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15
A Student Who Was Different
A FEW DAYS AFTER the New Year, I took a long bus ride to Fuzhou Road, where the major bookshops were located. I first visited the Foreign Language Bookshop hoping to find some English textbooks I could use for teaching my students who were to start their lessons after the New Year. Besides the single clerk and myself, the spacious shop was empty. On the bookshelves lining the walls were displayed only the English, German, French, and Russian translations of Mao Zedong’s four volumes of collected essays and the complete works of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Kim II Sung of North Korea, and Enver Hoxha of Albania. There were no other books. Near the entrance, a collection of Communist Party newspapers from other parts of the world was gathering dust on a counter. I looked at a copy of the British Daily Worker and found it was nearly two months old.
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I went up to the clerk and asked, “Is there any way I can get some English textbooks?”
She merely shook her head.
Then I went to the main Xinhua Bookshop, the government agency for selling all publications, to get a copy of Three Hundred Tang Poems. I wanted to check the poems I used to recite in prison to see if my memory of them was correct.
The Xinhua Bookshop was more lively. A small crowd stood in front of the counter of technical books, and the clerks were busy. Quite a number of customers were buying children’s comics, which in China were illustrated propaganda stories about the lives of revolutionary heroes, the suppression of bad landlords, and the unmasking of Kuomintang counterrevolutionaries. The large middle section of the bookshop was for the display of Mao’s books. His collected works, his book of quotations, and his slim volume of poetry in cloth or paperback filled the shelves. I remembered that when I was in the detention house, I had learned from a newspaper report that as many as one hundred and fifty million copies of his collected works and seven hundred million copies of his book of quotations had been printed to enable each Chinese family to possess one set of the collected works and each individual to have one copy of the quotations. Also, the shelves contained Chinese-language versions of the complete works of Marx, En-gels, Lenin, Stalin, Kim II Sung, and Enver Hoxha. Though this female clerk presided over the most fully stocked shelves, she had no customers.
In a corner of the shop, I saw under the label “Literature” a few books lying flat on the shelves. I could not see their titles. I went up to the clerk and asked her, “Have you a copy of Three Hundred Tang Poems?”
She shook her head and said, “No, of course not.”
From her tone of voice I understood that Three Hundred Tang Poems had been banned by the radicals. She probably thought me very stupid even to ask for it.
Pointing to the books lying flat on the shelves behind her, I asked, “What are those books?”
Without speaking, she picked up a copy and turned it around to let me see the title. It was The Song of Ou Yanghai, the story of a soldier who was killed by a passing train when he tried to save his mule. His courage and spirit of self-sacrifice were attributed to the fact that he had studied Mao’s books diligently and therefore was fearless. The story had been approved by the Maoist leaders, especially Jiang Qing. Tens of thousands of copies of the book were printed, and the author was made a Central Committee member at the Ninth Party Congress.
“I’ve already read that. Have you anything else? What about that?” I pointed to the lower shelf.
She patiently picked up the book and showed it to me. It was just another copy of the same book.
“Have you any other book?”
“There is The Diary of Lei Feng,” she said.
Lei Feng was another soldier who died and was declared a national hero and a model of self-sacrifice by the Maoists. He had been eulogized before the Cultural Revolution in a nationwide campaign called “Learn from Lei Feng,” when the indoctrination of all Chinese people with Mao’s books was intensified. Passages from Lei Feng’s diary, such as “Read Chairman Mao’s books, obey Chairman Mao’s orders, and be Chairman Mao’s good warriors,” were widely quoted by newspaper articles and Party leaders including Lin Biao. The case of Lei Feng was used by the Maoists in the army to illustrate their assertion that political indoctrination was more important than the modern weapons and combat skill advocated by military leaders subsequently purged during the Cultural Revolution.
“I’ve already read that. Have you any other books?” I asked.
She shook her head again.
I walked out of the Xinhua Bookshop and boarded a bus to go home. I thought that the Cultural Revolution could be more aptly named Cultural Annihilation.
Since I could not obtain English textbooks, I could not teach beginning students but had to accept only those who had studied English already and were equipped with books. I had six students and gave either a morning or an evening to each from Monday to Saturday. After the lesson, we would chat over a cup of tea. My students brought me news and gossip that was not printed in the newspaper. It was largely through my students that I was kept informed of the volatile political situation in China during that time.
My most interesting student, and the one who stayed with me for many years, was a young man who had been a leader of the Red Guards in the early years of the Cultural Revolution. Da De had rather an unfortunate personal background. His father deserted his mother when he was only a few months old and disappeared in Hong Kong, never to be heard of again. There was little money. His mother, his two sisters, and he lived in great poverty for many years before his mother obtained a job teaching English at the Shanghai Foreign Language Institute. Her salary was small. Even though they no longer had to sell their belongings to buy food, they remained poor. His mother’s youngest sister, however, married a general in the Communist army in the early fifties when, flushed with victory, many Communist Party leaders discarded their peasant wives and married attractive city girls.
His family connection with the elite of the army and his intense hatred of anybody who was rich catapulted him into leadership positions, first in the Red Guard organization of his own school and later in the Red Guard organization of the city. He took part in all the Red Guard activities: plundering the wealthy, torturing class enemies, fighting factional wars, and killing innocent people. When we practiced English conversation and I asked him to tell me stories in English, he would talk about his exploits during the Cultural Revolution in a matter-of-fact voice, as if he were talking about the weather. He was not proud, or ashamed, of what he did. I thought Da De was amoral. And I wondered why he wanted to learn English from me when his own mother was an English teacher. Once, I asked him point-blank. He merely shrugged his shoulders and said, “You mustn’t ask anyone a direct question like that. In any case, you can’t afford to believe the answer, whatever it is.”
Da De told me that he had lost his leadership position in the Red Guard when his uncle by marriage, the general, was buried alive at the order of Lin Biao. This happened after the Ninth Party Congress when Lin Biao was made the official successor of Mao Zedong. His uncle, a longtime Party member and much-decorated war hero, had voiced doubts about Lin Biao’s suitability because of Lin Biao’s addiction to heroin.
“Can I afford to believe what you have just told me?” I asked him half jokingly.
“Yes, definitely. Because believing it will do you no harm. However, you may foolishly choose to trust me more because I’m no longer a leader of the Red Guards and my uncle has died. But I’m sure you know trusting anybody at all is ill-advised,” he said, blithely dispensing wisdom as if he were an old sage.
The name Da De means “great virtue.” I couldn’t think of anyone I had ever known who was more indifferent either to virtue or to vice. Intelligent and self-taught, he was extremely egotistical. In fact, it was his overdeveloped ego that prompted him to tell me from time to time what he knew of the power struggle within the Party hierarchy. And he loved conflict of any kind. When he talked about the political intrigues of the Party leaders, he glowed with excitement. He seemed to relish other people’s misfortune and despised victims simply because they had failed to win. To him, there was glamor in success no matter how it was achieved. It was difficult to know where his loyalty lay. Once I asked him, “Which side are you on?”
Pointing to his chest, he said, “Of course, here, on my own side.”
One day he saw a copy of a Red Guard publication on my desk. “Why do you bother reading such childish rubbish?” he asked me disdainfully.
“I want to know what went on during the Cultural Revolution when I was locked up in the detention house.”
’I can tell you everything, from beginning to end, and more,” he boasted.
“Won’t you get into trouble for doing that?”
“Why should I if you do not tell anybody? And if you do tell somebody, you’ll get into trouble just as fast as I will.”
“What if the authorities find out anyhow?” I asked him.
“How can anybody find out if neither of us talks about it? Your room isn’t bugged.”
“Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure. You are not important enough for mechanical devices that are in short supply, only for human effort,” he said, laughing uproariously.
Da De became my student through what I later realized was an elaborate maneuver. When I first started to give lessons, one of Meiping’s friends, a violinist with the disbanded Shanghai municipal orchestra, became one of my students. His mother was a fellow student when I was at Yanjing University. She asked me if I would take on her son because the young man hoped to emigrate to the United States, where his uncle was a tenured professor. Because I was under the impression that the young violinist was very anxious to learn English, I was extremely surprised to find he was not attentive during lessons and did no homework. In fact, he often did not come at all at the appointed hour.
One day I was waiting for him and feeling increasingly exasperated when Da De turned up. He introduced himself and said, “I’ve come to apologize for Zhang. He has just been called to the police station to get his passport and can’t come today.”
He sat down across the table from me, opened the book he was carrying, and said, “I’m sorry to bother you. I’m trying to study English by myself. Could you explain this passage for me?”
I looked at the book. It was The Gathering Storm by Sir Winston Churchill.
“Where did you get this book?” I asked him.
“I borrowed it,” he said, laying emphasis on the word “borrow.” “There was a whole set, but I was able to borrow only this one volume.”
“Were you a Red Guard?”
“Oh, yes!” He smiled at me and said, “You are very quickwitted, just as I have heard. I have also heard that your spoken English is the best in Shanghai.”
The book had actually been stolen by him when he went with the Red Guards to loot homes. The other volumes had probably been burned.
A few days later, the violinist came with Da De to bid me goodbye and asked me to accept Da De in his place.
A-yi was always excessively polite to Da De when she brought us tea, though her attitude towards my other students was one of indifference. A-yi’s attitude and Da De’s maneuver to become my student aroused my interest in this lanky young man. Also he seemed anxious for my company. In addition to the mornings designated for his lessons, he took to visiting me almost every day under one pretext or another. He told me that he had plenty of time since he was “waiting for employment”—an expression used by the People’s Government for “unemployment,” which was not supposed to exist in a socialist state. He also said that he wished to render service to me in order to repay me for the free lessons.
He often accompanied me on shopping trips. Then he would stand on line with me, push through the crowd when it was disorderly, and tell me what commodities were available on the counter, because he could see over the heads of the other shoppers. Sometimes he even stretched out his long arm to take something from the shop assistant before the other customers could get it. If we failed to find what I wanted after visiting several shops, he would offer to get it for me through the back door. On the bus, he would shield me from the jostling crowd and elbow people to make room for me to get on and off. When I thanked him after an exhausting day, he would say, “I enjoy shopping with you. You always buy the best of everything. That makes me feel good.”
Very soon I discovered that he liked good food but could not afford to go to good restaurants. So when he accompanied me on shopping trips, I would treat him to a really good lunch in a restaurant of his choice. On the first occasion, he asked me, “Do you want to go to one of the best restaurants?”
“I’ll take you to whichever restaurant you want,” I told him.
“Never mind the cost?”
“Never mind the cost.”
He ordered enough food for four people and finished everything. That was when I realized that he was thin because of undernourishment. I felt sorry for him even though I was aware of the likelihood that he was an informer planted by those who wished me ill.
I would be a hypocrite if I did not admit that I hoped to make use of Da De. If he had indeed been planted by someone who wanted me under constant observation so that he could make use of a careless word or an inadvertent action to incriminate me, Da De was likely to know the truth about my daughter’s death. At an opportune moment, I meant to ask him. That moment had to be one when such divulgence would not be detrimental to his own self-interest. In the meantime, I thought I could use him to convey an image of myself I wished his peers to have.
Long before there was any possibility of my leaving China, I tried to create the impression that I could not live without servants. Once, in my hearing, Da De told Kong, “She hates housework of any kind and can’t even boil rice!” I was sure he despised me as a parasite and probably told everybody so. In fact, the impression I deliberately created of wishing to live in China because I liked having servants probably contributed in the end to my being given a passport to visit my sisters in the United States. Those who decided to give me the passport probably thought I was sure to return after a few months because I could not manage without servants.
Early in 1974, having recovered from my operation and improved the apartment, I was in euphoric mood. Teaching prevented me from brooding over my daughter’s death. I felt more peaceful and relaxed than I had been for a long time.
As the Chinese New Year approached, A-yi told me that special rations for the festival, first cut back and then abolished by the Revolutionaries, were being distributed again. Unrationed food items were also more plentiful in the shops. It seemed to me that the effort made by Deng Xiaoping and his lieutenants to restore China’s economy had been fairly successful, in spite of resistance by the radicals. The political wind in China had certainly veered to the right since the Tenth Party Congress as more and more former senior Party officials, denounced as “capitalist-roaders,” were reinstated.
My students brought me reports of drastic measures, including arrests, being taken against the more intransigent Revolutionaries. One of them told me that the newly rehabilitated minister of railways went to Xuzhou, a vital junction linking Guangzhou (Canton) and Shanghai to Beijing, to restore service. When the Revolutionaries, who had occupied the railway junction and paralyzed its work, refused to obey his order, the minister of railways, Wan Li, called a mass meeting. He condemned the leading Revolutionaries in front of their followers and had them taken out and shot. Such decisiveness by an old Party official was encouraging to the long-suffering people who cheered him and his action. Unfortunately it also hastened the next round of struggle as the radicals saw their hard-won position being eroded under their feet. However, the old Party officials were careful not to repudiate the Cultural Revolution openly. They found enough quotations from Mao’s old writings to justify their efforts to restore order and to prevent any accusation that they were against Mao’s policies.
The Chinese New Year celebrations were traditionally linked to ancestor worship. When I was a child they lasted a full month, with preparations beginning fifteen days before the New Year and lasting until the Lantern Festival on the fifteenth of the first lunar month. Even though life had become much simpler under socialism and family reunions had taken the place of ancestor worship, the Chinese people still prepared seriously for the Chinese New Year celebrations. On New Year’s Day everything in the home had to be clean, so A-yi and I spent days cleaning the apartment, taking everything out of the cupboards, waxing the floor, polishing the furniture, and washing the windows. There had been a time when we wore a completely new set of clothes on New Year’s Day. Not everybody could afford a new suit of clothes now, not because of the price but because there was rationing of clothes coupons. All I could manage was to get A-yi a padded jacket. But it was a more stylish one than she normally wore. We both stood in numerous lines to get the food we were going to serve to our visitors. I expected all my students to come to wish me a happy New Year, as it was the custom. For those who might bring children, I prepared good-luck money wrapped in red paper. As she watched me getting it ready, A-yi became nervous and asked whether the Residents’ Committee ladies might accuse me of trying to revive an old custom. I told her I would give the money only to those who were not likely to report to anybody.
With my returned foreign exchange account I was obviously a great deal better off than most people, so I decided to be generous to everybody. I even bought a large cream cake and two catties of chocolates for the Zhus as a New Year’s present. Deep in my heart, however, I was very sad, because while others were surrounded by their families, I was alone. Scenes of past New Years I had spent with my daughter and my husband were always in my mind. But I was determined not to let anyone know how I really felt. I wanted the Revolutionaries to think I had assumed a fatalistic attitude towards my daughter’s death.
Two days before the Chinese New Year, Hean came home with her husband and children to spend the holiday with her family. I was very happy to meet her extremely intelligent husband and to hear his version of the power struggle going on in Beijing. Their two children were adorable. Being too young to feel the political cloud over all our heads, they were completely carefree and happy.
