Mei Zhi

F


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      F

      HU FENG’S PRISON YEARS

      MEI ZHI

       Edited and translated by Gregor Benton

      Contents

       Cover

       Title Page

      PART ONE: PAST EVENTS DISPERSE LIKE SMOKE

       1.It Started with a Letter

       2.Reunion

       PART TWO: LIVING WITH A PRISONER

       13.An Uncertain Future

       14.First Lesson

       15.Ominous Portents

       16.The Tempest

       17.A Bleak and Chilly Autumn Wind Arises

       18.Snake and Mouse

       19.A Serious Illness

       20.Convalescing Deep in the Mountains

       21.Helping One Another in Time of Need

       22.Learning How to Plant Tomatoes

       23.Taken Away Yet Again

       24.Hoping

       PART THREE: BEHIND HIGH WALLS

       25.Escorted by Snowflakes

       26.Is It Really Him?

       27.Terror and Confusion

       28.A Turn for the Better in Our Lives

       29.A New Beginning

       30.‘Chopping Down to No Avail, Disentangling into Disarray’

       31.Hope, Distant Hope

       32.A Bolt from the Blue

       33.Taking Part in the Exposure Campaign

       34.In the Reform Through Labour Hospital

       35.Waiting

       36.Emerging from Behind the High Walls

       Epilogue

       Copyright

       Part One

       Past Events Disperse like Smoke

       1

       It Started with a Letter

      1965. It was ten years since Hu Feng had been arrested at home and taken into custody. I had been restored to freedom more than four years earlier, but for a decade I had not seen him once, nor exchanged a letter with him. I didn’t even know where he was. Immediately after my release, I asked about him at the Ministry of Public Security. They said he was well. I said I wanted to send him some clothes, but they told me it was unnecessary. I asked if they could pass on a letter. They said it might adversely affect his reform. After that, I no longer had the courage even to ask. When friends and acquaintances enquired, I would shake my head and whisper, ‘I don’t even know where he is.’

      In 1962 people started talking. My daughter heard about it on her farm and came home to tell me. She said they might soon deal with the contradictions among the people in the literary world and let him go. That was good news, but I had no way of discreetly enquiring whether it was reliable. All I could do was wait.

      In May 1965, I received a letter. It was in an ordinary white envelope with a flower printed in the corner. Unusually, however, the address was written with a brush pen. The hand was dignified and skilled, not slavishly copied from a primer by some young man or woman with a smattering of culture, but the work of a practised calligrapher. It must have been from an old friend, for the writer had used my original name. There was no sender’s address, just the words ‘posted in Beijing’. Which of my old acquaintances knew where I lived?

      I suddenly remembered Mr Sha, who we didn’t know particularly well. He looked like a typical intellectual. He was learned, and therefore popular among some intellectuals who had come across from the old society. After we moved to Beijing, he sometimes used to visit us to play chess with F or chat about classical literature. Needless to say, they sometimes grumbled. I didn’t know at the time if he ever became implicated when we later got into trouble.

      I had gone to the Fulong Temple on the eve of Spring Festival a few months back to buy some small gifts for the children. Coming towards me in the bustling crowd was a familiar face. I realised from the way he dressed that it was Mr Sha. He was still wearing his fine overcoat, tailored from good material. His spectacles, short beard, and classical writer’s manner had not changed, but he was more stooped than in the past. He was carrying a big bundle of books wrapped in cloth. Obviously he had just come from the second-hand bookstore. I tried to avoid his eyes, but he had seen me. He came towards me with a look of such delight that I had to greet him. He said in a low voice:

      ‘I hope you’re both well. How’s Old Hu?’

      I answered, also in a low voice:

      ‘Things are all right. I know nothing about his situation.’

      Instead of rushing off, he accompanied me to a quieter place, and we ended up in a road behind the temple.

      I was surprised to see the little lanes behind Fulong Temple were so quiet and well swept. There were just a few passers-by. It was another world from the road outside. Perhaps the residents did their shopping on the main street.

      We walked and talked in the lanes, out of the wind.

      He told me how concerned friends had been about us. Later, he heard I had been released. He said how distressed he was when he couldn’t discover my address. He said he had been isolated and put under investigation for more than a year because of his association with Hu Feng. Not until later, when it was determined there had been no link, did they decide not to class him as an ‘element’.

      He made as if to laugh, but his face did not laugh.

      I said, ‘In 1958, when I was under detention, I heard you talking on the radio about classical poetry. Your recital moved me deeply. It was as if I was back among people. It made me think of my childhood, when I used to read classical poetry. Unfortunately, I never heard any more broadcasts. I thought you must have managed to avoid getting implicated. That made