Life and Death in Shanghai

by Cheng Nien

  “Are you conducting this investigation or am I?” the interrogator asked with irritation.

  I knew, of course, that the interrogator hoped to trip me up. A seemingly innocent account could be made to look suspicious if a word was taken out here and a sentence taken out there. And when one is writing about mundane affairs, one is not on guard. So I merely said, “Of course you are the interrogator, and, as you told me yourself, you are the representative of the People’s Government. I’ll do whatever you say. But it seems a waste of time.”

  “We do not mind wasting time if we can expose agents of the imperialists. It’s our belief that all foreign firms operating in China have double status. They trade to make money because money is God to the capitalists. But they also gather information for their governments.

  “The capitalist countries will never give up trying to subvert China because China is a socialist country. We are now powerful. They cannot hope to destroy us by military means. So they pin their hope on internal dissension. All of you trained in their universities or working in their offices are their potential allies. Britain was the first imperialist power to invade China. She still occupies Hong Kong. While she recognizes the People’s Government, she votes with the United States at the United Nations to prevent our taking China’s seat in that world organization. While the United States is openly supporting the Kuomintang, the British are playing a two-faced game that is more dangerous because people can be fooled by it.

  “You exaggerate,” I told him.

  “You had better not try to defend the British imperialists. That will put you in a worse position than you are in now,” said the interrogator.

  It was obviously futile to engage him in a debate on international relations. I kept quiet and waited to hear what else he had to say.

  “Before you write your confession, you should correct your thinking about Liu Shaoqi. You should realize that the capitalist-roaders are finished. Those who are already exposed will never be able to stage a comeback, and we are going to get at those who are yet to be exposed. Victory belongs to the policy of our Great Leader. So your only way out is to confess everything and come over to the side of the Proletarian Revolutionaries. It would be a big mistake for you to think China might go back to pre-Cultural Revolution days and those of you with foreign connections would again be protected by the capitalist-roaders,” the interrogator said.

  I was quite pleased with the day’s interrogation because I had been given the opportunity to speak and I thought I had clarified several points. Now I decided to use the opening he had given me to defend Liu Shaoqi further. I needed to see whether I was right in thinking that mixed with the Maoists in the detention house there were also a number of Liuists.

  Resuming my air of innocent stupidity, I said, “Honestly, I still don’t understand what Chairman Liu Shaoqi did wrong and why Chairman Mao wants to punish him. In his books, Chairman Mao praised Chairman Liu in several places. I counted them when I was studying Chairman Mao’s books. I do hope Chairman Mao will forgive Chairman Liu Shaoqi. Don’t you think that would be best for China and for the Communist Party? Besides, wasn’t it Chairman Liu who first used the term ‘Mao Zedong Thought’ and urged the Party members to study Chairman Mao’s books? Surely that showed he did respect Chairman Mao.”

  “You are not allowed to refer to a traitor as ‘chairman’! You are not allowed to defend Liu Shaoqi!” they shouted.

  When they had quieted down, I said, “Of course I do not dare to defend Liu Shaoqi if he is really guilty. But I do wonder if the material on which the Central Committee based its judgment was really reliable. You know how people can easily be frightened into making false confessions. I suppose it happens all the time.”

  I couldn’t resist making this dig at them. It was small revenge for the things they were doing to me. Actually what I had said probably touched a sensitive spot. From the traces of fear I saw on each of their faces and from the way they quickly tried to shut me up, I was sure they knew, or at least suspected, that the so-called evidence against Liu Shaoqi was indeed manufactured by the Maoists.

  (After Mao’s death in September 1976 and the subsequent arrest of his widow Jiang Qing, the people of China were told officially in a Central Committee document just how a special committee set up by Jiang Qing and Defense Minister Lin Biao manufactured the evidence against Liu Shaoqi. The document said that Maoist activists selected by Jiang Qing and Lin Biao rounded up Liu’s associates and tortured them to make them provide the necessary false evidence. To prove that they had carried out their assignment faithfully, the activists taped the tortured cries of their victims and played them for Jiang Qing and Lin Biao.)

  “Shut up! Shut up! You are a madwoman!” the interrogator shouted, seemingly terrified by my candid remark. He quickly added, “Liu Shaoqi was guilty and you are too!”

  “I’m not guilty, that I know for sure. As for Chairman Liu Shaoqi, I have a feeling he is innocent too,” I said.

  “Shut up! Shut up! Close your lips. You are not allowed to speak again,” ordered the interrogator.

  I heard a loud noise behind me. This time no attempt was made to soften the sound from the small window behind the prisoner’s chair. It seemed that the man listening outside was tired of the game. He shut the small window with a loud bang to show his displeasure. The interrogator hurriedly got up and went out of the room.

  When he came back, he did not resume his seat but handed me a roll of writing paper.

  “Go back to your cell and write about your trip to England and other European countries. Put down the names of all the people you saw and everything you said to them. Give a full confession.”

  A guard was already standing in the open doorway. I followed him out.

