The Secret Piano: From Mao's Labor Camps to Bach's Goldberg Variations (19 page)

The first interview I set up was in a retirement home. It was located in Orange County, and I had to take a bus to get there. But the meeting didn’t last much longer than my telephone conversations:

“Your English really isn’t strong enough. I’m sorry, but we can’t do anything for you.”

I dozed off unwittingly on the bus ride home, worried sick about the future and exhausted by long sleepless nights of listening to children’s stories.

“Hey! Wake up!”

“Are we there?”

“This is the end of the route. Where are you going?”

“Beachwood.”

“Beachwood? We’re nowhere near there! We passed that stop a long time ago!”

The driver looked very upset. And no wonder—it was just the two of us in an empty bus, it was nine o’clock, and I had completely missed my stop.

When I finally got back to my cousins’ house, it was nearly midnight.

“Xiao-Mei, what happened? We were crazy with worry about you!”

I told them about my epic journey.

“Look for work in Beachwood instead. Please don’t frighten us like that again.”

They were right. I had to be more careful. When I heard that my cousins’ neighbors were looking for a cleaning woman, I introduced myself. He was a doctor, and she was a dazzlingly beautiful woman. Both of them were the type of American who is “crazy about China.”

“You don’t speak English well? That doesn’t matter—we love Chinese people. If you like, it’s a deal. The job pays three hundred dollars a month. It’s five days a week, Monday to Friday.”

Three hundred dollars! My heart began to race: in China, Mao said that we should earn three hundred
yuan
per month, or about forty dollars. I pulled myself together.

“Why only five days? In China, I worked six days a week. I’d prefer to work six days a week.”

“All right, if you insist. You can start tomorrow. Before that, let me show you the house.”

We walked into the living room. I stopped short—there stood a magnificent Steinway, a concert grand. How much did my future employers earn per month that they were able to afford such a wonder? In China, there were probably only four or five such instruments between Beijing and Shanghai combined. Here, there was one in a living room. Perhaps, someday, would I be allowed to play it?

No such luck. My tasks left me without any free time. The house had five bathrooms, each one lined with mirrors that had to be polished. I did three loads of laundry per day, all of which had to be ironed. Each mealtime, the plates were changed four times, and it was after midnight before I finished doing the dishes. I also had to clean the pool, around which innumerable parties were held.

Following a flourish of limousines, the guests would arrive and stroll across the lawn…

“A beautiful day, isn’t it?”

“Really quite lovely.”

“What a magnificent house.”

“What did you do last weekend?”

Everyone gave the impression that they were permanently on vacation, yet at the same time, they appeared to have nothing to say. They were oblivious to my existence, even when I held out the drinks tray to them. At moments like that, I didn’t mind not understanding English. Rather, it spared me a lot of banal conversation.

And the Steinway? The best I could do was dust it. I was only able to play it two or three times: my employers were more concerned with my housekeeping abilities. And what they loved most was that I was from China.

“You know, we have a
real
Chinese woman!” they were forever telling their friends.

But they could also be generous: I was free every morning for two hours to go and practice my English at the language school for refugees.

One day, Chen and his wife took me aside.

“Xiao-Mei, you never smile. It’s difficult for the children. They need happiness and cheerfulness around them. What’s the matter?”

What was the matter? I was uncomfortable in America. The waste, the superficial conversations, the obsession with money. I was confronted with a plethora of choices every day, and I wasn’t used to making decisions. This wasn’t freedom. At any rate, it wasn’t the type of freedom I was seeking. But how could I explain this?

One evening, to take my mind off things, some Chinese friends of my cousins offered to take me to Disneyland.

“It will do you good, you’ll see.”

The next weekend, they kept their promise. With touching insistence, they took me on every single ride—I even had to shake hands with both Mickey and Donald. Finally, dead tired, I told them that yes, re-education camp was tough, but at least we had been spared this kind of mental torture. They didn’t take it badly; on the contrary, it made them even more sympathetic. I must really have been contaminated by Communism if I didn’t even know how to enjoy myself. They assured me that one day I would recover, and that I would come back to Disneyland and have the time of my life.

