Red Azalea

by Anchee Min

  The next day we were ordered to work in the rice fields. The leeches in the muddy water frightened me. A girl named Little Green was working alongside me. A leech was on her leg. When she tried to pull the leech out, it went deeper. It soon disappeared into the skin, leaving a black dot on the surface. She screamed in horror. I called up an experienced soldier named Orchid for help. Orchid came and patted the skin above the leech’s head. The leech backed itself out. Little Green was very appreciative for my help and we became good friends.

  Little Green was eighteen. She had the bed next to mine. She was pale, so pale that exposure to the sun all day did not change the color of her skin. Her fingers were thin and fine. She spread pig shit as if she were organizing jewelry. She walked gracefully, like a willow in a soft breeze. Her long braids swayed on her back. She looked down at the floor whenever she spoke. She was shy. But she liked to sing. She told me that she was brought up by her grandmother, who used to be an opera singer before the Cultural Revolution. She inherited her voice. Her parents were assigned to work in remote oil fields, because they were intellectuals. They came home once every year on New Year’s Eve. She never got to know her parents much, but she knew all the old operas though she never sang old operas in public. In public she sang “My Motherland,” a popular song since Liberation. Her voice was the platoon’s pride. It helped us to get through the tough labor, through the days we had to get up at five and work in the fields until nine at night.

  She was daring. Dared to decorate her beauty. She tied her braids with colorful strings while the rest of us tied our braids with brown rubber bands. Her femininity mocked us. I watched her and sensed the danger in her boldness. I used to be a head of the Red Guards. I knew the rules. I knew the thin line between right and wrong. I watched Little Green. Her beauty. I wanted to tie my braids with colorful strings every day. But I did not have the guts to show contempt for the rules. I had always been good.

  I had to admit that she was beautiful. But I and all the other female soldiers said she was not. We tied on brown rubber bands. The color of mud, of pig shit, of our minds. Because we believed that a true Communist should never care about the way she looked. The beauty of the soul was what should be cared about. Little Green never argued with anyone. She did not care what we said. She smiled at herself. She looked down on the floor. She smiled, from the heart, at herself, at her colorful string, and was satisfied. No matter how tired she got, Little Green always walked forty-five minutes to a hot-water station and carried back water to wash herself. She cleaned the mud off her fingernails, patiently and gaily. Every evening she washed herself in the net while I lay in my net, watching her, with my pawlike fingernails laid on my thighs.

  Little Green proudly showed me how she used remnants of fabric to make pretty underwear, finely embroidered with flowers, leaves and birds. She hung a string next to the little window between our beds on which she could hang her underwear to dry. In our bare room the string was like an art gallery.

  Little Green upset me. She upset the room, the platoon and the company. She caught our eyes. We could not help looking at her. The good-for-nothings could not take their eyes off her, that creature full of bourgeois allure. I scorned my own desire to display my youth. A nasty desire, I told myself a hundred times. I was seventeen and a half. I admired Little Green’s guts. The guts to redesign the clothes we were issued. She tapered her shirts at the waist; she remade her trousers so that the legs would look longer. She was not embarrassed by her full breasts. In the early evening she would carry the two containers of hot water, her back straight, chest full. She walked toward our room singing. The sky behind her was velvet blue. The half-man, half-monkey male soldiers stared at her when she passed by. She was the Venus of the farm’s evening. I envied and adored her. In June she dared to go without a bra. I hated my bra when I saw her, saw her walking toward me, bosoms bouncing. She made me feel withered without ever having bloomed.

