• Eleven •

Though a good number of men were eager to get to know Yomei better, she treated them equally and at times even lightheartedly, without slighting anybody. If someone invited her out, she would feign ignorance, saying, “How about Lily? Can she come too? She’s like a younger sister of mine.”

In reality, she meant to give all her energy to her studies and to the work at the Red Aid. At this stage of her life, she wasn’t interested in any romantic relationship, since she was unsure where she would settle down in the future.

In a way, she was a jester, good at ribbing others without hurting their feelings. For instance, at the KUTV she had an older classmate, Yang Zhicheng, who was thin like a picket and had a wrinkled face. Yomei called him Grandpa, though Zhicheng was only in his midthirties, but he was so good-natured that he never took offense. Whenever Yomei called him Grandpa, he would nod as his way of responding to her. He knew she treated him as a genuine friend. Even after Yomei had left the KUTV, Zhicheng would still chat with her warmly whenever they ran into each other. He would introduce her to others as his friend and former classmate. Several of those military men in their class, including Zhicheng, would become two- or three-star generals in the People’s Liberation Army a decade later. They all treated Yomei as a younger sister of sorts and never got offended by her jokes and antics.

Through her friendship with Yomei, Lily felt enlivened and rejuvenated. She confessed to Yomei that before they met, never had she experienced the joy of youth, and that was why she felt so attached to Yomei, as if they had been born friends. Indeed, even some older women expats had noticed the change in Lily, saying she was no longer the broody, studious girl she used to be. Like Yomei, she now laughed a lot too, even out loud in front of others. Yomei mulled over Lily’s confession, which brought back to her the memory of her little sister, Yolan, whom their mother, unable to raise all her children by herself, had given away to their oldest aunt’s family. How was Yolan doing in Sichuan? Yomei hoped her little sister was doing well at school. Yolan’s absence from her life might have helped build the strong sisterly friendship between her and Lily.

At the beginning of 1941, Lin Biao came to call on Yomei again. Lily was not in but might return any minute, so Yomei went out with him, reluctant to let Lily find him and her together in their room privately. As they were strolling in a birch grove where the mottled boles were turning silver and glimmering in the setting sun, he told her that he was leaving for Yan’an together with a few other expats, mostly those young officers educated here. The CCP had recently called them back, so they had to head for home. He planned to take them to Mongolia first, and from there they would cross the border back into northern China.

Yomei was caught unawares and asked, “What about Zhang Mei and Hsiaolin? Are they leaving with you too?”

Hsiaolin was their newborn baby girl. He said, “Mei won’t go back with me. She loves it here and will stay.”

“Can she take care of your child by herself here?”

“She says she can. I want you to know that Mei and I are going to split up. Our marriage has hit rock bottom, and there’s no way to salvage it anymore.”

“How does Mei feel about this?” Yomei was alarmed, wondering why he was telling her this. To her mind, Zhang Mei was an excellent wife for him.

“She has agreed we’ll part ways. I’m wondering if you might be willing to go back with me to Yan’an.”

Flustered and with her face burning hot, she managed to ask, “What for? If we went back together, people would ask who I am to you.”

“I promise I’ll marry you as soon as Mei and I are divorced. She and I have already agreed on this. You know my feelings for you, Yomei. You’re the best young woman I’ve ever met. Please go back with me to make me a happy man.”

Under his intense gaze, she felt her face reddening, her mind groping for an appropriate answer.

“Please,” he almost begged her, “I’ll be good and considerate to you.”

“I know you’re an extraordinary man,” she at last found her words, “but it was Chairman Mao who sent me here to study theater arts, and I still have four years to go. If I quit now, what can I say to Chairman Mao? I would become a failure in people’s eyes. Before leaving Moscow, Uncle Ren Bishi talked to me and Lin Lily and wanted us to study here as long as possible. Now I can’t just head back alone and abandon Lily here.”

His brow furrowed. “In that case, I can take Lily back to Yan’an too. I can explain to the Central Committee and Chairman Mao. I’ll tell him that I need you so I can work better for the Party and the Red Army. You will become my fiancée for the time being so people can’t wag their tongues about your return with me.”

“Truth to tell, this makes me very uncomfortable. Zhang Mei is my friend, and I can’t destroy her marriage.”

“Believe me, with or without you, she and I will get divorced. You can go ask her.”

“Please understand, I’m just a student. I love the theater studies here, which are so hard that I can barely survive, but I have to persevere. I don’t want to start dating so early. You know our Party wants me to become an expert in spoken drama. The institute I’m in is a great place for my studies, and I must cherish such a privilege.”

“Well, I’ll be patient. You don’t have to give me a final answer now.”

“Please don’t count on me. My future is still uncertain, and I’ll be here for several years. Anything might happen in the meantime.”

