Wild Ginger

by Anchee Min

  It was close to midnight when Wild Ginger woke me up. "Are you citing the quotations again?" I asked. She didn't answer but continued, "'...To attack the reactionary we must be merciless, we must not think of them as humans but wolves, snakes, and locusts. It is either us or them..."' Her eyes were tightly closed.

  I gently pinched her nose. She stopped reciting. I tried to go back to sleep. The moonlight bathed the room in blue. Everything was visible. My brother's Mao statue stood on top of the closet. The Mao portrait stared down from the wall. We had Mao stuff in every corner of the house. Portraits, nine of them. Mao's image was printed on book covers, closets, blankets, windows, towels, plates, cups, containers, and bowls. I was getting sick of staring and being stared at by Mao all the time. But I dared not complain. Mother had taught me the ancient wisdom—"Disaster comes with your tongue." It was especially true today. Any neighbor could be a watchdog for the government. If we had no Mao portraits on the wall we would have been considered anti-Maoists. I remembered Mother once hung a colorful picture of children playing in a lotus pond on the wall. It had green leaves and pink flowers. I asked her where the picture was and she wouldn't give me a straight answer.

  My eyes landed on the floor where my father's letter lay. Mother had been reading the letter over and over. I began to imagine what my father was doing at this moment. He would be missing us. He was serving his punishment for being outspoken. He was a teacher in Chinese history. The party secretary in his work unit reported to his superiors that he had views which contradicted Mao's teaching. The next thing we knew he was named a "dangerous thinker." Since he'd been sent to the labor collective, his sixty-nine-yuan salary had been cut down to fifteen yuan. He sent thirteen yuan home every month.

  What would he be eating? Yecai? I imagined my father thinner now. He was a good father and had a great sense of humor. In his letter he called himself "a phoenix who got his feathers pulled, thus uglier than a hen, but still a phoenix." My mother had the opposite character. She was a worrier. She called herself "a headless fly."

  In her sleep Wild Ginger's hands clenched my arm. I tried to relax her fingers. But she pulled me more tightly. It was as if she were drowning. Her grip was desperate. What would she be dreaming? Champion of the Mao Quotation-Citing Contest?

  Pushing herself to be a Maoist had become Wild Ginger's obsession. Was she as strong as she thought? I didn't believe that she really hated her father. If she did, his image wouldn't be kept so vividly in her mind. In her thoughts, not only did he breathe, he sang. She had to denounce him every day in order to push him away from her. If she hated him, she would have stopped talking about him. She wouldn't act so hurt when her mother mentioned his name; it was as if salt were being poured on a fresh wound. She wouldn't have memorized his songs, in French, in his native tongue. They came to her so naturally. Maybe the truth was quite different. Maybe the truth was that she loved her father, so much that she was punishing herself for loving him.

  Would she be dreaming about him now? What would she see him doing? Bringing antiques home? She once told me that he was an antique collector. She remembered that he brought home a wooden ball with ninety-nine dragons carved on its surface, which she broke accidentally. He was about to spank her but dropped his hand when she threw herself at him and held his knee. She remembered parting from him in the hospital. No one informed her that he was dying. He was speaking French to her mother and she remembered that her mother kept nodding, unable to utter a sound. She tried to figure out what they were saying, but it was impossible. Finally her father turned to her. He was smiling, but she saw his tears glistening. He didn't say goodbye. He was unable to. Her mother didn't bring her to the funeral. Her father just disappeared. Suddenly and forever. She remembered that she joked when told that he was dead. "What about the antiques? Did he expect me to take care of those?" Later on when she was told that he was a spy she almost wanted to believe it, for she thought he had deserted her.

  The air was cooling but it felt sticky. The blanket we all shared got pulled to one side. It looked like it was floating on top of a sea. The moon's reflection paved a flowing path across the waves. After midnight there was wind. Moonlight came through the window and spread itself on Wild Ginger's face like a veil.

