The Trail to Buddha's Mirror - Don Winslow [118]
“Denounce her!”
Hong shook her head.
The older man spoke quietly to her. “Xao Hong, you were a Red Guard. Now you are in disgrace because of your parents. Do you want to be rehabilitated? Do you ever want to be a Red Guard again?”
Hong dropped her eyes to the floor. She shook her head, but very gently.
“Xao Hong, we know you love Chairman Mao. We know you love the revolution. Your mother wants to destroy Chairman Mao. She wants to destroy the revolution. She is your mother in body only. In spirit you are a daughter of the revolution.”
He lifted her chin up and looked her in the eyes. “You are Chairman Mao’s good daughter.”
“Yes, I am.”
“But you must prove that. You must prove yourself before you can become a Red Guard again. Help us to foil this woman’s conspiracies. Denounce her.”
I could not breathe. I could only watch Mother as she looked at Hong, looked at her with such gentleness, with such love, even as Hong suddenly shouted, “Yes, it is true! She is a spy! She hates Chinese things! She taught us to read American books, and to listen to American music!”
The older man smiled. “Yes, yes. But surely there is more!”
You see, he still didn’t have anything on Mother that he didn’t already know. These things were mistakes, but not crimes.
Hong was really yelling now. She was almost hysterical. “She encouraged my sister to make decadent paintings!”
“Comrade Xao, we need to know more.”
My sister’s eyes were wild. She shook her head furiously and almost seemed to be choking. I felt for a moment that we were both going to die. Then she pointed a finger at my mother and screamed, “She said Chairman Mao was insane! I heard her!”
At first I didn’t know what she was talking about, but then I remembered when we were little girls in Dwaizhou and eavesdropped on our parents and Mother had wondered aloud if Chairman Mao was mad. It had happened nine years ago, and in her desperation Hong recalled it.
“I heard her say it!” she repeated. “I heard her say that Chairman Mao was mad!”
Then my mother dropped her head and began to cry, not because she was guilty of treason, but because her own daughter had betrayed her for a green jacket and a red armband.
I tried to go to Mother, but the Red Guard grabbed me and took me into the hallway. They were all congratulating my sister, and they locked my mother in that small room and took us downstairs. They yelled to the crowd of their great victory as we entered the auditorium, and the crowd started to chant, “Xao Hong! Xao Hong! Xao Hong loves the revolution!” Her former Red Guard comrades ran up to her and draped a jacket on her. Then they gave her an armband. The crowd was shouting and celebrating the victory over Mother, and the demonstration swept out of the building onto the street. Hong was pushed to the front of the parade as it marched around the building underneath the window of the room where Mother was held. Hong herself held up a placard denouncing her.
They were not finished humiliating Mother yet, you see, and I believe to this day that they meant to leave her unguarded. They knew that she was a proud woman whose spirit had been broken, and they wanted to make an example of her.
Mother kicked out the window first, so we were all looking up when the curtain fluttered open and she plunged through.
I started to shut my eyes, but then I opened them because I wanted to remember, always.
She shut her eyes tight, but the tears came anyway. Neal sat down beside her on the bed and put his arms around her shoulders. She put her face in the crook of his neck and started to sob. The tears ran down her cheeks onto his neck and he held her tighter. She cried in choking gasps, as pain that was ten years old flowed out of her, and she cried for ‘ a long time. Neal leaned back and brushed a tear off her cheek, then he kissed one off, then kissed a tear on her neck, and then she brought her mouth to his.
Her lips were soft and warm and her tongue was