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

by Xiao-Mei, Zhu

  At the same time, these projects threw me into turmoil. I wasn’t used to playing so often or so many different programs in such a variety of venues. A feeling of anxiety began to slowly surface in me. This was not my pace, this was not how I wanted to live. But I had no choice—if I turned the offers down, I soon wouldn’t receive any at all. This is the harsh reality of the performing artist’s world.

  My friends told me not to worry. Their network was functioning admirably. At the Conservatory, I became acquainted with the musicologist Rémy Stricker, an extremely cultivated man with an in-depth understanding of both music and musicians. He treated his students like his own children. Before every concert, I liked to play for him. I trusted him implicitly. Then, a young impresario joined our circle. He was twenty-three years old at the time and looked like Saint-Exupéry’s Little Prince. He was both sensitive and intelligent, and played French music from Rameau to Ravel like no one else. He had everything he needed to succeed, and had already started on the path to a brilliant career. But Alexandre Tharaud—that’s who I am referring to—is also extremely generous, and he began to keep an eye out for me. After hearing my recording of the Goldberg Variations, he bought dozens of copies without telling me and handed them out to concert organizers, saying:

  “She’s the great pianist, not me. She’s the one you should invite.”

  This was not true, of course, but very moving. It was, however, the start of a long musical friendship that would lead us to play piano four hands together often.

  The first major Parisian venue to take a chance on me was the Théâtre de la Ville, a concert hall that is still very dear to my heart. This is in large part due to the personality of Georges Gara, its musical advisor. I initially met him through a common acquaintance, Benoît Choquet, who was a supporter from the very beginning. Georges had fled Hungary, and had been a publisher before coming to work at the Théâtre de la Ville. As fellow emigrés, we hit it off immediately. One day, in the course of a conversation, he asked:

  “If you could give a concert here, what would you play?”

  There was only one possibility. The Goldberg Variations.

  A few days later, he called me:

  “You’re on the program for next season.”

  That was in 1994, and the time had come for my official Parisian debut. The hall was completely full. But in spite of how successful the concert was, it made me ill for months, both before and after the actual performance.

  I felt incapable of attaining the perfection that I desired. I was, like so many musicians, devastated by my powerlessness. Like Richter who, at the end of his life, stated, “I don’t like myself.” Undoubtedly, a wiser path would have been to admit that perfection did not exist. The Chinese understand this very well—in a piece of embroidery or calligraphy, they will deliberately introduce a fault, believing that the flaw renders their work even more beautiful. The Iranians do the same with their carpets to show that only God is capable of perfection.

  Yes, the smarter thing to do would have been to admit this. To model myself after the Winged Victory of Samothrace, in all its powerful, mutilated beauty. Instead, I chose to not even walk in front of the Théâtre de la Ville, which was right around the corner from where I lived. I finally managed to quell my anxiety and stood in front of the theater, only to break down in tears at the sound of an organ grinder playing a nostalgic melody of exile. A passerby came up to me:

  “Excuse me, madam, was it you who played the Goldberg Variations the other night?”

  I held back my tears.

  “Yes, that was me.”

  “It was magnificent. Thanks to you, I’ve started to listen to Bach. But I see that you’re upset, and I won’t bother you any further. Thank you so much.”

  That first concert at the Théâtre de la Ville was followed by several others. A year later, I played Scarlatti, Mozart, and Schumann—my beloved Kinderszenen, with its Reverie. The Goldberg Variations had placed me in the category of “serious pianist”—as it does for every pianist who takes it on, heaven knows why—and the audience perceived this new program as strangely light and childlike, as if childhood could not be at the same time an age of great maturity.

  Then there was a Haydn and Beethoven concert.

  A few days before the performance, I felt so discouraged that I called Georges and told him that I was not going to be able to play. He came to my house that very evening.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I’m not happy with what I’m doing.”

