Life and Death in Shanghai

by Cheng Nien

  I was getting very tired of this talk of confession and how it could earn lenient treatment for the prisoner. Perhaps it was true, I thought, that a really guilty person could earn a lighter sentence by confessing voluntarily. But I was not guilty. It was infuriating to be told so often that I had committed a crime when I had not.

  I picked up the newspaper and stood directly under the feeble light to read it. Like other newspapers in China, the Shanghai Liberation Daily was published, financed, and completely controlled by the People’s Government. The journalists were officials appointed by the Party’s propaganda department; their job was to select and often distort news, especially foreign news, for propaganda purposes and to write articles praising government policies. The newspaper is used everywhere in China, including in the prisons, for the education of the people.

  The Chinese people had long ago learned that the only way to read the newspaper was to read between the lines and pay attention to the omissions as well as to the printed items. In fact, the real source of news for the Chinese people was not the newspaper at all, but political gossip passed from one person to another in low whispers, often in the language of symbols and signs, with no names mentioned. This was called “footpath news,” meaning that it did not come openly by the main road, that is, official channels. In the past, before the Communist Party took control of the country, its underground organizations had used “footpath news” effectively to undermine the Chinese people’s confidence in the Kuomintang government. Now they themselves were plagued by it. When the people mistrusted the official newspapers and could not obtain news freely, they were naturally more than eager to listen to and believe in whatever they could pick up in the way of political gossip.

  In the detention house, the Shanghai Liberation Daily was my sole source of information about what went on outside the prison walls. I read it very carefully, sometimes going over the same news item or article twice, in order to follow the course of the Cultural Revolution and evaluate the political development that was taking place. From the way items of news were presented, the subjects of special articles, the tone of the editorials, and the quotation of Mao Zedong selected for use on a certain day, I could often discern what the Maoists hoped to accomplish or what had not gone according to plan. However, my full understanding of the details of the struggle for power within the Communist Party came only after my release. I succeeded then in gathering together a collection of uncensored Red Guard publications and had the opportunity to question young people who had taken part in the revolutionary activities.

  When Sunday came around, I asked the guard for the loan of a needle. I joined two of the newly purchased towels to make a seat for the cement toilet, sewed together layers of toilet paper to make a cover for one of the washbasins I used for storing water, and cut up a handkerchief to make an eyeshade to cover my eyes at night. When I asked to use scissors, the guard stood at the small window to watch me, taking them back as soon as I had finished cutting. Doing something practical to improve my daily life made me feel better. I found sewing, in particular, a soothing occupation.

  Several days passed. I made a request every day to see the interrogator, without result. One sunny morning, the prisoners were told to get ready for outdoor exercise. The guard went to each cell calling, “Fangfeng!” (“Out to get air!”)

  Eager for sunshine and fresh air, I jumped up, laid down the book of Mao’s I had been reading, and rushed to stand by the door. But I had to wait for quite some time before being let out. The No. 1 Detention House had an elaborate system to prevent inmates of different cells from meeting one another. I had to wait until the prisoner in the cell next to mine turned the corner and was out of sight before being allowed to leave my cell. Guards were posted along the route to watch the prisoners and to lead them to the exercise yards.

  The exercise yard I was locked into was spacious but in a state of dismal neglect. Broken plaster on the walls exposed the bricks underneath. The ground was covered with dirt and loose gravel. I saw something green in one corner and discovered a cluster of resilient weeds struggling to keep alive. Pleased to see something growing in this inhospitable place, I went over to examine it closely and saw tiny pink flowers at the tip of each stem. Every flower had five perfectly formed petals that were no bigger than a seed. In the midst of dirt and gravel, the plant stood proudly in the sunshine giving a sign of life in this dead place. Gazing at the tiny flowers, which seemed incredibly beautiful to me, I felt an uplifting of my spirit.

  “Walk about! Walk about with your head bowed! You are not allowed to stop walking!” a guard shouted at me from the raised platform on the walls of the exercise yard. There were two pavilions on the platform, one open and one enclosed with glass windows. As the weather was fine, the guards were watching the prisoners from the open pavilion.

  I started to walk around in the exercise yard; gradually the heaviness on my chest loosened, and I breathed more easily. The autumn air was cool and dry; the sun was warm on my face. Time passed slowly in prison, with each day endlessly long. But not so during outdoor exercise periods. Even in the depths of winter when my clothes could not keep my starved body warm and I shivered incessantly in the bitter north wind, the outdoor exercise period passed altogether too quickly for me.

  The male guard who led me back to my cell could not find the right key for the door. While he was trying one key after another, I took the opportunity to make another request to see the interrogator.

  “I’ve been here such a long time already. May I see the interrogator?” I asked him.

  “A long time already?” He straightened up and turned to face me. “You talk nonsense. I know you’ve been here less than a month. A month is not a long time. There are people who have been here for years, and their cases are not yet resolved. Why are you so impatient? You are always asking to see the interrogator. What are you going to say to him when you do see him? Are you ready to make a full confession?”

