The Communist Party Secretary seemed to know more about An Chu than she did! Yan was appalled. Did he dig out An Chu’s past and compile this “evidence” to convince her to break her engagement? She knew An Chu’s girlfriend dumped him and not the other way around. Everyone in the department store knew it. So, why were they creating this twisted version of the story? Why was the Party Secretary so interested in her affairs, anyway? She felt disgusted that anyone was trying to turn her quiet, private matter into a humiliating public display.

  “Comrade Yan Gu,” the Party Secretary went on, “one of our Party members is very keen on you. He will bring you a bright revolutionary future here in this department store. You are still young. It’s not too late to change your mind. I’ll work on An Chu Sun should he give you any trouble.”

  An Chu doesn’t give me trouble. He understands me. He saved my life. That’s why we’re engaged, so he can always stand behind me like a rock. Why would anyone care if I get married? It’s so ridiculous!

  But Yan didn’t openly express her thoughts. She knew the Party Secretary would get angry if she rejected his suggestions. So, she said in a barely audible voice, “Thank you for your kind attention, Comrade Secretary. I’ll think about your wise words.” Avoiding his eyes and a handshake even though she knew he was expecting one, she walked out of his office.

  “Comrade Gu, you’ll get back to me, right?” Yan heard the Party Secretary’s question echo through the dark, narrow corridor as she hurried out. She took a deep breath after she escaped, but his words haunted her for the rest of the day.

  Anyone else who was twenty-three, muscular, handsome, caring, and hardworking would have been considered a very eligible bachelor, but An Chu was not. As a matter of fact, most girls would never think of getting engaged to him for one simple reason: He was penniless. An Chu could not offer Yan an engagement party or even a ritual ceremony to gain the blessings of his ancestors. No tokens of love were exchanged. There was no engagement ring, even though there were plenty of shining gold and silver bands for sale in their store’s jewelry department. A friend suggested that An Chu buy a pair of matching watches—not the expensive kind, but cheap, plain ones for everyday wear—but he still couldn’t afford them. Yan did not even get a kiss to remind her of the new bond between them. And she still lived in the sanctuary of the women’s dormitory with her “sisters,” as dictated by the customs of the time. In China, a woman and a man only lived together after they got married. But in an abstract sense and in the words on the official marriage license, Yan was not alone anymore. She finally got the strong pillar she had always wanted. It would be there for her if and when she needed it. And she was pleased.

  After work that day, An Chu offered to escort her back to her dorm. Yan agreed with a nod. She walked in silence as if alone, accompanied by her conversation with the Party Secretary playing over and over in her head as it had done so many times that day already.

  “How was your day?” An Chu finally broke the silence.

  There was no answer.

  “How was your day?” An Chu asked again.

  “What?”

  “How was your day? Are you alright?”

  “Fine, I mean I’m fine, the day was fine. I was just thinking. It’s funny that we’re engaged, but I’ve never, ever, asked about your family and your life before, like …”

  “Like what? You can ask me. We never talked about each other’s families because I never thought you were interested. After all, you’re engaged to me, not my family. They’re more than a thousand miles away. Are you regretting getting engaged to a man with empty pockets? Do you wish my wealth could grow the way my hair does—always too much, always needing a trim? Sorry, but it doesn’t.”

  An Chu’s words loosened her up a bit.

  “Of course not,” Yan answered quickly. “You know I’m not money-minded. But I’m just thinking … I’m just wondering … what are your parents’ names? How old are they? What do your parents do? Where does your family live? How many brothers and sisters do you have? How old are they? What do they do? What did you do before you came here …”

  Yan’s stream of questions only came to a stop when she ran out of breath. As she tried to regain her composure, An Chu exploded with laughter.

  “What’s so funny?” Yan asked with a serious face.

  “You sounded like the police at the residential registry. I don’t know if I can answer all your questions with one breath. I don’t even remember all your questions. But I can tell you a few things about my family. First, my parents are honest, hard-working people. They are poor and live in a shantytown. The government pasted notices on our doors several times and said that they wanted to knock the whole place down. They wanted to send all the people to brand-new apartment buildings. Some of us were excited, but most didn’t like the idea at all—people are comfortable with what they know. Nothing happened anyway. It’s all just talk. It’s not that bad there. It’s like a big, big family living together. I almost wish I could take you there to see it for yourself, but with the money we’re making, I doubt we’ll ever get back and see each other’s parents.”

  “It certainly doesn’t look that way.” Yan shook her head, and her heart relaxed a bit. She finally gathered enough courage to ask: “Did you have girlfriends before you came here?”

  An Chu looked into the distance for a long time. “No,” he said.

  Yan wanted to ask him more questions, but she didn’t know how to phrase them. She didn’t know how to ask questions about things that were private. She wondered why it was so easy for the Party Secretary to say those things. They walked on in silence until they reached her dorm.

  “Is everything alright?” An Chu tilted his head slightly, examining her facial expression. “You don’t sound like yourself.”

  “Yes, I’m fine … perhaps a little tired.”

