Wild Ginger (2 page)

Hot Pepper strode from her seat to the front of the class to lead the recitation of quotations. We chanted mindlessly. It would usually last two hours.

Bored, I stole a glance at Wild Ginger. From where I sat, I saw her profile. She had amazingly long, thick eyelashes. Her sleeves had worn edges and her navy blue pants were so worn and washed out that her knees showed. She sat with her hands constantly scratching her limbs as if she had a skin disease. Her mouth wasn't moving in sync with the rest of the class. After a while she bent down toward the desk drawer and fumbled with her bag. She dug out Mao's book and flipped through the pages. Obviously she hadn't been following our reading—she was unable to locate the page we were on.

We were reciting Mao's
Three Famous Essays
—"Serve the People," "In Memory of Norman Bethune," and "The Foolish Man Who Moved the Mountain." I could tell Wild Ginger was faking. It surprised me that she was not a bit nervous. She turned the pages back and forth. Her nails were dirty. The hands were covered with frostbite.

"'When one dies for the people, his worth weighs heavier than a mountain,'" the recitation continued. Hot Pepper's eyes brushed across the room. '"When one dies of
any other cause, the weight is lighter than a feather..."' I felt sleepy but reminded myself of an incident during which a boy was expelled from the school because he couldn't stay awake during Mao readings.

"'...Although we come from different backgrounds, we are fighting for one purpose. It is to liberate the world, to provide the poor with food and shelter. We are the true revolutionaries. We live like a big family where everyone is treated as a brother or sister. We are learning to be truthful, kind, and caring..."'

I looked at the Mao portrait on the wall. The Chairman had kind-looking features. Smiling eyes, glowing cheeks, a round nose, and a gentle mouth. It was a peaceful face. Hot Pepper once said that if you stared at Mao's portrait long enough, the Chairman would come alive. His eyes would blink and his lips would open. I experimented with staring, but the man never came alive. I was getting bored looking at him. But there was nothing else besides the portrait on the wall in the classroom. A couple of months ago I scribbled in my notebook during the reciting. Mrs. Cheng stopped me. Later she explained that she was trying to protect me. Although she didn't spell the words out, I understood the message. She was right. If Hot Pepper had caught me, I would have been expelled from the school as a reactionary.

Mrs. Cheng's wet spots had melted into one large blot.

Hot Pepper was enjoying the sound of her own voice. She was showing off her skill by speeding up. We were
reaching the end of the section. My fear of Hot Pepper sank in. I began to think how to escape the beating today. Maybe I should try to walk through the school's back fence instead of the gate. What if people saw me? They would report me to Hot Pepper. No one could stop Hot Pepper, not even Mrs. Cheng.

I often prayed for Hot Pepper to be sick. Her sneeze brought me delight and hope for the day. But she was strong as a spring bear. She often asked others if they could "spare" food. To give or not give her what she had set her eyes on signaled the difference between being a revolutionary and a reactionary. Her mouth smelled like a garbage bin. Her teeth were corn yellow. Her tongue was always black and blue from licking her ink pen. Now she was staring at Mrs. Cheng's chest. She made faces with Titi and Yaya—her gang members. They giggled. The class saw them and some joined in. Suddenly Hot Pepper's expression changed. Her eyes stopped at one spot. Her mouth hung open as if shocked. I turned to see what she was looking at. I was shocked too: Wild Ginger had laid her head down on folded arms. She was sleeping.

Umbrellas fell on my head like storms—my day's meal had begun. Hot Pepper and her gang attacked me from all directions. I tried to protect myself from the blows with my arms. In the meantime I searched for an escape. Hot Pepper came to block my exit. Her umbrella landed on my shoulders. I cried out in pain. Yaya and Titi came and be
gan to punch my chest. Hot Pepper circled behind me. In a swift motion her knees knocked right into my joints. I fell on my kneecaps, my mouth in the grass.

Titi and Yaya clapped. I heard Hot Pepper's laughter.

People passed by me. No one stopped. I had told my mother about Hot Pepper's treatment. Mother had come to the school and had complained to Mrs. Cheng. Mrs. Cheng told my mother that she had gone to the principal and was told that Hot Pepper represented the Red Guards and was permitted by Chairman Mao to do "whatever necessary to change the world." "If your child had come from a working class family she would have been protected."