  “If you want to cancel the concert, we’ll cancel it. And we won’t call in a substitute. But before we do that, I want you to know one thing. Although neither of us are churchgoers, I can tell you that when you play, a feeling of spirituality fills the hall. People stay on after the concert; they just can’t seem to leave.”

  What could I say? Georges had convinced me: the concert took place. He had found a way to describe the connection that links a performer and the audience.

  During a recent trip to Beijing, I visited Teng Wenji, and we talked about his latest films. At one point in the discussion, he said:

  “When I first walk onto a film set, I say a prayer before filming.”

  I asked why, although I already anticipated the answer.

  “Because we’re disturbing the spirits. We make noise and cause a commotion. No one asked us to come; we have to apologize for our presence.”

  We both smiled. Since then, to tell the truth, I have adopted the same ritual. When I arrive, I pay honor to the place, because it is always sacred. I like to breathe in its atmosphere well before the audience begins to file in. I walk around the entire building, touching the walls, the seats, the boxes. They speak to me, and I absorb their history.

  My most successful concerts have always occurred in theaters and churches, venues where I can sense something.

  Take the Théâtre de la Ville. It’s been a favorite ever since my first concert when, before going on stage, I rehearsed on a small upright piano on the top floor, beneath a portrait of Sarah Bernhardt. I’m known by everyone there. When I call the switchboard, the operator says to me:

  “Hello, Xiao-Mei. I recognized your voice.”

  I feel very much at home.

  Other places include the little Chapelle Sainte-Cécile near Tours, the church at Lourmarin—one of the main venues of the La Roque-d’Anthéron festival—the Martinu Hall in Prague, and the Teatro Bibiena in Mantua, where Mozart once played and which Richter loved so much. And then there’s the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, a place I especially like, even though I also almost canceled my first concert there.

  I had just arrived in Argentina. Roadwork was underway near the hotel where I was staying, and my room was incredibly noisy. Since I didn’t speak a single word of Spanish, I was unable to make the people at the reception desk understand that I needed a quieter room. The concert was fast approaching, and I could neither meditate nor concentrate.

  Early in the afternoon, I called the organizer to tell him I was going to cancel. He came over immediately. He was insistent, repeating that everything was planned for the concert and that he couldn’t cancel it. Then he added:

  “Visit the theater, and we’ll talk afterwards. Come along, I’ll take you there.”

  A few minutes later, I walked into the Teatro Colón.

  “Look around; go wherever you like. I’ll wait for you here.”

  I entered the hall. It was enormous, but at the same time, it was permeated by a strange feeling of intimacy, of warmth. I visited the boxes, each one unique. I admired the curtains, the ceiling, the chandeliers. Here, the greatest artists had performed, and the audience knew one another, you could feel it. I went downstairs. The gilded silence of the hall gave way to the bustling activity of a veritable small city, where several hundred people were busy with costumes and sets. I watched them working away intensely, as if their lives depended on it. Women smiled at me and stopped what they were doing to speak with me. We didn’t get very
far because of my lack of Spanish, but I was extremely moved by them. Of course I would play that evening.

  A few hours later, when I walked on stage, I felt very well. Under my feet I imagined the activity of the small city; I recalled the faces of the women I had glimpsed that afternoon. I greeted the audience: many of them had the score of the Goldberg Variations on their laps. I hadn’t been mistaken: this was indeed a unique place.

  After the concert, a music critic sought me out.

  “I must be Chinese,” he told me. “Everything you played has convinced me it’s true.”

  He was exaggerating, of course. But what better proof of music’s universality that a Chinese woman was able to win over a South American man while performing a European composer?

