Free Katherine by Anchee Min Page A

night. We fell asleep with tears of joy on our faces. God, I can’t believe it was so long ago . . . It was like a song, a movie, a poem, it always stays with me, reminding me that there are beautiful things in life.”
    Our cheeks became feverish as Katherine’s voice grew soft. We dipped our hearts in its sweetness. Our class began a love affair with her, a love affair that would seek to reclaim the land of our hearts.

I n many ways my relationship with Lion Head began on our way back from the mountains. We spent three days in Persimmon Village living with peasants and learning to love the Chinese landscape. We bathed with soap-tree fruits that made everyone smell like lilac through and through.
    The trip with Katherine lightened our spirit. On our way back on the bus, I couldn’t help talking to her. My mouth was like an open dam, thoughts rushed out. I asked her many questions, including questions I would never ask a Chinese: about men, about what kind of men she found attractive. It surprised me when Katherine said that she considered Lion Head attractive. From that moment on, Lion Head was a different man in my eyes.
    Katherine said that an attractive man was someone who was sure of himself, acted on his own will, and had style. I looked atthe men around me and I figured that Lion Head was the one who most closely fit the description. He did have a certain weird style.
    Katherine said that she had had a dream about Lion Head in which she had slipped into Jasmine’s role. She said it was a “hot dream.” I asked her to explain. She said, “Hot. A sexy dream.” She laughed.
    I looked at her and began to wonder, Did she mean that she felt desire for Lion Head? I turned to look at Lion Head, who was lying in the back of the bus, sleeping like a baby. His expression was peaceful. The face reminded me of the angel Katherine described in her Christmas stories.
    *   *   *
    T hrough Katherine’s imagination I found Lion Head irresistible. I began to think his eccentric laughter charming, his talk enlightening. I began to think of this boy-man as the Son of Light; wherever he went, the place shined, flowers bloomed. His arrogance nurtured my desire. I started to see why Jasmine refused to let him go.
    *   *   *
    I got Lion Head more old urine-colored traditional paintings from my neighbors. He was very pleased with my “sharpening taste.” In return, he gave me all the dry soap-tree fruits he brought back from Persimmon Village. He said he loved the smell. Every time I visited him, he insisted on smelling my neck. He said he had become a “soap-tree man.” “Jasmine ran out of soap-tree fruit, and her father was mad at me for not providing it for his daughter.” One day Lion Head told me that Mr. Han had had a serious talk with him. He made sure Lion Head understood the power Jasmine held over his future. Mr. Han painted a picture of what might happen if Lion Head continued to neglect his daughter.
    Lion Head told me that he considered himself a free spirit. To imprison him was to bury him. He tried to dance around the president’s “mousetrap.” But Mr. Han was no fool. He had warned Lion Head that there were rules that could not be broken and boundaries that must not be crossed. “I might break Jasmine’s neck if that old fart pushes me one more inch,” Lion Head said.
    Lion Head made up his mind as he talked to me. He decided to surrender to the president’s power, but not live in misery. He said that he would enter a spiritual realm, where he would be his own master. He believed that the path of liberation was a progressive disentanglement of one’s self from every form of identification, to realize that one was not this body, these sensations, these feelings, these thoughts, this consciousness. He explained that the basic reality of life could thus be altered.
    “In order to grow,” he said, “I must cease knowing. I am the Possessor of Knowledge, and the Possessor of Knowledge can