Katherine

by Anchee Min

  I said, “It’s time for me to take off.” I went down the steps. I heard Jasmine break down and cry.

  * * *

  One afternoon, three weeks later, on our way back from the library, walking on the early autumn leaves, Lion Head told me about his relationship with Jasmine.

  She was her father’s doll. Mr. Han was the president of our school and a cadre in Mao’s Long March. Jasmine was the old man’s life ever since her mother was beaten to death by the Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution as a “capitalist promoter.” Her mother was a beauty. Mr. Han wanted every possible good thing to happen to his daughter. He worked hard as the first assistant to the former Party secretary of the school. He was later promoted to president and became the new Party secretary of the school. When he sought a personal tutor for Jasmine, he picked Lion Head, because the young man was bright and humble.

  Lion Head accepted this position in rapture. He tutored Jasmine privately three times a week. He taught her English. They spoke broken English to each other with a British accent. She spoke loudly in public; she liked to have people hear that they weren’t speaking Chinese. It was their secret language. He never forgot whose daughter she was. He went on spoiling her and in a few weeks Jasmine lost herself in him.

  * * *

  “Are you attracted to her?” I asked Lion Head. After a moment’s thought he said that he felt as if he were sitting on the lip of a volcano. He didn’t explain any further.

  Lion Head never expressed his personal desires verbally, but he always knew what he wanted. He was like a fine tailor whose work is intricate but invisible. His easygoing, bright, and funny personality was impressive to many. That was what got Jasmine, I figured. Because I, deep down, wanted very much to spend time with Lion Head too. He made my dull life interesting. Each morning Katherine became a fashion model. Unlike us, who wore the same outfit all year round, she changed her clothes every day. We learned American taste from the way she dressed. This morning she was in deep black-green jeans with a tight, sleeveless black top. A belt with a copper buckle around her waist. Beautiful beads, stones, and shells dangled in front of her chest. The outfit accentuated the shape of her body.

  We devoured this image in silence. “Chi-zao-fan-la?”—Have you had breakfast yet? she asked in Chinese, a little awkward because of our staring.

  No one’s mouth moved.

  “Hey, you! Wake up!” she said, clapping her hands.

  We smiled back at her as usual. She knew we adored the way she decorated herself. We knew somehow she did it for us, and she knew somehow we appreciated it. She lowered her head for a moment, then said, “All right. Let’s begin our text.”

  Jasmine was bored in class. She popped sophisticated questions at Katherine. Questions like “How do you comprehend emotion?” She threw around words like “infatuation.” Katherine knew the rest of the class was not able to follow. After she answered Jasmine’s questions, she would say to us that it was all right for us not to understand everything. What was being talked about was not important, she said. “The important thing is for you to grasp the language, its tone, its sound. Let it roll around in your ears. Catch what you can, do the best you can,” she encouraged. Katherine never shut Jasmine up, although I could tell she was irritated.

  Jasmine seemed to forget that there were thirty of us in the room. We didn’t like her taking all of Katherine’s attention. But Jasmine motivated us—we wanted our English to be as good as hers. We wanted to be able to ask questions like hers to Katherine. I never put away my homework before midnight. I studied under the streetlights. I always did well on Katherine’s examinations. Katherine was pleased. She encouraged us. After only a few months I was on my way, speaking English in sentences.

  * * *

  I could not remember how long it had been since I stopped communicating with my parents. By the time I biked home, they were already asleep. My mother tried to wait up for me a few times, but I deliberately made it difficult for her by getting home past midnight, until she had grown too tired and had fallen asleep in a chair. I told her the next day that I was in the school library doing homework.

  “It’s English,” I said to her. “It’s much harder than Chinese. So don’t tell me how I should study.” I didn’t tell her I resented that I had no private space at home. I could not invite Katherine over to my place the way Lion Head could. I had no friends. I was twenty-nine. I had a heart, but no one to share it with. Inside, my loneliness was burning me down to ashes.