  Of the many moving places I have visited, for me the most stirring of all is the Thomaskirche in Leipzig, where Bach worked from 1723 until his death, in 1750. It was during this period that he composed his greatest works. I had always wanted to visit Leipzig, and a concert in former East Germany finally gave me the chance. The French Cultural Institute had organized a performance in Hoyerswerda, a town where, ten years earlier, a group of skinheads had carried out attacks on Vietnamese street vendors and other foreigners with the tacit approval of the local population. Even today, people still refer to “Hoyerswerda Syndrome.” I decided to play the Goldberg Variations in memory of these immigrants, who were victims of racial violence. When I walked onstage, the atmosphere was chilly, so chilly in fact that I—a Chinese woman who dared to play Bach in his native land—could readily identify with the Vietnamese who had been beaten. As the Variations unfolded, however, a sense of community began to set in, and by the end, the applause was such that I had to take several curtain calls. The audience didn’t want to leave. I asked for silence, then offered these few words:

  “After Bach, one can play nothing else.”

  The entire audience rose to its feet. They had given me their blessing.

  I had never before been so close to Leipzig. The next day, buoyed by the previous night’s reception, I shared my desire with the cultural attaché, a friend, who had arranged the concert. She warned me that the Thomaskirche had been restored on several occasions, that certain parts were new and that the building’s authenticity was debatable. I told her that it didn’t bother me. She telephoned the church to see if we might be able to visit. Unfortunately, it was closed for repairs. It didn’t matter. I still wanted to go; it would be enough to breathe the air of Leipzig. My friend Marion offered to accompany me. As we drove along the roads of Saxony in her car, I began to feel emotional, and then tearful. Happily, Marion didn’t see. I felt so ridiculous crying over such a little thing. How could I explain what this trip meant to me? How could I tell her that right then, as we neared the city, I suddenly became aware that Bach had really existed, that I might have met him, gotten to know him, seen him play?

  I recalled another pilgrimage that I had made a very long time ago, to Shaoshan, Mao’s native village. This pilgrimage was the genuine one, but would Bach find fault with me for comparing the two journeys? I asked for his forgiveness: Master, I apologize for this thought—please know that this pilgrimage is sincere. After everything I have been through, allow me to say that, thanks to you, I once again became a human being. That I learned about life, and about myself.

  We arrived in front of the Thomaskirche and—miraculously—it was open. Wherever he was, Johann Sebastian Bach was looking out for me. I asked Marion if I could have a few moments alone, and I entered the nave. There was Bach’s tomb beneath my feet, bearing this inscription that overwhelmed me with its simplicity:

  JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH

  Nothing else. No dates, no titles. Only what was essential—just like his music—not a single extra note.

  For quite a while I stood there in silence by his tomb. Then I explored the Thomaskirche from top to bottom, sure that I would find some trace of Bach. I climbed the bell tower, touched the stones and breathed the air. On the way out, I said to Marion:

  “Now I can die. I have no regrets.”

  A few years later, at the end of my appearance on the cultural television program Double Je, Bernard Pivot asked me the famous Proust Questionnaire, which I love.

  “If God exists,” he asked me, “what would you like him to say to you?”

  “You’ve been courageous enough. Come, I’ll introduce you to Bach.”

  27

  A Wounded Life

  One who is skillful in using men puts himself below them.

  (Laozi)

  The Cultural Revolution scarred me for life. Each morning when I get up, I wonder how I can go on living, how I can find peace after what I have experienced. The legacy of that period has left me with a severe psychological handicap.

  The sessions of collective denunciation I endured rendered me perpetually afraid of criticism, unable to trust either myself or anyone else. When one has lived through such a regime, when one has been forced at twelve years old—at an age when one cannot be guilty—to criticize oneself, then what is a friend or a family member but someone who will denounce you tomorrow, and that you will in turn criticize?

  Whenever I walk onstage, there is always a moment when I wonder why the audience has come to hear me. I am tremendously grateful, but at the same time I want to give them their money back; I do not deserve their presence. Doubts begin to set in: the audience is actually there to criticize me, to judge me, just as if it were a self-criticism session. Only my faith in music gives me the strength to carry through to the end.

