Though speaking back to Long March only makes matters worse, I say, ‘I wasn’t smirking. Comrade Po’s daughter’s suicide was very sad. I was crying like the rest of the class.’
‘No, you weren’t,’ Resist America says. ‘I saw you and you didn’t shed a tear.’
‘I cried.’
‘How dare you accuse Resist America of being a liar?’ Long March says, her eyes flashing in outrage. ‘Rightist bitch! Your father deserves to be worked to death in that labour camp!’
‘Everyone saw you laughing at Comrade Po,’ says Red Star.
The others nod and chime in that they saw me laughing too, and I shrink back. There is not one girl not complicit in this group lie. A shy girl called Socialist Flower steps towards me with a glass bottle of red paint. Socialist Flower’s shyness, and the fact that her father was once condemned as a rightist too, had led me to think she was a secret ally of mine. But I was mistaken. Socialist Flower’s nose twitches as she holds the bottle, excited to be one of Long March’s gang.
‘Yi Moon is a capitalist parasite, sucking the blood of the masses!’ Red Star says. ‘The time has come to cure her blood thirst once and for all!’
I look at the red liquid in Socialist Flower’s glass bottle, sedimented at the bottom, clearer at the top. That’s actual blood, I think, shocked. Resist America and Patriotic Hua grab my arms. ‘Please! No!’ I cry. Socialist Flower giggles nervously as she moves the bottle to my lips.
‘Drink, Rightist!’ Long March commands. ‘Drink!’
I jerk my head back and clamp my lips.
‘Throw it at her!’ Resist America shouts.
There are gasps of horror and delight as Socialist Flower splashes blood over my mouth, down my chin and cotton jacket. The stench of blood fills my nose. Blood drips on the ground as I bend over and retch.
‘Pour the blood over her, Socialist Flower!’ Long March orders. ‘Over her head!’
Socialist Flower giggles as she lifts the bottle, still three quarters full. Resist America yanks my head back up by my hair, and I squeeze my eyes shut tight.
‘Drink, Rightist!’ she orders. ‘Open your mouth. .’
Bells jangle and brakes screech, and I open my eyes instead.
‘Hey!’
Your Flying Pigeon skids to a halt and the girls turn to look at you: Zhang Liya, leader of the Beijing No. 104 Middle School for Girls’ detachment of the Communist Youth League. You straddle the saddle of your bike, hands squeezing the brakes. You arch your eyebrow at our scuffle. ‘Comrades,’ you say, ‘what are you up to with Yi Moon?’
Socialist Flower smiles uncertainly. She holds the bottle over my head, not sure what to do.
‘We are disciplining Moon for laughing at Comrade Po during today’s lesson in “Recalling with Bitterness the Exploitation of the Peasant Classes by Evil Landlords”,’ explains Long March. ‘Moon’s laughter is evidence of her counter-revolutionary views.’
‘Moon’s too timid to raise her hand, never mind laugh at a speaker in class,’ you say scornfully. ‘Leave her alone now. You’ve splashed blood on her already. You’ve gone far enough.’
Frustration twists Long March’s pretty face into ugliness. ‘But Liya,’ she says sharply, ‘Yi Moon is a class enemy and must be punished!’
‘I said, “Leave her alone,”’ you repeat.
Silence. They let me go, and I wipe frantically at my mouth and chin. Long March fumes as though she wants to snatch the bottle from Socialist Flower and smash it over your head. But she doesn’t dare protest. Your father is a high-ranking Party official, chauffeured to Zhongnanhai every morning in a black car that glides through the streets of Haidian. One word to your father and higher Communist powers would come down on Long March like a People’s Liberation Army boot stamping on a cockroach. You command respect and obedience from every student in our school. But power hasn’t corrupted you. Recognizing that Long March’s pride has been wounded, you say in a conciliatory tone, ‘Go on ahead, Long March. Go and start the Youth League meeting without me. You can lead the meeting tonight.’
Long March nods, placated to be put in charge. ‘Capitalist parasite,’ she hisses at me.
And our classmates walk away. They turn the corner of Vinegar Makers Alley, and we are alone. I stammer my thanks and you lean on the handlebars of your bike and regard me with your clear, strong gaze. Your short hair frames a striking face, with high cheekbones and eyes as determined as those of a heroine in a propaganda poster. Every year you are cast as the revolutionary lead in the school play, but this is as much down to your birthright as your good looks. Before he became a Party official, your father fought the Nationalists, then served as a commander in the Korean War (sacrificing his right eye during hand-to-hand combat with an American soldier in Pyongyang). Some people are born to stand out from the crowd and lead, I think, gazing at you in admiration. You gaze back as though thinking the opposite of me.
‘Pig’s blood,’ you say. ‘You better rinse your clothes in cold water when you get home.’
Pig’s blood. Nausea turns my stomach, and I wipe again at my blood-smeared mouth.
‘Long March goes too far,’ you admit. ‘I’ll speak to her. I’ll ask her to stop these attacks.’
‘Why does she hate me so much?’ I ask.
I expect you to say it’s because Long March is a staunch Communist and vigilant with class enemies. But instead you say, ‘Long March is an unhappy person. People who are unhappy often hurt others.’
I consider this, and then say dismally, ‘But I am unhappy. I don’t go around bullying people.’
‘That’s because you haven’t had the chance.’
Then you are gone. Pedalling up Vinegar Makers Alley to catch up with your friends, leaving me with the pale wisps of your strange remark lingering in the freezing air.
When I get home, I go straight to the communal standpipe in our courtyard and crouch by the spluttering tap to wash the blood from my hands and face. I strip off my jacket and throw it in the bucket underneath. Shivering in my vest, I plunge my hands in the near-frozen water to scrub out the blood before my mother catches me. But my timing is bad, and she emerges from our room with a bowl of carrots to be rinsed.
‘Why are you washing your jacket, Moon?’ she asks.
‘I spilled red paint in art class,’ I say. ‘We were painting political slogans and I knocked the paint pot over.’
The wrinkles deepen around my mother’s concerned eyes. ‘Little Moon,’ she says, ‘tell me the truth. What happened? Are your classmates picking on you again?’
I stare into the bucket, watching the blood eddying in the water. My mother puts down the soil-muddy carrots, places her hand on my shoulder, and asks, ‘Do you love Chairman Mao with all your heart?’
I nod. Of course I do.
‘Well, Moon, you must let your love of Chairman Mao shine out. When those girls recognize that love, shining for Chairman Mao in your heart, they will leave you alone.’
I nod. ‘Okay, Ma.’
My mother smiles a drained, tired smile. Since my father was sent to Qinghai, her belief in Chairman Mao and the Party has become very devout. It’s not enough, she says, to be revolutionary merely in action. It’s not enough to take up a spade and toil for sixteen hours a day when the Party conscripts you to dig a reservoir by the Ming Tombs. It’s not enough to spend every waking hour chasing sparrows, rats, mosquitoes and flies when the Party tells us the Four Pests must be eradicated. It’s not enough to melt our pots and pans in backyard furnaces when the Party tells us our national iron production must overtake the West’s. To be revolutionary merely in action is not enough. If you don’t love Chairman Mao in your heart of hearts, the Party will find out, like they found my father out. They will arrest you and send you away to Qinghai.