Dreams of Joy (Shanghai Girls 2)

“What’s a bathtub?” Fu-shee asks.

“Maybe we could start a wheelbarrow business,” I try again. “People always need things hauled to the main road.”

“Where will we get money to buy them?” my father-in-law asks.

“I have some money,” I say. “We’re a family. I want to help in any way I can.”

I buy three wheelbarrows. We earn four yuan—a little less than two dollars—a day carrying coal, bricks, and grain, until we’re told we have to stop. The village cadres criticize us and remind us that no private enterprise is allowed. The next time I make a suggestion to improve our situation, Fu-shee snaps, “Instead of bragging about your money, why don’t you buy us some food?”

But I can’t buy food, because there’s no food to buy. Even if there were, where would I change my American dollars? I’d have to go to Tun-hsi, maybe even Hangchow, to do that. The brigade leader would never give me permission.

I could write to my mother about all this, but I don’t. How can I? I don’t want to hear her say, “I told you so,” when even worse recriminations run through my brain.

Joy

GLASS CLOTHES

I WAKE JUST after dawn on a Sunday morning in late March. The first thing I see is our new poster of Chairman Mao pasted to the wall. Every house in the commune has the identical poster—Mao floating above a sea of red clouds. I imagine this same poster in every house throughout the country. Nothing can hang above him (which would be insulting), and nothing can mar the surface of the poster (which would prove that the household is not showing the proper respect). I shift my weight, causing the babies and small children snuggled around me to wiggle and squirm. I put a hand on my stomach, trying to calm my nausea. Something I ate or drank has caused me to feel low. I quietly get up off my sleeping mat and go outside.

The spring air is crisp and the sky is bright blue. Standing on the terrace, I see out over several fields of rapeseed. The plants are in full yellow flower, reminding me of the wild mustard that grows in Southern California at this time of year. Plumes of smoke curl into the air from chimneys throughout Green Dragon. I chop wood and start the fire in the outdoor stove. Then I grab a couple of buckets, walk down to the stream for water, haul them back up the hill, and put some of the water on to boil.

My mother-in-law joins me outside. “You still brush your teeth with boiled water?” she asks with false incredulity. “You’ll never be one of us until you can drink the water. Here, let me make you some tea with ginger in it to help your stomach. It’s always calmed mine.”

Since it’s Sunday and we have no work

to do for the commune, everyone’s slow getting dressed. I tell Tao I’m going on ahead to the canteen. He doesn’t mind. Spring is all around me—more rapeseed fields, trees in extravagant flower, pink and white petals drifting through the air like snow, and fresh new greenery on the precious few tea bushes that have been spared Brigade Leader Lai’s insistence that all land be converted to growing grain. Although we had a tough winter, I’m eagerly anticipating the harvest of the commune’s first winter wheat crop in June. We’ve been close-planting other crops—tomatoes, bok choy, corn, and onions—as we’ve been instructed by Brigade Leader Lai, putting in two or three times the usual amount of seed per mu. We tell ourselves Chairman Mao wouldn’t steer us in the wrong direction. Yes, the longer days and warmer weather have done a lot for my mood. Maybe this hasn’t been a mistake. Maybe I was just a girl from Los Angeles who truly was suffering from too many years of comfort and waste.

Now, looking at the bright green of the fields against the sky, I wish I could spend the day perched somewhere, painting and drawing. Instead, I eat a small breakfast, go home, and pass the rest of the morning writing letters to my mother and aunt. “Life is OK. The weather is better.” Tomorrow I’ll wait by the pond for the mailman to arrive. I’ll give him my letters and hope he brings some for me.

In late afternoon, the loudspeaker in the main room crackles to life.

“All comrades come to the canteen immediately!” It’s the brigade leader’s voice. “All comrades come to the canteen immediately!”

No political rally is scheduled, but we do as we’re told. As we near the area where the canteen, nursery, and leadership hall are located, we see this will be a communewide meeting. It’s rare that we’re all together at one time, but here we are—nearly four thousand of us. Maybe we’re going to “launch a Sputnik”—a twenty-four-hour project inspired by Old Big Brother that will require the participation of the entire commune. Earlier this year, the whole country launched a Sputnik, spending twenty-four hours making more iron than the United States does in a month—or so we were told—but not only was the result worthless but it left communes like ours without many scythes, hammers, or buckets. But no, we haven’t been called here to launch a Sputnik.

Brigade Leader Lai stands on a raised platform with his hands clasped behind his back, rocking on his heels, a fierce look on his face. My stomach tightens when I see Yong on her knees next to him, her bound feet hidden under her. A white ribbon has been pinned to her tunic, showing that she’s been denounced. Kumei and Ta-ming stand on the edge of the platform. Kumei can smile in any situation, but not now. Her face is pale and her scars have turned lavender with what I take to be fear. What could Yong and Kumei have done to so upset the man who’s been living with them in the villa these past months? Party Secretary Feng Jin and Sung-ling also have spots on the platform. They look invigorated and alive with excitement. This isn’t a small performance for just Green Dragon Village. This time thousands of faces stare back at them in anticipation.

Brigade Leader Lai raises a bullhorn to his mouth. “Chairman Mao has said there will be no parasites in the New Society,” he recites. “Everybody works so everybody eats.”

We’ve heard these things before, but what he says next sounds ominous.

“These three are black elements. Two shared a bed with the landlord. One is the landlord’s black spawn. Once this label is affixed, it is passed from generation to generation. They and their descendants will never escape their black labels.”

A shudder ripples through me.

He motions to Kumei and Ta-ming. “These two do their best.” Then he nudges Yong with his shoe. “But this one is a daily reminder of all that was bad in the old society. Years ago, Chairman Mao ordered all women to unbind their feet. Did the landowner’s fourth wife obey?”

Shouts of no come from the crowd. Yong doesn’t react. She keeps her eyes cast down.

“We all work in the fields, but what about this one?” the brigade leader asks.

Disgruntled mumbles ripple around me. Everyone seems to have forgotten that Yong came out of the villa to work in the Overtake Britain Battalion with my mother, mother-in-law, and some of the other older women in Green Dragon.

“It’s time you remove your bindings and join us. Do it now!” Brigade Leader Lai orders.

Without a word of resistance, Yong shifts to a sitting position, accepting insult and humility in a way that everyone here understands, for in the past only slaves, condemned criminals, those captured in battle, and servants sat on the ground. The crowd falls silent, and people strain their necks as the long bindings come off in loop after loop. The commune’s members may have been too poor to have bound-footed women in their families, but everyone knows that a woman’s bound feet are her most private parts. “Even more private than that place low down,” my mother once said to me when she was telling me about my grandmother’s bound feet.

“Now get up!” Brigade Leader Lai yells at Yong.