Feather in the Storm: A Childhood Lost in Chaos (15 page)

After six days, the marchers arrived at their destination and were assigned to several villages. Mama was sent to live with a family in Liushan Village. A young Red Guard was chosen to live with her and report on her labor and behavior to supervising officials. Papa was assigned to a room with eleven other cow demons in a peasant’s hut in nearby Nan Village. The men worked during the day, attended criticism meetings in the evening and slept on the dirt floor at night as they learned from the peasants.

Mama agonized over the three of us in Hefei. She had never been away from my brothers. Yet she could not betray her feelings to the young woman watching her for fear of being accused of bourgeois sentimentality. She was so preoccupied with our condition that there were times she feared she was losing her mind. She worried that she might
become ill and incapable of caring for us when we were reunited. After the migrants were settled, the Propaganda Team leader announced an “Iron Rule.” “Under no circumstance,” he said, “will anyone be allowed to return to Hefei. If someone dies in this village, he will be buried here.” This, Mama concluded, was to discourage suicide among the cow demons and snake spirits. There was no hope of ever going home, dead or alive.

The Iron Rule, however, did not apply to the Propaganda Team members. The ruling elite went back to Hefei whenever they wished and returned to the village with warm clothes and food for themselves and their comrades.

The three of us adjusted to life in the child care center. At mealtime, one of the supervisors made an announcement, and we walked to the classrooms to eat with the younger children. The food—usually a bowl of rice porridge—was put before each of us. All children, regardless of age, were given the same portion. Each child was provided with a tin cup, and large thermoses of boiled water were placed in the room each morning for drinking.

A single latrine that consisted of a room with several stalls and holes in a concrete floor was divided into boys’ and girls’ sections. Iron water pipes with faucets projected from the wall over a drain in the floor. That was where we brushed our teeth and washed ourselves and our clothing. There was no hot water. Soap was rationed at one cake per family per month. Toothpaste was a concoction that looked and tasted like white glue and was also rationed.

The cook was a middle-aged man we called Uncle Liu. He had been a peasant and worked in the countryside most of his life. He had dark leathery skin and a mustache, the only one I’d ever seen. Shortly after we arrived at the center Yiding became Uncle Liu’s assistant. After
dinner each evening, Yiding sneaked food to Yicun, Xiaolan and me in his pockets. Some days he brought a fistful of rice he’d scraped from a pot and sometimes small pieces of meat or vegetables Uncle Liu had given him as a reward for his hard work. We had to go outside to eat the extra food so that the other children wouldn’t report us.

We were allowed to write one letter each month to our parents. Everything we wrote had to be preceded and followed by effusive praise for Chairman Mao. I managed to get a little news in my letters to Mama. But my words made her sadder and she missed us even more. Classes resumed several months later, when fighting between the Red Guard factions ceased. Xiaolan and I walked to our school together after breakfast. We returned to the center for lunch. At the end of each day we did our homework while sitting on our bedding. I did the laundry for my brothers, washing their bedding and clothing by hand. I also mended their shirts and trousers and socks.

Divisions between red and black families persisted among the younger children. One afternoon I found Yicun standing with his face pressed to the cold windowpane while the other children played nearby.

“Yicun!” I called to him. “Let’s go outside.”

I bundled him up and took him to the playground. He loved to ride the merry-go-round. It was a little hand-pushed wheel with wooden animals mounted on it. I helped him climb onto a horse and pushed it around and ran beside him. He came out of his grim mood and began laughing and shouting, “Faster! Faster!” I recalled how delighted he had been when our parents had brought him here on weekends in the past.

As the weeks passed, the amount of food we were given each day decreased. Some days the vegetables were skipped, and some weeks there was no meat. Sometimes they served us all baby food for several days in a row. We licked our bowls clean. Mama sent ration coupons, and on the way to the center from school, I’d look for a black market. When I found food, I gave almost all of it to my brothers, just as
Grandma once had done for me. Mama sent us a bag of peanuts. Yiding was in charge of the peanut distribution. He gave them to us one per person per day until they ran out. Xiaolan and I talked about food constantly. We remembered and described the meals our mothers prepared. We dreamed of food. I awakened in the middle of the night aching with hunger. As everyone else slept, I opened my bag, squeezed several beads of toothpaste into my mouth and chewed on it as long as possible before swallowing it.

