Wild Ginger - Anchee Min [54]
"I shook hands with Chairman Mao. It was the happiest moment in my life! This is the hand. Touch it, Maple. My right hand. This is what the great savior touched. Look at this, feel it, the warmth, Maple, doesn't your heart feel the power? Shake it, shake it again. I have shared this great warmth with over a thousand people just today. I have been shaking hands from morning to evening. One old lady fainted in joy after she barely touched my fingers. She said she felt the current. She said it was the Buddha's power."
I looked at Wild Ginger's glowing face. Was she talking to me? Those red cheeks, those happy almond eyes. The sweetness of her mood touched me. Within the yellow bursts of her pupils I saw Mao waving his hand.
She had then told me of the picture she had taken with Chairman Mao. She was among three hundred other young delegates. It was in the Great Hall of the People. The crowd lined up in five rows on an expansive terrace. In the background hung an embroidered landscape of the Great Wall. She was in the middle, two heads away from Chairman Mao. They had stood waiting for him for three hours. When he finally arrived all the delegates screamed in tearful joy. She told herself not to blink when the cameraman called for the shot. This was the picture of her life and she didn't want to ruin it. But the more she wanted to control her blinking, the worse it got. Then the camera shutter clicked and it was over. Now she had a picture with the nation's greatest savior, her eyes half open and half shut—in the middle of blinking.
***
I wandered the streets for hours trying to come up with a plan to save Evergreen without destroying Wild Ginger. I felt crushed by a great weight. I bumped into bicycles. At one point I became lost. Finally I had an idea. It was the only thing I could think of.
I decided to turn myself in.
I decided to confess to being a co-conspirator, to "share" Evergreen's crime in hope that his sentence would be reconsidered and reduced. I had no idea whether or not the plan would work. But I knew for sure that without Evergreen, my life would not be worth living. At this point, the idea of being in jail meant being closer to Evergreen. On another level, I see now, I also felt a need to punish myself—for not being able to turn Wild Ginger in.
I dared not speak to my family about my plan. It would be more than shame and pain I would bring them. I was sure that my parents and siblings would try to talk me out of it. I was a coward but I was in love. I loved Evergreen and Wild Ginger, and I couldn't bring myself to give up either one of them.
I was eating my last meal with my family. Eight of us sat around the table under the bare lightbulb that hung down from the ceiling. We ate salted bean curd with porridge. We were all quiet for a while. Then my sisters and brothers began to talk about Evergreen's sentence.
"It was too heavy," said my sister.
"Too heavy?" my father sneered. "In 1957, your seventh uncle was sentenced to twenty years in jail just because he was a policeman before the Liberation. They said that he served the wrong government. Thank heaven that other family members were not dragged in and thrown into jail or forced into exile. That could have happened; it is an old tradition brought down from ancient rulers."
"The government doesn't need a reason to put anyone in jail or shoot them these days," Mother sighed. "I wonder why Evergreen did what he did. Maple, do you have any idea?"
"Mama, he didn't do it."
"But he was caught, wasn't he?" my brother said. "The tools were found in his bag."
I tried to control my tongue.
"Was it a trap?" My sister turned to me.
"Who did it?" my brother pressed.
Everyone's chopsticks stopped moving and all eyes turned to me. I buried my nose in the bowl and sealed my lips.
"You weren't involved in any way, were you?" asked my sister.
I shook my head.
"Was it ... Oh, I am afraid of my own thoughts." Mother put her hands over her mouth. "Wild Ginger is a good kid, although she has tried to play rough. I am sure it