Jung Chang - Wild Swans - Three Daughters of China

"I want nothing to do with you," my father said. "You and I are different species."

Leaving my startled and fearful grandmother at the top of the stairs, my father went into his study. He came out almost at once, and carried an ink stone to the bathroom.

He dripped a few drops of water onto the stone and walked thoughtfully back into the study. Then he sat down at his desk, and started grinding a stick of ink round and round the stone, forming a thick black liquid. He spread a blank sheet of paper in front of him. In no time, he had finished his second letter to Mao. He started by saying: "Chairman Mao, I appeal to you, as one Communist to another, to stop the Cultural Revolution." He went on to describe the disasters into which it had thrown China. The letter ended with the words: "I fear the worst for our Party and our country if people like Liu Jie-ting and Zhang Xi-ting are given power over the lives of tens of millions of people."

He addressed the envelope to "Chairman Mao, Peking," and took it to the post office at the top of the street. He sent it by registered airmail. The clerk behind the counter took the envelope and glanced at it, maintaining an expression of total blankness. Then my father walked home to wait.

On the afternoon of the third day after my father posted his letter to Mao, my mother answered a knock on the door of our apartment. Three men came in, all wearing the same baggy blue uniform like clothes as every other man in China. My father knew one of them: he had been a caretaker in his department and was a militant Rebel.

One of the others, a tall man with boils on his thin face, announced that they were Rebels from the police and that they had come to arrest him, 'a counterrevolutionary in action bombarding Chairman Mao and the Cultural Revolution." Then he and the third man, who was shorter and stouter, gripped my father by the arms, and gestured to him to go.

They did not show any identity cards, much less an arrest warrant. But there was no doubt that they were Rebel plainclothes policemen. Their authority was unquestionable, because they came with a Rebel from my father's department.

Although they did not mention his letter to Mao, my father knew it must have been intercepted, as was almost inevitable. He had known that he would probably be arrested, because not only had he committed his blasphemy to paper, but there was now an authority the Tings to sanction his arrest. Even so, he had wanted to take the only chance there was, however slight. He was silent and tense, but did not protest. As he was walking out of the apartment, he paused and said softly to my mother: "Don't bear a grudge against our Party. Have faith that it will correct its mistakes, however grave they may be. Divorce me and give my love to our children. Don't alarm them."

When I came home later that afternoon, I found both of my parents gone. My grandmother told me my mother had gone to Peking to appeal for my father, who had been taken away by Rebels from his par anent She did not say 'the police," because that would have been too frightening, being more disastrous and final than detention by Rebels.

I rushed to my father's deparl,nent to ask where he was.

I got no answer except assorted barks, led by Mrs. Shau, of "You must draw a line from your stinking capitalist-roader father' and "Wherever he is, it serves him right." I forced back my furious tears. I was filled with loathing for these supposedly intelligent adults. They did not have to be so merciless, so brutal. A kinder look, a gentler tone, or even silence would have been perfectly possible, even in those days.

It was from this time that I developed my way of judging the Chinese by dividing them into two kinds: one humane, and one not. It took an upheaval like the Cultural Revolution to bring out these characteristics in people, whether they were teenage Red Guards, adult Rebels, or capitalistroaders.

Meanwhile, my mother was waiting at the station for the train that was to take her to Peking a second time. She felt much more despondent now than six months before.

There had still been a chance for some justice then, but it was virtually hopeless now. My mother did not give in to despair. She was determined to fight.

She had decided that the one person she had to see was Premier Zhou Enlai. No one else would do. If she saw anyone else it would only hasten the demise of her husband, herself, and her family. She knew that Zhou was far more moderate than Mme Mao and the Cultural Revolution Authority and that he exercised considerable power over the Rebels, to whom he gave orders almost every day.

But getting to see him was like trying to walk into the White House, or see the Pope alone. Even if she reached Peking without being caught, and got to the right grievance office, she could not specify whom she wanted to see, as that would be taken as an insult to, even an attack on, other leaders. Her anxiety grew, and she did not know whether her absence from home had already been discovered by the Rebels. She was meant to be waiting to be summoned to her next denunciation meeting, but there was a possible loophole. One Rebel group might think she was in the hands of another.

As she waited, she saw a huge banner with the words "The Red Chengdu Petition Delegation to Peking." Clustered around it was a crowd of about 200 people in their early twenties. Their other banners made it clear they were university students, going to Peking to protest against the Tings. What was more, the banners proclaimed that they had secured a meeting with Premier Zhou.

Compared with its rival Rebel group, 26 August, Red Chengdu was relatively moderate. The Tings had thrown their weight behind 26 August, but Red Chengdu did not surrender. The power of the Tings was never absolute, even though they were backed by Mao and the Cultural Revolution Authority.

At this time, the Cultural Revolution was dominated by intense factional fighting between Rebel groups. This had begun almost as soon as Mao had given the signal to seize power from the capitalist-roaders; now, three months later, most of the Rebel leaders were emerging as something very different from the ousted Communist officials: they were undisciplined opportunists, and were not even fanatical Maoists. Mao had instructed them to unite and share power, but they only paid lip service to this injunction.

They verbally attacked each other with Mao's quotations, making cynical use of his guru-like elusiveness it was easy to select a quotation of Mao's to suit any situation, or even both sides of the same argument. Mao knew that his vapid 'philosophy' was boomeranging on him, but he could not intervene explicitly without losing his mystical remoteness.

In order to destroy 26 August, Red Chengdu knew it had to bring down the Tings. They knew the Tings' reputation for vindictiveness and their lust for power, which were widely discussed, in hushed tones by some, more openly by others. Even Mao's endorsement of the couple was not enough to get Red Chengdu to fall into line. It was against this background that Red Chengdu was sending the students to Peking. Zhou Enlai had promised to receive them because Red Chengdu, as one of the two Rebel camps in Sichuan, had millions of supporters.

My mother followed the Red Chengdu crowd as they were waved through the ticket barrier onto the platform where the Peking express was puffing. She was trying to climb into a carriage with them when she was stopped by a male student.

"Who are you?" he shouted. My mother, at thirty-five, hardly looked like a student.

"You're not one of us. Get off{'

My mother clung tightly to the handle of the door.

"I am going to Peking, too, to appeal against the Tings{' she cried.