The Secret Piano: From Mao's Labor Camps to Bach's Goldberg Variations

by Xiao-Mei, Zhu

  My first task was to write Dazibaos, with the aim of criticizing the opponent and summing up our beliefs. Everything was turned into slogans, meticulously written on posters that we put up all over town. I took part in all sorts of debates, interrupted by exchanges of gunfire between various buildings on campus.

  At the end of a particularly bloody day, the faction that I had been supporting had seen a dozen deaths. A meeting was called to decide what action should be taken following this massacre. These comrades had not given their lives in vain! Why not lay out the corpses as a way to convince those still undecided of the correctness of our cause? Preparations for this took several days. The bodies had to be embalmed and then displayed in such a way as to have the maximum impact. This was easier for medical students than it would have been for others. Furthermore, photos of the deceased had to be located, so that each corpse would have, just like in a museum, its own information label. Appropriate music should be used to prepare visitors. We decided on the Funeral March from Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3—the Eroica—which, for the occasion, was not censored.

  These were the first dead bodies I had seen close up.

  A few days later, the government finally decided to put an end to the slaughter. They confiscated all weapons and issued a new slogan: “Fight with words, not with guns.” I reached Beijing only to leave again immediately. I wanted to use my right to travel to “make mass contacts and fan the flames of the Revolution.”

  Marx distinguishes between three types of slaves: those who obey, those who wish to become masters, and revolutionaries who want to change the lot of the slave. I leaned in the second direction: I, too, wanted to give orders. It didn’t matter to whom.

  In the fall of 1968, the Chinese government continued to rein in a situation that had gotten completely out of hand. Chairman Mao himself addressed the issue by publishing a directive: “Continue the Revolution, but return to the classroom” and “Further the Revolution through teaching” were the latest slogans. A certain number of courses were reestablished.

  But it was impossible to reopen an institution like the Beijing Conservatory just like that. There were no longer any musical scores, no textbooks. The only thing for sale in the bookstores was The Little Red Book—you could buy it in any number of editions: hardcover and paperback, and in small, medium, and large formats. Apart from that, everything had disappeared, even dictionaries.

  The only musical scores left were the Yangbanxi, the “model works” composed under the aegis of Madame Mao, and a bit of Albanian music, the result of friendly Chinese-Albanian relations.

  By the end of 1968, eight Yangbanxi had been written: four operas, including The Red Lantern and Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy; two ballets, including The Red Detachment of Women; an orchestral piece, the Yellow River Piano Concerto; and a play, the Rent Collection Courtyard. The works were not without merit, having been written by artists with solid musical backgrounds. Amusingly, however, some of them lifted entire passages from masterpieces of Western classical music, which had been roundly condemned. For example, the Yellow River Piano Concerto included the central passage from Chopin’s Heroic Polonaise in A-flat major!

  Since there was so much demand across the country for Yangbanxi, a pianist-protégé of Madame Mao’s—who had a coterie of musicians around her—had the idea to transcribe them for piano, to make them more accessible. In particular, he transcribed eight sections of The Red Lantern. This gave me an idea. I remembered having met people from Beida University who wanted to organize touring theater shows. I went to see them and asked if they were still interested—which they were. I returned to practicing the piano. The transcriptions were extremely demanding; I worked on them tirelessly but with great pleasure, because they were well done. Adding them to my repertoire meant that I might be able to perform them throughout China.

  The first concerts took place in the fall. We performed at military camps, factories, universities, administrative buildings, and in country villages. In just a few months, I took part in sixty concerts with my selections from The Red Lantern, sometimes playing two concerts in a day.

  Other than selections from The Red Lantern, my musical horizons were reduced to the Red Army Choir—which I had the opportunity to hear at Yu Kuan’s house. He was a professor at the Conservatory. We were both in the same political group, and I liked him a great deal. He was a renowned musicologist whose specialty was Russian music, and he had been in the Conservatory’s first graduating class. When the famous violinist David Oistrakh came to give concerts in China, Yu Kuan’s knowledge of Russian allowed him to serve as an interpreter. Like everyone else, during the first days of the Cultural Revolution, he had given all his records to the Red Guards, who had zealously melted them down. Everything except a recording of the Red Army Choir, which we listened to endlessly for lack of anything else.

  It was at the end of 1968, while I was touring with my Yangbanxi, that Mao decided to curtail the Cultural Revolution and revive the Shang shan xia xiang movement. Millions of city dwellers—“educated youths” as well as adults—were sent to the countryside, primarily to Laogaichang, or “reform through labor” camps.

  It is estimated that some seventeen million Chinese were exiled to these camps. In the course of a few months, the seven members of my family would find themselves scattered to the farthest reaches of China.

  9

  Departures

  I am not afraid, because I have crossed through storms and deserts. I am not afraid, because I must cross through storms and deserts.

  (Yi Men, Be Not Afraid)

  My sister Xiaoyin was the first to leave.

