heed the Party, I will no longer worry.’
* A writer and friend of Hu Feng’s.
Visiting in Beijing, Heart of the Ancestral Country
Visiting Wangfujing shopping street, Beijing Hotel and Dongan Market after ten years’ absence, F had the feeling he knew them but didn’t know them. I took him to a department store to buy a woollen overcoat. Navy blue with a velvet lining and a good fit, just 200 yuan. I decided to buy it. He stopped me, saying it was too expensive and he didn’t need one. I said, ‘You’ve never worn nice clothes. You always bought old suits and old overcoats. This time, you will dress presentably.’
He wore the new coat when Comrade Huang took us to the Great Hall of the People, and looked quite imposing as he stood outside the magnificent building. The assistant, a young girl, seemed enthusiastic and even respectful. How was she to know that F was still serving his sentence?
The girl’s voice, posture and gait made me think of a person lightly dancing, filled with the beauty of youth. I thought, the assistants in the Great Hall of the People are bound to be out of the ordinary. After all, not just anyone could enter the Great Hall of the People. I had only seen it on a news documentary. I was delighted F could go there in person.
I had heard the dome at the Great Hall of the People was designed in the shape of a sunflower. Unfortunately not all the lights were on, to save electricity, but although we saw only the sunflower and not the sun, we were satisfied.
Treading that thick red carpet leading to the Great Hall, I noticed with what solemn steps Hu Feng walked, striding along like the master of the building. I have a vivid recollection of how joyful and jubilant he was at the First Session of the National People’s Congress. The silly thing is, he thought he was a representative of the people and ought to speak for the people, so he submitted his 300,000-word proposal to the Central Committee and was branded a counter-revolutionary. There’s no medicine to cure regret. But Hu Feng did not blame and censure himself on this account, nor did he repent.
One can gauge his feelings at the time from something he wrote after his return home:
I walked solemnly up the steps of the Great Hall of the People and through the main entrance and into the Great Hall.
I felt it was tall, big, firm, heavy, strong, solid, thick, fixed.
As I advanced, my steps soared.
I felt harmony, composure, balance, unity, dignity, radiance,
I was at the centre, touching the firmament, reaching the remotest areas;
I felt the centre governing the parts.
I felt the parts bowing to the centre.
I felt a massive image towering before me, all around me;
the image of revolutionary political power;
the image of the ancestral homeland;
the image of the Party;
Mao Zedong Thought.
‘That this great work of art was built in just over ten months, including the period of its design, demonstrates the power of the people led by Mao Zedong Thought; it shows how the revolution is advancing by leaps and bounds, at an unstoppable speed.
‘The Great Hall of the People, a melody in space, symbolises the greatness of the Party, the greatness of the ancestral homeland, the greatness of Mao Zedong Thought, which turns matter into spirit and spirit into matter.’
Back in the car, Old Chen asked me where we wanted to go. It was lunchtime, so I suggested we go somewhere to eat. I remembered there was a restaurant in Nanchizi where I had eaten dim sum on one of my visits to the Ministry of Public Security, so I said, let’s go there.
It was not full. Along the sides were Shanghai-style compartments. We found one that seated four, and I ordered the food. Sitting there reminded me of the Cantonese restaurants in Guilin and Chongqing. Braised pork in red beancurd gravy had been Old Nie’s and Old Yu’s favourites, so I ordered braised pork in red beancurd gravy, beef with oyster sauce, flowering cabbage in white sauce, fish in tomato sauce, and soup with meat balls. F was not to know I made my choice on the basis of my memories of those years and that I was trying to make him forget his present situation, so he could eat and drink as in the past, amid the merry shouts of his friends. He tucked in happily.
Later, Old Chen said, ‘I thought you would want to go to Senlong’s instead.’
‘It gets too full. And we might have bumped into someone we knew. After all, he’s not supposed to talk with people.’
Chen gave an awkward smile. He decided we would pay two more visits.
First we went to the Revolutionary History Museum. A female guide showed us round. We listened and looked, as events we had personally lived through were re-enacted on the pictures and photographs and in the guide’s narration. F paid close attention and asked questions. More and more people gathered in our wake, surrounding F and the guide and squeezing me to the back. At times, there were so many people that F and the guide became separated. The guide tried to push them aside, but she and F were re-surrounded in an instant. Most of the visitors were from outside Beijing. They chatted incessantly. Although it was midwinter, the hot air they gave off aggravated the atmosphere in the hall. When we saw the two doors of the peasant association preserved by the people of the revolutionary Soviet area, the guide pressed them and they opened. She led us in and the doors closed behind us.
Inside was a tiny guest room. F flopped down on the sofa. He was drenched in sweat. The guide poured us some tea, and we rested. In next to no time, we had witnessed the overthrow of imperialism, feudalism and bureaucratic capitalism, and the birth of new China.
When we left, the sun was sinking, but Tiananmen Square was still bathed in the diminishing light. We walked towards the Monument to the Heroes of the People. Hu Feng enjoyed the carvings, not so much intoxicated by the artwork as lost in thought at the revolutionary commitment of the people.
That was his first time in public in ten years, his first encounter with that rich and magnificent tableau. After returning home, he lay down. I boiled some congee and made some pasties, but he preferred a bowl of gruel. In the middle of the night, he started coughing. His temperature was more than 38.
The next morning, I told Old Chen. He said, ‘We must take him to hospital for a check-up.’
It turned out he had a slight fever. The doctor recommended sleep and lots of water, and discharged us. Old Chen had been planning to negotiate a hospital bed for F. Once outside, he rebuked me for making a fuss about nothing: there was no high temperature, and I had made it up. I said, ‘I didn’t say he had a high temperature, I said it was 38.’ I don’t know how he reported the matter to his superiors.
We decided to stay home for a few days. F stayed in his room, copying out the poems he had composed in gaol. The children were worried he would get tired, so they got him to play chess with them. At first, even the youngest almost beat him. Xiaoshan was afraid father would be embarrassed so he said it had been a draw, but F laughed and said his son played well. Xiaoshan was pleased. It was not until