  My brother was seeing another girl. His bus-conductor fiancée had deserted him for another man because my brother couldn’t get a room of his own. My mother found a letter under my brother’s pillow to someone named Little Lily. He wrote, “Let’s meet in People’s Park tonight at seven.” My mother was excited when she showed me the letter. She asked me whether I knew Little Lily and whether she was a nice girl.

  I said that I didn’t know the girl. Maybe she was the nurse at the hospital who tended my brother when he became sick over his breakup with the bus conductor. In any case, whether the girl was nice or not was not important, I told my mother. The important thing was my brother had to have a room in order to keep this relationship.

  “Why have kids if you have no place for them at home?” I said to my mother angrily and immediately regretted what I had said. Mother didn’t say anything. She lowered her head and walked out of the room. Her feelings were hurt. But how was I to stop myself from being miserable?

  * * *

  My brother made me feel hopelessly old. He was thirty-four and could wait no longer. He tried not to speak to me. He beat me with his silence. Every day. Every night. I cried, but without tears. There was nothing interesting in my life except my English class, except Katherine and her music.

  I looked at myself in the mirror in the bathroom we shared with neighbors. Let the neighbors’ kids pee in their pants, I thought to myself, and locked the door. I remembered something my grandfather once told me. He said our great philosopher Chuang-Tsu taught us that a perfect man uses his mind like a mirror. It grasps nothing; it refuses nothing. It receives but does not keep. My grandfather was trying to guide me toward the Great Void. But I felt like I was born with a defective brain. I was incapable of being a perfect mirror. I kept what life showed me. I saw myself aging in my own mirror. I was aging faster than I was prepared for. How could I make things happen for me before it was too late? Do people in America live differently? Katherine looked cheerful. She must be at peace with herself. How did she do that? She had a healthy, unclouded smile, an interest in other people. Was she treated nicely in America? Why did she come here? What was it about China that attracted people like her?

  Chinese Women in the Eighties. I thought of the title of Katherine’s future book. What was there to write about? Our shame? What if my brother decided to marry Little Lily before the new year? He would take her home and get married in my bedroom. Where would I go?

  * * *

  Katherine gave the class a tip about dressing. She said if you have nothing to wear, wear black. The following Monday every one of us was wearing black. Black blouses, black pants, black shoes, black socks. It was ridiculous, the whole class, as if we’d dyed our clothes black over the weekend. At first we tried not to show our embarrassment. We tried to pretend that it was just a coincidence.

  I said to Lion Head that I had to wear black because I had a funeral to attend. Lion Head said he had to wear his black suit because it was his grandmother’s wish. He said that it was made of good fabric, and it had been sitting in the suitcase for so long the moths were beginning to eat it.

  We were fine until Katherine stepped into the room. She opened her mouth halfway and then began to laugh. She laughed and laughed and bent to the floor. She said, “You guys really have a great sense of humor.”

  We laughed with her. She was in a bright red cotton dress. She said red went well with black. She took out a camera and said she wanted a picture of us. Lion Head offered to be the
photographer. He placed Katherine in the middle. Katherine put her arms up in the air. Lion Head stood on top of the lecture table and aimed the camera at us. “You look like a giant black flower with a red heart,” he said, and pressed the button.

  * * *

  Without warning, Mr. Han came to supervise the class. Everyone knew that Mr. Han was Jasmine’s father, but he pretended that he was nobody’s father. He entered the classroom cold-faced. He nodded at Katherine and came into the room with marching steps.

  Jasmine sat in the corner where she could keep Lion Head in sight. When Mr. Han passed his daughter, no greeting or change of expression passed between the two. Mr. Han sat in the last seat in the far corner.

  The classroom became so quiet that we could hear the sound of Katherine’s chalk scratching on the blackboard.

