When Mom and Dad heard about the da-zi-bao, they immediately suggested that I stay home from school for a few days. Since there were no classes, other students were staying home too. Nobody would connect my absence with the da-zi-bao.
As it turned out, I came down with a fever and stayed home for ten days.
I lay in bed all day and watched Grandma and Song Po-po work around the house. I was too tired and too depressed to do any more than watch them and watch a patch of sunlight as it moved across the room. As the fever subsided, I began to feel better, but Grandma said I should stay home a few more days to make sure I was completely well. For the first time in my life I was happy to miss school.
Both Song Po-po and Grandma tried their best to cheer me up. Song Po-po combed my hair and made me treats. Grandma sat by my bed, took out my stamp collection, and tried to get me to take an interest in it. Finally, Grandma bought some lovely soft gray wool for me and taught me how to knit a sweater for Dad. I worked on it every day while the others were in school, but slowly, with many pauses, while I stared out the window.
Why would anyone say such terrible things about me? Why did Yin Lan-lan and Du Hai hate me? What had I ever done to hurt them? I asked myself these questions again and again, but I never found an answer.
Every day An Yi came to visit me, sometimes bringing me a bowl of sweet green bean soup from her grandmother. Every day she told me what was happening at school. Classes had started again. They were studying Chairman Mao’s latest directives and related documents from the Central Committee. There would be one more month of school before graduation. An Yi said that not many of our classmates had seen the da-zi-bao about me. And there were now so many da-zi-bao, posted one on top of another, that no one was likely to find mine.
Red Guards were everywhere. Since the newspapers had praised them as the pioneers of the Cultural Revolution, every high school and college had organized Red Guards to rebel against the old system. When the Central Committee had announced that Red Guards could travel free to other provinces to “establish revolutionary ties” with other Red Guards, An Yi told me, our entire school had gone into an uproar. Most of the students had never been out of Shanghai, so this was terribly exciting news. A large crowd of students from our school had gathered outside the school committee offices and shouted nonstop: “We—want—to be—Red Guards! We—want—to establish—revolutionary ties!” Only college and high school students were allowed to be Red Guards, but our school district had finally granted our school permission to establish the Red Successors. Just as the name indicated, the Red Successors were the next generation of revolutionaries, and when they were old enough, they would become Red Guards. Ten Red Successors were to be elected from each class. An Yi brought me a note from Teacher Gu saying she hoped I was feeling better and would come back to school for the election on Saturday.
Friday afternoon a thunderstorm struck. The darkness gathered until I could not see my book. The first flash of lightning drew me to the window as the downpour began. I sat on a porcelain stool, leaning my forehead against the cool windowpane. The torrent overflowed the gutters, and a curtain of rainwater leaped off the roof. Wind-blown spray blurred the window. The alley was washed clean. Dirt and trash were swept away by the flood. I stared at the downpour and pictured all the da-zi-bao in the school yard. I opened the window and shivered with delight as the clean chill air swept over me.
A blast soaked my face and I laughed. From behind me a hand reached out to pull the window shut. Grandma smiled down at me. She knew exactly what I was thinking. She gently wrapped my robe around my shoulders. I lay contentedly in her arms as the rain washed away my humiliation and shame.
By morning the storm had passed.
When we got to school, we found that all the da-zi-bao were gone. Sodden fragments littered the school yard, with only a few torn and illegible remnants dangling on the ropes. The paper with my name on it had disappeared. I sighed with relief and went to class feeling better than I had in a long time.
During the time I was home, summer had arrived. The windows of the classroom were all open, and the fragrance from the oleander bushes outside filled the air, heavy, rich, and warm. The classroom itself looked nicer. All the da-zi-bao had been taken down and replaced by other things. A big color poster, at least six feet by three feet, hung in the middle of the back wall. It showed a big red flag with Chairman Mao’s picture and a long line of people marching under the flag. On the right side of the room, the slogan LONG LIVE THE GREAT PROLETARIAN CULTURAL REVOLUTION covered almost the entire wall. I was cheered by the revolutionary atmosphere.
Teacher Gu walked in, and the election for the Red Successors began.
I lowered my head and pretended to check my nails. I wanted everyone to see that I did not care if I was not chosen. My parents and Grandma had warned me against disappointment, so I was prepared. And anyway, the Red Successors were not nearly as glorious as the Red Guards.
Yu Jian, the chairman of our class, was the first one nominated. Then I heard my name called. My heart raced and I held my breath. I could hardly believe it. I was nominated! After everything that had happened, I was still regarded as somebody in the class! Now I could admit it to myself: I had never wanted anything as much as I wanted to win this election.
I looked gratefully at the student who had nominated me.
