The Secret Piano: From Mao's Labor Camps to Bach's Goldberg Variations (24 page)

I began to think about Paris.

In Brattleboro, despite all my different jobs, I simply wasn’t able to make ends meet. Thom and Gregg were wonderful, yet I sensed that I was a burden on them. And then there was the fact that, even though I was surrounded by friends, I felt unchallenged.

I was drawn to Paris; I was linked to it by a very old memory. By a connection that was at once tenuous and sustained, one that had been forged long before I was born, when my family lived near Fuxing Park, in the French Quarter of Shanghai. When I was a child, my mother often talked to me about the Louvre, which she considered the most beautiful museum in the world. I could still remember the scent of the little perfume bottle that she had kept for so long, and that the Red Guards had poured onto the floor of our Beijing apartment. And then there was Rodin’s
Art
, for which I had traded two years of free piano lessons.

Now that I live in France and I have read Lin Yutang, I have a better understanding of what connects the French and the Chinese. Lin Yutang, the great Chinese author—and bridger of cultures—studied at Saint John’s University in Shanghai and subsequently in the US and in Leipzig, the city forever associated with the name of Bach. He then divided his time between the East and the West. In
The Importance of Living
, Lin sets out what China and France have in common: a sense of humor, depth of feeling, and a genuinely artistic way of approaching life.

And, of course, how could I not want to discover the country of the French Revolution—the revolution that inspired so many others.

I shared my plan with my friends, who thought it was unrealistic: if I couldn’t establish a career for myself in Brattleboro, the idea that I was somehow going to be able to do so in Paris was simply crazy. When one friend—a former student of Yves Nat at the Paris Conservatory—heard that I was thinking of going to France, he was horrified:

“Don’t do it. It’s the worst place on earth for pianists. The critics are merciless there.” He then told a story about a great living pianist who shall remain nameless: “After one of his concerts, the French critics wrote: ‘He gave a concert of music by Chopin. One wonders why.’ That was it. It’s a frightful country; all people care about is being clever. Don’t go.”

No doubt there was truth in what he said.

Sue Fleisher was the one person who offered encouragement. I had met Sue at the School for International Training—where she was working when I studied in Brattleboro—and we had hit it off immediately. She had lived under terrible conditions in France during the Occupation because she was Jewish. Nevertheless, she still considered it the most beautiful country in the world.

I still remember her words when, one day, I asked her about Judaism:

“Let’s not talk about it. Religion is what sets people against each other.”

She was convinced that France would welcome me, and she promised to attend my first concert. The likelihood seemed so improbable that she and I had a good laugh about it together.

As my departure plans took shape, I began wondering why former colonial powers, like France, can hold an unhealthy fascination for populations that were once subjugated by them at an earlier point in their history.

In China’s case, the subjugation took place without any real resistance on the part of the Chinese people. Nevertheless, it was carried out with brutality, as attested to by the sack of the Summer Palace. When I was in Beijing, I would often walk through its grounds. All that remained were a few ruins, hidden in the foliage, faint reminders of what had once been a splendid monument.

In one of his letters, Victor Hugo responds to this dramatic event and describes it very aptly. I don’t believe the text of the letter is well known in France, but it is famous in China. In Mao’s time, schoolchildren read it in class as an illustration of the crimes committed by the imperial powers. In it, Hugo is responding to a certain Captain Butler, who wrote to him while he was in exile, and asked for his assessment of the event.

Hauteville House, November 25, 1861

You ask my opinion, Sir, about the China expedition. You consider this expedition to be honourable and glorious, and you have the kindness to attach some consideration to my feelings; according to you, the China expedition, carried out jointly under the flags of Queen Victoria and the Emperor Napoleon, is a glory to be shared between France and England, and you wish to know how much approval I feel I can give to this English and French victory.

