Wild Ginger (18 page)

I felt spit on my face, then rocks. Someone got hold of my hair and wouldn't let go. The truck kept going. With a terrible tearing pain a patch of my hair was yanked off along with a part of my scalp. The crowd cheered. They shouted, "Down with the anti-Maoist!" I was enraged, but I couldn't move, couldn't wipe off the blood dripping down my face. I spat back at a youthful face. She ran over, clinging to the slow-moving truck. I felt her fingernails plowing through the skin on my face.

The crowd began to sing. It was one of my favorite songs—the Mao poem "Capture Nanking." "'Rain and a windstorm rage blue and yellow over the Bell Mountain, as a million peerless troops cross the Great River. The peak is a coiled dragon, the city a crouching tiger more dazzling than before. The sky is spinning and the earth upside down. We are elated yet we must use our courage to chase the hopeless enemy..."'

Suddenly I doubted my motivation. Maybe it wasn't as sacred as I thought. Maybe all I was doing was trying to beg for Evergreen's love. Look at me, I am willing to sacrifice my life for you. I am better than Wild Ginger. See for your own eyes. Look, Evergreen, here is the one who is willing to go all the way, to die for you, and there is the other who has ordered a bullet in your head.

The truck moved through the sea of red flags and banners. At every jerky stop I moved myself toward Evergreen. Finally, our shoulders touched. We looked at each other and I saw sorrow in his eyes.

The rally had begun. The People's Square was a small-scale Tiananmen Square. Since there was no Gate of Heavenly Peace, the bleak, flat-roofed, Russian-style city hall was the tallest structure in view. It was heavily decorated for the celebration with red flags and banners draped from every wall. A crowd of hundreds of thousands gathered around a makeshift stage and shouted, "We owe our life to the Communist party! We owe our happiness to Chairman Mao!"

I was pushed off the truck with the rest of the convicts. We were escorted to a dark room inside the city hall. I smelled shit. Several convicts had already lost control of their bowels. Others started screaming and making incomprehensible sounds.

Trying to shut them up the guards struck them with the butts of their guns. It didn't stop them. The guards pushed the convicts toward the stage when their names were called. Every time when the door toward the stage opened, the wavelike sound of slogan shouting hit our faces.

I began to look for Wild Ginger. My mind spun. Suddenly I couldn't accept this, couldn't allow Wild Ginger to murder Evergreen and imprison me. I needed to break my silence. I could taste the regret in my mouth. For the first time, I thought, Wild Ginger is not worth it.

"Wild Ginger! Wild Ginger!" I screamed. The guards
came and kicked me. I rolled on the ground but kept screaming.

Wild Ginger wasn't hosting the rally. I assumed that she would appear later as an important speaker. She once told me that Chairman Mao always spoke last at meetings.

Evergreen's name was called. As the guards pushed him toward the stage he turned to look at me. I sensed that he was bidding me a final goodbye. "Maple, I'll come back a tree." He was in tears but he was smiling. "I'll keep your life green. If you ever get out, please visit my grandmother on Bei Mountain. She is ninety-three years old and lives in a temple on top of the mountain. It's called the Cliff Temple. Tell her to watch out for a cricket singing under her bed at every full moon. Give all my Mao buttons and books to Wild Ginger. Tell her that I was a proud anti-Maoist."

He was in a bloodstained white shirt and blue pants. In a few minutes he would be a martyr. I broke down.

"Down with the anti-Maoists!" The shouting came from the loudspeaker. "Down! Down! Down!"

I was already in hell. I saw a reason to destroy the world, the world in which Wild Ginger would go on living as a celebrated Maoist, and would feel no repentance. My conscience rebelled against my heart. My mind gathered its courage. My eyes sought the microphone and my voice prepared itself. The speech was already composed in my head. I knew exactly what I was going to say. I was going to say that I was sick of pretending. Then I would spit out the
truth. The whole truth, starting with the closet and ending with the backstage conversation.

I gave myself permission to break the promise, to declare that my love for Wild Ginger was over.

"Convict Maple" was called through the microphone. The guards' clawlike hands came and grabbed my shoulders. They locked me in their grip and pushed me toward the stage. They lined me up with Evergreen.

I pivoted my head toward Evergreen. His eyes were closed and his chin protruded toward the sky. His face was a mask of sadness.