I went to Yicun’s room each night, covered him and sat on his mat, and told him stories to lull him to sleep. The stories he liked best were those Papa told him, the ones I’d heard from my hiding place. The older boys and girls gathered in one room and told stories; we took turns. Xiaolan told wonderful tales from Chinese folklore. I tried to reconstruct
The Count of Monte Cristo
but found I’d forgotten long parts of the story. I sometimes confused my attentive listeners, so I improvised. I remembered well, however, the final words, “Wait and hope,” and whispered them as a magical conclusion.

Yiding was the best storyteller among us. We gathered around him when he launched his colorful epics. One night he told so many stories that we were up until dawn. We could not be roused for breakfast. The supervisors asked us why we were exhausted and one of the boys confessed, “Because we were listening to Yiding tell stories last night.” The supervisors were angry and ordered Yiding to stop telling stories. During the next few nights, Comrade Pan stuck her head in the door to make sure no one was talking.

The weather became colder. Our clothes were threadbare, and I kept them together through constant sewing, letting out hems, and stitching on patches. Yiding and I returned to our apartment and retrieved more clothing. The building was empty. We discovered the glass in the apartment door had been broken but everything appeared to be the way Mama had left it. We pulled shards of broken glass from the pane and nailed a board over it. We picked up winter clothing and returned to the center. In order to stay warm, we put on all of our
clothing. I huddled on my mat beneath a pile of blankets with Xiaolan. We lay together shivering and listening to the wind and the sleet thrash the windows.

Yicun complained that he was so cold he could not sleep. I worried about him constantly. Each week he became increasingly withdrawn. At night he was afraid to go alone through the unlit hall to the latrine. He began wetting his bed. The supervisors were incensed. They forced him to sleep on his damp bedding. One night he had a bowel movement in bed. Comrade Pan was furious. She threatened to throw him out. Yicun burst into tears and called for Mama.

Comrade Pan and the other supervisors concluded the only way to prevent a recurrence was to deprive him of dinner. During the dinner hour he sat on his mat and watched the other children eat. When I saw him that night, he whispered, “Big Sister, I want to go home. I am hungry.” I was about to say, “I’m hungry too,” but stopped myself. I went to my room and squirted toothpaste onto my palm. I returned to Yicun and told him I had candy for him. “Close your eyes,” I said. I rubbed the toothpaste on his tongue. He tasted it, chewed it, and asked, “Are you sure this is candy?”

“Yes,” I said. “Xiaolan gave it to me.”

He smiled and licked his lips and asked for more. I told him that Papa and Mama would return soon and then we could all live at home and eat all we wanted.

With the approach of the Lunar New Year in the second week of February, the Red Guards, factory workers and soldiers began preparing to return home for the week-long holiday. The Year of the Rooster began on Monday, February 17, 1969. It was believed that since the rooster’s crow precedes the light of day at the end of a dark night, so, too, the Year of the Rooster might bring light at the end of a dark period of time. Mama was hopeful that the New Year would bring an end to her separation from her husband and children.

One week before the holiday, the Propaganda Team leader in Liushan Village made an unexpected public announcement. The Communist Party leadership had decided that female teachers with young children would be allowed to return home to celebrate the holiday. Details would be given later, he said. Mama became giddy with excitement. She cautiously anticipated a subsequent directive giving the exact day and hour she could depart. The women were summoned to the village canteen. The Propaganda Team leader read a list of names of those mothers authorized to leave. Mama’s name was missing. She approached the Propaganda Team leader and asked why her name had been omitted. “I have three small children in Hefei,” she reminded him.

“Li Yikai, you know very well your husband is in the cowshed with the other cow demons,” he replied. “He is a bad element. We cannot allow you to go home.”

At midnight she stood alone at her window and tried to find strength in memories of the few past holidays we had spent together as a family.