Since you wish to know my opinion, here it is:

There was, in a corner of the world, a wonder of the world; this wonder was called the Summer Palace. Art has two principles, the Idea, which produces European art, and the Chimera, which produces oriental art. The Summer Palace was to chimerical art what the Parthenon is to ideal art. All that can be begotten of the imagination of an almost extra-human people was there. It was not a single, unique work like the Parthenon. It was a kind of enormous model of the chimera, if the chimera can have a model. Imagine some inexpressible construction, something like a lunar structure, and you will have the Summer Palace. Build a dream with marble, jade, bronze, and porcelain, frame it with cedar wood, cover it with precious stones, drape it with silk, make it here a sanctuary, there a harem, elsewhere a citadel, put gods there, and monsters, varnish it, enamel it, gild it, paint it, have architects who are poets build the thousand and one dreams of the thousand and one nights, add gardens, basins, gushing water and foam, swans, ibis, peacocks, suppose in a word a sort of dazzling cavern of human fantasy with the face of a temple and palace, such was this building. The slow work of generations had been necessary to create it. This edifice, as enormous as a city, had been built by the centuries, for whom? For the peoples. For the work of time belongs to man. Artists, poets, and philosophers knew the Summer Palace; Voltaire talks of it. People spoke of the Parthenon in Greece, the pyramids in Egypt, the Coliseum in Rome, Notre-Dame in Paris, the Summer Palace in the Orient. If people did not see it they imagined it. It was a kind of tremendous unknown masterpiece, glimpsed from the distance in a kind of twilight, like a silhouette of the civilization of Asia on the horizon of the civilization of Europe.

This wonder has disappeared.

One day two bandits entered the Summer Palace. One plundered, the other burned. Victory can be a thief, or so it seems. The devastation of the Summer Palace was accomplished by the two victors acting jointly. Mixed up in all this is the name of Elgin, which inevitably calls to mind the Parthenon. What was done to the Parthenon was done to the Summer Palace, more thoroughly and better, so that nothing of it should be left. All the treasures of all our cathedrals put together could not equal this formidable and splendid museum of the Orient. It contained not only masterpieces of art, but masses of jewelry. What a great exploit, what a windfall! One of the two victors filled his pockets; when the other saw this he filled his coffers. And back they came to Europe, arm in arm, laughing away. Such is the story of the two bandits.

We Europeans are the civilized ones, and for us the Chinese are the barbarians. This is what civilization has done to barbarism.

Before history, one of the two bandits will be called France; the other will be called England. But I protest, and I thank you for giving me the opportunity! The crimes of those who lead are not the fault of those who are led; Governments are sometimes bandits, peoples never.

The French empire has pocketed half of this victory, and today with a kind of proprietorial naivety it displays the splendid bric-a-brac of the Summer Palace.

I hope that a day will come when France, delivered and cleansed, will return this booty to despoiled China.

Meanwhile, there is a theft and two thieves.

I take note.

This, Sir, is how much approval I give to the China expedition.

Victor Hugo

I was impressed by the nobility of spirit in Victor Hugo’s letter. To admit one’s errors, isn’t that a reflection of real courage in a man, or a country? A strength of character that Mao never possessed.

But the French and the English were not the only ones to attack China’s cultural heritage. As I reflected on Hugo’s account, I thought about the unimaginable acts that were committed during the Cultural Revolution, acts that resulted in the destruction of entire swaths of China’s history. Without anyone having had the courage to step forward and make amends.

Hugo, in his text, shows where the real strength of the soul resides. He also alludes to how culture and education must serve as bulwarks against crimes of all sorts. I was powerfully drawn to a country that could produce such writers.

My mind was made up.

I wrote to my friend Xiaoqin; she had settled in France after having been granted permission to marry her French boyfriend. She had given up on a career in publishing and was dedicating herself to writing instead. Her husband had gone to work in China, and she was expecting her second child. She would be thrilled to put me up.

And so it was that, in December 1984, I flew to Paris.

In France, I didn’t know a soul other than Xiaoqin. And, of course, I didn’t speak a word of French. I was staying in her apartment in Issy-les-Moulineaux, yet I didn’t dare go out because I was afraid of getting lost. Thus, for some time, Paris for me was reduced to a few streets in the suburbs.

Xiaoqin took very good care of me. She spent days on the telephone telling my story to her friends and asking them for help. As a writer, she knew many of the Chinese intellectuals and artists who had immigrated to France. Despite their willingness to help, however, they were perplexed about my situation. Was I American or Chinese? Was I a pianist, a house cleaner, a baby-sitter, a cook—what exactly did I want? Zhao Wuji, the renowned Chinese painter who had come to France in the aftermath of the Second World War, was looking for a caretaker for his house. Xiaoqin suggested me to his son, but Zhao Wuji couldn’t imagine that a pianist would want to work as a caretaker, and nothing came of it. It was only much later that I met him. He came to my first concert, and generously invited me to choose one of his works to use for the cover of my first CD.

