The Secret Piano: From Mao's Labor Camps to Bach's Goldberg Variations (9 page)

The soldiers’ departure foretold disaster.

In late July, a directive from the Ministry of Culture ordered the suspension of all classes at the Conservatory. The “Conservatory without music” became the “Conservatory without teaching.”

Soon after, it was announced that Mao was going to deliver a key speech in Tiananmen Square. Before hundreds of thousands of frenzied young people brandishing
The Little Red Book
, a group of students presented Chairman Mao with an armband with “Red Guard” written on it. By accepting it he officially gave the movement his blessing. The most extremist students at the Conservatory now believed they had taken power with Mao’s public and unconditional support.

The first victims were the
Chushen bu hao.
At first, I kept a low profile, but I quickly understood that I was of no interest to the Red Guards. Mama Zheng, the man who had looked after us like a mother, was much more interesting prey.

The extremist students went to the infirmary, the very place where, for so long, he had taken care of us. They forced him to his knees and shouted insults:

“What were you doing in Indonesia, you dirty dog? Why did you come to China? Why did you give your fortune to the Conservatory, you stinking bourgeois? Spy!”

The old man didn’t know what to say. He wept, voicelessly.

That night, there was a thunderstorm over Beijing. We couldn’t sleep because of the thunder and lighting, the wind and the rain. We lay silently awake in the dormitory listening to the storm—together, and yet so alone.

In the morning, we learned that Mama Zheng had hung himself from a tree in the courtyard, in front of the infirmary.

We didn’t dare look at each other, but we remembered the storm and the sky’s fury. Images of Mama Zheng came back to me—how he would rub my hands when I was eleven, his glasses of hot water that had done me so much good. I felt that something unimaginable had occurred.

And yet, at that time in my life, I could no longer separate the guilty from the innocent, the victim from the torturer. Deep in my heart I asked Mama Zheng:
Why didn’t you trust Chairman Mao? Why, like Gu Shengying and Li Cuizhen, did you lack courage?

Shortly thereafter, the Conservatory’s siren went off at two in the morning. We awoke with a start and were ordered to assemble immediately in the auditorium. This time it was Cunzhi, one of my schoolmates and a wonderful bassoonist, who was on stage. He was tied up and surrounded by six Red Guards—five women and a man—who had begun to beat him with their belts even before our arrival. The Guards waited for the hall to fill up. It was absolutely silent. Then, a girl addressed the crowd:

“Comrades, something extremely serious has occurred. This worthless Cunzhi has tried to oppose the regime. We have found a rifle and a Guomindang flag in his possession!”

At this, the Red Guards began to kick him mercilessly.

“I am innocent, I don’t understand any of this! I am loyal to Chairman Mao!” Cunzhi moaned.

Each of his denials was met with another kick or blow from a belt. He could no longer speak. Finally the Red Guards dragged him by the arms out of the hall. Mercifully, Dapeng—a trombonist who was politically very well regarded—discretely intervened:

“Leave him be or he will die.”

The Red Guards ordered us back to our rooms. We were rigid with fear; it was impossible to fall back to sleep. Who was guilty? Who was completely above suspicion? I could not stop thinking about my family and its past.

At dawn, I rushed to my parents’ home.

“Mother, is there a rifle in the house?

My mother had no idea what I was talking about.

“Why, do you want to shoot someone?”

I persisted:

“Mother, has anything of a compromising nature been hidden in the house?”

Finally I described what had happened at the Conservatory. I was terrified that the Red Guards might have followed me. She told me that my father was being held at the university under close surveillance.

For a few seconds, we were silent, sharing the same thoughts.

“Xiao-Mei,” she said, “we have nothing to feel guilty about. The only thing that could be considered dangerous for us is the piano. We have to get rid of it.”

I agreed. We had to sever our connection with this symbol of the past. There was no point in holding onto it: we were not going to put ourselves in danger because of a piano.

My mother went out and flagged down the first Red Guards she met. She asked them to help her get rid of the piano immediately. They came in and took a look.

“Out of the question,” they said. “We’re not touching it.”

