Dreams of Joy - Lisa See [124]
A whistle announces the lunch break. While the others line up for rice and vegetables served by the side of the new road, I hurriedly grab my satchel and set out for the leadership hall. How different everything looks from when I first came here two summers ago. This year’s corn crop should be shoulder high, with the kernels filling the air with a warm and fragrant scent, but what I see is short, stubby, and patchy, as though the fields have severe cases of mange. The reasons are simple and all tied together.
First, although scientists have announced that sparrows eat more insects than seeds, Chairman Mao has insisted we continue to kill the birds. Now the only things getting fat around here are the swarms of locusts and other insects that eat contentedly at the free canteen that our fields have become. Second, close planting. When any of the farmers who grew up in this area ask Brigade Leader Lai about the wisdom of this practice, he says, “Trust in the people’s commune.” Third, when we inquire what he’s promised the government this year, he answers, “We’ll deliver ten times the normal grain yield!” That’s where our fear comes in. How can we possibly give that much grain when our yield has gone down not up? If we turn over our harvest to meet the brigade leader’s “exaggeration wind,” then this winter will be far worse than last. To protect ourselves, we deliberately left as much in and on the ground as we could when we brought in the early crops, in case we need to rely on gleaning the fields for food next winter.
I reach the center of the commune. I take a breath to calm my nerves and give me courage. Then I stride purposefully to the leadership hall in the cinder-block building. A guard stands before the door.
“May I see Brigade Leader Lai?” I ask.
“Why?” the guard, a young peasant from Moon Pond Village, asks in response.
“I’d like to present something to the brigade leader as well as to Party Secretary Feng Jin and his honorable wife.”
I haven’t answered the guard’s question, only expanded my request. His jaw muscles tighten. Give a low man one ounce of power and he’ll throw ten thousand pounds of bricks on your head. He yells at me. When he loses steam, I state my request again. He gets angrier. Brigade Leader Lai comes to the door. He wears a cloth napkin tucked into his shirt.
“What’s this noise? Don’t you know I’m eating?”
“Brigade Leader, I want to launch a Sputnik,” I announce.
“You?”
I give a sharp nod, exuding confidence.
“No,” he says.
“Please hear me,” I persist. “My idea will bring important cadres to the Dandelion Number Eight People’s Commune.”
This is a bold claim, but one I hope will elicit a good response from the brigade leader. In the New China, no one is supposed to seek personal glory, but individual recognition is something all cadres desire. He looks me up and down, calculating: she’s a backsliding imperialist, but she’s also the daughter of a famous artist, she looks professional, she has a satchel slung over her shoulder that contains … what?
“Let me finish my lunch,” he says, having made his decision. He orders the guard to fetch Party Secretary Feng Jin and Sung-ling. “Have them come here in fifteen minutes.” To me, he adds, “Wait here.” Then the brigade leader closes the door and goes back to his meal.
Fifteen minutes later, the guard escorts the three of us into the building’s private dining room. The smell of food—meat—is tantalizing and painful at the same time. I glance at Sung-ling. As Kumei suggested, Sung-ling and I have become friends. When Sung-ling says her baby likes to kick, I tell her my baby kicks even more. When I say I’m going to have a son, she tells me she’s going to have twin boys. I’ve worked hard to establish this good-natured banter, because I need Sung-ling to help me. But now, as I look at her, I wonder if she can. She was plump when we first met. Now she’s pregnant and losing weight. As village cadres, she and her husband should have the same benefits as the brigade leader. Instead, they’ve decided to continue eating with the rest of us in the canteen.