After a few days, it became plain as day—my diploma from the New England Conservatory didn’t mean anything to anyone in France. If my goal was to play and give concerts, I would have to make myself known to some influential musicians, and to do that, the best thing would be to go and study with them. Before leaving Brattleboro, I’d finally gotten up the courage to write Rudolf Serkin, who personally responded—like the gentleman that he was—inviting me to come see him. I told myself that I had missed the opportunity of a lifetime, that it had been a crazy idea to move to France, but it was too late to turn back.

Xiaoqin made some inquiries. I had already passed the age limit for the Conservatory, but the École Normale de Musique didn’t have the same restrictions; I could go there and study. She advised me to contact Marian Rybicki. He spoke English and I would be able to explain my situation to him.

The very next morning I telephoned him.

“I am a Chinese pianist, and I have just arrived in France from the US, where I was studying. Would it be possible to play something for you?”

“Of course!”

He was so welcoming that I immediately followed up with:

“When might I come?”

I heard him page through his datebook.

“The earliest I can manage is the day after tomorrow. Would that suit you?”

That meant I only had a single day to prepare! Xiaoqin didn’t have a piano at her house, and I hadn’t played in a good two weeks. We hurried over to Daudé, the well-known piano showroom on Avenue de Wagram, where there are magnificent Steinway pianos. They were out of my price range: I just had enough to rent the least expensive, smallest upright piano, which was berthed at the back of the store. But that was good enough for me to work on my beloved
Davidsbündlertänze.
I didn’t have much time.

When the day came, I went to see Marian Rybicki. I asked about his rates: four hundred francs an hour. Since this represented a large part of my savings, I gave myself one hour, and no more, to convince him.

Marian Rybicki was as warm in person as he had been on the telephone. I described my personal and professional history to him in a few sentences, all the while keeping an eye on my watch. He was incredibly kind and asked me question after question. Meanwhile, I was preoccupied with my savings, dwindling as we spoke. I was impatient but did my very best not to let it show. When was he going to ask me to sit down at the piano? Finally, after a half hour had passed, he said:

“Wonderful. Now I’m very anxious to listen to you. What are you going to play for me?”

“Schumann. The
Davidsbündlertänze.”

I placed my watch on the piano, and not merely because I was following Gabriel Chodos’s example. The
Davidsbündlertänze
take approximately thirty-seven minutes to play. Even if I sped up the tempo, I wouldn’t be able to play them in the remaining half hour: I was going to have to stop before the end. My watch would let me know when.

Even today, Marian Rybicki loves to tell the story of what happened next. I was in the process of playing the penultimate
Davidsbündlertänze
piece, one of the most beautiful in the series. At that moment, the alarm on my watch went off; the time was up. I didn’t have the means to pay for anything more. I abruptly stopped playing.

Marian Rybicki leaped out of his seat.

“What’s the matter?”

“I only have four hundred francs. I have just enough for an hour with you.”

“You’re out of your mind! I’ve never heard Schumann played like that before, and you stopped right in the middle! Obviously, I am not going to ask you to pay. Instead, let me know how I can assist you.”

It wasn’t difficult to know how to respond: he could help with so many things. I quickly explained my situation: I dreamed of settling in Paris; this meant obtaining a long-term visa as well as a scholarship. He listened to me very seriously, not saying a word, and then promised he would get back to me.

In less than two days, he had made good on his promise. During this time he had found a scholarship, a maid’s room on the seventh floor of a building on Avenue de Suffren, and he had seven students standing by, ready to let me play their pianos, one for each day of the week. It was nothing short of a miracle. What I had heard was true: France really was a land of welcome!

I left Xiaoqin’s apartment for my new home. The room was empty; furnishing it would have to wait for better days. But it didn’t matter—I’d sleep on the floor. What was important now was not settling in, but getting down to work. Working to get myself known, once again, at thirty-six years old, an age when most concert pianists already have a long career behind them. I never ceased to pay for those long years of education-less “re-education.”

