Anthony Grey

by Peking- A Novel of China's Revolution- 1921-1978 (epub)

  “It won’t be difficult for Premier Chou to recognize your hand in all this,” said Jakob. “Won’t that be dangerous for you?”

  “Perhaps.” Chiao looked steadily at him. “But that’s a risk I had to be prepared to take. I hope when all’s said and done, the premier will be human enough to understand.”

  Despite his initial feeling of anger, Jakob realized that in fact he bore Chiao no real grudge. After the emotional trauma of his coal- yard visit he was glad and relieved to have the chance to try to help Mei-ling. The prospect of taking some decisive action again after years as a neutral bystander also fired an unexpected feeling of excitement inside him. “In spite of all you’ve told me, I’m glad I came back to China,” said Jakob. “I’ve never lost my affection for this country and its people.”

  “Then you’ll do all you can to help Mei—ling?”

  “Of course.”

  “Thank you,” said Chiao, offering Jakob his hand again. “Perhaps our meeting on that Japanese ship all those years ago was lucky for us all.”

  Chiao pulled one of the curtains aside to look out of the window, then rapped out instructions for the driver to return Jakob at once to the assembly hall. The Warszawa immediately accelerated; two minutes later it pulled up outside the same fire exit in the enclosed yard and the soldier helped Jakob regain entry to the building unnoticed. When he reached the assembly hail, the education minister was winding up his address, but Jakob climbed quickly onto the platform and resumed his seat in the back row in time to join in the final, prolonged swell of applause.

  10

  Is everything all right?” whispered Abigail as the applause died away.

  “Yes, perfectly,” said Jakob without looking at her.

  “Who wanted you, anybody special?”

  “Just another acquaintance from the old days.” Jakob deliberately gave his words a careless inflection and forced a smile. “He’d heard I was coming to the university . . . but he didn’t have much time to spare.”

  One of the peace delegates from Albania had stood up and was launching into a ringing speech extolling socialist education as an essential stepping-stone to world peace. An interpreter at his side was rendering his address into Chinese at intervals, and loud acclamations began to greet every ritual condemnation of “Western imperialism.”

  “You’re not worried about anything, are you?” asked Abigail in a concerned whisper. “You look a bit on edge.”

  “No, I’m fine,” said Jakob hurriedly. “Just a little tired, perhaps.” Abigail settled down again to listen to an English translation of the Albanian delegate’s speech through a pair of headphones, but she noticed that her father was paying little attention to what was being said. Whenever she turned to look at him, he was staring abstractedly into the audience, as he had done earlier, his mind apparently on other things. All morning he had seemed preoccupied, speaking in reply to her questions in little more than monosyllables, and once again she found herself struggling to subdue the all too familiar feeling that she had again been forced to take second place to other unspecified priorities in his life.

  The disappointment she felt seemed doubly acute, since during the early days of the visit she had begun to believe that a much longed for intimacy was at last growing between them. Although reluctant at the outset to bring her to China, Jakob had seemed gradually to warm to the idea of her accompanying him to places that might hold painful memories. On arrival Abigail had quickly sensed the attraction that the vast, ancient country and its people held for him. Despite the all-pervasive presence of modern Communism, she found herself responding to the country’s great, austere landscapes, where distant hilltop pagodas and temples often still formed enigmatic backdrops to the modern industrial plants they inspected daily. Communism had given a drab, uniform appearance to the population, but the individuals they met were energetic, engaging, and good-humored, and she was also intrigued to discover that China’s imperial past, so much castigated by the nation’s ideologues, remained an intangible source of pride and inspiration in the daily lives of the people.

  During their official travels Jakob had delved frequently into his own memories of China to bring the past alive for her. Abigail had felt her fascination with the country grow almost daily in step with a new affection for her father, and his sudden confession at the Temple of Heaven of the unspoken agonies he had harbored for so many years had made her feel closer to him than ever before. As a result she had been at first surprised, then later baffled when he withdrew unaccountably into himself again after going off alone to visit a coal mine, which he told her was one of several extra excursions arranged specially for him by the premier’s office. To her dismay, he had returned self-absorbed and uncommunicative, as if he were suddenly determined once more to keep her at arm’s length, and all her efforts to reestablish their earlier rapport had come to naught.

  “You weren’t arranging more special excursions just now, were you?” asked Abigail with a hint of sarcasm as the Albanian delegate ended his speech. “You’re not planning to go off on your own again?”

  “No, of course not.” Jakob was still scanning the audience and because of his distraction he failed to register her sarcasm. “We’re leaving tomorrow as planned.”

  When the Albanian delegate sat down, the peace committee chairman announced that the leader of the university’s Joint Student Organizations would give the closing address, and Abigail watched a tall Chinese student wearing a faded tunic of gray cotton rise from the middle of the hall. He had a broad, handsome face and he held himself very straight, walking to the platform in a calm, self-confident manner. Abigail noticed that all the students in the hail were watching him expectantly and it was evident from their demeanor that he was a popular, respected figure among them.