  This was a completely voluntary decision on her part. As she had excellent calligraphy skills, she had been chosen to imitate Chairman Mao’s handwriting on the armband—inscribed with the magic words “Red Guard”—which had been presented to him during the grand ceremony at Tiananmen Square on August 18, 1966. Despite this, she had not been given permission to attend the celebration because of her Chushen bu hao, her “bad family background.” She later told me how, after the ceremony, all her comrades had hurried over to shake the hand of the young girl who had been lucky enough to give my sister’s armband to Chairman Mao. This girl was a friend—or rather, she had once been a friend. Now Xiaoyin felt as though a glass wall separated her from her friends. Another consequence of her “bad” background.

  This is why she was one of the first to voluntarily leave for a Shang shan xia xiang. The initial location she chose was close to the Russian border, but she was immediately suspected of wanting to escape. Thus she opted for Inner Mongolia.

  Although my father was still under close surveillance at the university, he believed in the ideas of Shang shan xia xiang. He thought that the movement was beneficial for his daughters, that they should travel widely, “explore the high seas,” as he put it, in order to grow and change. My sisters and I shared his views.

  On the other hand, I was worried for my mother. She had just received the news that my grandmother had died in Shanghai. The neighbors hadn’t found her body until two days after her death. My mother was deeply affected by the news. I was as well. Despite my efforts to erase all petit-bourgeois family feelings, I was consumed with remorse when I thought about my visit, and how I had run away.

  Xiaoyin’s departure was another painful blow for my mother. My sister left our house and headed up the little street where we lived without turning back to wave good-bye. No doubt she was afraid of crying, but it only intensified the pain my mother felt.

  At the end of 1968, it was my sister Xiaoyu’s turn to leave. Her destination: far-off Yunnan Province, known for its barbaric customs. One heard stories of how men would kidnap young girls, rolling them up in blankets like animals. This was yet another shock. I now saw my little sister in a new light: before, I had looked down on her, as can happen sometimes with older siblings. I wasn’t particularly concerned with her, and thought of her as the least talented member of the family. S
uddenly, she became a real person to me.

  We waited anxiously for news from her. With every passing day, I watched my mother’s anxiety grow. She was sure something had happened. Finally a letter arrived. Xiaoyu explained that it had taken ten days and nights—half by train, half by bus—to reach her destination. She was exhausted. Her legs were so stiff that she could hardly walk. But at least she was alive.

  The night before Chinese New Year, we heard a knock on the door. My mother went to open it:

  “Xiaoyin!”

  My sister stood there—dirty, thin, barely recognizable.

  “I wanted to see you,” was all she said.

  After a few months spent in Inner Mongolia, Xiaoyin couldn’t take it anymore. She and three friends hatched a crazy plan: they would return to Beijing to see their families. They crossed the barren steppes, alone, without a map or provisions, living on food provided by the astonished natives. They took every conceivable means of transport, including carts and trucks. Their journey lasted eighteen days.

  Xiaoyin spent a month with us before voluntarily returning to Inner Mongolia. Before she left, she asked my mother to find an accordion for her, because she was suffering from a total lack of music. She had no idea that, this time, she would be gone for twenty-one years. After Mao’s death, she moved often, living in a number of China’s provinces. She married a worker—as much out of political conviction as for love—with whom she remained, starting her own family far from home.

  Xiaoyin was still with us when my father was forced to leave for the camps.

  One day, I returned home to find him packing his bags. The Red Guards had found an entry in his personal file that dated to the last months of our life in Shanghai. To them, it was unshakable proof that he was a spy. My father had been approached by a shady character who had offered him work. “Don’t contact us, we’ll get in touch with you,” the person had said as he had left. My father was disturbed by the encounter and reported it to the authorities, which he wasn’t obliged to do. This incident, along with my uncle’s departure for Taiwan, had cost our family dearly. It was the reason my two older sisters had been forbidden to enroll in university. Now it was the allegation behind sending my father to a camp. As a young revolutionary, this was a painful lesson for me: if you wanted to survive in this country, you’d best not be honest.

  As he left, my father thought about my sister Xiaoru. She was married, and would soon give birth to her first child.

  “Write and tell me if it is a boy or a girl,” he said to my mother.

  It was a girl, but it wasn’t possible to tell my father. At that moment he was in transit, waiting in a prison somewhere outside of Beijing to be sent to a camp. Then the prison administration asked us to bring him a change of clothes. My sister Xiaoyin and I took on the task: four hours by bicycle to get there and four hours back.

  As soon as my father entered the prison visiting area, he asked us urgently:

  “Is it a girl or a boy?”

  My sister immediately broke down in tears. She thought about my father, who had been waiting so expectantly for the birth, and who couldn’t even see his grandchild. But he interpreted her tears in another way, thinking that the baby had been a stillborn. He began crying himself, and simply repeated:

  “Was it a girl or a boy?”

  Disturbed by the noise, a guard jumped up, stared at him, and yelled:

  “Why are you crying? Do you think you’re some kind of victim? Return to your cell and your work!”

  I spoke to my father:

  “You should confess whatever it is that you have committed against your county. You should be brave! You will understand later. Think about it!”

