by Hua Bai
Bai Hua.book Page 45 Friday, October 26, 2001 2:56 PM
ing to gild my face in order to win their sympathy. Chairman Mao, I see you are smiling. You’re not blaming me. I beg you, please issue a supreme command to the PLA rep on my farm: ‘I agree to Gui Renzhong’s request,’ or ‘lift your noble hand and let Gui Renzhong pass!’”
“How dare you give directions to our great teacher,
Chairman Mao?”
Where had that voice come from? In great panic, Gui
Renzhong kowtowed: “I deserve to die ten thousand deaths.
I deserve to die ten thousand deaths!”
“Old Gui, why don’t you ask Chairman Mao for leave
directly?”
Now Gui Renzhong saw it was I who stood in front of
him. “It’s you! Please tell me, can I, such a sinful man, ask for leave directly from Chairman Mao?”
“Why not? Isn’t Chairman Mao the wisest?”
“Of course. So you mean I can ask him directly?”
“Yes, absolutely.”
“They won’t add another crime to my record, will they?”
“No, no one will.”
“Is that true?”
“Yes.” I said all this completely out of sympathy and
indignation, with no intention of ridiculing or teasing him.
I wanted him to be able to break out of the prison farm to see his Jane before she breathed her last. As for the consequences of such an act, I had not even considered them.
Gui Renzhong again knelt on the ground, looking up at
the lofty statue of Chairman Mao under the starry sky. He said with reverence and awe, “Chairman Mao, can you grant me a couple of days leave? A couple of days will be quite enough. My Jane will recover as soon as she sees me. I know she will be all right after seeing me. I’ll tell her, ‘See, Jane, your Anchor is perfectly all right, isn’t he? He’s growing stout, free from any diseases and misfortunes. On the farm, the leaders take good care of me. I eat well, live well, labor and study every day. Labor and study are essential parts of 4 5
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me.’ I assure you, Chairman Mao, these are the words I’m going to say to her, nothing else. I do not wish to hurt her feelings. No. I won’t divulge the dark side. I swear to you, I’ll come back on time. Chairman Mao, may I leave now?
Have you granted my request?”
Chairman Mao smiled beneath the lofty starry sky but
said nothing. Gui Renzhong looked at me with a puzzled
expression.
I said, “Chairman Mao has already approved your leave!”
“He did? Did you hear it?”
“I saw it.”
“You saw it?”
“Right. And you saw it, too.”
“I also saw it?”
“Yes. Look, Chairman Mao has stretched out his right
hand, hasn’t he?”
“Yes, yes. He has stretched out his gigantic right hand.”
“That means: ‘Comrade Gui Renzhong, you may leave
now.’”
“‘Comrade Gui Renzhong’? Did he call me comrade?”
“His face speaks for itself, doesn’t it?”
“Yes, his expression does say so. Comrade!” Gui Ren-
zhong laughed merrily like a child, two streams of tears gliding down his cheeks. “Then, Chairman Mao, for how
many days may I leave?”
“He has indicated a definite number, hasn’t he?”
“Really? Tell me, how many days?”
“Look, his right hand has stretched out five fingers,
hasn’t it? Five days, you may leave for five days.”
His tears gushing like a fountain, Gui Renzhong kow-
towed loudly on the lawn and bowed several times – almost touching the ground each time. Then he dashed toward the entrance. I called him back.
“Get dressed.”
“Oh, right. I’m not dressed yet.” He turned to run
toward our dorm.
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Sitting on the granite steps beneath the great statue, I looked into the night sky in bewilderment and frustration. I longed for those ceaselessly twinkling stars to turn into a hurricane, showering either stones or fire. I was willing to suffer. If we Chinese do not fear living in a world such as ours, why should we fear death?
I watched a well-dressed Gui Renzhong run out of the
entrance and dart toward the highway. I knew there
wouldn’t be any buses or trucks on which he might beg a
ride at that hour of the night. But I did not stop him. Any attempt to stop him was meaningless. He would not listen to me anyway. Better let his short legs carry him to Jane, his beautiful Jane, his intelligent Jane, his good-hearted Jane, the Jane who loved him at the cost of her life.
That night I did not go to bed; instead I sat at the foot of the great statue, looking up into the starry sky. How beautiful. Those countless stars – they were forever shining bright.
Even when the sun came out during the day, they were still shining on us, although we could no longer see them with our naked eyes.
I gaze at her window. In the past it was pasted over with black paper; now a cloth curtain with tiny blue flowers hangs there.
The following evening, Gui Renzhong was brought back
by the PLA rep. He received a good beating. Supposedly the torture had been done in private by the enraged revolutionary masses and the PLA rep had not been present. In fact, it had been a well-designed persecution. At a large-scale criticism meeting, facing waves of storming slogans, Gui Ren-
zhong stood in the center of the stage, spotlights mercilessly focused on his blood-scabbed brow. The PLA rep ordered
him to confess his crime.
Lost in deep thought for a long time, he gradually
revived with a quite unexpected, childishly sweet smile. He announced happily to the audience, “It’s not her, nothing 4 7
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like her at all. That woman is not my Jane. How could she be compared with my Jane! It’s all a big mistake. My Jane is not in Hospital 808. She is not sick. She is in perfect shape.