Teacher Gu was about to write the names of all the candidates on the blackboard when Yin Lan-lan raised her hand. “When the Red Guards were elected at my sister’s school, the class status of the candidates was taken into account. Shouldn’t we do the same?”
“Right! Those who don’t have good class backgrounds shouldn’t be elected,” somebody else agreed.
My heart fell. Class status. There was that phrase again.
At a loss for anything to say, I turned around and looked at Yu Jian.
Yu Jian stood up without hesitation. “My class status is office worker. But before Liberation my father used to be an apprentice. He had to work at the shop counter when he was in his teens, and he suffered all kinds of exploitation by the owner. My father is a member of the Communist Party now, and my mother will join pretty soon.” All hands were raised to elect him a Red Successor.
It was my turn now. My mind was blank. I did not know what to say. I stood up slowly, the back of my blouse suddenly soaked with sweat.
“My class status is also office worker. My father is an actor.…” I stumbled, trying to remember what Yu Jian had said. “He… is not a Party member, and neither is my mother. And… I don’t know what else.” I sat down.
“Jiang Ji-li, what is your father’s class status?” a loud voice asked.
I slowly stood back up and looked around. Du Hai was staring at me. He sat sideways, one arm resting on the desk behind him.
“My father’s class status…?” I did not see what Du Hai meant at first. “You mean what did my grandfather do? I don’t know. I only know that he died when my father was seven.”
There was a trace of a grin on Du Hai’s face. He stood up lazily and faced the class.
“I know what her grandfather was.” He paused dramatically, sweeping his eyes across the class. “He was a—LANDLORD.”
“Landlord!” The whole class erupted.
“What’s more, her father is a—RIGHTIST.”
“Rightist!” The class was in pandemonium.
I was numb. Landlord! One of the bloodsuckers who exploited the farmers! The number-one enemies, the worst of the “Five Black Categories,” even worse than criminals or counterrevolutionaries! My grandfather? And Dad, a rightist? One of the reactionary intellectuals who attacked the Parry and socialism? No, I could not believe it.
“You’re lying! You don’t know anything!” I retorted.
“Of course I know.” Du Hai smirked openly. “My mother is the Neighborhood Party Committee Secretary. She knows everything.”
I could say nothing now. Through my tears I could see everyone staring at me. I wished I had never been born. I pushed the desk out of my way and ran out of the classroom.
Outside, it was so bright that I could barely see. Shading my eyes with my hand, I jumped blindly into the dazzling sunshine and ran home.
Grandma was frightened by the tears streaming down my face. “What happened, sweetie? Are you hurt?” She put her spatula down and grasped my hand, asking again and again.
At first I couldn’t answer. Finally, still sobbing, I managed to tell her what had happened.
“It isn’t true, is it?” I sobbed. “Grandpa wasn’t a landlord, was he? Dad isn’t a rightist, is he?”
“Of course your father is not a rightist. Don’t listen to your classmates,” Grandma said immediately, but she sounded nervous.
“And Grandpa wasn’t a landlord either, right?” I looked straight into Grandma’s eyes.
Grandma heaved a sigh and hugged me to her chest.
“Whatever he was, it doesn’t have anything to do with you. He’s been dead for over thirty years.”
It was true, then. Grandpa was a landlord.
I did not want to listen anymore. I turned away.
When I opened my eyes the next morning, Dad was standing by the bed.
“Get up, Ji-li. I’m taking the three of you for a walk.” He patted my cheek.
“I don’t feel like going.” I rolled over and faced the wall, my eyes swollen and my head heavy and aching.
“You must come. I have something to tell you,” he said gently but firmly.
Ji-yong and Ji-yun each took one of Dad’s hands, while I listlessly followed. Mom and Dad had spent a long time talking in the bathroom last night, the only place in our home where they could have a private conversation, and I was sure this walk had something to do with what happened to me yesterday.
It was Sunday. The workday streams of people and bicycles were gone, and the street was quiet and peaceful.
We stopped at the China-Soviet Friendship Mansion. The square in front of the mansion was empty except for the white doves, cooing and chasing each other around the fountain.
We sat on the broad steps in front of the entrance. I leaned against a pillar.
Dad came right to the point. “Grandma told me that Ji-li wasn’t elected a Red Successor because her classmates asked about our family class status.” He turned and looked straight at me.
I bowed my head and fiddled with my red scarf.
“Things like that will probably happen again because of this Cultural Revolution, so I want to tell you something about our family.” Dad’s voice, like his face, was calm.