  8

  From One-Eye Grandpa, Wild Ginger learned that the looters were gone. She went back to her house to check on her mother. We promised to meet at the school, but after the bells rang she still hadn't shown up. I kept my eyes on the door. Finally she appeared. She looked ill. Her hair was messy. Dragging her bag and abacus, she walked toward her seat. Sitting down she took out her books and pencil box absent-mindedly. The class had been following Mrs. Cheng's calculations on a giant abacus hung from the board. I was eager to make eye contact with Wild Ginger, but she avoided me. She focused her attention on Mrs. Cheng's abacus and practiced the numbers on her own. The sound of fingers tabbing abacuses was loud in the room. Mrs. Cheng stopped before the conclusion of the day. She asked if anyone would like to give the answer. Wild Ginger raised her hand. She was called. She gave a correct answer but her voice was a little odd, choked.

  "Are you all right, Wild Ginger?" Mrs. Cheng asked.

  Wild Ginger nodded. She quickly sat back down and buried her head in her notebook. It didn't escape me that she was trying to hold back tears.

  When the class was dismissed, Wild Ginger threw her school bag over her shoulder and ran toward the gate. "Wild Ginger!" I chased her. She shot out like an arrow. To get away from me she slashed through the bushes. I sensed that something terrible had happened.

  I followed her. Finally she tripped over a cracked curb and fell. I caught up with her and motioned her toward me. She turned away and yelled angrily, "Go away, Maple!"

  "Don't make me an enemy." I pulled her to a quiet lane on the side road behind a garbage dump. "We are each other's last ally."

  "Leave me alone!"

  "Not until I find out what's going on."

  She pushed me. Seeing that I was determined to stay, she took out her pencil box. Her body was shaking violently and she was gasping. "If you don't leave me alone..." She opened the pencil box lid and picked out a pencil. She then squatted down with her back against the wall. Suddenly she placed her left hand on her knee and stabbed.

  The pencil tip broke inside the back of her hand.

  "Wild Ginger!"

  As if feeling nothing she repeated her action.

  I was stunned.

  She put the broken pencil back in the box and picked up a pencil knife.

  "Don't! I am leaving! Put down the knife!" I backed my self step by step toward the entrance of the lane. My mind was blank. I saw traces of blood dripping from Wild Ginger's hand, down to her pants and then her shoes. My frustration overwhelmed me. Suddenly I was scared.

  She looked in my direction. But she didn't see me. Her eyes were telling me that she was in another world, or was going there. She looked unafraid. I remembered what my mother had told me about how one became insane: "One thought got knotted in the ball of nerves."

  "Keep walking, Maple!" Wild Ginger shouted.

  I marched on. My legs didn't feel like mine. As I passed the gate of the lane, a sudden convulsion squeezed my guts. It was like a blunt cleaver cutting through my skin. I stopped and turned around. I ran back toward Wild Ginger. All my thoughts came back and rushed into one point where reason no longer existed. "Stab me, Wild Ginger! Stab me! You devil!" I threw myself at her.

  Bursting with fury, Wild Ginger raised her abacus and smashed it against the garbage dump. When the beads rolled all over, she came and grabbed me by the collar. She stared, her eyebrows twisted into a knot.

  What was I seeing? They were a blind man's eyes. Big and wide but without focus.

  I was numb at first, then slowly I felt that I was breaking like a ceramic wok on a hot stove—the liquid seeped through the cracks to sizzle in the tongues of flame.

  "You are the only friend I've got," my voice pleaded involunta
rily. "I can't take Hot Pepper's umbrella anymore. Wild Ginger, I am not as strong as you are. I need you. I can't have you go mad. You must not go mad..."

  The hand on my collar loosened. The blind man's eyes came back into focus. Tears welled up and gushed down her pale cheeks.

  "Maple, my mother ... hanged herself."

  9

  Wild Ginger tried to appear calm after her mother died, but the sorrow weighed her spirit down. She came to school every day wearing a black armband and a white paper flower in her hair. She showed little grief in public. She competed with Hot Pepper on Mao quotation reciting and laughed when she scored high. I observed her quietly. I found her smile forced. I tried to stay as close to her as possible.