Hean was fortunate to have her husband and children with her. Many young people in China were sent away from their families to work in other parts of the country, thousands of miles away, and allowed short “marital leave” only once a year. Children grew up hardly knowing their fathers, while women faced the dual responsibility of bringing up the children single-handed and holding demanding jobs. The Party inflicted this mindless cruelty on China’s young people in the name of “the needs of socialism” and “serving the people.” The hypocrisy of the claim was exposed by the fact that Party officials and their children were seldom asked to make such sacrifices. Instead, they received “special consideration” and were given jobs in the same city as their spouses.
The news of my release had spread among Meiping’s friends. During the holiday period, many of them came to visit me, including those home on marital leave. Much of their conversation was about job transfer. They were anxious to take advantage of the present rampant use of the back door to get themselves transferred to places near their loved ones. Those who had already started the process of negotiation were anxious to exchange information and experiences with one another when they met at my place. From their conversations, I learned of the widespread practice of bribery and corruption in all parts of China among the lower-ranking Party officials.
“How do you account for the collapse of idealism among Party officials when the purpose of the Cultural Revolution was to purify Chinese society and promote socialism?” I asked one of Meiping’s friends who was on marital leave from Wuhan and was trying to get herself transferred to somewhere near Shanghai, where her husband was.
“The new Party officials promoted during the Cultural Revolution were never idealists in the first place,” she said. “They saw the Cultural Revolution simply as an opportunity for personal advancement and joined the Revolutionaries to realize their ambition. The old Party officials who have been reinstated might have been idealists when they joined the Party a long time ago, but they are now thoroughly disillusioned by their humiliating experiences during the Cultural Revolution. They feel that they have been treated unfairly by the Party and that their sacrifice during the war years was for nothing. All they are concerned with now is their political survival in future power struggles and a comfortable life for themselves and their children.”
“When you give the officials expensive presents or money in order to get permission for a job transfer, are you not afraid you might get into trouble?” I asked her.
“Of course, there’s a risk. But I’m desperate. Anyway, I think such instances are too numerous to be investigated. One day the Party leadership may clamp down, but at the moment they are too busy fighting each other. We must seize the opportunity.”
Our conversation was interrupted by the arrival of Da De, who had taken upon himself the task of supplying me with freshly baked pies and cakes from the bakery. I knew, of course, it was just an excuse for making sure that he could pay me a daily call to see who was visiting me. While he was putting the cakes away in the kitchen, I accompanied Meiping’s friend downstairs, carrying her baby’s paraphernalia while the baby slept quietly in her arms. When we were at the front gate and she saw that no one was around, she whispered to me, “Be careful of that student of yours. He seems to me like a plainclothes policeman.”
“He’s just an unemployed youth,” I told her.
“Don’t believe it! Be careful what you say to him” were her parting words.
Sun Kai, the young man my daughter was going to marry, found out my address and came to see me on the last day of the Chinese New Year holiday. He told me that he was no longer working as a mathematics teacher, since the school had been closed. Instead he was in a research institute designing precision instruments.
“In 1966 when Meiping told me you had been arrested, both my parents and I thought Meiping and I ought to get married right away so that she could move into our place and not have to live alone. But she wouldn’t agree. She insisted on waiting for your release and said that she couldn’t get married without your being present. Of course, at the time we all thought the Cultural Revolution would be over in a year,” Sun Kai said.
“Did you see her often before she died?” I asked him. I felt terribly sad to see this handsome young man who might have been my son-in-law if my daughter had not been killed so ruthlessly.
“I saw her two or three times a week. We tried to be together as much as we could manage. You know my father was denounced as a Rightist in 1957. I was labeled ‘the family member of a class enemy,’ and since I was a teacher, I also belonged to ‘the stinking ninth category’ of enemies. Meiping had to take part in the film studio Cultural Revolution activities. She didn’t seem to have any trouble there. Then, out of the blue, some unknown people abducted her.”
“Please tell me about it,” I begged him.
“She was supposed to have dinner at our house on June sixteenth. When I went to pick her up in the afternoon, Mrs. Chen, the wife of the professor whose house Meiping was living in, told me Meiping had committed suicide that very morning. I went immediately to the film studio. No one seemed to know anything about it. Then I went to the crematorium. I was not allowed to see their records because I was not a family member. But when the attendant saw how distraught I was, he told me that the body of a young actress of the Shanghai Film Studio had been brought in for cremation that morning.” Sun Kai broke down and wept.
“Do you believe she committed suicide?” I asked him.
“No, of course not! I went to see the place where she was supposed to have done it. It’s not possible.”
“Are you talking about the scaffolding?”
Sun Kai looked at me in alarm and said, “How did you know about that? Who told you? You mustn’t let anybody know you know.” Then he added, “If those people responsible for Meiping’s death think you do not believe she committed suicide, they may do things to endanger your life. You must be extremely careful. They are completely ruthless and cruel.”
“I understand. I won’t talk about it,” I assured him. But I asked, “Do you know who was responsible for her abduction?”
“I’m not sure. But I think it had something to do with the men conducting the investigation of your case. Whoever they were, they were acting on the orders of some leaders in Shanghai.”
“How did you find that out?”
“As you know, the Athletics Association was closed by the Red Guards at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, and the Revolutionaries took over the building. But the defunct Athletics Association retained one floor for storage of documents. It was from one of their men that I learned that the men who abducted Meiping were acting on orders from above.”
“Do you think you could arrange for me to see this man from the Athletics Association?”
“That would be dangerous for you.”
“I’m prepared to take any risk to find out the truth.”
“So many years have passed, I don’t even know whether he is still there. Why not wait until the political situation clarifies?” Sun Kai seemed reluctant to accede to my request.
Indeed, many years had passed since Meiping died. One could not grieve forever. Sun Kai did not visit me again. The following year, I heard that he had married the daughter of a senior Party official. The man agreed to his daughter’s union with the son of a Rightist because he wanted to take a young wife himself after being widowed. He thought that an unmarried daughter of the same age as his new wife would be an embarrassment. I understood why Sun Kai wanted to marry a girl from an official family. After what had happened, it was natural that he should wish to make sure that the woman he married would never become a victim of political persecution. Besides, married to the daughter of a senior Party official, he would no longer have to suffer the stigma of being the son of a Rightist, a burden he had borne with courage since he was a boy.
Sun Kai’s visit made me so sad that I told A-yi I would lie down in my room to rest. A-yi went to clean up the kitchen. Suddenly I heard the sound of knocking on the front gate. The entire Zhu family was out. I called A-yi, and she went out to the balcony to find out if the visitor had come to see them.
She came back from the balcony and said to me, “It’s an elderly man. He asked me if you lived here. Shall I go down?”
“Please do,” I told her, wondering who this visitor might be. I quickly straightened the cover on the bed and made the room tidy. Then I went to the landing to see who my visitor was.
“Mrs. Cheng! Don’t you recognize me? How glad I am to see you!” said the man coming up the stairs.
I realized by his voice and the formal manner in which he addressed me that my visitor was Mr. Hu, my husband’s old friend, whom I had not seen since he paid me an unexpected visit at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution in the summer of 1966.
The hand he stretched out to me was calloused, and his little finger was bandaged. Otherwise he seemed little changed. I greeted him warmly, remembering the kind advice he had given me in 1966.
After ushering him into my room, I invited him to be seated.
“I’m really happy to see you again. And you look very well; perhaps, if I may say so, much better than one has the right to expect, under the circumstances,” Mr. Hu said.
“How are you and your family? Are you still living in the same house?” I asked him politely.
