Chapter 41

The Russian Script

Part of the studio was planning for the premiere of our new film.  Most of us were preparing for the next film – the third script Jiks had been given.  I was a Russian whore.  Reluctant, of course, but a whore nonetheless.  The core of the plot ran like this:

It’s 1920.  The Bolsheviks are chasing the aristocrats out of Russia.  Most go to France, but some in the east escape to China.  They aren’t welcomed.  Beside their arrogance, many ruled estates that had been northern China until the lands were given to Russia by Britain during the Opium Wars.  Half a century had passed since the lands were taken, but memories are long. 

So the Russians congregate in their own neighborhoods in Shanghai.  They have their homes, their parties, their aristocratic lives.  Local Chinese keep their distance.  The Russians play, the Chinese work.  The Russians play until their money runs out.  They sell some possessions, but mostly they sell their servants.  One day my employer takes me by the wrist and walks me to the local brothel.  He sells me.  As part of the sales agreement, he is my first customer.  Chinese film shows very little sex, but all is intimated with his looks, his presence at my bed, and my tears.

I try to escape, but all doors are locked.  I am forced into dresses that show my breasts and my ankles.  Russian men come to the brothel and use me.  Each day I check every door.  One day I find an unlocked door and run for my life, a fist full of skirt in each hand, I run barefoot as far and as fast as I can.  I make it to a Chinese area.  Restaurants.  I hide in a kitchen.  An older woman sees me.  She says nothing.  Russian men come looking for me.  She says nothing.  They get rough.  A dozen kung foo fighters get up from a table and beat the Russians.

The restaurant lady takes me in.  I work in her kitchen.  She feeds me and gives me a place to sleep.  Over time one of the customers woos me (it is one of the cuter scenes), he marries me, and we live happily.  In one of the final scenes my old employer comes with some men to take me back and is soundly beaten by the neighborhood men.  I stand with my Chinese husband, his arm around my shoulders protecting me.  The end.

So now, the bad guys are Russians.  I described the new film to my mother in our weekly emails.  By agreement, she would forward the emails to Fort Meade.  Me, I was just glad to no longer be a missionary wife or daughter.  Could I play a Russian whore?  Well, Jiks found me a good acting coach.  And I wrote all the dialog, so I felt comfortable saying it.

We had high hopes for the film.  It had great fight scenes, so it would draw male viewers, and it had a love story, and it had hints of sex.  We were right.  It did great at the box office.

But I had to ask.  It was the night I had finished rewriting the script, and he had accepted my work.  I thought a good place for hard questions  – on the couch after dinner, looking out at the apartment towers, my feet under me, my head on his shoulder, his arm around me.  It was not my place to ask, but I asked anyway.

“When you go to Beijing to talk with the finance people, are any of the finance people actually government people?”

“Finance in China is like an onion.  There are layers.  But at the core is the government.  Why do you ask?”

“You are making films that have foreign enemies.  American missionaries and now Russians.  They are good films, and I like rewriting the scripts and acting in them.  But the political components are obvious.”

“And I noticed your political responses are obvious.  You toned down the stupidity of the missionaries and enhanced the vulgarity of the Russians.”

“The missionaries were flawed people, but they were trying to do the right thing.”

“Was it right to bring a foreign deity to a land that is the birthplace of major religions?”

“Let’s not argue that.  I was just wondering if our next film will be about America, Russia, or maybe Vietnam.”

“I haven’t seen the script yet.”

“It will be given to you next time you are in Beijing.”

I regretted those words the minute they cleared my mouth.  Too much.  Too far.  Too challenging.  I got a long silence in response.  When words finally came, they made my situation clear.

“You are a Chinese citizen, Mary.  You will support your country.  I give you freedom to adjust scripts, but you will not change the basic direction.  China has enemies.  Those are now your enemies.  You will help teach our citizens elements of their history, elements that still matter today.”

Another long silence.  And an act.  The arm that was around my shoulder was now grasping me far tighter.  It was painful.  His other hand took my throat and pushed my head back.  He stared into my face and then kissed me.  It was not a kiss of love.  It was a kiss of control.  His hand stayed around my throat.

“Do you understand your position, Mary?”

“Yes.”

“I need more.  I need you to tell me of your support for me and for our country.”

“I love you, and I love China.  I will give you Chinese babies if you let me.”

“That may yet happen.”

He lifted me off the couch and carried me to our bedroom.  He wanted me on my knees.  He put me there and kept me there.  I watched his face as I pleased him.  Babies.  I wondered if the time would come when he did get me pregnant – not as an act of love, but as another form of control.