  Although Wild Ginger no longer had to sweep the lane for her mother, she faced serious financial trouble. The neighborhood committee allowed her to continue to live in her house but would provide no aid for her expenses. She had to come up with money for utility bills and she had no relatives—all of them had separated themselves from her to avoid suspicion in order to protect their own families. Learning the situation, Mrs. Cheng talked to the authorities. She mentioned Wild Ginger's score on Mao study, which was the highest in the district. The principal agreed to reduce Wild Ginger's tuition from twelve yuan to eight yuan. Still Wild Ginger had to come up with the rest of the money.

  My mother offered Wild Ginger food in our house. "There won't be much, but you can eat what we eat."

  Wild Ginger declined the offer. "I have found something to do to earn money," she said to me. "I found a job as a seafood preparer. I have already spoken to the neighborhood committee and obtained a permit to set up a stall at the market from three to seven in the morning. When people buy seafood I will prepare it for them in exchange for unwanted fish skin, heads, tails, and intestines. I will sell the beltfish scales to the chemical refinery for two cents a pound; I will sell the fish heads, tails, and intestines to families with cats for one cent a pile, I will sell the squid spines to herb shops for two cents a pound. And I will cut the butts of snails for three cents a pound."

  Although her voice was filled with enthusiasm, my tears welled up. I knew exactly what kind of hardship she would have to endure to carry out her plans. Before everything else, she had to get up at two o'clock each morning to secure herself a working spot. She had to fight for her business among other seafood preparers. The winter had come. It had been fifteen below zero. When I got up to go to the market at five I got frostbite all over my hands and feet. I was outside for only a half-hour, and I was walking and moving. Imagine squatting on the icy ground for hours on end, fingers in cold water and pulling frozen fish intestines. For all her struggle she would earn only a few cents a day.

  "I am glad that you have figured it all out," I murmured.

  "Don't worry," she said with appreciation.

  "The market won't officially open till five-thirty, which means that you'll have to wait in the cold to guard your spot for three and a half hours."

  "I'll make use of the time," she said. "I'll practice reciting Mao quotations."

  I was unable to hold in my sadness. I went to Evergreen to tell him about Wild Ginger. He was silent after I finished speaking. He said that our best help would be to check on her every now and then. "Tell her that if she needs me to help her in preparing for the Mao Quotation-Citing Contest I will feel privileged."

  The month of December went by quickly. My father was allowed to join the family for the New Year. Mother wanted us to spend as much time with him as possible. She took up all the housework, including going to the market. My father sent us children out to the recycling station to collect books on history. Most of those books were looted goods. The Red Guards had removed them from the shelves of houses and libraries. They burned most of the books and dumped the rest in the trash. The pickers fetched them from bins and sold them to the station by the pound. My father wanted to buy some of the books back. He thought that it was a good deal to buy books by the pound. At five cents per pound, he could get an average of four books for under ten cents. "What do you say when the comrade in charge asks why you'd like to buy the books?" my father drilled us.

  "To use as toilet paper!" we answered in one voice.

  I was kept busy. Not a day passed that I didn't think about Wild Ginger. Especially during New Year's Eve dinner when all family members and relatives gathered at the table and the firecrackers started to brighten the sky. The school was closed for the holidays and I hadn't seen Wild Ginger for weeks. I wondered how she had been doing with her stall. The last time we parted at the school, I invited her to come over to celebrate New Year's Eve. She accepted, but her tone was reluctant. When I asked why, she confessed that she wouldn't want to be reminded that she was all alone. "Well, do what you feel like then," I responded. "My door will always be open to you."

  She didn't come for dinner. And I missed her. I asked mother if tomorrow I could go and buy father's favorite food—snails. "I'll have them prepared in the market."

  "It takes too long to have the snails' butts removed. One pound takes about one hour. Unless you don't mind waiting," Mother said.

  "I sure don't," I said happily and went to sleep early that night.