“I’m very certain about my feelings for you, Yomei. I can assure you that Zhang Mei and I will get divorced pretty soon, then I will wait for you in China. I won’t be with another woman until I hear from you.”

She was touched but managed to reply, “You’re a good man. Any woman would feel delighted and honored by such an offer, but please don’t place all your hopes on me. My life is still unpredictable.”

“Rest assured, I will wait patiently.”

He held out his hand, and they shook goodbye. She said that the local Chinese expats would love to give him a farewell party before he left. He didn’t respond to that and just gave a faint smile, shaking his angular chin slightly. He spun around and walked away, the soles of his leather boots making tiny screeches. She noticed that in spite of his thin frame, he had a straight back and sturdy legs, which must have resulted from his many years of military life. In the back of her mind lingered another shade of unease. Why was he so sure that she was attracted to him? He was a very confident man indeed.

That evening she mentioned his proposal to Lily, who had become her confidante of late. They were having coffee with cubes of brown sugar. Lily was annoyed that Lin Biao had even suggested bringing her back to Yan’an without consulting her first. But she was also amazed and excited by his offer to Yomei. She was certain that many young women would kill to be with that legendary young general. At the same time, Lily wouldn’t say Lin Biao was a completely decent man. The previous summer he had often come to take both of them out while leaving his pregnant wife alone at home. Now he wanted to divorce her so that he could marry Yomei. What kind of man was he? At least irresponsible.

Lily also confessed that usually she was afraid of men and might not see anyone in the near future. This fear dated back to her early childhood. When she was five years old, her mother had taken their family from Shanghai to Guangzhou by boat. One afternoon, she was playing near the prow of the steamer and saw a drunk man grab a young woman passing by, forcing her to sit on his lap. As the woman was struggling to get away, the man exploded and lifted her and dumped her into the rolling sea. The ship stopped to retrieve her, but she was already drowned when they pulled her up to the deck. “Ever since that terrible episode,” Lily confessed, “I’ve been scared of men.”

“It’s so hard for a woman to live a good, fulfilled life in this world,” said Yomei.

The two of them also talked about the kind of men who might be suitable for them. Yomei revealed that she actually felt uneasy about going with a dedicated revolutionary, because a powerful and extraordinary man might be hard for a young woman to keep up with. “Look at Auntie Zi-zhen and Auntie Liu Ch’un-hsian, and also Auntie Ah Jin,” she said to Lily. “They used to be the brightest and the strongest women in the Party, but Auntie Ch’un-hsian lost her mind while Auntie Zi-zhen is a total wreck, abandoned by the powerful men they were married to. Do you know Chairman Mao has a young woman living with him now, even though he and Auntie Zi-zhen are not divorced?” Just two weeks before, they’d heard that Zi-zhen suffered a breakdown and was sent to a mental hospital, where the doctors feared that she might attempt suicide.

“I’ve heard of Chairman Mao’s new wife,” said Lily. “It’s rumored that she used to be an actress in Shanghai.”

Yomei nodded. “She was a second-rate actress, and I’ve known her for many years. She’s good at using men.”

“You mean Jiang Ching was promiscuous?”

“I wouldn’t say that, but she had trouble with some men in Shanghai. Her ex-husband Tang Na attempted to kill himself because of an affair she had with another man.” Yomei felt she might have disclosed too much about Ching, so she returned to the original topic. “Think about Auntie Zi-zhen and Auntie Liu Ch’un-hsian. What if they hadn’t married Mao Zedong or Bo Gu to begin with? Also, remember Li Lilian, left behind in Yan’an by Otto Braun? What kind of women might they be now if they hadn’t married men with great power?”

“Good mothers and loving wives, to say the least,” Lily said thoughtfully. “I would also say they might be better company, and better friends. They’d be normal people. You’re a smart girl, Yomei. I see your point—powerful men can be destructive to women. The ancient adage ‘A hero and a beauty ought to be together’ is a fallacy, totally wrong.”

Yomei smiled, nodding her assent. “Powerful men are less capable of human feelings, I believe.”

“How about your adoptive parents?”

The question threw Yomei, but she scrambled to answer, “Well, Mother Deng is a plain woman—in terms of looks, she can’t match Father Zhou at all.”

“You mean their marriage is stable because she’s browbeaten by him?”

“Probably.” For now Yomei couldn’t tell Lily everything. She had once overheard her adoptive parents fighting—Mrs. Zhou was yelling at her husband, accusing him of flirting with a pretty young woman. He hung his head a little and kept mum about the accusation, which might have been true. Nonetheless, Mother Deng must understand that in the public eye, she wasn’t a good match for her husband, so she often caved in to him.