A worthless thing, too heavy to move, was their assessment. There was only one thing to do: we gathered up all the old covers we could find and piled them on the piano to make it look like a cupboard. One cover, then two, then three! The more we tried to hide it, the larger it grew, or so it seemed. It was no longer visible, but its presence was more apparent than ever. As a precaution, we hung a
Dazibao
on it:

“This piano was acquired by exploiting the people,
through their sweat and blood
We want to return it to the people.”

A few days later, at the end of August 1966, the violence reached a new height. The
People’s Daily
appealed to the Red Guards: “One by one, drive out the old parasites, the bloodsuckers hiding in the shadows.” This time it was quite clear: the Red Guards weren’t going to come get me at the Conservatory, but rather, at home.

I was at home with my mother, my grandmother, and my two younger sisters late one afternoon when we heard a noise outside. Someone began to hammer on the door. We jumped in fear, looking at each other. When I opened the door, I found myself face to face with five members of the Red Guard:

“Your father is a criminal. We are interrogating him at the university, and he has begun to confess. As of this moment, he has no rights. Are you hiding anything here?”

“No,” my mother answered.

“That’s a lie.”

The Red Guards entered and scrutinized each of us in turn. Then, wordlessly, they began to ransack the apartment. We silently remained standing, stiff with fear, waiting.

“Are these yours?”

How could letters and family papers not belong to us? The Red Guards seized them: they would prove useful evidence in their investigation. Emboldened by this initial success, they turned to our bankbook—and confiscated it.

“And what’s this?”

One of the Guards held a small bottle in his hand. My mother had been saving this little bit of French perfume since she was a young woman, not touching it. The perfume was so old it had turned dark brown.

“I asked you what it is!” the Guard repeated.

My mother still didn’t answer. The Red Guard emptied out its contents. Then he threw the tiny bottle against the wall. It completely shattered, the pieces falling to the floor, leaving behind an elegant scent.

“Do you have any books?”

“No, we don’t have any.” As a precaution, we had gotten rid of them, with the exception of my childhood
Piano Music Masterpieces,
which my mother had hidden in the piano bench. One of the Red Guards turned to my sister Xiaoyen:

“You, go prepare some glue! You’ll need it to put this up,” he said, brandishing a
Dazibao
they had brought with them. “This is about your worthless father!”

My mother was overwhelmed and fainted. Before leaving, the Guards bellowed at us:

“We’ll be back tomorrow. This
Dazibao
must be posted on the wall of your building!”

That evening, my sisters and I went out and put up the defamatory poster denouncing our father. As we returned, we found our neighbors, the Guans, talking with my mother and grandmother. They were simple folk who worked as laborers in a shoe factory. They had observed the Red Guards’ visit but had discreetly waited until nightfall before coming to see us.

“It is impossible that Mr. Zhu is a spy,” they told my mother. They then turned to the rest of us, incredulous: “Your father is a good man. How could anyone accuse him of such things?”

The conversation continued into the night. After they left, I sensed how much their visit had helped my mother. From then on, the Guans stopped by each day to see her, to offer a few words and smiles that kept her from despair. Without them, I now know, it is entirely possible that my mother could have ended up like Mama Zheng.

The following morning began shamefully for us. From our window, throughout the day, we saw little groups gather in front of our
siheyuan
to read the
Dazibao
we had pasted up. People glanced at our windows; sometimes they would point at them and then move on. We didn’t dare go out. In the middle of the afternoon, when my sisters and I were deep in discussion about how we could get rid of the
Dazibao,
there was once again noise outside the apartment. The Red Guards were back. This time they wanted to speak to my grandmother:

“You, what is your background?”

“Bourgeois,” she replied calmly.

“Where are you from?”

“Shanghai.”

“You must go back there.
Chushen bu hao
are not permitted to stay in Beijing. They are a danger to Chairman Mao. We don’t want to see you here tomorrow morning!”

I tried to intervene, using every possible argument: I explained that we had no money for a train ticket since the Red Guards had confiscated our bankbook.

“You’re on your own! We’ll be back tomorrow. She’d better not be here.”