“Oh, no! I was thrown out of my home by the Red Guards just like all of us,” Mr. Hu told me. “And I have had my share of misfortune. But we mustn’t dwell on the past. We must look ahead and be thankful that we have survived. Many of our loved ones didn’t. I know about Meiping, of course. I suffered the loss of my dear wife and my beloved mother. Both died of heart attacks during the most terrifying period of the Cultural Revolution. The hospital refused them treatment because they belonged to the family of a capitalist and I was under investigation.” Mr. Hu sighed and seemed for a moment to be almost in tears. But he quickly regained control. Taking a handkerchief out of his pocket, he blew his nose.
“How did you find my address?” I asked him.
“It was sheer luck. I met your old servant Lao-zhao on the street this morning and was overjoyed to hear that you were free. I had visitors all afternoon, but as soon as the last one departed, I came on my bicycle.”
“Are you still working?”
“Yes. I could retire, but there is no point in sitting at home. It’s good to do heavy physical work. At night I am so tired that I sleep soundly. I’m now living in my mother-in-law’s home. The Red Guards left her one room. We had it partitioned, and I moved in. She is well over eighty. I’m glad to be able to take care of her.”
“What about your children?”
“With a capitalist as a father, they were all sent to work in other parts of the country. My eldest son is married and has a baby girl.”
“When you visited me in the summer of 1966, you very kindly gave me some advice. I’m very grateful to you. When I was in the detention house, I often thought of what you said. What do you think of the political situation now?”
“It’s infinitely better, of course, but one can’t help wondering how long it’s going to last.”
“Do you think there will be more power struggles at the top?”
He looked at the half-open door and nodded. After a while, he asked me, “Would you care to go with me to Nantao tomorrow? I hear the old flower shop is open again and they have narcissus bulbs.”
“I can’t go tomorrow. I have a student in the morning, and I must do some laundry in the afternoon. A-yi is going home for a short holiday. She has worked very hard the last few days.”
“May I come help you with the laundry tomorrow afternoon? I have an extra day’s holiday because I volunteered to work on New Year’s Eve,” Mr. Hu said. I didn’t want him to help me with the laundry, but I also knew he wanted to talk. I decided that if I wanted to hear what he had to say, I must go out with him.
“Perhaps the laundry can wait. Let’s go to the flower shop. It would be nice to have some narcissus bulbs,” I said.
Mr. Hu beamed at me for accepting his invitation. I had forgotten how much Chinese men enjoyed having a woman do exactly what they wanted. It almost seemed that my innocent acceptance of his invitation to go to a flower shop had brought our relationship a step more intimate than it had been when he first crossed the threshold. Not only did he hold my hand a fraction of a moment longer than necessary when he took his leave, but he actually felt encouraged enough to offer me money.
Taking a package from his jacket pocket, he said, “I know how stringent the living allowance is for people like us. I’m getting a regular monthly remittance from my cousin in Japan. May I offer to share it with you?”
I was so taken aback that I was momentarily at a loss for words. He held out the package to me and added, “Please accept it. I would be so happy if you would accept.”
“Thank you very much for your kindness. It’s good of you to offer to help me. But I’m not living on an allowance from the government. My foreign exchange account has been unfrozen, and I have no financial difficulties at all,” I said quickly.
He seemed crestfallen but recovered in a moment. He said, “I have always had the highest regard for you. You cannot imagine how happy I am to see you again. It’s a miracle that you came through your ordeal so well. You are a woman of exceptional courage and fortitude.”
I thanked him for his kind words and followed him down the stairs. As I stood in the garden watching Mr. Hu push his bicycle towards the front gate, I was conscious of Mrs. Zhu watching us through the window. It seemed they had returned from their outing while Mr. Hu was upstairs.
“I’ll call for you at two-thirty tomorrow afternoon,” Mr. Hu said.
“That will be fine,” I said.
So curious was Mrs. Zhu about my visitor that she questioned A-yi closely when A-yi went through the back door to take out the garbage. I supposed Mrs. Zhu would report to the Residents’ Committee ladies in the morning and it would become known that I had had a male visitor during the holidays. The ghost of feudalism lingered in China. Although men and women worked together, they did not become friends in private life. Mr. Hu’s visit to me would become the subject of gossip, I was certain.
Nantao was the walled city of Shanghai. The walls had been torn down long ago, but the Nine-Twists Bridge over the pond and the pavilion made famous by the blue-and-white willow pattern of English dinner services remained. Nantao was now a marketplace with narrow, winding lanes and hundreds of small shops and stalls selling a great variety of commodities, from wigs to live frogs for medicinal purposes. It used to be said that one could get everything one wanted in Nantao except a coffin. There were also numerous restaurants offering special food unobtainable elsewhere. In the middle of the marketplace, near the pond, was a Ming dynasty garden, Yu Yuan, with ornate artificial rockeries and many courtyards surrounded by pavilions and studios. The Red Guards did not destroy Yu Yuan because an antiimperialist revolutionary organization of 1853, the Little Sword Society, had used the place as its secret headquarters.
The street near Nantao was closed to motor traffic because of the crowd visiting the marketplace during the holiday period. Mr. Hu and I got off the bus several blocks away and walked towards one of the entrances of the market. We were literally carried along by the crowd, there were so many people. When we got to the flower shop, there were no flowers left. But the shop was jammed with men, women, and children buying or just looking at the Yixing teapots and cups on the shelves. There were also attractive porcelain figures, animals, vases, and flowerpots at a reasonable price. All these products had only recently reappeared after being destroyed and banned by the Red Guards at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution. I bought a Yixing teapot in light brown earthenware decorated with the traditional motif of mountains and trees. I also bought a celadon flower vase that could be made into a table lamp.
When we got out of the shop, Mr. Hu said, “You must be tired. Maybe we could find somewhere to sit down in the Ming garden.”
But when we approached the Ming garden, we found a long line of people waiting to purchase entrance tickets and another line waiting to enter the enclave with tickets in hand. An officious-looking man wearing a red armband was there to keep order. He allowed only as many people to enter the garden as came out.
“Why don’t we take the bus and go to Zhongshan Park? We shall be able to sit down and have a quiet chat. There won’t be many people at this time of year,” Mr. Hu suggested.
Perhaps it was the effect of my solitary confinement for so many years that I felt nervous and exhausted whenever I was in a crowd for some time, even when the crowd was not hostile. So the deserted park with its wintry scene of bare tree branches and frozen pond was a welcome sight. Mr. Hu paid for our twenty-cent tickets, and we walked in.
Even though it was a windless day, the February air was icy and seemed colder now that we were not surrounded by people. Both Mr. Hu and I were bundled up in many layers of padded winter garments, like everybody else in Shanghai, but my face tingled in the cold as we walked along the path. A holly bush with a profusion of red berries caught my eye. When we approached it, we found a seat behind an artificial rock formation. It seemed a good spot for Mr. Hu to tell me what he wanted to say. But I couldn’t help wondering how many people in the world would understand that we had to take such elaborate precautions just to have a perfectly innocent private conversation.
After silently observing me for some time, Mr. Hu said, “You have had a terrible time. I shouldn’t remind you of your unpleasant days in the detention house, but I just wonder whether you found out why you became the target of persecution.”
“I suppose it was because I worked for Shell. They said the Shanghai office of Shell was a ‘spy organization’ and my late husband and I were British agents. In fact, they never accused me of anything concrete. They just pressured me to confess.” Once again I remembered those days of shouted accusations by the interrogators and my efforts to cope with everything.
“From the questions they asked you, did you not discern anything concrete?”
“I thought what happened to all of us probably had something to do with the so-called struggle between the two lines within the Party,” I told him.
