Becoming Madame Mao - Anchee Min [55]
He reaches for her. In silence she lets him fill her.
After a while he gives up. He rolls over, his face toward the ceiling. Desert me now. Be gone.
Buttoning up her clothes her tears flow. I just don't see a way. I don't want to be a concubine.
He watches her and she can hear the sound of his teeth grinding in his jaw.
A mouse appears on the floor near the wall. It advances, cautiously crosses the floor, then scampers around the foot of the bed and stops. Raising its head, the beanlike eyes stare at the couple.
The sun's rays jump over the floor.
If I can survive the Long March, I can survive losing anything, he murmurs. Like any war there will be casualties. Haven't I seen enough blood?...Do as you please, but please promise that you'll never come back.
She begins to sob uncontrollably.
Let's get over with this mess. You say that I am a married man, but what you mean is that I am a doomed man. Why don't you fire? He puts a hand on her shoulder. Kill me with your coldness.
The best illusionist is one who can explain to you how the trick works and then still make you believe there is magic ... She lifts her chin to look at him. This is where I stand at the moment—I still believe that you are meant for me!
Then say you won't leave.
But I must. Oh heaven, I must leave you.
He gets into his shoes and walks away from the bed.
She tries to move but her legs feel heavy.
What's wrong with you? he shouts. Are you a coward? I hate cowards! Don't you hear me? I hate, hate and hate cowards! Go now. Obey my order. Go! Go! Abandon me, abandon Yenan! Out!
She walks toward the door. Her hand feels the knob. She hears him wailing behind her: The war has taken everything away from me, my wives and my children ... My heart has been shot through and through. So many times, so many holes, it is beyond repair. Lan Ping, why do you offer a man ginseng soup while making him a coffin!
***
I am back with my unit. The next day I am assigned to a saomangban—a team that works to "brush away" Yenan's illiteracy. I teach Chinese and math. My students are from the advanced women's platoon. Among them are the wives of the Party's high-ranking officers. It doesn't take me long to learn that Zi-zhen had been their shooting coach.
An older woman comes and grabs me by the wrist. This is how Zi-zhen likes to practice, she says. By the way, Comrade Lan Ping, Zi-zhen is a crack shot. Zi-zhen used to take me to watch her practice. She loves to do it at night. Especially moonless nights. She would light ten torches at about a hundred yards away, then shoot with two pistols. Tatatatata, tatatatata ... Ten bullets out, ten torches down. Then she would have me set up another set of torches, then another set ... Tatatatata, tatatatata...
The students observe the girl from Shanghai as if watching a peasant skin a snake. The girl refuses to be played. What a woman! What a heroine! Lan Ping fills her voice with admiration.
He sends out Little Dragon to invite me for tea. We are awkward. The invisible Zi-zhen stands between us. While I choose to be silent, he begins to mock. Later on I discover that mocking is his style. He mocks, especially when he intends to punish. He chats warmly. One can never know what is coming.
I was thinking about what you told me the other day about your experience in Beijing. He sips his tea. I'd like to share some of mine with you. It also took place in Beijing. 1918, I was twenty-five years old. I was a part-time student at Beijing Normal University. I worked in the mailroom and the library. My position was so low that people avoided me. I knew then that there was something wrong. For hundreds of years the scholars had moved away from the people, and I began to dream of a time when the scholars would teach the coolies, for surely the coolies deserve being educated as much as the rest.
The truth is that Mao failed to gain any attention in Beijing. The country bumpkin felt humiliated. He was unable to forget the disappointing