  “Is there anything I should know or can help with?”

  “No … no.”

  An Chu waited for Yan to say something more but nothing came out.

  “Well then, goodbye, Yan. See you tomorrow at the store.”

  “See you, An Chu.”

  They waved at each other and went their separate ways. Yan decided not to tell anyone, including An Chu, about what the Party Secretary had said to her in his office.

  If Yan could have chosen her own fate, she probably would have remained engaged for the rest of her life without actually getting married. She was used to living with little affection or having anyone too close to her since she was forced to leave her birth family as a child. She was scared by the idea that marriage would bring a man into her life in an intimate way her parents had never explained to her. She was not ready for it. She could not imagine herself ever feeling ready to step out of the tight little cocoon she had built for herself. However, a peculiar incident changed her fate and brought a new reality into her life.

  Half a year after the engagement, An Chu was ready to claim his bride. He grew fonder of Yan and finally admitted to himself that he was in love with her. He was no longer content to see her just now and then. When she was not there, he missed her presence, her high-pitched voice, pure as the ringing of a brass bell, her quiet footsteps, her shy smile. He began to find his self-control and gentlemanly feelings toward her fighting against his desire for her. His face got hot and red every time he thought about it. He dreamed of sharing a life with her. However, An Chu was perplexed by Yan’s response every time he mentioned his longing for their marriage and a family. She would just lower her head, become silent for a minute or two and shift the topic to something else. She acted as if he had never brought it up and never argued with him on the subject.

  Was she backing out of her promise? He wondered if her silence was a sign she did not like him anymore. But An Chu’s doubts eventually gave way to a better explanation—that her reaction was caused by shyness and never having had a relationship with a man (which was partly true). Yan was as pure as a white lotus blossom and An Chu loved her virtue. But gradually he became restless and frustrated. Their relationship was not going further than a tiny engagement picture. Things were at a standstill. While Yan seemed to enjoy his company now and then, mostly in public places, she did not show any sign of wanting to explore a deeper and more intimate relationship. She preferred seeing An Chu with other people around rather than being with him alone.

  “But we are paired already,” he gently reminded her. “We are supposed to know more of each other. We are supposed to get married soon and live together.” Sometimes, when he got exasperated, An Chu would stare at their engagement picture and mutter these words to himself. If he said them aloud, Yan would run away with a flushed face, as if he had just insulted her. It was obvious that she was not ready to take the next step and make herself his wife. But she had never actually objected to marriage, either, and that left An Chu with no explanation, or every possible explanation. He wanted her. He wanted to have a family with her.

  The rest of the story is murky. According to Yan’s account many years later, An Chu invited her and several of his friends to a restaurant outside the city to celebrate their six-month engagement anniversary and she gratefully accepted. Though she felt a little uneasy in the beginning since it was the first time ever they had joined their friends as a couple, they relaxed as they ate and drank, talked and laughed. Meanwhile, the time slipped away merrily and unnoticed.

  Yan enjoyed herself much more than she had imagined she would. The little square dining room, plain wooden tables, and homey cooking transported them away from the worries of life in the great dusty West. They could have been back in Shanghai with a group of old friends. The dim, bare light bulb, wrapped in rising steam and smoke, made the tiny room relaxing and comfortable. Or was it because of the wine? Yan was not used to drinking. She was not a good-time girl. She was always thinking and reasoning … but not tonight. Tonight, she felt carefree. She was entirely absorbed in the moment.

  “Ganbei! To mud huts!”

  “Ganbei! To our life in the west!”

  “To our friendship!”

  “To An Chu and Yan!” They clinked their chipped blue-and-white porcelain cups again and again until Yan’s ears memorized their ringing tone. Her eyes were captured by the warm haze in the air.

  It was very late when they finally left the restaurant. The cool night air felt good and it was only after they had been walking for quite a while that Yan realized they were not heading back to the dorm.

  “This is the wrong way,” Yan said. “Zhang Ye is over there.”

  No one answered, and fleeting glances were exchanged between the couples.

  “Ah, we won’t be able to get back home tonight,” Jung Li, a friend of An Chu, explained. “The city gates close at midnight and, unfortunately, it’s nearly one in the morning.”

  “Where did the time go?” one of the girls said, as tittering broke out among her friends.

  Sensing she was somehow missing something, Yan insisted they try to get back into the city. The little group reluctantly walked back toward Zhang Ye but, as Jung Li predicted, they were stopped by the city moat and the silent city gates. Yan’s tiny shouts were absorbed by the massive pile of stone and no answer—not even the echo of her own voice—came back. It was like shouting into the night sky or the ocean.

  Yan’s weary eyes were transfixed by the deep shadow of the city wall. All she could see was a giant pool of darkness, heavy and forbidding as Fate. Could there even be such a thing? Yan shuddered at the idea.

  “Let’s go,” An Chu said gently extending his strong arm around her shoulder, escorting her back to the group to search for a place they could stay for the night and find shelter from the chilly, now nearly frozen air.

