Red Scarf Girl Page 6

  We did not take the bus back home. We walked instead, so that people would see us carrying our perfect new schoolbags and our dazzling new lunch boxes. We were sure that everyone we passed on the street knew that we were going to attend one of the city’s best schools.

  No longer crowded with students, Xin Er Primary School seemed much larger and quieter during summer vacation. A bird calling from a parasol tree sounded shockingly loud, and our footsteps echoed in the empty hallway.

  Less than a week after we had bought our new lunch boxes, An Yi and I had heard a rumor from some of our classmates. They said that the teachers’ assignments had been canceled. We could not believe this was true, but we were anxious. We decided to visit Teacher Gu’s office and ask her ourselves.

  We tapped on the door and she let us in.

  The small office had changed. Beautiful calligraphy scrolls had been replaced by a poster of Chairman Mao, and the knickknacks in the bookcase were gone.

  Teacher Gu looked at us expectantly. Even though we had been waiting all week to see her, now that the moment had come, it was hard to ask the question.

  “We heard that teachers can’t assign students to the schools after all. We just wondered…” My voice trailed off.

  Teacher Gu nodded. “We got a new directive from the city. All students will be assigned to schools by their residential districts. The teachers’ assignments have been invalidated.”

  “Invalidated…” I murmured. Another beautiful dream gone. I had been counting the days before the new term began. Now I saw the Shi-yi badge flash before my eyes and disappear. So did the new lunch box. They were gone in an instant, like soap bubbles.

  “Does that mean that everyone from the same neighborhood will go to the same school?” I whispered.

  “That’s right. Everyone from your neighborhood will be in Xin-zha Junior High School.”

  “And Du Hai and Yin Lan-lan too?”

  Teacher Gu stood up and put her arms around us. “Don’t worry,” she said softly. “Things are bound to change for the better. They will. Cheer up. It will be all right.”

  An Yi and I came out of the office and stood in the hallway for a long while. We turned to leave.

  “Let’s take one more look at the school,” I suggested. We walked to our old classroom.

  The cut-paper characters STUDY HARD AND ADVANCE EVERY DAY still hung on the front wall, but several pins were missing and some of the characters hung askew. The neatly designed and decorated Students’ Garden was written over with crude letters that read REVOLUTIONARY ACTIONS.

  I sat at my desk, which now felt small and slightly unfamiliar. Once more I looked at the sword carved into the top long ago by some naughty boy. As my fingers traced the grooves in the wood, I could hear Teacher Gu’s voice saying, “It will be all right.” I looked around the room one more time before I left, and Du Hai’s jeers seemed almost as far behind me as the day I had been elected da-dui-zhang.

  We walked past the library. I had spent many hours in that small room and had discovered many of our national heroes there: brave Liu Hu-lan, who died rather than surrender to a Nationalist warlord; heroic Huang Hi-guang, who sacrificed himself to save his comrades in Korea; and others who gave their lives for the revolution. Now there was a sign on the door that Said CLOSED FOR SORTING DURING SUMMER VACATION, and I could see that half the shelves were empty. I knew that many of my favorite books, like the stories in Grandpa Hong’s bookstall, would be sorted away forever, declared poison under the new standards.

  We turned and left the school yard for the last time.

  THT SOUND OF DRUMS AND GONGS

  The heat of summer had begun in earnest. At noon the sun scorched overhead, and the familiar slow drone of the popsicle man floated in through the open windows, accompanied by the rhythmic clap of a wooden block on a box: “Ice-cold popsicles. Green bean popsicles. Red bean popsicles. Ice-cold popsicles.” My hands sweated so much holding the wool that I could not knit. Instead, I worked on embroidering a pillow sham as I waited for the coo! of the evening. In the distance I could hear the sound of drums and gongs.

  There was a tension in the air that even we children felt. The newspapers and radio were full of the campaign to “Destroy the Four Olds.” The campaign had been expanded to eliminate personal possessions. “If we do not completely eliminate the roots, the plant will grow back,” we heard. “We must eradicate these relics of the past.… We must not allow the reactionary forces to hoard their treasures.…” And every day we heard the drums and gongs that meant the Red Guards were ransacking the houses of class enemies to find and confiscate their hoarded possessions.

