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

by Xiao-Mei, Zhu

  Escape?—this gave me pause. A public session of self-criticism? I was used to that. One session more or less didn’t really matter. But trouble with my posting after I left camp? This was more serious. But it all seemed so far away, so abstract. Who was talking about freedom at that stage? And my mother had just written to me that she was back in Beijing: her health was too poor to handle camp life, and the authorities had decided to send her home.

  I talked with two comrades whom I knew shared my feelings. I figured out an escape route: the latrines were roofless and adjoined the outer wall. I asked them if they wanted to go with me on my adventure. Yes? All right then, the following week, after we had had time to work out the final details of our plan, we would leave.

  On the chosen day, at five in the morning, we slipped into the latrines. There was no one around. We gave each other a leg up, scaled the wall, and ran to the train station. A few hours later, on the train to Beijing, we relished our first moments of freedom in more than a year.

  As the landscape rolled by, we discussed our big plan: we would write to Madame Mao, who had sent us to the re-education camps, and inform her about the real conditions at Zhangjiakou. The departures, the injustice, the dishonest compromises, the lack of any true revolutionary spirit—she couldn’t know about any of that, and we were sure she wouldn’t accept it. The whole thing had been corrupted by incompetent underlings, and she needed to step in. Like Solzhenitsyn’s zeks in the wilds of Siberia, who were convinced that Stalin knew nothing of what was happening in the Gulag, we trusted in Madame Mao completely. We agreed to meet the very next day to write her a letter that would open her eyes to the actual situation.

  After crossing Beijing, which was even more deserted than when I had left it, I arrived at our little street. Nothing had changed.

  “Xiao-Mei, what are you doing here?”

  My mother was thin, weak, and covered in bandages that were supposed to ease her stomach pains. As a vegetarian, she had been unable to eat the pork fat that was the prisoners’ staple food. One morning, she collapsed from fatigue in the field where she had been working. She lay there all day, unconscious, until someone came to get her. It was then that they decided to send her back.

  She fell silent. She never said another word about it, and I didn’t talk about my camp experiences either. It was our neighbors the Guans—whom I called Shushu and Dama (uncle and aunt)—who filled me in. They told me about a little cat that my mother had found in her camp. Its five newborn kittens had been taken away from it. Each night, the cat sought my mother out after she returned from the fields. She rubbed up against my mother and allowed herself to be petted as she meowed the loss of her five newborns. My mother cried also, thinking about her own five children. The cat didn’t understand my mother’s sadness—but my mother understood the cat’s.

  As the days passed and no one came looking for me, I ventured a trip to the Conservatory. The first person I ran into was a violin professor. He was one of the few teachers who had been considered unfit to be sent to the camps. We struck up a conversation, then all of a sudden, an idea came to me.

  “Do you know where I could find any scores?”

  I couldn’t help it: I was aware of the danger, but that old accordion in Yaozhanpu had awoken in me a desire for music that I thought had been definitively buried under my new personality as a good revolutionary.

  He looked surprised, and cautiously scrutinized my face to judge my degree of sincerity—I knew he was worried that I was trying to trap him. After a few seconds of hesitation, he said in a low voice:

  “I know of a little room on the third floor that’s filled with scores. At the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, the teachers hid all they could there. Since then, I don’t think anyone has dared to go in. I think you’ll find what you’re looking for.”

  He glanced around him to make sure that no one was listening, and added:

  “If you like, we could try and go there this evening. Come back around ten o’clock. We’ll be alone.”

  I thanked him. Once night had fallen, I went to meet him. The buildings were empty and strangely silent, the final stage of the school’s metamorphosis: the “Conservatory without music” had become a “Conservatory without students.”

  The violin professor grabbed a flashlight, and we went up to the third floor of one of the buildings. When we got to the room with the scores, he shined his light at the transom over the door.

  “I’ll give you a leg up. You can climb in there.”

