by Cheng Nien
But the young man was not amused. His face flushed in anger. Pointing to the door of the interrogation room, he shouted, “Get out! Get out! I’ll have you shot!”
He looked so threatening as he advanced towards me that I fled the room in haste. But in the corridor there was no guard to lead me back to my cell. I waited, trying to stifle my giggles. I did not think it seemly or prudent to break out in laughter in that grim place. They might really think I was mad and consider themselves justified in sending me to the mental hospital.
However, it did not pay to laugh at the expense of someone in authority. This was made amply clear to me the very next day.
I was called to the interrogation room just before the prisoners’ midmorning meal. After the preliminaries, the same young man handed me the fourth volume of The Collected Works of Mao Zedong, opened to a page reprinting a letter broadcast from the headquarters of the Communist army to a group of Kuomintang generals. The letter was drafted by Mao Zedong in December 1948, when Kuomintang troops were encircled by the Communist army on the north bank of the Yangzi River near Nanjing, the Kuomintang capital. It pointed out the hopelessness of the Kuomintang position and urged the generals to surrender.
“Remain standing and read the letter aloud,” the young man ordered.
I read the text aloud. When I had finished and was about to hand him back the book, he said, “Read it again! Let the words sink into your stupid mind.”
I read it again. When I had finished it for the second time, he said, “Did the words sink in? Do you understand the hopelessness of your position? You are surrounded just like those Kuomintang generals. No help is coming! The only way out is to surrender.”
I said nothing. He glared at me for a moment and then yelled, “Read it again!”
When I had finished reading, we stared at each other. Then he shouted impatiently, “Read it again! Let the words sink into your granite head!”
There I stood in the interrogation room for hours that day, reading the letter over and over again until I was dizzy, my voice hoarse and my legs badly swollen. By late afternoon, I was so weary that my voice was barely audible and I read the words haltingly. Since by this time I knew the text by heart, I no longer had to look at the book but spoke the words slowly with my eyes closed. Gradually my arm holding the book dropped to my side. Whenever I stopped or hesitated, the young man yelled, “Are you going to surrender?” He would wait for me to answer. When I did not answer, he would yell, “Read it again!”
At first the young worker stared at me while I read. Now I saw that he had lost interest. With his head on his folded arms, he seemed to be dozing. The two of them took turns to go out to eat. I had to go without food. Hungry and exhausted, I was in a daze. My mouth was so dry that my voice became a low murmur. Still, each time I finished reciting the text, the young man yelled, “Repeat!”
I was allowed to go back to my cell only when it was getting dark. Though I couldn’t be sure how long I had stood in the interrogation room reading that letter drafted by Mao, it must have been more than seven hours. No food was kept for me. Throughout the whole day I had only water to drink in the morning before I went to the interrogation room and in the evening after I came back to the cell. To give myself some nourishment, I swallowed a handful of cod-liver oil capsules and B complex tablets.
This routine went on for three days, except that on the second and third day I was allowed to return to the cell in time for the afternoon meal. The guard on duty at the women’s prison cooperated with the young man. She prolonged the evening exercise period, during which she took up position outside my cell and saw to it that I walked around and around for an hour. After I went to bed, the night duty guard came repeatedly to my cell to open and shut the small window with a loud bang or kick the door with her heavy boot to disturb my sleep. In spite of being awakened by her several times during the night, on the whole I slept soundly.
At the end of the third day, I was again on the verge of collapse. I thought this might be apparent to the two young men. At the end of the afternoon, they both asked me, “Are you going to surrender?”
I tried to speak. But I was very weak, and my throat was so dry that only a hoarse whisper came.
“Speak clearly! Are you going to surrender?” the well-dressed young man asked.
I made a great effort. With all my strength I managed to say, “Not guilty!”
“You will surely be shot!”
He left the room in a fit of temper and banged the door. I sat down in the prisoner’s chair to rest and to wait for the guard.
The young worker stared at me with a puzzled frown on his brow. After a while, he said, “What can you be thinking about? What is it you pin your hope on?”
I said nothing. A guard came to lead me out of the room.
Days passed. But I was not called again. Many times a day I thought of the exchanges I had had with all the interrogators, including the well-dressed young man. Over and over again I went through the questions they had asked me and the answers I had given. Could I have done better? Could I have done otherwise? I came to the conclusion that although they sometimes appeared to be trying to find out the actual facts of what had happened, all the interrogations were in fact simply part of the attempt to find me guilty. The questions were asked to elicit answers in which they could find something to use against me. At the same time, they used the sessions of interrogation to show their power over me so that I would eventually be frightened into submission. Interrogations were not going to help resolve my case. They were used solely to add to my hardship. In fact, there was no point in my hoping for more interrogations.
