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

by Xiao-Mei, Zhu

  The concert was my salvation. I began to plan projects, and I was regularly asked to give concerts. However, I still needed to take on French citizenship. Once again, my friends did their utmost, taking turns helping and accompanying me through the process. Nasi often got up with me at five a.m. when I had to wait in line for six hours. Another friend, Blandine Gravereau, helped to prepare my citizenship application with so much care that it became a model file within the Prefecture. Madame Aalam took the matter in hand in her typical Middle Eastern fashion, thanking the government employees in charge of my application with Gucci bags!

  And finally, one friend from this small circle helped me to buy the Steinway piano I had always hoped for.

  When the piano tuner made his first call to my little studio, he said straight out:

  “I’m sorry, but this will be my only visit. It makes me heartsick to see your piano installed here. Look, it’s right next to the radiator; that’s going to damage it.”

  He was barely out the door when I switched off the heat. I had a cold most of the winter, but the Steinway stayed in tiptop shape. Another piano tuner, Helmut Klemm, took care of it. This simple, unassuming man, who tunes pianos for renowned musicians, agreed to do the same for me. During our first meeting, when our conversation turned to the Goldberg Variations, he took from his briefcase a photocopy of the twenty-first variation: he carried it along with him everywhere he went. With only a few words, a friendship was born.

  In 1990, yet another miracle occurred. A small record label offered to put out my first CD, a recording of the Goldberg Variations. My friends encouraged me: “Accept the offer,” they said. “Without the publicity that a CD offers, it’s going to be hard to give concerts.” However, I wavered: “Don’t leave any traces on the earth.” I recalled with a smile the story about Laozi that my American seatmate had told me on the flight to Los Angeles. Laozi, who all his life had refused to write anything down, and had done so only under duress, right before he vanished forever. At the risk of overstatement, I enjoyed the parallel: I would record the Goldberg Variations and then I, too, could disappear. I would leave behind the thing that was, for me, the most important.

  The recording went well. Then, just as the CD was about to be released, I received a call from the publisher: due to financial difficulties, he had to drop the project, he could no longer afford to put it out. But, he added, there was always the possibility that I could underwrite the CD myself. The cost would be about fifty thousand francs. To fail so close to completion seemed crazy, and I really liked the recording. I talked with friends and then made a decision: I would borrow the money necessary for the project. The CD needed to find its audience. I paid the fifty thousand francs to the editor. And nothing happened. He had filed for bankruptcy.

  Panic ensued. I had only one person to turn to, Antoine Tchekhoff, the guardian angel of musicians. Antoine is a lawyer and a music-lover—so much so that, for pianists, he often waives his fees. I think, on this point, there is a real difference between France and the US. In the States, when I told people that I was a pianist, they were nonplussed.

  Antoine’s assessment of the situation was clear: there was very little chance that I would be able to recover the money, and the best I could hope for was a supply of CDs. Thus, I found myself with a fifty-thousand-franc loan to be repaid. Once I had taken care of my monthly installments for the recording and the Steinway and had purchased my subway pass, I didn’t have much left for living expenses. But I had three hundred CDs.

  Happily, despite an extremely limited distribution, the recording received very positive reviews in the press. Antoine, like many of my wonderful friends, took on the role of impresario and decided to organize a second concert for me in Paris. It was still too soon to imagine playing in one of the prestigious venues, and so it took place in the auditorium of the Sacem.

  This second concert would have had only a small circle of admirers if Estelle hadn’t managed to convince the music critic from Le Monde to come and hear me—the occasion for yet another miracle. Contrary to all expectations, an article about me appeared in the paper the following day, entitled “The inner strength of Zhu Xiao-Mei.” I read and reread the article, wracked with anxiety: I couldn’t grasp the nuances of the French, and I was worried that each turn of phrase was actually criticism.

  I saw that the critic had compared me to Artur Schnabel and Clara Haskil, two pianists whom I hold in high esteem. But in which sense had he made the comparison? My friends reassured me that the article was indeed positive.

  I had recorded my first CD and given my first concerts. Thanks to Alain Meunier, I had a position teaching at the Paris Conservatory. Now I could return to China. I could see my parents without feeling ashamed.

  My parents, my friends—I wondered if they would recognize me, how they would greet me. It had been twelve years since we had seen each other! I couldn’t run the risk of surprising my mother, but if I let her know too far in advance, she would make herself sick waiting. I held off until the last minute before I wrote to her: she would have to wait a week, that wasn’t too long.

  Then it was time to think about gifts. I didn’t have the means to buy presents for everyone, but I had to bring perfume for my mother—a real bottle of Dior from Paris. It would replace the one she had saved as a souvenir of happier times in Shanghai, the bottle that the Red Guards had smashed in front of her. And a book about Zhao Wuji, whose work fascinated my Chinese friends.

  The Christmas holidays arrived. It was time to leave.

  25

  The Tree of Mama Zheng

  Acknowledge diversity

  and you will achieve unity.

  (Rabindranath Tagore)

  Beijing Airport. My plane from Paris had just touched down. For years I had waited for this moment, but now, I suddenly felt awkward, like a stranger. There they were, standing in front of me: my father, my four sisters and their husbands, as well as nieces and nephews whom I had never met. They had all turned out, except for my mother. As I had feared, the announcement of my arrival had made her ill.

