Dreams of Joy - Lisa See [112]
Brigade Leader Lai stands on a raised platform with his hands clasped behind his back, rocking on his heels, a fierce look on his face. My stomach tightens when I see Yong on her knees next to him, her bound feet hidden under her. A white ribbon has been pinned to her tunic, showing that she’s been denounced. Kumei and Ta-ming stand on the edge of the platform. Kumei can smile in any situation, but not now. Her face is pale and her scars have turned lavender with what I take to be fear. What could Yong and Kumei have done to so upset the man who’s been living with them in the villa these past months? Party Secretary Feng Jin and Sung-ling also have spots on the platform. They look invigorated and alive with excitement. This isn’t a small performance for just Green Dragon Village. This time thousands of faces stare back at them in anticipation.
Brigade Leader Lai raises a bullhorn to his mouth. “Chairman Mao has said there will be no parasites in the New Society,” he recites. “Everybody works so everybody eats.”
We’ve heard these things before, but what he says next sounds ominous.
“These three are black elements. Two shared a bed with the landlord. One is the landlord’s black spawn. Once this label is affixed, it is passed from generation to generation. They and their descendants will never escape their black labels.”
A shudder ripples through me.
He motions to Kumei and Ta-ming. “These two do their best.” Then he nudges Yong with his shoe. “But this one is a daily reminder of all that was bad in the old society. Years ago, Chairman Mao ordered all women to unbind their feet. Did the landowner’s fourth wife obey?”
Shouts of no come from the crowd. Yong doesn’t react. She keeps her eyes cast down.
“We all work in the fields, but what about this one?” the brigade leader asks.
Disgruntled mumbles ripple around me. Everyone seems to have forgotten that Yong came out of the villa to work in the Overtake Britain Battalion with my mother, mother-in-law, and some of the other older women in Green Dragon.
“It’s time you remove your bindings and join us. Do it now!” Brigade Leader Lai orders.
Without a word of resistance, Yong shifts to a sitting position, accepting insult and humility in a way that everyone here understands, for in the past only slaves, condemned criminals, those captured in battle, and servants sat on the ground. The crowd falls silent, and people strain their necks as the long bindings come off in loop after loop. The commune’s members may have been too poor to have bound-footed women in their families, but everyone knows that a woman’s bound feet are her most private parts. “Even more private than that place low down,” my mother once said to me when she was telling me about my grandmother’s bound feet.
“Now get up!” Brigade Leader Lai yells at Yong.
How can she when her feet have been broken and crushed, held together in their tiny shape for more than forty years? But an order is an order, and the crowd is raw with hatred. Yong wobbles to her feet. Her face remains stoic, but her body sways uncertainly. Ta-ming moves to help her, but Kumei wisely holds him back. As the brigade leader said, the boy is and will always be a black element. How he acts now will save him from harassment in the future.
“Walk!” Brigade Leader Lai shouts. When Yong doesn’t move, he yells even louder. “Walk!”
I’m horrified, terrified, and thrust to that place I never want to visit—what happened to my father and my part in his death. The nausea I’ve been feeling the last few days comes up and burns the back of my throat. I feel sure I’m going to faint.
“Walk!” Red fury infuses the brigade leader’s face. “And tomorrow you will join the other comrades in the fields. It’s planting time, and we need all hands … and feet.”
Is he joking? Yong can’t possibly work in the fields. She wouldn’t last an hour, let alone a day.
“Walk!” he bellows. “Walk all the way back to your villa!”
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