Becoming Madame Mao - Anchee Min [53]
The girl from Shanghai lowers her head and murmurs, I can imagine that.
No, you can't! If you could you wouldn't be doing what you are doing! You wouldn't be stealing other people's husbands!
The angry woman bites off the end of a thread with her teeth. The Chairman and Zi-zhen are separating only temporarily. Temporarily, do you hear me, Lan Ping?
Yes, I hear you.
With a strange light in her eyes the tailor's voice suddenly softens. She will, I am sure ... Zi-zhen will get better and the couple will unite. No one gives up on Zi-zhen. Chairman Mao is a miracle maker. The victory of the Long March is a good example. The expansion of the red base is another and Zi-zhen will be the next.
The tailor's wrinkled lips fumble like a fish mouth. Words bubble out one after another. The candle begins to flicker. The room is suddenly brightened with a golden-orange ring. And then, a moment later, the candle goes out.
***
You have a scale and I have a weight, Mao says. There is a match.
Lan Ping nods, studying the face in front of her.
What are you looking at? An ancient skull? Am I a piece of salted dry pork that you are trying to buy?
I come to shake hands with you, she says. I come to wish you health and happiness.
He grabs her hands and tells her that his very soul demands her. It needs to be satisfied, or it will take deadly vengeance on its frame.
She is silent, but leaves her hand in his palm.
I expected you, he whispers.
What have I done?
Come to me.
She hesitates.
He begins to lose ground. His eyes see what they want to see. I have something to add to our talk by the riverbank. Would you care to hear it?
She moves to sit on the edge of his bed.
In the ditches of my hometown grew my favorite plant. It was a red plant called beema. Its leaf was larger than a lotus leaf, round in shape. Its fruit was the size of a fist, and its seed the size of a fig. You can crush it—the seed contains quite a large amount of oil. It's tasty, but you can't eat it. It causes diarrhea. What I liked about it was that I could use it as a light. It's brighter than candles and produces a nice scent. My folks all use it. When I was a kid I spent my afternoons shelling the beema seeds. I connected the seeds together with a long string, tied it on one end of my bamboo stick and stuck it in places where I did my reading. Sometimes I took it to the ponds to help me locate fish and turtles ...
He continues talking and pulls her toward his chest, presses her hands.
She remembers the room had a high ceiling. The wall mud-colored. The floor was packed rock. It looked like the back of a giant turtle.
I like this face, a face with a full forehead. A marvelous head. A head that is worth millions in gold and silver to Chiang Kai-shek. I look into the eyes. The dark brown pupils. The shapes and lines resemble those of the Buddha. It reminds me of a distant landscape. The surface of a planet with gray rocks, emerald ponds. On this face, I detect an unconquerable will.
I see invisible guards behind the mask. The guards whose duty is to block anyone from entering the path that leads to the master chamber of the mind. The chamber where he is completely naked, vulnerable and defenseless.
He comes to hold me, pressing me against his ribs.
Bolts of silk spread in the air of my mind's picture.
It is in this room, on this bed, that she gives the performance of her life. She feels light filtering through her body.
The sky comes to devour the earth. Her pain from the past escapes.
Later on when he becomes the modern emperor of China, when she has learned everything there is to learn about him,