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

by Xiao-Mei, Zhu

  “Too bad,” she told me. “I’m not going to treat it, and I don’t want a drastic intervention; I just want to be left in peace. All I want is to see Shanghai again.”

  While my mother was resting at home before leaving for Shanghai, a milestone event occurred. At the invitation of Mao’s wife, the Philadelphia Orchestra, under the baton of Eugene Ormandy, was the first American orchestra to tour China since the start of the Cultural Revolution. Madame Mao had personally chosen the program for the orchestra’s three concerts, with Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony as the centerpiece.

  It was my dream to hear the Philadelphia Orchestra. In China, it had the reputation of being the best in the world. I was eager to expand my horizons. I wanted to do more than just play music by myself: I wanted to learn from Western musicians how it should be interpreted. Naturally, the audience was drawn from the ranks of soldiers, workers, and peasants, and there was no way to legally buy a ticket. I decided to risk going, no matter what. This was a rare opportunity.

  The night of the first concert, there was an enormous crowd outside the hall. I joined the line, trying to look like a spectator who was confident about getting in. The crowd surged forward; the entrance drew nearer. I saw everyone showing their tickets, and quickly jumped out of line. Outside, I went around the entire building, trying to find another way in, but there were guards stationed at every entrance. Two hours later, the far-off thunder of applause put paid to my hopes.

  I came back the next night, more determined than ever. But, like Tamino at the gates of Sarastro’s temple in The Magic Flute, the doors remained shut a second time. When I saw the crowds leaving the hall, however, I noticed that some people discarded their used tickets. All of a sudden, I had an idea. I had a friend who was a painter: if I picked up one of these scraps, he could easily forge the next day’s date on it.

  When the counterfeit ticket was finished, my friend asked me once again:

  “Are you sure you want to take the risk?”

  “I’m dying to go; I know what I’m doing.”

  “OK. But if you get caught, don’t say I did it!” he responded jokingly.

  That evening, I returned to the concert hall, excited but anxious. My plan would only work if at least one ticket-holder didn’t show up! I got past the ticket check and headed immediately to the toilets—the best spot to wait. When the silence told me that the audience had all gone in, I slipped into the hall just before the doors closed. I looked quickly around me. There was an empty seat in the last row, and I rushed to take it. Eugene Ormandy made his entrance on stage, greeted the public and raised his baton. For the first time in my life I was hearing what a real orchestra sounded like. What an impression it made on me—the tonalities, the miraculous beauty of the string and wind sections! But I was gripped by fear. I glanced discreetly around me. What if I were to be arrested? What would I tell the police? What would happen to my parents? I was so nervous that I couldn’t really appreciate the concert. I left, frustrated but with the feeling that I had been given a lesson in music. What an orchestra! How splendid it was.

  My stay in Beijing provided an opportunity for reunions as well. I learned that Professor Pan had been given a few days’ leave before returning to his camp. I went to the Conservatory and knocked at his door. No answer. Nearby, however, the door to the collective laundry room was ajar. I stuck my head in and recognized a familiar silhouette bending over the washing:

  “Professor Pan!”

  The silhouette went on working; he hadn’t heard me. I called his name again, louder this time. Turning, he caught sight of me—he was surprised and shocked. A split second later, his face lit up with a wide smile:

  “Zhu Xiao-Mei!”

  “I came to say hello.”

  He drew closer, searching my face.

  “You know,” he said slowly, “this is the first time since the beginning of the Revolution that one of my old students has come back to see me.”

  We spent the afternoon together. He had two children now. He spoke of his time in camp, explaining how he, too, had been accused of belonging to the “516 Group.” He had been deprived of sleep until he made a confession—a false one, of course. I told him how I had managed to bring my piano to Zhangjiakou. He was concerned for me.

  “I owe you a great deal,” I told him. “Every time I play, I think of you.”

  He asked what works I was playing. As I felt I could trust him, I also talked about my self-criticism, the one I had been forced to make at the Conservatory so long ago.

  “Do you remember?”

  “How can I forget? I was obliged to attend, and I’m not proud of it. But at the same time, when I watched you that day, deep inside I told myself: One day, she will become a real artist. She can do it.”

  We said our good-byes.

  “Take care of yourself,” he whispered as I was leaving.

  My mother returned from Shanghai a new woman. A visit to her native city had calmed her spirits; there was talk that she was cured. I decided to return to the camp at Dayu. This time, no one had come looking for me, but I was worried about the future. I had been told that if my behavior was satisfactory, I might be able to leave and to get a job. I was afraid that if I didn’t return on my own, I would spend the rest of my days at Zhangjiakou.

  When I got back to camp, I saw that discipline had melted away like snow. In the following months, there were more and more departures. How we related to each other also changed: we no longer felt jealous when one of us was fortunate enough to be freed. We even organized little farewell parties. And yet, seeing my friends leave one by one made me discouraged. I felt lost, my willpower deserted me, and I was increasingly alone. We had been united in struggle, and had forged deep and lasting friendships with one another. Now, every departure dismantled a little more of the structure that we had so patiently built. Finally, out of the original one hundred inmates, only ten of us were left at Dayu—and unfortunately I was one of them.

