THE VILLAGE TAILOR IS GLAD to have Lan Ping as her sewing companion. Lan Ping is working on Mao's pants, which have been brought to her by Little Dragon. She doesn't know where the sewing is going to take her. She is aware that he is lonely and is fascinated by pretty women from big cities, places that rejected him as a student and as a young revolutionary. Later on she finds out that he calls her type of people bourgeois, but he pursues them. He calls Americans imperialists and paper tigers and says they should be put off the face of the earth, but he learns English and prepares himself to one day visit the United States. He tells his nation to learn from Russia, but he hates Stalin.
In 1938 Lan Ping finds herself falling in love with Mao Tse-tung. Falling in love with the poet in him, the poet his heroine wife Zi-zhen tries to kill. Although Mao later on will establish himself as an emperor and take many concubines, in 1938 he is humble. He is a penniless bandit and tries to catch the girl by selling his mind and vision.
One morning his guard comes and leaves me a piece of his scribbling-a new poem he composed the night before. He wants my comment. I unfold the paper and hear my heart singing.
Mountain
I whip my already quick horse and don't dismount
When I look back in wonder
The sky is three feet away
Mountain
The sea collapses and the river boils
Innumerable horses race
Insanely into the battle
Mountain
Peaks pierce the green sky, unblunted
The sky falls
Down the clouds my men are home
She reads his poems over and over. In the next few days the guard will bring more for her. Mao copies the poems in ink in the elegant calligraphy of Chinese ideograms, lucidly arranged.
His scribbles become her nightly treat in which passion speaks between the lines. Gradually a god steps down from the clouds and shares his life with her. He expresses his feelings for his lost love, his sister, brother and his first wife, Kai-hui, slaughtered by Chiang Kai-shek. And his children, whom he was forced to give away between battles and only later found dead or lost. She receives his tears and feels his sadness. What grabs her heart is that she discovers there is no anger in his poems; rather, he praises the way nature shares its secrets with him-he embraces its severity, enormity and beauty.
The tailor gives me a piece of gray rag, which I cut into two large round patches. I stitch them around the rear. The tailor suggests that I thicken the fabric. She says, Make it durable so that it will serve as a carried-around stool.
We sew quietly for a while and then suddenly the tailor asks me what I think about Zi-zhen.
Trying to hide my awkwardness I say that I respect Zi-zhen a great deal. The tailor stops her work and raises her eyes. There is suspicion in the look. Pulling a thread she says slowly but clearly, Mao Tse-tung belongs to the Communist Party and the people. He's no ordinary man to be chased around. He has suffered the loss of his first wife and he is not about to lose his second.
Before I have a chance to respond she goes on. The late Mrs. Mao's name is Kai-hui, for your information. Have you heard of her? I am sure you don't mind me mentioning her, do you?
Please, go ahead.
She was the daughter of his mentor and the beauty of Changsha, her hometown. She was an intellect and a Communist. She lived for Mao. Not only did she support and help organize his activities but also gave him three sons. When Chiang Kai-shek caught her he ordered her murdered. She was given a chance to denounce Mao in exchange for her life but she chose to honor him.
The tailor wipes her tears, blows her nose and continues. Zi-zhen married Mao to fill up the emptiness in his heart. Zi-zhen used to carry around two pistols. She shot with both hands. In one battle she went out and took a dozen enemies. Mao adores her. She is his loyalist. She is the mother of all his children including the ones left by Kai-hui. In order to move on during the Long March they had to give away the children. You have no idea what it felt like to leave your children to strangers, knowing that you might never see them again.
The girl from Shanghai lowers her head and murmurs, I can imagine that.
No, you can't! If you could you wouldn't be doing what you are doing! You wouldn't be stealing other people's husbands!
The angry woman bites off the end of a thread with her teeth. The Chairman and Zi-zhen are separating only temporarily. Temporarily, do you hear me, Lan Ping?
Yes, I hear you.
