The Sand Hill Review               http://www.stanford.edu/~sandhill              2006

Purple Velvet Death

        By b.b. wei

Big Sister and I left the village half year after the Chinese New Year’s Eve and resumed our life in Shanghai.   Four years later when I was twelve and Big Sister 24,  Father was returned to us. Our Mother, however, committed suicide in her labour camp with a piece of purple velvet cloth she had torn form the only dress she had secretly brought with her.  She could no longer endure it all after ten long years.   Mao died a few months later after her death and most of the camps were dispersed since.  Little did our mother know, a few months wait would have relieved her and all her pain.  It was the year of 1976.  It was our zodiac year the Year of Dragon. 

Sean, my darling English husband now, often tells me the year Mao died he was 26 and had just completed his doctorate at the Cambridge University in England and landed his first job there as a lecture assistant for the Architecture Department. 

That year, Sean learned more the horror of Mao. His enthusiasm of Maoism faded but his interest in Asian architecture grew without knowing continents away, during that year, I first fell in love with Brother Jun, our father’s best friend’s son.  He had grown to a tall sixteen year old handsome boy. I, in fact, fell in love with him after learning he was a colour-blind. 

Granny fell in deep depression upon Mother’s death.  Each time we visited her, she would lie in her bamboo sleeping-chair, her eyes half-closed and her big unbound feet were resting on a high bamboo stool. Tears trickled down her cheeks without a sound. Her tear lines looked like the thin stream running outside Grass Doctor’s house. The sleeping chair had been adjusted to its final notches so that it was almost as flat as a bed. Big Sister placed the box of cake and fruits we had bought on a stool next to Granny’s sleeping-chair. We invited her to come to our apartment as Papa told us to, but she did not respond.

“It’s the Year of the Dragon,” Granny murmured. “The Dragon is bringing so many people to the Yin World.”

I nodded, wiping off Granny’s tears with my white cotton handkerchief from Mama.

During that time I developed a daily ritual of sitting near the window for the whole day, watching the plane trees shivering in the winter wind at the Textile Compound Square in the middle of the Compound. The leaves rustled under the thin, pale sun.  I often thought nothing had changed, except that Mama would never come home again. On the other hand, she had become a ghost who didn’t have to wear a uniform anymore.  Perhaps she could now wear any of the beautiful dresses the she had brought with her in her suitcase to marry Papa. The dresses she had never been able to wear in the last ten years were still hung inside the mirrorless wardrobe waiting for her.  Perhaps I could pack them up and send them to her in her Yin world.

My body was numb and tears would not come out of my eyes.  We were not supposed to cry anyway as Mama’s death was defined as counter-revolutionary.   I spoke very little during the day; at night I started sleepwalking. Big Sister told me that every night I would sleepwalk to Mama and Papa’s bedroom, lie down on their bed for a while, then sit up, calling “Ma-ma, Ma-ma.” That’s how I woke myself up, and it was how Big Sister knew I was not really mute again. I just did not want to talk during the day. I remember dreaming of Mama in her purple velvet dress, her eyes wide open and her eye-bags very dark. Sometimes I would follow the purple velvet dress around, walking towards the balcony. Once I woke up there feeling Big Sister’s hand holding my waist, her other hand on the bolt of the door.

 A week after Mama’s counter-revolutionary death and two days after my Dragon Zodiac birthday, a big revolutionary death happened: the great Premier Zhou En-lai. Everyone in China loved Premier Zhou so everyone cried: the teachers at school, the shopkeepers on the street and even the butchers at the food market.  Then summer came with the death of a big General called Zhu De.  His death was overshadowed by the death of the earthquake in northern China soon after.  We started to stay in Jun’s house a lot as Father was just returned to us and had to deal with the earthquake prevention in his Textile Council where he was given back his position of managing director.

Jun, Big Sister and I would sit in front of their black and white television, a few sets in the whole country, to watch the People’s Army helping out with saving the dead people in the town north of Beijing, giving supplies to the people.  We did not see any dead bodies.   Jun however spread us news, in his whisper to Big Sister’s ear of the number he learned from his channels, his friends of army generals in Beijing.  I pressed Big Sister to tell me the truth.  The numbers, however, were even too big for me to count.

The tide of death of that year terrified me. It felt all the dead souls were ghosts walking among us. I wondered which population was larger — the dead people in the Yin world, or the live people in our Yang world. I had just started my geography lessons at school and learned that China had the largest population of any country in the world. Now I thought that if China had as many dead people, then we would have the largest population in the Yin  world too. I also wondered whether everything was my fault since I was a Fire Dragon, and whether I was a curse on my Mama. Perhaps I should not have stared at her eye bags so much when we visited her; perhaps I should not have been born in the Year of Dragon.

