• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 256 0

He asked if I could meet him that evening in his friend's apartment on Big Dipper Road. My excitement was beyond belief. I went at the appointed time, eight-thirty, to the apartment building, which faced the street. The place was on the second floor over a basket shop. The staircase was filthy and dusty. It was crowded with baskets. The wooden stairs squeaked under my feet. I stood in front of a narrow door. I knocked. A skinny middle-aged man opened the door. He let me in without a word and he left as I entered. I heard him locking the door.

"Hello." Evergreen's voice greeted me in the dark.

"I need to see."

"I'm lighting a candle."

"Is it safe?"

"Mr. Xing is the bellman of the neighborhood. Nobody bothers him." The candle was dim like a ghost's eye.

"How did you bribe him?"

"He needs food coupons. His family is dying of hunger in the countryside."

I took a deep breath as he began to kiss me.

"No guilt?" he asked. "I was afraid that you might regret what happened."

I told him that I wasn't thinking. I couldn't. I was out and beyond myself.

"Same here," he said, blowing out the candle.

The room was now completely dark.

Downstairs came the noise of basket makers. They were talking in a strange dialect, yelling and laughing at the same time.

Evergreen came to me in silence. It felt as if we had been lovers for years—our bodies knew exactly how to please each other.

"Let's be the reactionaries, let's burn down the house of Mao," he whispered.

We repeated the pleasure again and again.

Downstairs grew quiet. The midnight shift workers had gone. I was beginning to feel tired. But Evergreen wouldn't quit.

He sat next to me by the candle and watched me eat the snack he'd brought.

"Why don't you have more buns?" I asked.

"Sure." He leaned over and said, "Take off your shirt."

"No. Why?"

"I hunger only for you."

I began to laugh. "Go chew Mao quotations! Fill your stomach with them. Come on! Chairman Mao teaches us..."

"'A thousand years is too long, seize the moment.'" He grabbed me. "Chairman Mao also teaches us, 'A revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence by which one class overthrows another.'"

"Chairman Mao again teaches us"—I put down the buns and wrestled with him—"'The situation must change. It is the task of the people of the whole world to put an end to the aggression and oppression perpetrated by imperialism."'

He went wild. '"If the U.S. monopoly capitalist groups persist in pushing their policies of aggression and war, the day is bound to come when they will be hanged by the people of the whole world.'"

I could feel my body blooming. I was unable to continue the reciting.

"Don't you stop, Maple! Show your faith in Chairman Mao! Demonstrate your loyalty! Page one hundred fifty-six. 'Speech at the Moscow Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties.' Come on, now!"

'"It is my opinion,'" I began, '"that the international situation has now reached a new turning point.'" I stopped, my thoughts suddenly scattered—the pleasure was too overwhelming.

"Go on, Maple, go on. 'There are two winds in the world today'"—he caressed me, his hands cupping my breasts from behind—'"the East Wind and the West Wind. There is a Chinese saying, Either the East Wind prevails over the West Wind or the West Wind prevails over the East Wind."'

We were breathless. He insisted we continue reciting. I tasted his sweat as I went on. '"It is characteristic of the situation today that the East Wind is prevailing over the West Wind. That is to say, the forces of socialism have become overwhelmingly superior to the forces of imperialism..."'

Our bodies came together again.

The mind's scene was splendid.

"Say yes, Maple, say yes! Say you want me too, say it! I need to hear you say it!"

My tears streamed.

"Yes! Do that again, Maple, yes!"

"Chairman Mao teaches us..."

"No."

"Come on, Evergreen!"

"'People ... people of the world, unite and defeat the U.S. aggressors and all their running dogs! People of the world, be courageous, dare to fight, defy difficulties, and advance wave upon waves.'"

'"Then the whole