Life and Death in Shanghai

by Cheng Nien

  “Your relationship with Scott was more than a casual acquaintance,” the interrogator said.

  “Whatever it was, your interpretation of the situation is farfetched and incorrect.”

  The interrogator glared at me and said, “My advice to you is not to try to get out of your difficulties by claiming you did have a love affair with Scott. A Chinese woman degrading her country by having a love affair with a barbarian from the West deserves incarceration in a Reform through Labor camp.”

  Chinese throughout the ages have suffered from racial arrogance. Those who never went out of the country and had no close contact with other nationalities often thought of people in other lands as alien, therefore uncivilized creatures with strange habits and called them “foreigners” or even “foreign devils.” The self-imposed isolation during Mao Zedong’s reign and Party propaganda on the evils of capitalism greatly reinforced the Chinese people’s unfortunate state of self-delusion. When Deng Xiaoping threw China’s door open to the rest of the world and a flood of well-meaning and obviously affluent “foreigners” came to China with money to invest and ideas to share, the Chinese people suffered such a traumatic awakening that they sank into shame and self-reproach, only to emerge with an eagerness to jettison everything Chinese in order to become thoroughly “civilized.”

  There was nothing I could say to the interrogator really, though I realized by his stance that sending me to a labor camp was not satisfactory unless I could be sent as a “spy.” This was interesting, and I asked myself why. Normally when the Party picked a victim to be punished, the Party didn’t much care what excuse it used for imposing sentence. Indeed, sometimes the excuses were extremely vague or nonexistent. To punish was the aim. In my case, to judge from the attitude of the interrogator, it seemed that I had to be punished as a “spy,” not for some other reason. Why? I was not to know until much, much later.

  “I see you are not attempting to tell more lies. Now confess what Scott said to you when you were together,” the interrogator said.

  “You cannot expect me to remember conversations that took place several years ago. There was nothing of any significance. We talked about books, music, Chinese porcelain, places we both knew, our families, and so on.”

  “Your conversation never touched politics at all?”

  “Well, we probably exchanged views on current affairs sometimes, mostly international affairs. Scott was a diplomat. He would not have wanted to comment on anything that was going on in China to a Chinese.”

  To all the Europeans I had met, whether diplomats or businessmen, China under Mao Zedong was a fascinating subject mainly because the closed-door policy of the Communist Party shrouded the country in mystery. There were also some who came to China because they were interested in Chinese culture. When they had an opportunity to meet a Chinese with whom they could talk, naturally they asked questions. But these questions had nothing to do with political secrets. As a Chinese I believed that helping people from other lands understand China, her history, her cultural heritage, and her aspirations was not a bad thing. But the Communist Party officials of the radical faction did not see things in this light. They assumed that any Chinese not parroting the official propaganda line was hostile to the regime and everybody coming to China was trying to find fault with the Communist system. So they were always suspicious of the Chinese who worked in foreign firms and had contacts with the Europeans.

  Before the Cultural Revolution, my feeling of safety had rested on the fact that I knew no Chinese of any significance in the official world and was not in a position to learn of anything that could possibly be considered a state secret. And I took great care never to ask questions on sensitive subjects when I saw my Chinese friends and relatives, especially when they happened to be Party members. In the end this policy paid off, because during the Cultural Revolution, when my friends and relatives were cross-examined, they could honestly say that I never showed any interest in state secrets.

  “Scott was an intelligence officer. It was his duty to find out things. What did he ask you to do? Did he not ask you to get information for him?” persisted the interrogator.

  “Never! How could I get information for him? I worked for Shell, a foreign firm. I knew nothing more than the foreigners knew.”

  “It’s not possible for an intelligence officer to refrain from trying to gather information useful to his government.”

  “Are you sure he was in fact an intelligence officer?” I asked the interrogator.

  “Do not doubt our information.”

  “Then why did you not arrest him or declare him persona non grata and expel him from China?”

  “It was much better that he did not know we knew. We put him under close surveillance, and we knew everything he did. The British were working not only for their own country but also for the United States, since the Americans could not come here openly. The United States cooperates closely with the Kuomintang, so the British were helping the Kuomintang also.”

  Raising his voice and abandoning his matter-of-fact manner, he went on. “In 1962, when Scott came to Shanghai for the second time, the Kuomintang were preparing for an attack against us. Scott chose to establish contact with you because you were connected with the Kuomintang.”

  “Nonsense! I was never connected with the Kuomintang.”

  “Your husband was a senior official of the Kuomintang government. But that’s not the whole story. Your class origin dictated that your sympathy would be with the Kuomintang. The teaching of our Great Leader on class struggle is like a telescope as well as a microscope. Armed with Mao Zedong Thought, we see through the superficial phenomena and get to the heart of the matter.”