  I also fear being manipulated, as I was so often in China. I try to tell myself that I was young at the time of the Cultural Revolution, and therefore susceptible to all forms of propaganda. This was the case and is why I have always felt an aversion to student demonstrations. But it wasn’t just students who were involved. Hundreds of millions of Chinese—people who were older and more experienced than us—allowed themselves to be indoctrinated. Age didn’t make any difference, either in China or in any other country that experienced totalitarianism. I try to understand how the Communists’ noble ideas could have led to such a catastrophe, or how, for years on end, I couldn’t see anything or didn’t want to believe what I saw. I try, but I simply don’t understand.

  The Cultural Revolution was debasing; it turned me into a perpetrator. At one point, it even extinguished in me all sense of a moral life. I criticized my fellow human beings, accused them of grave misdeeds, investigated their pasts. I took an active part in a process of collective destruction. How can I ever be free of such things?

  Five years ago in Paris, I met Shaohua again.

  Shaohua, on whom I had willingly informed. She came to give a concert one Sunday, as part of a string quartet. At the end of the performance, I went backstage to congratulate her. I felt relief just seeing her again.

  “I hurt you so much. It still causes me pain, and I can’t bear it. Is there something I can do? Can you ever forgive me?”

  Shaohua gave me a tender smile:

  “You’ve already been forgiven a thousand times over. We were so young. We are all victims of the Revolution.”

  During the conversation that followed, I learned that she had been window-shopping in Paris and a coat had caught her eye. The next day, I dashed over to the shop, but it was closed. The following day Shaohua returned to China—without the coat. It was better that way: I was naive to think that a piece of clothing could close a wound, or right a wrong with its attendant feelings of guilt.

  I felt the same inability to redress the past when it came to my grandmother. Shortly after Shaohua’s visit, my family undertook to finally provide my grandmother with a decent headstone, and we all contributed towards its purchase. I was moved by this idea. She had done so much for me, and she was such a role model. I felt as though I were reunited with her—or better yet—honoring her. Once again, a futile solution. How could money possibly make up for all those years when I believed it more important to be a
zealous revolutionary than to write to her?

  Friends gave me passages from Hannah Arendt to read. I found her description of one of the governing principles of totalitarian regimes very accurate: the “arbitrary selection of victims,” the first step in the process of total domination. Arendt elaborates:

  The next decisive step in the preparation of living corpses is the murder of the moral person in man. […] Through the creation of conditions under which conscience ceases to be adequate and to do good becomes utterly impossible, the consciously organized complicity of all men in the crimes of totalitarian regimes is extended to the victims and thus made really total.

  When I read this passage, I relived my own experience. At thirteen years old, I was definitely an “innocent victim,” selected through a process far greater than myself. I had been branded a Chushen bu hao, a person with a bad family background. Then came the second step: the Cultural Revolution took away my status of innocent victim and made me an active participant in its crimes.

  I am continually haunted by this part of my past. In a certain sense, I was released from prison only to become a prisoner of myself.

  I often wonder whether I should hate Mao Zedong for what he did to me. On a purely theoretical level, his analyses were not incorrect. The Chinese people did need to be liberated. How could I forget the documentary they screened for us at school, which showed the sign the English erected at the entrance to Waitan Park. On it was clearly written: “Dogs and Chinese Not Admitted.” Nor could I forget the peasants who were so cruelly exploited, or the old woman I met during my first session of Yi ku si tian. Despite these things, and the spirit of hope he kindled, Mao was a criminal. He was responsible for killing tens of millions of people, and for the moral deaths of hundreds of millions more. Therefore, yes, I hate him. And every passing day deepens my hatred of this man who, since he lacked the courage to admit his mistakes, carried out a cynical headlong rush into the future. “One who is skillful in using men puts himself below them,” as Laozi said. Mao kept himself above men, even if it meant killing them to remain there. During the thirty years that I have lived in fear, in despair of ever finding inner peace, I have had time to understand this.