by Cheng Nien
Because our secretary at that time was a British woman, I thought she would know best what advice to give, so I asked her to draw up the list and write a covering letter, which I signed. In her zeal to help her compatriots, she gave rather a long list that included items from buttons to detergents. But from a political point of view, the letter seemed to me completely innocuous.
“I can’t see anything political in this letter,” I said.
“Nothing political? You divulged information about the grain supply situation in Shanghai,” he said.
“Really? Let me see the letter again.” By now I realized that he had been instructed to find some excuse for my imprisonment in order to avoid having to declare at the time of my release that I was innocent. I knew the Communist Party loathed admitting mistakes, since it had declared itself to be “the great, glorious, and correct Chinese Communist Party.”
He handed me the letter again and said, “Read the passage about grain rations.”
I read, “ ‘The Shanghai government allows everyone twenty catties of grain per month. One can buy either rice or flour. It is more than enough.’ ” I asked the interrogator, “What’s wrong with that?”
“That’s divulging information concerning the grain supply situation,” he said.
“The grain ration is given to everyone, including all the Europeans living in Shanghai. It’s not a secret. What’s there to divulge when it is a fact known to everyone?”
“Your letter was sent abroad,” he said.
“Do you mean to say the Europeans in Shanghai will not tell people abroad about it when they go back to their own countries? What about all the overseas Chinese who come back for short visits? Don’t they know what grain rations their family members get? Do they conveniently forget it when they leave China?”
“That’s their business. This letter is your business. Do you or do you not admit you wrote this letter?”
“The letter was not actually written by me. But I accept full responsibility for it, as I signed it and it was sent out of the office when I was the responsible person. The point with which I disagree is that stating the fact of a ration of twenty catties of rice or flour per person per month constitutes ‘divulging information.’ “
“It’s illegal to divulge information about the grain supply. But we can consider it only a political mistake since you were ignorant of the regulations,” he said.
“Nonsense! It’s not a mistake, political or otherwise. Show me the regulations, if you have any.” I was angry. But he just ignored me and adjourned the interrogation.
When winter came, the prisoners were again given three meals a day; I got fish or meat with my midday meal. But my health had deteriorated to such an extent that these measures made no difference. I had another bad hemorrhage. When the bleeding was brought under control, I was taken by the militant female guard, dressed in civilian clothes, to the Zhongshan Hospital of the No. 1 Medical College for an examination. An appointment was probably made beforehand, as we went straight to the gynecology department and were admitted into the doctor’s office ahead of all the other waiting patients.
I was surprised to find the “doctor” a young woman in her early twenties, with an armband of the Revolutionaries. She was clumsy during the brief examination, and afterwards she told the guard I had cancer of the uterus. I did not believe her because I was sure she was not a qualified doctor. I thought she was one of those who had learned to be a doctor by being one, just like the young medical orderly I had encountered before. But apparently the guards and others at the detention house believed her. My treatment improved. Some of the guards looked at me with pity in their eyes. After my release, I learned that the officials in charge of my case looked for housing for me in earnest after my visit to the hospital. Eventually it was decided to allow me an apartment with two rooms and a bathroom because it was assumed that since I did not have any children to look after me I would need a live-in nurse towards the end of my life.
On March 27, 1973, after the midday meal, while I was walking about in the cell, a guard opened the small window and said, “Pack up all your things.”
“All my things?” I asked her.
“Yes, all your things. Don’t leave anything behind.”
Soon afterwards the door opened and two Labor Reform girls came into the cell. They collected all my things and took them away. A guard in the corridor said, “Come out!”
I looked around the cell, my “home” for exactly six and a half years. Without my washbasin and towels, it already seemed different. I noticed the sheets of toilet paper I had pasted on the wall by the bed and wondered if I should tear them off so as not to leave any impression of myself behind. But I decided to leave them for the next unfortunate woman who was to occupy the cell. As I stood in the room looking at it for the last time, I felt again the cold metal of the handcuffs on my wrists and remembered the physical suffering and mental anguish I had endured while fighting with all the willpower and intellect God had given me for that rare and elusive thing in a Communist country called justice.
“Come along! What are you doing in there? Haven’t you stayed there long enough?” the guard called.
I followed her to the front courtyard and into the room where I was registered when I arrived at the detention house in 1966. There was no one inside. I sat down on the chair.
The young doctor followed me into the room. He stood by the counter, half leaning on it in a casual manner, and said, “I want to tell you the medication I have been giving you so that you can tell your own doctor when you leave here.” He named several medicines.
“Thank you very much,” I said.
“Well, you are going to be released shortly. Are you glad?” the doctor asked me.
“It’s high time, isn’t it? Six and a half years is a long time to lock up an innocent person,” I said.
