Becoming Madame Mao - Anchee Min [24]
I am walking out of this house that suffocates me and I will survive. You will see, Torvald! she cries on stage.
It is at this moment that her fate answers. It is then that he, a man named Tang Nah, appears in her view. He makes her see him. Nothing extraordinary at the beginning. He pushes himself like a photo-print in a darkroom. The texture gets richer by the second. Now it is clear.
He is among the critics attending the show on opening night. Fashionably dressed, he is in an elegant white Western suit and white leather shoes with a matching hat. He comes to meet his destiny, the woman for whom in the near future, he will twice try to kill himself.
Tang Nah is a liberal. A typical Shanghai bourgeois. A stylish-looking man, above average in height, a pair of single-lid eyes, long straight nose and sensuous mouth. He is well educated and an expert in Western literature. Among his favorite novels is Lady Chatterley's Lover. He drinks tea and speaks English at parties in front of pretty women. On opening night his face is neatly shaved and his hair smoothly combed to the back. He is in an excellent mood. He enters the theater and walks to his seat, into the web of passion. Later on he is criticized for having an unrealistic mind, for his need to live in a fantasy world, and for being a weak man who lets emotion drive his life. But he is already in it when he enters the dark space where she is to appear, to present herself as an illusion.
It is right here, on this night, the first sight, already nothing is real. Her makeup, her hair, her costume, the little picture house. The fantasy itself. She is his Lady Chatterley.
***
Each night, she relies on her role to carry her up high.
Lan Ping-Nora leans herself against Dan's chest, against the man who twenty-five years later she will throw into prison for having rejected her. But now she feels his heartbeat, his body heat. She feels strangely in love, touched by her own passion. The characters speak their lines. She tears herself away from Dan. He grabs her. She struggles, pushes him, giving him a chance to tame her. He comes back, locking her arms behind her, bending her toward the floor. They strike a final pose. Her hair falls back, her breasts pressing against Dan. She sees his sweat melt his makeup and feels his breath hit her lips.
A Doll's House becomes the talk of Shanghai. The talk of 1935. Lan Ping rides her fame and begins her move toward the movie industry. Yet she finds herself unwelcome. It is another circle and another gang. To break in she realizes that she has to start from square one. During the day, she looks for opportunities in film, at night she continues to play Nora. Her audience grows, and the government feels threatened by the play's political impact. One month later, Zhang Min is ordered by the Department of the Censorship to remove the political element from the show. When he leads the troupe in protest, the government shuts down the play.
A public letter is issued by the troupe criticizing the government. Lan Ping's signature is on the top. With the same passion, with the same tone and voice which she uses on stage, she speaks on radio and at rallies. She passionately calls the government "Torvald."
***
It is a fateful evening that Tang Nah and I meet. It is the course we both are meant to be served.
I am on my way to the Shanghai Film Studio. Not too long ago the studio took a chance and signed me up. It is a small contract, and in business terms I am still on my own, but I feel better being under the studio's wing. The tiny roles I get I must earn. I am not sleeping around. In this business actresses are for sale. It's a tradition that certain men in town "take care of" the new girl on the block. These are powerful men. The money guys of the industry. They approach me for coffee and tea. You definitely