The Secret Piano: From Mao's Labor Camps to Bach's Goldberg Variations (29 page)

“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.”

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:

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.

After the Cultural Revolution, there were no important trials, except one for the Gang of Four. Nothing at all like the Nuremberg trials organized in the West in the wake of World War Two.

No doubt this is because the truth of Mao’s disastrous reign has yet to be precisely established, due to a lack of well-researched historical studies. How many deaths were caused by the Cultural Revolution? By the Great Leap Forward? The full extent of the catastrophe remains unknown, as well as the real reasons why it happened. The time has not yet come for an objective assessment of what occurred.

It is understandable that the Chinese people wish to turn the page on those dark times and finally lead normal lives. I think, however, there is a deeper source for this attitude, which is their concept of life. It can be found in the first great book of Chinese philosophical thought, the
I Ching
. Its title—known in English as
The Book of Changes
—says it all. Life is a continual process of transformation, and it is this process of change that we should honor, rather than a return to the past. Criminal acts are not forgotten, but a sort of natural justice that only the passage of time can bring about eventually supplants human justice. Chinese philosophers have an expression for this:
bu de liao
—knowing when to leave the past behind, instead of endlessly seeking revenge.

On the other hand, the absence of criminal justice is evidence of a profound weakness. The trials that followed World War Two immensely buttressed the West’s resolve: by enshrining the principle of “Never again!” Western nations encouraged a sense of vigilance. They strengthened universal moral standards and forged new ones, all of them designed to prevent, now and forever, the return of the Hydra.

In 2003, I was seated in Dr. Krishna Clough’s office at the Institut Curie. My tests had come back positive, and his diagnosis left no room for doubt. I thought about my mother, who had refused chemotherapy. Like her, I was scared to undergo this type of treatment, not so much because of the suffering involved but because I feared it would destroy my energy. I asked the doctor how long I would have if I did nothing. He hesitated a moment. Three years, at the most.

For the first time, I was confronted with the truth that we all try to hide from: one day, we all pass away. Oddly, this thought, which could have plunged me into despair, relieved my anxiety. After all, three years is a long time. I had led a very rich and varied life.

I had experienced everything—except for happiness and peace—but I didn’t think that they were within my reach.

I was still sitting in Dr. Clough’s office when I became aware of what I still desired to do. I wanted to play the entire piano repertoire, to record as much as possible. The final sonatas of Beethoven and Schubert, to understand what those towering figures were attempting to say as death approached. The complete
Well-Tempered Clavier
, my constant companion since Zhangjiakou. For the longest time, I had thought it was easier to play than to listen to, but I now glimpsed the possibility of communicating it to a wider audience.

What I wanted to do was to play music, to record masterpieces, to not leave this earth regretting that I hadn’t done that. I wondered if three years was too short to fully accomplish it. No, it should be possible.

And yet, when I returned home, I fell apart, overwhelmed. Just as I was beginning to become successful, everything came crashing down, one more time. It didn’t make any sense.

My friends urged me to follow Dr. Clough’s recommendations and undergo treatment. Finally, Josette, the friend who had introduced me to this eminently sensible doctor, found the right thing to say:

“Be reasonable. Here, you are surrounded by family—your family of friends. Your illness has been detected early, don’t waste any time. Take matters in hand.”

I was tempted to seek the solitude of the mountains in China, where I thought I could regain my health in the silence of nature. But I couldn’t play or record there. It was then that I decided to follow my friends’ advice.

I was extremely touched by the expressions of friendship that poured in. While I was still in the hospital, I received invitations to perform. One difficult month followed another until, one day, I returned home and was reunited with my beloved Steinway. That day I found myself as emotional as when I had come across that worn-out accordion in the courtyard at Yaozhanpu, or when my piano arrived at the Zhangjiakou train station. I played the
Goldberg Variations
. And I was reborn.

Once again, I was saved by music.

While I was still a child, I lost everything, but music helped me to survive.

Then, at the Conservatory, ideology got the upper hand. It convinced me that books and musical scores should be burned, that
The Little Red Book
was enough. When I arrived at Zhangjiakou, I had been reduced to a brainwashed wild child. During my first year there, I don’t remember having felt a single emotion. Like my companions, my mind was empty. We had all been turned into puppets, into machines programmed to blindly obey the regime’s every command. Music became something of minor interest; my revolutionary activities were so much more important!