  “I’ll ask the interrogator to investigate my case and clarify the misunderstanding.”

  “What misunderstanding?” He appeared genuinely puzzled.

  “The misunderstanding that brought me here,” I said.

  “You are here because you committed a crime against the People’s Government. There is no misunderstanding. You mustn’t talk in riddles.”

  “I’ve never committed a crime in my whole life,” I said firmly.

  “If you have not committed a crime, why are you locked up in prison? Your being here proves you have committed a crime.”

  His logic appalled me. It was based on the assumption that the Party and the government could not be mistaken. I could not argue with him without appearing to offend the Party and the People’s Government, so I merely said, “Honestly, I have never committed a crime. There has been a mistake.”

  “Perhaps there was something you did that you don’t remember. Prisoners often need help and guidance from the interrogator to confess.”

  “I don’t think I could forget if I had committed a crime,” I told him. I recalled hearing of cases where the interrogator fed the prisoner with things to say while confessing. All of it was written down and held against the prisoner eventually.

  “Perhaps you did not realize you were committing a crime at the time. You are probably still quite muddled,” the guard said. He seemed quite sincere.

  Could it be possible that what I considered innocent behavior had really been interpreted by others as criminal deeds against the state? Although I had followed political and economic developments in China carefully and tried to acquire an intelligent understanding of events, I had never studied the Communist government’s penal code. I decided to make good this omission without further delay. So I said to the guard, “In that case, I’ll study the lawbooks to see if I have indeed committed a crime inadvertently. Will you please lend me your lawbooks?”

  “What lawbooks? You talk just like the capitalist intellectuals who are being denounced in this Cultural Revo
lution. You think in terms of lawbooks, rules, and regulations. We are the proletariat, we do not have anything like that.” He seemed highly indignant, as if my assumption that they had lawbooks were an insult.

  “If you do not have lawbooks, what do you go by? How do you decide whether a man has committed a crime or not?”

  “We go by the teachings of our Great Leader Chairman Mao. His words are our criteria. If he says a certain type of person is guilty and you belong to that type, then you are guilty. It’s much simpler than depending on a lawbook,” he said. To him, it was perfectly good and logical to have the fate of men decided arbitrarily by the words of Mao Zedong, which varied depending on his priorities during a particular period and were often so vague that local officials could interpret them to suit themselves. The absolute infallibility of Mao’s words was a part of his personality cult. But I wondered how the guard would have felt if not I but he had been the victim.

  After he had locked me into the cell again, I made no further request to see an interrogator. Instead I settled down to study assiduously and seriously The Collected Works of Mao Zedong. I wanted to know how his words could be used against me, and I wanted to see if I could not use his words to refute my accusers. I thought I should learn to speak Mao’s language and be fluent in using his quotations when the time came for me to face the interrogator.

  Many weeks passed. One day merged into another. Prolonged isolation heightened my feeling of depression. I longed for some news of my daughter. I missed her terribly and worried about her constantly. Often I would be so choked with emotion that breathing became difficult. At other times, a heavy lump would settle on my stomach, so that I had difficulty swallowing food.

  Outside the prison walls, the Cultural Revolution seemed to be increasing in intensity. The loudspeaker of the nearby high school was blaring all day long. Instead of revolutionary songs, angry denunciations of local officials and prominent scholars were pouring out. I strained my ears to listen to them, trying to catch a word here and a phrase there when the wind was in the right direction. Within the gloomy cell, I studied Mao’s books many hours a day, reading until my eyesight became blurred.

  One day, in the early afternoon, when my eyes were too tired to distinguish the printed words, I lifted them from the book to gaze at the window. A small spider crawled into view, climbing up one of the rust-eroded bars. The little creature was no bigger than a good-sized pea; I would not have seen it if the wooden frame nailed to the wall outside to cover the lower half of the window hadn’t been painted black. I watched it crawl slowly but steadily to the top of the iron bar, quite a long walk for such a tiny thing, I thought. When it reached the top, suddenly it swung out and descended on a thin silken thread spun from one end of its body. With a leap and swing, it secured the end of the thread to another bar. The spider then crawled back along the silken thread to where it had started and swung out in another direction on a similar thread. I watched the tiny creature at work with increasing fascination. It seemed to know exactly what to do and where to take the next thread. There was no hesitation, no mistake, and no haste. It knew its job and was carrying it out with confidence. When the frame was made, the spider proceeded to weave a web that was intricately beautiful and absolutely perfect, with all the strands of thread evenly spaced. When the web was completed, the spider went to its center and settled there.

  I had just watched an architectural feat by an extremely skilled artist, and my mind was full of questions. Who had taught the spider how to make a web? Could it really have acquired the skill through evolution, or did God create the spider and endow it with the ability to make a web so that it could catch food and perpetuate its species? How big was the brain of such a tiny creature? Did it act simply by instinct, or had it somehow learned to store the knowledge of web making? Perhaps one day I would ask an entomologist. For the moment, I knew I had just witnessed something that was extraordinarily beautiful and uplifting. Whether God had made the spider or not, I thanked Him for what I had just seen. A miracle of life had been shown me. It helped me to see that God was in control. Mao Zedong and his Revolutionaries seemed much less menacing. I felt a renewal of hope and confidence.

