Katherine

by Anchee Min

  The birthday party gave the students the chance to flatter their teacher. Katherine was showered with gifts we were not able to afford but bought anyway. We were in competition to please the foreign devil. Katherine knew nothing of what was on our minds. She trusted us too much. She would never think she was being used in such a way. The Chinese believed in the saying “One’s sharp tongue becomes blunt when one takes the other’s food; one’s arm becomes shorter when one picks up the other’s gift.” The people in the class believed that gifts would buy them a good impression, which would turn into words of praise to be dropped in the Party’s dossier. Yet my classmates liked to believe that they were not superficial, not opportunistic, that their gifts did not mean to buy Katherine’s favor. They preferred to think of themselves as nice people, people with a great history of being kind and generous.

  “We Chinese value great friendship. Long live our great friendship,” everybody said as the gifts were unwrapped.

  Katherine was like a happy schoolgirl. Lion Head gave her a silk robe embroidered with peonies. Jim gave her a set of long necklaces made of pieces of hairpins from his great-grandmother’s opera costumes. Jasmine bought her a set of ancient minibattleships carved from ivory. I bought her a white-and-green-jade hand mirror and comb. Katherine got bamboo table mats, expensive slippers, crystal hand massagers, an ivory shower claw, a hand fan made of animal bones. We spent all we could to buy our good impressions.

  Katherine looked at me twice as she took my gift. Was she wondering if I sensed that something had happened between her and Lion Head? I returned her look and smiled. She looked uneasy. She could tell I knew something. I left her to cook her doubts. I decided to wait until they boiled and spilled over the top.

  Jim took out his Yangtze River–brand camera and wanted us to pose for pictures. The men looked for good backdrops while the women fixed themselves up. Jasmine took out a red hair band and pushed it back on her head. She looked like a big turkey. I took out a black jacket with a chrysanthemum pattern. I’d bought the jacket to match Katherine’s taste in black.

  Katherine opened her bag and took out a tube of reddish lipstick. She was in a tight brown cashmere sweater. She avoided my eyes. She sat quietly on a rock, brushing her face with powder. The mountain heat maintained its intensity. I suddenly remembered how Katherine had once told me that she loved summer for its heat.

  She sat, motionless and elegant, as if trying to absorb the warmth of the air. Everyone watched her, trying not to stare, taking in the wide, thin back, the long arms, the round, horselike hips, and the bosoms that stuck out like tomatoes. She made the women self-conscious with just her presence. Each man, except Lion Head, asked to have his picture taken with the teacher. Jim the cameraman got to take two with her, one with his arm around her shoulder. The women wanted to eat her up.

  We made toasts with Chinese wine that was soft in taste but strong. Katherine became more talkative. She said she had never gotten drunk on wine before, but then again she had never tried with Chinese wine, especially Green Bamboo. Jim told her Chinese wine was just like Chinese culture—it worked slowly but potently. One could get intoxicated without knowing. Katherine asked for more. Her Chinese began to knot, and she began to speak fast in English.

  Everybody was getting more animated. Our tongues loosened. The men stared at Katherine’s body freely.

  Katherine asked about the assignment on the Shoulder of Beauty Tang. Everyone reported the same story I learned. But I was the only one to come up with Beauty Tang’s poem.

  Katherine cracked her rose-colored lips as she listened to the story of Beauty Tang’s passion. The men drew closer to her and sipped more wine. The women watched the men at first, but soon we too focused our eyes on her, watching Katherine’s lips pronounce, “What a story! What a woman!”

  We made no response. Beauty Tang was not on our minds. The Chinese classic had much less impact on us than the foreign devil’s red lips.

  Katherine became self-conscious. She changed her pose several times. Still uncomfortable, she said: “It’s my lipstick, isn’t it? What are you staring at? Is my lipstick bothering you? I can take it off.” She took out her handkerchief.

  Lion Head came up to her and froze her arm with his hand. “It’s your birthday,” he said, taking away her handkerchief and stuffing it in his jacket pocket. “Allow us to appreciate the beauty of nature.”

