by Gavin McCrea
The widow now served them tea, the water for which they watched her take from the toilet cistern.
—Oh, just boiled water for me, revolutionary widow, said Jiang Qing. Tea after noon only gives me a headache.
It was Jiang Qing’s first visit since the move, and she was pleasantly surprised. It could have been worse. There was little furnishing — a table for writing, a table for eating, a chest of drawers, a bookcase, a tattered armchair — but in such a confined space any more than this would have created clutter. In the old house, there had been a cupboard on top of which were displayed the gifts that Jiang Qing had sent, like jars of fruit and scented candles, but that was gone now. The only decoration was a portrait of the Chairman, and it was enough. From the bed, however, there came an odour of rotting straw.
—You should have a modern bed, said Jiang Qing. I’ll see what I can do.
The widow smiled briefly and went back to looking at her lap.
—And the Party man, your neighbour in the old house, he doesn’t mind that we phone?
The widow shook her head.
—He doesn’t make a fuss about you walking in to use it?
Again the widow shook her head.
—My son won’t be long, she said then, for they were waiting for Song Yaojin to return from a walk.
When he came, he behaved as if their presence confirmed what he had expected to find and was not enough to be considered strange. He walked through the room with a light step, like someone who was in better shape than anyone else, and for whom things were easier. He sat down on the bed, which creaked beneath him, and replaced his outdoor shoes with something for the inside. Coming to the table, he emptied the contents of his pockets onto the tray in front of them: a notebook and pencil, a handkerchief, a couple of coins, a coupon. Jiang Qing thought he looked drunk.
—Commander Jiang, he said.
—Comrade Song, she said.
The widow gave her son her chair and went out to the washing line with a basin of wet clothes. Song Yaojin tossed the tea from the widow’s cup and served himself from a bottle of wine. He held the bottle up as an offering to the visitors. They declined by shaking their heads in unison.
—And you, Li Na? he said, slurping. What are you doing here? Are you back in Beijing for good?
Li Na looked surprised that Song Yaojin would know anything about her life.
Jiang Qing pulled a face: I told you so.
—I’m just back for a visit, said Li Na, ignoring her mother. I’ve come to help Ma with this thing.
—Ah yes, said Song Yaojin, this thing.
—She’s not sure how long she’ll stay, said Jiang Qing. In the countryside, I mean. Our doors are always open for her, if she ever wanted to come back to the city, and I think one day she might.
—Whatever, Ma, murmured Li Na.
—You never know, daughter of mine.
Saying this, Jiang Qing gave Song Yaojin a knowing look. Song Yaojin, who had double-folded eyelids which made his eyes appear larger, more vulnerable, received this look and returned one in his own style. But then, as if to protect himself against further exchanges of this type, he planted his elbows on the table and raised up his cup with both hands, so as to obstruct the full view of his face. In this pose, his eyes were visible only when he drank; the rest of the time, while he waited to drink, they were hidden.
—And what about you, Comrade Song? Jiang Qing asked him. How are you?
—How am I? he said, pondering the question as though it were deep.
He sloshed some wine around his mouth. Swallowed. Bared his teeth.
—Let me see.
Thanks to the nutritious diet that he had received, first as a young trainee at the Academy, then as a professional dancer at the Central Ballet, Song Yaojin had always been fair-skinned and well developed. The training had made him muscular but seamless; no rough edges. Now, though, after his time amongst the peasants, he was darker, like red earth, and, whereas his stomach had softened and bloated out, his limbs had thinned and hardened. His once unlined face had cracked in places. His button nose had lost its shine. And still; still he was beautiful.
—Let me ask you, Commander Jiang, do you remember—?
Song Yaojin faltered.
—Comrade? said Jiang Qing.
—I’m sorry. It’s perhaps egotistical of me to bring it up.
—Go ahead. We are all red here. And close.
Song Yaojin sipped from his cup, and their eyes met: several tones of black vibrating.
—Do you remember—
His eyes disappeared once more.