He winced but went on as if he had not heard me. “I want to give you some advice before you leave. It’s for your own good. During the time you have been here, you haven’t exactly behaved in an exemplary manner. In fact, in all the years of the detention house, we have never had a prisoner like you, so truculent and argumentative. When you leave this place, you must try to control yourself. Be careful not to irritate the masses. Shanghai is no longer the same city it was before the Cultural Revolution. You must show some respect for the proletariat. Otherwise you will suffer. You are a sick woman. You don’t want to be brought back here again, do you?”
I did not say anything. He stayed a few more minutes and then departed. Obviously he had been told to talk to me. But why, I could not tell. In fact, I wasn’t listening to him very carefully. What occupied my mind was simply whether I would find my daughter alive after all.
My bundle of clothing was thoroughly searched by two male guards. When they had finished, I was escorted to one of the interrogation rooms. There was no more bowing to Mao’s photograph or reading quotations. The interrogator merely pointed at the prisoner’s chair. I sat down.
Another man I had never seen before sat beside him. This man said, “You are going out today. We feel the time has come for you to go out. I will read to you the conclusion arrived at by the People’s Government on your case. However, after you have heard it, you are allowed to express an opinion, if you have any.”
He took a couple of sheets of paper out of a folder. Then he said to me, “Stand up to listen to the conclusion.”
I stood up.
He read out my name and other personal particulars such as age and place of birth. Then he went on, “ ‘The above-named person was brought to the Number One Detention House on September 27, 1966, for the following reasons. One, in October 1957, in a letter to England, she divulged the grain supply situation in Shanghai. Two, she defended the traitor Liu Shaoqi and opposed the Central Committee resolution passed on Liu Shaoqi. These are serious matters that deserved punishment. However, in view of the fact that she is politically backward and ignorant, we decided to give her a chance t
o realize her mistakes. After six and a half years of education in the Number One Detention House, we observed a certain degree of improvement in her way of thinking and an attitude of repentance. We have, therefore, decided to show her proletarian magnanimity by refraining from pressing charges against her and allowing her to leave the detention house as a free person.’” When he had finished reading, he lifted his head and looked at me.
I was livid. Anger and disgust choked me. While I despised their blatant hypocrisy and shamelessness, I knew deep in my heart that the real culprit was not this man but the evil system under which we all had to live. I would have to fight, whatever the price, I told myself. I stared back at him and sat down.
“Haven’t you something to say? Aren’t you grateful? Aren’t you pleased that you can now leave as a free person?” the man said.
I tried my best to control the rage that made me tremble and said, “I can’t accept your conclusion. I shall remain here in the Number One Detention House until a proper conclusion is reached about my case. A proper conclusion must include a declaration that I am innocent of any crime or political mistake, an apology for wrongful arrest, and full rehabilitation. Furthermore, the apology must be published in the newspapers in both Shanghai and Beijing, because I have friends and relatives in both cities. As for the conclusion you have just read, it’s a sham and a fraud. I was brought to the Number One Detention House long before Liu Shaoqi was denounced. How could you have anticipated that I would speak on his behalf? As for divulging information about the grain supply situation, it’s just your invention to save face. I never divulged anything, and you all know it.”
They looked at each other. Then the interrogator said, “The Number One Detention House isn’t an old people’s home. You can’t stay here all your life.”
“It doesn’t have to be all my life. I’ll stay here until you give a proper conclusion to my case. If you are ready to give one tomorrow, I can leave tomorrow.”
“We have already heard your opinion. As I have said, we allow you to express your opinion. It’s noted down. We’ll forward it to the senior authorities. You can leave now,” the other man said.
“No. The moment I leave, you will forget the whole thing. The wrong conclusion will go into my personal dossier. I’ll stay here,” I said.
The interrogator stood up. He said, “I have never seen a prisoner refusing to leave the detention house before. You must be out of your mind. In any case, when the government wants you to go, you have to go. Your family has been waiting for you since early this morning. How much longer do you want to delay your departure?”
Did he mean my daughter was out there waiting? Oh, how I longed to see her! Suddenly two female guards came into the room. One on each side, they dragged me out to the second gate.
In the distance, standing beside a blue taxi, was the figure of a young woman. She was shorter than Meiping, and I realized with a sinking heart that she was my goddaughter Hean.
III
MY STRUGGLE FOR JUSTICE
13
Where Is Meiping?
I STOOD STILL AND my eyes searched the driveway. Apart from the armed sentry in the distance, there was only my goddaughter Hean coming towards me with her arms outstretched.
“Meiping is dead! That’s why she isn’t here to meet me. Meiping is dead! Meiping is dead …” My ears buzzed and my eyes misted, blurring the scene before me. Even though in the back of my mind I still hoped for some tangible explanation for my daughter’s absence, my whole body was weakened by grief and I could not move my legs. Hean grasped my arm and guided me to the waiting cab.
“Where is Meiping?”
I feared the answer, but I had to ask.
Hean didn’t reply but merely tightened her grip on my hand. I could not bring myself to say, “Is Meiping dead?” Putting it into words would make it real.