The beating resumed. My hair was pulled. My sleeves were gone by now. My collar was coming off. I was unable to reach the gate. The more I struggled, the harder they hit. Wrapping my head with my arms my tears flowed in despair. I shouted, "Chairman Mao will hear me now! I am his loyalist too! I have never misspelled one word of his teachings. My test scores are all excellent. You, Hot Pepper, your treatment is unfair and cruel. If Chairman Mao learns what's happening to me he will be upset!"

"Quite the opposite!" Hot Pepper's umbrella chopped down. "He will say, 'Wipe that rat off the face of the earth! If the enemy doesn't surrender, send it to die!'"

Suddenly the umbrellas stopped. There was a cry. Someone had punched Hot Pepper. Under my elbow, I stole a glance. It was the new girl, Wild Ginger. She was wrestling with Hot Pepper. She pulled Hot Pepper's umbrella away
from her and smashed it against the concrete. Enraged, Hot Pepper threw herself at Wild Ginger. Her teeth were in Wild Ginger's blouse. The buttons on their jackets began to pop. Suddenly Wild Ginger landed a heavy punch. Hot Pepper fell backward and landed on her butt.

"An enemy has revealed herself!" Hot Pepper shouted. "This is the one who slept through the Mao study section! Look at that funny-looking face! She must carry the blood of a Western opium seller! Comrades, let's go to the secretary's office! Let's dig out her dossier!"

"This is exactly what I suspected." Hot Pepper leafed through a pile of files and announced to the class, "Wild Ginger's father, the late Mr. Pei, was French. He was a spy. Although he is dead it doesn't mean that he is free from the crime he caused. Wild Ginger's mother is Chinese, but I am sure she is nothing more than a whore. Wild Ginger is a born spy. Chairman Mao teaches us, 'To the reactionary of all sorts we must be ruthless!'"

Within seconds, Wild Ginger was hit by umbrellas. Soon her cheeks began to swell and her nose bled. Her braids broke loose and her jacket was torn apart. "Give up!" Hot Pepper and the gang shouted. "Surrender! Take us the proletarians as your master or we will beat you to death!"

Wild Ginger rose in blood. Her eyes stared like a mad bull's.

Hot Pepper lunged again, citing Mao. "'Kill the bourgeois bugs! Save the patient! Kill the bourgeois bugs! Save
the patient!' May Fourth, 1939,
Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung.
Volume eleven, page two-forty-six, 'The Orientation of the Youth Movement.'"

The gang joined in reciting. '"How should we judge whether a youth is a revolutionary? How can we tell? There can only be one criterion, namely whether or not he is willing to integrate himself with the broad masses of workers and peasants and does so in practice. If he is willing to do so and actually does so, he is a revolutionary; otherwise he is a nonrevolutionary or a counter-revolutionary. If today he integrates himself with the masses of workers and peasants, then today he is the revolutionary; if tomorrow he ceases to do so or turns around to oppress the common people, then he becomes a nonrevolutionary or a counterrevolutionary.'"

Like a cornered animal Wild Ginger used her abacus as a shield; she fought until the abacus fell apart. Throwing away the broken frame she took up her school bag. The gang came to seize her again. I tried to help but got pulled and pinned down by Titi and Yaya. Hot Pepper and her other gang members got Wild Ginger's school bag. All her books and materials flew out. She was punched down to the ground. While the others held her head and feet, Hot Pepper hopped on her back and began to stab with her umbrella.

With ear-piercing cries, Wild Ginger gave in.

Hot Pepper shouted a Mao quotation with a tone of victory: '"Reading is learning, but applying is also learn
ing and the more important kind of learning at that. Our chief method is to learn warfare through warfare. We learn through fighting in war. A revolutionary war is a mass undertaking; it is often not a matter of first learning and then doing, but of doing and then learning, for doing is itself learning.'"

Lying on her stomach, Wild Ginger gasped. Hot Pepper and her gang walked away. The campus became quiet. I got up from where I lay.

Wild Ginger rose slowly, crawling to her feet. She looked around for her shoes. The beads of the abacus and the i pages of her books were scattered all over. She located a shoe behind the bushes and went to fetch it. She hopped on one leg, in pain, her face torn. On her way back she picked up her school bag. The buckles were gone.

