family members were not dragged in and thrown into jail or forced into exile. That could have happened; it is an old tradition brought down from ancient rulers."

"The government doesn't need a reason to put anyone in jail or shoot them these days," Mother sighed. "I wonder why Evergreen did what he did. Maple, do you have any idea?"

"Mama, he didn't do it."

"But he was caught, wasn't he?" my brother said. "The tools were found in his bag."

I tried to control my tongue.

"Was it a trap?" My sister turned to me.

"Who did it?" my brother pressed.

Everyone's chopsticks stopped moving and all eyes turned to me. I buried my nose in the bowl and sealed my lips.

"You weren't involved in any way, were you?" asked my sister.

I shook my head.

"Was it ... Oh, I am afraid of my own thoughts." Mother put her hands over her mouth. "Wild Ginger is a good kid, although she has tried to play rough. I am sure it was only to show her loyalty to the party and earn political credit. She is not an evil kid, but ... What do I, an old lady, know about today's kids and their minds? Misery and sadness don't necessarily breed an angel."

Father put down his chopsticks and turned to me.

I got up before Father had a chance to order me to tell the truth. I made up an excuse, saying that I had to attend a Mao study session at school, and dashed out.

The next morning I got up early. I went to the city hall and asked to see the head of investigation. After I told them that I was an anti-Maoist and had been involved in the incident I was led to an interrogation room.

An armed man appeared. He introduced himself as Mr. Wang, an assistant to the investigator. "The party and the people are glad that you have come to your senses. Welcome back to Chairman Mao's line." He told me that I had to produce a written confession before the investigator would see me. "You will have one week to draft a statement."

"Do I write it here?" I asked.

"That's right."

"May I go home at night?"

"No."

"But..."

"I am sure you have prepared yourself for a hard journey."