With a strange light in her eyes the tailor's voice suddenly softens. She will, I am sure… Zi-zhen will get better and the couple will unite. No one gives up on Zi-zhen. Chairman Mao is a miracle maker. The victory of the Long March is a good example. The expansion of the red base is another and Zi-zhen will be the next.
The tailor's wrinkled lips fumble like a fish mouth. Words bubble out one after another. The candle begins to flicker. The room is suddenly brightened with a golden-orange ring. And then, a moment later, the candle goes out.
You have a scale and I have a weight, Mao says. There is a match.
Lan Ping nods, studying the face in front of her.
What are you looking at? An ancient skull? Am I a piece of salted dry pork that you are trying to buy?
I come to shake hands with you, she says. I come to wish you health and happiness.
He grabs her hands and tells her that his very soul demands her. It needs to be satisfied, or it will take deadly vengeance on its frame.
She is silent, but leaves her hand in his palm.
I expected you, he whispers.
What have I done?
Come to me.
She hesitates.
He begins to lose ground. His eyes see what they want to see. I have something to add to our talk by the riverbank. Would you care to hear it?
She moves to sit on the edge of his bed.
In the ditches of my hometown grew my favorite plant. It was a red plant called beema. Its leaf was larger than a lotus leaf, round in shape. Its fruit was the size of a fist, and its seed the size of a fig. You can crush it-the seed contains quite a large amount of oil. It's tasty, but you can't eat it. It causes diarrhea. What I liked about it was that I could use it as a light. It's brighter than candles and produces a nice scent. My folks all use it. When I was a kid I spent my afternoons shelling the beema seeds. I connected the seeds together with a long string, tied it on one end of my bamboo stick and stuck it in places where I did my reading. Sometimes I took it to the ponds to help me locate fish and turtles…
He continues talking and pulls her toward his chest, presses her hands.
She remembers the room had a high ceiling. The wall mud-colored. The floor was packed rock. It looked like the back of a giant turtle.
I like this face, a face with a full forehead. A marvelous head. A head that is worth millions in gold and silver to Chiang Kai-shek. I look into the eyes. The dark brown pupils. The shapes and lines resemble those of the Buddha. It reminds me of a distant landscape. The surface of a planet with gray rocks, emerald ponds. On this face, I detect an unconquerable will.
I see invisible guards behind the mask. The guards whose duty is to block anyone from entering the path that leads to the master chamber of the mind. The chamber where he is completely naked, vulnerable and defenseless.
He comes to hold me, pressing me against his ribs.
Bolts of silk spread in the air of my mind's picture.
It is in this room, on this bed, that she gives the performance of her life. She feels light filtering through her body.
The sky comes to devour the earth. Her pain from the past escapes.
Later on when he becomes the modern emperor of China, when she has learned everything there is to learn about him, when all the doors in his universe have been opened, walked through and shut behind, thirty-eight years later, on his deathbed in the Forbidden City, she sees the same pair of eyes and realizes that she had invented them.
He caresses her and whispers in her ear another story of his fatal survival. Tells her how he escaped from the mouth of death. It was September 1927. He was captured by Chiang Kai-shek's agents right after the Autumn Harvest Uprising in Hunan. He was traveling, recruiting members of Communist groups and enlisting soldiers from the workers and peasants. Chiang Kai-shek's terror was at its peak. Hundreds of suspects were killed every day. He was taken to the militia headquarters to be shot.
The listener wears a white cotton shirt she has made herself. Her hair is ear-short. Her slender body is ripe. She feels his massiveness. She feels that he picks her up from the dust. She takes time the way she would on stage.
Borrowing a few yuan from a comrade, I attempted to bribe the escort to free me. The ordinary soldiers were mercenaries, with no special interest in seeing me killed, and they agreed to release me, but the subaltern in charge refused to permit it. I therefore decided to escape. I had no opportunity to do so until I was within about two hundred yards of the militia headquarters. At that point I broke loose and ran into the fields.
Later on when Madame Mao becomes the executive producer of all China's stage productions, she orders an episode dedicated to the scene she hears today. The hero escapes on his way to execution. He breaks loose and runs into the fields, hides in a tiny island in the middle of a lake with tall grass surrounding it. The title is The Sha Family Pond.