  No one ever told me the reason, but I knew very well why I had spent so many years in supplementary camps: my Chushen bu hao status, my escape to Beijing, my comings and goings to visit the former actor. None of this had gone unnoticed, and of course, there was my attitude towards music. I had been officially given permission to play the Yangbanxi, but the guards had not been as gullible as we had believed.

  One day in the winter of 1974, the camp administration told me that, for the start of the next school year, a position had been found for me. I would be a professor at a teacher training college in Shijiazhuang, a dreary town near Beijing. I would be responsible for teaching the piano to beginners as an elective course. Like had been appointed to the Beijing Conservatory. Huang Anlun worked at the Opera; since Madame Mao cherished this institution, he had the right to fancy clothes, better food—even brioche. But I was being offered one of the worst jobs imaginable. I tried to protest. What was I going to do in Shijiazhuang?

  “We are being magnanimous to even offer you that!” I was told. “You escaped twice. And remember: if you refuse, your wages will be cut off and you’ll get no ration coupons.”

  I returned to Beijing to take care of my mother, whose health was still poor. I asked her advice.

  “Don’t go,” my mother told me. “I’ll share my coupons with you.”

  I spent three months in Beijing, then returned to Zhangjiakou to get my things. There were still seven people left.

  That was the winter of 1974. Five years of my life had been spent in camps.

  I ought to have been happy to leave Zhangjiakou, but I had no future. For years, I had only one goal: freedom. At last this had been achieved, but what was I going to do? I had no profession, no salaried position, no ration coupons. I was dependent on my mother, whose poor health required me to stay in Beijing.

  At Zhangjiakou, we had all been on an equal footing. Now, this was no longer the case. On the one hand, there were those who were lucky enough to have been given an interesting posting and to have a real posi
tion. On the other hand, there were those whose artistic careers had been destroyed by the camp, like the dancers whose bodies had changed so radically they would never return to the stage. Finally, there were those who, like me, felt as though their country had rejected them.

  Yes, I was free, but I was anxious and bitter. I looked back and reflected on the lost years: on the music I hadn’t played and the books I hadn’t read. I thought about the love I hadn’t been able to give to my family, how my grandmother had died alone, how I had suspected my father of being a spy. About how my dignity had been taken from me. About the acts I had committed.

  14

  From Mao to Mozart

  There is only one beauty,

  the beauty of truth revealing itself.

  (Auguste Rodin, Art)

  “You’re not tired? Then continue playing.”

  I had just finished the Appassionata Sonata and was starting on Rachmaninoff’s Second Concerto.

  When I was done, Professor Pan laughingly chided me, “I know why you’re not tired. It’s because you’re not inside the music. You aren’t moved, you aren’t playing with your heart. You’re not working with your imagination as I taught you. Do you remember?”

  I had called on my old teacher a few days earlier. He, too, had been definitively discharged from camp.

  “I want to see you again,” I told him, “to show you what I worked on at Zhangjiakou. May I stop by?”

  So there we were, reunited, eleven years after the last time I had played for him.

  “We are going to work together,” Professor Pan said, “but we have to be discreet. I don’t want any trouble. There’s a small studio in one of the Conservatory buildings where we won’t be disturbed. I’ll show you where. We can meet there for lessons—but we must keep it a secret.”

  Professor Pan was pleased at what I had accomplished at Zhangjiakou. He found, however, that my playing had become mechanical, that it was now louder and faster than before I had left.

  “Zhu Xiao-Mei,” he told me, “it’s fine to play Rachmaninoff, but let’s go back to pieces that are at once simpler and more challenging. Bach’s Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue, and above all Scarlatti.”

  Professor Pan’s tact had survived the Cultural Revolution—he still knew how to correct me without being hurtful.

  What a joy it was to work with him again! I was also pleased to have my old piano back: a friend had shipped it from Zhangjiakou, and I had had it restored—as much as I could. In every other respect, daily life in Beijing was dismal. My sisters were still in exile, and so was my father, although he was allowed to return home for short monthly visits. When he was home, he barely spoke; it seemed as though life had cast him aside. Even when he was finally granted permission to live in Beijing, he remained under surveillance.

  It was only thanks to my mother’s ration coupons that I survived.

  Nevertheless, deep inside I had resolved to work hard—every minute, every hour, every day—to make up for lost time. To absorb everything I had not learned over the past decade. I had seen too many of my classmates leave for the hinterlands and abandon their studies forever. I told myself that, by staying in the capital, even under these dreadful conditions, I at least had an opportunity to discover and explore. To learn about everything I had been deprived of, from music theory to learning English. All I could think about was studying and preparing for a competition—if the chance ever came.

  I had plenty of support in this crazy undertaking—there was Professor Pan, of course, but also my close friends: Huang Anlun, his wife Ouyan, and Like.

  Ouyan, who worked at the Beijing Dance Academy, tried to find me work as an accompanist:

  “Xiao-Mei,” she constantly told me, “you can’t continue like this, with nothing to live on.”

