by Anchee Min
I sat by myself. The sun was swimming in and out of a sea of clouds. I was imagining my next life, thinking how much I would like to come back as someone like Katherine.
Was Katherine’s life any easier? She used to say that all her life she had fought for what she wanted. She called herself a pathological optimist. It had been her dream to come to China to do the book. It was her love of Chinese culture and the people that made her stay. She didn’t see that Mr. Han was growing more and more irritated by her behavior. Besides the bold interviews she conducted on campus, her suggestion to change the textbook, of which Mr. Han was the creator, annoyed him. I told Katherine that if she were a Chinese her life would have been finished long ago. She laughed me off and said that I was overreacting.
I stopped trying to make Katherine see people my way, because I didn’t like to hear her say that my distrust was destructive. I grew up reading Party bosses’ faces; I knew what they were capable of. My father’s life was proof that to trust a Party boss was to dig one’s own grave. Yet Chinese life was filled with Party bosses. I only wish I knew how to make the sun shine on my head, like Lion Head. He flattered Mr. Han shamelessly. If Mr. Han asked him to lick his spit, he would.
But I didn’t want to be Lion Head. I wanted to be Katherine. “In the garden of our great socialist country, flowers like Katherine only exist as decoration, for propaganda pictures, not for changing people’s minds,” Lion Head said to me after the rally. Of course Katherine had gone beyond the Party’s line. She had changed us. I saw heroism in Katherine. I worshiped her. I was sure that most of my classmates felt the same, but it didn’t mean much, because we had too much fear, and fear made us impotent.
* * *
Jasmine had had a big fight with Lion Head after the rally. She drank down dee-dee-wei—rat poison—and was rushed to the hospital emergency room. Mr. Han hurried to his daughter’s bedside. He watched the doctors pump her stomach and watched her vomit blue liquid. The Party boss broke down. He threw away his official posture and sat outside the emergency room crying loudly. He said that life had treated him unfairly. He had lost his first wife during the war, his second wife during the Cultural Revolution, and now his daughter was trying to kill herself. He was determined to save her, because she was his one and only seed.
When Jasmine was sent to the recovery room, Mr. Han shut everyone else out. He watched over her day and night. Like a witch casting a spell, he got on his knees and poured words into her ears. He didn’t stop for meals or sleep. A nurse turned away people who came to visit Jasmine and told them that the father and daughter had a spiritual bond.
It was in the hospital, in pain, through her father’s whispers, that Jasmine completed her transformation from worm to moth, from weeper to warrior.
I visited Lion Head and asked what happened between him and Jasmine. He admitted that he had been having trouble “bedding” Jasmine. “The sight of her body turns me off,” he said. “It’s not me, it’s just my body that shut down on her.”
“She must have assumed you were having affairs,” I said.
“She’s mad. She hates everything. She could eat you and Katherine alive. You think I can stop her? I can’t. Go and take a look at how her claws scratch the air.”
The thought of Jasmine vomiting blue rat poison made me laugh with guilt. But I knew she would make sure someone paid for her suffering.
* * *
Katherine refused to hear me talk about Jasmine’s battle drums. She said she was sympathetic to Jasmine’s lovesickness. When Jasmine got out of the hospital, Katherine bought a pot of red bamboo from a peasant and sent it to Jasmine’s sickbed. She told me both father and daughter had been quite appreciative of her gift. I said to Katherine that it was just a show.
“Oh, come on.” Katherine raised her hand in the air, making a stop sign. “You’ve got to give people a chance. I’m not a child. Let me use my own judgment and common sense.”
* * *
The Moon Festival came. There were cake-making celebrations in the surrounding villages. Ever since the Liberation, no Chinese treated such days with importance, because they were considered the dregs of feudalism. I didn’t bother to go home to eat my mother’s moon cakes. I wasn’t in the mood. The full moon was supposed to be a symbol of completeness, harmony, and happiness, but I looked at my life and found nothing to celebrate.
People walked home carrying bottles of wine and beer. I didn’t drink much but tonight I decided to drink to forget my misery. I got myself a small bottle of Green Bamboo wine and went to sit on the roof with the moon. After a while I began to feel lightheaded as I stared at the bright moon.