Lily continued, “My dad is a major CCP leader, and my mom has never had a peaceful time with him. Such a marriage can be heavy going for any woman. Look at the Rens—when Uncle Ren Bishi and his wife, Auntie Zongying, were going back to Yan’an last year, they left their one-year-old daughter behind in the international children’s home. It’s awful to keep a family broken like that.”

“I wonder if the child might grow up troubled,” Yomei echoed. “Kids in a parentless environment might develop emotional problems down the road. At least they’ll have a lonesome childhood. Oh, Auntie Ch’un-hsien’s daughter, Little Jima, is also in Ivanovo now. That’s another shattered family among the top revolutionaries.”

“And her husband Bo Gu doesn’t seem to care how mother and daughter are doing here.”

“For the sake of the revolutionary cause, those powerful men are always ready to sacrifice everything, including their families.”

Lily agreed, “Some of them view such sacrifice as necessary and even noble.”

Sensing that they were straying from their original topic, Yomei returned to the current situation, saying, “I don’t feel I have many things to say with Lin Biao. What can we talk about—battles, cannons and howitzers, bombers and fighter planes, tanks and armored combat cars? You know I don’t like military or political stuff. I love art and want to be an artist. As a woman, I want to live a life in pursuit of beauty. If I marry, I want to do that only for love.”

“Not for happiness?”

“Without love, how can a marriage make you happy? One thing I’m certain about—I can accept neither a statesman nor a general as a lover.”

“Then you’d better fall for a scholar or an artist.” Lily batted her eyes, smiling as pinkish patches were creeping up her smooth cheeks.

Yomei sighed and went on, “Now, I’m afraid that Zhang Mei might become another wrecked woman left behind by her husband.”

“It must be hard for her to raise Hsiaolin alone,” added Lily.

For some reason, Yomei couldn’t keep Zhang Mei out of her mind the next morning. Then, speak of the devil—she ran into Mei on Gogol Boulevard that very afternoon. To her amazement, Zhang Mei appeared more vigorous in spite of her sad face; she was striding with brisk steps while carrying a bag of groceries and a bottle of milk. She stopped to greet Yomei. Her round eyes suddenly smiled. The two friends swept away the dusty snow from the slats of a bench on the sidewalk and sat down. They chatted warmly, their shoulders touching from time to time. It was turning dusky, snow blanketing the wide street, on which people wrapped in furs and long coats and children in dark-blue duffel coats passed by. The kids brought to mind giant, stumbling penguins. Yomei asked her friend about Hsiaolin, and also about how the two of them would get on once Lin Biao went back. Zhang Mei was in placid spirits, shaking her thick bob calmly. She said, “We’ll be OK. Actually, without him around, life might be more peaceful for us. I’m just tired of staying indoors all the time as a housewife, listening to him gripe without a break.”

“Do you plan to go back soon?” asked Yomei.

“No, I’ll stay here for some years. Our marriage is over, and we’ll get a divorce.” Zhang Mei’s lovely eyes blazed as if she suddenly remembered something hurtful. “Oh, I see. Did you meet Lin Biao recently? How come you know he’s leaving?”

“He did come to see me.”

“What else did he say? Did he bad-mouth me?”

“Not at all, he only said you two were splitting up—your marriage was not salvageable anymore.”

“Why did he bring this up to you?”

“He invited me to go back with him,” Yomei admitted. “But I refused to leave. I’m still a student here and can’t stop in the middle of my studies. Also, you’re my friend, and I can’t do you such a mean turn. I told him that I couldn’t let people think I wrecked your marriage.”

“Actually I won’t care if he marries someone like you, who can make him happy,” Mei said crossly. “He does like you, a lot. He once said you were enchanting. I can see that a beautiful woman like you can bewitch many men easily. Lin Biao is yours, Yomei. I don’t want him anymore. He has made me feel ten years older since our baby was born.”

Zhang Mei and Yomei

“In all honesty, sister, I’m not interested in Lin Biao. He might be brilliant and powerful, but not the type of man I like. Please don’t tell him I said that.”

“Sure, I won’t let on we’ve met.”

“Still, it’s hard for me to see how you and your baby will get by.”

“He has made some financial arrangements for us. I guess I’ll be in a situation similar to a Chinese expat here.”

“Do you want to study or do something you like in Russia?”

“I’ll have to wait and see how things work out.”

“I’m sure there’ll be some opportunities.”

“Perhaps I might go to college here. But unlike you, I didn’t attend school back in China and I’ll have to start from scratch.”

“Still, you should make good use of your time in the Soviet Union.”

“That’s what I’ve been thinking too.”

The meeting with Zhang Mei comforted Yomei some. But soon she heard that Lin Biao had left Moscow quietly without saying goodbye to others. That was typical of him: he avoided meeting people as long as he could.