  I knew that the official propaganda line of Beijing in 1962 was that the Kuomintang was about to launch an attack against the mainland. But none of the newspapers and magazines I got from abroad ever hinted at any sign of military preparation in Taiwan. Besides, I was sure that Taiwan would not undertake an attack against the mainland without the consent of the United States and that in 1962 the United States was unlikely to allow such a venture. In Shanghai, however, I heard frequently of movements of Chinese troops to, and the withdrawal of families of military personnel from, Fujian province facing Taiwan. Many people believed that Mao planned military action against Taiwan, not the reverse. The gossip in Shanghai was that only the economic collapse caused by the failure of Mao’s Great Leap Forward, along with dissension in the Party leadership, compelled him to shelve his plan.

  As I tried to recall whether anybody in the foreign community, including Scott, had asked me about Taiwan during that time, I became thoughtful. The interrogator, observing me closely but misunderstanding the reason for my thoughtfulness, seized the moment to say, “Whether you confess or not, we have a complete record of what you said to Scott.”

  “In that case, you would know for a certainty that we never talked politics,” I told him.

  “You are obviously not ready to confess right away. You need time to think and to recollect. That’s perfectly all right with us. We’ll give you plenty of time to prepare for a full and frank confession. After today, you should know it’s useless for you to try to evade. Now we will talk about that female agent Austin. Give an account of your dealings with her.”

  “As you know, Mrs. Austin was the wife of a businessman. My contact with her was purely social. We played bridge together and dined with each other.”

  “You brought her into contact with an ex-Kuomintang army officer!”

  “What! Who was that?” I was genuinely shocked, and I showed my surprise. The interrogator, watching me, relaxed visibly.

  “The Chinese doctor of traditional medicine you took to her apartment was a ranking officer of the Kuomintang army before he practiced medicine.”

  “I knew nothing of his background. I knew only that he was a very good doctor of Chinese traditional medicine. Mrs. Austin confided to me that she was unhappy because she could not have children. She had been
to European doctors who could not find anything organically wrong. I was sorry for her, so I asked the doctor if Chinese medicine could do something for her. Since he said that he could not be certain without seeing her, I introduced them to each other. You could easily get confirmation of what happened from the doctor himself.”

  “He committed suicide soon after the Red Guards started their revolutionary action against him.”

  Had the Red Guards tortured him because he had had contact with a British agent? God, why did I introduce him to her? How stupid I had been not to realize fully the complexity of life under Mao! Since good intentions and sympathy for others often led people into trouble, the Chinese people had invented a new proverb that said, “The more you do, the more trouble you have; the less you do, the less trouble you have. If you do nothing whatever, you will become a model citizen.” Why did I not heed the experience of others? I felt greatly saddened by the death of this poor man.

  “Besides taking the doctor to see her, you also traveled to Beijing with her. What did you do there and whom did you see?”

  “The tomb of Ming emperor Wanli had been newly opened in Beijing in 1959. In 1960 we went to see it. Traveling with foreigners, I could stay in a good hotel, but as a Chinese citizen, I would only be allowed to stay in a third-rate guesthouse. So I went with Mrs. Austin and another British woman friend. For them it was convenient to take me because I knew Beijing well, having lived there in my childhood, and I spoke the language.”

  “Did you introduce her to anybody in Beijing?”

  “No, I don’t know many people in Beijing myself.”

  “What about your brother? He visited you at the hotel, we know.”

  “On the day my brother came, the two British ladies went to the Jade Temple without me. My brother did not want to meet them.”

  There was a slight noise behind me. The interrogator looked past my shoulder and then at his watch. After a few whispered words with the man taking notes, he stood up and said, “You may go back to your cell. When I call you again we will talk about the dirty work you did for the company that employed you and the reason your office engaged as secretary the White Russian woman who was also a Soviet agent. I don’t think you will find it easy to deny your involvement with the affairs of the firm that employed you.”

  After a momentary pause, he went on. “Think carefully about your relationship with Scott. Remember, we already know he used you to gather information, and we have a good idea what you told him.”

  “I couldn’t have told anybody more than I knew myself. Since I knew nothing, how could I have been of use to him?”

  “Well, we think he came to Shanghai to see you, both before you went to Hong Kong and after you came back. He wouldn’t have done that if it hadn’t been worth his while.”

  A guard opened the door of the interrogation room. The interrogator told me to go. I realized that he was not interested in prolonging the session after the man listening at the small window had departed.

  Back in the cell, I was continuously watched by the guards. My mind was troubled, as I felt responsible for the death of that poor doctor. And I wished I had never met Scott or Austin. Were they really British agents? Even if they were, it still did not explain why I was in prison now. Both the foreign residents in Shanghai and the senior Chinese working in foreign firms were under constant observation by their servants at home and by other Chinese staff members at work. In public places, there were always policemen and uniformed sentries, as well as plainclothes operatives working for the police and zealous activists eager to report any unusual behavior. Personal privacy did not exist in Shanghai as it does in other cities of the world. If the People’s Government had been suspicious of my relationship with Scott and Austin, the Shanghai police should have acted years ago. Indeed there was much in the situation I did not as yet understand. It seemed quite likely that the interrogator would go through the whole list of my foreign friends and declare them all secret agents. Scott and Austin were merely the first two being named to frighten me. I realized that I was being drawn into a quagmire. I would have to watch my step to avoid sinking into its depths.