 Just as the quakes were quieting down and Papa came home daily, there came the big death of Mao. That was the biggest death ever and it shook the entire country, much more than the earthquake.

 It was the ninth of September, a Monday. The late summer heat was thinning and the cicadas were not singing much any more. It was also the first day of my school in autumn term. We were given new textbooks and allocated new seats in the classroom. I came home as soon as the class finished because Big Sister said she had tickets for a new cartoon film. As I walked into the Army Compound, the ponderous sounds of national dirge music poured out of loudspeakers from every direction, making me feel as if the world was coming to an end.

That was the third time I heard the dirge that year. From the day Mama died, mourning was the only sound that could be heard on the street throughout the year. The black armband for the dead was a new national fashion. The dirge became a familiar tune, more familiar than the national anthem we heard every morning while watching the Five Red Star flag climbing up to the top of our school’s flag pole. For most of that year, the flag was only half-raised.

I quickly ran into Brother Jun’s house, wanting to know who died this time. Everyone was standing in the house, apart from our General Uncle in his wheelchair. Uncle looked like he was in shock. The television was on and the news announcer was talking about the life of Mao, showing many photographs of him starting from the age of twenty, when Mao studied hard at his Papa’s farmhouse about Marxism and Communism.

“There’s going to be trouble,” Uncle muttered, and wheeled himself into his study. I was surprised to see Brother Jun back already from his first day at his boarding high school. He was supposed to stay at school until Friday. His eyes were glued on the television box.  To my surprise, Papa walked into Jun’s house at five. I never saw him back from work before seven o’clock. He went straight into General Uncle’s study and they closed the study door without coming out until dinner was served. The air was so tense and I could hardly breathe. I wished I had a sword to cut the tense air.  I feared my asthma would be coming on.

During the dinner, no one spoke. The chief soldier, Old Wang, cooked a spicy-sour soup to open up our appetites. General Uncle wheeled himself back into his study after he drank the soup, without eating any of the main dishes. The television in the living room remained on, which had never happened before. The sound of dirge circled around the house, accompanying  our silent eating.

On the third of the Mao mourning days, the Army compound delivered to Brother Jun’s house a big new colour television set. It had been consigned to them so they could watch the upcoming funeral of Mao, a week away. The colour television was in the sitting room and the black and white one was moved to General Uncle’s study, where he stayed inside on his own with the door closed most of the day.

On the day of the funeral, General Uncle finally came out. He watched the afternoon funeral with us, skipping his usual nap. The Tian’anmen Gate Building on the new colour television was now very red instead of black and white, and so was the red Gate of the Heavenly Peace, the wall along the Forbidden Palace. Above the Gate was Mao’s reddish face hanging on top of the gate, gazing into the distance. His mole looked too red as well.

On the television screen, everything looked sombre: crying faces, black arm bands, little white chest flowers, gigantic flower rings on Mao’s half-open coffin, lots of slow-moving jeeps in a parade. An alien adult world seemed to be overtaking both the television and the house. All the seriousness was suffocating; I wished I had a knife to cut the tense air into pieces.

The bigger screen seemed to make the funeral parade longer, longer than the parade we saw for Premier Zhou anyway on the black and white television.  The starting point of the parade was the same, in front of Tian’anmen Square. It continued along the red walls of the Forbidden City on the Avenue of the Eternal Peace, which had seen two funeral parades that year.

 “The colour’s a bit strange,” Jun’s mother commented when everyone was watching the half-raised Five-Star Red Flag, flapping in the autumn wind in the middle of Tian’anmen Square.

“What’s strange about it?” asked Brother Jun.

“I’ll call someone to adjust it, son, don’t worry.” Auntie tapped Brother Jun on his shoulder.

I peered into Brother Jun’s slanted, thin eyes. There was a reflection of the red Tian’anmen Gate Building in them. Why could he not see how the colours were wrong? Auntie called a technical soldier who tuned the television until the red was not so red, and green could be seen as well. He said everything else should be the same as the old television, apart from the fact the screen was now fifteen inches instead of nine.

“I’m going to my studio,” Jun stood up, annoyed, walking towards the kitchen.  I followed him quietly, tiptoeing.

