Becoming Madame Mao - Anchee Min [107]
I think my father is a capitalism promoter, the girl begins.
Yes, Tao, Madame Mao Jiang Ching nods gently. You are getting the justice you deserve. Firm your tone and trim your phrase. Take off the "I think." Say, My father is a capitalism promoter. Say it clearly. Think about how your stepmother made your father abandon your mother. Think about how she takes up your mother's spot in the bed. Recall your misery as a child. Wang Guang-mei ought to pay for your suffering. Don't cry, Tao. I feel your pain. My child, this is your aunt Jiang Ching speaking. Uncle Mao is behind you. Let me tell you, Mao has put out his own big-character poster on August 5. The title is BOMBARD THE HEADQUARTERS. I am sure you know whom he is bombarding, don't you? It is to save your father. To save him from being kicked out of history. You must help him. Uncle Mao and I know that you disagree with your father and stepmother. You are an outcast of the Liu family. Here is your chance to establish yourself as a true revolutionary. Tao, nobody else will speak for you. You must do it for yourself. Catch the light in your dark life, girl. Come on, write your thoughts down and read them at tomorrow's rally.
The girl trembles as she finishes her speech. The title is "The Devil's Soul—In Denouncing My Father Liu Shao-qi." The effect is overwhelming. The story of the Lius' corruption spreads overnight. Colored by rumor and fueled by imagination the monstrous details travel from ear to ear. Cartoons illustrating the Lius as bloodsuckers are all over China's walls and buildings. The couple are described as traitors and Western agents since their cradle days.
August 25. Kuai Da-fu leads five thousand Red Guards to spread leaflets for the upcoming event called "Trial of the Lius." Kuai Da-fu marches across Tiananmen Square and shouts through the amplifiers, Down, smash, boil and fry Liu Shao-qi and his partner Deng Xiao-ping!
I am sitting in the greenroom of the Beijing Worker's Stadium. It is eight o'clock in the morning. The stadium is packed with forty thousand Red Guards, students, workers, peasants and soldiers. I have come to test my power. Kuai Da-fu has been in the front cheerleading the crowds. The sound is ear-blasting.
Kuai Da-fu has been holding over fifty members of the congress and Politburo hostage. Among them the mayor of Beijing, the head of the Cultural Bureau, and Luo Rei-qing, the former minister of national defense. They are the men who believe that they needn't respect me because their loyalty toward Mao will make him back them in the event of misunderstanding. Well, we'll see.
Luo Rei-qing is in a manure basket. His leg is broken. He had resisted arrest by jumping off a building. Two Red Guards now carry him up with a shoulder-pole. He looks like an old goat being carried to market. Madame Mao Jiang Ching hears a burst of laughter from the crowd. On the makeshift stage, her enemies are lined up. Their hands are cuffed in the back. Kuai Da-fu gives each subject a dunce cap with his name written on it and crossed out by dripping black ink. In the meantime the crowd sings Mao's teaching: Revolution is not a dinner party. Revolution is violence.
She has told Kuai Da-fu that Mao is happy with his achievements. Although she didn't say that Mao wants the men harmed, Kuai Da-fu has figured out what Mao would like to have done.
I shout slogans with Kuai Da-fu. Mao's teaching is thunder that splits the sky and a volcano that breaks the ocean bed! Mao's teaching is truth!
Mao has let me see the secret of ruling. Marshal Peng De-huai was a loyalist who once played a key role in establishing the republic. However, Mao told me that it didn't mean that Peng wouldn't turn into an assassin. Mao's ability to adapt to emotional change keeps him safe all these years. I don't see him suffer regrets. He is convinced that heartlessness is the price he has to