Becoming Madame Mao - Anchee Min [77]
A voice mimicking a fortuneteller tells me, Madame, you've got a gilded hook in your mouth.
***
The train plows through the thick snow. The beauty of northern ice trees and the whiteness strangely move her. She is on her way to a doctor. A Russian doctor. She had checked out her growing pain. A cyst was found in her cervix. She doesn't know why she wants to come to Russia. To escape what? Her cyst or her reality?
She is greeted by men from Moscow's Foreign Relations Bureau. Red-potato-nosed agents treat her as if she is Mao's deserted concubine. A short, rosy-cheeked translator, a Chinese woman, is with the men. She is bundled in a navy blue Lenin coat and carries herself like a big triangle. Stepping out of the station, Madame Mao is beaten by the harsh wind. The air from Siberia greets you! one red-nose says. Comrade Stalin is sorry that Comrade Mao Tse-tung's not here.
In her hotel room, holding her tea cup, she picks up a copy of People's Daily. The paper is sent by the embassy. The date is October 2, 1949. On the front page is a large photo of her husband. It is a wide-angle shot. He is on top of Tiananmen—the Gate of Heavenly Peace—inspecting a sea of parades. It is a good photo, she thinks. The photographer caught the elation leaping on Mao's face. He looks younger than fifty-four.
She turns the pages and suddenly sees Fairlynn's name. Fairlynn has not only survived the war, she has been active in the republic's establishment. Have they secretly kept in touch? Has she been invited to his study?
The guard at the Chrysanthemum-Fragrance Study blocks her and tells her that Mao is with a visitor and doesn't wish to be disturbed.
Hello, Chairman! I'm back! Madame Mao Jiang Ching pushes the guard to the side and invites herself in.
The room is dark. The blinds are down and the curtains are drawn. Mao is in his pajamas. He sits facing the door in his rattan chair. The visitor is a woman. She sits with her back toward Jiang Ching. She is in a navy blue Mao jacket. Seeing his wife Mao crosses his bare feet on a stool and says, The Siberian fox has come to share the spring with us.
The visitor turns around and stands up. Comrade Jiang Ching!
Comrade Fairlynn!
How have you been?
Better than ever! Madame Mao fetches herself a chair. Don't tell me that you are still single and still enjoying it.
Fairlynn supports her head with one hand and knits a crease in her trousers with the other. Her fingers nervously run back and forth along the crease. What's wrong, Comrade Jiang Ching? You are not well, are you?
Anna Karenina was stupid to kill herself for an unworthy man, Madame Mao responds. More tea!
But I was merely concerned about your health. After all you are the first lady and you have undergone surgery—it's news.
I want to tell Fairlynn that my wound has healed and the tissues have regenerated. My condition is more than perfect. I've conquered the pain. I'm nursing my heart. But there is something else I can't bear. Something, a bug, I must kill before I can go on. Fairlynn must be given this warning. She has gone too far.
My husband gets up and spits a mouthful of tea leaves into a spittoon. It's his way of shutting me up. I am humiliated. Deep within me violence begins to stir. The summons is too terrifying to measure.
Excuse me, Jiang Ching, I've promised Comrade Fairlynn a tour of the Forbidden City. It would be a shame for a writer like her not to know what's behind the great walls. Don't you agree?
I know that I am not expected to reply. But I wait. For a courtesy. I wait for my husband to invite me along, or give me a chance to refuse.
The request doesn't come.
The point of her fingernail jams into her palm, and her body holds still with extreme rigidity. When Mao and Fairlynn stride shoulder to shoulder out of the room into the sun and disappear behind the great imperial garden, she is kissed by the tongue of the beast inside her.
The draperies are down.