Becoming Madame Mao - Anchee Min [52]
I have been trying to use a sword to cut the flow of water, he murmurs behind her.
She turns around and sees him setting a foot in the stirrup.
Suddenly he hears her giggle.
What's funny?
Your pants.
What about them?
Your rear is about to show in a day or two—the fabric has melted.
Damn.
I'll fix it for you if you like.
His smile returns.
10
THE VILLAGE TAILOR IS GLAD to have Lan Ping as her sewing companion. Lan Ping is working on Mao's pants, which have been brought to her by Little Dragon. She doesn't know where the sewing is going to take her. She is aware that he is lonely and is fascinated by pretty women from big cities, places that rejected him as a student and as a young revolutionary. Later on she finds out that he calls her type of people bourgeois, but he pursues them. He calls Americans imperialists and paper tigers and says they should be put off the face of the earth, but he learns English and prepares himself to one day visit the United States. He tells his nation to learn from Russia, but he hates Stalin.
In 1938 Lan Ping finds herself falling in love with Mao Tse-tung. Falling in love with the poet in him, the poet his heroine wife Zi-zhen tries to kill. Although Mao later on will establish himself as an emperor and take many concubines, in 1938 he is humble. He is a penniless bandit and tries to catch the girl by selling his mind and vision.
One morning his guard comes and leaves me a piece of his scribbling—a new poem he composed the night before. He wants my comment. I unfold the paper and hear my heart singing.
Mountain
I whip my already quick horse and don't dismount
When I look back in wonder
The sky is three feet away
Mountain
The sea collapses and the river boils
Innumerable horses race
Insanely into the battle
Mountain
Peaks pierce the green sky, unblunted
The sky falls
Down the clouds my men are home
She reads his poems over and over. In the next few days the guard will bring more for her. Mao copies the poems in ink in the elegant calligraphy of Chinese ideograms, lucidly arranged.
His scribbles become her nightly treat in which passion speaks between the lines. Gradually a god steps down from the clouds and shares his life with her. He expresses his feelings for his lost love, his sister, brother and his first wife, Kai-hui, slaughtered by Chiang Kai-shek. And his children, whom he was forced to give away between battles and only later found dead or lost. She receives his tears and feels his sadness. What grabs her heart is that she discovers there is no anger in his poems; rather, he praises the way nature shares its secrets with him—he embraces its severity, enormity and beauty.
The tailor gives me a piece of gray rag, which I cut into two large round patches. I stitch them around the rear. The tailor suggests that I thicken the fabric. She says, Make it durable so that it will serve as a carried-around stool.
We sew quietly for a while and then suddenly the tailor asks me what I think about Zi-zhen.
Trying to hide my awkwardness I say that I respect Zi-zhen a great deal. The tailor stops her work and raises her eyes. There is suspicion in the look. Pulling a thread she says slowly but clearly, Mao Tse-tung belongs to the Communist Party and the people. He's no ordinary man to be chased around. He has suffered the loss of his first wife and he is not about to lose his second.
Before I have a chance to respond she goes on. The late Mrs. Mao's name is Kai-hui, for your information. Have you heard of her? I am sure you don't mind me mentioning her, do you?
Please, go ahead.
She was the daughter of his mentor and the beauty of Changsha, her hometown. She was an intellect and a Communist. She lived for Mao. Not only did she support and help organize his activities but also gave him three sons. When Chiang Kai-shek caught her he ordered her murdered. She was given a chance to denounce Mao in exchange for her life but she chose to honor him.
The tailor wipes her tears, blows her nose and continues. Zi-zhen married Mao to fill up the