————

Children were retrieved from the center by relatives who carried them home to celebrate the Lunar New Year. I hoped for a surprise when I returned to the center from school each day and imagined Mama or Papa waiting for us. Finally, Xiaolan and I were the only ones left in the girls’ bedroom. We were sitting on our mats reading one afternoon when a familiar voice cried, “Xiaolan!”

“Mama!” Xiaolan shouted and leaped to her feet. Auntie Liang appeared in the doorway and Xiaolan ran to her. She had come to take Xiaolan home.

“Are my mama and papa coming home, too, Auntie Liang?” I asked.

“I don’t think so, Maomao,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”

My heart sank. Auntie Liang told me she hoped Mama would come home within a few weeks.

The staff went home later that afternoon. Uncle Liu departed for his village. No dinner was served. Yiding came for me and we went to Yicun’s room. Only the three of us remained in the building. As night fell, we heard muffled laughter and the intermittent pop of firecrackers.

It was New Year’s Eve.

We wrapped ourselves in our blankets and stood at the gate to watch the festivities. We laughed at the bright flashes and explosions up and down the street, and moments later, jumped at the bang of the firecrackers. Little clouds of shredded paper drifted like snowflakes from buildings where people lit strings of firecrackers and flung them out the
windows and shouted for good luck. We listened and looked and wondered what life was like for those people. None of us spoke except for a momentary “oh” or “ah.” We remained there until we were shivering with cold. We went inside to Yicun’s room and lay down and covered ourselves with three blankets.

I could not sleep. I was cold and hungry. I went to the window and peered out into the blackness. It was as silent as a cemetery. I lay my forehead against the icy glass and cried. I decided that I would take my brothers home, if only for one day. Nobody was going to check to see where we were. Nobody cared. I had a few food coupons for flour and meat, and I had two yuan hidden under my mat. I rose early and went outside to search for street vendors. I was able to find one and bought a bit of meat, cabbage and flour. I returned and told my brothers my plan. They were delighted. On the way home I promised I’d make dumplings for our holiday.

In our apartment we found a few coal briquettes for the stove. I tried repeatedly to light them by igniting pieces of paper. I failed. The paper burned and the smoke lingered in the apartment, and before long, we were coughing and teary-eyed. I ran out of matches and had no coupons to purchase more.

I remembered Xiaolan was at home with her mother. I went to their apartment and knocked. Auntie Liang didn’t have matches or kindling to share with me but she told me to fetch my brothers and we could have our holiday meal together. I retrieved my brothers and my food supply, and we hurried to Auntie Liang’s apartment.

Auntie Liang prepared a real feast. With no electricity in the building, she lit a kerosene lamp as night fell. We gathered around a small table when the meal was ready. Yicun scooped up the dumplings and soup without lifting his eyes from his bowl. Xiaolan and I nudged each other and pointed at him and giggled. Auntie Liang prepared two servings for each of us. I was full for the first time in weeks. After dinner we told Auntie Liang how we had little to do but study in the center and how we told stories to quiet the little ones and entertain one another. I
described how Yiding’s tales fascinated the other children and how he kept us awake. We were unusually talkative, and even Yicun emerged from his shell and haltingly told Auntie Liang about riding the merry-go-round and learning revolutionary songs.

After listening and laughing with us, Auntie Liang announced that she needed to take us back to the center because she was required to return in the morning to the village where she’d been assigned. I thought this odd since I knew other parents came home for the whole week. As we buttoned our padded jackets and tied our scarves Auntie Liang rummaged through some boxes in her bedroom. When she returned, she said, “Look what I found!” and held her hand near the lantern. There was a jade ring on her little finger. Jewelry had been denounced by the Red Guards as bourgeois, and could be confiscated. We gazed at the ring, enchanted, and reached out to feel it. “This belonged to my great-grandmother,” she whispered wistfully.

“It’s beautiful,” I exclaimed, and everyone agreed.

After showing us the ring, Auntie Liang tried to remove it. She twisted and pulled, but it stayed on her finger. “It’s all right,” she said. “I’ll take it off later. We must go now.”