Feather in the Storm: A Childhood Lost in Chaos (13 page)

One of my chores was gathering kindling for our coal-burning stove. After school was suspended, I wandered around the campus each day looking for broken tree branches or bits of wood. I tried to be inconspicuous. I avoided soldiers, Red Guards, groups of students and other children. Most trees in the city had already been chopped down and carted away for fuel. Those that remained had been stripped of bark and branches. Anything made of wood and left outside unguarded was likely to disappear in a few hours.

I turned down a deserted alley behind a large building one afternoon. In an enclosure not visible from the street, I found a conspicuous mound covered with a tarpaulin. The only sound was the steady drone from loudspeakers. The mix of static with a voice passionately reciting revolutionary slogans bounced off the hulking nearby walls until it dissipated and died. The mysterious pile was nearly as tall as me and lay adjacent to the back door. I lifted the edge of the tarpaulin and discovered a disorderly mountain of books. They appeared to have been dumped there to await incineration. I picked up a volume and paged through it. I put it back on the pile and returned to the end of the alley
and looked around. Reassured that nobody could see me, I returned to the books and uncovered more. I carefully pulled out several larger volumes and stacked them up to make a seat for myself. I sat down and resumed paging through the books.

I could not understand most of the words but I found the large glossy photographs utterly spellbinding. In a beautifully bound encyclopedia I discovered hundreds of astonishing pictures of snowcapped mountains and plains covered with trees or grass or ice, and of odd plants and animals. I could hardly believe they were real. There were pictures of tall clean buildings, and of strange-looking and strangely dressed people. There were pictures of the bluest lakes and seas and skies I’d ever seen, and of crowds of grinning, laughing children wearing bright colors, playing games and posing for the camera. In some of the pictures the children stood with their family and in some with other children. They smiled broadly. How wonderful, I thought. And how intriguing.

The pictures were a window to another world. I lost myself in them and in what I could read—all of it compelling and unfamiliar. I felt as if I were looking at scenes from dreams I’d not yet dreamed. I wondered how these children could be so carefree. Who were they? Where were they? How could I be one of them? I sat for hours, exploring this treasure.

I knew I could not take any of the books home. If I were caught carrying them, or if Red Guards found them in our house, the entire family would be punished. If anyone saw me here reading, I could flee or say I wanted to use the books for fuel or for toilet paper. That was an acceptable use of books. Yet since the books were shielded from the street, it was unlikely anyone could surprise me while I was reading. So I sat somewhat securely on my little throne and savored these forbidden fruits. When there was so little light that I could no longer read, I reluctantly put down the books, concealed the precious pile beneath the tarpaulin, and hurried home.

In the following days, I found my way back to the books. As I read
I shut out the world around me and I lived with the children in the pictures and the characters in the stories. I floated out of my own grim life to another I had barely imagined. I became excited as I turned each page and I never wanted the tales to end. I laughed out loud at many of the stories and felt deeply sad when characters experienced difficulties. Their lives became part of mine, and my life became part of theirs.

Not all of the stories were unknown to me. I recognized titles from my father’s confiscated collection. I found
Gulliver’s Travels
and journeyed with Jonathan Swift to strange countries with problems that seemed like the problems of China. I often thought of Papa while reading. I knew how he’d love the books, and I wished I could share them with him. For days I read the story of Edmund Dantes, locked away in his prison like Papa in his concentration camp. I read of Jean Valjean, who was not only sent to prison but was also tormented after his release—like Papa. But most of all, I loved Anne Frank, who lived with her family in a room hiding from cruel people. The similarity to my life and my family’s was unmistakable. I felt she could be my sister.

Late one afternoon, after I had finished reading
The Count of Monte Cristo
, my eyes had grown tired. I lay the thick volume on the ground and repeated the last three words Dumas wrote: “Wait and hope.” Mama and Papa had said that at our New Year’s dinner. I wondered if they’d read the book and been as enthralled by it as I was. I stood and stretched my arms. I decided to see if there might be more books inside the adjacent building. During my weeks of solitary reading I’d never heard a sound from inside. No one came in or out of the door.

