Dreams of Joy - Lisa See [49]
“The dark clouds of misery have been dispelled,” I tell the audience. “A blue sky has been revealed. Harmony has been restored.”
With this conclusion, we take our bows. Our little show wasn’t as professional as a movie or a television show, but the audience loved it. I have the same feeling I have after any performance—exhilaration and joy. As the villagers head home, Tao, Kumei, Sung-ling, and I help the county troupe load their costumes and props into wheelbarrows, which will be pushed to the nearest road, a few miles away. As soon as they leave the square, Kumei and her son walk the few steps back to the villa.
“Thank you for helping,” Sung-ling praises me.
“Thank you for letting me participate,” I respond. “I’m happy I got to—”
“Don’t plump your feathers too high,” Sung-ling cuts me off. “Individuals should never take credit for a good job. The glory goes to our team and to our collective.”
She gives a sharp nod and turns to leave. Tao and I are left nearly alone on the square. I wish we could go somewhere to have a Coke or some ice cream the way I used to do at home, because I’m not ready to go back to the villa. Emboldened by the adrenaline still coursing through my body, I ask if he’d like to take a walk. It’s too dark to go up the hill to the Charity Pavilion, so we stay on the footpath that borders the stream. After a while, we stop and sit on rocks at the water’s edge. I peel off my shoes and socks and dip my feet in the cool water. Tao slips off his sandals and submerges his feet next to mine. In elementary school, Hazel and I used to tease other girls about their wanting to play footsie with some boy or other. It was the kind of dumb taunting that little girls do when they know absolutely nothing about sex, boys, or romance. But now I let my toes—wet and soft—slip along the arch of Tao’s right foot. The sensations I feel from this are not located in my feet however. The performance has given Tao courage too, because he takes my hand and puts it in his lap. I feel his startling hardness and I don’t pull away.
LATER, WHEN I GET back to the villa, everyone is in the front courtyard. Ta-ming sleeps with his head in Kumei’s lap. Yong perches on a ceramic jardiniere, her bound feet barely touching the ground. And Z.G. roosts on a step, his elbows on his knees, his head thrust forward. I’m feeling buoyed, but he looks angry, and it really rubs me the wrong way.
“You come from far away, and everyone is trying to be understanding of your different ways.” His tone is stern and harsh. “But no one in this house can afford your bourgeois activities.”
“What bourgeois—”
“Leaving the village with Tao and doing who knows what. This has to stop.”
My first response is indignation. Who do you think you are? My father? I want to ask him, except he is my father. Well, he may be my father, but he doesn’t know me. He can’t tell me what to do. I look for help from Kumei and Yong. We’ve just seen a series of skits on the liberation of women. Kumei and Yong should be on my side, but their faces are white with what I take to be fear.
“We’re in the New China, but one thing hasn’t changed,” Z.G. continues. “Your actions reflect on all of us.”
My actions? I think about the stuff Tao and I just did. Shame, embarrassment, and remembered pleasure burn my face. Still, I respond defiantly. “Nothing happened!”
“If you’re caught,” Z.G. goes on, “you will not be the only one punished. We all will have to attend struggle sessions and make self-criticisms.”
“I doubt that,” I say petulantly, like I did when I used to get in trouble with my dad. I mean, really. I walked in here feeling really high—from the show, from the way the audience reacted to my performance, and from going to third base with Tao. Why does Z.G. have to ruin it?
“You don’t know anything about anything. What you’re doing is dangerous for our hosts,” he says. “In the last two years, over two million people have been moved by force to the far west to cultivate wasteland as punishment for criticizing the government, being social misfits, or acting like counterrevolutionaries.