Becoming Madame Mao - Anchee Min [4]
But the mother goes on living, for her, the daughter she wishes were a son. This is how misery permeates the girl's soul. Most of her life she can't be satisfied with who she is. The irony is that she truly wishes to satisfy her mother's wish. This is how she begins her acting career. Very young. In her own house. She slips into roles. When she thinks that she is not who she is, she becomes relaxed and fear free. She is in a safe place where her father's terror can no longer reach and her mother's tears can no longer wash her away.
Later on it becomes clear that Madame Mao doesn't forgive. She believes that one must collect the debts owed to one. She has little desire to understand forgiveness. Revenge, on the other hand, she understands. She understands it in the most savage way. In her life, she never hesitates to order her enemies' complete elimination. She does it naturally. It is a practice she started as a young girl.
I see my father hit Mother with a shovel. It happened suddenly. Without warning. I can hardly believe my eyes. He is mad. He calls Mother a slut. Mother's body curls up. My chest swells. He hits her back, front, shouting that he will break her bones. Mother is in shock, unable to move. Father drags her, kicks and steps on her as if to flatten her into a piece of paper.
I feel horror turning my stomach upside down. I jump. I get in between them. You are no longer my father, I announce, my body trembling all over. I will never forgive you! One of these days you will find yourself dead because I put mice poison in your liquor!
The man turns and raises the shovel over his head.
My lips burn. My front tooth is in my mouth.
***
During the production of her operas and ballets in the 1970s, Madame Mao describes the wound to the actresses, actors, artists and the nation. Madame Mao says, Our heroines must be covered with wounds. Blood-dripping wounds. Wounds that have been torn, punctured or broken by weapons like shovels, whips, glass, wooden sticks, bullets or explosions. Study the wounds, pay attention to the degree of the burn, the layers of the infected tissue. The color transitions in the flesh. And the shapes that remind you of a worm-infested body.
***
Eight years old and she is already determined. It is not clear whether her father kicked her mother out of his house or her mother ran away herself. At any rate the girl no longer has a home. The mother takes the daughter with her. They walk from street to street and town to town. The mother works as a maid. A washmaid, lower in rank than a kitchenmaid. The mother works where she and the girl will be given a corner to sleep at night. At night the mother often leaves mysteriously. When she returns it is usually dawn. The mother never tells the girl where she goes. One day when the girl insists, she says that she visits different houses. She either peels potatoes or serves as a foot warmer for the master's children. She never tells the girl that she is a foot warmer for the master himself. The mother withers quickly. Her skin wrinkles up like ripples in a lake and her hair dries like a winter stalk.
Some nights the girl gets bored waiting for her mother. She can't sleep yet she is afraid to go out. She lies in bed quietly. After midnight she hears bullets being fired. She counts the shots so she will know how many people have been killed.
My number always matches the number of heads that hang on the gate of the town the next day. My schoolmates talk to each other like this: I'll slaughter you and hang your head on a hook and then I'll stick an opium pipe between your teeth.
I hate school. I am an object of attack because I have no father and have a mother who works at jobs that arouse suspicion. I beg my mother to transfer me to a different school. But the situation doesn't change. It gets so bad that one day a classmate