I tried the door. It was unlocked. I stepped into a long corridor that was illuminated only by a thin shaft of daylight that splayed through a broken window at the opposite end. The corridor reeked of old plaster and mildew. The sole sound was the shuffle of my shoes on the gritty floor. I made my way to the end of the corridor and turned the corner and noticed a sign over a door reading
BROADCAST ROOM
. I touched the door. It was heavily padded, like a quilt. I put my ear to it and heard a muffled voice inside. It sounded familiar.

I was curious. I pushed the door open a crack. I saw a man seated at a table speaking into a microphone. He was wearing large headphones. A small panel of glowing red and green lights covered part of the wall over his table, and the floor was crisscrossed with wires. The man was reading aloud from the
Quotations of Chairman Mao
. I recognized his voice. It was the one I heard each day over the loudspeakers throughout the campus, a voice modulated and paced perfectly to the familiar frequency of hate.

He was fascinating to watch. He made wild dramatic gestures with his hands and rocked back and forth in his chair as if addressing a live audience. His gesticulations and melodramatic intonations reminded me of a Chinese opera performed without masks or costumes or plot. I gingerly closed the door and continued my inspection of the building. I went into four other rooms and found them dark and empty. One room was lined with empty bookshelves. I thought I might take one of the shelves home as kindling. I attempted to pry it loose and found it was nailed solidly in place.

I made my way toward the back door. As I passed the broadcast room, I noticed that the wall had begun to deteriorate. The plaster had crumbled and fallen to the floor, exposing narrow vertical strips of wood beneath. I examined a strip. It seemed to be loose and might easily be removed. I gripped it and pulled gently, hoping to extract it without making a sound. But it held tight. I considered leaving the strip where it was and returning to my books. On the other hand, Mama would be delighted if I brought home a bundle of wood strips.

I grasped a strip with both hands, braced my feet and gave several quick jerks. The wood bent but neither broke nor came free. I looked more closely and saw it was held in place by small nails. I tried to loosen them. One popped out and dropped to the floor followed by another. I gave one last pull. There was a sudden explosion. Pieces of plaster and wood cascaded down and buffeted my head and shoulders. I thrust my hands over my head to shield myself. I was stunned by the blows, stumbled and fell to the floor. I was enveloped in a blinding and
suffocating cloud. I gasped for air and tried to see. Suddenly, a bright light appeared before me. A face took shape near the middle of the light.

It was the broadcaster. A section of the wall between the studio and the corridor had collapsed, leaving a large jagged hole. The broadcaster was inside his studio, wearing headphones, holding a microphone. He was covered with plaster dust. His mouth was moving, but all I could hear was a loud ringing in my ears. We gawked at each other, trying to make sense of what had just happened. As my hearing returned, the voice of the broadcaster boomed out, “
WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON
?”

I bolted for the door.

The broadcaster lunged for me through the hole, tripped and crashed through it, somersaulting into the debris on the floor. More sections of the ceiling and wall rained down on him. Howls of pain rang out, punctuated by a furious medley of profanity and threats. As I ran through the exit, I turned to see the flailing figure in the dust on his hands and knees being pelted by pieces of ceiling and wall. He brandished his microphone like a club, waving it at me. The frayed cord whipped back and forth above his head as he disappeared beneath the dust and debris.

I fled past my prized pile of books.
The Count of Monte Cristo
lay open on the ground, a few pages fluttering in the breeze. I hesitated for one final look before sprinting down the alley, around the corner, and onto the sidewalk. The speakers on the posts and trees up and down the street sizzled and snapped with static. Pedestrians pointed at them in astonishment and chattered excitedly. I kept running. Throughout the evening I was haunted by dread that the broadcaster had recognized me, that there would be a knock on the door and Red Guards would barge in and take me away.

The next morning I heard an impassioned announcement over the loudspeakers:
REVOLUTIONARY COMRADES, WE HAVE UNCOVERED A CLEVERLY CONCEALED CLASS ENEMY. THERE WILL BE A
PUBLIC CRITICISM MEETING AT THE ATHLETIC GROUNDS AT SEVEN P.M. ALL REVOLUTIONARY TEACHERS, STUDENTS AND STAFF MUST ATTEND
.