  The days were long, so long. The work was endless. At five in the morning we were cutting the oil-bearing plants. The black seeds rolled on my neck and into my shoes as I laid the plants down. I did not bother to wipe the sweat that was dripping and salted my eyes. I did not have the time. Our platoon was the fastest in the company. We soared like arrows. We advanced across the fields in staircase-shape formation. When we worked, we were sunk into the sea of the plants. We barely straightened our backs. We had no time to straighten our backs. Little Green did, once in a while. She upset us. We threw unfriendly words out. We said, Shame on the lazybones! We did not stop until Little Green bent down to work again. We did this to everyone but Yan. Yan was a horse rider. We were her horses. She did not have to whip us to get us moving. We felt the chill of a whip on the back when she walked by and examined our work. I watched her feet moving past me. I dared not raise my head. I paid attention to what my hands were doing. She stopped and watched me working. I cut and laid the plant neatly. I tried not to let the black seeds rain down. She passed by and I let out a breath.

  A pair of Little Green’s prettiest hand-embroidered underwear was stolen. It was considered an ideological crime. The company’s Party committee called a meeting. It was held in the dining hall. Four hundred people all sat on little wooden stools. In rows. The question regarding the theft was brought up by Yan. No one admitted to the theft. Lu was indignant. She said she could not bear such behavior. She said the fact of what was stolen shamed us all. She said the Party should launch a political campaign to prevent such behavior from taking place. She said it should be more the fault of the company leaders than the soldiers. Yan stood up. She apologized for being soft on watching her soldiers’ minds. She apologized to the Party. She criticized Little Green for vanity. She ordered her to make a confession. She told Little Green that in the future she should not hang her underwear near the window.

  Little Green was washing her fingernails in the evening. She tried to wash off the brown, the fungicide that had stained her nails. She used a toothbrush. I lay on my hands. I watched her patience. Little Green said that she was disappointed in Yan. I thought she was more human than Lu, said Little Green. Lu is a dog. I do not expect her to show elephant’s tusks. But Yan was supposed to be an elephant. She is supposed to have ivory instead of jigsaw-patterned dog teeth.

  I made no comment. I found it hard to comment on Yan. I was unaware of when I had become Yan’s admirer. Like many others in the company, I guarded her automatically. During field breaks we gossiped legendary stories of Yan. I learned from Orchid that Yan had joined the Communist Party at eighteen. When she had arrived five years ago, the land of Red Fire Farm had been barren. She had led her platoon of twenty Red Guards in reclaiming it. Orchid was among them. Yan was famous for her iron shoulders. To remove the mud to build irrigation channels, she made twenty half-mile trips in a day, carrying over 160 pounds in two hods hanging from a shoulder pole. Her shoulders swelled like steamed bread. But she continued carrying the hods. She allowed the pole to rub her bleeding shoulders. She believed in willpower. After a year her blisters were the size of thumbs. She was the number-one weight lifter in the company. Orchid told the story as if Yan were a god.

  I saw Yan carry large loads in the afternoon. She piled reed upon reed upon her head until she looked like she had a hill on her shoulders, with only her legs moving underneath. She had a man’s muscles. Her feet were like animal paws.

  The older soldiers never got tired of describing one image of their heroine. A few years ago, after the grain storage there was a fire. Straw huts and fields of ripe crops were burned and all the Red Guards cried. Yan stood in front of the ranks with one of her braids burnt off, her face scorched and her clothes smoking. She said that her faith in Communism was all she needed to rebuild her dream. The company built new houses in five months. She was worshiped. She was more real than Mao.

  Late at night, when I listened to the sound of Little Green washing herself, I imagined Yan with a burnt-off braid, her skin scorched by fire raging behind her �
�� Yan had become the protagonist in my opera. I began to sing Red Detachment of Women. Little Green hummed with me, then the other roommates. I was singing the song of Yan. Yan was the heroine in real life. In singing I wanted to reach her, to become her. I wanted to become a heroine. I adored Little Green as a friend, but I needed Yan to worship.

  The willow outside the window swayed hard. The leaves tapped on the glass. The night was windy. Tomorrow would be another hard day. Depression sunk in. I pushed my thoughts to Yan. She inspired me, gave significance to my life. Little Green’s disappointment over Yan did not diminish my admiration for her. I needed a leader to get me up. My back was sore. My fingernails were all brown, my skin cracked. But my focus was on Yan. In thinking of her I fell into sleep.