“That’s true. I think you will find what I’m going to tell you interesting,” said Mr. Hu. “When the Red Guards and the Revolutionaries took over our factory after the January Revolution of 1967, the Revolutionaries demoted my Party secretary to the position of an ordinary worker and accused him of being a ‘capitalist-roader.’ He was assigned to my unit. As you know, we used to get along very well together before the Cultural Revolution when I was looking after the technical work of the factory and he was the Party secretary. Now we were both working as coolies. Often, during lunch breaks, when there was no one around, he would talk to me quite frankly. It was my former Party secretary who told me that your arrest was due to the so-called conspiracy of foreign companies and government departments.”
“How did your Party secretary know about me?”
“Before you were taken in, the Red Guards came to our factory to question me about you. The Party secretary was in charge then. He was present at the interview. Being a film actress, Meiping was well known. When she died, the tragic news was the talk of the city. Your case was frequently mentioned in connection with her death,” Mr. Hu said.
“What else did your Party secretary tell you?” I asked him.
“It seems one of the departments supposedly involved in the so-called conspiracy was the United Front Department, which was accused of shielding class enemies. Its director, a protégé of Premier Zhou, died in mysterious circumstances after a struggle meeting. It was alleged that he committed suicide by putting his face to the gas burner. But when his body was found, the windows were open and there was little gas in the room,” Mr. Hu said.
“Perhaps his suicide was faked?” I was thinking of my daughter and wondering when I would find out the truth.
“That’s what his family claims. In Beijing, Premier Zhou’s adopted daughter, Sun Weishi, the director of the People’s Art Theater, was put in prison and tortured to death simply because Jiang Qing regarded her as an enemy. Two well-known Beijing opera actors, Ma Lianliang and Cheng Yanqiu, were beaten to death because they refused to confess they were Kuomintang spies. I heard these two actors had been invited back from Hong Kong by Premier Zhou, who was also their sponsor when they joined the Party. There are many cases of scientists accused of being spies for the imperialists who were invited back to China by the premier too. Just think, if any one of these people had confessed to being a spy, the radicals could have then cast doubt on the premier, if not actually accused him of shielding spies,” Mr. Hu said.
“Do you mean to say that your Party secretary was of the opinion that I and other senior Chinese employees of foreign firms in Shanghai were put in prison and pressed to confess just because someone, either Lin Biao or Jiang Qing, wanted to use our confessions, if we made them, to discredit Premier Zhou’s policy of allowing foreign firms to operate in China?” I asked him.
“Yes, my Party secretary implied as much. Lin Biao and Jiang Qing both regarded Premier Zhou as the major obstacle to their ambition after Liu Shaoqi was overthrown. In their eyes Premier Zhou was difficult to deal with because unlike Liu Shaoqi, he had never opposed Chairman Mao. So they had to formulate an outlandish scheme. Premier Zhou was not a single person alone. Behind him stood a large group of Party leaders and the senior members of the bureaucracy. It’s a formidable force in the power structure.”
“Now that Lin Biao has died, Premier Zhou has become the most powerful man after Chairman Mao. Isn’t his position secure?” I asked Mr. Hu.
“Strengthened, but not secure, because Jiang Qing and her associates are ambitious. Premier Zhou is ill. The question is who will succeed him.”
“Isn’t Deng Xiaoping going to succeed Premier Zhou?”
“That’s by no means certain. Deng Xiaoping is not a subtle person like Premier Zhou. He wants quick results. The radical leaders will feel threatened. That would hasten the next round of struggle,” said Mr. Hu.
It was really getting very cold in the deserted park since the sun had gone down. In the distance, several desultory figures were walking towards the exit. I suggested that we leave too. Mr. Hu asked me if I would go with him to a restaurant for an early supper, but I was depressed and tired. We took a bus home.
Outside the front gate, Mr. Hu said goodbye and told me that he would like to visit me again when he had his day off. “It’s ages since I have enjoyed an excursion as I did today. It’s good to see you looking so well. You mustn’t stay by yourself and brood. I’ll come and try to cheer you up.”
I opened the gate to find Mrs. Zhu standing in the cold on the terrace. I supposed she came out when she heard us.
Taking her cigarette out of her mouth, she said, “Did you have a nice outing?”
She probably hoped I would tell her where I had been so that she could report to the Residents’ Committee. Resisting an impulse to be rude, I merely said, “Don’t you find it cold standing there?” and went upstairs.
The next day, my old friend Hean’s mother arrived while I was still with my student. By the time the lesson ended, she had prepared a simple lunch for both of us. While we were eating, she mentioned the Chinese New Year celebrations several times and kept on bringing the conversation around to the guests I had until I suddenly realized that she was hoping I would tell her about Mr. Hu. But how did she know Mr. Hu had been to see me? Shocked and disappointed, I came to the reluctant conclusion that she had been asked to visit me by those who were having me watched. I went cold all over. I decided to be candid with her so that no one would think I was trying to hide anything.
“Besides all the young people, an old friend also came to see me. Apparently Lao-zhao met him on the street and gave him my address. I went with him to Nantao yesterday and bought a Yixing teapot and a vase,” I said.
“Is he married?”
“He is a widower.”
“Have you known him long?”
“He was really my husband’s friend.”
“What does he do?”
“He used to have a paint factory.”
“Is he interested in you personally?”
“What do you mean?” I asked her, feeling rather annoyed.
“If you’ll forgive my saying so, Chinese gentlemen of our generation don’t ask Chinese ladies to go out with them unless they are interested in them personally,” my old friend said.
I said to her, “You mustn’t jump to conclusions. I think it’s possible he feels lonely and he enjoys my company.” I was thinking perhaps it was just as well that Mr. Hu’s visit to me was seen in this light rather than as something political. “I’m an old lady now. I consider him only an old friend who is trying to be kind,” I told her.
“You are an attractive old lady. It’s strange that in spite of your terrible experience, you still look years younger than your age. I have no doubt your gentleman friend will eventually ask you to marry him, if you give him the chance.”
“I really don’t know Mr. Hu very well. It’s premature to think our relationship will develop into anything at all.”
“Speaking as an old friend, I would like to see you married. It’s not good to be alone in this society. You need someone to discuss things with and to look after you,” she said with sincerity.
After she had left, I drew the curtains and lay down on my bed. It was depressing to know I was being watched so closely. And it saddened me to have Hean’s mother join the ranks of informers. When would I be able to live a normal life again? I asked myself. As for Mr. Hu, I had no idea what his plans were beyond enjoying my company on his days off. In any case, I would not marry him or anybody else. It was still my intention to leave China for good when circumstances permitted.
Since President Nixon’s visit, the Shanghai police had resumed issuing exit permits for private people to go abroad. Though the waiting period remained long and there were many rejections, since my release I had heard of several people actually being granted passports to leave the country. I continued to examine Mao’s photograph closely whenever it appeared in the newspaper, just as I had in prison, and I wished for his death no less ardently than when I was in the detention house. I knew that unless there was a change in the political situation, I had no hope of being allowed to leave. To keep myself fit and well so that I could survive still seemed the sensible thing to do.
I heard heavy footsteps on the cement path that ran the length of the house, followed by knocking on my door at the foot of the stairs. Since I was in no mood to see anybody, I didn’t get up to open the door. After a while, I heard Da De talking to Mrs. Zhu beneath my window.
“Isn’t A-yi here?” Da De said.
“She has gone to visit her family,” Mrs. Zhu’s voice said.
They stood in the garden talking in low whispers for a little while. Then Da De knocked again. Again I didn’t get up to open the door.
In the evening, Mrs. Zhu came up with a plateful of fish she had cooked, followed by her grandson.
“I know you don’t like to cook, so I prepared something for your supper,” she said. She didn’t mention Da De’s visit, so I didn’t say anything either. I knew she was using the fish as an excuse to come up and find out if I was really sound asleep and hadn’t heard Da De or if I didn’t wish to see him.