With the coming of warmer weather my general health seemed to have improved somewhat. One piece at a time, I washed my winter sweaters and socks and laid them out to dry. I cleaned the collar and cuffs of my padded jacket and put it away. Be prepared for a long stay in the detention house, I told myself. As long as I could keep alive, I still had hope. The philosopher Laozi once said that when events developed to the extreme, the trend would be reversed. I must wait. I did my daily exercise and spent many hours reciting poetry to myself. Often I would sit there with Mao’s book on my lap as if I were absorbed in reading his essays, but actually my mind was filled with the stanzas of Li Bo or Du Fu.
On April 1, 1969, two and a half years after my arrest, the long-awaited Ninth Party Congress opened in Beijing. The newspaper reported that Lin Biao delivered the important political report, praising the Cultural Revolution and promising unrelenting efforts at class struggle. Among the fifteen hundred delegates were a large number of his supporters from the army, navy, and air force. In the new Party constitution, Lin Biao was officially named Mao’s successor. Both Lin Biao and Jiang Qing succeeded in placing their associates in the new Central Committee of 279 members. Many old, well-known Party officials were dropped. Some few, like Prime Minister Zhou Enlai and Foreign Minister Chen Yi, maintained their positions. But as a group the influence of the old guard was greatly diminished. In the final photograph published in the newspaper, Mao stood in the middle. On his left were all the Maoist leaders, such as Lin Biao and Jiang Qing. On his right were the few members of the old guard headed by Prime Minister Zhou Enlai.
While the Ninth Party Congress was in session, the newspaper reported daily displays of enthusiasm and support by the populace. In the detention house, prisoners were obliged to listen from morning till night to broadcasts of speeches and news bulletins, including long lists of names of delegates. Familiar names disappeared. New names appeared, reflecting the power realignment that was going on in the Party leadership. On the day Lin Biao gave his political report, all prisoners were roused from sleep and told to get dressed and listen to a tape of it.
One day, just as I had settled down to eat my rice in the morning, the cell door was unlocked. A male guard yelled, “Come out!”
I ignored him while I quickly swallowed mouthful after mouthful of rice without chewing.
“Come o
ut!” he yelled again. But he did not come into the cell.
My chopsticks were flying as I swept the rice into my mouth. I was determined to face whatever was in store for me with some food in my stomach. I suspected they always timed the interrogations to make me miss my meals.
“Come out!” he yelled for the third time and came into the cell. Calmly he took the mug of food from my hand and placed it on the table. “You can eat it when you come back,” he said.
Quickly I dipped the other mug into the washbasin full of cold water and drank several mouthfuls to wash down the hard rice lingering in my esophagus.
“Hurry up! You are so slow,” he said.
“Please go outside. I have to use the toilet.”
He had to leave the cell. The female guard on duty came in to watch me. I washed my hands and wiped my mouth. As I was picking up the Little Red Book of Mao’s quotations, the mild female guard shook her head and murmured, “No need to take it.” I put the book back on the bed and followed her out of the cell.
The militant female guard ran into the corridor and shouted breathlessly, “What are you doing? Why are you so slow?”
I followed her out of the women’s prison to the courtyard. Another male guard was waiting with a pair of handcuffs. The female guard twisted my arms back and put the handcuffs on my wrists. Then she gave a hard shove that sent me staggering. As soon as I recovered my balance and started to walk normally, she gave me another hard shove. Thus, by fits and starts, I reached the front entrance of the detention house. The same white sedan was parked there with the driver in his seat. He had his hand on the horn, emitting intermittent bursts of sound until he saw me coming. The well-dressed young man was pacing to and fro, and the old worker was standing nearby.
When they saw me, they both walked over. I knew from the expression on the young man’s face that what was going to happen to me this day was a punishment for my intransigence. He said through clenched teeth, “You are going to a meeting to celebrate the successful conclusion of the Ninth Party Congress and the election of the new Central Committee. Be sure to behave yourself. Abandon your arrogant manner! Otherwise the Revolutionaries will tear you apart.” He relaxed somewhat, almost as if the prospect of my being torn apart by the Revolutionaries was pleasing to him.
“Here in the Number One Detention House, we have rules and regulations about the treatment of prisoners. We have been extremely tolerant and restrained towards you. Outside this gate, the situation is different. The revolutionary masses can do whatever they want. You had better be careful. Don’t speak out of turn. In fact, you had better be docile and obedient, otherwise they will kill you. Many people have been killed already in that way,” the old worker said.
Were they really concerned about the preservation of my life? I thought not. They were simply anxious to avoid the criticism that they had failed to tame the prisoner under their control. Possibly senior officials were to be present at this meeting, on whom they would want to make a good impression.
“Do you understand the situation?” the young man asked me.
“I will not answer back if I am not provoked,” I told him.
“Perhaps we should really teach you a lesson before we go,” he said, curling his fingers into a fist and waving it in front of my eyes.
“You should know by now I am not to be silenced by physical violence. The more you provoke me, the more I’ll answer back.”
“All right, then. We shall let the masses teach you a lesson. You better look out. They will kill you if you answer back.”
“Do you mean to say I must remain silent even if someone asks me a question?” I wanted to get the situation clear.
