"Maple, she shouldn't have given birth to me."
"How could you say that to your mother? You are being unreasonable, Wild Ginger."
Playing with the photo frame she sighed. "The other day the Red Guards came to rob us. They beat Friendly and broke his left leg."
"Is that why he is limping?"
"Yes. Next time when they come Friendly will be hanged, cooked, and eaten."
"No. They won't do that."
"Oh yes. I heard them talking about it."
The thought chilled me. I was silent.
Wild Ginger sat motionless for a while, and then she slowly slid the photo from the frame and lit a match.
"What are you doing? You aren't burning the picture, are you?"
"Stay where you are."
Squatting down, she put the photo over the flame. I drew in my breath but dared not move. The image of her father curled, turned brown, then black. The flame then ate up her mother. The corners of Wild Ginger's mouth tilted into an ironic smile.
The ashes snowed down on the concrete floor.
"Are you afraid, Wild Ginger?" My voice was thin.
"I can't afford to be afraid." She got up and went to the sink. Unpacking a bag of medicinal herbs, she began to wash and prepare them.
"What did your mother do before she met your father?" I asked, trying to distract my fear.
"She worked at the Shanghai People's Opera House. She was their leading singer. She was doing well until my father went to see her play. They fell in love and started their journey to misery."
"Will she perform again?"
"Of course not. She is considered an enemy. She has to be reformed through hardship. We both have to be re-formed-'The daughter of a legend gets to be a heroine and the daughter of a rat gets to dig the dirt,' as the saying goes. The interesting thing is that I am guilty and she is not. What I bear is a birth defect. It took me a long time to realize that. But Maple, I am not a fatalist. I'm trying to change the course of my life."
I wished that I could tell her that it seemed impossible.
"Watch me, Maple." As if reading my mind she continued. "Someday, I will be a revolutionary. A Maoist star. I will prove that I am just as good and trustworthy as the bravest Maoist. I have made that a promise to myself. No one will stop me from being who I want to be. Not Hot Pepper, not my mother, not the ghost of my father."
Wild Ginger's eyes stared through the kitchen window to the cement wall of her neighbor's house. The wall was painted with a huge smiling Mao head with red rays shooting out from the center. Mao was wearing an army cap with a red star on the top. The sunlight bounced off the paint and onto Wild Ginger, tinting her face red. Her eyes shone brightly. Her hands, which had been washing pots, stopped moving. The tap kept running, the sink was filled. The water began to spill. She was not aware of it. "No one," she uttered.
I felt a deep admiration rise inside me. I reached out my hand and shut off the faucet.
4
It was the end of the class. We were on Mao's "On Protracted War." The noises of other rooms dismissing classes were heard around the campus. Wild Ginger signaled me with her eyes that I should be ready to run. We quietly fastened the straps of our school bags.
The bell rang. I jumped out of the bench and ran to exit the classroom. Wild Ginger followed me. It took her a couple of turns to cut across the seats. She was caught by Titi.
"The reactionaries are slipping away!" Titi screamed.
"Block them!" Hot Pepper ordered. The gang chased. I ran back to assist Wild Ginger. Fists, woodsticks, and blows from an abacus rained down on my head and shoulders.
"Maple!" Wild Ginger pulled me over. Back to back, we punched. We were moving toward the gate successfully.
We were by Chia Chia Lane now. Hot Pepper and the gang had lost sight of us. I gasped hard. Wild Ginger was limping.
"What's wrong with your leg?"
"Hot Pepper got me with her abacus. The sow!"
"She almost poked my eye with her pencil. But I got her too. I broke her pencil in half."
"She threatened to send her three brothers, 'the Dragons.' They are vicious."
"I've heard of them. They work at the Number Seven Lumber Factory and it's said they beat five people to death."
"We must find help, Wild Ginger."
"How?"
"Let's go to the Red Flag Middle School."
"Do you know anyone there?"
"I wonder if he remembers me."
"Who?"
"A Mao activist. Last year's champion of the Mao Quotation-Citing Contest. He is a head of the Red Guards at the school. He is my neighbor."
"How did you meet him?"
"It was in the soy milk shop last Sunday. He was in a hurry to visit his father in the hospital, but the line was three blocks long. He came to me although we had never spoken before. He asked if I would let him cut in. I let him in but the people behind me protested. To shut them up I said that he was my brother. And he got his milk… I wonder if he would offer us some protection."
"What's his name?"
"Evergreen."
"Evergreen? How dare he! That's the name of the protagonist in Madame Mao's opera!"
"It's true and I had asked him about it. I asked how dare he copy Madame Mao."
"And what was the reaction?"
"He said she copied him. He was. given the name at his birth in 1954 and Madame Mao's opera was not conceived until 1960."
"Sounds like he's got character."
"Isn't that interesting!"
We found him. He was writing a big-character poster entitled "What We Talk About When We Talk About Loyalty." He was sixteen years old. Tall with a thin face and a pair of staring single-lid eyes. I didn't know how to describe him when Wild Ginger asked me except that he was handsome. I fell short of words as I considered him. I could say that he gave the impression of possessing an honest character. He was frank-knew exactly what he wanted and asked for it. The neighbors said that he was "square," which meant that he'd been brought up by strict parents. But there was something else about him that struck me. Something mysterious and unusual. He was warm and aloof at the same time. His ability to focus and shift focus without warning intrigued me. He projected a sense that he was eager to engage, yet the boundary he set was Great Wall thick. Physically, he had an athlete's frame. He was lean and his muscles were very pure in outline. He wore a blue Mao jacket and was working, bending over a Ping-Pong table. His calligraphy was masterly and in the Song dynasty style. We watched him and waited until he finished the last stroke. He noticed Wild Ginger, put down his brush pen, and smiled at her. To me thè smile was strange and almost affectionate.
Wild Ginger scratched her arm.
Evergreen picked up his brush pen and turned back to his poster. He dipped the pen into a water jar, then looked at Wild Ginger again.
"Am I bothering you?" Wild Ginger scratched her arm again.
"In a way," he smiled.
"What's wrong with me watching you writing a poster? Isn't this supposed to be a public event?"
"Why are you nervous?"
"Why do you keep looking at me?"
"Do I?"
"Do I look like a reactionary?"
"A straight tree fears no crooked shadows.'" He threw away his pen and straightened up his back. "Forgive me. I'm Evergreen."
"Hello."
"So, are you here to view the big-character posters?"
"Well, not exactly. I'm here with Maple"-Wild Ginger pushed me toward him-"who thought you knew each other."
"Maple! Hello! Sorry I didn't recognize you. You look different."
"It's my Mao jacket. The dye is bad. Every time I wash it the color changes."
"It was blue last time."
"And now it's purple."
"Next time it'll turn brown."
"You can count on that… How is your father?"
"He is out of the hospital."
"What did he have?"
"Tuberculosis. He worked as a miner for twenty-eight years."
"Is he getting well?"
"The doctor told him to eat whatever he likes."