  Flashlight in hand, I wiggled my way into the treasure room. It was indeed filled with scores. I rummaged around near me; I picked one up, flipped through its pages, and then took another, and another…

  “Well? Have you found what you were looking for?”

  I didn’t respond right away. On the other side of the door, the violin professor started to lose patience:

  “Can’t you hear me? What have you found?”

  What had I found? Cuban scores. Nothing but Cuban scores! We had taken all those risks for dance music! I crawled back out through the transom with a few works under my arm. I wasn’t about to leave empty-handed.

  When I got back to the house, I dug the piano out from under the covers that had hidden it through the years.

  “My poor piano, this is all I can offer you to celebrate our reunion.”

  I’m not sure how much the piano appreciated it, but from morning to night our apartment resounded with Cuban music. Fearful that this would draw the neighbors’ attention, my mother kept watch in the cold in front of the house. She waited there every afternoon, ready to sound the alarm at the least sign of trouble.

  A few days later, we saw two soldiers from the window. My mother took a deep breath and opened the door.

  “We are looking for the student Zhu Xiao-Mei. Is she here?”

  “She’s here.”

  They questioned my mother and me about the reasons for my escape. I explained that I understood that I had been in error, but that I had wanted to see my mother again. They pretended to understand. If I left with them, I had their word that I wouldn’t be punished.

  Thus ended my escapade. When I returned to Qingshuihe, I had to undergo my self-criticism session. No big surprise. I was prepared for it. Afterwards, when I was with my comrades, they asked me questions, and I described my time in Beijing. Some of them remained silent, but others approved, and envied me. Things were changing—slowly, but they were changing. I headed back to the fields.

  That summer, we moved to our third camp. On this occasion we were stationed in a peasant village, Quijiazhuang. The camp consisted of a few sodden stables. These had been requisitioned from the villagers, who earned just enough to clothe and feed themselves. Their meals consisted of a bit of rice thinned down with a lot of water. Their rice rations were determined by a point system based on their productivity in the fields. The more they produced, the more points they earned.

  Our food was mediocre, but abundant. We began asking the soldiers for twice as much food as we could eat, so that we could give the extra to the villagers. The soldiers let it happen: some because they couldn’t see why not, others because they were in agreement. For the most part, they were very young and sons of poor peasants; they felt a spontaneous solidarity with the inhabitants of Quijiazhuang.

  The living conditions were a bit better and the pace of work somewhat more flexible. Suddenly we had more free time, and the range of authorized texts had increased. After all those years with only The Little Red Book, we now had two other authors at our disposal: Lenin and Marx! Capital became our Bible, but due to my lack of education, there were many ideas and even words that I didn’t understand. Karl Marx talked about someone named Napoleon—I had never heard of him. Nevertheless, my hunger to learn was immense, and I plunged into it.

  A friend offered to help me. Her father, Zho Henli, worked for the Bank of China in Hong Kong. Since he was a good Communist and was respected by the regime for his competence and loyalty,
he had more leeway and education to express what was going on around us. My friend assured me that he would be able to explain the more obscure points of Marx. Thus, I began an odd correspondence with a man I didn’t know, who lived far away in Hong Kong. My letters were sometimes ten pages long, but he always wrote back, kindly and patiently.

  There was yet another sign that things were becoming more flexible: the Zhangjiakou Opera asked for our help in staging a Yangbanxi. I was chosen as pianist, as was Huang Anlun, who was the son of an accomplished Chinese conductor and musician who had studied at Yale.

  Finally, I could once again practice the piano. Sometimes several hours went by when I wasn’t interrupted. It was a real joy, even if we didn’t have scores. Oddly, I found that I could play from memory pieces I had learned as a child, but the repertoire I had worked on with Professor Pan, after so many intervening years, escaped me. Although I could pick out the major themes, I had forgotten many details. At any rate, I was overjoyed to be playing again. So overjoyed that when I had to stop and return to the fields, I missed music terribly, trapped in a feeling of frustration that was far worse than before.