  Katherine looked up at Lion Head. She saw a pair of burning eyes. She opened her makeup bag. “I want to do a face,” she said. “I want to do a Chinese face! Any volunteers?”

  Jim stood up and we giggled. “How about me?”

  Lion Head pushed him away. The men shoved him and punched Jim playfully. “A mouse offers to wipe the oily kitchen counter! What an opportunist. Get out of here!” they said.

  I saw Jasmine’s O-shaped mouth twist, as if she were about to make up her mind. I thought about Katherine’s fingers touching my face, about smelling her perfume, about how she would make me look like her. I stood up and sat down in front of her right before Jasmine took action.

  “Do my face, if you please,” I said, staring into her eyes.

  * * *

  It took her forty-five minutes. She lit a cigarette before she began. She turned aside as she exhaled the smoke, but the wind blew it back in my direction. I smelled her breath, along with her fragrance.

  She was patient. She applied the base with her fingertips. You westerners call yourselves civilized people, I thought, but you, Katherine, seem to be from the wild jungle of animal instinct. You’ve begun an affair with Lion Head. Do you like conquering our men? Without effort, you won our men’s admiration. How does that make you feel?

  Her brush moved here and there as she put on the eye shadow. China is easy for you, Katherine. I am sure soon you will find it boring. I can tell—I see it written on your face, etched into your wrinkles. You will find it all smells like spoiled dirty dishes.

  I studied her features in detail as she rubbed my cheeks with rouge. The sculptural contours, the deep-set, double-lidded, almond-shaped eyes filled with unspeakable energy, the irises like ripples in the river. The tip of her nose was inches away from mine. It was a bony nose compared to flat Chinese meatball-like noses. What’s marinating inside this head-jar? Do you know what you’re taking away from me? You spoke of respect but you take pleasure in stealing Lion Head. You care only about satisfying your lust, just like me. Could it be that you are lonely too?

  I examined the texture of her skin and the tiny veins underneath. Her warm breath kept hitting my face. I felt the tip of her pencil outlining my lips. Her long eyelashes blinked as if aware of my staring. Her cheeks suddenly turned red. What now? Have your hands told you what I am thinking?

  * * *

  The men said I looked like a westerner. They said a Chinese woman could never do that to herself. That was why all Chinese women looked like midwives, like the dregs of tofu. Now these men believed that their own women could look desirable too. It was just makeup, after all. Thank you, Katherine, for the enlightenment. I thought how Chinese men, creators of the foot-binding tradition, the tradition that was inspired by the sway of the willows, were now pronouncing a new aesthetic on how women should look. I should have been grateful for the lesson, but I was not. I wore Katherine’s face and for a moment I could pretend to be American, but I was not Katherine. I could never be her. Even if I could be her, with this borrowed face, I would not.

  * * *

  We returned to the city and Katherine invited us back to her hut to dance. We were never this wild in our lives, except during the Cultural Revolution when we copied Mao’s teachings on the walls. We worked through the night and sang, “We love you, our dearest Chairman / We’re ready to open our chests and offer you our hearts.”

  Katherine lit three candles, and all of a sudden the room looked like the enemy’s rooms depicted in our propaganda movies. We did not say this to Katherine. We didn’t want to spoil her mood; we didn’t want to make
her cautious. Lion Head, Jim, and I spoke to each other without opening our mouths. We were trained to think alike with little different “personality flavor.” We thought as one in silence. We carefully kept Katherine from knowing too much because once she learned the rules, she would become one of us, she would become Chinese and we would lose touch with the America she had created in our minds. We were old Chinese master painters, trained in the rules of tradition for so many years we’d lost the “heavenly joy” we were supposed to gain. We could never splash ink on rice paper to make a wild landscape the way a child would. Katherine was our child; we wanted her to draw from her imagination so we could rediscover innocence.