“Don’t follow me, Ling Ling,” Jun realised I was his tail as he approached the door of his studio.

“Let me have a peep, please. I heard a lot about your studio.”

“You ought to watch the parade.”

“I’ve done it twice a year after my Mama’s death.”

“Well…” he gave up, turning the key to the underground tunnel where we used to practise hiding imagining being bombed by the American Imperialists. That was what these tunnels were built for.   A couple of public tunnels inside our Textile Compound were not used for children to play. Jun, having a privilege of a general father could turn their private tunnel into his sculpture studio.

A row of new bookshelves nailed into the tunnel walls was the first thing I saw. Big Sister had told me that Jun started collecting translated Russian and French novels even before Mao’s death. He had hidden them in his study, and recently moved them all down to his studio. 

“How did you get all these books?” I asked.

“Pirated,” he smiled.

Many of his collections were in fact hand-copied books. I picked up one book titled Lady Chatterley’ s Lover, hand-copied in black ink. The cover was hand drawn in ink as well, with the lines of an unclothed Western lady lying among flowers. I flicked through pages of beautiful fountain pen calligraphy and saw many words of love about a man and the Lady Chatterley. It was shocking, how the word love was everywhere, as if it was an infectious illness that had spread over all the pages of the book. During the Cultural Revolution, we were taught to admit love only for Chairman Mao, his Tian’anmen, his Country and of course, his Communist Party. We were not taught how the word could be used otherwise. I blushed to see it used to describe how one woman felt about a man or vice versa. Using the word that way was so intimate, so intense!

I asked Jun whether he had copied the book, as the calligraphy looked like his. He wiped white plaster off his hands and snatched back the book from my hand.

“Not for a twelve-year-old!” He put the book inside his book cupboard, closed the door and locked it. All right, he is going to be sixteen soon, I thought. But that doesn’t give him the right to act like my uncle instead of my friend.

“Why not?”

“Well, it’s a yellow book.” He smiled. “You know how that’s different from a black book?”

Of course I knew. Yellow book and Black book — one was about love, the other about political beliefs than communism — and both were banned. Sometimes I really wanted to wear those forbidden colours so that I could feel love in Yellow and feel politically independent in Black.  I wouldn’t impress Brother Jun, who could see only white, grey, black and red.

“When did you know you were colour blind, Brother Jun?” I asked, still bewildered what colour of the world was in his eyes.

“A while ago.”

“So sculpturing help?”

“That’s the reason I chose it as I only need to use white plaster.”

How courageous  and incredible, my admiration pumped together faster with my pumping heart.

“So, Jun, if I wore a robe sewed together from all the Yellow Books, what colour would you see me as?” I mused, immersed in my fantasy of dressing in forbidden colours.

“Grey, I guess.” Brother went back to his white plaster. Silence, as thick and heavy as the clouds before rain, filled the tunnel.  I coughed to cover my silliness.  I often wanted to be more intelligent in front Jun.  For some reason, I sounded sillier than normal.  I wanted to kick myself.

“Would you lend me that Lady book just for a few days?” I pointed at the locked cupboard, trying to look mature and be interested in very adult literary works.

“My friend just translated it. You can wait until we have it published in Hong Kong and then you can have a real printed copy.”

 “I think you translated that book,” I challenged, trying to impress him. “The handwriting is yours!”  I looked at the bold charcoal sketch of the nude human figure and the fine calligraphy titling the book. 

He smiled, neither admitting nor denying anything.    Silence is consent, as I read somewhere. I was now very convinced Brother Jun at least designed the cover of the Yellow Book, and probably translated it as well — a book with thousands of love words in it! I found the idea deliriously thrilling especially with the political danger lingering around it. I jumped up and grabbed his white plastered hands, pulling him toward me in the dim orange torchlight.

“You’re so amazing!” I kissed his hands in excitement. He drew back so quickly that the rough plaster hurt my lips. His face changed colour, even though I could not name the precise shade of his orange face in the dim light. 

“Well, Ling Ling,” he announced, holding me back by my shoulders. “The tunnel is too dark and you might have an oxygen shortage again. Let’s go upstairs.”

I stepped out slowly and reluctantly, stopping at the corner where Jun had locked the Yellow and Black book. Many sculptures were lined up there together. All white, all busts, except for one full figure, half-completed.

“What are those ?” I asked, thinking the figure somehow looked familiar.

“Just a work in progress.”

I looked up at the locked-away books. “Are there more secrets in there?”

“Yes.”

“Are they all yellow secrets?”

“No.”