—when I danced for the first time the role of the ARMY CAPTAIN in The Red Detachment of Women?
Jiang Qing nodded and smiled:
—I’ll never forget it.
—Did you happen to be there, Li Na? Song Yaojin asked.
—I don’t think so, said Li Na.
—It was in the auditorium of the Great Hall of the People. You’ve been there, I take it? Well, picture, if you can, the whole of the Beijing Party in the Great Hall, filling every seat, thousands and thousands of people.
—Wow, said Li Na.
—Yeah, wow, said Song Yaojin. I’d never performed in front of so many, but as a trainee I had often dared to wonder what it must feel like to receive the applause of such a large crowd.
—It must be quite a feeling, said Li Na.
—You’d think so, wouldn’t you? said Song Yaojin.
—Well, isn’t it? said Jiang Qing, suddenly piqued.
Without feeling that she was doing so, she clenched her jaw. She did not like how this conversation was taking shape. She was not in control of it, did not know its orientation, and wondered, jadedly, if she was being asked to read between the lines to find it out.
—During the performance, Song Yaojin said, I remember I danced like a madman and felt many things. But at the end, during the applause—
He put the cup down, revealing eyes that had given up their defence.
—during the applause, I felt nothing. No, not nothing. I felt something, but it was an empty something. Like I’d poured all my emotions into a bucket and then poured them back over myself, so that all I was left with was the feeling of cold on my skin and a desperate need for a blanket to cover myself with.
Jiang Qing tapped her fingernails on the table, once to express her irritation; a second time, her social advantage.
—Comrade Song, you are being unfair to your experience, surely. You must have felt—
—No.
Caught mid-swig, Song Yaojin had to swallow quickly in order to get the word out.
—That was all I felt. Nothing more than what I’ve described. I do remember having a thought, though. A very specific thought. When we’d had our bows, and I came off stage, something occurred to me, a question, and do you know what it was?
Li Na shook her head.
Feeling restricted, Jiang Qing eased the collar of her suit.
—I remember it like it was yesterday, Song Yaojin said. I stepped out of the lights and into the wings, and the thing I asked myself, before anything else, was: What’s it going to be like when I can’t do this any more? Not: When can I do that again? But: When is this going to end? What am I going to do with myself when I have to stop doing this?
Without asking, as an insistence, he threw out the contents of the visitors’ cups and filled them with wine.
—And, do you know, just like that, a voice in my head answered immediately—
He clicked his fingers.
—almost as soon as I’d asked the question.
—And what did it say? said Li Na.
Jiang Qing shot her a glare.
—It said, said Song Yaojin, If I can’t dance, it’d be better to be dead.
Song Yaojin had never been a dif
ficult person to control. That he seemed to be beyond her influence now frightened Jiang Qing, and she burst out:
—But of course! Yours is a vocation. A life’s work. All dancers who are truly dancers feel this way. They’re incapable of imagining a life in which they aren’t dancing. And I’m here to tell you, Comrade, that you don’t have to imagine any such thing. You don’t have to stop.
Song Yaojin lifted the bottle to the ineffectual evening light coming through the window. He swirled the remaining liquid around before tipping it into his cup.
—But don’t you see, Commander? I want to stop.
Gripping the bottle by its neck and pointing it straight down, he shook out the last drops. When no more came, he put the bottle onto its side on the table and spun it around. Stopped it by slapping a hand on it.
—It’s over and I’m glad that it is.
—No, said Jiang Qing, for she could now see the dark place he had receded to, you can’t say that. I won’t hear it from you.
—I’m sorry, Commander. But it’s the truth. You are China’s great patron. Supervisor of all the arts. Therefore you know that ballet is a very specific design of movement and physicality. One can master it for a certain amount of time, to a certain degree, but then at a certain point, usually at an age much younger than mine, it becomes too hard. You, Commander Jiang, have watched me work for twenty-five years, and in that time I demonstrated my mastery through concrete achievements, each of which brought me honour and pride, but with every year that passed the costs increased and the results diminished, this can’t have passed your notice. Now I’ve reached the stage where I know that if I continue, not only will I be doing a disservice to my art, my body will end by devouring itself.