  Around this time, something happened that is the most painful of my camp memories to discuss. It was the final stage in the dehumanization process orchestrated by the system.

  One night, as I was returning from the fields, I was summoned by the camp commander.

  “We need your help. We have information that a secret society, the ‘516 Group,’ is conspiring against the regime. The society is very active in the cultural milieu. The cellist Shaohua has been denounced as a member. We are counting on you to observe her and to encourage her to confess.”

  It would have been unthinkable to refuse, of course. In fact, it never even entered my mind. It was the logical outcome of the years of self-criticism sessions and denunciations. I was truly convinced that our commander would not accuse someone without just cause.

  Thus, I began my unobtrusive surveillance, looking for clues, even the slightest ones. One day, because a door had been left ajar, I stumbled upon my comrade in the process of rifling through files to which she wasn’t supposed to have access. In fact, she was looking for letters denouncing her. But I didn’t know this. I would learn it from her later, when I once again could hear things and form an opinion. At the time, I didn’t want to think about it. I simply wanted to unmask the spy, period.

  I went and told a soldier about the incident, and I suggested that we take advantage of our next denunciation session to surprise Shaohua, evidence in hand: she had been caught in the act of rifling though confidential files. The soldier agreed, and the day of the session arrived. The entire camp was gathered for the occasion. Shaohua was attacked from all sides. She went pale, squared her shoulders, and categorically denied everything. Then, all of a sudden, a girl stood up and slapped her in the face. This was too much for me. I caught my breath. It was as if I had woken from a nightmare: I realized that I was responsible for this scene, whose violence I repudiated. As a result of the blows that she received that night, she was deaf for a week.

  Shaohua and I would live together for another year, not speaking, like strangers, and we would be among the last to be freed. By chance or by fate, we would find ourselves on the same train heading for Beijing.

  12

  A Friend Arrives

  Sitting alone in the dark bamboo,

  I play my lute and whistle song.

  Deep in the wood no one knows

  the bright moon is shining on me.

  (Wang Wei, “The Bamboo Grove”)

  At the beginning of 1971, we were transferred to our fourth camp. This time it was a real prison, called Dayu—which means “large prison” in Chinese. It had high walls topped with barbed wire, and one had the impression that even a bird couldn’t escape from this place. A single entrance made our comings and goings particularly easy to monitor.

  The days and nights passed; they were unbearably gloomy. I was haunted by a certain musical work, Rachmaninoff’s Second Concerto. He had written it at the end of a deep depression; it matched the desolate, vast landscape surrounding Zhangjiakou.

  I was obsessed with music. It was the outcome of my rediscoveries: Chopin played on an accordion found by chance, the Cuban music resounding in the gray light of our siheyuan, the Zhangjiakou Opera…all of it culminated in a desire for music that became all-consuming. I thought about it day and night. So much so that I began to devise a crazy plan—to have my piano sent from Beijing.

  I talked about it in secret with my closest friends—with Huang Anlun in particular—who also longed to have an instrument. Everyone warned me against it. It was total madness. It could result in more years in the camps. Wouldn’t it prove, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that I had not been re-educated? In addition, I was running the risk that, when I was let out, I would be given a Fenpai—a posting—that I would regret for the rest of my life. I would be made to pay, that was sure.

  I listened to them but still formulated my plans. I tried another approach: what if I explained that I had had the piano sent so I could work on the Yangbanxi? After all, that was music we didn’t just have a right to play—we had a duty. My friends continued to try and talk me out of it, and to worry. It was too dangerous.

  Despite this, one day, one of them came up with an idea. He had made friends with He, a former movie actor who lived in the vicinity of the camp in a small, isolated shed. Because of his political views in the 1950s, he had been jailed and separated from his family. Over time, the conditions of his captivity had been relaxed; he was allowed to live by himself, and was watched only from a distance. My friend let him in on the secret: he was willing to take in my piano.

