The Secret Piano: From Mao's Labor Camps to Bach's Goldberg Variations (30 page)

These days, when I get together with my former classmates from the Beijing Conservatory, they always bring up the same topic:

“Xiao-Mei, you don’t have any safety net. Who’s going to take care of you if you’re ill?”

What this means is,
You haven’t really achieved success because you aren’t able to assure a comfortable lifestyle for yourself
. But since we are really old friends, they add:

“Don’t worry. We’ll take care of you when you’re old.”

For many of them, the impact of the Cultural Revolution had been too overwhelming; they gave up on their artistic careers, thinking that it was too late to start again. One became a real estate agent, another is an acupuncturist, others work in piano import-export. Even those who became musicians invested their money, and nearly all of them have become wealthy. The Cultural Revolution destroyed their idealism. But, by an odd twist of fate, it turned them into capitalists instead of communists!

My friends are not wrong, of course. After I recovered from my illness, I thought a great deal about how uncertain my situation was; I worried how I would earn a living if a relapse put an end to my musical career. That said, material success is the exact opposite of what I am seeking, of the feeling of accomplishment I am after.

And I have come close to this feeling. I experience it each time I think I’m ready to interpret a work after many years of practice. The first time this happened was when I performed the
Goldberg Variations
in Paris. It seemed that nothing bad could happen, and that I knew—as strange as it seemed for someone who lives in a perpetual state of doubt—exactly what had to be done.

Yes, those moments—which one hopes for all of one’s life—are blessed moments of clarity. But they are rare and pass too quickly. The Chinese word for happiness,
kuai le
, says it all—it literally means: “fleeting happiness.” For Chinese people, there are moments of bliss, in a day or in a lifetime, but they never last.

Also, it often seems that when people finally fulfill their dreams, it is too late. This is something with which I have often been confronted.

In 2001, when I was finally granted French citizenship, I asked my parents if they would like to come visit me in Paris. My father refused, which I was half expecting. As a good Chinese philosopher, he saw travel as superficial and useless.

“What good would it do?” he asked. “How can you discover a country in just a few days? Don’t hold it against me, but to me traveling seems pointless.”

My mother, on the other hand, accepted with pleasure. She had longed for such a trip since she was a child. She came with one of my sisters and her husband.

When I met her at the airport, she was in a wheelchair. Several years ago she had begun to suffer from Alzheimer’s disease, but I immediately saw that her condition was now considerably worse. My sister explained how hard it had been to get through customs—our mother had forgotten everything, even her own name.

I took her to all of Paris’s great museums: the Musée d’Orsay, the Picasso Museum, the Musée d’Art Moderne, and of course, her beloved Louvre, where we went nearly every day. I wheeled her through the painting galleries, where she talked about each work of art. She already knew many of them from art books, or from having copied some of them. I felt that she was happy. But once we had left the Louvre, she almost immediately forgot that we had spent the entire afternoon there.

A friend took her on a tour of Paris in her car. We drove past the Théâtre de la Ville:

“That’s where Xiao-Mei performs,” she said.

My mother looked at her:

“But what does Xiao-Mei do for a living?”

My mother had always hoped to see me play in a great concert hall, but she never imagined that it would happen in Paris—Paris! And now her dream had come true; her daughter was a “success” in her understanding of the word, and now this was something she could no longer grasp.

Success in itself is nothing. Once you have achieved it, the most difficult task still lies ahead—mastering yourself.

Some people are helped by religion. Others, like my mother, don’t seem to need it. They draw instead on a sort of natural strength—an inner power, fate—or simply life itself. In any case, it is something spontaneous and unconscious. I admire such people. There exists a life force in spontaneity and the unconscious that is often underestimated. This can be seen in Zhuangzi’s story of Hui and the Centipede. One day, Hui asked the Centipede:

“I walk by bouncing on one foot. I can’t imagine doing as you do. How do you use so many feet?”

And the Centipede answered:

“I do it naturally, without knowing either how or why.”

A baby cries but never harms its voice. Drunks, like sleepwalkers, rarely hurt themselves.

In order to play, one must avoid thinking too much, so as to rediscover one’s spontaneity and the power of the unconscious. Because it is in those moments that receptivity to others and to the world’s vital, spiritual energies come together—and inspiration may descend.

Wisdom dwells within us, it seems to me, but finding that wisdom requires efforts that are often painful. All my life, I have defined myself by my relationship to what is exterior: people’s opinions of me and the various forces to which I have been subjected. For a very long time, the endless sessions of self-criticism and denunciation—which I find so difficult to forget—kept me from being myself.

Now I am beginning to understand: for the truly wise, the exterior is unimportant. Their strength is inside them. Even when they are imprisoned, rejected, and reviled, they understand that liberation lies within.