We sat in the car in silence as it drove through the familiar Shanghai streets. Release from the No. 1 Detention House was not bringing me a feeling of relief, only a new anxiety in the place of the old one.
The taxi stopped in front of a narrow black wooden gate set in a cement wall. Hean paid the driver and knocked on the gate. A middle-aged woman dressed in a blue cotton tunic and loose-fitting trousers like a servant opened the gate and helped Hean with my things.
What must have been a small garden at one time was now covered with rubble. Except for a single elm tree struggling in the midst of broken tiles, bricks, and dirt, there were only clusters of weeds. The house before us looked shabby and neglected, the downstairs rooms unoccupied. A thick layer of dust lay on the terrace. The front door opened into a small hall, and we went up the stairs. The hall and staircase had been swept and washed with a wet mop, but the walls were gray. Hean preceded me into a large room at the top of the stairs. A bed with clean white sheets and a floral quilt, a chest of drawers, a small desk, a table, four chairs, and an easy chair were in the room. The furniture was the standard set, mass-produced and identical in design, usually rationed to newly married couples.
“These two rooms up here are allocated to you. The Security Bureau issued me a certificate to buy these few pieces of furniture for you.” Hean hugged me and exclaimed, “Oh! It’s good to have you back again!”
She put her face against mine and held me for a long moment. I realized that she found it difficult to talk about Meiping. I would have to give her time. The fact that she did not explain Meiping’s absence proved beyond doubt that Meiping was dead. I felt an overwhelming depression and painful anxiety. But I would have to let her come to the subject in her own good time.
“They gave me five thousand yuan of your money. I did not dare to spend it all. I thought you would need some of it to live on. That’s why the walls are dirty and the curtains are so skimpy,” explained Hean. “Mother was coming with me to get you, but at the last moment, while we were waiting for the taxi, she was told to go to a meeting of her study group to listen to an official document about Lin Biao. You know about that, don’t you?”
“I suppose he is in disgrace, since his name has disappeared from newspaper reports.”
“He’s dead! In a plane crash while escaping to the Soviet Union! Premier Zhou is now the man next to Chairman Mao. That’s why things are getting better. That’s why you are saved! Oh, I’m so happy to see you! If only …” She didn’t finish her sentence, and what she was going to say turned into a sob. Tears streamed down her face, and she bowed her head.
I thought she was going to tell me about Meiping. But we were interrupted by the maid entering the room with two cups of hot tea.
Hean quickly pulled herself together and blinked back her tears, almost as if she were afraid of the maid.
“This is A-yi,” Hean introduced her. “She is here to look after you. She will sleep in the other room.”
“Thank you, A-yi,” I said to the maid while accepting the teacup from her. She was a wiry little woman of about fifty with coarse skin and sinewy hands. As she handed me the teacup, her eyes were summing me up.
“Shall I boil hot water for a bath?” she asked me.
“No, thank you. Not just yet. I’ll tell you when I’m ready for a bath.”
When she had left the room and closed the door, I asked Hean, “Are servants still allowed?”
“Why not? There are so many unemployed people. If someone is ill or there are babies, nobody will say anything. In our case, it was the man from the Security Bureau who suggested that I find a maid for you. He said you were ill and would need an operation. He led me to think you were more ill than you are. Though I must say, you look terribly thin,” said Hean, looking at my emaciated body with wrinkled brows.
“Don’t worry, it’s a matter of food. I’ll be all right. How did you find A-yi?” I asked Hean, wondering if the Security Bureau had sent the maid.
“Mother found her through a friend. But”—Hean lowered her voice—“she isn’t the same as Chen-ma. Be careful what you say to her.”
I
nodded.
“I think the government wants to be nice to you now that the situation in Beijing is different. You have been given these two rooms with your own bathroom. And yesterday when I was here hanging the curtains a man came from the tree-planting section of the Housing Bureau to tell me that he was sent to plant trees in the garden for you. He even asked me what kind of trees you liked.”
Because I was given two rooms with a private bath and the tree-planting section of the Housing Bureau offered to plant trees in the garden, Hean had come to the conclusion that the People’s Government wanted to be “nice” to me. Since the government was the sole arbiter of their fate, the Chinese people were sensitive to every little sign from government agencies, interpreting them as indications of their position in the eyes of the authorities.
Hean seemed more relaxed and was smiling. So I decided to ask her about Meiping. “Are you now ready to tell me what has happened to Meiping?”
She looked at me searchingly, as if she weren’t sure whether I could take what she was going to tell me. Then she seemed to decide to face the issue. “I wasn’t in Shanghai at the time. As you know, I graduated from the Conservatory of Music in 1966 just when the Cultural Revolution started. When I came to Meiping’s birthday party in August, I was waiting to be assigned work by the authorities. In December of that year, I was sent to Guiyang. Soon after I got there, I was told to go to an agricultural commune near Guiyang to be ‘reeducated.’ In the summer of 1967, Mother wrote me to say that Meiping had committed suicide.”