  I didn’t think twice—I immediately wrote to my mother:

  I really want to have my piano here in Zhangjiakou. Do you think it would be possible to send it to me? I’ve made all the arrangements on this end. I know I can rely on you. Write back as soon as you can!

  Xiao-Mei

  In fact, I hadn’t made any arrangements, and here I was, in all innocence, asking the impossible of my mother! She wrote back to say that she would do anything for me, but really, this time I was going too far. I kept trying, sending letter after letter. I really needed the piano, I had to have it. I urged her to investigate all possible solutions. Finally, although she was sick and alone, my mother gave in. She went to the Beijing train station and made discreet enquiries about how to send a bulky package to Zhangjiakou. If one could pay for it, the Chinese railway was prepared to transport any object anywhere in China. But there was no guarantee about how long it would take, nor the condition of the object upon arrival. How could one send a piano—and not just any piano, but a chapter in our family’s history—and run such a risk? My mother wrote and said that she just couldn’t do it. It was asking too much of her.

  But I wanted the piano, I wanted to start playing again. Once more I beseeched my mother, and she gave in. Yes, we were taking a risk; too bad if it brought misfortune. In the end, my mother overcame every obstacle that a project like this presented. She enlisted four workers whom she knew, and with their help, packed the piano up in such a way that it was unrecognizable. The piano was used to it! They then brought the package to the Beijing train station and handed it over to the railway employees.

  The little Sha Lingzi train station was situated along the road that led from Dayu to the fields in which we worked. This was where I had asked that the package be delivered. Each day I took advantage of our walk to the fields to ask: had something come for me? No, nothing. But that was to be expected. It took time for a piano to arrive, but my hopes began to fade with the passing days. It looked as though the piano had been lost somewhere in the labyrinth of the Chinese railroad. Abandoned for eternity, it no doubt had been condemned to rot in a warehouse somewhere in Inner Mongolia, or worse. I was sick at the thought of telling my mother. Three weeks had already gone by.

  Then, a miracle happened.

  �
�Yes, something has arrived for you,” a railroad employee told me. “Go look on the platform behind the station.”

  My heart started beating faster. My piano had arrived! In a few minutes I was going to see it again. I ran in search of the platform and found myself in a sort of wasteland, where I could see, in the distance, a small, black, shapeless, shabby object. Was that it? My piano—so small, so black…it couldn’t be. I went up to it, a lump in my throat. I removed the first layer, then the second, then the others until I could see wood—it was indeed my piano! Clearly, it had traveled in the coal compartment, but it had arrived, and was in one piece.

  I leaned against it, and I spoke to it softly:

  “I’ll never leave you again, I swear. Never!”

  Alone in the midst of the wasteland, I gazed at it, circled it, caressed it. How could it be so small? It had seemed so immense that day when I first saw it, at three years old, when the movers had brought it into my parents’ bedroom. I stayed there, rooted to the spot, unable to move. No matter what happened, I knew life would no longer be the same.

  But now it was time to act, and fast. I had to wrap it back up and move it before anything could happen to it. I hid the instrument under its covers and returned to Dayu for help. My friends came running. A piano, here, sitting in the middle of nowhere…I removed the covers once more. It emerged, gleaming in the middle of the drab, colorless landscape of the Mongolian border. We were speechless. The sight was strange, yes, but also enchanting. It was as if it had fallen from the sky. My friends shared my feelings; for a moment, we contemplated the sight in silence.

  Then, all together, we loaded it onto a horse cart used to bring supplies to camp, which a friend who worked in the kitchen let me borrow. Our destination: the movie actor He’s shack. There, we unpacked it and carefully put it in place. Then I made a more detailed inspection. The wood was not cracked, but what about the works? There was an easy way to find out. I sat down in front of it. For a moment, I was so agitated that I didn’t know what to play. I lamely tried to begin the slow movement of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 23. Oddly—I no longer recognized the sound of my piano, it was as if it were sick, congested. I lifted the top of the piano. It was as I had feared: twenty or so of the strings were broken.