He had been born into a large, wealthy family, he told us, with five generations, more than a hundred people, living together in one big compound. The family had once owned vast amounts of land, many businesses, and other kinds of property. By the time Dad was born, most of the money was lost to extravagance and bad luck, and soon the big family was broken up. When Dad was only seven, his father died, and Dad and Grandma lived by themselves. There was not much money left. Dad went to St. John’s University in Shanghai on a scholarship, and he tutored some private students to make money, but even so Grandma had to sell some of her jewelry to pay for their daily expenses. When Dad graduated from St. John’s in 1949, the Communist Party had just liberated China from Chiang Kai-shek’s rule, and Dad was appointed a vice-principal of a primary school.
“This is the true family background,” Dad said. “I am not a rightist, and anyone who says I am can go to my work unit and confirm it. As for your Grandpa, he was a businessman and a landlord.”
“Dad,” Ji-yong asked suddenly, “did Grandpa whip the farmers if they couldn’t pay their rent?”
“Or make their daughters be his maids?” Ji-yun added.
Dad looked into their horrified eyes and slowly shook his head. “Grandpa lived in Shanghai all his life and was never in charge of finances. He was already sick when he married Grandma, and he was bedridden until he died eight years later. Of course, I’m not saying that he wasn’t guilty. All landlords exploit, and that is certainly a crime….”
“Why did Grandpa want to exploit people?” I interrupted. I just had to know.
Dad looked at me and did not answer. After a moment’s silence he took all of us in his arms and said, “Now listen. What I want you to know is, whether or not your Grandpa was a landlord or an exploiter, it isn’t your responsibility. Even I don’t have a clear memory of him, so it doesn’t have to matter to you at all. You can still hold your heads up. Understand?”
“But it’s still true that because of him I can’t be a Red Successor.”
“Yes. Your classmates may talk, and our neighbors may talk. We can’t help that. You may not be able to join the Red Successors. We can’t do anything about that, either. But you don’t have to be ashamed, because it isn’t your fault. You didn’t do anything wrong. Do you see that?”
Looking at Dad’s tender eyes, I felt a little better.
In a few weeks I would graduate. I would enter an elite school and study even harder. Maybe I had a bad class status, but I would have good grades. No one could take those away from me.
“It’s not my fault,” I repeated to myself. “It’s not my fault.”
The ten Red Successors were elected, Du Hai and Yin Lan-lan among them. Immediately after the election the two of them strutted around with their red armbands prominently displayed, giving orders to the rest of the class. Du Hai squinted more than ever to show that he should be taken seriously. Yin Lan-lan rushed everywhere, with her head up and her chest thrust out proudly. Yang Fan was elected too, and now she echoed everything Du Hai and Yin Lan-lan said. Yu Jian was also part of the group, though his class background was not red. But he seemed uncomfortable following Du Hai and Yin Lan-lan.
I became more quiet and pretended to have no interest at all in their activities.
One afternoon after a class I was hurrying to erase the blackboard. “Come on, Pauper!” I called to my partner, Deng Yi-yi. It was our turn to be classroom assistants. “We’ll be late getting the tools for Handicrafts.”
“Hey! Don’t call people by nicknames!” someone barked. I turned around. Yang Fan was standing in the doorway right behind me.
“Oh, I’m sorry. I forgot. I promise I’ll never call you that again,” I told Deng Yi-yi with an apologetic smile.
Yang Fan gave a haughty sneer but seemed content with my response.
“It isn’t simply a matter of calling people by nicknames. It’s a matter of your looking down on working-class people.” Yin Lan-lan and two other Red Successors appeared in the doorway behind Yang Fan, all wearing stern expressions. The classroom was suddenly dead quiet.
“Deng Yi-yi is from a poor family and she isn’t neatly dressed, so you look down on her and call her Pauper. This is connected with your class standing, Jiang Ji-li. You should reflect on your class origin and thoroughly remold your ideology.”
“It wasn’t I who gave her that nickname. Everybody calls her that! And I already apologized.” I struggled to control my anger.
“What other people do is a totally different question,” said Ying Lan-lan. “Other people don’t have a landlord grandfather and a rightist father. They don’t need to remold themselves.”
“Shut up! Don’t you dare say my father is a rightist! Who says he’s a rightist? Why don’t you go to my father’s work unit and ask them?”
Yin Lan-lan was shocked. I was so confident, she could tell I was not lying. “Well… what about your grandfather then?”
“What about him? He died when my father was just seven. I never even saw him. Why do I have to remold myself? What does he have to do with me?”
“What? Your grandfather was a landlord and you don’t need to remold yourself?” Raising her voice and waving her arm with the new Red Successor armband, she screamed almost hysterically to the whole classroom, “Hey, listen everybody! Jiang Ji-li just said that she had nothing to do with her landlord grandfather and she doesn’t need to remold herself! She’s denying the existence of class struggle!”
