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HU FENG’S PRISON YEARS
MEI ZHI
Edited and translated by Gregor Benton
Contents
PART ONE: PAST EVENTS DISPERSE LIKE SMOKE
1.It Started with a Letter
2.Reunion
3.A Gaol Visit, Not a Family Visit
4.The Third Meeting
5.Warm Current, Cold Wave
6.An Unpredictable Future
7.An Uncompleted Mission
8.At Around the Time of the Sentencing
9.Welcoming the Prisoner Home
10.Family Reunion
11.Visiting in Beijing, Heart of the Ancestral Country
12.Farewell Beijing, Farewell Dear Ones
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
Past Events Disperse like Smoke
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