  But the visit was over. It had not even lasted five minutes. We were in the process of being herded towards the exit when I heard my father shout:

  “If I die, know that I am innocent! I’m going to write to Chairman Mao. He will see that justice is done!”

  On the way home, biking into an icy wind, my sister and I pedaled in silence, unable to exchange a single word. Our father’s voice and his declaration echoed inside us. They remained engraved on our memories.

  This was at the beginning of 1969. Three members of my family were in camps when my older sister Xiaoru received an order: she was to remain in Beijing. Why? We don’t know. We never knew why some were forced to leave while others remained.

  Then it was my turn. The order came down from Madame Mao that all students from Beijing’s art schools should leave for the camps. I was instructed to leave for Zhangjiakou in the northern part of Hebei Province. It was close to Mongolia: until the creation of the People’s Republic of China, the Zhangjiakou region was part of Chahar Province and therefore belonged to Inner Mongolia. I felt lucky: unlike the others, I was being sent to a military camp and not one in the countryside. I thought I’d be gone a year, two at the most, and that it would be a valuable experience. March 16 was my departure date.

  On that sad late winter morning, the two of us—my mother and I—were in the apartment. I watched as she finished packing my bag, filling it with various objects, a flashlight, toilet paper, and so on.

  “You may need them. I’d prefer it if you took them with you.”

  In just a short while, we’d have to separate. After I left, my mother would be alone with my sister Xiaoyen. How would the two of them manage? Could they hold up? One day, they would also be forced to leave.

  The moment had come. My mother handed me my bag, and we both went down to the street. The sky was gray, and a freezing wind blew through Beijing. As is the custom with all Chinese people, we didn’t say good-bye.

  “It’s time to go, Mama. I’m off.”

  I walked up the little road where we lived. When I got to the corner of the street, I turned around. I saw that my mother was pale, staring into space.

  10

  Camp 4619

  If God does not exist, everything is permitted.

  (Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov)

  The streets of Beijing were deserted, emptied out after the departure of the city’s inhabitants. This contrasted sharply with the packed railway station plastered with banners glorifying the Revolution.

  I pushed my way through the dense crowd, trying to get my bearings. Finally, I found the platform where we had been told to assemble. My future comrades slowly began to arrive. Every art school in Beijing was there—the Conservatory, the Fine Arts Academy, the Film Academy, the Dance Academy, and the Opera School. A soldier checked off each new arrival and assigned us to a section. Two cars had been reserved for us on a passenger train headed for Zhangjiakou.

  As I waited to leave, I glanced around me. Families were separating: couples exchanged last, tender words, grandparents whispered good-byes to their children. People gazed at each other, some thinking they would never see each other again. At a distance, I could see young mothers handing their babies over to their families. I felt ill at the sight, and my courage flagged. Then I pulled myself together; this was ridiculous. A real revolutionary rejects all sentimentalism.

  We were about a hundred people altogether. The soldiers ordered us to board the train cars. After an initial jolt, the train set off. Slowly and quietly, the Beijing station receded. Shortly after our departure, our jiji fenzi—the activist assigned to our section—encouraged us to break into revolutionary songs to the glory of Chairman Mao, and to read aloud selections from The Little Red Book. Halfway through our trip, the sky darkened. I looked out the window: the clouds were so threatening, one had the impression it was already night. The landscape was no longer visible; a few lights appeared here and there.

  At the end of the day, we arrived in Zhangjiakou. The soldiers directed us to get off the train. After lining us up in front of the station, they packed us into two open military trucks, fifty students in each. Our destination: camp 4619 in Yaozhanpu.

  We crossed the city of Zhangjiakou. We were a mere three hundred miles from Beijing, but it felt like the end of the
earth. The unpaved streets were empty; the only sound came from our trucks. I looked at the modern, ugly buildings. Any invasion by the Soviets would pass directly through Zhangjiakou. This was no doubt why the city had been left in its present state, more of a big village than a city. It was hard to imagine that it had once enjoyed a Golden Age in the seventeenth century under the Qing Dynasty. It had been the center of tea and opium trading between China and Russia. Today everything exuded an air of poverty and gloom.

  We left the city and turned onto a road full of potholes. Two hours later, we finally reached our destination, our faces covered in dust. We no longer resembled human beings; it was difficult to recognize one another. A harbinger of the years to come.

  The Yaozhanpu camp was up in the hills. It was composed of three low, military-style buildings made out of red brick, positioned around a large square.

  “Line up!”

  We stood at attention in the dark and cold.

  “Students, you will be divided up into sections. Then you will go to your quarters.”

  Along with the rest of my section, I entered the room that had been assigned to us. Ten straw mattresses lay directly on the floor of a two-hundred-square-foot room. They were so narrow I wondered how we were ever going to sleep. I placed my things down on mine; it was covered with cockroaches. At that moment a soldier entered.

  “Students, report to the mess hall!”

  At the entrance to the hall, we were each handed an old, filthy mess kit. It looked as though it had served as a chamber pot, rather than a bowl. My stomach tightened, and I couldn’t eat a single thing.