I offered her grandson some sweets and invited them to be seated. He held an armband of the militia in his hand. Jokingly I said to him, “Have you joined the militia?”
He held the armband out and said, “This belongs to my uncle. He is training under Uncle Da De.”
“Is Da De in the militia?” I asked him. Though I was surprised, I kept my voice as casual as I could.
In spite of Mrs. Zhu’s effort to divert his attention to the sweets, he said, “Oh, yes! He’s a captain.”
“Isn’t that wonderful!” I exclaimed. “I bet when you grow up you would like to be in the militia just like your uncle and Da De!”
The child had obviously said something I was not supposed to know, because Mrs. Zhu was not only embarrassed but frightened as well. She said to the boy, “You are talking nonsense. Uncle Da De isn’t in the militia at all.”
The child retorted, “He is! He is!”
Hastily Mrs. Zhu stood up and said good night to me. As she went down with her grandson, she was still muttering to him for talking out of turn.
Since the militia was a subsidiary of the army, it used to be under Lin Biao’s men in Shanghai. After Lin Biao’s death, the control of the militia fell into the hands of Jiang Qing’s associates in the city. In 1974 and 1975, the radical leaders did a great deal to expand and strengthen the Shanghai militia, hoping to develop it into their own private army.
If Da De was a militia captain, he could not have been an “unemployed youth” as he claimed, because members of the militia were recruited among the activists in factories and government offices. I did not think Da De was a factory worker, because he was too interested in books and his hands were too clean. He must have been an activist in an office of the Shanghai government. In other words, his masters were Jiang Qing’s associates in Shanghai. I was glad to know at last Da De’s true status. Was he with the police or some other organization? It really made no difference to me or to the situation. I had long suspected that he was more than what he seemed.
Time went on and spring came to Shanghai again. I had been out of the No. 1 Detention House a whole year. But I could hardly say I was free. Certainly my material life had greatly improved. I seemed to have no health problems other than arthritis.
Early in the morning I would stand on the balcony and look down at the garden. The metasequoia trees planted by the Housing Bureau had grown very fast. Now tiny buds of delicate green dotted the branches. In the short period of a few days they would burst into clusters of young leaves. My old gardener had made two beds of roses and planted a border of mixed spring flowers. He had also put in rambler roses at the base of the pillar of my balcony and made a latticed frame for them to climb on. An increasing number of sparrows were making the garden their home, and in the early mornings I sometimes heard a cuckoo singing in the trees.
As the days got warmer, the balcony became my living room. I would sit there with my students for our English lessons. Often I would have my meals out there, sitting in the sun among pots of jasmine, lilies, ferns, and other plants I had collected or my students had given me. A beautiful dwarf tree in an ornamental flat vase with a rock arrangement and moss-covered earth was the pride of my possessions. I succeeded in borrowing a copy of Three Hundred Tang Poems and spent many pleasant hours copying the poems into an exercise book and reciting them to improve my memory.
Mr. Hu came to visit me from time to time. I noticed that if we sat on the balcony, Mrs. Zhu would be right there below us on her terrace; if we stayed in the room, A-yi would be within earshot.
One day in August, when daylight lingered until evening and the temperature was hot, Mr. Hu called on me. He wanted me to go out with him to a restaurant. But since A-yi had already prepared dinner, I invited him to stay and share it with me. When dinner was ready, we ate on the balcony in fading daylight in the evening breeze. Mr. Hu was in a happy mood, chatting to me about his childhood years in Hangzhou. After A-yi had cleared the table, Da De turned up. He always had a good excuse for coming to see me. This time, it was to give me a bag full of luscious Wuxi peaches, which he said would have spoiled if he had waited until the following morning to bring them. I introduced him to Mr. Hu. It was getting dark. There was no light on the balcony, so A-yi took the table lamp from my desk and placed it on the windowsill. She also handed Da De a large plate. When Da De took the peaches out of the bag and laid them on the plate, I saw that each was without blemish and was ripened to exactly the right degree. They were better than any I had ever been able to buy from the shops even before the Cultural Revolution.
“Where did you get the peaches?” I asked him.
“I have many back doors. In fact, though I didn’t go to college, I’m a Ph.D. of back doors,” Da De joked. Then he went to the kitchen to wash the peaches.
Da De’s sudden appearance seemed to have disconcerted Mr. Hu, who became silent. However, he allowed an interval of time to pass and complimented Da De on the excellent peaches before he politely took his leave. I walked downstairs with him and saw him to the front gate. The Zhus were nowhere to be seen, as was always the case whenever Da De was with me. They behaved as if they no longer had to pay attention to me when he was there.
“I’ll come again tomorrow, if I may,” said Mr. Hu as he shook hands with me.
When I returned to the balcony, Da De said to me, “He is a capitalist, isn’t he?”
“How do you know?”
“I can tell by his bearing. Besides, he exudes the bad odor of money, like all capitalists,” said Da De with vehemence.
“You are still very much the leader of the Red Guards, I see.”
“No! When I was a leader of the Red Guards, I was just a hotheaded fanatic. Now I’m a Marxist.”
“Are you a Party member?” I asked him.
“Not yet. I’ll join the Party one day in the not too distant future.”
“Since you hate the capitalists so much, why do you want to study English with me? Don’t you find me as repugnant as the capitalists? Don’t I exude the bad odor of money too?”
“You are different. Actually I don’t think you would make a good capitalist, as you are rather careless with money. The trouble with you is you are naive enough to believe in kindness, charity, generosity, and all that rubbish preached by the ruling class of the capitalist nations to fool their people and undermine their revolutionary spirit,” Da De said.
“What do you know about the capitalist nations anyway? You have never been to one.”
“And, more’s the pity, I have no hope of going.”
“Do you want to go if you have the chance?” I asked him.
“Of course I would go! In the United States or in a European country I could work hard and create my own life. I would probably do quite well,” he said wistfully.
“You puzzle me. A moment ago you wanted to join the Communist Party. Now you say you would like to go abroad if you have the opportunity. Are you perhaps thinking of starting a revolution in a capitalist country?” I asked him.
“Of course not. I want to join the Communist Party because I have to stay here. If I could go abroad to a capitalist country, I would try to become a capitalist,” he said impatiently, almost as if he thought I was too stupid to see his perfect logic.
“What! I thought you hated the capitalists!”
“I hate them now. But if I were one of them, I wouldn’t hate them, would I?”
“Won’t you be uncomfortable if you become something you hate?”
“Why should I? Don’t you understand dialectical materialism?”
After Da De left, I sat there on the balcony for a long time thinking of this rather strange young man. Never in my life had I met anyone quite like him. Marxists believed a man’s character was formed by environment. Was he the typical product of the Chinese Communist Revolution? In fact, I felt rather sorry for him. He was extremely intelligent and hardworking. If he had the chance to live and work in a free society, he would probably do well. I did not think he would have much of a future in China, even as a Party member. With his overdeveloped ego and self-confidence, Da De was essentially an individualist. The Communist Party was not very tolerant of individualists. And with his uncle dead, he had lost his entrée to the proletarian elite.
Mr. Hu came again after work the next day. This time I went with him to a noisy restaurant. After we were seated, Mr. Hu said, “That student of yours seems to have access to food reserved for senior government officials. I don’t think anyone less than a deputy Party secretary of the Shanghai Revolutionary Committee could get hold of those peaches he brought you.”
“You don’t think he got them through the back door?”
“No, definitely not! Peaches like those are not for sale through front or back doors. They are reserved for senior officials, who do not have to pay for them.”