  “Comrade Chen Kao,” continued the chairman as the student mounted the platform steps, “is a research graduate in his final year who has excelled in both his political studies and the organizational work of the student body. He has been admitted to the Communist Party at an unusually early age in recognition of his hard work and unflagging application.”

  Enthusiastic applause from the students greeted Chen Kao’s arrival on the platform and he placed a single sheet of paper on the lectern in front of him before launching confidently into his speech. “While striving for world peace we must never forget that class struggle won’t die away on its own,” he proclaimed in a clear, passionate voice. “Class struggle will continue to exist so long as capitalism and imperialism exist anywhere in the world. Here in China in recent months we’ve seen that the revolution in economic ownership has so far failed to consolidate the overall revolution. Therefore we must continue to wage a class struggle fiercely in our daily lives as our contribution to world peace.”

  The whole of the student assembly applauded warmly, and Abigail leaned toward Jakob. “Master Chen Kao seems to be a young fire- brand, doesn’t he?” she said quietly. “He’s the first man on the platform today with a real orator’s talent.”

  Jakob did not reply and Abigail saw that he was staring intently at the young speaker. Assuming that he was concentrating hard on the political content of the speech, she listened more carefully to the translation coming through her headphones.

  “Bourgeois rightist intellectuals everywhere in China have shown that they are unwilling to submit to the will of the Communist Party,” continued Chen Kao, making an eloquent gesture with one hand. “In their hearts these people have contempt for manual labor. Such people are being unmasked every day by the Hundred Flowers campaign — and they deserve to be because they are anti- Communist and antisocialist. They’re determined to have a test of strength with the Party and because of this the anti-rightist struggle against them may go on for ten or even fifteen years!”

  A new sustained burst of applause interrupted him and Chen Kao stood back from the lectern, waiting expressionlessly for it to subside. He turned his head to survey the audience and in that moment Jakob was abl
e to see more clearly than before that Kao had inherited his regular features from his mother. His dark hair, parted at one side, was short and neatly brushed, and it was immediately evident that what Mei-ling had said was true: although his complexion was pale, it was not unusually so, and his appearance to an unknowing eye was completely Chinese. But as Jakob watched and listened, he became gradually aware of an eerie parallel between the passionate Marxist student revolutionary and himself as a young man. A mental image of himself dressed in a traditional long-gown, preaching the Gospel in Chinese in a remote walled town, flashed into his mind and he wondered whether he had used the same gestures that Kao was now employing in his impassioned oratory.

  With part of his mind, Jakob had also become aware that all the Party and government cadres on the platform were sitting very still in their seats, listening intently to the student speaker. Because he was familiar with the Hundred [‘lowers rhetoric from his daily researches in Hong Kong, Jakob felt sure that Kao was saying nothing that had not already been stated officially on the Party’s behalf in one form or another. But the force and boldness with which he was daring to speak out for himself was remarkable at a time when differences obviously existed among the Party leaders and public caution was a universal watchword. The students in the hall were clearly aware of this too and they continued to applaud Kao with great enthusiasm.

  Even within the Party, bourgeois individualist tendencies are not unknown,” Kao continued, raising the tone of his voice to underline his meaning. “The anti-rightist struggle will therefore be a severe test for every Party member. It may take fifteen years for the working class to train its own professors and teachers, its own scientists, journalists, writers, and artists. And until this huge new army of proletarian intellectuals is created, it won’t be possible to consolidate the revolutionary cause . . . .” Kao paused, looking slowly around the hall, preparing to give special emphasis to his closing words. “Most of the rightists have now been exposed and criticized and some have been isolated from the masses to help them change their thinking. But we must remain vigilant if the anti-rightist struggle is to serve peace at home and abroad. We must not relent for a moment. The struggle must be carried through to victory both on the political and ideological fronts — until all rightists have been well and truly defeated!”

  Chen Kao picked up the copy of his speech and stepped quickly down from the platform. After a moment’s hesitation the Party and government officials began clapping loudly. The audience followed suit and the noise of their applause filled the hall as Kao made his way briskly back to his seat. Jakob stared after him, unable to reconcile the conflicting emotions that the fiery, uncompromising address had aroused in him. He had come back to Peking, apprehensive that he might be haunted by uncomfortable reminders of his past, only to find a living image of his young self. But although Kao was obviously as bold and courageous as his father had once been he had become a “missionary” for Communism, and that irony seemed almost physically painful to Jakob. At the same time, Kao’s very existence reaffirmed the reality of his profound love for Mei-ling, which he had come to doubt and conceal even from himself over the past twenty-two years, and this realization brought with it a contradictory feeling of exhilaration.