The piece that expresses this best for me is Beethoven’s final sonata, Opus 111. It was the favorite piece of both of my masters, though one lived in the East and the other in the West. Its second movement consists of variations. Once again it seems that, in order to express the inexpressible, one must speak of a process of
transformation
, parallel to that found in Chinese philosophy. A simple, unadorned theme, close in its essence to the aria of the
Goldberg Variations
.

The theme of the arietta in Opus 111 leads us forward in the same gentle way as the
Variations
’ aria. An initial variation followed by a second, in
fugato
, heightens the tension. The third variation then arrives; many pianists play it as if it were a furiously paced piece of virtuoso jazz, although I feel that it is imbued with nobility. We are nearing the renunciation. The fourth variation lifts us into another world; with the rising
pianissimo
, we break the bonds of earth, we climb into a resplendently colored sky, piercing the banks of clouds that encircle the planet. We are elsewhere. The fifth variation summons both the piano’s highest and lowest notes, the ones I loved to hear when I was first learning to play. Here, Beethoven throws open the instrument to the whole world, both the yin and the yang. The original theme then reappears, like a hymn to the glory of the world, before disintegrating and sinking into a sort of nothingness, which, in itself, is a sort of deliverance.

We have reached a place of supreme wisdom.

It is perhaps clear by now that, of all the great Chinese philosophers, it is with Laozi that I feel the closest affinity.

To demonstrate the difference between Confucianists, Buddhists, and Taoists—who are disciples of Laozi—the Chinese like to invoke the allegory of the glass of water. The Confucianist says: “This glass of water must be shared. Give your parents the first sip.” For the followers of Confucius, the greatest virtue is the social order, how society is organized. The Buddhist says: “Must I drink?” because, for him, the most important thing is mastering emotion and desire. Finally, the Taoist looks at the glass and says: “Water does not exist.”

It is 2006. This January 27th marks the 250th anniversary of the birth of Mozart. Is there another great artist—musician, writer, painter—whose exact birthday we celebrate in such a manner? Leonardo da Vinci? Shakespeare? Dante? Who would do such a thing? “Happy Birthday” is what we wish to children, and Mozart is a child—but one who experienced everything, and thus was a child who possessed the wisdom of an elderly sage. Laozi prefigured Mozart when he wrote:

He who is in harmony with the Tao

is like a newborn child.

Finally, I found the strength to seek out my old camp companions. For more than two decades I had stayed away: seeing them would have filled me with despair.

I took advantage of several concerts in Tokyo to search for Cunzhi, my bassoonist classmate. It was Cunzhi who was beaten before the entire Conservatory on that summer night in 1966, the memory of which still haunts me. I knew that he had given up his career and moved to Japan, where he opened a Chinese restaurant. A white-haired man approached me—Cunzhi! We hadn’t seen each other in over thirty years. Although we didn’t shed tears, we were overwhelmed with emotion. He told me how, several times a year, he transforms his tiny restaurant into a musical salon. He invites artists to perform, and plays himself from time to time. In all, he has organized more than two hundred musical events.

We talked over what had happened during that long-ago summer: the summary executions, the bodies stacked up in the Conservatory’s annex.

“I was lucky,” Cunzhi simply remarked.

The fate of this talented musician—who had everything he needed for a career as a great soloist—was intensely moving, but he did not speak about it. The moment came to say good-bye. I tried to find the right words:

“You are the real hero of our class. You endured everything—ostracism, fear, violence, and solitude. But you have remained true to yourself, an idealist, just like I remembered you.”

I received news of Huang Anlun. I knew—we all did—that after leaving China, he first went to Yale and then to Canada, and that he had become one of the greatest contemporary Chinese composers. I learned that he had converted to Christianity. But music inspired by Christianity was only permitted to be played in churches.

Were Christian works banned from public performances simply because freedom of expression is limited in China? Or was the authorities’ decision also a defensive reaction against religious proselytism—a word that is not easily translatable into Chinese—which is viewed as a form of aggression? Since the West continues to adopt the same viewpoint for every culture other than its own, such proselytizing is not only religious, but also, in a more general sense, cultural in nature.

Christianity—which means a great deal to me—suffers from this flaw of wanting to convert others, to extend its influence. The very concept is foreign to the Chinese. Buddhists, Taoists, and Confucianists all practice religions that are more akin to philosophies. China never experienced anything like religious warfare, and the idea that one single religion can encapsulate truth is incomprehensible.

2006. Return to Beijing.

My mother asked me to play the
Piano Music Masterpieces
from my childhood for her. The doll I purchased in Boston kept watch near the piano; through it, I remain close to my mother’s side. My mother remembered each piece in the collection, and hummed them along with me. One day, she asked:

“Could you teach me how to play?”

I helped her to sit at the keyboard, but she was unable to attempt anything. I played Schumann’s
Reverie
for her. She looked at me:

“How is it that you play so well?”