“No wonder he couldn’t tell me what I owed him.”
“The question is why he was given those peaches to bring to you.” Mr. Hu sounded worried.
“Perhaps it was just an excuse to come to see me right away. He had to bring something not easily obtainable and not easily kept fresh without refrigeration.” Actually I thought he came because Mr. Hu was there, but I did not want to alarm Mr. Hu by telling him that.
“Do you think you are under observation?”
“Yes, I’m pretty sure that is the case.”
“To have you under such close surveillance is anomalous. What did they say to you when you were released?” Mr. Hu asked me.
“Nothing very much. No mention that I was found to be innocent. They just said that I had been reeducated and had shown a certain degree of improvement in my thinking.” I was remembering my last interview in the interrogation room of the detention house.
While Mr. Hu was thinking over what I had said, I remembered the man from the film studio.
“The man from the Shanghai Film Studio said that I was released for health reasons,” I told him.
“Really? Did he say that? Do you think they would have kept you there longer if you had not been ill?” he asked me anxiously.
“They thought I had cancer.”
“Perhaps your case is not closed and no decision has been made about the so-called conspiracy. That would explain why you are being watched so closely,” Mr. Hu said.
“If they are looking for an excuse to take me back to the detention house again, they won’t succeed,” I said.
“Have you tried to get in touch with Shell in London or Hong Kong?”
“No. I don’t think I should try to contact anyone abroad when the political situation here is so uncertain.”
“What if they try to get in touch with you?”
“I have already thought of that. If I receive any letter from anybody abroad, I will take it to the police and ask them whether I should respond.”
“That’s wise. The political situation is not good. Jiang Qing is making a comeback. Have you noticed that there are many more reports about her activities in the newspaper lately? I also heard that Chairman Mao is relying on her more than ever,” Mr. Hu told me.
“Why do we have to suffer so much just because there is a power struggle in the Party? We are not even Party members!” I exclaimed helplessly.
In spite of the heat, the restaurant was crowded. Mr. Hu and I were able to talk freely in the din of voices filling the large room.
The night was hot and oppressive. I suggested that we walk back instead of taking a bus full of passengers. The streets we passed were crowded with people sitting on stools fanning themselves or sleeping on cots. Their homes were so hot and overcrowded that they had to go to the streets for a breath of air. The population of Shanghai had increased from under four million to ten million since the Communist Party took over the city. Yet little additional housing had been provided by the government, and private individuals had not been allowed to build. The result was several families sharing a house, several generations sharing a room, and the rooms being partitioned again and again. In the feeble light of the low-voltage street lamps, the street scene of Shanghai was one of depressing poverty, rather like a refugee camp.
Mr. Hu was correct when he said that the political situation was deteriorating. In the latter half of 1974, the name of Jiang Qing appeared with increasing frequency in newspaper reports from Beijing, a sure sign of increasing power. She received foreign dignitaries on Mao’s behalf or in her own capacity as a revolutionary leader and a Politburo member. She played hostess to visitors from abroad, inviting them to special performances of her model plays, and held conferences with them to discuss affairs of state. Almost every day there was either her picture or an account of her activities prominently displayed on the front page of the paper.
The “Criticize Lin Biao Campaign” became a campaign to criticize both Lin Biao and Confucius. Jiang Qing personally directed the campaign through her control of the press and all major publications. Maoist writers were organized by her associate Yao Wenyuan to supply the newspapers with a steady flow of articles, and the entire population was mobilized through their indoctrination study groups to take part in the campaign. Scant attention was paid to Confucius’s philosophy. Article after article stressed the little-known fact that when Confucius was fifty years of age he was made an official in the Kingdom of Lu and for a short time undertook the duties of the prime minister. It was claimed by the Maoist writers that Confucius was a retrogressive upholder of conservatism and therefore a hindrance to progress.
The Chinese people were left in no doubt that Jiang Qing’s campaign to criticize Confucius was in fact a campaign against Prime Minister Zhou Enlai. The name of the ancient sage was used as a code name for the ailing prime minister. The anti-Confucius articles further claimed that in Confucius’s time there existed in China another school of thought that was progressive, the legalists. The struggle between these two schools of thought was compared to the struggle between the Revolutionaries and the “capitalist-roaders.”
Weary of the power struggle among their leaders, the Chinese people, including the rank-and-file Party members, were on the side of their prime minister. Rumors about Jiang Qing abounded, many no doubt invented to discredit her. She was such an unpopular figure that outlandish tales of her private life of self-indulgence and sexual promiscuity became the whispered entertainment of the masses. The more serious-minded worried that Mao Zedong seemed to be siding with his wife and the other radical leaders. They thought that perhaps he was alarmed by the speed with which Zhou Enlai, through Deng Xiaoping, was reversing the trend of the Cultural Revolution and that he feared a total repudiation of himself and what he had advocated during the Cultural Revolution.
With the increased political tension caused by the campaign to criticize Confucius and a revival of the Cultural Revolution hyperbole, several of my students dropped out. They were afraid that learning English was going to be taboo again. The Residents’ Committee also stepped up its activities. One hundred percent attendance rate at study group meetings was required. Knitting was no longer allowed. More and more people were organized to stand up and support the Criticize Confucius Campaign. The Lin Biao part was dropped. A-yi reminded me to wear only my cotton jacket when I went out so as not to attract attention. Our daily fare became leaner and leaner as she became more and more reluctant to patronize the peasants who snuck into the city with their eggs and chickens for sale.
At the beginning of winter, an extraordinary event warned me of the fact that I was again in danger of being incriminated.
Among Meiping’s friends who came to visit me during the year was a young woman peasant by the name of Chen Lan. Before she started working at the Shanghai Film Studio, my daughter had to spend six months at the Malu People’s Commune outside Shanghai to “experience the life of a peasant” in accordance with a decision of the State Council. She lived with Chen Lan’s family, sharing their life and work. The two girls became good friends. According to Chen Lan, Meiping taught her to read and write, opened her eyes to the larger world outside her narrow existence, and introduced her to such girlish pleasures as cold cream and shampoo. Chen Lan told me that Meiping once saved her mother’s life when the woman was suddenly taken ill. There was no one else at home. In a boat borrowed from their production brigade, Meiping rowed her mother through the creeks to the county hospital in time for an emergency operation. After that Chen Lan’s family treated Meiping as a daughter, and the two girls became sworn sisters.
When she came to see me, Chen Lan brought me a large photograph of Meiping taken with her and several other peasant girls of the village. Through her tears, Chen Lan said, “This is my most treasured possession. But since you lost all your photographs, I want you to have it.”
I told her that I would get copies made and then return the original to her. But for several months I could not find a photographer’s shop willing to do this simple work. One day I was on the point of going out to try the shops at the other end of the city across the Suzhou creek when I heard knocking on the door at the foot of the stairs. Presently A-yi went down. Then I heard a man’s voice saying, “I’m her daughter’s friend.”
A moment later, A-yi came into my room followed by a stocky young man of medium height.
I put down the photograph I was looking at and stood up.
“My name is Liu Xing. I’m Meiping’s friend,” the young man introduced himself. Then he held out a gift-wrapped box and continued, “I heard that you were out of detention, so I have come to see you to find out if there is anything I can do for you. This is Changbaishan ginseng. It’s unobtainable in Shanghai. I was in the northeast on business, so I got a box for you.”
A box of Changbaishan ginseng was a very expensive gift. It would cost a worker a full month’s wage. I wondered what he hoped to get from me in exchange for such an expensive gift. I said, “It’s very kind of you to think of bringing me ginseng, but I never use it. How did you get my address?”