  * * *

  We pretended the room was brightly lit. We sat around Katherine as she began to move her body to the American music. We prepared our escape in case the authorities broke in. Everyone but Katherine knew that dancing by candlelight was forbidden in China. Secretly we took turns watching for police outside the hut. Now it was Jim’s turn. He stood in the dark, pretending to smoke. We could be arrested and thrown into detention houses. Someone like Jasmine might get away with it because of her father, but not the rest of us. Yet no one wanted to leave. It was too exciting to be missed.

  Katherine twisted her hips as she danced. To us, dance meant striking Mao’s propaganda poses. We threw up our hands, made a motion of opening hearts, and sang, “Chairman Mao, and the Great Party, we love you with all our hearts and souls.” We made kicking poses, stabbing poses, we shouted, “Down with bourgeois imperialism!” We didn’t know there was another way to dance until recently. We’d heard about it because of the country’s new “open door” policy, but we’d never seen it with our own eyes. Katherine’s dance was so animal-like. She reminded me of a writhing snake, a swimming sea lion, a chewing silkworm, a chopping woodpecker.

  This is corruption, my mind said. If you don’t want to resist, at least you should not actively participate. But the foreign devil was getting under my skin. It was hard to sit still. I watched Katherine swing her body and my bones began to itch.

  Katherine asked Jim to stand up, relax, and move his body in sync with hers. She called this the “spoon dance.” She pasted her body onto his and rocked slowly. She didn’t know what she was doing to our heads. We were defenseless against this bourgeois influence.

  I did not know that I was so ready to embrace the devil, though I needed little persuasion. I fell into a trap I had set for myself. I was there, ready; she only had to show me the way and I went.

  Who was not their true self that night? Who did not break the authority’s rules? Who did not enjoy the sensation? Jasmine sat on a bench, rocking on her buttocks. She was nearly drooling. No one would ever admit to any of this. Not even to themselves. This was how we were raised. To be unconscious of one’s feet implies that the shoes are too comfortable, our ancestors taught us. To be unconscious of one’s waist implies that the girdle is too loose. It was in our tradition to have two minds. We learned to say one thing and do another. We trained ourselves to become like Chui, the ancient artisan who could draw circles with his hand better than with a compass. His fingers accommodated themselves naturally to his subject, so that it was unnecessary for him to focus his attention on it.

  We appeared humble and submissive. We shut the eyes of the heart to make peace with tradition. We could say the Cultural Revolution never happened. We hadn’t meant it when we shouted “Long live Chairman Mao!” We could say we were young, only children, we can’t really remember. We followed the example of the government and said that we wanted to turn our eyes to the future.

  We were studying English in order to fight with imperialists. If anyone asked us what we did tonight, we would say we did nothing with the foreign devil.

  * * *

  Katherine spooned my body and swayed slowly. She held me as we danced, her hands on my thighs. I smiled like a drunkard. She moved me with the rhythm of the music. Her hands were on my shoulders, my waist, my hips. She laughed and said, “Your body moves like a stiff windmill.”

  Her bracelet, her necklace. I breathed in her scent. The music, the joy, her rosy lipstick. I thought of the Beatles song because she was holding my hands and I let her. Her body brushed against mine again and again. Before the eyes of everyone in the room. I held my breath. We were in America.

  * * *

  My parents were sound asleep like the billion others in this country. In their confusion, they gave up on me, their daughter of no piety.

  My brother was talking in his sleep. He sounded like a goldfish making air bubbles in the water.

  I rose at dawn. In the dark I heard the sound of rain like beans jumping in a hot wok. I thought I would read to put myself back to sleep.

  Switching on my dim bedside light, I took a book out from under my pillow, Ancient Poems of the Middle Kingdom. I was up to the nineteenth century, at a poem by a poet with an ancient name spelled with a character I could not even pronounce. It was called “The Love of the Immortals.” I read and my mind became wildly awake.

  On your slender body

  Your jade and coral girdle ornaments chime

  Like those of a celestial companion

  Come from the Green Jade City of Heaven.

