by Cheng Nien
“How did your son know about it?”
“It seems his friends in the militia told him.”
I was surprised by this information and wanted to verify its authenticity, so I asked that she send her son up to see me.
He came up later in the evening, but he refused to talk to me about Meiping’s murderer and flatly denied having told his mother anything about the case. “My mother made a mistake. She got things mixed up,” he said.
I did not give much credence to what Mrs. Zhu had told me, brushing it aside as mere gossip, for I thought if the man was in custody the Security Bureau would have informed me and Comrade Ma would have known. In fact, Mrs. Zhu’s son had been correctly informed. A week after I left Shanghai, the man was publicly tried in the Cultural Square, with members of the families of his other five victims in attendance. Da Gong Bao, the left-wing newspaper in Hong Kong, reported the trial and stated that the man was sentenced to death but the sentence was suspended for two years.
One morning in Hong Kong I opened the newspaper, and there was this news item glaring at me, with my daughter listed as one of the victims. When the initial shock subsided, I realized that the Security Bureau had deliberately waited for me to get out of the country before holding the trial. The Cultural Square had seating for over a thousand people, and representatives from every walk of life were normally invited to attend such trials. Members of the families of the victims would occupy the front-row seats and would be invited to express agreement with the verdict and the sentence. China had not abolished the death penalty. According to Chinese law, a convicted murderer should suffer immediate execution after sentencing. The officials at the Security Bureau knew very well a suspended death sentence would not be acceptable to me. In every petition I had sent to the bureau I had stated as much. They had waited until I was out of the way to hold the trial so that I could not be there to protest the verdict. Meiping’s murderer lives in China today, for a suspended death sentence meant that he could go free after two years.
The year 1979 was an important one for Deng Xiaoping and for Communist China. The adoption by the plenary session of the Central Committee in December 1978 of Deng’s favorite Marxist adage that “practice is the only criterion for determining truth” opened the way for his plan to reform and restructure China’s economy. His visit to the United States and the warm reception he received there established him as a leader of world stature. And the war “to punish Vietnam” for her border incursions rallied everyone around the Party in a surge of patriotism. It also helped to convince most of the military leaders, hitherto steeped in Mao Zedong’s concept of People’s War, of the need to modernize China’s armed forces. Deng’s position was further strengthened when four of Hua Guofeng’s supporters were ousted from the Party leadership. Although for the moment Hua Guofeng remained chairman of the Central Committee and prime minister, he had become an isolated figurehead with power slipping out of his grip.
One of the measures of economic reform undertaken by Deng Xiaoping was to open China’s doors to foreign firms. British Petroleum was the first oil company to open an office in Shanghai. Then I read in the Shanghai Liberation Daily that other oil companies, including Shell International Petroleum, had been invited to take part in offshore exploration. I became more hopeful that I would be given my passport in the not too distant future. In fact, I was so confident that I stopped giving English lessons. But it was another nine months before I could leave Shanghai.
When it was Chinese New Year again, in February 1980, I decided to have a big celebration for what might be my last Chinese New Year in Shanghai. I invited my students, the young people who had helped me, and their children to eat “foreign food” and watch fireworks with me. A-yi and I made pork hamburgers and cream of tomato soup for over thirty people. For dessert I ordered three enormous cakes topped with fresh cream from a former White Russian bakery, now state-owned but still producing the same cakes and pastry. My guests were jammed into my apartment. My bed had to be dismantled to make room, and we all sat on the floor to eat our supper. Then we took the large collection of fireworks I had bought into the garden, where for two hours my guests, especially the children, had a wonderful time letting off noisy firecrackers and illuminating the night sky with brilliant bursts of colorful stars and sprays. My neighbors opened their windows and leaned on their balconies to share the fun. The entire Zhu family also came out to watch. But I thought there must have been complaints too, for when I met Lao Li on the street a couple of days later, my policeman asked me, “What was this great noise you were making the other night?”
“Only fireworks to celebrate the Chinese New Year,” I told him.
“Was it necessary to have so much of it?”
“Oh, it was a double celebration, in fact. We were also celebrating our victory in Vietnam.”
I was with one of my young friends when I met Lao Li. After we had left the policeman, she said to me, “Have you heard what people are saying about the war in Vietnam?”
“No, what are they saying?”
“They are saying that Deng Xiaoping ordered the attack on Vietnam to avenge the defeat of the Americans. It was all arranged quietly between him and the American president, Carter, when he was in the United States,” she told me in low whispers.
“That sounds like something put out by the remnants of the Gang of Four. Don’t believe it and don’t talk about it,” I said. Actually, from that time on until the present day, Deng Xiaoping has been plagued by such rumors circulated by opponents of his policy in the Party.
My young friend said, “Yes, you are right. Shanghai is still full of followers of the Gang of Four. But the people are with Deng Xiaoping. Have you seen the historical film Jia Wu Naval Battle?”
“No, what about it?”
“Well, when a naval commander by the name of Deng appears on the screen, the audience cheers and claps. That’s the people’s subtle way of saying they like what Deng Xiaoping is doing.”