  Mr. Han was a big northern man with a potato face and a pair of fearful eyes. He had a wolflike stare and a face full of cysts. Jasmine once told us that the doctor of traditional medicine had said that her father had too much “fire” in his body, that he ate too much ginseng in an effort to prolong his life. When Mr. Han was happy with something, he would laugh loudly and pick his nose. He always picked his nose in public and it embarrassed Jasmine. She said that since her beautiful mother died her father reverted to his old peasant habits—picking his nose, blowing it with his hand, and wiping the snot on whatever he could reach—wall, tree trunk, or door—and squatting on a bench like an owl when he ate. He said Chairman Mao used to squat when he ate during wartime.

  When Mr. Han was unhappy, he would try to control his temper by using his tongue to remove a gold tooth and sucking on it loudly. Once in a while when he was really upset, he would distractedly take the tooth out with his fingers, wipe it on his shirt, and put it back in. Everyone tried to keep their distance from him.

  He sat with us and we became other people. We became the tight screws that ran the Communist Party machine, rotating the way we were supposed to. We sat with our backs straight. The class looked like a still photograph.

  Katherine was affected by our fear. She grew nervous. She sensed that Mr. Han was a sign of danger. She began to teach “The Communists are the hope of the world’s tomorrow.” Everybody read after Katherine clearly.

  I felt like there was a secret code between Katherine and us. Because Katherine did not like the textbook, she printed her own material for us. Stories of America, mostly about the way she grew up, her family, her friends, her neighbors, and her experiences. We almost forgot our official textbook.

  But in front of Mr. Han we pretended that we had no interest in Katherine. We acted one hundred percent Communist.

  Jasmine didn’t seem to like that her father came to class. She put her face in her palm and napped throughout the session.

  * * *

  Our school used to be a rich man’s summer palace before the Liberation. Behind the brick building, a hundred yards away, there was a pond where the concubines used to drown themselves. It was covered with green, wild plants, and thick ivy. It was cool in the summer. In the morning, fog would drape over the pond, bringing smells of dead animals. Beyond the pond there was a small area of forest. It was called the Forest of the Concubines. The trees had no bark. They looked like naked bodies at night.

  As students, we were allowed to come to the pond to study our vocabulary. But secretly we came to digest what Katherine fed us. Here we fantasized about Katherine’s life, and here we dreamed of being Americans.

  * * *

  In late autumn Katherine got permission to take the class to “do revolutionary research” on a southwest mountain area—an old Red Army battleground, a revolutionary landmark. When Katherine announced the news, no one cheered, because we could not believe it. The idea of travel was so closely related to bourgeois luxury. We dared not dream about such a trip. But Katherine made it a reality.

  When the news sank in, we sat around discussing our plans. We had nothing else on our minds but Katherine and the mountains.

  * * *

  I worked three night shifts in the factory in order to receive permission to take a long leave. I was too excited to sleep the night before the trip. Lion Head called for me outside my window at four-thirty in the morning. He said that he wasn’t able to sleep and had already packed his stuff. I told him that I had finished my packing too. “What are you waiting for? Let’s go,” he said.

  * * *

  Lion Head and I sat by the pond near the school. It was five o’clock in the morning. The day began to break. We wore rubber boots to protect our legs from mosquito bites. Wild geese sang their morning song in the dark. Lion Head picked up a stone and threw it into the pond. The sound echoed deep in the forest. We began to talk about the concubines. Lion Head said that he imagined them to be very beautiful. “Look at those skinless trunks—the surfaces seem so smooth,” he said.

  Lion Head asked me if I were afraid of ghosts. I said I didn’t believe in them. “Well, what would you do if they came to get you?” he joked.

  “I would shoot them,” I said. “I would shoot them the way I was taught to shoot American imperialists.”

  Lion Head sighed. He said that he too thought often about the way he was taught to shoot American imperialists. “Were you good at target practice?” I asked.

  “I’m a crack shot,” he replied. “I had six years of training.” A smile began to play around his mouth.