  Ever since I had been brought to the No. 1 Detention House, I had been wondering why I was arrested. This was the question that puzzled me most. Who was behind my arrest? Did they really suspect me of having done something criminal, or did they merely hope that I would be frightened into providing them with a false confession they could use against me? Winnie seemed to think that because Shell had closed its Shanghai office, it was my turn to be punished. Was she correct?

  As I sat in the cell thinking of my encounter with the interrogator, I couldn’t help recalling all the cases of innocent men and women sentenced to terms of imprisonment and hard labor that I had heard of. My spirit of bravado deserted me, and I became really frightened, not because I was burdened with a sense of guilt but because I feared that the task of defending myself might be beyond my ability.

  In the evening, I composed myself for that quiet moment of daily prayer, but the stern voice of the interrogator intruded. I felt lost and unhappy, almost as if God had turned away from me as well.

  That night, I had a nightmare, the first of many during my imprisonment. I dreamt I was standing on the narrow ledge of a sheer rocky cliff by the sea. The roaring waves of the incoming tide were rising higher and higher to engulf me. It was pitch-dark, I was utterly alone, and I was petrified.

  Instinctively, I pulled my quilt over my face to stifle a cry of terror. I opened my eyes to find the electric light glaring down at me. My eyeshade had slipped to the floor. Remembering the guard standing forever outside the door with her eyes glued to the peephole, ready to interpret any sign of restlessness as a sign of guilt, I froze in fear and apprehension. But the sound of a heavy bolt being driven in place somewhere upstairs told me that she was temporarily elsewhere, putting a newly arrived prisoner into a cell.

  7

  The January Revolution and Military Control

  I WAITED FOR THE INTERROGATOR to call me again. However, several days passed and nothing happened. I felt tension in the atmosphere; the guards looked harassed as they dashed up and down the corridor. Something was happening in the world outside, I felt sure. Often I would stand by the door hoping to hear what the guards were talking about in their little room at the other end of the corridor, but all I could discern was an unusually excited, high-pitched intonation in their voices. Sometimes they seemed to be arguing about something, other times they lowered their voices to an almost inaudible whisper. Even though the prison was deadly silent, I could not make out what they were talking about. My inability to find out what was actually going on frightened me.

  Early in December, not long after my first interrogation, the guards stopped giving me the newspaper. Since the newspaper was considered important material for the prisoners’ indoctrination and the guards always told us to read it carefully, this was very strange. After waiting for a few days, I asked for it. At first the guard ignored my request. When I asked again, the guard simply said impatiently, “Don’t you know there’s a revolution going on?”

  By the middle of December, winter came in earnest. A penetrating north wind swept the city with icy blasts, lowering the temperature daily until it was hovering around freezing. The window and door of my cell rattled with each strong gust. The folded strips of toilet paper I had pushed into the gaps to stop the wind were often blown onto the floor. I had already put on both my sweaters and a padded jacket, but still my teeth chattered as spasms of shivering shook my body. In the icy room, my breath made white, cloudy puffs, and I had to stamp my feet and rub my hands to bring blood to my toes and fingers.

  One cold day the guards yelled for the prisoners to get ready for outdoor exercise. I thought they must hate to have to leave their stove on a day like this. In spite of the wind, it was in fact a little warmer outside than in the damp cell. Besides, walking improved my circulation. But the strong wind whirled the dust and gravel in
to the air so that I could hardly keep my eyes open.

  Suddenly I saw all the guards rush out of the closed pavilion on the raised platform from which they had been watching us, dash down the steps, and disappear from view. At the same time, the noise from the street grew louder and louder, as if a mob of several thousand were storming the detention house. In the sentry box overlooking the exercise yards, a soldier holding a rifle stiffly by his side was craning his neck in the direction of the prison entrance, but he did not abandon his post. A woman prisoner in a neighboring exercise yard said in an excited whisper loud enough for all the prisoners to hear, “It’s probably the Red Guards trying to get in to rescue their comrades imprisoned by the municipal government!”

  Immediately, the voice of a young girl shouted from one of the exercise yards, “Let me out! Let me out! I’m a Red Guard! Long live our Great Leader Chairman Mao!” Her urgent entreaty for freedom was accompanied by the sound of her fist knocking on the heavy door of the exercise yard.

  The commotion at the entrance of the detention house went on until we heard gunshots, probably fired by the soldiers on guard duty. The sound of the mob receded. After a while the guards came back to let the prisoners out of the exercise yards. Obviously the attempt by the Red Guards to break into the detention house had given our guards quite a jolt. When the guard unlocked my exercise yard, he seemed rather subdued, did not shout, “Come out!” as usual, but waited by the door for me to walk out.