As the night deepened, I felt every one of my cells begging to cry. I was trying to fight off an acute depression. I noticed a figure moving toward me hurriedly from the other end of the roof. It was my roommate Little Bird.
Little Bird threw herself at me and said loudly, “The yang-ren is drunk! Go and take a look! It’s quite a monkey show! They are pouring wine into her!”
I snapped out of my mood, got up, and followed Little Bird off the roof.
* * *
Big Lee and Little Lee’s room on the second floor was filled with people. Everyone was laughing and smoking, standing around a table covered with beer and liquor bottles. The show was on. The leading players were Jasmine and Katherine. Jasmine was holding Katherine’s jaw with one hand and pouring liquor into her throat with the other. Smiling, she said in Chinese, “Peony K, you have been such a good teacher, you must accept our warmest regards. That toast was from Big Lee. And now, Little Lee wants you to accept his toast. You can’t turn him down, or he will lose face.”
Katherine waved away the drink with her hand.
“You must honor Little Lee. It is unfair for you as their teacher to refuse.”
“Toast! Toast!” Everybody cheered.
Katherine smiled drunkenly. She was in a black dress that left her shoulders bare. Her hair was messy. She looked beautiful, but she was not herself. Red-cheeked, she was half-lying on Jim’s thigh, like a fat snake.
Jim was enjoying himself. He laughed with the crowd, but made sure his arms accidentally touched Katherine’s breasts. He let Katherine’s bare arms hang around his shoulders. He was her pillow. He allowed her shaking hand to spill wine on her dress so her nipples showed through. The men’s eyes were shining.
“Now tell us, what do you think of the chief?” said Jasmine.
Katherine made an effort to sit up. “Would you all stop pouring me liquor after I answer this question?”
“Sure,” everyone said.
“All right,” said Katherine. “To tell you the truth, I don’t have much respect for Mr. Han. He’s not an honest man. He’s superficial—extremely and disgustingly so. Basically, I think he’s a jerk.” She laughed and dropped her glass.
The crowd cheered her on.
Jim tapped Katherine on the shoulder. “A true Communist like Mr. Han fears nothing. Go on, Katherine.”
Jasmine smiled. Pointing at Katherine, she said quickly in Chinese, “She is an anti-Communist to the core.”
Lion Head came through the room. “Hey, enough is enough,” he said. “You know your father would be upset by this. Now stop it.”
“What’s the matter with you?” Jasmine yelled at Lion Head.
“Look, the foreign devil is drunk,” Lion Head replied.
“We should be glad the devil is spitting out the hidden truth.”
“But it’s unethical to trap a person when she is not quite herself.”
“Trap? Who is trapping whom? What do you mean by ‘trap’? Why are you so concerned? Huh?” Jasmine looked at Lion Head angrily.
“Truly, I am not that drunk,” said Katherine. “And by the way, I am nobody’s devil. I don’t care whose father Mr. Han is. I don’t like him because he is a number-one hypocrite. I’m glad I’m an American, so I don’t have to lie like the rest of you. I’ve been here too long. I need to get out of my shell, to stretch, to
breathe, to have fun, simple fun . . .” She reached her hands over her head, stretching her torso from side to side. “You know, to do something like . . .” She turned around and kissed Jim on the lips. “Out of your shell now! You, you, you!” She pointed her fingers at us and laughed.
“What about Lion Head?” Jasmine asked Katherine suddenly. “What do you think of him?”
“As a man, or as a friend, or as a you-know-what? You have to be specific so I can give you the correct answer.”
“As a you-know-what,” said Jasmine.
“Put on some music, will you?” ordered Katherine. She got up and someone stuffed a tape in a tape player. “May I?” Katherine wrapped her pale white arms around Lion Head’s neck, curled herself around him and started to move to the rhythm.
“Do you want me to tell Jasmine what I think of you? Should I be honest? I’ve had too much wine. My tongue is slippery. The guard has gone off duty. What should I do? Help me, Lion Head, sweetheart . . .”