I reached a high place, above a pond with tall grass covering me. I hid until sunset. The soldiers pursued me. They forced some peasants to help them search. Many times they came near, twice so close that I could have almost touched them. Somehow by fate I escaped discovery. I was almost certain that I would be captured.
Madame Mao's opera singer playing the leader of the guerrillas carries his voice to the highest note and stylishly pitches the final line:
The victory will fall into your hands
If you hold on to your faith
Even when the situation seems
Utterly out of hope and impossible to reverse
At last, when it was dusk, they abandoned the search. At once I set off across the mountains. I traveled all night. I had no shoes and my feet were badly bruised. On the road I met a peasant who befriended me, gave me shelter and later guided me to the next district. I had only two yuan with me and I used the money to buy a pair of shoes, an umbrella and six buns. When at last I reached safety, I had only one copper in my pocket.
He makes her see heaven's grace in his valor. In bed he is impatient, like a tomb robber grabbing gold. She presents herself, the gift of seduction. In the future the couple will do the same to the minds of a billion.
At daybreak when he asks her to repeat the pleasure she refuses. She has been awake and has been thinking about Zi-zhen. Her body is caught in the mind's struggle.
You have arms thin like a thirteen-year-old's. He comes to touch her gently. It's amazing that a woman with such thin limbs bears such full breasts.
Her tears well up.
He asks to be given a chance to understand her sadness.
She says that it would be impossible.
No one can take away my right to be educated. He wipes her tears.
It is me who needs education. She turns away. You are a married man with a family. I should not have made a mess of-
You are not leaving me, Lan Ping.
But Zi-zhen is alive!
He looks at her and smiles almost vindictively.
I can't do this to Zi-zhen, she continues. She has never harmed me.
Strangely she realizes that the line is from a forgotten play except that she has replaced the character's name with Zi-zhen. She starts to put on her clothes and moves out of his bed. He has difficulty looking at her ivory skin. It sets his mind burning. Suddenly he believes that she is going to be the bride of one of his young generals or she is going back to Shanghai.
He reaches for her. In silence she lets him fill her.
After a while he gives up. He rolls over, his face toward the ceiling. Desert me now. Be gone.
Buttoning up her clothes her tears flow. I just don't see a way. I don't want to be a concubine.
He watches her and she can hear the sound of his teeth grinding in his jaw.
A mouse appears on the floor near the wall. It advances, cautiously crosses the floor, then scampers around the foot of the bed and stops. Raising its head, the beanlike eyes stare at the couple.
The sun's rays jump over the floor.
If I can survive the Long March, I can survive losing anything, he murmurs. Like any war there will be casualties. Haven't I seen enough blood?…Do as you please, but please promise that you'll never come back.
She begins to sob uncontrollably.
Let's get over with this mess. You say that I am a married man, but what you mean is that I am a doomed man. Why don't you fire? He puts a hand on her shoulder. Kill me with your coldness.
The best illusionist is one who can explain to you how the trick works and then still make you believe there is magic… She lifts her chin to look at him. This is where I stand at the moment-I still believe that you are meant for me!
Then say you won't leave.
But I must. Oh heaven, I must leave you.
He gets into his shoes and walks away from the bed.
She tries to move but her legs feel heavy.
What's wrong with you? he shouts. Are you a coward? I hate cowards! Don't you hear me? I hate, hate and hate cowards! Go now. Obey my order. Go! Go! Abandon me, abandon Yenan! Out!
She walks toward the door. Her hand feels the knob. She hears him wailing behind her: The war has taken everything away from me, my wives and my children… My heart has been shot through and through. So many times, so many holes, it is beyond repair. Lan Ping, why do you offer a man ginseng soup while making him a coffin!
I am back with my unit. The next day I am assigned to a saomangban-a team that works to "brush away" Yenan's illiteracy. I teach Chinese and math. My students are from the advanced women's platoon. Among them are the wives of the Party's high-ranking officers. It doesn't take me long to learn that Zi-zhen had been their shooting coach.
