Dreams of Joy - Lisa See [43]
“Maybe your New China isn’t so perfect after all,” he says to me in English, causing Kumei’s eyes to widen in surprise.
“You speak Russian!” Kumei beams. Everyone—from Chairman Mao down to this illiterate village girl—wants to emulate the Soviet Union, which they call Lao Da Ge—Old Big Brother. “Today’s Soviet Union is like our tomorrow!” She recites the popular saying. Neither of us corrects her. It’s better that she thinks I understand Russian than that she suspect I’m from America. Even here, in the middle of nowhere, people hate what they call the American imperialists.
I glance across the hall to Tao. Almost the entire village is present, yet the way he stares at me makes me feel like we’re in a room by ourselves. Just the idea of being alone together feels forbidden, and it takes my mind away from the dead woman and the memory of my father hanging in the closet. Tao gives me an encouraging smile. It’s as if he wants me to know everything will be fine.
“We came out of our homes during collectivization,” one of the women grumbles loudly. “We were told we’d receive equal pay for equal work. We were told we’d have the new Marriage Law to guide us. But where is help when we need it?”
Sung-ling, the portly wife of the Party secretary, marches up to an old altar table and leans her two closed fists on it. “Feudal ways are hard to change,” she says in a shrill voice. “When the Eighth Route Army came through our county during the War of Liberation, they taught us to Speak Bitterness. We women were encouraged to complain about the humiliations we endured—rapes, beatings, loveless marriages, and living under the thumbs of heartless mothers-in-law. We directed our sad stories of anguish and suffering into collective anger about the feudal system. If a husband teased us or belittled us, together we beat him in the square until he was motionless like a dead dog, with his mouth, eyes, and nose full of mud, and his clothes reduced to rags.”
This speech has the effect of inflaming instead of calming the women, but Sung-ling isn’t done.
“But gossiping and complaining like weak women is not the way to make men hear us. Beating a man in the public square won’t make him be a better husband, father, or comrade either. Times are different now. You make me look bad with your backward ways. We have to address these matters properly. I will ask the county to send a propaganda team to our village. They will help us put on a play to remind everyone of the rules. I’ll need some volunteers.”
I have acting experience, so I raise my hand. When they see my hand go up, Tao and Kumei raise theirs as well.
“Good,” Sung-ling says. “Now, for the rest of tonight, I don’t want to hear another word about Comrade Ping-li. She is dead. That is all we can say.” She peers around the hall, practically begging someone to contradict her. She purses her lips and gives a little nod before continuing. “Now, let us begin our political discussion. Please move to your usual spots.”
The divided hall grudgingly comes together, and Tao ends up sitting next to me. Despite Sung-ling’s pep talk—if that’s what it was—the people remain restive. Party Secretary Feng Jin follows his wife’s instructions, refusing to mention the dead woman. Instead, he doles out praise to select model workers. Then he recounts some of the Red Army’s greatest exploits, which he does every night. I’m getting to like them better than the episodes of Gunsmoke, Sky King, and Highway Patrol my family used to watch.
The first of tonight’s stories involves the brave female communication operators during the War of Liberation. “They had to run under constant fire,” Party Secretary Feng Jin emphasizes, “from one shell hole to another. They sent urgent messages, life-and-death messages. If they lost their connection, they turned their own bodies into electric conductors by gritting wires between their teeth. Those women were sisters in the war of resistance!”
It’s not the most subtle morality story, and in many ways it’s a strange choice, since I bet