  Her lobbying skills were as keen as her musical ability, and she vouched for me. In addition, Lao Xue, the president of my father’s university who had already helped my father so much, intervened on my behalf. One summer day in 1975, thanks to both of them, I was assigned to the Beijing Dance Academy. I worked as an accompanist; the job involved playing the piano for several hours at a stretch for young, preadolescent dancers. Each day, I had to compose little tunes and invent new programs that I would repeatedly play. At least I now had something to live on.

  I had been working at the Academy for several months when I ran into a friend, Wei-Zhao. She had something to tell me: her brother and sister had managed to flee to Hong Kong by swimming across the straits that separate it from China. This was the first time I had heard of such a thing—I later learned that hundreds of people attempted it daily. I became obsessed with this idea. They had made it. I began to think about it. I made some discreet inquiries: it took a very practiced swimmer six hours to cross the waters between China and Hong Kong. After six hours, the tide came in, making the distance to cover even greater.

  I was a poor athlete—this had been patently clear since my dance classes at the Conservatory. Perhaps though, with a lot of practice, I could do it.

  It would require a great deal of preparation. Each morning at six o’clock, I would swim, take classes, do laps. I would also study English with ever greater determination. I would buy a blackboard and write on it twenty new words to learn each day. I was not about to spend my life playing the piano for children’s ballet classes. I was going to leave China, one way or another.

  While I was devising my escape plans, Professor Pan came up with a very different idea. One day, as we worked together, he remarked:

  “Do you remember when we were preparing for your first recital at the Conservatory? It wasn’t possible then, but it is now. At the Dance Academy, you have a big room and a grand piano. You could give a concert there.”

  I was taken aback. That recital should have taken place thirteen years earlier—if circumstances had permitted. I thought back to my original program: Beethoven’s Pathétique Sonata; Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 23, which I had prepared with Professor Pan; and Chopin’s Etude Op. 25, No. 3. Wasn’t Western classical music still off-limits? Nevertheless, I put my trust in my teacher. I worked up a new program: some Scarlatti sonatas, Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 18, Liszt Etudes, and César Franck’s Symphonic Variations. I told my friends:

  “It will take place at four o’clock, in secret. Keep it to yourselves.”

  That afternoon, in the spring of 1976, the studio at the Academy was packed. The “secret” had circulated quite efficiently by word of mouth. “There’s going to be a concert in Beijing,” those in the know said, “one of the first since the Cultural Revolution.” Have I ever in my life played for a more appreciative audience?

  Playing and listening to music became an obsession for me—for all of us. It was rumored that not every record had been destroyed during the Revolution. Addresses began to be passed around, one in particular: a professor at Beida University had managed to save a few musical treasures. Huang Anlun became a collector, buying up everything he could find. I spent all my savings on a record player, and I scoured Beijing seeking out the few LPs that had been saved from destruction. In particular, I was eager to find recordings by Emil Guilels, a powerful but sensitive pianist, who languished somewhat in Sviatoslav Richter’s shadow.

  After being forced underground for so long, the art world had begun to boil over. Is that why, on July 28, my piano woke me in the middle of the night? Or was it to warn me? It emitted a strange sound, muted and low. I got out of bed; it had moved to the middle of the room all by itself. My parents had also been awakened. A clamor arose in the streets—it was an earthquake! As we rushed outside, I thought of my piano, which I had left behind.

  Thankfully, our house withstood the quake.

  The Tangshan earthquake—which killed hundreds of thousands of people—seemed to augur some great event, an imminent change of dynasty. And indeed, on the afternoon of September 9, 1976, when I arrived at the Academy, an announcement was made:

  “The esteemed and adored Great Leader of
our Party, our army, and the peoples of all nationalities of our country, Comrade Mao Zedong, master of the international proletariat, of the oppressed peoples and nations of the earth, has died…”

  When I got back to the house at day’s end, I found my father in bed. He was pale, and his breathing was labored, as if he had suffered a heart attack.

  “Xiao-Mei, I’m frightened. It’s going to start all over again, just like before.”

  After Mao’s death, political tensions ran high: a power struggle broke out between Hua Guofeng on the one hand and the Gang of Four—which included Madame Mao—on the other. It ended with the arrest of the Gang of Four. It was an uneasy period, but also an era of openness and reforms.

  In 1977, for the first time in a very long while, the universities began to operate normally. Entrance exams were reinstated based on knowledge and aptitude, instead of on family background and political criteria. The Beijing Conservatory reopened its doors, and the first conventional entrance exams in more than a decade were announced.

  I didn’t waste a second—I had to go back and finish my studies! This was the moment I had been waiting for. All of my pent-up frustrations exploded. The lack of scores at Zhangjiakou, the need to copy them out and to set up a schedule to share them among ourselves. The need for secrecy to study with Professor Pan, or to play before an audience. The absence of records and concerts—in all those years, the only concert I had ever attended was the one by the Philadelphia Orchestra, and even then under what conditions! At the Conservatory, it would be different, and the years of hardship since my return from Zhangjiakou would finally find their raison d’être.