Anchee Min - Becoming Madame Mao

Kang Sheng sips tea slowly. Name Liu a traitor. It has always been the most effective way to arouse reaction. It doesn't matter if Liu refuses to enter the scene. You create the show for him. First, bring out Liu's acquaintances with backgrounds associated with foreign agents. Interrogate them and get them to talk the way you want them to talk. Communist or not, no stomach can stand the soaking of hot-pepper water. We have a way to crack open jaws. There will be signatures, then publish the edited version.

It's not whether or not Liu is a traitor, Madame Mao Jiang Ching says to the team of investigators. Your assignment is to get evidence and produce witnesses. You have three days.

The team works around the clock. Soon names are produced. One subject of interrogation is Zhang Chong-yi, a sixty-nine-year-old professor in the foreign language department of Normal University at Hebei Province. Before the liberation he was a head secretary at Furen University. He doesn't know Vice Chairman Liu or Wang Guang-mei personally but he knows their friends at Furen University. Zhang is now a professor of international affairs.

Work on Zhang, Madame Mao orders. Force a confession.

The man can't talk, the team reports. Professor Zhang has been diagnosed with liver cancer and is dying. The man is a breathing skull. His whole face is sunken. His eyes are yellow with jaundice. The right side of his face is paralyzed. His left eye is unable to blink. There is blood in his urine. He is in and out of consciousness.

Race with death, Madame Mao insists. We must have his confession. We must get his voice on tape before he dies. Remember, Chairman Mao is waiting for the results.

The interrogation begins. The recording tape rolls. The tapes are filled with shouts and cries.

Confession or death! Talk, Zhang Chong-yi! Tell us what you know about Wang Guang-mei the traitor.

The dying man fumbles for words. Don't, please don't pull my arm. I'll talk. I am talking. All right, I remember now. Wang Guang-mei, a woman, isn't she? She is Vice Chairman Liu's wife, isn't she?

On the tape there is a slamming sound followed by Zhang Chong-yi's cry.

Stop kicking him! an interrogator yells. He'll be dead if you give him one more blow. Then we will all be in trouble.

Don't even think of fooling us! comes the voice of the head interrogator.

But, Comrade, I am speaking the truth. I am not trying to fool anybody. You see, I… don't want to die.

When did you know Wang Guang-mei as a foreign agent?

Yesterday.

How do you know that she is a foreign agent?

Well, you have told me… You asked me what she did as a foreign agent. So I figure she must be a foreign agent. Or why otherwise would you ask this kind of question?

Watch your mouth! If you conceal the foreign agent you are a foreign agent yourself. Now is a good time to earn credit.

I understand, sir, the dying man gasps. Now that I have stated that she is a foreign agent, will you let me go?…Let me go, please. I beg you. I know Wang Guang-mei is a foreign agent. Not only a foreign agent, she is a Communist agent too.

On the tape the voice becomes breathless. The sound fades. By the time Jiang Ching receives the tape, Professor Zhang Chong-yi has already died. Jiang Ching shakes hands with the investigators. Chairman Mao and I are pleased with your work. Now, we need a witness for Liu.

The same method applies. A witness is produced overnight. This time, it is a friend, a longtime Party worker, Wang Shi-yin, who is suffering from lung cancer. His chest is bound by plastic tubes. But that doesn't stop the investigators. The yelling and shouting blast the tape.

I have no idea. The patient struggles to speak. I am not an inventor of truth.

The sound of banging metal objects.

You will cry when we present you with the coffin and it will be too late, the head investigator says in a low voice. You will force us to disconnect the oxygen machine and pull out the tubes. Are you sure?

Silence.

Finally a fainting voice comes. Do whatever you please. I am dying anyway. I am not afraid of anything anymore. Although the man's words are disconnected, his voice is firm. I have confessed all I know about Vice Chairman Liu. One thing you can be sure of is that he is not a traitor but a man of integrity and honesty. There is nothing more you will get from me.

Shame! Madame Mao Jiang Ching points her fingers at the investigators. You are incompetent. Go back and work until you succeed. Break his jaw if you have to.

What if the subject dies?

You go on and interrogate his spirit!

March 26, 1968. Wang Shi-yin, the lung cancer patient, the man of iron will, dies during the interrogation. Although he doesn't incriminate Vice Chairman Liu Shao-qi, at the Communist Party convention on November 24, 1968, Liu is nevertheless pronounced a "hidden traitor," and is thrown out of the Communist Party.

The news sweeps the nation.

Madame Mao Jiang Ching monitors the biggest drama from the wings. She witnesses life's fragility in its most concrete form. There is no substance when speaking of loyalty. One's downfall can come with the turning of a hand. Mao's managers bring Wang Guang-mei to be publicly criticized first. The rally opens at the stadium of Qinghua University. A crowd of three hundred thousand Red Guards shows up. The shouts are ear-blasting. Jiang Ching feels strange. It is surreal to watch Wang Guang-mei. A woman who falls because of her husband. Will the masses betray her the same way one day? Now she understands why Mao doesn't take chances when it comes to potential enemies-he can't afford to. The suspects have to die.

Mao has overcome difficulties to make the rally happen. His obstacles were Liu's loyalists, Premier Zhou En-lai included. The decision wasn't settled until Mao forced the members of the congress to choose between him and Liu.

In the National Library there is a famous image of this time. A black and white photo documents Wang Guang-mei's moment of humiliation. An ocean of heads is its background. In the left corner is a journalist who wears glasses and carries a camera. He is excited. He has a smile on his face. Wang Guang-mei is in the center of the stage. Her face is half hidden under a white, wide-brimmed straw hat-she has been forced into her foreign-tour garments. A knee-length "necklace" made of Ping-Pong balls hangs from her neck. It's Kuai Da-fu's work.

In the future Kuai Da-fu will be sentenced to seventeen years in prison for what he does now. In the future Madame Mao will also pay for this and will be shown the famous photo. And she will refuse to comment. However, what she will say is that when she was a young actress she drew a clear line between living and acting. But in truth, for Madame Mao, there is no line between living and acting. The Cultural Revolution is a breathing stage and Mao is her playwright.

History will prove that the surviving Wang Guang-mei is wise. When the world is made to believe that Madame Mao Jiang Ching is solely responsible for her husband Liu's death, Wang Guang-mei says, Liu did not die at the hands of the Gang of Four (the name used to describe Madame Mao Jiang Ching, Chun-qiao and two of his disciples at the end of the Cultural Revolution). At my husband's death there was no such gang. Who is responsible? She doesn't provide the answer. She hopes that the population will seek it themselves.

Yes, I have a personal grudge against Wang Guang-mei. But this is not the only reason I denounce her. My desire to please Mao has become the driving force behind my every act. To stop would mean death. No one can imagine the pleasure I experience when reading Kuai Da-fu's reports-knowing that Mao will be proud of me. It brings me right back to Yenan, to the time when I was Mao's only focus.