Dreams of Joy (Shanghai Girls 2)

She gives a sharp nod and turns to leave. Tao and I are left nearly alone on the square. I wish we could go somewhere to have a Coke or some ice cream the way I used to do at home, because I’m not ready to go back to the villa. Emboldened by the adrenaline still coursing through my body, I ask if he’d like to take a walk. It’s too dark to go up the hill to the Charity Pavilion, so we stay on the footpath that borders the stream. After a while, we stop and sit on rocks at the water’s edge. I peel off my shoes and socks and dip my feet in the cool water. Tao slips off his sandals and submerges his feet next to mine. In elementary school, Hazel and I used to tease other girls about their wanting to play footsie with some boy or other. It was the kind of dumb taunting that little girls do when they know absolutely nothing about sex, boys, or romance. But now I let my toes—wet and soft—slip along the arch of Tao’s right foot. The sensations I feel from this are not located in my feet however. The performance has given Tao courage too, because he takes my hand and puts it in his lap. I feel his startling hardness and I don’t pull away.

LATER, WHEN I GET back to the villa, everyone is in the front courtyard. Ta-ming sleeps with his head in Kumei’s lap. Yong perches on a ceramic jardiniere, her bound feet barely touching the ground. And Z.G. roosts on a step, his elbows on his knees, his head thrust forward. I’m feeling buoyed, but he looks angry, and it really rubs me the wrong way.

“You come from far away, and everyone is trying to be understanding of your different ways.” His tone is stern and harsh. “But no one in this house can afford your bourgeois activities.”

“What bourgeois—”

“Leaving the village with Tao and doing who knows what. This has to stop.”

My first response is indignation. Who do you think you are? My father? I want to ask him, except he is my father. Well, he may be my father, but he doesn’t know me. He can’t tell me what to do. I look for help from Kumei and Yong. We’ve just seen a series of skits on the liberation of women. Kumei and Yong should be on my side, but their faces are white with what I take to be fear.

“We’re in the New China, but one thing hasn’t changed,” Z.G. continues. “Your actions reflect on all of us.”

My actions? I think about the stuff Tao and I just did. Shame, embarrassment, and remembered pleasure burn my face. Still, I respond defiantly. “Nothing happened!”

“If you’re caught,” Z.G. goes on, “you will not be the only one punished. We all will have to attend struggle sessions and make self-criticisms.”

“I doubt that,” I say petulantly, like I did when I used to get in trouble with my dad. I mean, really. I walked in here feeling really high—from the show, from the way the audience reacted to my performance, and from going to third base with Tao. Why does Z.G. have to ruin it?

“You don’t know anything about anything. What you’re doing is dangerous for our hosts,” he says. “In the last two years, over two million people have been moved by force to the far west to cultivate wasteland as punishment for criticizing the government, being social misfits, or acting like counterrevolutionaries. Some of those people were peasants like Kumei, Yong, and Ta-ming, who did something to upset the local Party cadre. How long do you think these three would last out there? They would die very quickly, don’t you think?”

“You sound like my uncle,” I retort. “Always crying wolf. I haven’t seen anything bad.”

“What about what just happened to Ping-li’s husband?”

“He deserved it!”

Z.G. shakes his head. We haven’t known each other very long, but it’s clear I’m frustrating to him, and he really bugs me.

“I’m going to say this again,” he says, attempting to add gentleness to his voice. “Your actions are dangerous—not only to yourself but to our hosts.”

“I refuse to believe that. Why would what I do have any consequences for them or anyone else for that matter?”

“It’s also dangerous to me,” Z.G. confides. “What do you think Party Secretary Feng Jin will report to the Artists’ Association about who I’ve brought to Green Dragon Village and how you’re corrupting the masses?” He switches to English. “You’re a foreigner. I still haven’t figured out how to keep you safe when we go back to Shanghai.”

“Maybe I don’t want to go back—”

He brushes aside my comment with an impatient wave of his hand. He takes a deep breath to calm himself before continuing. “I want you to understand that I’m not immune to love. You of all people should know that. I know it’s impossible to keep young people apart if they want to be together. It takes only a few minutes, after all.”

His crudeness and bluntness shock me. I can’t imagine my father Sam ever saying anything like that to me.

“I see only one thing to do,” Z.G. says. “Keep the two of you near me. You will walk to and from the fields with Kumei from now on. No more going to the Charity Pavilion with Tao.”

“How do you know—”

“This is a small village. There is no privacy here. Everyone sees everything. Haven’t you figured that out yet?” He pauses to let that sink in. “In the evening, you will walk with me to the ancestral hall for the political-study session and our art lessons. You will hand out the paper and brushes by yourself. You don’t need help.”

“Then I’ll never get to see him—”

“Next Saturday night,” Z.G. goes on, speaking right over me, “we’ll have an exhibition of everyone’s best work. You and Tao will display your paintings of the Charity Pavilion.”

“But I haven’t done any paintings there,” I admit. “And neither has Tao.”

“I’m aware of that,” he says drily. “You and Tao are going to need to work on those right away. So, after our lesson in the ancestral hall, the two of you will return to the villa with me.”

“I don’t want anyone to think I’m special—”

“They won’t think you’re special when they see how I treat you. I’m going to teach you how to draw and you’re going to learn. I’m going to give you homework and you’re going to do it. I’m not going to be nice. Everyone accepts that Tao has talent. You? I’m not so sure you have great talent, but you’re better than anyone else in this place. Therefore, from now on the three of us will have private lessons in the front courtyard. We will keep the gate open, so everyone can see us. Soon people will understand that your visits to the Charity Pavilion were only about drawing and painting. Nothing else. If you’re lucky, they’ll forget about you in a day or two. Once that happens, if I have to step away for a few minutes …”