by Liao Yiwu
At that point they held me down on the floor, stepped on me, and shaved me until I was bald. Then they ordered me to hold up my ass while the head prisoner stuck bamboo chopsticks up my asshole, making a great show of shining a flashlight to ensure I didn’t have any contraband hidden inside.
To be honest, I wept as they did all that. My dignity as a poet had been stripped away from me. When I numbly put my clothes back on and was locked in the cell, I was already just like the other prisoners in there: shoulders slumped, head shrunken, worn-out shoes on bare feet, shocked, holding up with both hands pants that would otherwise have fallen down. I thought that I was finished, that I had no way out.
Sometimes, when I wake up from a dream, I think it’s strange that I was able to go on living. During those four years in prison, searches of our cells and bodies were commonplace. After being violated so many times, you become like a prostitute with clients. You get to thinking that all the perverted demands of the police are completely normal and just a regular part of law enforcement.
When I finally got out of jail, the black mark of having been a political prisoner was always with me. It meant that as long as I still lived in China, I would never be free of subpoenas and home searches. In June 1995, I was detained for a month because I was one of fifty-six people who signed a statement initiated by Liu Xiaobo about June Fourth. They also searched and confiscated my belongings in the tiny room at my parents’ place where I lived.
In October of that year, because I had attempted to deliver a “declaration” by political prisoners still in prison to Amnesty International, I was detained for a day and a night and then placed under household surveillance for twenty-four days. Among the books and letters they confiscated were the handwritten manuscript of My Eyewitness Account of June Fourth, over 300,000 words long, and all the source material for Interviews with People on the Margins of Chinese Society.
In June 1997, I was subpoenaed and detained for a day and a night for starting a journal called Intelligentsia, unofficial and run by ordinary people. Rewritten and this time over 200,000 words, the manuscript of My Eyewitness Account of June Fourth was confiscated once again.
In September 1998, my temporary quarters in Beijing were searched because I had conducted “illegal interviews.” The following day the police put me on a train and ordered me to leave Beijing. In February 1999, because my collection of material for Interviews with People on the Margins of Chinese Society had alarmed the State Security authorities, I was detained for two hours before I was supposed to return with my new bride to her home for the traditional banquet; we were detained and interrogated for twenty-four hours. I lost more than forty chapters of the original manuscript for Interviews with People on the Margins of Chinese Society and my address book.
Looking back on the whole series of house searches and confiscations, I can see signs of social progress. Judging by both their words and deeds, the police were getting more civilized each time. In fact, I realize that, in a country where thought can be criminalized, writing itself creates criminal evidence when a writer in all good conscience tries to express social realities. To date, I have already written several million words of criminal evidence, which several generations of Sichuan police have studied and read.
Up until now, the police have never returned anything they took except for a dozen letters. When a big group of brawny, brutal policemen smash their way into your home and force you to submit in the name of the law, treating your private space like a free supermarket, grabbing whatever they like and poking into everything, all you can do is insist that they scrupulously follow the procedures stipulated by law and that they make a complete list of everything they take, although they almost never return anything.
What good is a list?
I keep it as material evidence—as a reminder to myself and to people who will come after me. Besides, I like to make that request as a small way of getting the upper hand. The day I went to jail, Liao Yiwu the poet was already dead. Today, standing here, there is only Liao Yiwu the witness. It doesn’t matter if you search me, strip me naked, or violate and search my asshole. I have more dignity than any policeman, because I write, I record, and I do my own countersearch of their filthy, perverted souls. If one day I am stripped of the ability to write, then I can still play my flute, I can still sell my art, and I can stand around screaming and yelling at the top of my lungs. It gives me a reason to go on living.
AFTERWORD
* * *
The Last Moments of Liu Xiaobo
Liu Xiaobo (1955–2017) was a writer, critic, philosopher, and political activist who returned to China from the United States, where he was a visiting scholar at Columbia University, to support the protesters in Tiananmen Square in 1989. He began a hunger strike with three others on June 2, and his actions saved many lives during the crackdown that followed. As the central figure behind Charter 08, which called for democratic reform in China, Liu received an eleven-year sentence for “incitement to subvert state power,” and his wife, Liu Xia, lived under house arrest. In 2010, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize while incarcerated.
The following essay, translated by Michael Day, is an account based on recorded telephone conversations, held under extraordinary circumstances, between the author and Liu Xia. Chronicling the last days of Liu Xiaobo and the attempts to get the Lius out of China, it makes clear how hard it is to save a single person. I began writing it on October 14, 2017, revised it continually, and only finished it after Liu Xia’s miraculous arrival in Berlin on July 10, 2018. Wolf and Pamela Biermann subsequently agreed to disclose some of the “secret letters” between us. My poem “A Dirge for Liu Xiaobo” was translated by David Cowhig. Thank you to the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Chancellor’s Office, and Mrs. Angela Merkel for their unremitting efforts to help the Lius.
* * *
On the afternoon of August 29, 2017, I got through to Liu Xia on her landline at home in Beijing. It was the first time since Xiaobo had left us. As before, Liu Xia was being strictly monitored. Two days earlier, the police had finally allowed her to return home from eighty days of internal exile in distant Dali.