Greatly intrigued by what my young friend had told me, I went to the local cinema to see the film for myself a few days later. It was indeed just as she had said. The audience broke out in loud cheers when the naval commander appeared on the screen and was addressed by his subordinate officer as “Your Excellency Deng.”
Before the Chinese New Year, I had received a large gold-embossed card from the Shanghai Revolutionary Committee, the Maoist successor to the municipal government, inviting me to a Chinese New Year celebration at the Shanghai Exhibition Hall, the Sino-Soviet Friendship Building back in the heyday of China’s cooperation with her northern neighbor. The card admitted two persons, so I asked my young friend to accompany me. Since it was a fine day and buses were usually overcrowded during the Chinese New Year holiday period, we walked there in spite of the subfreezing temperature.
As we approached the exhibition hall, cars sped past us, enveloping us in clouds of dust, and we saw that the parking area outside the hall was full of chauffeur-driven cars. However, masses of other guests were on foot like us. It seemed everybody in Shanghai who was considered anybody at the time was invited. I presumed I was on the list submitted by the Federation of Women, since in the crowd I saw several other members of my study group.
We showed our invitation card at the door and were allowed to go in. The place was terribly hot, with central heating at full blast, the more unbearable because we had no heating at home and were not used to it. The hot air hit us like a tidal wave, and perspiration broke out on my forehead. We quickly shed our padded jackets and sweaters as well as our topcoats and added them to the mountain of similar garments discarded by others before us. My young friend was impatient to get to the “internal” shop at the exhibition hall, which was well known to the Shanghai public but inaccessible. She told me that she had boasted to her friends and neighbors that she was coming with me to the party; consequently they had all asked her to utilize the opportunity to buy them commodities they had long coveted but had been unable to obtai
n in the ordinary shops.
I told her that since we had come for the celebration, we should at least make a show of taking part in some of the planned activities before going to the shop. Meekly but impatiently, she followed me through the halls where games were being played, the theater where artists were performing, and the cafeteria where refreshments were being served. Then, because of the crowds everywhere, we were able to make our way in haste to the shop without attracting too much attention.
Much to my young friend’s disappointment, when we got there we found that a large crowd had preceded us and that the staff was regulating admission into the shop. We had to join the line and wait. When we finally got in, half of the things she wanted were sold out. However, we still managed to spend several thousand yuan on items ranging from cashmere coat material to steel saucepans. We each had four shopping bags weighed down with her purchases, so that we barely managed to stagger to the front entrance to claim our coats and jackets. We tried to get a taxi without success, and there were no pedi-cabs. Then my young friend telephoned home to enlist the help of her two younger brothers, who were asked to come on their bicycles. As we stood in the icy air outside the exhibition hall waiting for her brothers, others similarly laden joined us. Those driving away in chauffeured cars could afford to depart in a dignified manner, without the encumbrance of parcels, because they had their own “internal” source of supply.
Soon after the holiday, almost overnight, temporary housing sprang up on both sides of our street. The structures were no more than makeshift shacks of old timber, bamboo poles, and broken pieces of brick, built against the walls of the existing houses and gardens. The trees on the sidewalk were enclosed in the structures or used as poles. Soon the leaves dropped and the trees died. Each shack was allocated to one family of several people. There were no washing facilities and no toilets. The Residents’ Committee at first told us to keep our front gate open so that our garden taps would be accessible to the people outside. But after several households reported loss of personal property, taps were installed at each end of the street. A young woman sanitation worker came each morning to collect the night soil from buckets in each shack. The odor this operation created was overpowering.
Mrs. Zhu told me that the decision to house the people on our particular street was made by a female official promoted to the district government during the Cultural Revolution. The official said that she had selected our street to house the displaced people because it was too full of former class enemies and capitalists, too clean, and too quiet. To put a large number of proletarians in our midst would be “good” for us. I was astonished to hear this and asked Mrs. Zhu why the other officials did not oppose her. Mrs. Zhu said, “Nobody wants to offend former Revolutionaries promoted to official positions. They are afraid things will change back again.”
We had a shack on each side of our front gate. At first, there was enough space left for us to go in and out. But as time went on, much of the space was taken up by the people in the shacks for storage of their odds and ends. These were covered with old plastic sheets and smelly straw mats to protect them from the weather. Our passage was reduced to a very narrow lane of no more than two feet in width. Boys urinated against our gate, and laundry dripped from a line across our entrance. From morning till night, incessant human voices mixed with the noise of several radio sets tuned to different stations. Our “too quiet and too clean” street was certainly no longer quiet, and far from clean. It was impossible to use the garden or sit on the balcony. But by tacit understanding the Zhus and I put up with the inconveniences without complaint. We were very conscious that the spirit of “class struggle” still lurked and that Party officials, steeped in Mao’s philosophy, could not change easily. Their old working habits had already become second nature to many of them. They simply did not know any other way to discharge their responsibilities. Besides, because the Party leadership had not taken the bold step of totally repudiating Mao’s philosophy, the diehard believers in Maoism could not be removed from office and new blood brought in. These disgruntled Party officials would inevitably make use of every available opportunity to assert their Maoist point of view and to sabotage Deng Xiaoping’s new policy, which they regarded as a betrayal of socialism and Mao Zedong Thought. To this day, even though Deng Xiaoping’s power has increased significantly as compared to 1980, the problem of recalcitrant Party officials remains the most thorny he has to face. And as long as this problem is not resolved, the situation in China will remain subject to sudden change when Deng Xiaoping departs from the scene.