“The Revolutionary Committee of the Shanghai Film Studio gave it to me when I went there to inquire.”
This was an obvious lie, because Chinese officials never obliged private individuals like that. Somehow I did not believe he was Meiping’s friend. He did not look or speak like the type of young man my daughter made friends with. Why had he called on me? What did he want? I was curious and wanted to find out. Deep in my heart, at the same time, I had the feeling that he was probably sent by those who wished me ill.
“A-yi, will you please bring a cup of tea to our guest?” I went to the door and called to A-yi in the kitchen. My polite gesture was reassuring to my visitor, who smiled and relaxed. He sat down on the chair I indicated and placed the box on the table.
I sat down too and asked him, “Did you come to our home before the Cultural Revolution? How is it that I don’t recall seeing you? And Meiping never mentioned your name to me. She used to tell me about all her friends.”
“You were very close, mother and daughter, weren’t you? You were devoted to each other, everybody knows that. That’s why I have come to discuss a very important matter with you.” He leaned forward and said in a confidential manner, “I know some people who could help you hit back at her murderers. These people do not want any money or reward. They feel sorry for you. They simply want to help you.”
What an extraordinary offer, I thought. The correctness of everything that had taken place during the Cultural Revolution had been repeatedly reaffirmed by official propaganda during the campaign to criticize Confucius. For me to try to do anything at all about my daughter’s death was certain to take me right back to the No. 1 Detention House. Quickly I said, “I’m not interested in hitting back at anybody. I’m very sad my daughter had to die as she did. It was entirely unjustifiable and unnecessary. But she has died. Nothing will bring her back.”
“How can you be so magnanimous! It’s your duty as her mother to avenge her death,” he said.
“I believe her death will be avenged. I believe the government will carry out an investigation when the time comes. I have full confidence in the People’s Government. You haven’t told me where and when you knew Meiping.”
“I met her when she was at the Malu People’s Commune. She lived with a peasant family there. I used to visit her and have a chat.”
“Were you at the Malu People’s Commune?”
“Yes. I was doing some scientific work there. That’s when I met her.”
Was he really Meiping’s friend, as he claimed? Did he really meet Meiping at the Malu People’s Commune? I thought I could check his story. I said, “Since you were at the Malu People’s Commune and met Meiping there, you must know Chen Lan, the girl Meiping was very friendly with.”
“Oh, yes, indeed. I used to see them together,” he said hastily.
I picked up the photograph of Meiping with the group of peasant girls and handed it to him. “Someone gave me this photograph. I have never met Chen Lan. Could you tell me which one of these girls is Chen Lan?”
He examined the photograph and pointed at the girl with her arm around my daughter’s shoulder. It was a good guess, but the girl he pointed out was not Chen Lan. Chen Lan was standing at the end of the row, not near my daughter at all.
His mistake was proof that he had not known my daughter at the Malu People’s Commune, if at all. Why had he come? Was it just to persuade me to attempt to avenge Meiping’s death so that I could be induced to do something wrong? Or was there something else he hoped to achieve? Because I did not speak, he thought he had made the correct guess. Emboldened by his success, he said, “I’ll come to see you often and let you get to know me really well. I’m interested in world affairs. I’m sure I can learn a lot from you. You can learn a lot from me too because I’m a scientist. If you do not want to meet those people I told you about face to face, I could be your emissary.”
“Why should you want to do that? Isn’t it dangerous to oppose those involved in my daughter’s death? Are they not Revolutionaries backed by powerful people?” I asked him.
“I loved Meiping. Ever since I heard she died, I can’t stop thinking of her. I hate her murderers no less intensely than you do. I would be glad to do anything to have her death avenged,” he said with mock sincerity, pretending to be very sad.
“You loved Meiping? You must have known her quite well, then. It’s strange that she never mentioned you to me.”
He went red in the face. “I loved her from a distance. She did not know it. It was a case of ‘one-sided longing.’ “
“I can see you are a romantic. But I think we should wait for the government to avenge her death. No matter how angry we are, we have no legal right to act.”
“The present government will never do anything! They are behind the murderers, can’t you see? How can you expect them to do anything?” He raised his voice impatiently, perhaps feeling disappointed that I had not swallowed the bait.
“Please calm down. You mustn’t malign the government. To say the government is behind the murderers is counterrevolutionary. I cannot allow my guest to talk like that in my home,” I warned him in a stern voice.
“You are a careful woman. It doesn’t matter what we say in private. After what happened to Meiping and to yourself, you must hate the Communist Party and the People’s Government, even though you don’t say so.”
“You are quite wrong. I do not hate the Communist Party or the People’s Government. But I’ll think over what you have said. If I change my mind, I’ll get in touch with you. Will you please show me your work pass so that I can verify your identification and copy down your address?” I asked him.
“There is no need for you to see my work pass. I’ll write down my address for you.” He seemed flustered by my request.
“I must see your work pass if you expect me to trust you,” I insisted.
Reluctantly he took out his work pass and handed it to me. I put on my reading glasses and examined it. The pass was issued by a factory identified by a number only. Everyone in China knew that such factories belonged to the army. And stamped across the pass was the word “confidential.” He seemed to be a technician engaged in some sort of confidential work at a weapons factory.
My strongest defense during my imprisonment was the fact that I did not know anybody who knew government secrets. To be in contact with someone doing confidential work in an army factory would not only make it impossible for me to leave China but would also open the way to all sorts of false accusations against me.
I opened the door of my room and called A-yi. When she came, I said, “I want you to be a witness to what I’m going to say to our guest.”
Turning to the man, I handed his work pass back to him and said, “Liu Xing, I forbid you ever to come to see me again. I have ‘foreign connections’ and have been wrongfully accused of being a spy of the imperialists. As a scientist at a factory doing confidential work, you have committed a serious mistake by coming to see me. When you go back to your factory, you must report to your Party secretary at once and confess your mistake. You must report to him exactly what you said to me and what I said to you.” He just stood there, looking embarrassed.
“A-yi! This is a serious matter. You must never open our door to admit this young man to our house.”
Opening the door wide, I said again to Liu Xing, “I presume you are a Party member since your work is confidential. I’m astonished that you did not know better. I should really denounce you to the police. Now go! Don’t ever come back.”
He went without a word. But I discovered he had left the box of ginseng on the table. I sent A-yi to give it back to him, but he had already disappeared on his bicycle.
I was furious about the whole episode and abandoned my plan of going out. A-yi brought me a cup of tea and said, “Don’t be angry. It’s not worth it.”
A little while later, Da De dashed up the stairs and said rather breathlessly, “Ah, you are home! That’s good!”
“You know very well I’m home,” I said to him.
“What’s wrong? Are you angry about something?” He professed surprise.
“You know exactly what’s wrong.” I handed him the box of ginseng and said, “Take it back. And tell them to stop their stupid tricks.”
“I’ll take away anything you don’t want. But I won’t tell anybody to stop their stupid tricks. Why should I? Why not let people play their tricks? Why not have a good laugh? Why should you be afraid of tricks? Aren’t you smart enough to see through any trick and make the people playing them uncomfortable?” Da De said in his cynical way.
“It’s so dishonest!” I said.
“Why assume anybody should be honest? After what you have gone through, you should know that to be honest is suicidal. Dishonesty is the best policy nowadays!”
“Please go, Da De! I’m not in the mood to listen to your nonsense,” I told him.
“I’m only trying to cheer you up. Well, I’ll come when you feel better tomorrow.” He went, taking the box of ginseng with him. I wasn’t at all sure he would return it to wherever it came from. I had a sneaking suspicion that he took it home and gave it to his mother as a present. Da De was that sort of person.
