Becoming Madame Mao - Anchee Min [38]
Before her departure she wrote an article which was published in the Shanghai Performing Arts Weekly. The title was "A View of Our Lives." In the article she criticized "pale art," the art that promotes bourgeois sentimentality. The plays in which women are praised for their sacrifices. The plays that embrace the foot-binding tradition. The art that turns a blind eye on the country's fatal condition. She called it "the selfish art." "To me art is a weapon. A weapon to fight injustice, Japanese, Imperialists and enemies alike."
"A View of Our Lives" was a loud cry. This performance, it was said, had legs and walked its way to Yenan, to Mao's cave, his bed.
The old truck she is on groans like a dying animal. Coated with red dust the girl from Shanghai is in good spirits. After three weeks on the journey she has just passed Xian, the gate of the red territory. They enter Luo-chuan, the last stop before Yenan.
August 1937. She has made friends with a woman named Xu who comes to join her husband Wang. Wang is the secretary of the Communist organization called United Front Against Japan's Invasion. He is here attending an important meeting.
That night Lan Ping and Xu stay in a peasant's cabin. Their beds are made of straw. They plan to fetch Wang the next day from the meeting and continue their journey together to Yenan. Lan Ping is tired and goes to bed early. She doesn't know that tomorrow morning will go down in history as an unsolved mystery of modern China.
At breakfast Xu tells Lan Ping that the place of her husband's meeting is a few houses down the path. The meeting has already ended by dawn. Xu suggests that they pack buns for the trip. It is fifty-some miles from Luo-chuan to Yenan.
The morning is cool. The color of the rising sun dyes the hills golden. Lan Ping is neatly dressed in her new gray cotton Red Army uniform. A belt fastens at the waist. Her slender body is willowlike. Two long braids are tied up with blue ribbons. Carrying bags she and Xu walk toward their truck. Just beyond sit three other weather-beaten vehicles. One of the cars has characters written on it: Emergency Medicare—Life Support. The New York Chinese Workers' Association. It is Mao Tse-tung's car.
In the future the next moment is discussed as a moment of historical significance. Different views and interpretations have been adopted. Some say Mao walked out of the little meeting house and got into his car while Lan Ping was climbing into her truck—they missed each other. Some say that Lan Ping watched the leaders walk out one by one and thought the ink pen they each carried in their chest pockets was funny—she didn't recognize Mao. Some say that Mao bent his head as he exited the house because of his height and when he raised his eyes again, he was caught by her beauty—love at first sight. In Madame Mao's own story everyone comes to greet her with warm hellos.
The truth is no one comes. No one says hello to anyone. The girl from Shanghai gets in the truck, settles herself in a comfortable spot and waits for the truck to take off. She sees the men exiting the house. She knows that they are men of importance but she doesn't know which one is Mao nor does she expect to meet him.
It is not until the truck begins to move—not until she overhears Wang whispering to his wife, Look, that's him! That's Mao!—that she pays attention. She had crossed his path but missed him. The biggest big shot in Yenan. He is already in the car. Emergency ... Life Support. She didn't catch him, only the smoke his car puffed. She remembers the car shaking, hopping like a patient with heart failure.
***
If people in modern China barely know the name Yu Qiwei, they are all familiar with the name Kang Sheng. Comrade Kang Sheng, Mao's most trusted man, the head of China's national security and intelligence. Educated in Russia by Stalin's people, Kang Sheng is a man of mystery and conspiracy. No one can tell anything from reading his facial expressions. No one knows how he relates to Mao or how