  Yan only reluctantly accepted the idea of spending the night in a local inn and insisted that she and An Chu get separate rooms. After haggling with the hostler, they all finally settled in and the desert was quiet once again.

  That night, despite her friends’ reassurances, something did happen. Yan, the “Swallow,” the self-proclaimed free-flying bird, lover of operas and dreamer of dreams, became a woman like any other in China, the property of a poor, honest, working-class nobody, signed, sealed, and delivered in a faceless country inn lost in the dusty, timeless desert. The “six-month anniversary” was very likely masterminded to achieve this purpose—at least according to Yan. She felt tricked into marriage.

  This night marked the crucial turning point of their relationship. An Chu and Yan got married officially soon afterwards and said farewell to their single lives in the dorm. Changing rooms, however, did not change the spartan nature of their lives. Pooling what little they had, Yan and An Chu rented an empty, unfurnished room from the townspeople and settled down like any other local couple in a thatched-roof mud hut.

  Their first home held only a borrowed twin bed and two suitcases belonging to Yan: the small one she had brought from Shanghai and a bigger one she had bought in the department store when she needed a private place to put things in her dorm room. Now, these two suitcases had much bigger roles to play. The larger chest (conveniently about the height of a coffee table) was placed carefully in the center of the room, and the smaller, old, dented suitcase became a bench, which squeaked and moaned every time one of them sat on it. On the center of the “table,” a bright red vase made from spun glass—a wedding present from her dorm sisters—stood empty by itself. She couldn’t find any flowers to put in it, for water here was too precious for plants not meant to be eaten. Yan knew why her sisters bought the vase, not because of what it was but for its color. It was red, the color of happiness, and Yan couldn’t have a wedding without the blessing of lucky red.

  With a few careful touches, the little room was turned into a warm, inviting, and neat little nest. Even the dirt floor was spotless and always gave out the muted scent of fresh earth. Yan and An Chu grew fond of their new home, which provided protection against the heat and the prying eyes of the local leaders. Little did they know that soon, it would also serve as a shelter against a storm that had been brewing for months and traveling for thousands of miles from its source, the ever-fertile and unpredictable mind of Mao Zedong.

  Chapter VII

  Changing Political Winds

  No one expected the winds of East Coast politics to travel all the way to the desolate, forgotten town of Zhang Ye, but they did, arriving without warning just like the local dust storms and changing everything. One day, people were working to build a new frontier for themselves and the glory of China, and the next, they were captives in endless political meetings, where the very pioneers who had volunteered to help their country found themselves implicated for unknown—and often unknowable—crimes. Power shifted from those who did the work to a few rarely seen characters. The Party Committee suddenly became a meeting organizer and the Party Secretary a glorious speechmaker. Many days, the entire store was closed down and the staff ordered to sit on cold, hard benches for eight hours straight to listen to men in thick glasses shouting slogans, warnings, and often confusing instructions. Their job was to listen, just listen, without making a sound. Role calls were made and absentees were recorded on a secret “black list.” Everyone started taking the meetings seriously after those who failed to appear found their salaries cut in half.

  The country was falling on hard times and the Communist Party called on all its citizens to strengthen their dedication to Chairman Mao’s ideals, frugal living, and proletarian virtue.

  “Petty bourgeois ideology is out!” The Party Secretary waved his arms. “If you want to seek a comfortable life, you’re walking dangerously away from us, from the teachings of our beloved Chairman Mao, from the path of socialism. So, you become our enemy!” He threw his written speech aside. After all those meetings, he had memorized the words on the paper. “From now on, we expect one hundred percent attendance—no more pretending to be sick, no more aches and pains. Sickness belongs to the petty bourgeoisie! No more unnecessary eating—remember, ONLY TWO MEALS A DAY! Dorm rooms will be searched and food that is found will be confiscated! I will not tolerate anti-revolutionary behavior.”

  He paused, surveying the large, crowded, deadly silent room. He couldn’t see anyone’s faces, just a sea of motionless, black-haired heads, for no one dared to look up. He was satisfied.

  “The harsh environment here,” he continued, “is a perfect testing ground to find out who is a true Communist hero and who is an enemy of our country. Every time you think, speak, or act, you make a decision to become one or the other. And you don’t want to become an enemy of the people.”

  Instead of concluding his speech and dismissing the meeting as on other days, he pointed his finger at his security chief sitting in the first row. The chief got the hint, rose, clapped his hands, and called his guards.

  “Today, I want to show you what we do to our enemies.”

  Before anyone realized what was happening, the guards had already pulled half a dozen people out of the crowd.

  “Comrade, you’ve made a mistake!”

  “What are you doing? Don’t hit me!”

  “I’m not the people’s enemy. I love my motherland. Please, please let me go.”

  “Comrade, you’re hurting my arm!”

  The six luckless prisoners protested and struggled frantically until their voices became hoarse and their spirits were lost. Then, with their arms bent backwards and their heads hanging low, they were paraded in front of all the dumbfounded employees before being taken away in handcuffs.