  One day the drums and gongs approached closer than I had ever heard them before. Ji-yun and her classmate Xiao Hong-yin ran into the house, full of the news. “It’s a search party, all right,” Ji-yun shouted. “They came from Old Man Rong’s factory in trucks and they posted a da-zi-bao. Come on! Let’s go see.” She dragged me down the stairs.

  A crowd was already gathering at Number Eleven, old Mr. Rong’s house. Two dark trucks blocked the entry. The sides of the trucks were covered with red banners that said things like SWEEP AWAY ALL THE REACTIONARY MONSTERS AND DESTROY THE FOUR OLDS AND ESTABLISH THE FOUR NEWS. The big iron gate in front of the building was closed, but there was an unusual clamor coming from inside the house. The indistinct shouts of the Red Guards mingled with the furious barking of Mrs. Rong’s huge dog. We could only imagine what was going on inside.

  A da-zi-bao was posted on the gate, and a solemn crowd had gathered around to read it, wiping their faces with handkerchiefs and shading their heads with palm-leaf fans. Du Hai’s mother was there along with another Neighborhood Party officer. I pushed my way between the people so I could read the da-zi-bao.

  “Though the capitalist Rong De-feng has died, his widow still lives on his ill-gotten gains. The factories in which her husband exploited the masses have been returned to their rightful owners, the workers and the People’s government. Yet the reactionary monster still lives on the blood of the workers. Instead of admitting her crimes and striving to atone for her sins, Old Lady Rong has sent her sons to Hong Kong, where they can continue to exploit the Chinese people, and she herself continues to flaunt her bourgeois life. The Red Guards have determined to eradicate the roots of this noxious weed in order to promote Chairman Mao’s revolutionary cause.”

  I had never seen a search, except in the movies. I knew that they were the only way we were going to get rid of the Four Olds, once and for all. Still, there was something about the idea that made me nervous.

  Ji-yun pulled on my arm. “Ji-li, what does ‘noxious’ mean?” Before I could answer her, Grandma was at my shoulder.

  “Ji-li, help me carry this bag. Ji-yun, come along home now.” She hustled us away. Ji-yun was still jabbering excitedly, but Grandma was stern. “You children stay in the house this afternoon, you hear? That’s nothing for you to gawk at.”

  When Ji-yong came back in, he was thrilled too. He had spent part of the day in the park and had missed some of the excitement. “I saw them driving away a truck just full of stuff. I’m going back to see what else they got.”

  “You’ll do nothing of the kind,” Grandma said sharply. “Those poor people have enough to worry about without your going to stare at them.” I was not sure who Grandma was worried about, the Red Guards or Mrs. Rong, but it was clear that she did not want us involved.

  All that afternoon I was restless. I pictured Mrs. Rong, sitting under guard, cursing because her fourolds were being found. I imagined the searchers ransacking the trunks and drawers and drilling holes in the walls to look for hidden valuables. It seemed both inspiring and scary. When Grandma asked me buy her some soy sauce, I could not help seizing the opportunity to go past Number Eleven and take another look.

  People just getting home from work had swelled the crowd at the gate. Some of them were clustered in front of the da-zi-bao, but many more were talking in small groups. Children ran up
and down the alley around and through the knots of people. One boy dared to hit a gong, and the clang startled everyone. The alley fell into silence. Everyone turned to look at the boy, and he scurried to stand behind his father. The conversation continued in hushed tones.

  “It’s no surprise to me,” said a woman I recognized as the housekeeper from Number Nine. “Every day when she went out all dolled up, I said to myself, she is heading for a fall.”

  “Last New Year’s she went out with a new diamond ring bigger than I ever saw before,” another old woman said. “Mrs. Feng’s housekeeper told me it was over three carats. And the clothes she had made in Hong Kong! Every time somebody else got a new dress, you could be sure Mrs. Rong would get a prettier one.”

  “Yes, and the taxicabs and the dinners.… And mah-jongg all night sometimes.”

  I moved closer to the da-zi-bao on the gate.

  “They said she had hundreds of thousands of yuan in the bank.”