  It was three o'clock in the morning when I woke. The night was icy. The wind that came through the windowsills sounded like an old woman sobbing. I took my clothes and got off the bed. My legs were trembling in the cold. I picked up my socks from the floor. They were like two frozen fish. I stood on them and crunched the ice before I put them on. My toes ached with the numbing cold. I pushed my feet into my shoes. Taking a basket I stepped out of the door. The streets were wrapped in darkness. I walked fast toward the market. The wind on my skin felt like tiny cutting knives. Soon I saw the light from the market's bare bulbs. I went to check the fish booth first. There were already lines of people encircling the booth. A man with a stub of chalk wrote numbers on people's sleeves to make sure no latecomers would cut in. I got my number and put down my basket. My fingers were beginning to freeze. Like everyone else I stamped my feet and wiggled my toes to keep warm.

  The clerk at the fish booth took out a big wooden hammer. He chopped an ice pack of fish and eels. The stinking smell indicated that the seafood was not fresh. Most of the fish were already rotten. The squid had big bones and paper-thin flesh. The beltfish, too, were stick thin. Only the snails looked all right.

  The wind rose. It almost blew my basket away. I picked up a couple of rocks from the side street and placed them inside the basket to hold it. I asked the woman behind me to watch my spot. I said that I needed to pee and would be right back.

  I found Wild Ginger's stall in the middle of a group of seafood preparers. They were on the side of the market where the wind blew like slashing whips. Wild Ginger was bundled in scarves and rags. Sitting on a small stool, she held a Mao Quotation Book in her hands. She was wearing a pair of fingerless gloves. Two pieces of plastic, tied at her knees, shielded her lower legs. In front of her a washboard lay flat side up. On top of it rested a pair of rusty scissors and a crook-toothed knife. Three metal buckets stood in front of her. I assumed that one would be for fish scales, another for squid bones, and the third for heads, tails, and intestines. Next to the buckets was a jar covered with a piece of towel. I assumed that it was warm water.

  The bell rang. I rushed back to my spot and picked up my basket. The crowd began to push forward. The fish booth was sealed by the human wall. The line moved slowly. Everyone watched the pile of fish getting smaller and smaller. We all prayed that there would be some left for us. "It looks like you will be the last," the woman behind me said. "Would you let me have a little for watching your spot for you? My daughter-in-law just had a baby."

  I nodded. My turn came. The squid were gone. The eels were gone too. There was only one beltfish left. I passed the fish to the woman and ordered the rest of the snails. It was about a pound and a half. The human wall around me collapsed in disappointed sighs. The clerk began to sc
rub and wash the booth.

  My feet landed in front of Wild Ginger. She was busy preparing a beltfish. Using the knife she skillfully scrubbed off the silver-colored scales and deposited them in the bucket. Then she picked up the scissors and started to take out the intestines. Once in a while she dipped her fingers in the warm water. I was sure the water was icy cold by now. There were a few cuts on her fingers. They were bleeding.

  "Are my snails ready yet?" a customer asked Wild Ginger.

  "Coming up," Wild Ginger answered apologetically without raising her head. "I've already cut half and I'll finish the rest in a minute after this one."

  "My snails were here before someone else's fish," the customer complained. "I thought you said first come first served. You are a liar and I won't come to you again."

  "I'm terribly sorry, madam," Wild Ginger said as she put the fish in one basket and picked up the snails. She talked with her hands moving fast. The snails dropped into the basket as if from a machine.

  I moved up. My basket was right by her head. "Service, madam?" She pulled over my basket. "I am good and quick. I charge a cent cheaper." She was talking to me.

  "I'll never come to you again," the snail lady complained. "You haven't finished with one customer and you have started to grab another. How greedy!"

  Wild Ginger tried to move her fingers faster. The blisters on her palm and around her fingers looked swollen. The blood from her cuts mixed with the eels'. Wild Ginger's scarf got blown off by the wind. She reached out her right leg to hold the scarf down while her fingers continued to work with the snails. "Madam, I'll give you one cent back for the delay."

  "You ought to," the woman said.

  "Wild Ginger," I called.

  She raised her head. "Maple!" She turned to the lady. "She is no customer. She's my friend."

  "Hurry up!" The woman was irritated.