by Cheng Nien
The day seemed interminable. Patiently I waited for their next move. At last the door was unlocked. A female voice called, “Come out!”
The icy-cold fresh air in the courtyard miraculously cleared my head, and I felt a surge of life to support my wobbly legs. The guard led me back to the same interrogation room in which they had beaten me up the day before.
The militant female guard and the young male guard who had put the handcuffs on me sat in the place of the interrogator behind the counter. After I had entered the room and bowed to the portrait of Mao, the female guard told me to recite a quotation from memory.
“’First, do not fear hardship. Second, do not fear death,’ ” I said. It was the first quotation of Mao that came into my head and, under the circumstances, certainly appropriate.
“That quotation is not for the likes of you! Chairman Mao said that to the revolutionary soldiers,” the female guard said indignantly.
But they let it pass. They did not ask me to recite another quotation, although I had one about overcoming ten thousand difficulties to strive for final victory ready to recite if they gave me the opportunity to do so.
“What are you thinking about now?” asked the male guard.
“Nothing very much,” I answered.
“Don’t pretend to be nonchalant. You are worried about your hands. You would like the handcuffs to be loosened,” he said.
I did not say anything.
“What you should think about is why you have to wear them in the first place. It is entirely your own fault. Do we put handcuffs on all the prisoners kept here? Of course not. If you find the handcuffs uncomfortable, you should think why you have to wear them. They can be taken off if you decide to confess. It’s up to you entirely,” he said.
“Are you going to confess?” asked the female guard.
When she saw that I said nothing, she got angry and shouted, “You deserve all you are getting. You are tired of living, I am sure. I have never seen a prisoner as stubborn and stupid as you!”
“Have you lost all reason? Have you lost the wish to protect yourself? You are being extremely stupid. You are like an egg hitting a rock. You will get smashed,” declared the male guard.
A year or two ago, I would have shouted back at them and taken pleasure from it. Now I was too ill and too tired. I no longer cared.
They looked at each other, and they looked past my shoulder at the small window behind the prisoner’s chair. Then they stood up.
“Take her out! Take her out! Let her go to see God with her granite head!” the male guard shouted.
It might seem surprising that a guard in a Communist prison should have spoken of God, but what he said was in fact a quotation from Mao Zedong. Referring to political indoctrination and hard labor as a means to change the thinking of intellectuals allegedly opposed to the Communist Party, Mao had declared that the Party’s purpose was reform of the enemy rather than annihilation. Then he added, “If some still want to go to see God with their granite heads, it will make no difference.” Since the publication of his remark, “to go to see God with his granite head” was generally used to denote a man refusing to change his mind or accept the point of view of the Party.
A guard flung the door open. Although I felt dizzy, I made an effort to walk steadily and followed him out of the room. The icy air outside was like a knife cutting through my clothes. I shivered violently. The guard led me back to the women’s prison and my cell. When I passed the small room used by the female guards, I saw from their clock that I had been locked in the cement box in the other building for almost twenty-four hours.
The guard unlocked the door of my cell and said to me, “Now you will continue your punishment in here.”
When I was called to the interrogation room the day before, drinking water had just been issued to the prisoners. The water was still in the green enameled mug on the edge of the table where I had hastily placed it. Now I bent over the mug, removed the lid by gripping the knob on top of it with my teeth, and placed it on the table. Then I caught the edge of the mug with my teeth, gradually lowered my body to a squatting position, and tipped the water into my mouth. By this method, I succeeded in drinking quite a bit of water. After that, I moved over to the cement toilet, stood with my back to it, lowered my body, and removed the lid with my imprisoned hands. I strained my hands to unzip my slacks. I was able to sit on the seat I had made with two towels joined together and to relieve myself. But to strain my hands to one side to unfasten the zipper made the handcuffs cut severely into my flesh. It was very painful.
I sat down on the edge of the bed. The cell was very cold and seemed to get progressively colder. But the familiar cell was not as dirty and stuffy as the cement box where I had spent the previous twenty-four hours. When the second meal of the day was delivered to the prisoners, the woman from the kitchen pushed the aluminum container through the small window in the usual manner. Even though I was famished, I had to refuse it, for I simply did not know how I could eat with my hands tightly tied behind my back.
No one came to ask me if I was going to confess. But I knew I was under observation, for I could hear the guards come to the peephole to look into the cell. At bedtime, the guard called at each cell for prisoners to go to bed. She came to my cell as if nothing unusual had happened and said, “Go to sleep!”
With my back to the wooden bed, I unrolled my quilt and blanket and spread them over it. It was slow work and strenuous for one who had not eaten any food for so long. But I managed it. Then I lay down on the bed. First, I lay on one side with my body weight pressing down on one shoulder and arm. It was extremely uncomfortable; my arm ached. Then I tried to lie on my stomach with my face turned to one side. I found this position impossible on the hard wooden bed because my body weight was on my breasts. After lying like this for a little while I had to give up. In any case, I could not cover myself with the blanket. While I was performing these acrobatics with my hands in handcuffs behind my back, I never stopped shivering. The room was bitterly cold. Finally I decided lying down to sleep was out of the question. I should try to get some sleep sitting up. I sat across the bed with my legs up and my back leaning on the toilet-paper-covered wall. Then I closed my eyes, hoping to doze off.