  I gazed at my father, unable to believe my eyes. Everything about him seemed smaller—his height, his face, his eyes. I didn’t dare touch him, or address him as “Papa.” We were overwhelmed with emotion, and everyone was impatient to ask me questions, but tradition won out. We exchanged a few pleasantries: they thought my voice sounded lower, and I learned that they had been waiting there for two hours, for fear of missing me. But we had to hurry—the reunion dinner was waiting.

  My parents had moved since I had left China. They now lived in a 270-square-foot apartment on the fourth floor with no elevator. To get there, one had to climb an untidy, narrow flight of stairs, cluttered with neighbors’ garbage pails on the landings. The windows faced a dark courtyard, and there was no bathroom. At their age, this is what my parents had been reduced to: an apartment that was even more miserable than our original family home, and much worse than I could have imagined. The apartment itself was impeccable, proof of how much time they had spent making it presentable—they no doubt imagined that I lived a life of luxury, and were afraid that I would find their apartment unacceptable.

  I was overwhelmed by tremendous feelings of guilt; despite twelve years in exile, their daughter still didn’t earn enough money to help them. They, on the other hand, had continued to keep my piano in their tiny living quarters.

  My mother did what she could to welcome me, but she became dizzy if she kept her eyes open too long. Seeing me literally made her ill. I don’t know why, but I handed her the bottle of Dior perfume I had purchased for her, in the naive hope that it would soothe her. But of course, it did the opposite. Both the scent and the memories it invoked made her nauseous.

  A sumptuous meal had been laid out on the apartment’s only table.

  “Do you remember?” she asked me. “When you left for Hong Kong, it was just before the New Year, and you couldn’t celebrate it with us. Well, here’s the dinner that we couldn’
t have together.”

  I looked at the dishes that she had lovingly prepared. Every kind of dumpling, and my favorite dessert, Tangerduo, or “sugared ears.” As the evening wore on and we ate, talked, and laughed together, I saw my mother slowly come back to life.

  The party broke up late in the evening. I lay down in a corner of the hallway, the only place in the apartment where there was enough space for me to stretch out. When I awoke, about six the next morning, I could see three little candles flickering on the table. My mother was drawing. I didn’t move a muscle, pretending to be asleep so as not to disturb her, while I observed her through half-closed eyes. The sky grew light. My mother put away the candles and her materials. She was waiting for me to wake up.

  As we were eating breakfast, my father told me a piece of news:

  “You’re not aware of this, but your mother is a celebrity now. She was on television the other day. The journalists wanted to finally learn who had composed the well-known children’s song ‘Let’s Go to School’—it was your mother. She wrote it forty years ago.”

  “Why are you telling her that? If children like my song, that’s fine, but it is unimportant.”

  My mother hadn’t changed a bit. I thought my father seemed less calm, but gentler. He was no longer the same man who had sent me the letter that had meant so much to me. He managed a photocopy shop for its two young owners. This was a more interesting job than it seemed; photocopies had recently made their appearance in China, and were being used to spread ideas quickly and discreetly.

  My father also mentioned that my mother took painting lessons every day, that she had recently been in a group show in Shanghai, and that she had met with a certain degree of success. Since she was feeling well enough to go out, I suggested that I accompany her to her class. At the age of seventy-five, she still had the desire to learn: I admired her for that, and at the same time, I understood what it meant. During the long, dark night of the Cultural Revolution, art—and painting in particular—had been her salvation, just as music had been mine.

  After our return, while I was helping her to prepare lunch, she let slip that the piano had been tuned in preparation for my arrival. She didn’t ask me outright, as was her custom, but I guessed that she was very anxious to hear me play. But I couldn’t, not just yet anyway. It was too soon. I still had the sound of the Steinway in my ears.

  My mother’s artistic activities made her an exception in China. As the days went by, I was amazed to see just how materialistic the Chinese had become. All they seemed to want was a larger apartment, a television, a refrigerator. I didn’t recognize my country anymore. But I understood why it was happening.

  My American passport gave me access to special stores, and I was able to buy appliances to make life easier for both my parents and my friends. I spent whole days going shopping with, as usual, mixed emotions. On the one hand, I felt extraordinarily happy to be able to help my family, yet I also experienced a sort of sadness. There we were, standing in line to buy a refrigerator instead of sharing our experiences, or expressing everything that we hadn’t been able to say for so long. Nevertheless, once the purchases were made, I felt free. Free to become reacquainted with my very oldest friend.

  There it stood, just like on the first day, despite its yellowed keys. Faithful, discreet, humble, and kind. The one I had plastered with an ignominious Dazibao, the one that had crossed China in a coal car, the one whose strings I had patched up with wire. The one I had almost sold to buy a plane ticket, the one I had thrown over for a Steinway. It was generous and courageous—two of the three qualities of an ideal husband.