An older woman comes and grabs me by the wrist. This is how Zi-zhen likes to practice, she says. By the way, Comrade Lan Ping, Zi-zhen is a crack shot. Zi-zhen used to take me to watch her practice. She loves to do it at night. Especially moonless nights. She would light ten torches at about a hundred yards away, then shoot with two pistols. Tatatatata, tatatatata… Ten bullets out, ten torches down. Then she would have me set up another set of torches, then another set… Tatatatata, tatatatata…
The students observe the girl from Shanghai as if watching a peasant skin a snake. The girl refuses to be played. What a woman! What a heroine! Lan Ping fills her voice with admiration.
He sends out Little Dragon to invite me for tea. We are awkward. The invisible Zi-zhen stands between us. While I choose to be silent, he begins to mock. Later on I discover that mocking is his style. He mocks, especially when he intends to punish. He chats warmly. One can never know what is coming.
I was thinking about what you told me the other day about your experience in Beijing. He sips his tea. I'd like to share some of mine with you. It also took place in Beijing. 1918, I was twenty-five years old. I was a part-time student at Beijing Normal University. I worked in the mailroom and the library. My position was so low that people avoided me. I knew then that there was something wrong. For hundreds of years the scholars had moved away from the people, and I began to dream of a time when the scholars would teach the coolies, for surely the coolies deserve being educated as much as the rest.
The truth is that Mao failed to gain any attention in Beijing. The country bumpkin felt humiliated. He was unable to forget the disappointing encounter. Later on it becomes one of his reasons to call for a great rebellion-the Cultural Revolution. It is to punish scholars nationwide for his early suffering. But at the moment, the girl from Shanghai lacks understanding. It will take forty years for her to grasp the story's true meaning. Then she will become his battle horse.
She thinks that he has a way to cheer her up. So she listens.
My own living conditions in Beijing were quite miserable, in contrast to the beauty of the old capital. I stayed in a place called Three-Eyes Well. I was sharing a tiny room with seven people. At night we all packed into the large bed made of earth heated from underneath. There was scarcely room for any of us to turn. I had to warn people on each side of me when I needed to do so.
The girl doesn't care if the man in front of her is describing their future home. Her concern is to make the man remove the woman between them.
Yesterday I felt the warmth of the early northern spring, Mao says. His eyes brighten. The white plums bloom while the ice seals over the Pei Lake. It reminds me of the poem by a Tang poet, Tsen Tsan. Ten thousand peach trees blossoming overnight.
The girl can't understand the charm of the poem, but she senses his feeling from the lines.
The women squat on their heels eating breakfast. Lan Ping stares at her bowl. Her thoughts are on Mao. She watches the women marching and exercising until class time. The women come and sit in rows in front of her. She tries to be vivid and illustrative. The students pay no attention. They begin to discuss among themselves how to weave fancy-patterned baskets.
Listen, I am here to teach you math! I need some respect.
The students turn to her and begin to complain that her voice is too soft. Our hearing has been damaged by Chiang Kai-shek's air raids. You are from the city, you don't know war… One woman suddenly calls the teacher a hypocrite.
This is rude, says Lan Ping.
Rude? The woman spits on the ground. Hypocrite!
The class echoes the woman.
Lan Ping throws the chalk and stops teaching.
The women cheer happily.
Suddenly comes the sound of gunshots.
It's Zi-zhen. The older woman makes a curling gesture with her finger, like pulling a trigger. It's her pistol. Do you know, Miss Lan Ping, that once Zi-zhen almost shot the Chairman?
When? the teacher asks, panicking.
It was when he came to visit her.
Why did she want to shoot him?
Because he was flirting with a lowlife. Zi-zhen always goes after the lowlifes. They make good targets for the crack shot.
I run as fast as I can back to my barracks. I close the door and pour cold water over my face. I know it was not Zi-zhen. Zi-zhen is in Russia. The women, her students, are there to take revenge for her and for themselves. They all would be affected if Mao divorces Zi-zhen. If Mao is allowed to abandon his wife, so are the others.