  “I heard a million! My uncle worked in one of his factories before Liberation, and he knew all about Old Rong.” This was Mr. Ni, the man we called Six-Fingers because of the extra finger on his right hand. He lived in one of the converted garages in our alley.

  “The antiques they carried out a while ago must have been worth a million all by themselves.”

  “And there was that trunk full of gold bars. They could hardly carry it.” There was satisfaction in their voices.

  The gate opened with a loud clang and I jumped. Eight men struggled out with a huge mahogany four-poster bed. It was just like Mom and Dad’s bed, with a mirror in the headboard surrounded by carved dragons. Most of the crowd murmured in admiration, but I also heard an indignant snort.

  “Typical capitalist,” said a ragged-looking old woman.

  I blushed. Our family had a capitalist bed, too. I turned and made my way out of the crowd.

  The sound of drums and gongs drew near again. I saw Grandma wince. “Who is it this time?” she muttered. “You children stay in the house this afternoon.” She wearily turned back to the kitchen.

  Everyone could identify the sounds of a search, and we had grown expert at locating them in the neighborhood. After six more searches had been conducted in our alley, they were no longer exciting, but the adults I knew grew more and more tense.

  Only Ji-yong was still enthusiastic about them. He always seemed to know the latest stories. “The housekeeper at Number Eighteen told the searchers that there were gold bars hidden in the toilet tank,” he laughed. “At Number Twenty-seven, where Lu’s mistress lives, they found his wife’s jewelry.” And, most riveting of all, “They found real weapons at Number Thirty-eight.” His voice was hushed with excitement. “They went up into the attic and looked in the old chimney, and they found a gun!”

  “And do you know what else?” Song Po-po added, really speaking to Grandma rather than to us. “Six-Fingers is always at every search. He’s too sick to work at the light bulb factory, but he’s not too sick to go to every search and carry things out. He has all the roughest little children organized into a kind of posse to help keep order. He says he’s proud to be doing his part.” Grandma raised her head, but I heard no response.

  It was hard to imagine where Song Po-po heard so much news. When neighbors ran into each other, they did not stop to chat but just nodded and hurried on. Everyone felt vulnerable, and no one wanted to say anything that would cause trouble. We children were warned to stay close to home and come back at once if a search occurred. Only some of the few working-class people in the alley still seemed excited when they heard the drums and gongs.

  In other years summer vacation had been a happy time. In the daytime we went to the pool or to the movies or to the park to turn somersaults and roll on the grass. Evenings we sat in the alley with the neighbors and listened to stories. We would watch the moon and sing and giggle until very late.

  Now things were different. An Yi had been sent away to spend the summer with her grandparents in Shandong, away from Shanghai’s turbulence. I missed her terribly. I saw hardly any kids in the neighborhood. No one came out to play. There seemed to be no laughter in the alley—just a growing, choking tension.

  Things got so bad that Mom and Dad decided to dismiss Song Po-po.

  I heard Mom speaking to her in the kitchen. “We really hate to let you go. But if the Red Guards found out, they would accuse us of exploiting working people.” Mom’s voice sounded uncomfortable. She paused for a moment, then continued, “We want to give you this in thanks.…”

  That evening Song Po-po carried a small bag downstairs with her. Her eyes were red, and she seemed even more hunchbacked than usual.

  I did not know why she seemed so sad. Song Po-po was part of the family, and it was good that she was not working for us. It meant we were not exploiting her.

  I thought of everything Song Po-po had done for us. On rainy days she would meet us at the school gate with three pairs of boots in a plastic bag, and two umbrellas under her arm. Often she was half soaked when we got home, but we were always perfectly dry. When we ate up all the sweets Grandma bought us and wanted more, Song Po-po would buy us a popsicle or a sweet roll out of her own limited funds.

  Unlike other housekeepers, Song Po-po could read—not only books, but musk too. Sometimes when we passed her door, we would see her sitting in her wicker chair with a music book in her hand, humming a folk song from her hometown. Ji-yong and Ji-yun would throw themselves into her lap and try to sing along, while I would stand behind her and play with her naturally curly hair.