“Are they black secrets?”

“No, I dare not be a counter-revolutionary.” He dragged me out of the tunnel by my hand. “My mother was a counter-revolutionary, you know. She became one by committing suicide.”

“Just a category.  Don’ t listen to that.”

“No, I won’t listen to any official statement anymore,” I declared.

That evening, we went home after dinner at Jun’s house. By midnight I was wide awake and could not get back to sleep. I tossed around under the summer bamboo sheet, listening to grasshoppers singing to the night.

“Are you awake?” I asked in a smallest voice, in case Big Sister was asleep.

“Sort of...” she mumbled.

“What is falling in love?”

“What?” Big Sister was alarmed, sitting up.

“Did Double Cousin fall in love with you?”

“What are you talking about Ling Ling? You’re only twelve!”

“Oh, well,” I thought I’d better change subject. I did not want Big Sister to know my secret with Jun anyway.

“I mean, I think Double Cousin is a big liar and you should not fall in love with him.”

“Lied to you? About what?” She was very perplexed now.

“About Mao.”

“What about Mao?”

“He said that Mao would never die.” I described how Double Cousin had taught us to salute to Mao every morning to make sure he would live for tens of thousands of years.

“He’s just crazy about Mao,” Big Sister grumped, lying down and turning her back to me.

“I thought he was crazy about you and that is love.”

“That’s a different matter. Now go to sleep.”

My eyes, however, were open wide the whole night.  Questions were running around in my head without finding any answers.  Did I fall in love with Brother Jun? How much I admire him, a colour-blind sculpture!  Would Jun ever propose to me marriage and what would he say?  How would Double Cousin propose to my sister now as he could not say, “I swear to Mao that I want to be with you forever”! What would Double Cousin do without Mao?

What would I do without Brother Jun?

The truth was I started to look at how to get into the same boarding school as Brother Jun.   Mao had turned into a ghost and Double Cousin could not propose to Big Sister did not matter to me.   Even the fact that Double Cousin had lied to me about Mao still did not bothered much. Now I had Jun and kissed Jun on his hand, the world became an elated beautiful place.   The heavy weight of Mama’s death finally lifted.    Strangely, I was able to cry for the first time, crying for Mama’s purple velvet death and feeling happy and light.

I imagined the next time I went to Jun’s studio, he might propose to me.

Almost a year after Jun forbade me from looking into his cupboard, I received an important-looking letter from the boarding school of Jun’s. I studied hard for the year, occasionally seeing him when he returned from school for holidays.  I asked him a lot about his school life but never gave him a hint of my application. I even kept it from Big Sister. I wanted it to be a surprise for Jun and for everyone as it was such a prestigious school and I would like everyone to be proud of me.   On that day I was lying in my bedroom thinking of a new poem I was writing, dedicated to Brother Jun’s sculpturing process.  I could hardly concentrate because rain was pouring down outside and the unopened envelope kept staring at me. 

Finally I opened the three-fold letter with my eyes closed.

“I got accepted!” I sang to myself. Then I shouted the same to the empty apartment and to the dripping sky. I ran to Brother Jun’s house but no one was in. The door of the house was open. Little Li, the soldier who looked after General Uncle’s garden, was tidying up plants in the front yard, water dripping from his hat.

“Where is Jun, Little Li?” I asked breathlessly. He looked up from his squatting position with a blank expression.

“In his studio.”

“Thanks!” I ran into the house.

“Wait, Ling Ling!” Little Li cried out, chasing after me. “He said no one should go in while he was working!” His muddy hands grabbed the new white sleeveless blouse that I had changed into, especially to announce my news to Brother Jun.

“Oh, he won’t mind me,” I sang out happily. I flicked off a clump of mud and waved my letter of admission in the air. I told Li I had very important news to tell Brother Jun and ran to the kitchen straight away. There I dug out a long red candle from the kitchen drawer before tiptoeing into the tunnel. The shaky flame of the candle guided through the darkness and I gripped my letter tightly.

The tunnel seemed to be especially quiet. I could hear no sound of Jun’s sketch pen, or the dripping clay he used to mould his sculpture. I could hardly hear the rain outside. A big vehicle wheeled over the tunnel outside, making a dull thunder.