At night the Yenan Pagoda is a silent sentinel. At dawn there is a sudden explosion. From her window Lan Ping sees half of the sky turn red. A half-hour later, Little Dragon knocks on Lan Ping's door.
What's the matter? She puts on her coat.
The Chairman…
What happened?
His cave has been hit.
Is he all right?
He is fine, but the Politburo has to relocate. We are leaving. He sent me to say good-bye.
Good-bye? Is there anything else?
Good-bye and that's it.
Where is he going?
I have no idea.
You must know.
I am sorry. I was told to prepare a month's food for the horses.
He is working on a map when the girl comes in. She enters with the night air, hair jelled with sweat and dust. Her eyes are as bright as ever.
He puts down his pencil, pushes away his maps and walks toward her. I didn't expect an iron tree to bloom.
I have nothing to say. You have turned me into a winter. A terrible, terrible winter. She begins to cry.
Shall we visit the spring, then? He grabs a chair for her.
Her body trembles in his nearness.
Sorry I can serve you no tea. He passes her a bowl of water. The bombs have sent all my mugs into the air.
She takes the water and drinks it down in one swallow. She wipes her mouth with her sleeve.
Outside the guards are finishing loading the car. Little Dragon piles up the last documents, stuffing them into bags.
Moonlight shoots through the cracked ceiling. The brick bed is covered with dirt. His hands come to strip her. She pushes them away, but it doesn't stop him.
You debt-seeking demon, she cries.
Their limbs entangle. She feels his leaping and charging.
Like a dry chrysanthemum in a hot tea mug, she feels herself swelling and fattening by seconds.
I am a mythological pillar born to hold up the heavens, he roars. But without you I can only be a chopstick.
Down! Little Dragon shouts. It is followed by an explosion in the near distance.
Mao laughs with his pants at his ankles. Whoever you are, you missed me again! Japanese or Chiang Kai-shek! You smell the fun too? Oh, I love the shake of the earth, Chiang Kai-shek! You don't deserve your reputation! You have promised the world to wipe me out in three months. Look what fun I am having! You are a pregnant woman who screams about contractions but delivers no baby!
Is the Chairman ready yet? Little Dragon calls from outside. For his safety the Chairman has to move on!
Finally the lovers pull themselves out of the bed. Mao lights a cigarette and inhales deeply.
Outside Little Dragon hurries.
Shall we-? Before Lan Ping completes her sentence another bomb explodes. Half of the ceiling falls. Lan Ping screams.
Still like a mountain Mao keeps smoking. Little Dragon! he finally calls.
The bodyguards rush in. They pick up maps and blankets. Little Dragon throws the documents into a burning pan and collects Mao's last few books from the shelf.
Come with me? Mao asks the girl.
In tears she tells him that she can't possibly think straight right now. She needs time to decide.
Come on, the horses are impatient.
I… She is unable to make herself say that she first wants a promise.
Are you coming or not? Mao extinguishes his cigarette and stands up.
But Zi-zhen… she manages to say.
Mao cries, For heaven's sake! You have looted my heart! Rock by rock you have taken my cities down! Grace me, girl, I promise to make you as happy as you have made me.
In choking smoke Lan Ping watches the last plate of documents burn into ashes. Mao takes off his coat and covers her shoulders. He escorts her into his car while Little Dragon and the guards trash the cave. They tear down all the curtains, smash the furniture and water jars. They shout, We'll leave you nothing, Chiang Kai-shek! Absolutely nothing!
Sitting beside her lover the girl is touched by the operatic quality of her life. Events transform in front of her eyes. On the stage of her mind, Mao becomes the modern King-of-Shang and she his lover, Lady Yuji. She sees herself follow the king. Ever since she was a little girl it has been her dream to play Lady Yuji. She was a devoted fan of the opera Farewell My Concubine. She loves the moment when Yuji stabs herself before the king to prove her love. The character is in her beautiful silk gown, wearing a hat encrusted with pearls.