  The touch of Abigail’s hand on his arm rescued Jakob from these whirling thoughts and he saw that the chairman of the peace committee had closed the meeting and was preparing to lead the foreign delegates off the platform. Jakob motioned for Abigail to precede him and they followed the other delegates down the steps to renewed applause. As they approached the doorway Jakob saw that the university officials who had been their hosts had formed a line to say a formal farewell to the departing delegates. To his dismay he noticed that Kao had taken the last place at the end of the line as the representative of the students, and with Abigail moving ahead of him, Jakob grasped each proffered hand as though in a dream, his mind numbed by the prospect of having to shake his son’s hand as a stranger. As he neared the end of the line, he became vaguely aware that Abigail was smiling warmly and exchanging animated words with Kao but he could not look directly at them. When at last his turn came, Jakob found his face had grown stiff with tension, and to his horror, he was unable to smile or utter any word at all. Their handclasp as a result was brief and perfunctory, and Kao merely nodded his head quickly in response before hurrying away to rejoin his friends, who were still seated in the body of the hail.

  In the doorway, Jakob stopped and turned to look back. As he did so, Kao rose to his feet and smilingly lifted a clenched fist above his head to bid the delegation farewell. The next moment his voice, raised in song, rang out vibrantly and at once the rest of the students rose to their feet to join him.

  “The East is red!

  The sun rises high in the sky!

  China has brought forth

  A Mao Tse-tung!”

  As he turned away, Jakob carried with him the image of his son’s face, alight with fervor, leading students crowding all around him in a stirring rendering of their emotional patriotic anthem.

  11

  Are you glad I came with you?”

  Abigail deliberately stifled her feelings of disappointment and frustration and asked the question in a quiet, neutral voice as they watched the north China plain fall rapidly away beneath them.

  “Yes, of course,” replied Jakob in a surprised tone. “You don’t regret coming, do you?”

  “No, I’m very grateful.” Abigail was careful to let no hint of complaint show in her reply. “It’s meant an enormous amount to me.”

  The blue-and-white-livened Ilyushin 18 airliner of the Civil Aviation Administration of China was banking and turning its nose south for Shanghai and Canton, and young Chinese stewardesses in red silk jackets and red hair ribbons were preparing to serve savories and small glasses of Shao Hsing wine. Jakob had taken the window seat and as the airliner climbed toward the clouds he stared down pensively at the ancient patchwork of fields below.

  “All those factory visits probably weren’t your cup of tea,” he said apologetically. “But there was no way of avoiding them.”

  “It didn’t matter. Meeting Hsiao Liang made up for everything else. Knowing he really exists helped put some firm foundations into what was just a shaky, empty space before.”

  Jakob took a sip from a glass of Shao Hsing he had just been given and looked quickly away out the window. He was suddenly aware that he had given little consideration to his daughter’s thoughts and feelings for several days. As the plane took off he had been struggling to come to terms with the rush of events in which he had been caught up. Late the previous evening he had arranged for a sealed personal letter to be delivered to the prime minister’s office as a matter of urgency, couching his request about Mei—ling in terms which were diplomatic and respectful but also unmistakably firm. Overnight he had slept badly and during bouts of wakefulness he had been assailed by doubts about whether he had been wise to intervene and even whether his request might harm her further. But shortly before he had boarded the plane, one of the peace committee cadres who had accompanied departing delegates to the airport had sought him out to pass on a discreet oral message “from the premier’s personal assistant.” He said with careful deliberation that Jakob’s communication was “being dealt with positively’ and although it was obvious that the cadre was merely passing on a message without any detailed knowledge of its meaning, Jakob had felt a great sense of relief flood through him.

  The knowledge that he had been able to help Mei-ling had the effect of restoring some clarity of thought and as he watched the land recede far below, he began to appreciate that in the space of a few days, the visit had radically reshaped the perspectives of his life. For the previous eight years he had been a detached observer of China but now his deepest feelings were entangled in the web of political events which absorbed the vast, troubled nation. His interest, he saw, would never again be merely professional and academic; he felt a new sense of anxiety that Chin
a should thrive around Mei-ling, Kao, and Chiao.

  Seeing Mei-ling again had also made him more aware than ever before of how lonely and empty his life had become. In the dingy squalor of the reform-through-labor coal yard, long-frozen feelings had returned with astonishing intensity, giving new significance to the drab years in between, and suddenly it seemed as if part of him had known instinctively all along that someday those fierce passions of the Long March would be vindicated. Mei-ling’s rejection of any future contact between them had saddened him but a feeling of exhilaration nevertheless persisted: although circumspect in what she had said, it had been obvious that Mei-ling too still had a reverence for the love they had once shared. These reflections had focused his mind obsessively inward, and he realized that he had scarcely spoken to Abigail for several days. With this realization came a strong feeling of guilt and he shifted uncomfortably under his daughter’s gaze.

  “I’m very glad too that you confided in me at the Temple of Heaven,” said Abigail quietly, determined to persist in an explanation of what was in her mind. “That helped in another way to strengthen those shaky foundations I was talking about

  “I don’t know what made me say that.” Jakob sipped his wine awkwardly. “But I’m glad if it’s made you happy. . .

  “I didn’t say it had made me happy.” Abigail hesitated, unsure how best to express thoughts which she knew would be distressing for them both. “It didn’t make me happy, because I sense there’s something else . . . something important that always stands between us. Maybe you’ll never want to talk about it.”

  Jakob turned from the window, a startled look in his eyes. “What do you mean?”