  I said, “I bet I know what’s on your mind.”

  “Take a guess,” he said. “Let’s write down the first letter of what we’re thinking, in English. We’ll see if we’re thinking about the same thing.”

  We pressed our fingers into the mud. I made a K. I leaned over to see what he had written. It was a K too.

  * * *

  The dew wet our clothes. The sun began to rise. The clouds were turning red. I suddenly thought that it would be bad for someone to see me and Lion Head sitting here together so early. We could be charged with a crime—an unmarried man and woman spending the night together. “What if someone sees us here?” I asked.

  “Don’t worry. We’re not doing anything. Jasmine will be our witness,” said Lion Head.

  “Jasmine?” I looked around. “Is she here?”

  “Somewhere. Hiding, I believe. I called her before I called you,” replied Lion Head. “I asked her to come down here and told her where we’d be.”

  I turned to look at Lion Head. I could not see his eyes quite clearly. I asked what he thought of Jasmine. He said he didn’t like to discuss one woman in front of another. I said I respected him for that.

  He said he could not play games with me, because I knew he was full of shit.

  * * *

  Lion Head began his confession. He said that he thought Jasmine was nice but not attractive. This shocked me. He believed she was boring because she didn’t know how to carry herself. “She is a soulless body,” he concluded.

  Do I have a soul? I asked myself. Images of life at Elephant Fields began to emerge—the dynamite, the smoke, the sound of an explosion, the rain of stones, the heavy breath of a man . . . I shut off my thoughts.

  Lion Head turned to look at me. Slowly he got up and began to wander around the pond.

  I forced my thoughts back to Jasmine. She was an interesting character to me though not to Lion Head. She had no self-confidence in front of Lion Head because he had destroyed it. Unfair as it was, she actually believed that she was worthless. Not being able to please Lion Head frustrated her. She embraced the torture. She was addicted to it. When they were together, I saw pity on Lion Head’s face. He wore an expression that said, How can I kick a dog that has already drowned? He let her know that he would give her no happiness. He expressed this through boredom. He would say, “Jasmine, what’s wrong with you? You’re not my slave.” He would say things like that in public. And Jasmine would sob her eyes out and then plead with him in private, in front of her father, forcing him to apologize. She would tell him over and over that she could not be happ
ier being his slave.

  Jim was furious about Jasmine’s attitude toward Lion Head. He called them “a fresh rose misplanted on bullshit.” He spoke to Jasmine of her stupidity. He pointed out Lion Head’s game. Jasmine admitted her love addiction but said she could not help herself. She said Lion Head carried her soul. Without him she would be a walking skeleton.

  * * *

  I asked Lion Head his idea of an attractive woman. He said that I should ask Jasmine. “Jasmine knows my opinions about women.”

  Morning finally cut through the fog. Jasmine showed up in a brown outfit carrying a basket. As her small figure approached, I thought of how long she must have been waiting in the dark.

  Jasmine brought Lion Head steamed breads. Lion Head motioned to her to pass one to me. Jasmine offered the basket my way but she was not pleased.

  I watched Jasmine as she watched Lion Head eating. A woman in deep desire. I was moved by her. A soulless body. Lion Head, the short man, was the master who owned Jasmine’s soul. Jasmine had the eyes of a female animal during mating season. She stared at Lion Head as if her purpose in life was to attract him. But he had nothing more to do with her after he finished the food. He got up and went to greet other classmates as they began to show up.

  Jasmine stood under a tree with her empty basket. She wiped her face with the cloth Lion Head had used to wipe his hands.

  * * *

  At seven-thirty Katherine arrived. She wore flowery cotton pants with a yellowish short jacket and matching leather shoes. The spiky top of her hair was brushed forward in the shape of a chrysanthemum. She carried a huge black canvas bag. I forgot about feeling sorry for Jasmine.

  I went up to Katherine and said good morning. “Who will be our tour guide to the mountains?” I asked her.