  I started to imitate Yan’s way of walking, talking and dressing. I was not aware of what I was doing. My belt was two inches wide. I wished it was one inch wider. I cut my long braids short, short to the length of Yan’s braids. I tried to carry as much as I could when our platoon was sent to dig a new irrigation channel. I allowed my shoulder pole to rub my bleeding blisters. When the pain drilled into the heart, I forced myself to think of Yan, to think of the way she dealt with the pain.

  To impress Yan, I gave speeches in every night’s self-confession and criticism meeting. I put my weakness on the table. Everyone did the same. We helped each other to examine our thoughts, to get rid of the incorrect ones. We believed if we failed to do so, our hearts would be murdered by bourgeois evil spirits. Mao had warned us that those bad spirits were everywhere, hiding and waiting for the right time to get us. The class struggle must be talked about every day, every month and every year, said Mao. We discussed our characters, talked about how to improve ourselves and remain decent. We talked about building a stronger will. A will of magic. A will of ever-victory. I did not realize until later that these were the days of significance, days of ardent love and days of satisfaction. I was enthusiastic at these meetings. Though Yan didn’t seem to notice me, I was not discouraged. I rode on my sincerity and believed that I would finally win her trust.

  I was among those ordered to attend a military training program organized by the farm’s headquarters. I was glad that I was considered politically reliable. The program was a series of intensive courses on shooting, handling grenades and combat. Yan said she would not pass us until we pickled in our own sweat. We were also called to go on midnight searches when we had to pull ourselves out of bed and be ready to leave with our rifles and flashlights in three minutes.

  One night in the early summer I was awakened at midnight by an emergency call. The platoon leader called for me at my window and within minutes I was off with the group.

  The air felt like water, soothing my face. We moved briskly, almost jogging, through the reeds. When we reached the wheat fields, a loading order was given in a whisper.

  I snapped awake—this was the first order to use live ammunition—something serious had happened. I loaded my gun.

  And then I heard Yan’s voice. She ordered us to lie down, then to advance. It was a killer’s voice.

  We began crawling through the wheat. It was hard to see. The wheat whipped us, leaving its tiny needles all over me. I held my gun tightly. The male soldier in front of me stopped crawling and passed back a stand-by order.

  I lay there holding my breath and listening. The insects began to sing and the wheat smelled sweet. The night was still. Mosquitoes began to bite me through my clothes. There was a noise in the distance. Then silence. I thought the noise had been my imagination. After about a minute, I heard the noise again. It was two sounds. One was a man’s and the other was a woman’s murmuring. I heard a soft and muted cry. And then my shock: I recognized the voice as Little Green’s.

  My only thought was, I can’t let Little Green be caught like this. She was my best friend, the only air in our stifling room. She had never told me anything about being involved with a man, though I could understand why: it would be shameful to admit. A good female comrade was supposed to devote all her energy, her youth, to the revolution; she was not permitted even to think about a man until her late twenties, when marriage would be considered. I thought about the consequences that Little Green had to bear if she were caught. I could see her future ruined right here. She would be abandoned by society and her family disgraced. I crawled forward toward the noise. A firm hand immediately pressed me down to the ground. It was Yan. I struggled, trying to fight her off. But she was too strong. Her grip was firm as a rock. She seemed to know exactly what was going on.

  The murmuring and hard breathing became louder. Yan clenched her teeth together and drew in a breath. I felt the force of her body. In a second she loosened her grip on my back and shouted suddenly, Now!

  It was as if a bomb had exploded next to me. Yan turned her flashlight on Little Green and the man. About thirty other flashlights, including mine, were switched on at the same time.

  Little Green screamed. It broke the night. She was in her favorite shirt—the one embroidered with pink plum flowers. The lights shone on her naked buttocks. Her scream pierced me to the core. My heart in slices.

  The man with Little Green was skinny, wore glasses, and looked very bookish. He pulled up his pants and tried to run. He was caught immediately by the group led by Deputy Commander Lu, who pulled out her rifle and held it to the bookish man’s head. He was not from our company, but I remembered having seen him at the market. He had smiled at Little Green, but when I asked whether she knew him, she had said no.