I stared at the microphone. I felt my legs shaking. My chest quaked.

A man with tiny eyes and fat cheeks appeared before me. He had a pair of scissors and an electric shaver. The guard pulled my arms behind my back and tied them there. I was pushed to my knees. Suddenly the sky was draped with the folds of skin under the fat man's chin. He started to shave my head.

The crowd boiled. It looked like a million termites.

My hair dropped in bunches. I thought of a hen being plucked in the market.

I told myself to wait for my moment to address the crowd.

Suddenly someone else's name was called. I was lifted from my knees and shoved down the stage.

I was exiting. No! I realized that I would not be given
a chance to expose the truth. How foolish I was! The reason some convicts were given a moment to speak was because they couldn't talk—their vocal cords had been removed!

Despair overwhelmed me. I kicked and struggled with all my might. The guard hit my newly shorn head with the back of his gun.

The trucks were parked on the side of the square. It was loading time again. The guards pushed Evergreen toward the first truck while I was led to the second. I broke the guards' hold and threw myself at Evergreen. I yelled his name hysterically. I fell on the ground. Four other guards came trying to quiet me. But I was wild and desperate. I held Evergreen's leg. My tears wet the bottom of his trousers. It was too late. Nothing was going to save him. I had come to my senses too late. I had helped Wild Ginger murder him.

Where was Wild Ginger?
The heart remains pure if the eyes don't see,
my dead grandmother's voice said to me. How smart of her to hide now. But I was certain that she was somewhere watching us. Her mind's eye saw every second of this. She counted the minutes left for Evergreen to breathe and the time left for me to be warmed by the sun. Had I been wrong all the way back to the day we met? Was there ever a Wild Ginger who deserved a place in my final thoughts?

The guards stepped on my wrists. A sharp pain shot
through my hand. I let go of Evergreen's trousers. I let go of my love and my life.

It was then that I heard a voice. Her voice. Far away but recognizable. I was sure it was she. She was talking through a loudspeaker. From high above. From the flat roof of the city hall.

My head turned, and with it a million other heads. The focus sharpened, toward a tiny figure standing on top of the roof waving madly, holding a microphone. Behind her, the setting sun looked like a giant red lantern.

The voice sounded distorted. The syllables came broken, as if cut by a gust of wind. "Long live Chairman Mao! I am the Maoist Wild Ginger. Stop the execution! Chairman Mao teaches us, 'A true Communist is a person who is noble, selfless, and lives for the cause of building Communism and to sacrifice herself for the people!' Well, I contradicted Mao's teaching! I am here because I can't explain what's happened to me. I deeply apologize to Chairman Mao. I am ashamed that I had to choose a coward's way ... If I can't be noble, can't be selfless, can't live for the cause of building Communism, I can climb on the altar..." The figure moved along the edge of the roof as if looking for a spot to jump. In one moment I envisioned her fall. My breath skipped.

"But I am too low for Chairman Mao. My sacrifice would not be acceptable for him. My blood has bourgeois ink in it. I am not fit for the revolutionary altar ... I am a
waste, what can I tell you? I'll die and the significance of my death will weigh less than a feather. But I am not going to cry. At least I will act like a Maoist, so you will know I am not a fake. At the core I am who I've always claimed to be ... My friend Maple was stupid. She was not a Maoist. She needs to be reformed. She's a thief who stole hearts. But the singing rally incident had nothing to do with her, neither with Comrade Evergreen ... I am here to tell you the truth. I am a Maoist. I do what I have to do because I practice our great leader's teaching!"

She moved to the corner of the building and shouted, "Chairman Mao teaches us, 'Many things may become baggage, may become encumbrances, if we cling to them blindly and uncritically. Let us take some illustrations. Having made mistakes, you may feel that, come what may, you are saddled with them and so become dispirited; if you have not made mistakes, you may feel that you are free from error and so become conceited. Lack of achievement in work may breed pessimism and depression, while achievement may breed pride and arrogance. A comrade with a short record of struggle may shirk responsibility on this account, while a veteran may become opinionated because of his long record of struggle..."'

"What is she talking about?" voices yelled from the crowd.

"She is going mad!" the guard escorting Evergreen uttered in amazement.

"She is mad!" the crowd cried.