Now I do not need to worry anymore. Comrades, I am
grateful to Chairman Mao.”
I stuffed my cap into my mouth just in time; otherwise, I would have burst out crying, howling like a flood that had burst the dam. The meeting could not continue. It was dismissed, and Gui Renzhong was asked to write a self-criticism. Five days later, Gui Renzhong received a speck of
ashes in a shoe box. On the shoe box was pasted a picture of Jane, taken when she had first stepped onto Chinese soil.
The PLA rep told him, “This was your wife.” Gui Renzhong held the box in his hand, mute and tearless, and bowed
numbly to the PLA rep.
God had finally heard Jane’s cry. Perhaps she had seen her Anchor and recognized him, even if Anchor had failed to
recognize her. But when she recognized him, her soul had left her. God invited her to enter paradise. When she met God, what kind of questions would she ask, and how would God respond to them? I believed God’s answer would be
like this: “My dear daughter, if I could explain what is happening in China, then God would no longer be God, and
China would no longer be China.”
To the day I die, I will never admit that I had created a tragic practical joke. No, it was not a practical joke. I swear it to Chairman Mao.
I gaze at her window. In the past it was pasted over with black paper; now a cloth curtain with tiny blue flowers hangs there.
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Now she was thirteen years old. Oh, beautiful
Sunamei! A sickle-shaped moon had waxed into a full boat.
Five girls from the community
were going
to remove their linen gowns. On New Year’s Eve they gathered under a row of pine trees along the lake in a place appointed for the annual meeting for thirteen-year-old girls.
Every year there were up to a dozen thirteen-year-olds. In the previous years, Sunamei had been allowed only to stand watching at a distance. The bonfire on the grassy land and its reflection on the lake were like two large blooming flowers. Young maidens were dancing beneath the pines in a
circle like a group of fairies. They opened their throats, singing unabashedly to the sky, as if they were already
grown women. Their swaying arms and leaping legs
churned the blazing fire into a dazzling sight. Then the girls sat and boiled tea by the fire in earthen kettles no bigger than their fists. Like the sixty-year-old dabu, they narrowed their smiling eyes and sipped hot tea with inex-
pressible satisfaction. They were drinking wine, too. Their cheeks, burned by flames and wine, were red as azaleas.
Now she was thirteen years old. Oh, beautiful Sunamei! A bud the size of a grain of corn was starting to bloom.
Now Sunamei came to know the magic power of wine,
fire, and strong tea. Gulping down a bowl of wine, she felt 4 9
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herself instantly turned into an adult. She embraced her good friend Geruoma and bit her cheek fiercely. Geruoma
shrieked like a devil, and all the other girls covered their ears in fright. When they realized what had happened, they laughed and jumped on Sunamei and pressed her to the
ground. Although she could hardly breathe, she felt great joy. She loved being pressed like that, as if all her bones were being loosened. When she struggled out from beneath their weight, she gave a long cry to the stars in the sky and on the river. The crispness of her own cry startled her. Cupping her burning cheeks in her hands and watching the
crackling flames, she had a sudden desire to tear off the shapeless linen gown that she had worn for the past thirteen years and to plunge naked into the lake. Although the winter was severe, she believed even the water could not make her feel cold. While she was dreaming wildly, her friends held her hands and danced around the bonfire again. Sunamei began to sing in a voice that even she found pleasant and beautiful. However, the song she took the lead in singing was still beyond her full comprehension.
A pair of silver pheasants
perch on the golden barley stalks.
On the golden barley stalks
one upon the other the two fold into one.
Taking wings to the blue sky,
the one becomes again a separate pair.
Sunamei’s heart beat with excitement as she thought
about the five girls, who had just reached thirteen, becoming five women in pleated skirts. How would it feel to wear jade bracelets and silver earrings, to have her waist wrapped with a broad, rainbow sash, to let long strings of beads hang from her neck, and to crown her head with a heavy set of ornaments and a wig? She became intoxicated. All the girls became intoxicated. They held each other up, singing and dancing.
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Three boys were going to enter manhood the same year
with the five girls. Oh, no – they could not become big men but would remain boys. Although they were gathering just on the other side of the hill, no one could hear their noise.
Were the boys reluctant to become men? Were they not
happy to take off the linen gowns? Were they not willing to wear pants? Ah, cowards. Because no one could hear their singing and foot stamping, it would be better if they could mimic a donkey’s neigh.
The roosters started crowing at last. What lazy roosters.
They must have nestled themselves beneath the hens’ warm backsides and overslept. When the bluish morning glow
appeared on the river, the five maidens, as if at a sign, suddenly held each other, weeping. No one knew whether their tears were shed in joy or in sorrow.
The bonfire had burned out. A sheen of light smoke
merged into the mist drifting in from the river. The woods before the dawn were inexpressibly beautiful and mysterious, as if some elf or spirit were about to appear.
As they were parting from each other, Geruoma whis-
pered to Sunamei, “Sunamei, you are so beautiful. I bet
you’ll have a hundred axiao. ”
“Really?”