It was such a cold night that there was ice on the window-panes, and the snow piled against the window did not melt. Inside the cell, the feeble light shone through a haze of cold air. Every breath I took was a puff of white vapor. My body shook with spasms of shivering. My legs and feet were frozen numb. I simply had to get up from time to time and walk around the cell to restore circulation to my limbs. The weight of the handcuffs dragged my hands down, and I tried to hold the cuffs up with my fingers while walking slowly in the cell. They seemed to get tighter and tighter, and my hands seemed to be on fire. I tired so easily that after walking around for only a little while I had to sit down again. Then I got so cold that I had to walk some more. Perhaps I managed a little sleep from time to time when I sat against the wall with my feet up, but the long night was a night of misery and suffering.
However, it came to an end, as everything in life must do, no matter how wonderful or unpleasant. I saw the light of dawn creeping into the room and heard the guard calling outside each cell, “Get up! Get up!”
Soon afterwards the Labor Reform girl pushed the spout of the watering can through the small window to offer me cold water for washing. When she did not see my washbasin, she peered into the cell and looked at me inquiringly. I turned my body a little so that she could see my handcuffs. Quickly she closed the small window and went away.
Under the circumstances, being unwashed was the least of my worries. I could receive water in the empty mug with my back to the window and drink by gradually squatting with the mug in my teeth, but my empty stomach protested with spasms of gripping pain that refused to be assuaged by water. My hands were so hot that I was in a constant state of restless agitation.
On the third day, the pain in my abdomen miracu
lously stopped. But I felt very weak. My eyes could no longer focus, and the usual sound of prison activities seemed to grow fainter and fainter.
That night, I again sat on the bed, leaning against the wall with my hands crossed to hold the handcuffs with my fingers in an effort to reduce their weight. Though I shivered with cold, I no longer had the strength to get up and walk around the room.
After the prisoners had settled down to sleep, the small window was pushed open gently. I did not hear any sound until a voice that was almost a whisper said through the opening, “Come over!”
I wondered whether it was just another guard urging me to confess. But she had spoken softly, almost stealthily, as if she did not want others in the building to hear her.
With an effort I moved to the small window and saw the face of one of the older guards there. She was bending down to watch my faltering steps through the opening.
From the beginning of my imprisonment I had found this guard the most humane. At first she attracted my attention because she walked in that peculiar way of women whose feet had been crippled with foot-binding, an old custom that lingered into the 1930s in some remote rural areas of China. When the feet of these women were unbound, they were already permanently damaged. This guard was not a native of Shanghai, because she spoke with the accent of North China peasants. I thought she must be one of those country women who had been liberated by the Communist troops as they swept down the plains of North China and had joined their ranks and become a Party member. I observed that she carried out her duty in a matter-of-fact manner and did not seem to enjoy shouting at the prisoners as the other guards did. When the weather got cold, if she was on night duty, I often heard her offering to lend bedding from the prison stock to prisoners who did not have sufficient covering. The last time I fainted because of lack of food, it was this guard who took me to the hospital and got the doctor to sign a paper ordering more rice to be given to me. Since it was the Maoists who had reduced my ration to pressure me on that occasion, I thought she couldn’t be one of them.
“Why aren’t you eating your meals?” she asked me.
I thought, “What a silly question! Doesn’t she know I have got the handcuffs on?”
“They will not remove the handcuffs simply because you won’t eat, you know. And if you should starve to death, you will be declared a counterrevolutionary. That’s the customary procedure for prisoners who die before their cases are clarified,” she added.
“I don’t know how to eat without using my hands,” I said.
“It’s not impossible. Think hard. There is a way. You have a spoon.”
She sounded sympathetic and concerned. I decided to ask her to loosen the handcuffs a little, as my tightly imprisoned hands were tormenting me. I was in a constant state of tension because of them. They occupied my mind to the exclusion of all else.
“My hands are swollen and very hot. My whole body feels tormented because of them. Could you please loosen the handcuffs a little bit?” I asked her.
“I haven’t got the key to unlock the handcuffs. It is being kept by someone higher up. Just try to eat something tomorrow. You will feel better when you have some food inside you,” she said.
A gust of cold wind from the other end of the corridor indicated that the door of the building was being opened and another guard had just entered. She slid the shutter quietly into place and went away.
I returned to the bed and sat there thinking. The guard was right. I should try to eat. To die was nothing to be frightened of. What really frightened me was the possibility that my mind might get so confused that I might sign something without realizing its significance. But how could I handle the food without my hands? The guard said there was a way and told me to think hard. She also mentioned that I had a spoon. My eyes strayed towards the table. First I saw the plastic spoon, and then I saw my clean towels neatly folded in a pile. A plan formulated in my mind, and I decided to try it when food was offered to me again.