"Wild Ginger has gone mad!" The crowd stirred.

"Somebody do something!"

"She's going to jump off the building!"

"No! Wild Ginger, don't do it!"

The crowd surged toward her like an ocean tide.

"Be still!" Wild Ginger called from above. "I want you all to listen carefully! I am a Maoist alive or dead. But I had impure thoughts. I tried to resolve my personal grudge but it backfired. I dishonored Chairman Mao, and I must punish myself for it. But please"—she bent her knee slightly—"remember me as a Maoist! A Maoist! A Maoist!"

She leapt.

I saw Evergreen free himself from the guards and lunge toward where Wild Ginger lay. The guards swarmed over him as if he were attempting an escape. "Get an ambulance!" Evergreen yelled. "An ambulance! Somebody!"

"For heaven's sake, her skull is crushed," an old voice came. "She'll be lucky if death finds her; otherwise she'll live only as a vegetable."

The crowd resumed its beelike sound.

The microphone buzzed.

I felt stifled and gasped desperately for air. I wanted to move but my limbs wouldn't cooperate. Tripping over my own steps, I fell again and again. My forehead knocked on the concrete.

I crawled my way through until I was beside Wild Ginger. She lay motionless. Her face was pale purple. Her eyes were shut and her lips clamped tightly. No more Mao reciting. The blood was spreading from the back of her skull. Her hair covered half her face. She was in her uniform, washed and buttoned.

Her hands were still warm. I took them.

The sea inside my head started moaning. My world became white, like the negative of a photo.

Slowly her blood came, soaking my trousers.

Hot Pepper emerged from the crowd. She rushed to Wild Ginger and began to search her pockets. Before she went further a policeman stopped her. He searched Wild Ginger's pockets himself and took out a blood-soaked envelope.

I don't remember how I got back to the cell. When I woke, I found myself lying on the bare concrete. It was chilly but I was sweating and running a high fever, slipping in and out of consciousness. I kept hearing my mother's voice. "Maple, go and take a look; Wild Ginger is calling you." I felt detached from my body. I couldn't lift my fingers or move my toes. My head spun threads of memory. Still unable to move, I started to recite Mao quotations uncontrollably. '"Communism is a complete system of proletarian ideology and a new social system. It is full of youth and vitality; it is the most complete, progressive, revolutionary, and rational system in human history. It is sweeping the world with the momentum of avalanche and the force of a thunderbolt..."'

The image of Wild Ginger jumping off the building repeated itself in front of my eyes. Her leap was like a child's acrobatics, like hopping off a fig tree. I could hear her laughter. Also Evergreen's. I kept seeing their faces. They
came to me like the moon's reflection in the water. When I woke, the reflection broke. And when I fell asleep it was a new moon again. I could hear the sound of the water, splashing the stone edge of the pond. I remember the moment I turned to look at Evergreen. In the sound of
Long live Chairman Mao!
his smile froze. It was a hideous expression, like a person who gets his head chopped off in the middle of telling a joke.

In my faintness the guard came. "Get up and say long life to Chairman Mao!" When I raised myself up he came to unlock my cuffs. "Get out, you are free." He cleared his throat and spat his phlegm on the ground.

I asked what was going on; he replied, "How would I know?"

At the prison office I received an explanation.

Wild Ginger had admitted her guilt in the letter. She confessed that she and Hot Pepper were responsible for the singing rally incident. However, Hot Pepper denied the accusation. She claimed to be Wild Ginger's victim.

"What about Evergreen?" I was so overwhelmed that I choked. "He was on his way to be executed when the letter was finally read!"

"He's alive. He is a very lucky man. Once again this proves Chairman Mao's teaching, 'Our party will never mistreat a good comrade,'" the officer said expressionlessly. "Comrade Evergreen was rescued at the last minute. It is another victory of the revolution."

***

Lying in bed at Evergreen's house we wept. We tried to celebrate our new lives but it was impossible. Wild Ginger was constantly on our minds. Our bodies were locked so much in the pain of missing her that they became immune to desire. We looked at each other, but all we saw was Wild Ginger. And we heard her voice too. The passionate reciting of Mao quotations. I held Evergreen. Slowly we drifted into a deep sleep. In my dream Wild Ginger put me back into her closet. Once again I felt her.