Jiang Qing knocked a knuckle on the wood:
—Stop. Don’t go on. You’re sounding like a pessimistic old man.
—But look at me, Commander. You see that’s what I am.
—I can see what I’ve always seen. A man too powerful for the room. For any room! You’ve always had a terrifying strength. So much so that the troupe used to be afraid of you, don’t you remember that? Maybe you’re a little out of shape these days, yes. But not to the extent that justifies retirement.
—You don’t understand, Commander. Inside, in here—
Song Yaojin beat on his chest.
—I don’t have anything left. I’m finished.
—On the contrary, I understand perfectly. You’re simply using a false idea of age to hold yourself back. You’re refusing to respond to your powers, which are real and visible for all to see. For an artist of your experience, the wise thing is not to give up but to use what you have well.
Jiang Qing jabbed her daughter in the ribs as a signal to give Song Yaojin his gift.
—I’ve never been one to waste time on the impossible, Comrade. If I thought you weren’t equal to my demands, I wouldn’t have come here. And I wouldn’t have brought you this.
Song Yaojin appeared humbled by the offering but not surprised. He accepted it gracefully, with two hands and head bowed, as someone accustomed to receiving. He opened the wrapping on his lap. Stared down at the slippers, unmoved.
—What I’m proposing is a new beginning for you, Jiang Qing said, examining him for a weakening, a change. I’m giving you a chance to resume your career. Prolong it. See it through to its natural end, if indeed it has an end, for you are the virile kind, born to be the man who proves that he deserves his talent.
Song Yaojin looked up from his lap. He did not have to shed any tears for Jiang Qing to know that he was crying. Pain, unlike pleasure, wore no mask. Behind joy and laughter there could lurk another temperament, one that was coarse and callous, but behind sorrow there could only be sorrow. Song Yaojin got up and put the slippers on the end of the bed. There he stayed, with his back turned, and for that moment his shadow was more in the room than he was.
—I thank you, Commander, he said, turning his head first, then his body, I thank you for this kind gift, and for your offer. Truly, I feel blessed to have been noticed by you and to have had your protection all these years.
With a single unsteady step, he shortened the distance between them. Jiang Qing would have preferred him to sit down directly, for she did not want to see a lifetime of hard training so casually undermined.
—You gave me my weapon, which was my art. You moulded and remoulded me so that I could be, not only a dancer, but a revolutionary, a soldier in the Chairman’s great crusade. Thanks to you, I’ve had a place in the Party and a purpose in the revolution. It has been a charmed life, no doubt about it, and I can never repay you for having allowed me to live it.
From a shelf whose contents were concealed by a little curtain, he took a second bottle. Uncorked it. Then sat, heavily, like a worker exhausted.
—But, Commander, as I wrote in my letter, and what I’m trying to tell you now is, I’ve changed. Completely. I don’t believe—. No, believe is the wrong word. I don’t live for dance any more. I no longer want to do it. I can’t. The thought of not dancing doesn’t terrify me as it once did. Stopping doesn’t signify death any more. If you ask me today what I want to do, it’s to go on living as I do now, with my good mother, in peace, forgetting that I’ve ever lived differently. For twenty-five years I gave to the revolution, and I can continue to give to it, as is my duty, but only by not taking away from it. The best I can do is look after what you see here, in this house, and know that that is—
The door creaked open.
—enough, Song Yaojin trailed off.