For once my father, who hardly says a word, had a favor to ask of me. He wanted to pay a visit to the grave of his friend Lao Xue, the president of the university where my father worked for so long; it was also thanks to Lao Xue that I was able to find employment after my return from Zhangjiakou. This man was so important to my father that, as the end of Lao Xue’s life approached, my father visited him every day.

We called his son to ask about the exact location of his father’s grave. It was off in the countryside, not far from the Great Wall. We had trouble finding it, and only the presence of a large pine tree finally showed us the way.

My father spoke to his friend:

“Lao Xue, I have come to see you.” Then he turned to me: “Xiao-Mei, we have forgotten to bring wine for Lao Xue.”

I went in search of some water.

“It’s all right,” he told me. “Laozi preferred water to wine.”

We each drank a mouthful and then, in accordance with Chinese tradition, my father poured out the rest onto his friend’s burial place.

He stayed and talked to Lao Xue for two hours, while I waited at a distance. I owe you my thanks as well, Uncle Xue.

It was time to leave. In the car that took us to Beijing, my father was lost in thought, not uttering a word. Then, suddenly, he told me:

“I also want to be buried there, when the time comes.” After a moment, he added, “Lao Xue was the only person who trusted me during the Cultural Revolution.”

It chilled me to hear him say this, but it was true. We, his family, did not stand by him during his ordeal. As children, my sisters and I thought he was harsh with us. Later, the regime taught us to mistrust him, to withhold our love.

As we drove into Beijing, my father had something else to tell me. Ever since I moved to Paris, every afternoon at five thirty p.m., he listens to a daily program broadcast on Chinese radio devoted to France. If he has to go out, even to visit friends, he brings a transistor radio with him, so he doesn’t miss this daily appointment.

“I have been by your side,” he concluded simply.

I had another visit to make. I wanted to see Aizhen again, the friend who had, the day after my self-criticism session at the Beijing Conservatory, left something on my desk for me to eat. We hadn’t seen each other in thirty-two years.

One night in Paris, she had appeared to me in a dream. I awoke with a start, unable to get back to sleep, tormented by the thought that I hadn’t sufficiently thanked her. I got up and found pen and paper; I had to write to her. But she had never written back, and since then I couldn’t stop thinking about her.

How the two of us had changed.

“I’m ashamed that I abandoned my career,” she told me.

And yet, Aizhen had been a very fine musician. After the Cultural Revolution, she had been sent to a job in Dalian, an intellectual and cultural wasteland. There, she had poured her heart out giving piano lessons to apathetic students, and had married a university professor. He was diagnosed with throat cancer the same year her daughter was born.

“After something like that, you realize you can withstand anything,” she concluded.

Her husband was there, by her side. He had been ill again when Aizhen got my letter, and this was why she hadn’t answered. I turned to him.

“I have to tell you—you married a very fine woman.”

He smiled.

During our talk, I learned that her parents had always been Christians. Is that why she extended a helping hand when I was shunned by everyone else?

As we took our leave of each other, I felt a great rush of well-being. I had finally been able to thank my friend.

The time had come to return to Zhangjiakou.

A friend of mine from Beijing had convinced me to travel there with her. After arriving at the station, we began talking with the person who had come to pick us up. We wanted to try and visit Dayu. But it had been thirty years since I had been there, and after driving for some time we couldn’t locate it. Finally we arrived at a large, modern prison with a high exterior wall—nothing like the damp, filthy buildings where I had been held. We were welcomed by the prison director, a pleasant man. I told him who I was, and he offered to give us a tour. We declined—the new prison had nothing to do with my experience. Nevertheless, as we were leaving, I asked him: were there political prisoners here? He smiled. No, not here, elsewhere. I decided that he could be trusted.

After we left, we walked around the town, which had completely changed. All around the new prison, neat rows of two-story houses stood on either side of wide, well-maintained streets. What progress. No, clearly, all my points of reference had disappeared—except for the howling wind.

My friend took my arm. She wanted to show me the churches that had been built in the area. The nearest one was a very large yellow and white building. Its steeple looked like a minaret, so much so that I had to ask if it wasn’t actually a mosque. But it clearly wasn’t, as a service was being held at that very moment. We slipped inside and took our place among the congregation. There were hundreds of worshipers, most of them peasants, praying and singing hymns. I reflected on the church’s interior, which was not completely successful. We had the same experience in Quijia-zhuang, near to my third place of imprisonment, where we secretly gave food to the starving peasants.

To think that people were praying in the same place where, thirty-five years earlier, we had been prisoners…I thought about the success of Christianity in this far-flung region of China. No doubt the local clergy had worked hard to make this happen. But the Christian faith also provided a community, that of Christians, which one could join. This stood in contrast to the great Chinese philosophers, who extolled the virtue of solitude and distance, of withdrawing from the world. Whatever the reason, the fact remains that many Chinese people who had once lived in misery, deprived of a future, had discovered hope.