Mulberry trees lined both sides of the road from our village to the health centre, all stripped bare of leaves by famine victims. I broke off a branch and began gnawing on it, finding its sharp, bitter taste hard to swallow. But then I spotted a cicada that had just emerged from its cocoon, a nice soft yellow, its wings not yet dry. Ecstatic, I flung down the mulberry branch, scooped up the cicada and popped it into my mouth. Cicadas were a nutritious delicacy to us, but only after they were fried. By eating this one raw I saved on fuel and time. It had a fresh taste and, I was willing to bet, was more nutritious than if it had been fried. I searched all the trees as I walked along, but found no more cicadas. I did, however, find a fancy coloured handbill showing a young man with a glowing face holding a lovely young woman in his arms. The text read: Communist Air Force pilot Wang Xiaoti has left the dark side and flown into the light, where he is now a Nationalist Air Force Brigadier General. He has received five thousand ounces of gold, and is the glorious mate of the famed songstress Miss Tao Lili. My hunger abruptly forgotten, I experienced a strange and powerful emotion. I felt like screaming. In school I’d heard that the Nationalists sent reactionary handbills across the Strait by balloon, but I never thought I’d actually see one or that it could be quite so flashy. And I had to admit that the woman in the photograph was better-looking than Gugu.
Gugu and Dr Huang were having a heated argument when I walked into the ward. Dr Huang wore a pair of dark glasses over a hooked nose, thin lips, and exposed, badly stained teeth — in future years Gugu would often remind us that staying single was preferable to marrying a woman whose teeth showed when they talked — there was a gloomy cast in her eyes that sent chills down my back. I heard her say, How do you get off telling me what to do? You were still in nappies when I was in medical school!
Gugu gave her tit for tat: Don’t think I don’t know that you, Huang Qiuya, are a capitalist’s daughter and were the campus queen in med school. Did you wave a flag to welcome the arrival of the Japanese into the city? Did you dance cheek to cheek with Japanese officers? Well, when you were dancing with them, I was in Pingdu engaged in a battle of wits with the Japanese commander there.
The woman sneered. Got any witnesses? I’d like to know who saw you have your battle of wits with the commander.
The mountains and rivers are my witnesses.
I couldn’t, I mustn’t, under any circumstances let Gugu see that handbill, not now.
What are you doing here? she asked unhappily. And what’s this?
A reactionary handbill, one of the KMT’s reactionary handbills. My voice quavered with excitement.
Gugu barely looked at it, but I saw her body tense, a spasm like she’d been shocked. Her eyes grew wide, the blood fled from her face. She flung the handbill away as if it were a snake — no, a frog.
When she had regained her composure and bent down to retrieve it, she was too late.
Huang Qiuya had already picked it up and examined it. She looked up, glanced at Gugu, and took another look at the handbill. A green glare emerged from behind those dark glasses. That was followed by an icy laugh.
Gugu sprang at the woman to snatch the handbill back, but Huang spun around to prevent that. So Gugu grabbed the back of Huang’s smock and shouted, Give me that!
Huang lurched forward to free herself, and we heard her smock rip, exposing her back, which was the white of a frog’s belly.
I said give me that!
Huang turned around, but held the handbill behind her back; she was shaking as she moved slowly towards the door.
Give it back? she said with a sinister, smug look. Hah! You dog of a spy, defector’s woman. The defector took all he wanted from you, you slut! Scared, are you? Have you quit selling the stink of your so-called martyr’s descendant?
Gugu, maddened by the comment, charged Huang.
Huang ran into the corridor. We’ve got a spy! she cried. Come catch the spy!
Gugu followed her into the corridor, where she grabbed her by the hair; even with her neck bent back, Huang thrust the handbill out in front, her cries even more shrill. Treatment rooms were in the front of the health centre, offices in the rear. Everyone heard her cries and came into the corridor to see what was happening. Gugu had by then pushed Huang to the floor and was straddling her as she fought to retrieve the handbill.
The director, a bald, middle-aged man, ran up. He had bags under his long, narrow eyes and blindingly white false teeth. Stop that! he shouted. What’s going on?
Gugu fought harder to pry open Huang’s fingers, apparently not hearing the director. By this time Huang Qiuya’s screams had turned into tearful wails.
Stop that, Wan Xin! the director demanded angrily. And you people, he said loudly to the rubberneckers, have you all gone blind? Pull those two apart!
Two male doctors went up and, with difficulty, pulled Gugu off Huang.
Two female doctors picked Huang up off the floor.
Huang’s dark glasses had fallen off and there was a trickle of blood from her gums. Cloudy tears poured from her sunken eyes. But she was still clutching the handbill. Director, she bellowed, you have to back me on this!
Gugu’s clothes were pulled this way and that, and her face was ashen. A pair of bloody gouges marred her cheeks, obviously from Huang Qiuya’s nails.
What’s this all about, Wan Xin?
Gugu’s face wore a desolate smile; tears fell from her eyes. She threw the torn pieces of the handbill in her hand to the floor and, without a word, walked unsteadily back to the ward.
Like someone who has performed heroically under brutal circumstances, Huang Qiuya handed the crumpled remains of the handbill to the director and then got down on her hands and knees to feel around for her glasses, which she found and put back on, holding them to her face since one of the arms was broken. When she saw the torn pieces Gugu had thrown away, she frantically scooped them up, as if she’d found hidden treasure.
What’s this? asked the director as he smoothed out the handbill.
A reactionary handbill, said Huang as she handed him the torn fragments, as if they were treasured gifts. Don’t forget these, they’re the rest of what the defector Wang Xiaoti sent to Wan Xin.
The curious doctors and nurses were transfixed.
Suffering from a case of far-sightedness, the director held the handbill out at arm’s length so he could read it. The doctors and nurses crowded around him.
What are you people looking at? What’s there to see? Get back to work, he scolded as he put away the handbill. Come with me, Dr Huang.
The doctors and nurses wasted no time in sharing their views of the incident as Huang followed the director to his office.
Gugu’s heart-rending wails erupted from the obstetrics ward, and I was suddenly aware of what a destructive thing I’d done. I stepped nervously into the ward, where I saw Gugu sitting with her head down on a table, crying and pounding her fists on the tabletop.
Gugu, I said, Mother sent me over with some rabbit for you.
She ignored me, just kept crying.
I laid my bundle down on the table, opened it, and placed the bowl of rabbit meat next to her head.
Gugu swept the bowl off the table with her arm. It shattered on the floor.
Get out of here! Go! Go! She raised her head to scream at me. Get out of my sight, you little bastard!
11
It wasn’t until later that I realised just how terrible the thing I’d done was.
After I fled from the health centre, Gugu slit her left wrist, then dipped her right index finger in the blood and wrote: I hate Wang Xiaoti! I have always been a Party member, and I will die a Party member!