  My cell faced southwest. For a brief moment, the rays of the setting sun turned the newly made web into a glittering disc of rainbow colors, before it shifted further west and sank below the horizon. I did not dare to go up to the window in case I should frighten the spider away. I remained where I was, watching it. Soon I discovered it was not merely sitting there waiting for its prey but was forever vigilant. Whenever a corner of the web was ruffled or torn by the breeze, the spider was there in an instant to repair the damage. And as days passed, the spider renewed the web from time to time; sometimes a part of it was remade, sometimes the whole web was remade.

  I became very attached to the little creature after watching its activities and gaining an understanding of its habits. First thing in the morning, throughout the day, and last thing at night, I would look at it and feel reassured when I saw that it was still there. The tiny spider became my companion. My spirits lightened. The depressing feeling of complete isolation was broken by having another living thing near me, even though it was so tiny and incapable of response.

  Soon it was November. The wind shifted to the northwest. With each rainy day the temperature fell further. I watched the spider anxiously, not wishing to close the window and shut it out. It went on repairing the wind-torn web and patiently making new ones. However, one morning when I woke up, I found the spider gone. Its derelict web was in shreds. I felt sad but hopefully kept the window open in case it should come back. Then I chanced to look up and saw my small friend sitting in the center of a newly made web in a corner of the ceiling. I quickly closed the window and felt happy to know that my friend had not deserted me.

  Towards the end of November one morning, I woke up with a streaming cold and a severe headache. Blowing my nose and feeling miserable, I sat on the edge of the bed wondering whether I should ask for some medicine. When the watery rice was given to me, I made myself drink it up, hoping the warm liquid might give me some relief, but I could not eat the dry rice and boiled cabbage at noon. I returned it to the woman from the kitchen untouched. Throughout the afternoon, the guard on duty came frequently to watch me through the peephole. She made no attempt to speak to me until evening, when she suddenly pushed open the small window and said, “You have been crying!”

  “Oh, no,” I said, “I have a cold.”

  “You are crying. You are crying because you are not used to the living conditions here. You find everything quite intolerable, don’t you? We have been watching you trying to improve things. Also you are crying because you miss your daughter. You are wondering what’s happening to her,” the guard said.

  “No, really, I just have a cold. May I have an aspirin?”

  “Aspirin isn’t going to help you. What’s bothering you is in your mind. Think over your own position. Assume the correct attitude. Be repentant,” she said.

  I sat in the cell for the rest of the evening with my face averted from the door and tried not to blow my nose or wipe my eyes. When rice was given to me in the evening, I ate some and tipped the rest into the toilet, pouring water in to wash it away. Nevertheless, so firmly did the guards believe I was crying because I could not endure the hardship of prison life that they seized on what they thought was a psychologically weak moment and called me for interrogation the next day.

  6

  Interrogation

  THE MORNING DAWNED BRIGHT and sunny. When I opened the window, frosty fresh air flowed into the cell. Winter was not far off, I thought. The guard was going from cell to cell calling the inmates to take their sheets off their beds for laundering, a routine that took place once a month on a sunny day. Extra cold water was issued to the cells. The inmates soaked their sheets in it, rubbed soap on the wet sheets, and then pushed them out of the small windows of the cells, to be collected by the Labor Reform girls, who finished
washing them in the laundry room.

  While I was rubbing soap on my wet sheet, a male guard unlocked the cell door, threw it open wide, and yelled, “Come out!”

  “I’m doing my laundry,” I said.

  “Don’t argue. When I say come out, just come out.”

  The female guard on duty also came to the door. She said, “You can do your laundry later. Now you must go for interrogation.”

  Interrogation! At last it seemed I was to come face to face with my antagonist. I hurriedly wiped my hands on a dry towel.

  “Hurry up! Bring your book of Chairman Mao’s quotations,” the male guard said impatiently.

  I followed him out of the cell through the courtyard of the women’s prison into an area at the back of the prison compound. He led me into a building past a large white wooden board on which was written in black characters, “Lenient treatment to those who confess frankly. Severe punishment to those who remain stubborn. Reward to those who render meritorious service.”

  My heart palpitated with excitement; my footsteps were eager with expectancy. The long-awaited opportunity to answer questions and to have my case examined dispassionately was here at last. I believed a government interrogator couldn’t possibly behave like a hysterical Red Guard or a Revolutionary. He must be a trained man with a sense of responsibility, able to distinguish a guilty person from an innocent one.

  Several guards were lolling on wooden chairs in a small room beside the entrance to the building. I was handed over to one of them who led me through a long corridor with many interrogation rooms ranged on either side. Most of the doors were closed. But I heard the muffled sound of voices and an occasional shout from some of them. The guard stopped in front of one of the rooms, threw open the door, and shouted, “Go in!”