The widow returned from the courtyard to a place changed. The curtain on the shelf open. A pair of slippers on the bed. Wine in two cups untouched. She saw all of this, though she barely lifted her eyes as she deposited the basin in the space beside the toilet and went to sit with her woolwork in the armchair. Watching her, Jiang Qing was reminded of how much responsibility a child felt when he carried his entire family’s dreams on his shoulders; what a heavy burden he carried once he realised that he had to succeed. Song Yaojin had joined the Academy at ten years old. Already then he was behaving like a miniature adult, having been made to understand at an even earlier age that his role in life was to fulfil his family’s expectations; that he would be loved not for himself but only for what he produced. If he was anything like Jiang Qing — and she was sure that he was — he would have lost touch with his own feelings at around four or five. After that, he existed in himself and for himself only insofar as he existed in and for others; that is, he existed only by being recognised and acknowledged.
—Revolutionary widow, Jiang Qing said now, addressing the other side of the room, can you hear me? Yes? Do you love your son? Do you truly love him?
The widow narrowed her eyes as if to say, What kind of question is that?
—Then on no account, Jiang Qing went on, must you let your son isolate himself here. If he does, what will happen to him when you pass away, do you reckon? Will he marry? Do you believe there is still a chance of that? Will someone have him at this stage?
The widow shifted her eyes to her son, then back to Jiang Qing.
—I look at your son, old widow, and I see a man still with the strength of nine cows. He should be on the stage. That’s where he belongs. In front of the people. Where he can be of use to them. Not stuck in here. A stone in a box.
The widow cleared her throat loudly.
—Well? said Jiang Qing. What do you say? Have you lost your tongue, woman?
Song Yaojin intervened by thrusting his right hand into the expanse between the two.
—Did you see this? he said, uncurling his index finger, the top of which was missing.
The widow, who in order to listen had laid her needles down on top of the skein of coloured wool, resumed her work.
Jiang Qing looked at Song Yaojin’s deformity and nodded:
—When you came in, I saw it,
yes. It’s a pity.
—And this.
He turned over his hand to show the marks of labour on the palm.
—Uh-huh, said Jiang Qing. What of it?
—And my feet, he said. My feet, if you saw them, would shock you, they are so bad.
—A bit of chapping will hardly keep you from dancing.
—Plus—
He pointed a thumb over his shoulder.
—two herniated discs. From pushing carts. In all my years of dancing, I was blessed, I had no serious injuries. But now to cross from one side of this room to another is agony. The pain I feel just walking—
—You’re in pain now?
—When I move I am.
—It doesn’t seem that way. Your movements look fluid to me.
Song Yaojin sighed.
—Look, I’m grateful for your offer, Commander, but I simply cannot take on such a demanding role. It would be the end of me.
Jiang Qing would never have dared to have an affair. She had had opportunities, and had come close, but at the critical moment had always stepped back, for to have pushed on would have provided the Chairman with cause to get rid of her. As a substitute, she allowed herself to be amused by men, to admire them, to help them. The men she chose, they understood that her attentions were chaste and posed no risk to their moral standards or political reputations; they understood that, quite the reverse, to be under Jiang Qing’s care was to occupy a position of almost unrivalled privilege, a position moreover that was relatively easy to maintain; all that was asked of them was to show some humbleness from time to time, and a little gratitude. Not rocket science. Unfortunately, for some of the men, even this was too much to manage. Their being male did not render them immune to the green-eyed illness, jealousy, or to feelings of supremacy. In such states of stress, they fought with one another for her regard; on occasion they lashed out and caused real harm. Song Yaojin, because he was both famous and young, and both young and handsome, was the object of some of the more savage attacks. The worst of these: a rumour, put out three years ago, when Song Yaojin was at the height of his celebrity, which said that he had been engaging in perverted sexual activities in Temple of Heaven Park. Jiang Qing had a policy of ignoring malicious talk amongst the men in her protection, but she could not let such a serious allegation go uninvestigated. When her team confronted Song Yaojin, he defended himself as vehemently as she would have expected, but in doing so regrettably used a method that aggravated the situation: in the course of his denials, he claimed to have had open relationships with a number of women, many of whom were married, and all of whom he named. It was a scandal. One which Jiang Qing could not contain. It was out of her hands. He had had to go.
