Life and Death in Shanghai

While the pandemonium was going on, the men on the platform were smiling; the man in the tinted glasses seemed particularly pleased to see me suffer at the hands of the mob. What was I to do? It was useless to try to explain and worse than useless to try to resist. If I had made any move at all, the mob would have jumped on me. I could only stand there looking straight ahead, with my eyes fixed on the distant wall, hoping their anger would soon spend itself.

Eventually the noise died down a little. The man said, ‘Our patience is exhausted. You are guilty. We could give you the death penalty. But we want to give you a chance to reform yourself. Are you going to confess?’

Everybody stared at me expectantly. I had stood there enduring their abuse for so long, I suppose I should have been filled with hatred for every one of them. Looking back, I remember distinctly that my predominant emotion was one of great sadness. At the same time, I longed to see my daughter. I was sad because I knew I could not reach out to these people around me to make them understand that I was innocent and that they were mistaken. The propaganda on class struggle they had absorbed, not only since the beginning of the Cultural Revolution but also since 1949 when the Communist Army took over Shanghai, had already built an impregnable wall between us. It was not something I could break down in a moment.

After staring at me for a few seconds and finding me silent, the man beckoned to a young man at the back of the mob. The crowd parted to let him through. He carried in his hand a pair of shiny metal handcuffs which he lifted to make sure I saw them. When the young man came to where I stood, the man in charge of the meeting asked again, ‘Are you going to confess?’

I answered in a calm voice, ‘I’ve never done anything against the People’s Government. I have no connection with any foreign government.’

‘Come along!’ the young man with the handcuffs said.

I followed him out of the building into the street. The others came behind us. The cool night air was refreshing and I felt my head clearing magically.

Parked in front of the entrance of the school was a black jeep, a vehicle of the Shanghai Police Department. It was a familiar sight to the people of Shanghai. During the height of every political movement, they saw it dashing through the streets with siren screaming taking victims to prison. We stood beside the jeep with the Red Guards, the Revolutionaries, the ex-staff of Shell and a number of pedestrians who stopped to watch.

‘Are you going to confess?’ the man in the tinted glasses asked again.

I was silently reciting to myself the Twenty-third Psalm, ‘The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want…’

‘Have you gone dumb?’

‘Have you lost your voice?’

‘Speak!’

‘Confess!’ They were shouting.

The man with the tinted spectacles and the man from the Police Department were looking at me thoughtfully. They mistook my silence as a sign of weakening. I knew I had to show courage. In fact, I felt much better for having recited the words of the Psalm. I had not been so free of fear that whole evening as I was in that moment standing beside the black jeep, a symbol of repression.

I lifted my head and said in a loud and firm voice, ‘I’m not guilty! I’ve nothing to confess.’

This time there was no more shouting from anybody. The Red Guards, the Revolutionaries as well as the onlookers were perhaps awed by the solemnity of the occasion. After I had spoken, at a signal from the man in the tinted glasses, the young man from the Police pulled my arms behind my back and put the handcuffs on my wrists. There was a deep sigh from an elderly man.

Suddenly, a girl pushed her way to the front and called in an agitated voice, ‘Confess! Confess quickly! They are going to take you to prison!’ Her clear young voice was like a bell above the hum of the noisy street. It was the girl with the short hair and pale face who had sat by my desk guarding my jewellery when the Red Guards were in my house. Her impulsive effort to save me from going to prison was immediately checked by a woman who pulled her back and took her into the school building.

The driver of the jeep started the engine.

‘Get in!’ The young man gave me a push.

It was good to sit down. I looked out at the faces of the men and women watching this dramatic scene and saw relief in the eyes of the former staff of Shell. Perhaps they thought that with me out of the way they would be freed from pressure. Others of the crowd looked excited. To them, it was like watching the end of a thrilling drama, only better for their having taken part in it.

The young man from the Police Department got in with the driver and the man with the tinted glasses sat down beside me. The jeep drove off into the dark streets.

PART II The Detention House

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