Mao had always understood the power that art—and music in particular—had over the people. He knew that artists were dangerous individuals, constantly questioning reality, always demanding more freedom. For this reason he attacked them, and allowed his wife to appropriate art through her
Yangbanxi
. Mao actually considered knowledge itself to be dangerous—his organized, systematic, and extremist obscurantism is proof of that.

But the power of music is such that it inexplicably thrust its way back into my life. The weakness and gullibility of “Thousand-Drops” played a role in this rediscovery. Far less intelligent than Mao, he had no idea of the domino effect he was setting in motion by not banning our concert. He was unlike any of the other commanders of artists’ camps, where it was strictly forbidden to touch an instrument.

Like my companions, I also sensed that the regime, in all its madness, had pushed us to the brink of total dehumanization. So far, in fact, that we couldn’t go any further. The Cultural Revolution was on the verge of stripping us of our humanity completely, and this was impossible. Just as we were about to be transformed into beasts, some sort of instinct saved us. Deep inside us, there remained a spark of humanity. At their peril, totalitarian regimes—which underestimate a human being’s resources—always forget this fact. Music blew on this spark and revived it.

Our reawakening to music, and to art in general, changed everything—both for me, and for my camp companions. Music gave us back our humanity. It offered us a glimpse, far off in a corner of the sky, of the possibility of spirituality. It taught us how to love again, including in the most concrete sense of the word: five couples were formed at Zhangjiakou.

It was in camp that I understood music’s power, and how fortunate I was to be a musician.

Music brings people together, in ways that politics or religion cannot. It instills a powerful love of humanity that allows you to overcome every hardship. When you play music, you give of yourself unconditionally—and this is my definition of love.

Only now I am able to understand the extent to which my experience of the Cultural Revolution taught me to never use music’s power to impose anything on my audience. I suffered too much under the yoke of servitude, and I prefer to speak rather than to compel. Perhaps this is what moves certain listeners. I often think back to my seat companion on the flight to Los Angeles, who quoted Laozi:

I can now better comprehend what Laozi was saying. Water is useful, it serves. It descends and does not rise. It nestles in the unloved hollows, not in the heights where everyone dreams of world domination. It competes with no one, and yet it overcomes rock—the hardest substance in the world. Without water, life would not exist.

This is one reason why, since I have lived in France, I have tried to bring music into prisons, retirement homes, hospitals—places of despair.

I remember one concert I gave in a prison in Bergerac. It was under the auspices of Musique Espérance, an association created by the Argentine pianist Miguel Ángel Estrella. Before the concert, I gave a great deal of thought to the program, hesitating between light, accessible works and more serious pieces. In the end, I once again chose the
Goldberg Variations
. I shared my plans with a few friends: they were skeptical, they thought the work was too long and not right for the “general public.” They instilled enough doubt in me that I finally decided to perform only a few of the variations.

Before I started to play, I said a few words to the hundred inmates who had decided to come to the concert:

“I don’t know why all of you are here, in this prison. But I can tell you that I was also once in prison: I spent several years in a labor camp in China. There, at one time, it was believed that people who liked the music I’m going to play for you needed to be ‘re-educated.’ It was composed by Bach, and is entitled the
Goldberg Variations
. Since it’s quite long, I’m only going to play ten of its thirty variations.”

The prisoners didn’t want me to stop, and one hour later I had played the entire piece. The small upright piano on which I performed was totally out of tune, but I gave it everything I had. Then, an older prisoner spoke up:

“Could you play some Beethoven for us?”

I obliged with the
Waldstein
Sonata, which I often interpreted at that time. He came up to me at the end of the concert:

“I know who you are. I recorded one of your concerts that was broadcast by France Musique. You played the
Waldstein
then as well. I listen to that cassette every single day.”

As I was leaving, I asked one of the guards why the man was in prison.

“A crime of passion,” I was told.

After everything I have experienced, I cannot take an intellectual approach to music. When I play, I try to speak to people, to tell them something, to show them the beauty of a work, to move them. Having an audience is crucial for me. Some of my fellow artists assert that they play for themselves rather than for an audience. I take the exact opposite approach: my goal is to share with others.

Humanity is the truth of music. What is important to me is that, this evening, I may be able to reach one person, someone who is not a musician. That I might be able to reveal a part of his or her humanity, of our shared humanity, of which he or she may be unaware. And one day, who knows, perhaps this may help that person to speak out when what is essential is threatened.