I did not take a nap that day, as I was concentrating on making paper cut-outs of a scene in the ballet The Red Detachment of Women. I did not know that twenty-four kilometres away, Ruo-Dan also went without a nap. Unlike me, she remembered the day’s significance.
That morning, when her fellow Red Guards cheerfully responded to her proposal to swim on this special day, Ruo-Dan’s plan was to go right after lunch. The walk from the school to the Jialing River would take about half an hour, which would warm them up before jumping into the cold water. It was a peaceful noon in the Third Middle School of Chongqing. No gunfire had been heard since the previous week’s battle in a nearby factory ended with the victory of my sister’s faction. Now there were only the chirps of cicadas under the bright summer sun. In the dining hall where the students were having lunch together, the boys said they would go after taking their noon siesta. It’s not good to move a lot right after a meal, they argued, and it would be cooler later on.
Ruo-Dan had no patience for their excuses. She surely could skip a nap on such a special day! Since Chairman Mao’s call to Chinese youth to go into the big rivers to be tempered, she had been teaching herself to swim in the school’s pool, but the pool was child’s play compared with big rivers. What could be more meaningful than to go into a river for the first time, to show her determination to follow the Great Leader’s call
It took little effort to convince her three roommates. After all, they had swum in pools before. Why did they have to wait for the boys The four girls walked out of the schoolyard full of daring and vigour, red silk bands on their left arms, faded green People’s Liberation Army uniforms covering their swimming suits. They crossed the sleepy streets in the quiet noon, taking a shortcut through the Architecture College campus and out onto the trail down to the river. They walked past fields of vegetables, barren hills, and a factory, before at last approaching the bank of the river. They felt a gust of cool, moist air, heavy with the smell of earth, breaking the days intense heat, as the great expanse of water came into view.
The river looked different on that day, wider than normal. There were no boats in sight. The usually clear and calm current was muddy and swift. Broken tree branches swirled past. Even the inexperienced eyes of these sixteen-year-old girls could tell that the water was rising. A big rock the boys used to jump off had almost disappeared completely. The waves washing upward along the dirt bank did not look as kind and fun as they remembered.
The girls surveyed back and forth trying to find a good spot to enter the water. A small inlet where tips of long grasses were waving near the banks looked calmer than elsewhere. Ruo-Dan decided that this was the place and the others agreed. They took off their shoes. They took off their uniforms and stood there in their swimsuits. They looked at each other; no one moved.
Ruo-Dan read hesitation in her friends’ eyes. She was a leader. A leader should always be at the head of her people. “All right,” she said, “I’ll go first. I am going to measure the waters depth and signal you. Okay”
“Perhaps we should wait for [the boys],” one girl said with an unsure tone.
“No”, Ruo-Dan responded. In a blink, her entire body sank into the water, her shoulder-length black hair floating behind her. The other girls watched Ruo-Dan’s black hair fade in and out of the water. Soon there was no sign of anything but the yellow-brown waves.
The girls waited. They waited for Ruo-Dan’s face to spring out of the water again and for her to signal to them. They waited until panic set in. One girl burst out, “She’s gone!” As if hearing a command, all three of them started to cry. They sat on the dirt, screaming “Ruo-Dan!” again and again. No one heard their cries.