I walked toward Wild Ginger. I picked up the abacus beads and the pages. I wanted to thank her but didn't know how to begin.

"I suppose this is your sleeve?" Wild Ginger picked up a piece of fabric that matched my jacket and passed it to me. "The other one is behind the bushes."

I nodded a thank you and passed her the pages.

"What's your name?" she asked, stuffing the pages into her bag.

"Maple."

"I see. You turn red in fall." She smiled and began to tie her shoelace.

"Are you making fun of my name?"

"No, not at all." She wiped the dripping blood off her mouth. "I like your name. It sounds proletarian, Maoist. It's perfect. Your parents must be very thoughtful people ... Anyway, how do you write it?"

"The character Wind with a Wood on the left-hand side."

"You are quite like your name." She stood up and patted the dirt off her buttocks. "You bend."

What could I say? What did she know about Hot Pepper? I started to assemble the abacus.

"I didn't say it was your fault, did I?" She was sorting the pages and trying to restore the textbook.

"Anyway, thanks for coming to my rescue."

"You're welcome." As if caught by a sudden twist of pain she got down on her knees.

"Are you all right?"

"I ... am fine."

"I'm sorry."

"No, don't ever feel sorry for me. I take the wounds as my medals."

What a thought! "Do you fight a lot?"

"With my kind of looks, people don't leave me alone."

"Do you win in the fights?"

"Well, most of the time I lose. Once I almost got my teeth knocked out."

"You are brave."

"I wouldn't put it that way."

"I am sure you ... you are aware that you do look a little foreign. Is your father really French?"

"Half French. My grandfather is French."

"Where is France? Is it an imperialist country like the U.S.A.?"

"I have no idea. I have never seen a world map. My mother once said that it was in Europe and was a beautiful agricultural country. But how can I trust my mother?"

"So Hot Pepper was right about your dossier?"

"Well, one can't choose one's parents, can one?"

"Of course not."

She made a deep, old-woman-like sigh.

"I'm sorry, Wild Ginger."

"My mother was wrong. She thought that transferring me to another school would help."

"Well, you didn't fight for yourself this time."

"Believe me, it makes no difference. Sooner or later my looks will be everyone's excuse to hit or make fun of me. To tell you the truth, at my old school people were rougher. They beat me with metal belt buckles."

"What are you going to do?"

"I don't know. I can't stop them. Being submissive is not going to do it either, and that I know for sure."

I sighed, thinking about my own situation. Every muscle of my body ached.

"You take it as if you deserve it." She started to walk toward the gate and I followed. "Why don't you fight back, Maple? At least you should show them your disapproval."

"What's the use? In any case I won't win. I am alone."

"Not anymore." Wild Ginger picked up a willow branch and swung it in the air.

I looked at her.

She cracked the branch like a whip. It snapped and made a crispy sound.

A strange warm feeling came through me. My tears gushed up involuntarily.

"Here's your abacus," I managed to say. "Hot Pepper will break it again if she sees you hanging out with me."

"Or you with me." She smiled. "Where do you live?"

"Number 347 Red Heart Road. And you?"

"Not far from you. Stalin Road behind Chia Chia Lane."

"I like your name, by the way."

That night for the first time in a long while I felt at peace. Life was changing its color from dark to light. My despair eased. Wild Ginger filled my mind. I told my mother about my new friend. I described her fearlessness. I didn't mind when Mother fell asleep. She snored before I finished. I kept going. I needed to hear Wild Ginger's name and hear her story.

The late summer night in Shanghai was humid. I could hear my stomach rumble. We were too poor to afford full meals. My family slept on the floor on a bamboo mat. My three sisters and three brothers laid their arms and legs across one another. In sleep they were engaged in a war. They were fighting for food and space. My second
brother's toe was in my third sister's mouth. My youngest brother's butt was on my mother's chest. My second sister shouted "Buns! Green onion buns!" and rolled off the mat as if chasing someone who had taken her buns. My oldest brother wiggled his body and stuck his head in between the table leg and the chair. "Buns? Where is the bun?" His hands grabbed my shoulder.

Unable to sleep, I got up. I decided to write a letter to my father, who had been sent to a forced labor collective. I hadn't seen him for almost a year. I told him that I looked forward to school now. Although I still expected beating and assault, the thought that I was no longer alone cheered me.