I shouted her name into the phone.
“Who?” she responded feebly.
“It’s old Liao.”
“Oh, it’s you,” she said, followed by a couple of hollow laughs and a pause, and then she began weeping uncontrollably.
There was sobbing on both ends of the phone, but I finally forced out a question: “How did he go?”
“After saying goodbye to all the doctors, nurses, and assistants in attendance, he kept saying again and again, ‘Thank you, I’m going now.’ So peaceful, so decent. When I told him he was still breathing without the tubes, he responded clearly: ‘Oh, I know.’ And then: ‘You should go out, go out . . .’ ”
Hearing this, I couldn’t help but lean on my desk in Berlin as I bawled. I heard Liu Xia say: “He hated my crying. Every time I’d cry, he’d hug me, stroke my face, hover around me.”
Since crying wasn’t solving anything, I said, “You need to recover your health, start a new life.”
“I’m taking care of myself,” she said. “I’m taking Chinese medicine and I’ll go to the hospital for a checkup in a few days, but I often have sudden fainting spells. I pass out on the floor for who knows how long, and when I come to, I discover injuries here and there.”
“You have to keep fighting to leave the country,” I told her. “That’s the only way Xiaobo can rest in peace. A few days ago the Müllers [the writer Herta Müller and her husband, the dramaturge Harry Merkle] and Peter Sillem [publisher at S. Fischer] came to visit and were very concerned about you. Herta was here in my home when she started writing that appeal letter for you and Xiaobo signed by more than 100 Nobel laureates. According to Chinese law, you’re free.”
“What law? If there was law, we wouldn’t be in this situation now. Everything must be approved by them.”
“Still, you have to make a
written application.”
“They say they’ll talk about it after the Nineteenth Party Conference. It feels like they’ll let me go. It does no good, you being anxious about it; you’ll pressure me to death. Anyway, I’ll fight for it. Relax.
“Before, every time I visited Xiaobo in prison, I still had hope,” she said, “but now there’s nothing at all. Going into a supermarket, I stand there in a daze. Before, I’d always be thinking about buying him this and that; now there’s nothing I need to buy.”
“You can’t go on like this.”
“I know I can’t. Gradually I’ll get my health back, I’ll paint, find some distractions. Oh, my phone’s running out of battery.”
“I’ll call again.”
“Call when you have time.”
* * *
The last time I heard Xiaobo’s voice was nine years earlier. I received his email with the Charter 08 attachment indicating it was infected. I didn’t dare open it. I was surprised when Xiaobo followed up with a phone call, asking whether I had signed it or not. I hemmed and hawed as I typed “Liao Yiwu, writer” and hit reply. When Xiaobo saw it on his end, he chuckled. “Thanks, baldy.”
Inside and outside prison, both Liu Xiaobo and Liu Xia were largely cut off from the world. It wasn’t until early 2014, after I escaped to Germany, that I was able to reach Liu Xia on the phone. She was weeping uncontrollably and aside from the crying, very little was actually said. The past is like water that flows late at night, like a single boat that disappears into the distance.
In Berlin, I started working with Herta, Harry, and Peter to find a way to help Liu Xiaobo and Liu Xia, exchanging emails almost every day, and a few times all of us gathered at my place. The birds outside were chirping as we went deep into fierce, naïve discussions, drafting a letter to Chancellor Angela Merkel. “Should it be ‘exile’ or ‘medical treatment’?” I asked. Herta paused a moment. “Change it to ‘leave China for medical treatment.’ ”
* * *
Dear Chancellor Merkel:
Please forgive me for addressing you directly with this letter, but I have no other choice.
It’s about my close friend Liu Xiaobo, the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, who has been imprisoned in China since 2009. He has recently expressed a clear desire to go into exile in Germany and I very much hope for the support of the Federal Government in this matter.
On March 30, 2017, his wife, Liu Xia, took a train from Beijing to Jinzhou, in Liaoning Province, where Liu Xiaobo is being detained. There she told her husband for the first time about her clinical depression, her heart disease, her terminally ill mother, her brother Liu Hui, now also sentenced to eleven years imprisonment for complicity, the whole depressing situation, including her own seven years as a hostage under house arrest. Liu Xiaobo had known nothing about any of this. He was shocked, of course, and felt guilty. Given that his wife and her brother had to endure this ordeal because of him, his response was that from then on he would do his utmost to come to Germany together with them.
Previously, Liu Xiaobo, the most influential political resistance fighter in China, the author and disseminator of Charter 08, who has been imprisoned four times for political reasons, had never wanted to turn his back on China, but wanted to continue to fight in-country for a future democratic China.
That Liu Xiaobo wants to come to Germany and not any other country is mainly because he knows about my situation in Germany. In the last six years I have had six books published by the S. Fischer publishing house and have been awarded the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade. I have received recognition and support from this society in every conceivable way. Three years ago, German diplomacy led to Liu Xia, under house arrest, being allowed to resume telephone contact with the outside world after four years with no such contact. Since then we have been in close contact with each other.
