"This is exactly what I suspected." Hot Pepper leafed through a pile of files and announced to the class, "Wild Ginger's father, the late Mr. Pei, was French. He was a spy. Although he is dead it doesn't mean that he is free from the crime he caused. Wild Ginger's mother is Chinese, but I am sure she is nothing more than a whore. Wild Ginger is a born spy. Chairman Mao teaches us, 'To the reactionary of all sorts we must be ruthless!'"
Within seconds, Wild Ginger was hit by umbrellas. Soon her cheeks began to swell and her nose bled. Her braids broke loose and her jacket was torn apart. "Give up!" Hot Pepper and the gang shouted. "Surrender! Take us the proletarians as your master or we will beat you to death!"
Wild Ginger rose in blood. Her eyes stared like a mad bull's.
Hot Pepper lunged again, citing Mao. "'Kill the bourgeois bugs! Save the patient! Kill the bourgeois bugs! Save the patient!' May Fourth, 1939, Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung. Volume eleven, page two-forty-six, 'The Orientation of the Youth Movement.'"
The gang joined in reciting. '"How should we judge whether a youth is a revolutionary? How can we tell? There can only be one criterion, namely whether or not he is willing to integrate himself with the broad masses of workers and peasants and does so in practice. If he is willing to do so and actually does so, he is a revolutionary; otherwise he is a nonrevolutionary or a counter-revolutionary. If today he integrates himself with the masses of workers and peasants, then today he is the revolutionary; if tomorrow he ceases to do so or turns around to oppress the common people, then he becomes a nonrevolutionary or a counterrevolutionary.'"
Like a cornered animal Wild Ginger used her abacus as a shield; she fought until the abacus fell apart. Throwing away the broken frame she took up her school bag. The gang came to seize her again. I tried to help but got pulled and pinned down by Titi and Yaya. Hot Pepper and her other gang members got Wild Ginger's school bag. All her books and materials flew out. She was punched down to the ground. While the others held her head and feet, Hot Pepper hopped on her back and began to stab with her umbrella.
With ear-piercing cries, Wild Ginger gave in.
Hot Pepper shouted a Mao quotation with a tone of victory: '"Reading is learning, but applying is also learn ing and the more important kind of learning at that. Our chief method is to learn warfare through warfare. We learn through fighting in war. A revolutionary war is a mass undertaking; it is often not a matter of first learning and then doing, but of doing and then learning, for doing is itself learning.'"
Lying on her stomach, Wild Ginger gasped. Hot Pepper and her gang walked away. The campus became quiet. I got up from where I lay.
Wild Ginger rose slowly, crawling to her feet. She looked around for her shoes. The beads of the abacus and the i pages of her books were scattered all over. She located a shoe behind the bushes and went to fetch it. She hopped on one leg, in pain, her face torn. On her way back she picked up her school bag. The buckles were gone.
I walked toward Wild Ginger. I picked up the abacus beads and the pages. I wanted to thank her but didn't know how to begin.
"I suppose this is your sleeve?" Wild Ginger picked up a piece of fabric that matched my jacket and passed it to me. "The other one is behind the bushes."
I nodded a thank you and passed her the pages.
"What's your name?" she asked, stuffing the pages into her bag.
"Maple."
"I see. You turn red in fall." She smiled and began to tie her shoelace.
"Are you making fun of my name?"
"No, not at all." She wiped the dripping blood off her mouth. "I like your name. It sounds proletarian, Maoist. It's perfect. Your parents must be very thoughtful people… Anyway, how do you write it?"
"The character Wind with a Wood on the left-hand side."
"You are quite like your name." She stood up and patted the dirt off her buttocks. "You bend."
What could I say? What did she know about Hot Pepper? I started to assemble the abacus.
"I didn't say it was your fault, did I?" She was sorting the pages and trying to restore the textbook.
"Anyway, thanks for coming to my rescue."
"You're welcome." As if caught by a sudden twist of pain she got down on her knees.
"Are you all right?"
"I… am fine."
"I'm sorry."
"No, don't ever feel sorry for me. I take the wounds as my medals."
What a thought! "Do you fight a lot?"
"With my kind of looks, people don't leave me alone."
"Do you win in the fights?"
"Well, most of the time I lose. Once I almost got my teeth knocked out."
"You are brave."
"I wouldn't put it that way."
"I am sure you… you are aware that you do look a little foreign. Is your father really French?"
"Half French. My grandfather is French."
"Where is France? Is it an imperialist country like the U.S.A.?"
"I have no idea. I have never seen a world map. My mother once said that it was in Europe and was a beautiful agricultural country. But how can I trust my mother?"
"So Hot Pepper was right about your dossier?"
"Well, one can't choose one's parents, can one?"
"Of course not."
She made a deep, old-woman-like sigh.
"I'm sorry, Wild Ginger."
"My mother was wrong. She thought that transferring me to another school would help."
"Well, you didn't fight for yourself this time."
"Believe me, it makes no difference. Sooner or later my looks will be everyone's excuse to hit or make fun of me. To tell you the truth, at my old school people were rougher. They beat me with metal belt buckles."
"What are you going to do?"
"I don't know. I can't stop them. Being submissive is not going to do it either, and that I know for sure."
I sighed, thinking about my own situation. Every muscle of my body ached.
"You take it as if you deserve it." She started to walk toward the gate and I followed. "Why don't you fight back, Maple? At least you should show them your disapproval."
"What's the use? In any case I won't win. I am alone."
"Not anymore." Wild Ginger picked up a willow branch and swung it in the air.
I looked at her.
She cracked the branch like a whip. It snapped and made a crispy sound.
A strange warm feeling came through me. My tears gushed up involuntarily.
"Here's your abacus," I managed to say. "Hot Pepper will break it again if she sees you hanging out with me."
"Or you with me." She smiled. "Where do you live?"
"Number 347 Red Heart Road. And you?"
"Not far from you. Stalin Road behind Chia Chia Lane."
"I like your name, by the way."
That night for the first time in a long while I felt at peace. Life was changing its color from dark to light. My despair eased. Wild Ginger filled my mind. I told my mother about my new friend. I described her fearlessness. I didn't mind when Mother fell asleep. She snored before I finished. I kept going. I needed to hear Wild Ginger's name and hear her story.
The late summer night in Shanghai was humid. I could hear my stomach rumble. We were too poor to afford full meals. My family slept on the floor on a bamboo mat. My three sisters and three brothers laid their arms and legs across one another. In sleep they were engaged in a war. They were fighting for food and space. My second brother's toe was in my third sister's mouth. My youngest brother's butt was on my mother's chest. My second sister shouted "Buns! Green onion buns!" and rolled off the mat as if chasing someone who had taken her buns. My oldest brother wiggled his body and stuck his head in between the table leg and the chair. "Buns? Where is the bun?" His hands grabbed my shoulder.
Unable to sleep, I got up. I decided to write a letter to my father, who had been sent to a forced labor collective. I hadn't seen him for almost a year. I told him that I looked forward to school now. Although I still expected beating and assault, the thought that I was no longer alone cheered me.