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“Red blood is a sign of socialist purity,” the third adds. “And your blood is very red.”
Once again, murmurs of approval.
I glance away as the dead woman’s eyes are closed and see Z.G. The piece of charcoal in his hand moves quickly over a sheet of paper in his sketchbook.
LATER, I’M IN the villa’s front courtyard gathering art supplies for tonight’s lesson when Tao peeks around the front gate. He asks if I’m all right. I answer yes, but I’m still upset—by seeing that woman die. Tao nods sympathetically and then says, “I want to show you something. Will you come with me?”
“I need to get things ready for class.”
“For a few minutes only, please?”
I look to see if anyone is watching us. I don’t see anyone, but that doesn’t mean that someone can’t hear us the way sound travels in here.
“Comrade Tao,” I say formally, just in case, “I will come with you. I want to be useful to everyone in the village.”
He grins when I join him outside the front gate. He turns left, and I follow as he walks on the path that runs next to the villa’s high wall. He crosses over a small stone footbridge and turns left again onto a path that parallels Green Dragon’s stream. If he smells like gasoline, I don’t notice, because I now wear that scent myself. I wear it with pride, knowing that I’ve truly joined village life.
We don’t go far before Tao takes my hand and pulls me off the main path. Touching was taboo in Chinatown, but the rules are even more stringent here. I can’t believe that Tao’s touching me at all or that I’m following him up a very steep set of stone steps built into the hillside. He doesn’t let go of my hand. Farther up the hill, nearly hidden in a bamboo grove, is a pavilion about ten feet wide. I’m out of breath by the time we reach it. Round posts with peeling red paint rise up to rafters. Soft green bamboo surrounds three sides of the pavilion. A low stone railing on the fourth side protects us from a long fall into the valley below. Hills, villages, and fields stretch out before us.
“It’s lovely,” I say. I turn from the view to meet Tao’s dark eyes. The air suddenly hangs heavy. I sense what’s going to happen next. Maybe I will it to happen. When Tao pulls me into his arms, I go easily and submissively. His mouth tastes fresh—like white tea. I feel his heart beat against mine. He holds me and again stares into my eyes. I feel I’m looking into his soul. I see kindness, sympathy, and generosity. I see an artist.
Then he releases me and takes a step back. I don’t care what Kumei said. There is no “free” love in China. We don’t even have it in America. All love comes at a price, as my aunt May learned. Tao and I were only kissing, true, but what we’ve done is beyond forbidden in the New China. What am I saying? It was forbidden in the old China too! And let’s face it. I’m a good Chinese girl, who was raised in Chinatown. I don’t do things like this.
“What is this place?” I ask, desperate to create some distance between what I want to do and what we should do.
“It’s the Charity Pavilion,” Tao answers. His voice is strong. Not a single quaver. “It was built by the grandfather of the landowner who once possessed the villa where you’re staying. All this was his land. He owned the pavilion, the villa, every building in Green Dragon, and the fields where we work.” He gestures to the un
dulating green hills. “This is how our village got its name. It’s like a green dragon running through the countryside.”
If he can be so straightforward, then I should be as well. I glance around the pavilion. Couplets are painted on the three rafters: BE KIND AND BENEVOLENT. MAKE A CASUAL STOP ON THE ENDLESS WAY TO THE FUTURE. and PUT ALL TROUBLES FROM YOUR MIND.
“ ‘Make a casual stop on the endless way to the future,’ ” I read aloud. “Is that what we’re doing?”
Tao gives me a look I don’t understand.
“Is that what we’re doing?” I repeat.
“But why do we need to stop?”
I hear this with my American mind. I’ve been kissed by only three boys. Once by Leon Lee, the son of my parents’ friends Violet and Rowland Lee. From the time Leon and I were children, our parents plotted that we would marry one day. That was never going to happen. Leon was too serious for me, and I never wanted to end up striving, striving, striving for the American Dream, buying a house, a dishwasher, and a lawn. Joe Kwok and I kissed a few times in college, and I thought we were serious about each other. I learned he wasn’t serious about anything except his own future. And now Tao. I’m a virgin, but I know the dangers, and there’s no way I’m going to second base.
“It was fated that you would come to my village,” Tao says. “It was fated that your father would be an artist who would teach me. Perhaps it’s fated that we should be together.”
“I need to get back,” I mumble. “I need to help my father.”
As I start to leave, he pulls me to him again. There’s nothing shy in the way he holds me or the way he runs his hand up inside my blouse to my breast. Now that’s something that’s never happened to me before, and my mind empties. The pleasure of that. The yearning and desire it awakens startles and unsettles me. He nuzzles my neck, pushing aside the pouch my aunt gave me with his lips. His tongue darts out, tasting my flesh, sending shivers of cold from my neck to my nipples. How does he know what to do?
“You should go back first,” he says, his voice surprisingly husky. “I’ll come a little late to the meeting, so no one suspects anything.”
I nod and pull away.
“We have to be careful,” he says. “No one can know … for now.”
I nod again.
“Go,” he says, and I obey.
ATTENDING OUR political-study class and art lesson in the ancestral hall doesn’t calm my restless emotions. I’m walking in the darkness of seeing a woman die and the light of Tao’s touch. My feelings are confused, but that doesn’t explain the agitation around me. Tonight the men cluster together, keeping their heads down and their voices low, while the women gather on the other side of the hall, with their heads up and their tongues scissor sharp.