  Hot drinking water had been issued during my absence. It had been kept warm for me, like the rice earlier in the day. Such kindness and consideration were extraordinary. Was I correct in thinking their kindness to me was due to my defense of Liu Shaoqi? Or did the Maoists think I could be moved by gestures of kindness into doing their bidding? Such thoughts were in my mind as I sat on the edge of the bed drinking the hot water. Hot water may mean very little under normal circumstances, but in that prison cell, in the middle of winter, it tasted very good indeed.

  Suddenly the small window in the door of the cell was pushed open. The voice of the young doctor said, “Come over!”

  “What’s the matter with your ankle?” he asked.

  What a surprise! I had never heard of the doctor coming to a prisoner without his visit being requested. Often I would hear a prisoner’s voice, anxious and urgent, as she repeatedly made a request to see the doctor.

  The guard was standing outside. After I had explained that I had a bruise on my ankle that seemed to be inflamed, she opened the door of the cell. The doctor stepped in. He examined my ankle and pressed the swollen flesh.

  “No bone is broken. It’s just superficial inflammation. I’ll give you some bandages and ointment.”

  Later, the guard on duty handed me a tube of Aureomycin and a roll of bandages. Before I could recover from my surprise at this change in my treatment, I was handed a container of rice and cabbage instead of the usual sweet potatoes for the evening meal. When I returned the container and chopsticks to the woman from the kitchen, she murmured, “Doctor’s orders for you to have rice.”

  Thinking over the day’s events and going through the interrogation carefully several times in my mind, I felt quite pleased. The new interrogator was a Party official but not a professional interrogator like the first man. I thought he was not too unreasonable, under the circumstances. At least he listened to what I had to say, and everything was recorded. Even though I knew that the Maoists would do everything within their power to make me confess to something I hadn’t done, I was now hopeful that at least those who were not diehard Maoists would in time realize I was innocent. When I prepared for bed, I was in a calmer mood than I had been for a long time. However, the exertion and ex
citement of a full day’s interrogation and debate were too much for my weakened body. That night, I had the worst hemorrhage ever. In a short while, all the toilet paper and towels in the cell were used up; there was blood everywhere, even on the cement floor. I was alarmed and called the guard, who quickly summoned the doctor. He gave me an injection and told me to lie perfectly still on a plastic sheet. At daybreak, I was taken to the prison hospital in an ambulance.

  9

  Persecution Continued

  THE ANTIQUATED AMBULANCE SPED through the streets of Shanghai, accompanied by the loud and continuous clang from the bell hanging on its side. I lay on a stretcher on the floor of the vehicle, with a female guard perched on the folding seat. The interior of the ambulance was by no means clean. I kept my eyes closed, partly to avoid looking at the guard, who hovered over me in the confined space, and partly to be alone with my thoughts.

  I was deeply disappointed that I had had another hemorrhage just as the long-awaited interrogation seemed to have begun in earnest. I wondered whether I had a malignant growth. I thought of death. It did not seem frightening. After all, my death was the natural and unavoidable result of my having lived. In any case, being a Chinese, I believed that my own death would be only an interval in the continuity of life, for I would go on living in my child and her children, generation after generation, a flowing stream without end. But thinking of my daughter always caused my heart to contract with pain and worry. How was she living? What sort of future would she have after the Cultural Revolution?

  The ambulance jerked to a sudden stop. I heard a loudspeaker in the distance broadcasting Mao’s directive, “Dig deep tunnels, store grain everywhere, and never seek hegemony.” When the stretcher was lifted out of the ambulance, I caught sight of a group of young male prisoners with shaven heads being led by a guard in front of the hospital. They all carried spades, shovels, and large baskets; their Little Red Books of Mao’s quotations were slung over their shoulders on a string. They seemed to be on their way to “dig deep tunnels” somewhere behind the prison hospital; Mao’s directives always had to be obeyed immediately. But they looked so emaciated that I did not know how they could perform heavy physical labor. Their pathetic appearance, dejected air, and bowed heads reminded me forcefully that I was just like them, a nonperson without any rights, quite unable to control my own fate. I turned my head to avoid looking at the sad spectacle of human ruin, and for the first time I was glad that being in a cell by myself without a mirror, I could continue to entertain an illusion of self-esteem.

  I was put in a ward with surgical cases. In the small room, beds were placed next to each other with only a few inches of space between. My bed was by the door, through which a cold draft blew in a vain effort to dispel the odor of blood, urine, disinfectant, and unwashed humanity. On the other side of my bed was a woman groaning and muttering in a state of semiconsciousness, obviously just returned from the operating room. I wondered why I was put there among the surgical cases and whether it meant that the doctors at the prison hospital intended to operate. This prospect was extremely alarming, because in a rigidly stratified Communist society prisoners of the state certainly would get the worst medical care.

  However, for several days, I was only given injections. The hemorrhage was brought under control, and I felt stronger because of bed rest and better food. One evening a small banana that had gone soft and brown appeared with my supper. I was surprised by my own positive reaction to that sad-looking banana and the pleasure I got from eating it.

  A few days after my hemorrhage stopped, the same woman doctor I had seen when I had pneumonia in the winter of 1967 came to see me in the ward. She took me to a small office and told me that she had been trying to arrange for me to be examined by a gynecologist in a city hospital. But at that time the hospitals in Shanghai, controlled by the Red Guards and the Revolutionaries, were refusing to give medical treatment to “class enemies.”