  One smile from you when we meet,

  And I become speechless and forget every word.

  For too long you have gathered flowers

  And leaned against the bamboo,

  Your green sleeves growing cold

  In your deserted valley:

  I can visualize you all alone,

  A girl harboring her cryptic thoughts.

  You glow like a perfumed lamp

  In the gathering shadows.

  We play wine games

  And recite each other’s poems.

  Then you sing “Remembering South of the River,”

  We paint each other’s beautiful eyebrows.

  I want to possess you completely—

  Your jade body

  And your promised heart.

  It is spring.

  Vast mists cover the Five Lakes.

  My dear, let me buy a red-painted boat

  And carry you away.

  I could not articulate even dimly within my mind what I was feeling. I began to feel as if I were being taken, carried away, and reeled back by a force I could only sense. I was being transformed. Katherine, the foreign devil, in her hands, I was reinvented. Everything I saw, I saw now with eyes made by her. The poem which I had read before was no longer the same poem. The love of the immortals, the red-painted boat.

  If she were a building, he was determined to demolish it. At first Lion Head seemed not to care how Katherine treated him; then, when he understood that there was no way he could possess her, he lost his mind. The frustrated lion showed his claws. From that moment on, in her eyes, his beauty began to fade. She became the naughty mouse to his blind cat. She let him chase her. She toyed with him, driving him mad, and then escaped up a tree. Then she turned into something else, and when the cat in confusion looked up the tree, he saw no mouse, only a bird that laughed and shit on his face.

  Katherine spoke with Lion Head after school. She asked him to “get serious” with his homework, or she would have to fail him. We were making great progress with our English. We were able to read Hemingway and Brontë. Lion Head was no longer too good for the class. “I have the whole class watching me,” Katherine warned him. “I can’t grant you special favors. It’d be unfair to the others.”

  * * *

  The winter of 1983 was bitter for Lion Head. He fell in love with the foreign devil and was spellbound. He received no comfort from me. He deserved this because he betrayed me.

  I didn’t invite Katherine home for the New Year holiday although my parents insisted, especially my father. “Aren’t you good friends?” asked my father. I didn’t tell my father that I wanted to punish Katherine for stealing Lion Head.

  Katherine must have spent her holiday all alone, since she had nowhe
re to go. It was the first Christmas she spent without her family in America. She thought she would have many places to go and many families to visit. I knew she had counted on me. I felt bad about punishing her, but that was the only way I would forgive her.

  I missed Katherine every day during the holiday. Even the neighborhood fireworks—my favorite part of New Year’s Eve—didn’t excite me. I imagined Katherine alone in her hut. I held myself back and tried hard not to write her. A few times I had such an urge to get on a bus and throw myself at her door. I found myself waiting anxiously for the spring term to begin.

  Early one morning I was on my way to the market, carrying a bamboo basket. I saw two little girls, about two or three years old, walking in front of me, hand in hand. They stopped and clumsily one girl tried to button up the other’s coat. How beautiful! I thought, and immediately I was amazed. I was rediscovering my long-lost sensitivity. My heart was becoming tender again. My mind went to Katherine, who taught me to love again like a child.

  I wrote Katherine a letter telling her about this experience. But I tore it up in front of the post office. “A snake should never attempt to get a taste of heaven: once seduced it will never be able to go back to hell where it belongs.” I was afraid. If I ran to Katherine, she would take away my heart and leave my body an empty shell.

  * * *

  The spring term began. I got up early and washed with soap-tree fruit so I would smell good. I put on a navy blue Mao jacket and pants and People’s Liberation Army boots, an outfit no Chinese would wear anymore. I arrived too soon and bicycled around the campus. There were many new faces, young and fresh-looking.

  I checked the bulletin board. My heart tightened as my eyes moved over the class listings. My sight blurred in nervousness. I was to report to a new classroom, but Katherine was still our class’s main instructor. When her name, the Chinese character for “peony,” came into focus, I let go a long breath. My steps carried me quickly to the door of the new room.