Happily, the students Marian Rybicki introduced me to were a great support, and many of them became close friends. Like me, most of them had also left their native counties; together, we formed a bulwark against adversity. Despite my miraculous encounter with Marian Rybicki, I learned how hard Paris can be for foreigners. We stuck together and accompanied each other though the inevitable administrative obstacles, without which France would not be France.

The most flamboyant of my friends was called Braz. He was from Brazil, and he turned out to be an unbelievably sensitive pianist. Born into an upper-class family from Rio de Janeiro, he lived the high life in Paris—at least for the first two weeks of the month. The rest of the time, having gone through the monthly allowance he received from his parents, he didn’t even have enough money to eat. I met him during one of these periods. For some time now, I had been a master of making delicious Chinese food with just a little rice, a few eggs, a bit of carrot, and some peas. This was how he made it through to the end of the month.

Braz’s working method was the exact opposite of mine: he got down to work in his own good time.

“You practice too much,” he would always say.

One day, I told him about the shock I had experienced coming up out of the Pont Neuf metro station: before then, I was completely unaware that Paris was so beautiful. I admitted that, since my arrival, all I had seen of the city was the inside of the metro. Braz shot me a dismayed look:

“Clearly, I’m going to have to step in, or you’ll never stop working.”

And thanks to him, I came up from underground. He became my first Paris tour guide.

Later, after Braz had gotten acquainted with my maid’s room—which didn’t take long—he suggested that when I practiced the piano at his place, I might also take advantage of his more comfortable bathroom facilities. I readily agreed. One Sunday morning, however, I couldn’t open the door of his apartment with the key he had given me. I repeatedly tried the lock, but nothing helped. I was still at it when suddenly the door opened and Braz stood on the threshold, grumpy and half-asleep.

“Xiao-Mei, what’s going on?”

“I came to practice the piano—I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were here.”

“Not only am I here, but I’m not alone. And it’s Sunday morning! Don’t you know anything about life?”

Nasi also became my friend. She was an Iranian princess—beautiful, elegant, and discreet in a quintessentially Middle Eastern way. She was also my first French teacher. With her, Braz, and a few other friends, including Lin, a Chinese woman married to a reverend, we often did things together. Even if we didn’t have a cent, we attended concerts, visited Paris, read books out loud, and led a wonderful bohemian life, always busy, always laughing.

Another of Marian Rybicki’s students would also come to play an important role in my life: Madame Aalam. She was over eighty but looked twenty years younger, and her life was like something out of a novel. She was the daughter of one of the Shah’s physicians. At twenty, a bit like my mother, she had left her family to run off with a Russian violinist with whom she had fallen head over heels in love. Later, in Iran, she opened one of the first institutions dedicated to the education of young girls, before fleeing the country when the Pahlavi dynasty fell.

The first time we met, she told me the story of how, one day, when she was in charge of the Iran House at the Cité Universitaire in Paris, a group of young Maoists had heatedly criticized her for her past. She invited them to her house to talk it over. By the end of the evening, they had all become friends. I quickly saw that she had a quality that I will never possess: she was fearless!

When she found out about the modest nature of my accommodations, she invited me to stay in her magnificent Paris apartment and take advantage of her Steinway. The morning after I moved in, I made the same offer that I had made to my other hosts: to do a little housework in exchange for a place to live. Her black eyes fixed on me:

“Absolutely not! Do you hear me? Never! On the contrary, my cleaning woman will take care of
you
. I want you to practice the piano without a thought of anything else.”

It was the first time anyone had ever spoken to me like that.

She took me to the Louvre. In the Denon wing, she pointed out a statue to me, which stood at the top of a wide staircase.

“You see, when you go on stage, I would like you to be like her: victorious and masterful, but light and graceful at the same time.”

I admired the masterpiece that rose in front of me: the Winged Victory of Samothrace.

“I understand what you have been through,” she told me another time. “What you need now is to have confidence in yourself.”

She had a very oriental way of affirming and promoting me. When we took the bus, she would announce to the conductor that he had the good fortune to be chauffeuring a great pianist. When we went to buy medicine, she would inform the pharmacist that he was waiting on an important artist. In those moments, I didn’t know which way to look, but what could you say to someone who one day declared, in all seriousness:

“If I knew that it would allow me to play
Kinderszenen
the way you do, I’d be ready to leave immediately for ten years in camp at Zhangjiakou!”