  “What do you think I am suffering from?” I asked her.

  “It may be a growth, or it may be nothing more than the menopause.”

  “Could it be a malignant growth?”

  “It’s hard to say without a biopsy.”

  “I’m not afraid to die,” I said. “But I mustn’t die before my case is cleared up. I can’t let a cloud of suspicion remain with my daughter for the rest of her life. It would ruin her happiness. Besides, I long to see her again. I’ve missed her so very much.” My voice quivered, and I couldn’t go on.

  She laid a hand on my arm in a gesture of sympathy. “In my report to the Number One Detention House, I will stress the need for you to have better nourishment.”

  “Please, Doctor, tell me what I can do myself to prolong my own life,” I asked her.

  “Eat everything that’s given to you. Even the most unpalatable food has some nourishment. Try to be optimistic.”

  Bitterness had so eaten my heart that I had lost the ability to cry. But the doctor had tears in her eyes when she murmured, “May God bless you!”

  A week later, I was brought back to the No. 1 Detention House. I was then given rice twice a day, and a small piece of pork or fish appeared with the rice and cabbage for the mid-morning meal. Often the pork was mostly fat. Sometimes the skin was not altogether free of half-plucked hairs. And the fish was never really fresh. But remembering what the doctor said, I ate everything.

  The young doctor at the detention house gave me written permission to purchase vitamin pills with the money I had deposited when I arrived. A male guard came with my banking record and bought me cod-liver oil capsules and vitamin B complex tablets. Vitamin C, so vital for my bleeding gums, was unobtainable in Shanghai.

  The reaction of the guards to my improved treatment was by no means the same. The militant Maoists could not conceal their displeasure at the decision of the prison authorities to give me extra food and vitamins. They were always shouting at me or manhandling me whenever there was an opportunity. When I left the cell for exercise or interrogation, they would give me a hard shove that sent me stumbling, pinch my arms, or kick my legs. If I asked them for permission to replenish my supply of vitamin pills, they would refuse and shout, “Do you eat vitamin pills like rice?” or “Do you think this place is a health sanatorium?”

  The mild guards obeyed the doctor’s orders without question. They bought me vitamin pills whenever I could show them that I had no more. But they bought one or two bottles at a time. The few guards I thought of as Liuists, however, would buy several bottles at a time when they were on duty. Once or twice, they even brought me bags of glucose powder as well as vitamin pills and pushed the lot quickly through the small window into my cell before another guard could see it.

  The day after I returned from the prison hospital, the guard on duty handed me a pen and a bottle of ink. She said, “Get on with writing your confession! The interrogator is waiting for it.”

  I picked up the roll of paper the interrogator had given me and saw that instead of the blank sheets I received in the winter of 1966 when I was told to write my autobiography, page 1 had a special quotation of Mao. It was enclosed in a red-lined square under the heading “Supreme Directive,” and it said, “They are allowed only to be docile and obedient; they are not allowed to speak or act out of turn.” At the bottom of the sheet, where the prisoner usually signed his name, was written, “Signature of Criminal.”

  My immediate reaction was anger at the insulting word “criminal” and determination not to sign my name after it. However, after several minutes of consideration, I devised a scheme to exploit the situation and fight back at the Maoists.

  Under the printed quotation of Mao, I drew another square, over which I also wrote “Supreme Directive.” Within the square, I wrote another of Mao’s quotations. It did not appear in the Little Red Book, but I remembered it from his essay “On the Internal Contradiction of the People.” The quotation said, “Where there is counterrevolution, we shall certainly suppress it; when we make a mistake, we sha
ll certainly correct it.”

  Then I wrote an account of the trip my late husband and I had made to Europe in 1956, with a list of the countries we visited, the activities I could recall, and the names of the people we saw. On the subject of conversations we had, I included general topics of no political significance. When I had nearly finished writing, I suddenly remembered two important events that had taken place in the world during the time we were in England: the Hungarian uprising and the Suez War of 1956. I couldn’t very well comment on the first, but I could with impunity include the second as a topic of conversation with friends, as it did not concern China or Communism. At the bottom of the page, following the printed words “Signature of Criminal,” I added, “who did not commit any crime,” and signed my name.

  I handed the papers to the guard on duty. That very afternoon, I was called for interrogation.

  The same men except for the soldier were in the room. A dark scowl was on each face, a reaction I had anticipated when I decided to contest their assumption that I was a criminal when I was not. I did not wait for a signal from the interrogator but bowed to Mao’s portrait immediately. The quotation the interrogator chose for me to read was “Against the running dogs of the imperialists and those who represent the interests of the landlords and the Kuomintang reactionary clique, we must exercise the power of dictatorship to suppress them. They are allowed only to be docile and obedient. They are not allowed to speak or act out of turn.”

  In front of the interrogator were the pages I had written. After I had sat down, he banged the table while glaring at me. Then he banged the table again and shouted, “What have you done here?” He pointed at the papers. “Do you think we are playing a game with you?”