Lion Head pulled himself away. He walked toward the door, but the crowd would not let him go.
“Don’t spoil our fun!” they shouted. Lion Head pushed his way through but was grabbed by Jasmine.
Suddenly Katherine fell to her knees and began to vomit. Jim got down to wipe up the mess. Katherine laughed and said, “I told you it was too much wine. I am so sorry to make you do this. But you had your fun warming my body, didn’t you? Woo, I think the Moon Festival sucks!”
Jasmine would not leave Lion Head alone. She said, “Lion Head, watch the yang-ren vomit, watch the foreigner, look how attractive she is!” She began to laugh hysterically.
Katherine lay down on the bed and wiped her mouth with a wet cloth. “Jesus Christ! You know you’re welcome to ask more questions. What the hell, it’s a special occasion, right?” She reached out for the bottle Big Lee was passing her.
I stood near the door, feeling like I was waking from a dream. I was hoping Katherine would stop, but it looked like she was going to make things messier. She would drink more and criticize the Party and walk straight into Jasmine’s trap.
I went up to Katherine, took the bottle away, and said, “Come on, let’s say good night to everyone. Let’s go back to your room.”
The crowd harassed me and pushed me around. “Hey, Zebra, you’re not on duty. Get out of here!”
Someone poured beer over me. The crowd laughed loudly. I pulled the tablecloth off the table angrily.
“Look who’s here, Katherine!” Jasmine squealed, pointing at me. “Is she your bodyguard, your personal maid, or your concubine?”
Katherine began to smile mysteriously. I was nervous. I didn’t know what she would say. I felt unsafe.
“She’s everything you can possibly imagine to me,” Katherine said.
I turned to her and shouted, “Please shut up!”
“What’s wrong with you, honorable chairman of the Workers’ Union? Is there a secret we should know? Why are you so panicky?” Jasmine asked. She didn’t look like someone who’d been in the emergency room just two weeks ago. She looked like a snake spitting venom.
“Don’t be afraid of her. So what if she has a powerful father, that doesn’t mean she’s better than you.” Katherine reached out for me. “Come here, let me tell you how much I adore you and your black marble eyes . . .”
I raised my hand in the air, shut my eyes, and slapped Katherine’s face. Left cheek and right cheek. My palm hurt.
The crowd was shocked.
“We are not in a zoo,” I said viciously. “And she is no monkey!” I turned to Katherine and said, “Go back to your room.”
Jasmine approached with a glass of mai tai. Pushing me away, she said, “If you don’t like this, why don’t you just leave? Don’t be the tiny piece of mouse shit that ruins the whole pot of porridge.”
I went to grab Katherine, but she kept saying that it was fine, she didn’t want to leave. She said she was having fun. Jasmine made another toast and Katherine fell dead on Jim.
Jim began to rub Katherine from head to toe. He said he had studied Chinese medical massage, he knew which needle points to pinch. He was half-drunk, and this was not a medical massage. He had Katherine’s head between his legs.
I saw a shadow appear behind the crowd. My senses told me to act fast. I pulled Katherine by the arm. Lion Head was watching me from the back of the room, standing still. Jasmine held onto Katherine.
Mr. Han’s rat-faced secretary came into the room, and switched the lights off and on to quiet everyone down. He walked through the crowd and ordered everyone to leave.
* * *
The night was unusually quiet. After I sent Katherine to bed, I came back to my room. Little Bird was already sleeping soundly. I decided to work on my final paper. I smelled like liquor. I had helped Katherine take off her liquor-soaked clothes and shoes. Jasmine had been at her best tonight. She took advantage of Katherine’s kindness and invited her “to drink to the Moon Festival,” then had everyone witness Katherine bad-mouth Mr. Han, so there would be enough “criminal evidence” to get rid of her forever.
My mind felt rusty. And my paper was far from finished. In order to show our “great progress,” Mr. Han had assigned difficult topics for our final papers. How was I to criticize Friedrich Nietzsche with my year-old English? Exaggerating victories had been part of the Communist tradition ever since the “Great Leap Forward” in 1957. Millions of peasants were dying of starvation as the Party newspaper reported a harvest of “a thousand pounds-per-acre yield.”
