Wild Ginger - Anchee Min [58]
With my hands tightly bound I was pushed onto a truck packed with convicts. As the gate clashed closed the truck took off. I didn't know how long the journey would be. We passed open fields, mountain areas. I was in tears when I saw cows grazing on the hills and tall corn waiting to be harvested. None of my fellow passengers were looking at what I saw. Their faces were soil colored and their heads were slumped between their knees.
In the afternoon the road became smooth. There was more traffic and I recognized that we were in Shanghai. The sunlight streaked through trees onto the pavement. It was the annual celebration time, and this was the day to "kill the hen to scare the monkeys." I never thought that I would be the hen. The pedestrians showed no interest as our truck drove by. A few children followed the truck and shouted, "The villains! The villains!"
The men walked with expressionless faces, all in Mao jackets. The women carried their baskets and dragged their children. They walked fast. I longed to find my mother or father among them. I was sure that my mother had been looking for me. She probably had had numerous fights with the authorities already. My siblings had surely made the rounds of the correction houses. I knew the little ones would. They would walk miles to the Number One Shanghai Prison and sit on the edge of the pavement across from the house for hours on end. They would watch the guards changing shifts and inspect the trucks transporting convicts, hoping to get a glimpse of me. They would sit till dark, without food, without water, as I once did waiting for my father at the district's labor collective office. It was the place from which he had departed. I knew that he wouldn't be there. But I missed him so much that it made me feel better that I was waiting for him.
I knew what awaited me. Year after year, I had witnessed so many men and women escorted by soldiers to the rallies at the People's Square. Their heads were shaved. When I was little I didn't doubt that they were villains. I was always happy to see them executed. I shouted slogans and threw rocks when their trucks passed through the streets. The city authorities loved to display the "revolutionary fruits." Twenty-three years ago when Chairman Mao's Liberation Army took over the cities they paraded through the same streets. Their "fruits" included U.S. tanks and other weapons. Today the convicts were roped like New Year's presents.
When the driver made a stop at a brick building without a sign and a number, more prisoners clambered on, including one I immediately recognized as Evergreen. It had been months since I had seen him. His head was shaved to the scalp. His features seemed hardened. He looked prepared. If I hadn't been roped, I would have thrown myself at him. He gave me a weak grin as our eyes met. There was no bitterness in his expression. I supposed that he too had chosen to sacrifice himself. I admired his determination but was jealous that he let himself be punished for Wild Ginger.
We arrived at the People's Square. As the truck cut through the oceanlike crowds, the young people were chanting Mao quotations. '"The reactionaries are hostile to our state. They don't like the dictatorship of the proletariat. Whenever there is an opportunity, they will stir up trouble and attempt to overthrow the Communist party and restore old China. As between the proletarian and the bourgeois roads, as between the socialist and the capitalist roads, these people stubbornly choose to follow the latter. They are ready to capitulate to imperialism, feudalism, and bureaucratic capitalism. Such people are extremely reactionary..."'
I felt spit on my face, then rocks. Someone got hold of my hair and wouldn't let go. The truck kept going. With