“Yes, just bow your head and admit your crime.”
“I would rather die than admit something that is not true.”
“Keep silent, then. Whatever they say to you, just keep quiet,” said the old worker, who seemed decidedly the better person of the two.
“All right. I’ll keep silent, no matter what they say. But that doesn’t mean I admit I’m guilty.”
“It’s not for the masses to decide whether you are guilty or not,” the old worker assured me.
The young man told me to get into the car. I sat down on the back seat with the old worker and another man. The young man sat beside the driver. As the car emerged from the drive onto the streets, another sedan with all the others who had taken part in my last few interrogations followed.
April was a beautiful month in Shanghai. The polluted air of this industrial city was freshened by the young leaves of plane trees lining the streets. There was a sense of renewal after the rigors of winter. The windows of the car were open; the brown silk curtains fluttered in the breeze, so that I could see something of the streets. We were heading north right across town. At intersections we were frequently held up by parades organized to celebrate the conclusion of the Ninth Party Congress. The red banners, the slogans on colored paper, the drums and gongs, and the portraits of Mao were the same as had been used in other parades at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution. But I noticed that the people taking part now looked very different from the excited crowds of three years ago. Instead of the animation I remembered, people looked bored. Their steps were slow and dragging; their voices shouting slogans were weak and flat. Some did not join in at all. They seemed to be suffering from revolutionary fatigue after nearly three years of unremitting enthusiasm for class struggle. Or, perhaps more likely, they were simply disillusioned by the developments of the Cultural Revolution. Many of them probably had children who had been Red Guards, to whom they now had to send food and clothing since nearly all former Red Guards had been dispersed to the rural areas. Others might have found the confusion and shortages created by the Cultural Revolution a heavy burden added to their already straitened living conditions.
Normally streets in Shanghai were filled with loitering people. But on this spring day, apart from the paraders, there were few idle onlookers. I was puzzled, because I had not fully realized to what extent the violence by the Red Guards and the Revolutionaries had driven the people off the streets. Stray bullets had claimed many victims during the factional civil wars, and the Red Guards and Revolutionaries had beaten people up at random just to keep themselves in a state of readiness for further action.
When the car reached the area of the universities and the military airport on the outskirts of the city, an air force parade came towards us. At the end of the line was a contingent of strikingly beautiful, slender young girls in uniform. They looked more like glamorous females in a film version of the air force than the real thing. Later, after my release, when the Lin Biao affair had officially been made the subject of public criticism, I learned something about these young women. The Chinese people were told that when Lin Biao made his son, Lin Liguo, second in command of the Chinese air force at the age of twenty-five, fresh out of some military college reserved for sons of senior officers, followers of Lin Biao sent Lin Liguo beautiful girls from all over China to form his “three thousand beauties in the inner palace,” in imitation of the selection of concubines for the emperor’s heir in the old days. The girls were offered jobs in the air force as an enticement. Because membership in the armed forces was a guarantee of higher prestige and better treatment, with special consideration for their families, the girls enrolled eagerly without realizing that they were chosen for Lin Liguo’s pleasure. Then they were brought to Shanghai, where Lin Liguo had an elaborate secret establishment. The girls were sorted out under the pretext of physical examination. Those who did not catch Lin Liguo’s fancy were assigned jobs in the air force. These were the girls I saw taking part in the parade.
The car turned into the gates of a large compound of redbrick buildings. There was no signboard to indicate the nature of the place, and no sentry to guard the entrance, only a solitary man to admit the cars and close the gate after us. He followed the cars inside. The atmosphere was rather mysterious, and I decided to observe everything closely. I
t almost seemed as if they did not want me to know where I was being taken.
After passing between trim lawns and budding willow trees, the car stopped in front of one of the buildings. Two husky-looking women in blue Mao uniforms with the red armband of the Revolutionaries were waiting. One of them opened the door of the car. The old worker jumped out. I was preparing to alight when the second woman stretched out her hand and pulled me out roughly. The two women put their hands under my arms and hoisted me up to take me into the building, almost as if they thought I might try to run away. We entered a small room, and they pushed me into a corner.
“Face the wall! Don’t move!” one of the women yelled.
I heard the women sit down heavily. No one uttered a word. After what seemed a long time, I heard the door being opened; a man’s voice mentioned food. After whispered consultation, one of the women left the room. When she came back, the other one went out. All the time I stood with my face to the wall.
More waiting in complete silence. I shifted my weight from one leg to the other for the hundredth time. Suddenly the door opened again. A man’s voice said with an air of awe and mystery, like a servant in the home of a Chinese high official speaking of his important master, “Lai-la!” This meant someone had arrived. From the messenger’s tone of voice, it was someone important.
The two women shot out of their chairs like lightning, grabbed my arms again, and half carried, half dragged me out of the building. We passed beside a deserted basketball court along a tree-lined path and entered another building. My feet hardly touched the ground; my armpits were bruised by the women’s iron fingers.