She turned back to me, still shouting. “Chairman Mao said, ‘In a class society everyone is a member of a particular class, and every kind of thinking, without exception, is stamped with the brand of a particular class.’ There is no doubt that your grandfather’s reactionary class standing had a bad influence on your father’s thoughts, and he naturally passed them on to you. And your grandmother is a landlord’s wife. She tells everybody how much she loves you, and she must have a bad influence on you too. And you say you don’t need to remold yourself?”
A large crowd was watching from the doorway. I opened my mouth, but no words would come out. The bell rang to begin class. Du Hai, who had been watching the whole time, suddenly announced, “Jiang Ji-li, stay after school. We Red Successors want to talk with you.”
For the next two periods I did not hear anything the teacher said. The terrible words “landlord” and “class standing,” Yin Lan-lan’s cold face, Du Hai’s sly, squinty eyes, spun in my mind. I had always been a school leader, a role model. How could I have suddenly become so bad that I needed to be remolded thoroughly? I had never even met my grandfather. My head ached, and I pressed my fingers hard on my temples.
I walked into the gym. Yu Jian stood by the parallel bars, discussing something with Yang Fan and Yin Lan-lan, who were sitting on the balance beam. Du Hai was beside them, bending over and writing something. Several other Red Successors leaned over his shoulder. When they saw me, they all stopped. Everybody looked at me seriously but hesitantly, as if they did not know how to start.
“Jiang Ji-li,” said Du Hai at last, in long, drawn-out tones, “the purpose of our talk today is to point out your problems.” He tilted his head slightly, trying to seem very experienced.
I suddenly remembered one day when he had had to stand in the front of the classroom. He was being punished for tying a piece of paper to a cat’s tail and setting it on fire.
“Your problems are very serious, you know. For instance…” He looked at the paper in his hand. “You and your grandmother often take a pedicab, which reveals your extravagant bourgeois lifestyle. And your family has a housekeeper. That’s definitely exploitation. And you never do any housework—”
“Yes, we sometimes take a pedicab instead of a bus, but only when someone is sick and has to see the doctor.” Timidly, I tried to explain. “And I’ve had several talks with my mother about Song Po-po, but she said that Song Po-po doesn’t have any other job, so she needs to work for us.”
“Shut up!” Yin Lan-lan cut me off with a ruthless wave of her hand. “Today we are going to talk to you, not the other way round. Nobody asked you to talk. So just listen. Understand?”
I went numb. I stared at her, unable to hear another word. Was this the person I knew? I had helped Yin Lan-lan with her math three times a week for years, explaining each problem to her over and over until she got it right. And Yang Fan. My friends and I had carried her on our backs to and from school for three months when she had broken her leg two years ago. And all of them. What had I ever done to them? Why were they suddenly treating me like an enemy?
One after another they continued to criticize me. I stared at their moving lips, understanding nothing.
Was it my fault that my family was a little better off than theirs? Many a time I had wished that my parents were workers in a textile mill and that we were poor. I had always begged Mom to let me wear patched pants. I had insisted on washing my own clothes even though we had a housekeeper. When my class did collective labor every week, I always volunteered for the heaviest jobs. Hadn’t Du Hai and Yin Lan-lan ever noticed that? Suddenly I wished that I had been born into a different family. I hated Grandpa for being a landlord.
“Why won’t you answer?” Yin Lan-lan jumped up from the balance beam and roared at me.
“What?” I looked timidly into the enraged circle of faces in front of me.
The Red Successors exploded.
“You weren’t even listening, were you?” shouted Yin Lan-lan. “I tell you, Jiang Ji-li, you’d better stop thinking you’re the da-dui-zhang. It’s the Cultural Revolution now, and there are no da-dui-zhangs anymore. You’re not the chair of anything now.”
“It’s different now. The teachers won’t be protecting you anymore.”
“No wonder you didn’t write any da-zi-bao criticizing the teachers. You have serious problems with your class standing.”
“Your grandfather was a big landlord, and you’d better watch out. We won’t put up with any of your landlord tricks.”
It was so unfair. I was being punished for something I had not done. “No tears. Not now,” I told myself, but I could not hold them back. I started to cry.
The Red Successors did not know what to do. They looked at one another and did not say anything. After a minute Du Hai said in a softer voice, “You can go home now. We’ll talk later. You’d better think seriously about your problems.”
I walked out of the gym, my mind made up. We were going to graduate in a few weeks, and I would never speak another word to any of them.
Alone in the corner of the school yard I saw a little wildflower. She had six delicate petals, each as big as the nail of my little finger. They were white at the center and shaded blue at the edges.
I did not know her name. Softly I stroked her petals, thinking that I would take care of her, as I wished someone would take care of me.