“I heard her say it!” she repeated. “I heard her say that Chairman Mao was mad!”
Then my mother dropped her head and began to cry, not because she was guilty of treason, but because her own daughter had betrayed her for a green jacket and a red armband.
I tried to go to Mother, but the Red Guard grabbed me and took me into the hallway. They were all congratulating my sister, and they locked my mother in that small room and took us downstairs. They yelled to the crowd of their great victory as we entered the auditorium, and the crowd started to chant, “Xao Hong! Xao Hong! Xao Hong loves the revolution!” Her former Red Guard comrades ran up to her and draped a jacket on her. Then they gave her an armband. The crowd was shouting and celebrating the victory over Mother, and the demonstration swept out of the building onto the street. Hong was pushed to the front of the parade as it marched around the building underneath the window of the room where Mother was held. Hong herself held up a placard denouncing her.
They were not finished humiliating Mother yet, you see, and I believe to this day that they meant to leave her unguarded. They knew that she was a proud woman whose spirit had been broken, and they wanted to make an example of her.
Mother kicked out the window first, so we were all looking up when the curtain fluttered open and she plunged through.
I started to shut my eyes, but then I opened them because I wanted to remember, always.
She shut her eyes tight, but the tears came anyway. Neal sat down beside her on the bed and put his arms around her shoulders. She put her face in the crook of his neck and started to sob. The tears ran down her cheeks onto his neck and he held her tighter. She cried in choking gasps, as pain that was ten years old flowed out of her, and she cried for ‘ a long time. Neal leaned back and brushed a tear off her cheek, then he kissed one off, then kissed a tear on her neck, and then she brought her mouth to his.
Her lips were soft and warm and her tongue was hard and probing and her jacket seemed to unbutton itself and the silk slid down her legs and then he was inside her. She lay back on the bed, her long black hair rippling under her as she moved beneath him. Her legs clasped him tightly as her hands fluttered up and down his back, or stroked his hair, his face. She kissed his forehead, then his eyes, then his mouth again, before she clasped her legs tighter and rolled them both over.
She rubbed his chest with her hair as she moved back and forth on him, and he reached between her legs and stroked her as she stretched up and kept him just inside her. She slammed back down on him and they moved together and he could see her beautiful face, touch her breasts and her stomach; she was shiny with sweat. She rose and fell and twisted on him and then collapsed on his chest and he held her tight and still and thrust to the center of her once, then twice, and then again until they smothered the sounds of their joy in each other’s mouths.
They lay together under the quilt and she nestled her head in the crook of his arm as she went on with her story.
For weeks after Mother’s death I just wandered the city. I didn’t want to be at home among all the memories and where the Red Guard could find me. I took food from garbage piles and slept in the parks. I was not unusual; there were many “political orphans” and nobody seemed to care. The city was in chaos. The Red Guard splintered into several groups. They seized weapons from the armories and fought the police and each other. From time to time I caught a glimpse of Hong, always in the lead of something: a parade, a demonstration, a street battle. We never acknowledged one another. She was always in the center of the action; I existed on the margins.
In January the Beijing Red Guard tried to seize control of the government itself, and the army stepped in. Soon the Sichuan garrison did the same, and they fought bloody battles against the Red Guard all over the province, but especially in Chengdu. The fighting went on for weeks, and the last of the Red Guard seized a factory building in the northern part of the city. It took the army three days of hard fighting to get them out.
With the Red Guard shattered, there were so many young people wandering the streets! Schools were still closed, families disrupted. The police and the army rounded up thousands of the youth. The government made the decision to send the urban youth to the countryside, “to learn from the peasants.” I was arrested and spent weeks in a detention center. When I was identified, I was sent away to the far southwestern part of the province, up into the mountains.
It was not really a village, just a group of huts on the lower slopes of a great mountain, and the people there were not even Chinese. They were from the Yi tribe, primitive people who grew a little tea and some vegetables and hunted in the mountains. Only the headman spoke any Chinese, and he assigned me to live in his cousin’s hut. I was like a slave. They worked me very hard, and the cousin’s wife hated me because she suspected that her husband… wanted me.
I was numb from hunger, hard work, and the cold, but perhaps this was good for me, because it also numbed my grief. And the mountains were beautiful. As I worked in the vegetable gardens I could see the snowy peak on the Silkworm’s Eyebrow-Mount Emei-a mountain sacred to Daoists and Buddhists. It is part of my story, because I ran away from the hut and fled up the mountain.
The husband came to my kang one night. He was filthy and drunk and tried to press himself on me. I fought, and the wife heard the noise. She came in and beat me. Later that night I put my few things in a cloth and walked up the mountain. I was very afraid, because I had heard stories of the many wild animals there-tigers, snakes, big monkeys, even pandas.
I followed the path of the Buddhist pilgrims, stone steps up through the forest to the very top of the mountain. For a thousand years Buddhist… pilgrims… have climbed to the summit of the mountain to look into Buddha’s Mirror.
At the very top of the mountain you can look over into an abyss, thousands of feet deep, filled with mist. But magical light hits this mist and makes reflection. So when you look over edge, you see Buddha’s Mirror, and you see your true self. You see your soul.
That is called “enlightenment,” which is the goal of all Buddhists. So the mountain is sacred, and many pilgrims make the climb to Buddha’s Mirror to find enlightenment. The climb takes at least three days, so pilgrims sleep at monasteries along the trail.
There are many monasteries hidden deep in the forest, far away from the stone path, and I thought I would stay on the main path until daylight, then try to find a very remote monastery to hide in. As a good communist, I did not believe in God, but I hoped to find refuge among the monks and nuns.
But I became lost. It was dark and the path seemed to disappear beneath my feet. All around me was thick bamboo, and I heard the howling of wild animals. And it was so cold! Snowing now! I was freezing in my thin clothes. I sat down in a tiny clearing and hugged myself. I rocked back and forth and cried and cried. I did not know what to do. I just sat down to die. Then the miracle happened. A light appeared in the woods! A lantern! I walked toward it and then I saw that light was in a small cave, and in the cave was a man-a monk-and an ancient little statue of a beautiful woman-Kuan Yin, the goddess of mercy-one of the many faces of Buddha. The monk wrapped me in a blanket. He built a little fire and it was still cold, but not dying cold, and I fell asleep. When I woke up, it was morning, and the monk said it was time to go. I followed him up the mountain for many li. My feet hurt, and my legs ached, but I was happy. In Kuan Yin I had seen the beautiful face of my mother, guiding me to safety, and then I believed in God.
We climbed and climbed! I saw so many wonderful sights! Wild rivers, sheer cliffs, lovely pavilions from which you could see forever. The walk became harder and steeper, and the monk strapped spikes to my shoes so I could climb through the ice and snow. The first night we stayed at a monastery. I went into the temple and found Kuan Yin and sat with her for hours and my mind was at peace. I got up that morning ready for the climb. We walked along narrow paths across deep canyons. To fall would mean death, but I was not afraid.