Since the trip to Disneyland had been a failure, I decided to take matters into my own hands. I saw in the
Los Angeles Times
that the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra would be performing Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony at the Hollywood Bowl. I bought two five-dollar tickets and invited my cousins’ cleaning lady to come with me. I had never heard the Ninth, and when the evening came, I headed to the concert in an emotional state of mind.

But there was an enormous traffic jam—and police everywhere. I was about to turn around and head back home when my companion took me firmly by the arm and steered me to our seats. I looked around me, dumbfounded. We were sitting in the stands of what looked like a vast soccer stadium, surrounded by nearly twenty thousand people picnicking and talking while they waited for the concert to begin. It felt like another type of Disneyland. That evening the Ninth only started for me with the first
fortissimo
: it was impossible to hear the initial
pianissimo.
It was drowned out by the people around me discussing their vacation plans.

I thought back to the time my grandmother took me to the Beijing Opera; there, too, the audience had eaten during the performance. But, at least, they seemed to appreciate the show and to give themselves over to what was happening on stage. Here, the most universal musical work had been turned into background music. I was shocked. Were these people aware of how fortunate they were? As someone who had always listened to music with reverence, it was as if something sacred were being shattered before my eyes.

As time passed I began to lose patience—after all, I hadn’t come to the States to clean houses. Luckily, my employers’ dog came to the rescue. Brown was very old; it wasn’t his fault, but I found that I was incredibly allergic to him. After a few weeks, I was covered in spots. Medicine was ineffective, and neither Chen nor my employers knew of something that would help. There was only one solution: Brown and I had to part ways.

That was when a telephone call once again changed the course of my life.

“Xiao-Mei, you can’t go on like this! You have to get back to your piano playing. Come and audition in Boston; I’ll look after you.”

Like wouldn’t take no for an answer, and he was right. Two months had passed since I had arrived in the States, and I still hadn’t done anything of consequence. Baby-sitting, housekeeping—one day, I had to get back to my true calling. I quickly bought a plane ticket for Boston. It cost three hundred dollars, a month’s wages. But I was going to Boston, a real cultural city. I remembered how impressed I had been with the concert that the Boston Symphony Orchestra had given in China, under the baton of Seiji Ozawa. Like’s wife, Xiaohong, had met Mary Lou, a BSO violinist at a joint concert between the BSO and the Chinese Central Philharmonic Orchestra. Subsequently Mary Lou had helped the couple immigrate to the US. I could already see myself at the New England Conservatory, where I was to audition. I immediately wrote to my mother,
Something amazing has happened!

This time the letter wasn’t just another attempt at concealing the realities of my life.

My audition at the New England Conservatory couldn’t have gone better. I was accepted for the semester beginning in January and—wonder of wonders—I was given a scholarship. I was overjoyed. So much for Los Angeles and the California Institute of the Arts. I would be better off studying in Boston, I could feel it.

Greatly relieved, I caught the next plane back to Los Angeles to tell my cousins the good news—at last, I perhaps had a future. I was so happy that I managed to lose my luggage. My cousin was dismayed:

“How is it possible that you lost everything? What were you thinking? You don’t even have a change of clothes.”

Amy gave me things from her own closet; she also suggested that I stop by a neighborhood church where they had clothing for those in need.

A church? I had never been inside one, and I had only a fleeting knowledge of the Christian faith. Prior to leaving Beijing, a friend had talked to me about the Bible, which was banned in China:

“If you can, buy one and send it to me. I’d really like to read it.”

The full extent of my acquaintance with the Scriptures boiled down to that brief conversation.

The priest who welcomed me was full of warmth and humanity. I explained my situation to him. After giving me some clothing, he told me about a meeting that was taking place at the same time and invited me to participate.