  I could hear it sighing: “I’m old now, you see. I’ve done all I can for you, and I’m tired. I never said anything, but if you only realized how cold I was in Zhangjiakou. Leave me in peace. I’m useless: I’m no longer enough for you. I’m aware that you’ve been unfaithful to me. Everyone knows that Paris is the land of temptations…”

  It also had the third quality of an ideal husband: a sense of humor. I told it that, contrary to popular belief, the French are not unfaithful—at least not in friendship.

  And I played it for my mother: Schumann’s Reverie. Just as she had played it for me when I was three years old. My first piece of music.

  It was time to visit Professor Pan. I knew that he was now considered one of the very greatest teachers in China. He had no telephone, so I couldn’t call in advance, and the Conservatory, where he still resided, was more than an hour away from where my parents lived. But I had to try. When I got there, around five in the afternoon, the buildings resounded with music. Everywhere, students were in the process of practicing. I stopped to listen for a moment—they had no idea that the pieces they were playing had been forbidden three decades earlier. That students had been packed off to camps to be “re-educated.” That scores had been burned. That professors had been driven to suicide.

  I rang the doorbell at Professor Pan’s apartment.

  “Zhu Xiao-Mei! I can’t believe it!”

  There he stood, looking at me with a big smile.

  “You haven’t changed one bit!” He called to his wife, “Look who’s here! We must buy something for dinner tonight.”

  We spent the evening together, talking over the dozen years that had passed since my departure, about their son, who was a member of the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, and about the hordes of young people who were now studying the piano. Professor Pan knew all of the great Western pianists, either through their records or from having attended their concerts in Beijing. I asked him who was his favorite.

  “Murray Perahia,” he answered. He went on: “There are now many great foreign pianists who come and perform or give master classes in China. I also listen a lot to their recordings. Oddly enough, I don’t take that much away. After so many years, I think I have arrived at similar results. And it also seems to me that there’s always something lacking in their playing.”

  I couldn’t resist a smile when I heard his words. No doubt there were Westerners who thought that Chinese people were incapable of understanding Beethoven; but here one of the greatest Chinese masters was saying that Westerners didn’t understand him either, or at least not fully. There was a gap on both sides. When interpreting music, the hardest thing is not merely to express something, but to express it to another culture.

  I talked to him about how cultures overlap. About I.M. Pei’s pyramid at the Louvre. About the magic I heard Seiji Ozawa bring out of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. A unique sound, as if a single musician were playing—and yet, what a mosaic the orchestra was! Germans in the string section, French woodwind players, and a Japanese man at the podium. The result surpassed anything you could imagine: the very best from every school had been selected. They were all listened to and respected, and produced something unique and new—a form of perfection. As the great Indian author Rabindranath Tagore once remarked: “Acknowledge diversity and you will achieve unity.”

  “I would have loved to see and hear all that,” he answered. “How fortunate you are.”

  We then talked about Beethoven’s Opus 111. He asked me if I had played it. When I told him I hadn’t, he urged me to tackle it immediately.

  “These days,” he said, “I spend hours with the second movement. I feel so well when I play it. I want time to stop, for it to never end. Do you remember what our dear Romain Rolland said about it? ‘A nearly impassive smile of Buddha.’ That’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

  Much later, standing at the door, he confided in me:

  “This is no doubt the last time that we will see each other in Beijing. I want to live a normal life. Here, we are endlessly wondering what the future will bring.”

  And in fact, shortly after my visit, he and his wife left China to join their son in Singapore, where I still go to see him from time to time.

  After I left Professor’s Pan’s apartment, I lingered for a moment on the Conservatory grounds. The school was being expanded, and there was a lot of new constructio
n. Night had fallen and all was still. Unbidden, images rose to the surface—of broken lives, victims, the dead.

  I found myself in front of the infirmary. Here, too, the bulldozers had done their work. The tree from which Mama Zheng had hung himself was gone. He had no family to honor his memory, and there had been no funeral service after his suicide. Now there was nothing left of him, not even his tree.

  It’s time that I paid him tribute.

  Mama Zheng, you were a great man. You gave up wealth and honors to take care of us children. I learned later that you were related to Sukarno, the Indonesian president, as well as to Zhang Ji, a minister to Chiang Kai-shek. You could have chosen an easier path.

  “Mama Zheng”? No. Huabin Zheng was your name, and it’s high time that it be given back to you.

  We return it to you, Huabin Zheng, we, your children. In the name of all of the students of the Conservatory, I want to say thank you. Thank you for everything you did for us. And let me proclaim the truth that no one dared to utter at the time: you were innocent. Your life—and the lives of the other victims of injustice—gives meaning and purpose to this book.

  Farewell, Huabin Zheng.

  26

  Life Starts at Forty

  At fifteen my heart was set on learning;

  at thirty I stood firm;

  at forty I had no more doubts;

  at fifty I knew the mandate of heaven;

  at sixty my ear was obedient;

  at seventy I could follow my heart’s desire

  without transgressing the norm.

  (Confucius)

  The Chinese believe that life begins at forty. It always amuses me to think about this, because that’s exactly how old I was when my career really started to gain momentum.

  After my return from China, I began to receive a number of offers to perform. My network of friends continued to help make things happen. I couldn’t get over it: were there many other people whose professional debuts began so late in life?