Flower Net (Red Princess 1)

At that, Hulan said, Mr. Zai had held up his hands for silence. He told the Lius’ neighbors that earlier that day he had taken Hulan to the jail where her mother was being held.

“Only I knew this was a falsehood,” Hulan explained. “But Uncle Zai was not finished. He said—and I remember these words very clearly—‘With great pride I can tell you that Hulan did her duty there. Jiang Jinli, her mother, will no longer trouble the people!’ This news released my neighbors. People grabbed hammers and broke the old stone carving above our front gate. They went into the compound with sickles and chopped down my mother’s flowers. They raided the house, bringing out many of our belongings and throwing them to the ground. When the pile was ready, Madame Zhang stepped forward and set fire to our things. No, not things, our lives. Our books, photographs of family trips, wall hangings passed down ten generations in my mother’s family. Clothes, furniture, rugs. The fire roared, sending red and orange sparks into the sky.”

“What was happening to your father?”

“In the lust for destruction,” she answered, “he was forgotten by the mob. But in the light of the fire, so beautiful really, I saw him still on his hands and knees, his head lifted, staring at me. The guards came back, twisted his arms behind him, and dragged him away. The whole time my father’s eyes were boring into me like hot coals.”

Once Hulan’s father was gone, Zai put her in the backseat of his car. She asked him questions. Where was her mother? What had happened to her? What would happen to her father? But Zai would only say that Hulan had saved her father’s life. Instead of being beaten or shot to death, Liu would be sent to a labor camp. He would be safe there.

“Then Uncle Zai took me to the Beijing Hundred Products Big Store on Wangfujing,” she continued, slowly regaining her composure. “He bought me clothes and toiletries. He bought me a suitcase. He took me to his house, made me take a shower and change into one of my new outfits. Then we drove to the airport. He pressed a passport in my hand. Inside was an old picture of me and a visa. He kissed me good-bye and put me on the airplane. I had never been on an airplane before. I remember looking out the window and seeing miles and miles of great green patchwork. In Hong Kong, I changed planes, then flew to New York. When I got off the plane, I followed the other passengers through Immigration and Customs. Outside, a white woman met me and drove me to a boarding school in Connecticut.”

“How old were you then?”

“Fourteen.”

“I vaguely remember you talking about that school,” David said suddenly. “But I didn’t know the circumstances of how you’d gotten there. It must have been a real culture shock after the farm and the rest of it.”

“I don’t know if I can convey to you how strange it was to be with so many girls, all wearing uniforms, all good friends, all privileged,” she said. “Most of the students were the daughters of diplomats, so I can say they were more sophisticated than the usual American girls. But I’m sure I don’t have to tell you how cruel teenage girls can be. Oh, the teasing I got for my farm ways and my pathetic Communist clothes.”

“And your English,” David added. “I remember you talking about that, too.”

“Especially my English. Even my teachers made fun of me for what they called my ‘Chinglish.’ They said I spoke English like I was translating in my brain from the Chinese. ‘You must learn to think in English,’ they lectured me. I suppose they were trying to be kind, but they only made the other girls laugh.”

“During that time did you hear from your father?”

“No. He was in the labor camp, just as Uncle Zai had predicted. I didn’t hear from my mother either. For many months I assumed she was dead. Finally, after several letters, Uncle Zai wrote that she had been injured and was recuperating in a Russian hospital. He didn’t say that exactly, since all of the mail leaving China was monitored at that time. But I could read between the lines, between the words that spoke of my mother’s betrayal of the Revolution, of her decadent ways, of her selfish attitude.”

In 1976, Hulan graduated and Chairman Mao died. Without his protection, Madame Mao and her cohorts—the Gang of Four—were arrested, tried, and convicted for masterminding the Cultural Revolution. While all that was happening, Hulan went to Los Angeles and enrolled at USC.

“Still, I didn’t hear from my father. Two years later I finally received word from him. He had been ‘rehabilitated’ at the Pitao Reform Camp for six years and had returned to Beijing.”

“After all that, how did he end up at the Ministry of Public Security?” David asked.

Hulan shrugged. “He found his old friends, traded on his guanxi, and was assigned to a very low-level job at the MPS.”

Again she seemed reluctant to go on. David had to coax her. “And your mother?”

“He didn’t mention her. He did, however, tell me to stay where I was.” Her eyes misted again. “All I had to do was think of his face that last night in the hutong to know he despised me, that he didn’t want to see me.”

“And Zai?”

“In America you say, What goes around comes around,” she responded. “In China we have something similar: Things always change to the opposite. New accusations floated around the city. Uncle Zai was accused of participating

with too much vigor in the Cultural Revolution and was also sent to the Pitao Reform Camp. I don’t know who made those accusations, but I have always thought it was my father. He had six years to think about what Zai had done to his family, and he wanted retribution. When Mr. Zai came out of the camp, he was a different man. No one came to his aid except for my father.”

“But why would your father do that if he wanted retribution?”

“Because by that time, my father was ‘climbing the ladder’ at the ministry. The old boss became the lackey, my father became the new boss.”

“Your father wanted to keep tabs on Zai.”

“Yes, of course, but this was also a punishment. After all, Mr. Zai had to see my father every day. The gulf between them grew.”

“But why didn’t Zai explain everything to your father?”

“Because Baba would not listen and because Uncle Zai felt guilty himself.”

“But the only thing Zai was guilty of was trying to rescue your father.”