Katherine thought Mr. Han’s order was ridiculous, but she gave in because to her it was not a matter of principle. “Mr. Han’s behavior just shows a lack of experience with how a foreign language should be taught,” she said. “He will find out soon enough and hopefully correct himself.” In the meantime Katherine would see how far we could stretch. She said she didn’t expect our papers to make sense.
My eyes crawled like snails over the text, but I pushed on, checking with the English-Chinese dictionary every five words.
“Now no comfort avails anymore; longing transcends a world after death, even with gods; existence is negated along with its glittering reflection in the gods or in an immortal beyond. Conscious of the truth he had once seen, man now sees everywhere only the horror or absurdity of existence; now he understands what is symbolic in Ophelia’s fate; now he understands the wisdom of the sylvan god, Silenu: he is nauseated . . .” I checked the dictionary. I was nauseating for sleep. Before I could write down the translation, the pen dropped from my hand, and down my head fell.
* * *
I was in a deep sleep when Little Bird woke me. She spoke in a frightened voice. Shaking my bed, she said, “The couple has been caught! Their reputation is ruined!”
“What? What is it?” I opened my eyes in the dark.
“They are locked in her room together, no way out. Jasmine is getting the guards to make an on-the-spot arrest.”
“What? What couple?” I saw dawn just beginning to break. I wondered whether Little Bird was having a nightmare.
“Katherine and Jim—they were caught in bed.” Little Bird was breathing hard.
“How do you know about this?”
“I got up to pee and heard a noise. I saw Jasmine instructing the guards to block the door.”
I snapped out of sleep. I said to Little Bird, “Turn on the light.”
“No!” Little Bird went to cover the light switch. “I am scared.” Her voice was trembling. “I don’t want to get involved.”
“All right,” I said. “I’m going to check things out for myself.”
“If you go, please don’t let anyone know that I told you.”
I promised her.
Little Bird warned me not to get involved. I told her that it was too late for me not to get involved. I saw the conspiracy; the Party wanted to get Katherine.
“I cannot hear you.” Little Bird covered her ears with her hands.
* * *
My footstep
s on the staircase. There was no light in the hallway. I stumbled toward Katherine’s room.
I heard whispers behind every door I passed. Flashlights were switched on. When I reached Katherine’s room at the end of the hall, I saw all the lights focused on the doorknob.
Jasmine grasped the doorknob. There were two big security guards behind her with nightsticks in their hands.
Jim’s wife, the short, heavy woman, was standing next to Jasmine, sobbing. She had just arrived. She was wearing a jacket buttoned in all the wrong places.
People began to gather in front of the door. They watched silently. With her hand on the knob, Jasmine began to yell: “You evil couple! You are dreaming if you think you can get away from the people’s trial! All ways out are blocked. Raise your hands and surrender!”
There was a cry from the room.
Jasmine directed the security guards to get ready, and with a single force, they pushed the door open.
I jumped up behind the crowd to see.
The room seemed dead in the light of dawn. There was a figure lying on the bed to the left. It was Katherine. She seemed to be still asleep. With all the flashlights shining on her face, she tried to open her eyes. She tried to make her body cooperate with her will. Finally she made herself sit up. “What’s going on?” she murmured.
“Good performance,” said Jasmine.
“What . . . what are you talking about?” asked Katherine.
“Where is the adulterer?” Jasmine shouted.
“What adulterer? What is this?” Katherine rubbed her eyes.
“Get him!” Jasmine ordered two security guards to search the room. They went out to the balcony. There was the sound of wrestling, struggling, a slipper flew out. A few seconds later Jim was tied with ropes and dragged out. He looked like a drawn dog. He was in blue-striped pajamas and wore one slipper. The other slipper was in Jasmine’s hand. When Jim saw his wife, he fell to his knees.
“Secure the evidence,” Jasmine ordered.
The hallway was filled with people.
Katherine fell back against her pillow and turned over to sleep as if what was going on had nothing to do with her.