After the door closed, we sat for a long time in silence. Then my grandmother spoke:

“The best thing is for me to leave. I will return to Shanghai, and I’ll come back later on. If not, tomorrow will be a terrible day. Xiao-Mei, Xiaoyin, try to find me a train ticket.”

A ticket for Shanghai cost twelve yuan. I spent most of the evening on my bicycle with Xiaoyin, going from friend to friend, trying to borrow enough to pay for it. Finally, the student from the Conservatory who had written to Mao about me loaned me the money, on one condition:

“You must trust in Mao. We are too young to know if your grandmother or your family are guilty, but he knows.”

I got back around midnight; my father was there. He had been released that evening. Unable to speak, he uttered only a few words:

“There is nothing to be done.”

The next morning when I awoke, I saw that my grandmother had carefully done her hair and had put on her best clothes. She caught my astonished gaze. For three months, like a good revolutionary, I had hardly washed, I wore an old jacket and pair of pants, and I used bad language that, most of the time, I didn’t understand.

“You know, Xiao-Mei,” my grandmother began with a little smile, “even if people don’t respect me, I have self-respect.” Then she added, “Don’t worry about me. Look, they didn’t beat me or forbid me to travel. I’m fortunate. I know a lot of people in Shanghai. I won’t be alone. It will be easy for me. Rest assured, we’ll see each other again.”

I accompanied her to the train station. Her strength of character was impressive. Next to her, I felt weak, unable to protect her. When we were on the platform, she smiled at me:

“I’ve lived well. I’ve had a good life. It’s really you that I’m worried about.”

Then she climbed aboard the packed train. In China, people don’t embrace one another, and even in life’s most painful moments, one tries not to show any emotion. We simply said good-bye. The train pulled out of the station, and I watched it disappear into the distance.

Back at the house, I noticed that the
Dazibao
had disappeared. In our apartment, I found the Guans talking with my mother. They had devised a scheme to get rid of the poster, and had kept it a surprise. A six-year-old boy, whom they knew well, went and tore it down, as simple as that. Because of his age, no one could hold it against him. Plus, if he were hauled in, we didn’t know him, and no one would put two and two together. The next day, my mother was already feeling calmer.

In Beijing, violence reigned. The Red Guards attacked anyone who represented the old order, even remotely. The least little former shopkeeper was labeled a “capitalist blood-sucker.” Whole families were sent back to where they had come from. Others were forced to wear signs around their necks stating that they had bad family backgrounds. Still others had half their heads shaved, as a mark of shame. Some women were beaten, not by the Red Guards, but by their own sons, who were forced to comply. But the worst was yet to come.
⁴

I had barely arrived at the Conservatory at the start of the school year in September 1966 when we received an order from the Red Guards:

“Bring your records and musical scores. Everything you have left.”

One of my classmates asked what they were going to do with them.

“They’re going to be burned.”

I suddenly remembered that I had left some things in the Conservatory’s annex, a print shop that had been converted into classrooms. I hastened to get them, but as I crossed the threshold, I ran into Dapeng, my trombonist friend. He stopped me:

“What are you doing? Don’t you know what’s going on? Over the last week, dead bodies have been brought here.”

At that exact moment, the stench hit me. It was so strong, I felt ill. I turned to him, completely speechless.

“If you don’t believe me, go see for yourself,” he said.

I stood there, frozen with fear.

Dapeng explained to me that the practice rooms were full of corpses. Since the crematorium only functioned on Tuesdays, and due to the large number of dead people in Beijing, the Red Guards had turned the Conservatory’s annex into a vast morgue.

“There are even people in there who aren’t yet dead, who are still suffering,” he added. “The Red Guards forced others to wear their fur coats before shooting them. That’s why it smells so terribly.”

This was more than I could stand. I fled.

Everything was burning. Today it was the bodies; tomorrow it would be the spirit.

I imagined the bonfire where the Red Guards were melting down our records and burning our scores…a thin veil of smoke lifted towards the sky. Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven vanished into the air.

But in the end, the Red Guards were right: it had to be done. As Mao said: “The Revolution is not a dinner party. It is an act of violence by which one class overthrows another.”