I crept forward, watching the shadows cast by my candle. There was a strange noise, sounding like someone was eating. Perhaps Jun is having dinner, I wondered.  I nearly bumped into a white canvas. It stood upright reaching the ceiling of the tunnel.  As large as a cinema screen, the canvas frame blocked my way to the eating noise behind it.  On the canvas, a black-and-white life sketch of a nude female body in lying down position caught my eyes. Dark rose pedals made her bed and the body was milk white. The face was not yet drawn. The sketch reminded me of the cover of Lady Chatterley’s Lover.

The eating noise got louder. It sounded like Brother Jun was slurping noodles slowly in and out of his lips. I took in a big breath, tiptoeing in a little further to go around the nude-lady canvas.

Oh, gosh, there it was the naked back of Brother Jun.  He was lying on top of another unclothed female body. His hands were caressing and squeezing her breasts. His head and body covered face. Only her long dark hair were spreading on the white sheets laying on the cemented ground. 

“Ah…!” I screamed out, dropping my letter and letting the candle tip forward in my clutch. The flame brushed the edge of a sketch-pad on a table. A little smoke rose into the air.

Brother Jun lift his head quickly and turned to me. Big Sister’s surprised face popped up  under his. Both of them stared at me as if they had never seen me in their lives. I stared back at them. Silence was as heavy as the thick air in the tunnel.

Big Sister suddenly realised something. She rapidly wrapped herself with the white sheets spread underneath her.

“Ling Ling — what, what?” cried Brother Jun. “Sorry, sorry!” He jumped up and grabbed a loose canvas to cover the lower half of his body. His foot kicked my admission letter before he stooped down to pick up his glasses.

I held up my candle and tried to see him closely. I wanted to make sure if it was really Jun, or if I was mistaken. His glasses, covering his line-thin eyes, reflected the flame of my candle. Embarrassment was written all over his face.

“Is it really you, Brother Jun?” I heard myself murmuring.

“Go back to the house, Ling Ling,” he pleaded in his soft voice.

“You’ve lied to me, both of you!” I shouted.

I turned around. The canvas and the human sized nude body on it glared at me. Feeling hot and angry, I poked the candle through the nude woman’s  breasts on the canvas  A burning hole appeared,  consuming the nude body, modeled after Big Sister on the canvas.

Pong. The candle in my hand dropped to the floor. Before I realised it, my legs were carrying me toward the exit in a mad dash.

“Ling Ling!” Big Sister screamed in her soprano voice.

“Ling Ling,” Brother Jun’s quavering voice followed.

I heard the flame pop and blossom over the huge canvas before I was out of the studio.  A burnt smell followed me as I stumbled through the darkness. I ran through the tunnel, the kitchen, and finally out of Brother Jun’s house, gasping for breath.

Little Li was now lifting General Uncle on his back to help him get off a jeep in front of the house. They were astonished to see me running out of the house as though it were collapsing behind me. As I zoomed across the Army Compound, the falling rain was noisier than ever.  Jun’s calling for me carried through the thick summer rain.  I covered my ears with my hands. I opened my mouth wide to let the rain pour into my dry throat. The gate-guard was puzzled to see me running in the storm. A few minutes earlier, I had waved hello to him as I strode into the army compound with great pride and a big smile.  The world had just turned upside down now. I ran across the streets in a daze. There was a sharp pain in my heart. I wished pouring rain could wash away the pain in my heart and the tears on my face.

I coughed and puffed while darting into our Textile Compound. The soaking leaves on the plane trees looked like helpless palms, trying to reach out to me.

I sat in front of my dressing table when I took off my soaked T-shirt in my room.  For the first time, my breasts in the mirror drew my eyes. They looked like tiny little lumps. I touched them; they felt like dough that Brother Jun’s mother kneaded to make steamed buns, or the skins to stuff pork in for dumplings. Big Sister had given me a bra the summer before. When I first wore it, I felt embarrassed that a bra would enhance the shapes of the lumps under my summer shirts or dresses. I had abandoned wearing it.  I tried to hunch my shoulders to hide the lumps instead. Big Sister insisted the bra would support the growth of my two lumps after seeing my hunched walk.  She straightened my back and said I should walk with my chest upright.

Not much thought were on my breasts lately because I had been busy revising my exams and trying hard to get into the same school as Jun. Now I was no longer sure whether I still wanted to go to this school.  The thought of myself growing into an adult world where the people you loved would lie to you disgusted me. In front of the mirror, I now suddenly realized my breasts had grown in the last year. Yet I still had no idea why Brother Jun wanted to squeeze such things with his long delicate fingers.

I dried my hair and looked into the mirror. My eyes were fired with anger and confusion. My face was white, as if I had just awakened from a most dreadful nightmare.