Liu Xia’s physical condition is worrying. Several times she has suddenly lost consciousness and been hospitalized, but under constant close surveillance by the police, healing is not possible. In addition, she was not allowed to tell her husband in prison about her health, under threat of retribution.
Now she has been allowed to tell him the whole truth for the first time. Against all expectations, Liu Xiaobo unhesitatingly decided he would like to leave the country with his sick wife and her wrongfully convicted brother. I think that through discreet, active mediation by you, Mrs. Merkel, and the German Foreign Ministry, Liu Xiaobo and his relatives may be able to safely reach Germany for the following reasons: two years ago, Liu Xia would have liked to convince her husband that they should go to Germany. She told me this repeatedly on the phone. I have also discussed this wish several times with Herta Müller, Peter Sillem of the S. Fischer publishing house, and others who are all very worried about Liu Xiaobo’s situation. On March 22, we all got together again and talked about the case. We agreed that, despite the likelihood that the Chinese authorities would not give their approval, Liu Xia should seek permission from the security police in charge of her surveillance to tell her husband the truth about her condition and allow her to leave.
Unexpectedly, the interview was approved by the authorities.
That is a clear signal: if the Chinese authorities were opposed to Liu Xiaobo’s departure plans, they would not have allowed Liu Xia to visit and speak of this. In addition, they would certainly have prevented the closely monitored international telephone contact between her and me. They would have prevented any contact with the outside world to keep these plans from leaking out.
Madam Chancellor, you helped me come to Germany, and the late Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle even made a public statement. I will never forget that. I have also recorded these memories in my book about my escape to Germany, which will be published in 2018. Today it is Liu Xiaobo and his wife who are worthy of more of your help. The name Liu Xiaobo is a symbol of the Chinese democracy movement; it stands for China’s future . . . I sincerely hope that you and the Federal Government, by whatever means, together with the Chinese government, can negotiate for the departure of Liu Xiaobo, his wife, and her brother so that they can come to safety and freedom in Germany.
We have met with each other several times, and out of my deep trust in you, I personally ask for your help. This is the most important letter I have ever written in my life. I therefore will have it conveyed to you through our mutual friend Wolf Biermann.
If you undertake this task, I will be most grateful, as will Liu Xiaobo and his wife.
I remain in hope of your response
with the highest respect
Yours,
Liao Yiwu,
Berlin, April 15, 2017
The eighty-one-year-old troubadour of the Berlin Wall, Wolf Biermann, was to be the bridge, as the Merkels and I were all good friends of his and fans of his music. And so I wrote:
* * *
Dear Wolf Biermann and Pamela,
Liu Xiaobo, my loyal friend and one of China’s main political resistance fighters, has recently decided to go into exile in Germany, if possible.
For this reason, I have written a letter to Chancellor Merkel asking for help. I don’t know who else but you would be able to pass this letter on as quickly as possible to Mrs. Merkel.
This reminds me of the lines you wrote to me seven years ago, the song “China Under the Great Wall,” which a friend translated into Chinese for me . . . and then, a while later, I was actually sitting by a bonfire next to your home, listening to you sing it . . . Time has passed quickly since then, dear Wolf.
Today it is up to me to give my friend Liu Xiaobo a helping hand out of China, but that is only possible through your mediation. I hope that you and Pamela will one day meet Liu Xiaobo and his wife, Liu Xia, and that we can all make music together.
Warmly,
Your Yiwu
Early on the morning of May 3, the sky was overcast and a drizzle was falling. I’d been awake all night, only slipping into a deep sleep just when the doorbell rang. A white-bea
rded old man suddenly appeared. Filling up the doorway, he passed me a letter. I turned my head to call my German-speaking wife, to ask what was going on, but the old-timer was already gone.
I opened the envelope and saw in it a copy of this letter to the chancellor, with Wolf having made a note in red in the upper right-hand corner. In a rush of excitement, I ran out to catch him, but the messenger had vanished without a trace.
It was like a scene from another lifetime, as if I’d returned to China, or the former East Germany. Later, Pamela said that many years ago this was Wolf’s favorite way of doing things.
* * *
Dear Angela,
You probably know what it is I’m writing about . . . China’s bravest dissident Liu Xiaobo, now stuck in possibly the most bitter situation of anyone, has told us through his mutual friend in Berlin, Liao Yiwu, about his own life in prison and his seriously ill wife.
I understand the reasons that Liu Xiaobo, after so many years of imprisonment, wants to escape this now utterly hopeless conflict. Thinking it better than being buried in a mass grave in prison, he now wants to try for a comparatively unpolitical life in Germany. Incommensurable forces! Liu Xiaobo must now apparently give up his struggle so as not to have to give up his life and his wife. Even if martyrs unrelentingly struggle, they also have moments when they need to pull back. The thinking of the Chinese leadership might be that it’s better to have one less inspiring martyr around to bother them as they build their turbocharged concentration-camp capitalism. In that case, it could be a win-win situation . . .
Maybe we can make Liao Yiwu’s friend laugh again . . . maybe at our home by the fireplace in Altona. Pamela has invited Liao Yiwu to join us and the old Free Jazzers of the Central Quartet to give a benefit concert at VEB-Knast Cottbus before the elections in the fall.