The Zhus and I knew that although we were rehabilitated, our position in Chinese society was by no means secure. Therefore, we put up with our new neighbors and even extended all possible help to make their lives more tolerable. We allowed them to store food in our refrigerators and loaned them our mops and brooms. We were only too thankful that the female Revolutionary Party official had not ordered the shacks to be erected right inside the garden. If she had, there was simply nothing we could have done about it.
Perhaps other residents of our street who were not former class enemies or capitalists were not so restrained. Lu Ying called on Mrs. Zhu and me to have a chat, and the Residents’ Committee officially informed everybody that a new apartment building was being built for the displaced persons. When it was completed, the people would be moved and our street would be restored to its old shape and condition again.
Since 1978 I had seen several visitors from abroad, including my sister Helen and her husband. As the news that I had survived the Cultural Revolution spread among my friends in Europe and North America, I began to receive letters from them. In July 1980, I got a letter from an old friend, Sir John Addis, telling me that he was coming to China and would be in Shanghai in August. He asked if I could see him. Sir John Addis was a Sinologist with a deep understanding and appreciation of Chinese culture. My husband and I had known him since the forties. When he was serving at the British charge d’affaires office in Beijing in the fifties, he was a frequent guest in our house. During the years he served as British ambassador to Laos and the Philippines, we had kept in touch, and in 1965, when he came to China on vacation, he visited me in Shanghai. He was a knowledgeable collector of Chinese porcelain. His collection had been given to the British Museum. I was always interested in hearing his opinion of the pieces I had acquired.
In 1972, while I was in prison, I read about his appointment as the first British ambassador to Beijing. When I was released in 1973, the political situation was such that I could not get in touch with him. Then, in 1974, again from the newspaper, I learned he had left Beijing to retire. I certainly would like to see him again; on the other hand, I did not want to do anything that might be misunderstood by the government and so prejudice my chance of getting my passport. I decided to seek the advice of my policeman, Lao Li, before replying to John’s letter.
I went to the police station and asked to see Lao Li. When he came out of the inner room and sat down across the table from me, I said, “I’ve received a letter from a former British ambassador to Beijing. He’s an old friend. He’s coming to Shanghai. In the letter he asks if he may come to see me.” I took the letter out and translated it verbatim into Chinese for Lao Li.
Lao Li listened to my translation but said nothing. I asked, “Do you think I ought to see him?”
“That’s entirely up to you. It’s your private business,” said Lao Li.
“Perhaps I should not see him?” I asked again.
“Wouldn’t he think it rather strange if you refuse to see him?” Lao Li said.
“Do you mean to say you think I ought to see him?” I said, trying, of course, to find out what he really meant.
“I didn’t say anything like that. It’s entirely your own private business whether you see him or not,” he said rather impatiently.
“I need advice from the government. Sir John Addis was an ambassador, not a schoolteacher or someone like that. He’s a political person
,” I told Lao Li.
“I can’t give you advice on your private life,” Lao Li said.
“All right, in that case, I’ll write and tell him I can’t see him,” I said.
“Did I tell you not to see him?”
“Perhaps I should see him?”
“It’s entirely your own private business,” Lao Li said again.
It suddenly dawned on me that I was putting Lao Li in a very awkward position by requesting his advice. I sensed that he was in favor of my seeing Sir John but did not want to be held responsible for saying so outright. I said, “All right, I’ll write and tell him I’ll see him.”
Lao Li smiled and said, “It’s entirely your own decision.”
“Do you think I should invite him to dinner?” I asked.
“Can your A-yi cook a dinner suitable for an ambassador? Besides, what about those shacks outside your door? He has been to your home before the Cultural Revolution. What would he think of your living conditions now?” Lao Li became quite animated as he dispensed advice freely.
“All right, I’ll take him to a restaurant. Thanks for the advice.” I got up from the bench to leave.
Lao Li stood up also. “I didn’t give you any advice,” he said. “It’s entirely your private business.”
“Anyway, thanks for listening to me. I’ll let you know when Sir John comes in August,” I said and went home to answer John’s letter.
On a hot summer’s day in late July, I received a form letter from the Public Security Bureau calling me for an interview at the office where I had applied for my passport. When I got there, I found only one other person in the waiting room, a young man. He was obviously agitated, pacing among the benches, brushing past one and knocking against another. When he saw me, he said, “Have you come for an interview about your passport application?”
I nodded and sat down on a bench. He stood towering over me and said nervously, “Do you think you will get it, or do you think you will be rejected?”