It is my grandfather's wish that I complete elementary school. You are a peacock living among hens, he says. He is fixing the arm of his rattan chair when he says this to me. His head is on the floor and his rear end points toward the ceiling. The phrase has an enormous effect on me.
My grandfather enrolls me in a local school a block away. He gives me a formal name, Yunhe-Crane in the Clouds. The image is picked from his favorite opera, The Golden Pavilion. The crane is the symbol of hope.
The new school is a terrible place. The rich kids beat the poor whenever they like. Yunhe endures as much as she can until one day she is hit by a boy and a group of girls applaud. It enrages her. For days afterwards she is chewed by an incredible pain. I would have endured as usual if it were just the boys taking advantage of the girls, Madame Mao says later. I wouldn't have felt so alone and betrayed. I wouldn't have taken it so personally because mistreating women was considered a tradition. But it was the girls, the women, the grass, the worthless creatures themselves, laughing at their own kind that hurt, that opened and dipped my wounds in salt water.
2
SLOWLY MY MOTHER FADES from my life. It is said that she is married. To whom? She never introduces us to the new husband. She just disappears. Gone. The door is shut. I don't hear from her. She is done with parenting. I don't know what to do, only that I don't want to end up like her.
I watch operas and copy the arias. The Legend of Huoxiao Yu and Story of the West Chamber. I dream about the characters in the ancient tales, the rebellious heroines, women who fight fiercely for their happiness and get it. I decide that I shall be an opera actress so I will get to live a heroine's life on stage. But my grandfather opposes the idea. To him, actresses and prostitutes are the same. I don't give in. My grandfather regrets that he ever introduced me to opera. He threatens to disown me. But it is too late.
The girl is not sold to the opera troupe as she later claims. She runs away from home and delivers herself to a local troupe. She begs to be accepted. She is pretty, already a full-size young woman, already attractive. She claims to be an orphan. She runs away before her grandparents get a chance to disown her. This becomes a pattern in her life. With her husbands and lovers, she takes the initiative. She abandons before being abandoned.
The girl becomes an apprentice. While learning her craft she washes the floors, cleans makeup drawers, fills water jars and takes care of the leading actress's wardrobe. She gets to sit by the curtain during performances. Like a spring field in the season's first rain, she absorbs. During the New Year's Eve performance she gets to play her first one-line role. The line is: Tea, Madame.
For the role she dresses up in full costume. Her hair is up, pinned with pearls and glittering ornaments. In the mirror, in the painted face, in the red lips, the girl sees herself in the world she has been imagining.
Yet the place shows its ugly face. At night, after the performances, the girl hears sobbing. After her mistress takes off the makeup and costume, the girl sees a withered face. A young woman of twenty but who looks forty. A face of wood, carved heavily with wrinkles. There must be a ghost's hand working on this face, the girl thinks to herself.
When the girl goes out to fetch duck-blood soup on her mistress's order, she sees men waiting. Each night, a different man. They are the troupe owner's friends. Most of them are old, and a couple of them have a mouthful of gold teeth. The mistress is told to entertain them, to help them realize their fantasies. It doesn't matter that she is exhausted, doesn't matter that she wants to spend time with the young man of her heart.
The girl is waiting. She waits for a bigger role. For that she works hard, does everything she is told, endures an occasional beating. She tells herself to be patient, to perfect her skills. She is aware of the changes in her body. Aware that it is blooming. In the mirror she sees her eyes become brighter, her features ripening. Her waist grows smaller while her chest blossoms. She believes that her chance is coming her way. At night she dreams of the spotlight tracing her, only her.
I follow my grandfather and we head home. I am not giving up acting. I was not given the role I wanted to play. I was bored.
The wait was too long. I became sick of cleaning backstage. Sick of my rubber-faced mistress, her complaining, long and smelly words, like foot-binding cloths. My grandfather has paid a large sum to get me out of the troupe.
But when the moon buries itself in the deep drifts of cloud, my thoughts get busy again. I thought I had caught a glance, heard a tone, seized my dream, but… I stay wide awake in my old bed trying to figure out where to go and what to do next.
The sticky-rice-pasted wrapping cloths. The swelling toes. The inflammation. The prickling pain at the ankles. The girl remembers how she saved herself.
My grandparents are busy traveling from town to town and from matchmaker to matchmaker. They are trying get rid of me. I am sixteen years old, already beyond ruling. Because of my size, I am often mistaken as eighteen. They should have my feet bound. Now I can walk and run on this pair of-what my grandmother calls-liberation feet. My feet feel strong, as if they are on wings.
I run to free myself. I find another opera troupe. It is called the Experimental Theater Troupe of Shan-dong Province. It's bigger and better known, headed by a Confucius-looking man named Mr. Zhao Taimo.
Although Mr. Zhao Taimo has the look of Confucius, he is not a man of tradition by any means. He is a man of Western education. He is the torch that lights Yunhe's early life. Later on Madame Mao refuses to credit him for his guidance. Madame Mao takes all the credit for herself. It is because she is expected to prove that she was a born proletarian. But in 1929 it is Mr. Zhao Taimo who grants the girl admission even though she lacks important qualifications. Her Mandarin is poor and she has no acrobatic skills. Mr. Zhao is attracted instantly by the rebellious spirit in the girl. The bright almond eyes. The burning passion behind them. From the way the girl marches into the room, Mr. Zhao discovers a tremendous potential.
The circle of literature and arts in Shan-dong regards Mr. Zhao as a man of inspiration. His wife, the elegant opera actress Yu Shan, is popular and adored. Yu Shan is from a prestigious family and is well connected. The girl Yunhe comes to worship the couple. She becomes a guest at the Zhaos' open house every Sunday afternoon. Sometimes she even comes early in the morning, skipping her breakfast, just to watch Yu Shan go through her opera drills. Yunhe's modesty and curiosity impress Yu Shan and the two become good friends.
At parties, Yunhe is usually quiet. She sits in the corner chewing sunflower seeds and listens. She observes the visitors. Most of them are students, professors, musicians and playwrights. There are mysterious visitors too. They are the left-wingers-the underground Communists.
My first encounters with the revolutionaries take place at Mr. Zhao Taimo's parties. I find them young, handsome and passionate. I look at them with respect. I can never forget those bloody heads hung on the poles. What is it that makes them risk their lives?
In Mr. Zhao Taimo's house I find the answer. It is their love for the country. And I think that there is nothing in life more honorable than what they do.
The girl suddenly has the urge to join the discussion. It takes her a while to finally gather her courage and project her voice.
I was never told that the foreign occupation was the result of our nation's defeat, the girl says. In my schoolbook China is as glorious as it has always been. But why are foreigners the masters of factories, owners of railways and private mansions in our country? I remember once my grandfather sighed deeply and said that it was useless to learn to read-the more one was educated, the deeper one felt humiliation. I now understand why my grandfather loves opera. It is to numb himself. In opera he relives China's past splendor. People are fooling themselves.