  My Fourth Aunt once told me that people with naturally curly hair were fated to suffer. That was certainly true in Song Po-po’s case. She had come from a wealthy family, but her husband had committed suicide after his business went bankrupt. All their money went to pay his debts, and she had had to become a housekeeper. It was very sad, and when I remembered this, I was even happier we were no longer exploiting her.

  She still lived in the small room downstairs. We could still visit her and play with her fascinating hair. But we no longer heard her happy humming, and she no longer bought us treats or met us with umbrellas when it rained.

  With Song Po-po gone there was a lot more work for us to do. Excited at the idea of getting up and going out at dawn, I volunteered to buy meat and vegetables at the market. This was the hardest job, but considering Grandma’s age—she was over seventy—and Mom’s and Dad’s busy schedules, I felt it was my duty. It was also a good chance to get rid of my remaining bourgeois habits.

  The first few days I was overwhelmed. I couldn’t identify some of the vegetables I was supposed to buy. I couldn’t tell if the fish was fresh or not. Most of all, facing so many people and so many lines, I was totally lost. Each item had its own line, and everything was first come, first served. Often, after standing in a long line for one vegetable, I found that everything else I needed was sold out. Even items that required ration coupons ran out early. But I learned fast. Soon I knew how to pick the best produce and the freshest fish, how to choose the right lines to buy the best food in the shortest time. I learned to stand in one line while having my place held in another, so I could be sure of getting everything Grandma wanted despite the shortages.

  Every morning at five thirty I left the alley. I hurried through the empty streets feeling excited and proud. I was a grown-up now, doing a grown-up’s job. 1 was clearly not one of the pampered bourgeoisie.

  One day Grandma got sick, and I took over the cooking as well.

  When the old square German clock struck twelve, Ji-yong appeared at my shoulder. “You said lunch would be ready by now,” he grumbled.

  “Just stop bothering me, will you!” I pushed my sweaty hair off my forehead. The kitchen, located on the landing and crammed with pots and pans and a two-burner gas stove, was crowded and stuffy. With the heat from the sun outside and the heat from the stove in front of me, I was simply melting.

  I turned to the instructions Mom had left for me. “Steam the egg
s for twenty minutes, then add some soy sauce.” I lifted the cover of the wok and gasped in dismay.

  Oh, no!

  The bowl holding the eggs must have overturned into the boiling water. Now, instead of steamed eggs, I had a pot full of egg soup! I decided to mix the egg soup with the rice (which I had burned earlier) anyway. I poured soy sauce into the whole mess and shouted, “Lunch is ready.”

  Ji-yong did not seem as hungry as he had been. Ji-yun picked at her plate. Grandma said I did very well, but I noticed she hardly ate anything either. I worried that her arthritis had gotten worse, even though she had been lying down all morning.

  “Can I get anything for you, Grandma?” I asked.

  “No, I’ll be all right. When your mother gets home, I’ll have her take me to the clinic for acupuncture. That always helps.”

  “We can take you to the clinic,” Ji-yong said.

  I gave him a questioning look.

  “The Neighborhood Party Committee has a pedicab in their courtyard,” he said. “You can borrow it if someone in your family is sick. I can ride it if you help me get started.”

  “Sweetie, that’s nice of you to offer, but I think you’d better get some experience first,” Grandma said.

  “I’ve ridden it lots of times.” Ji-yong saw my face, and just as Grandma coughed, he amended softly, “Well, a few, anyway. To practice.”

  “Mom won’t be home till late,” I pondered aloud. “If we help push, and Ji-yong goes slowly, we can do it.”

  “If you’re sure…” Grandma said. She must have been in a lot of pain. That decided me.

  Ji-yun helped Grandma down the steps while Ji-yong and I got the pedicab. Standing in front of us, it seemed much bigger, much blacker, much less friendly than I remembered. Slowly we pushed it back to our house. Grandma clambered stiffly into the covered seat in back, and we set off.

  Ji-yong’s legs were too short, so he had to stand up to turn the pedals. Ji-yun and I pushed from behind. The pedicab moved cautiously down the alley and entered the busy street. The traffic light turned red, and the pedicab slowed down as Ji-yong pressed the hand brake. We came to a smooth stop. Ji-yong gave a confident smile, and I began to relax.