Sunamei felt a bit chilly on the way to her own yishe. The wind crept along her bare legs and into her whole body. Like a pair of icy-cold rough hands, it groped all over her warm body. She was thinking, “Why do I need that many axiao?
True, my amiji Zhima has had a lot of axiao. Every month at least three men go to her at night. Those axiao never help us grow crops or herd cattle. Do they come just to tell her stories? Are they good storytellers, like Awu Luruo? But how can she lie in bed with her eyes wide open from dusk to
dawn, listening to stories? My eyelids would fight each
other.”
Sunamei was told that axiao always bring presents such as bracelets, necklaces, and sashes. But those presents are for 5 1
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exchange. A woman gives butter, wine, lumps of tea, melon seeds, candy, and popped rice in return. She also learned that a woman can boil tea with her axiao alone in the huagu.
Nevertheless, they need time to sleep. Without sleep they will have no energy for next day. But there is only one bed in the huagu. Can a woman sleep with an outsider in the same bed? Men snore in their sleep. All her uncles snore thunderously. Can a woman fall asleep with a snoring man?
There must be something terribly interesting a woman can do when her axiao comes. Otherwise, Zhima would not be so happy. Each night, as soon as Zhima hears a little stone rolling along her roof, she opens her door quietly with sweet smiles, lets her axiao in, and then bolts the door behind him. Once Sunamei tried to push it open but failed. Why
bar the door? She wanted to hear stories and share their strong tea. Listening to the women’s bantering, Sunamei
had figured out that receiving axiao was a most joyful thing.
The eyes of mature men told her they were all willing to be a woman’s axiao. If a man did not want to be an axiao, he would have no other place but the cowshed to sleep at
night, for no yishe set up beds for mature men. But sleeping in the cowshed is a bit humiliating.
When she arrived home, Sunamei saw the yimei crowded with all her relatives and neighbors. All were beaming with happiness. Only Sunamei, feeling somewhat at a loss,
wanted to cry. Flames danced in the fireplace. Little animal-fat lamps were lit before the hearth god and the kitchen range for ancestral worship. The daba, a tall, lean priest under a felt cloak, squatted by the fireplace, hanging a bunch of colorful statues. Among them were the gods of
clouds, wind, rain, thunder, mountain, and water and the snake god, the horse god, the dog god, the tiger god, and so on. They looked both fearful and attractive.
Sunamei saw that the horse god had five legs. Why five
legs? It was true that she had seen a five-legged horse
before. But Awu Luruo had explained to her that the one
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that can stretch out and draw back is not a leg. What is it, then? Awu Luruo would not tell her. In fact, a he-horse has only four obvious legs, and its fifth, often withdrawn inside his belly, is hard to see. But the fifth leg of the daba’s horse god was diagonally posed, noncontractible, and nonmov-able. And his snake god was funny, too. Why does his snake have fat buttocks? Nobody has ever seen a fat-bottomed
snake. Did his snake get fat buttocks in becoming a god?
Under those gods was placed a row of porcelain bowls,
each containing a different beverage: wine, milk, pure
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water, tea, and sugar water. One of them even held a green twig. The daba was muttering incantations that neither Sunamei nor the Mosuo adults could understand. Perhaps
even the daba himself did not quite understand them. Sunamei had been to several zhaijie, but they were all skirt-dressing ceremonies for others. Today’s ceremony was for her, and she was the center of attention. Ami took her by the hand and led her to a place between youshemei and the fireplace where a large salted pig and a sack of grain lay. Sunamei stood with one foot on the pig and the other on the grain.
Ami asked her to hold a silver bracelet, strings of beads, earrings, and other jade pendants with her right hand and to grasp yarn and linen with her left. No one told her what all this was supposed to mean. Was it a good wish for her to have all this wealth throughout her life? She thought it must be. Ami, who was Sunamei’s birth mother and known
as Ami Cai’er, did not look old yet. She stripped her mo of her linen gown and left her nude in front of the crowd. For the first time in her life Sunamei saw that her skin was extremely pure and white. And for the first time she discovered that her breasts already protruded, although only like egg halves. She did not feel cold at all. Yet she bit her lip in embarrassment and did not dare face the surrounding eyes.
From the top of the door, Ami took down the new set of
clothes she had prepared for Sunamei: a high-collared short blouse with gold embroidered hems and a pleated white
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linen skirt. She beat the clothes against the door several times, as if she were afraid some bugs might have crawled in. Ami Cai’er first put the skirt over Sunamei. When the skirt fringe covered her feet, Sunamei suddenly felt much taller. Then Ami put the blouse on her and tied her waist with a colorful sash with beautiful designs. In the end, Ami smoothed Sunamei’s nestlike, entangled hair with a wooden comb and crowned her with a heavy headdress.
The daba was praying fervently to his many gods and to the Hearth God of the house. Then he blew on the wool
string in his hand. This exhalation was said to be the breath of God. With this breath, the string became a talisman. The daba tied this string around Sunamei’s neck because she had reached thirteen, the age that gives a woman’s body a soul.