  Little Green was trembling and weeping. She scrambled back and forth for her clothes, trying to cover her buttocks with her hands.

  I lowered my flashlight.

  Yan slowly approached the man. She asked him why he had to do that to Little Green. Her voice was trembling. To my surprise, I saw her eyes glisten with tears.

  The man bit his lip. He did not say anything.

  Yan threw her belt down and ordered the male soldiers to beat the man. She walked away but stopped and said that she would be pleased if the soldiers could make the man understand that today’s woman was no longer the victim of man’s desire. She took off her jacket to cover Little Green. She said to her softly, Let’s go home.

  The bookish man did not look guilty. As the kicking and whipping began, he struggled not to cry out.

  I returned to the barracks with the other female soldiers. From a distance we could hear muted cries from the man and Lu shouting, Death to the rapist! Little Green could not stop whimpering.

  A public trial was held in the dining hall. Little Green had undergone four days of “intensive mind rebrushing.” On a makeshift stage Little Green declared in a high, strained voice that she had been raped. The paper from which she read slipped out of her hands twice. Her bookish lover was convicted. I will never forget his expression when the death sentence was announced. As if waking from a nightmare, he looked suddenly relaxed. His bruised purple face had brightened when Little Green walked into the hall.

  I sat next to Yan. I heard her exchanging words with Lu. They said that the man was too deeply poisoned by bourgeois thoughts. Yan sighed in a sad tone. Lu said that the good thing was that the Party had managed to stop the poison from spreading. Yan agreed and said that at least she had saved Little Green. Lu gave a short speech to end the trial. The overturned cart in front serves as a warning to the carts behind, she said to the company.

  Little Green’s scream remained in my ear for a whole week. I thought about talking to Little Green but felt too guilty to face her.

  No one talked about the man after the execution, although he was on everyone’s mind. Little Green stopped washing. Months passed. Still she had not washed. There were complaints about her smell. When I carried back two containers of hot water and asked if she would allow me to wash her underwear for her, she took a pair of scissors and cut them into strips. She chopped off her long braids and stopped combing her hair. Mucus dripped from her lips. At night she sang songs off-key. Then it got
worse. She would not quit singing after midnight. She sang old operas. One after another. She played with the curtains of the nets in the rooms. Mosquitoes got into the nets. The roommates became furious. They tied Little Green up on her bed. But she laughed and then sang louder. The roommates spit on her face and told her to shut up. But she went on until daybreak. When we woke up, all the shoes were gone. Little Green took them. She threw the shoes into the pond behind the company’s storage. Little Green was going mad, but no one wanted to face the thought. I could not describe my feelings. I had destroyed her. We murdered her. We were mad. We strangled her into madness.

  The roommates reported her behavior. Yan refused to believe Little Green was insane. She shut us all up. She asked Orchid, Lu and me to go with her, to send Little Green to the farm’s hospital.

  We escorted Little Green on a tractor. Four of us holding her as if carrying an animal to a slaughterer’s shop. Yan had her jacket on Little Green. She protected her from the strong wind and covered her as if she were a newborn.

  The doctors performed many tests on Little Green but could not figure out what was wrong with her. They told Yan that nothing more could be done and asked her to take Little Green back. Yan roared. She threatened that she would accuse them all of being reactionaries if they did not come up with an acceptable diagnosis. The doctors pleaded with her. Finally, they referred Little Green to a Shanghai hospital where she was diagnosed as having had a nervous breakdown.

  When Little Green returned from the hospital months later, I did not recognize her. The drugs that had been prescribed for her had made her gain weight. She was as fat as a bear.

  She was again given a bed in my room, where she sat quietly most of the day staring in one direction. Her pupils sometimes moved upward into her skull as if to read her own brain. Her hair was matted. I thought of the evenings when she would wash her hair after dinner and comb and dry it as the sun set. I remembered the song she sang well, “My Motherland.”