Our bags were thirty-pound bundles stuffed with blankets and necessities for the month. By the time we reached Xinzhuang, many of us had blisters on our feet and shoulders, and severe back and neck aches. The army instructor taught us how to fix our blisters. At every break, I sat down and took out my needles. Raising my foot, I poked through the blisters with a needle. After that I pulled out one of my hairs and routed it through the broken blister, then made a knot on each blister to keep the fluid draining until it dried up by itself. Soon my feet were full of mosquito-like hair knots.
After the city scene faded, the countryside took over, but we were too exhausted to appreciate the landscape. We walked through the rice paddies, farmhouses, and animal barns longing desperately for the next break.
The bundles on our shoulders were getting heavier. Hot Pepper tried to strike up a song to lift our spirits, but no one responded except Wild Ginger.
Wild Ginger was walking behind me. It was the first time we were allowed to participate in a group activity. We were benefiting from Mao's new teaching, "To expand our force, we must unite with people of gray backgrounds, which include the children of the denounced." Wild Ginger was excited. She was singing loudly, "The sky is big but not as big as the power of the Communist party…"
By evening a break was ordered. The school stopped in a village called Yichun. The peasants were ordered by their local party boss to provide us with rooms to spend the night. Our class got a coffin room. The empty coffin was for the family's great-grandfather. It was considered a blessing for a man to see his coffin made before he died. Hot Pepper was afraid of the coffin. She took the spot at the far thest end of the room away from the coffin. Wild Ginger laid her stuff right by the coffin, and I took the space next to her. As we finished unpacking we heard a whistle. We were ordered to fetch yecai-leaflike grass-for dinner. Yecai was what the Red Army ate during Mao's Long March in 1934. The point was for us to taste the bitterness in order to deepen our admiration for Mao.
Wild Ginger and I were assigned as a group to look for yecai. We set out toward the west end of a cornfield. Halfway across the field we were struck by a strange fragrance. As we followed the smell, we entered a leafy enclosure where yecai was growing everywhere. It was a thick-leaved plant with tiny yellow flowers on its top. The sun was setting. There was no one around. We started picking. Quickly we filled up our bags.
The farmhouses with straw tops were dyed orange by the golden sunbeams. The large oil-bearing plants bent down heavily. The smell of yecai thickened. Wild Ginger and I decided to take a break. We put our bags to the side and sat down to enjoy the fragrance. Within a few minutes the sky turned dark and the stars began to glow.
"Look at the moon." Wild Ginger pointed at the sky. "Like a guilty face it keeps burying itself behind the drifting clouds."
"A face? Whose face?"
"My father's," she giggled.
"I don't think the face looks guilty," I said. "It looks rather sad to me."
"Sad? Well, if only the moon could argue."
"The air is sweet."
"It's so quiet here."
"Don't you feel like breaking the silence?"
"Wanna sing?"
"I don't have a good voice."
"Who cares!"
"I do. I would like to have a nice voice like Wild Ginger."
"You know what my mother said? 'That French-head had a good voice.'"
"You mean your father?"
"My mother told me that he liked to put out the lights and sing in the dark."
"Did you ever hear your father sing?"
"I don't remember. My mother says I did. My mother sang me his songs. She wants me to remember him. But who wants to remember a reactionary?"
"What about your voice?"
"I sing all right… Well, I love to sing, in fact."
"Would you sing me something?"
"Of course not."
"You have shown me how your father looked, now if you sing I might get an idea of how he sounded."
"I have to go, Maple. I have to go to the restroom badly. But there is no such place."
"Just squat down. Do what the peasants do."
Wild Ginger wandered around for a while and disappeared from my sight.
I lay down on my back. The night was broad and wide. I began to think about my father. I missed him terribly. As my mind wandered the sweetness of the air disappeared. I became uncomfortable. I felt the sky turn into a broad palm and press itself upon my face. A nameless anxiety crept up on me. I worried about my future. I thought about the word "escape." I wanted to escape school and my family. I wanted to be a Maoist. I understood that it was the only path to a good future. One had to be a Maoist to get a good job. But on the other hand I was confused. I was not sure whether being a Maoist would make me happy. I was not looking forward to graduation. I didn't see a future as bright as the one Chairman Mao promised. Maybe it was the daily hunger, the hardship, that stressed me. And my father. The way he was treated. My family was never enthusiastic about participating in the Cultural Revolution. All my siblings were considered politically nearsighted. I didn't see where it was all leading. Anyhow, Evergreen's record as the Mao-citing champion impressed Wild Ginger more than it did me.
I heard singing. For a brief moment I was sure that I was imagining it. The voice was silky, pure and penetrating. It was in a foreign language. The strangeness grabbed me. Wild Ginger. What was she singing? French? She sang it as if she knew the language. But she didn't. I knew she didn't.
The singing went on for a while and then stopped. Wild Ginger reappeared.
"Was it weird?"
"I liked it. A lot."
"It's a spy code," she teased.
"Then why do you sing it?"
"Just to show you what my mother rubbed my ears with, though she has stopped since the revolution."
"What are the songs about?"
"I have no idea."
"You're lying. Your mother must have explained them to you."
"All right, she did. She said they were about love. The lyrics are disgusting and poisonous."
"I think they are beautiful."
"Don't be stupid, Maple."
"It's true. It shows how much you miss your father."
"You don't know French."
"You don't either."
"What makes you think that I miss him?"
"Your voice."
She paused, as if surprised.
"I really like your voice," I continued.
"You'd like it better if I sang 'I Am Missing Chairman Mao.' I can sound as good as the radio."
Before I could tell her that I had been bored with that song and its constant repetition on the radio and at ceremonies, she turned toward the field to sing with her full voice:
I raise my head to see the Big Dipper.
I am missing you, Chairman Mao.
Longing for you I strive,
Thinking about you I find light in darkness,
Thinking about you I gain my strength.
I owe you my life,
I owe you my happiness.
Deep in the fields moonbeams sparkled overhead. The white rays silently spread, in rushing streams, bathing the corn.
We had yecai as dinner. It was boiled in a wok and mixed with wild sandy-brown rice. The color was exactly manurelike. Many of us threw up before forcing it down our throats. One hour after eating the chamber-pot room was crowded.
"Wild Ginger, I think I like the French song better," I whispered to her after we got into bed and the light was off. "Especially now that you've told me that it was a song your father sang."