Wild Ginger - Anchee Min [28]
Wild Ginger: Dear Chairman, I thank you for the enlightenment.
Chairman Mao: Also, revolution is not only a Chinese subject. Karl Marx was not Chinese either. The Chinese revolution has inherited the great French Revolution's tradition. You should be proud that you have an internationalist's blood.
Wild Ginger: How should I continue to devote myself to your teaching?
Chairman Mao: Keep in mind that the duty to liberate the world rests on the shoulders of the young people.
Third, the whole neighborhood was mobilized to help remodel Wild Ginger's house. As a political project, the house was fixed in a week. The district party secretary personally came and rolled up his sleeves and trousers and worked on the walls.
Fourth, Wild Ginger was given not only a full scholarship for the rest of her school years but a monthly allowance as well. She was treated as an orphan of revolutionary martyrs and was granted a handsome martyr's pension.
Fifth, Wild Ginger was accepted as the youngest member of the Communist party and was pronounced the commander in chief of the Red Guard.
The day of Wild Ginger's return was made into a festival. A parade was designed to welcome her. From the airport the roads were crossed with banners. Hundreds and thousands of schoolchildren were lined up on each side of the road to greet her. The city's normal traffic was banned. The crowd extended throughout the city all the way to the east end—the bank of the Huangpu River.
I was given a big task—to be a human sculpture of the heroine. It was supposed to be the highlight of the parade. I stood twenty-five feet high, on top of a bus that had been converted into a stage. Behind me was a hundred-man drum team, all dressed in red silk gowns with their drumsticks tied with colorful silk strings. The drums were as large as backyard ponds.
I was dressed in a green army uniform tied with a belt at the waist. My hair was done in Wild Ginger's fashion: two short braids at the ears. I held a larger-than-life Mao Quotation Book made of cardboard. I was told to pose with my chest protruding and my head turned at a forty-five-degree angle. My right ankle was tied to a pole for stability. Under my feet were four boys on their hands and knees, posed as the villains. The one who wore dark-framed glasses was supposed to be Accountant Choo. The rest played the cigarette seller, the squid seller, and the liquor seller. Their faces were painted blue and purple while mine was powdered with red and pink. We were already sweating hard.
The bamboo poles supporting me swayed when there was wind. Although the bus driver drove slowly, it was still scary. I felt that I could be pitched into the air at any moment. The crowd cheered at the top of their lungs when they saw us pass. I tried to act as calmly as I could, but every time the bus made a jerky stop the poles bent to an impossible angle. I was so scared that I almost wet my pants. The boys beneath my feet begged me not to scream and promised that they would hold me. Gradually I got used to the sway. As our bus passed, the children cried, "Look! The heroine Wild Ginger! Wild Ginger!"
I was exhausted. The boys had abandoned their poses and came to lean on each other. As the poles swayed again I almost landed on the drummers' heads. When the poles swung back I let out a breath. The boys stuck out their thumbs to praise me