After dinner I walked to the athletic grounds to see the spectacle. I stood in the middle of the crowd. I recognized the man wearing a dunce cap standing on the stage. He was the broadcaster. His arms were bound behind him and Red Guards jerked up on his wrists so he was forced to bend forward at a painful angle. From where I was standing I could see his face was badly bruised and one of his eyes was swollen shut. A sign dangled from his neck with his name on it X’d out and the label:
CURRENT COUNTERREVOLUTIONARY
.

The Red Guard leader announced the crimes of the broadcaster: “Yesterday, on the Public Broadcast System, this current counterrevolutionary interrupted the words of the Great Helmsman, the reddest, reddest sun of our hearts, Chairman Mao, and began shouting profanities.”

After every few words Red Guards slapped the broadcaster. “Confess your crimes,” they chorused.

“I warn you,” the Red Guard leader shouted, “you had better confess. Everyone here heard your counterrevolutionary filth.”

A Red Guard held a microphone to the man’s mouth but he was crying and could not speak.

The leader went on, “Not only did this class enemy try to escape revolutionary justice, when he left his studio, he led us to a cache of poisonous bourgeois books concealed behind the building. It was obvious he had been reading them before denouncing Chairman Mao.”

“Confess! Confess! Confess!” the crowd chanted.

The leader raised his hand and the crowd quieted. A Red Guard held the microphone to the man’s lips.

“I … I … I …” he stammered. “It was a girl. Or a boy. A child … broke down my studio wall …”

A Red Guard punched him in the mouth. The broadcaster’s head jerked back for a moment before falling forward. Blood streamed from
his nose and mouth to his bare chest. The dunce cap dangled to the side.

“Leniency to those who confess their crimes. Severity to those who refuse to,” the Red Guards shouted in unison. The crowd repeated the chant.

Fear and regret filled my heart. I needed to get out of the crowd. I pushed my way past shouting adults and children and moved quickly away from the gathering. The crowd continued chanting, “Severity to those who refuse.”

The administration of universities was placed in the hands of Mao Zedong Thought Propaganda Teams—an alliance of soldiers and industrial workers—in the spring of 1968. The Red Guards were forced to stop fighting one another and join forces with the Propaganda Teams. This coalition turned its attention to purging the country of its “undesirable elements.” Cow demons and snake spirits became the primary focus of the campaign. The Propaganda Teams demonstrated a contempt for education and intellectuals equal to that of the Red Guards. The Propaganda Team at Anhui University organized the faculty and staff into military-like units.

My father was assigned to a group of a hundred men and women. They worked daily from dawn to dusk. Suspected thought-criminals and laggards were beaten and tortured. The professors were assembled to witness the brutality and to contribute condemnations demonstrating revolutionary zeal. In September the Propaganda Team decided to isolate the worst cow demons and snake spirits. Eighty men and women were sent to live in a student dormitory designated a “cowshed.” They were divided into groups of eight and assigned to small
rooms. Following a day of forced labor, the inmates were rigorously cross-examined by Propaganda Team members, and unsatisfactory answers to questions resulted in beatings.

One young teacher tried to run away. But where was he to go? All of China had become a prison. He was captured at the railway station, dragged back to the cowshed, strung up by his wrists and beaten throughout the night. The other prisoners were forced to witness the punishment and to chant quotations from Chairman Mao to drown out his cries.

News came to us regularly of a man or woman who had been beaten into insensibility. Many could not endure it. A math teacher drank a container of DDT and died in her kitchen. A history instructor and his wife hanged themselves side by side in their bedroom. A professor of French literature slit his wrists in the cowshed, and a chemist jumped out his second-story apartment window. Others were discovered dead in their beds and showed signs of beatings, but it was unclear if they had killed themselves or died as a result of mistreatment. Suicide was a crime against the Party and the people. Whenever victims were found, a public rally was held to denounce them. Afterward, their bodies were carted to a dump outside the city and left to be eaten by wild dogs. Those who died from beatings were cremated and their ashes thrown away.