“This biography of Lin Zhao, a dissident poet, is wishy-washy,” I say to Mummy Lulu, “and Lin was executed on 29th April, today, fifty-four years ago.”

My hand clinging a spanking new paperback, I enter the cafe in The Chateau Spa and Wellness Centre, cast my gaze around and spot Mummy Lulu at a table, her fingers tapping on her cup. Sweet suffering saints! Her tom-cat Kitty is sitting on a doily at one side of the table, with a mug in front of him.  Short strides bring me to Mummy Lulu and I pull out a chair and plonk my butt down.

Mummy Lulu’s smile is so wide I can see all her teeth. “How was the massage?” I ask her. Cool mountain air washes over my face and tingles my senses.

“Fantastic! I feel ten years younger.” Mummy Lulu straightens up and pushes her spectacles up her nose.   “Did you nap?” Her skin is the color of over-ripe peach, her eyes walnut, and her breasts sagging like water-filled balloons inside her T-shirt.

“Nope, I read this book Blood Letters: The Untold Story of Lin Zhao.” I hold the book aloft. “Wasted my time, wasted my money. Lin was executed on this date, 29^th April, in 1968.” I pass the book to Mummy Lulu.

“Take a seat.” Mummy Lulu places it on her lap, flipping it open. My gaze slides downward to her shiny shins—gee, she has shaved them—and rests for a beat on her pink-tipped toes in strapped sandals. “I’ll brew you some Yorkshire Tea.” Mummy Lulu’s gnarled forefinger flicks a switch at the electric kettle beside her and then she nudges a platter of cookies to the centre of the table. “The Scottish Shortbread and Sultana Cookies are excellent.”   She hikes her chin in the direction of a corner table. “Jessica and Chow Kah are behaving like lovebirds. Let them be.” She winks, crinkling the corner of the eye. “Wati and Hussein have gone for a walk in the Japanese Garden.”

The Chateau Spa and Wellness Resort in Berjaya Hills is only thirty minutes’ drive away from KL. Yesterday, Mummy Lulu, Chow Kah, Jessica, Hussein, Wati and I had come in separate cars to de-stress in a one-night stay.

Mummy Lulu flicks the pages of the book and her eyes skim over each page, speed-reading them. “Lin Zhao was born in 1932, graduated from South Jiangsu Journalism Vocational School in 1950.” The kettle clicks and she pours tea into my China cup. Her gaze continues to hopscotch over the pages of the book. “In 1960, Lin wrote articles critical of the Great Leap Forward in underground journal Spark of Fire.  She labeled it the Great Leap Backward.” Mummy Lulu picks up a Scottish Shortbread, bites on it and obliterates half it.  She chews for a while, making her mouth look as if it opens and closes on hinges, and then chomps on the remaining half. “Same year, her father Peng Guoyan committed suicide by swallowing rat poison” She takes a swallow, sips a mouthful of tea, and continues to eye the pages one after another. “While in prison, she wrote letters to the People’s Daily newspaper.  Prison guards sent them out, and they were published. The editor Wu Lengxi was later sacked—Hallelujah!”—the corners of Mummy Lulu’s wrinkled lips curl in a scowl—“serves him right.” Her tongue rolls to the side of her mouth, the tip peeking out for a heartbeat. “Also wrote letters and poems in blood to her friends, relatives and propaganda organs.” As Mummy Lulu continues to read, in my mind, I recreate the drab prison that Lin had lived for eight years, evoking a feeling of claustrophobia in me, and then Mummy Lulu’s voice tows me back to the present. “Why Lin’s letters written in blood? Wasn’t she supplied ink?”

“She was given ink but wanted to add more drama to her writing.” My eyes jump from Mummy Lulu and lands on Kitty, whose tubby form makes me want to cuddle him. Holy cow! He’s drinking tea by dipping one paw in the cup in front of him and licking it! My eyes rebound to Mummy Lulu’s face and I add for emphasis, “Lin’s a drama queen wanting attention.”

“The first record of Chinese blood writing was traced to Buddhist monks who copied the sutras in their own blood.” She lifts her mug, blows at her tea and takes a swallow.  “There’s a belief that writing the sutras in blood earns you more merits than writing in ink.”  

Distant birdsong whines in my ears. “The author dubs her as a Christian martyr—this is nonsense.”  I cast my gaze at the colourful flowers, eye-soothing shrubbery and nerve-calming fir trees on the hill slope: they almost suck my breath away. My eyes meet Mummy Lulu’s. “Her arrest has nothing to do with religion and everything to do with politics. This attempt to tie religion to her imprisonment is a cheap ploy to boost book sales with Christians.”

Mummy Lulu points to a spot on a page. “Ah, here’s an interesting fact. It says here that ‘On a single day in April during the Suppression of Counterrevolutionaries Campaign of 1951, a citywide crackdown on counterrevolutionaries rounded up 8,359 people, 285 of whom were executed within the next three days. An additional 1,060 were shot over the months of June and July to fill the quota personally set by Mao: he had declared that “at least around 3,000” counterrevolutionaries of various stripes in Shanghai ‘must be killed in 1951.’ So, Mao had a quota.”

“Banal facts and figures to me.” One side of my lips veer upward in a sneer.  “Killing is inherent in a revolution, nothing shocking, nothing unusual; a revolution without killing isn’t a revolution, is it?” I spread my hands like a person feeling for rain. “The French Revolution, the Bolshevik Revolution, the Haitian Revolution all saw buckets of bloodshed.”

Mummy Lulu lifts her curved brows. “Haitian Revolution? Never heard of it.” Her eyebrows are thick, indicating a feisty temperament.

“An early 19th century event. Seventy-five thousand French colonialists were killed in Haiti, which then became independent. Twenty-five thousand Haitians gave their lives for the revolution.” I tickle Kitty on the chin which has stopped drinking his tea. The fuzzy sensation delights me. “I also find Lin’s poems uninspiring—superficial rhetoric that fails to etch in my memory. But what do you think?”

“Wait.” Mummy Lulu holds up one hand and returns it to the book to turn another page.  “Jesus Christ, she tore away Mao’s picture in the newspapers while reading them in prison, went on hunger strikes, attempted suicide by swallowing the heads of two boxes of matches, then swallowed medicated soap on a second attempt .” Mummy Lulu purses her lips. “Her poems? Let me see…” She mouths the words as she reads but, gradually, the light of interest fades from her big shiny eyes. “This woman’s no Emily Dickinson or Charlotte Bronte.” Mummy Lulu rests one foot on the bottom cross bar of the table and it wobbles. Gold-coloured tea spills from my cup to the saucer. “Oops! Can I steady the table with the book?”

“Go ahead. I was going to trash it anyway. I rate it one out of five stars—it’s a miserable attempt to lionize a journalist/poet who’s far from being extraordinary. And the book claims -- without supplying proof -- that, after Lin’s execution, the police went to Lin’s mother to collect five yuan as bullet fee—a cheap attempt to demonize the Communist Government.”

/end