The guard had said that the key to unlock the handcuffs was not kept by the guards but by “someone higher up.” There was no hope the handcuffs could be loosened. I must think of some way to reduce the heavy weight of the handcuffs, which were not only dragging my hands down but also pulling my shoulders out of their sockets. With difficulty and very slowly, with my back to the bed, I managed to roll up the quilt. Then I pushed the rolled quilt to the wall. When I sat down against the wall, I placed my hands on the soft quilt. The weight was lifted, and I felt a surge of relief.
To have made plans and thought of some way to overcome difficulty gave me a new lease on life. Although I continued to be cold, hungry, and miserable, the long night seemed to pass more quickly.
At daybreak, when the guard called the prisoners to get up, I stood up to stretch my legs. I tried to hold the handcuffs with my fingers and, to my horror, felt something sticky and wet. Turning to the quilt on which I had rested my hands throughout the night, I saw stains of blood mixed with pus. It seemed the handcuffs had already broken my skin and were cutting into my flesh. I shuddered with a real fear of losing the use of my hands, for I realized I was powerless to prevent disaster.
When the woman from the kitchen offered me the aluminum container of rice through the small window, I went to accept it. I turned my back to the opening, and she placed the container in my hands. I took it to the table. With my back to it, I picked up a clean face towel from the pile and spread it on the table. Then I picked up the plastic spoon and tried to loosen the rice with it. Shanghai rice was glutinous. When it was cooked in the container, it stuck to it. I had to dig hard with the plastic spoon to push the rice and cabbage onto the face towel on the table. With each movement of my hands, the handcuffs dug deeper into my flesh. My whole body was racked with pain, and tears came into my eyes. I had to rest and take a deep breath. Nevertheless, I persisted in my effort to get the rice out of the container. When I succeeded in getting quite a bit out, I turned around, bent over the towel, and ate the rice like an animal.
I repeated this several times. When the woman came to collect the container, she did not immediately open the small window to demand it back but stood outside watching me struggling to get the rice out. Because of the pain and my fear of infection, I stopped after each scoop to take a deep breath. I was very slow. Still the woman said nothing, though normally she was always in a great hurry. As I blinked back tears of pain, I wondered if eating was really worth the effort. But I continued to try, simply because I had decided to stay alive. When I could not carry on any longer and had got nearly half of the rice onto the towel, I carried the container behind me and pushed it through to her with my wounded hands.
In the afternoon, when rice was given to me again, I found that the woman from the kitchen had already loosened it for me. I had only to tip the container and most of the rice fell out onto the towel and bare table.
My being able to consume food seemed to have infuriated the Maoists, for the guards came to the small window again to threaten me. They never mentioned the word “handcuffs,” probably because they did not want the other prisoners within hearing to know what they were doing to me. But they continued to urge me to confess. Although the rice I managed to eat each day did in fact make me feel stronger, I was having difficulty walking. For some reason I could not explain, the handcuffs were affecting my feet. Like my hands, they felt hot and painful. My shoes became so tight and unbearable that I had to kick them off. Fortunately they were soft cloth shoes, so that I was able to press down the backs and wear them as slippers. Now I just staggered about, for my feet could not bear even the reduced weight of my emaciated body. The stains of blood and pus on the quilt became larger and more numerous as the handcuffs cut through more skin on my wrists and bit more deeply into the wounds. Either the weather suddenly got a lot warmer, or I was feverish; I no longer felt the cold but shivered from pain whenever I had to move my hands or stagger across the room.
One day when I was at the small window getting drin
king water, my imprisoned hands holding the mug trembled so much that half of the water spilled down the back of my padded jacket and slacks.
“Your hands are very bad. The higher-ups don’t know it. Why don’t you wail? As long as you don’t cry out, they will not know how bad your hands are,” the woman from the kitchen whispered through the opening before hastily closing the shutter.
Though the Chinese people were normally restrained about showing emotion, they did wail to show deep grief at funerals or as a protest against injustice that involved death. The sight of someone wailing had always embarrassed me. It was like seeing someone strip himself naked. From childhood I had been disciplined never to show emotion. The memory of trying for many years to fight back tears lingered; gradually I came to regard crying as a sign of weakness. Should I wail now just to call attention to the fact that my hands were being crippled? I decided against it. For one thing, I did not think I knew how to emit that prolonged, inarticulate cry that was so primitive and animallike. For another, I did not want to do anything that might be interpreted as asking for mercy. “The man higher up” had ordered the handcuffs put on my wrists so that I would be tormented by them. He believed my suffering would eventually lead me to give a false confession to save myself. The best way to counterattack was certainly not to show that I could no longer endure suffering. So I ignored the kind advice of the woman from the kitchen.
Several more days passed. The handcuffs were now beginning to affect my mind, probably through their effect on my nervous system. I got muddled periodically and forgot where I was. I no longer remembered how many days ago I was first manacled. Life was just an unending road of acute pain and suffering on which I must trudge along as best I could.
