16 LIVING IN THE COW SHED (PART THREE)

    (11) A Private Seat

I knew I was thrown into hell. But for lack of innate moral properties and potentials for Buddhist acceptability I did not know the inferno was hierarchically run. Aren't there the eighteen floors of hell in Buddhism?

It is a long story for which I have to recount from the beginning. One well-known student from the Department of Biology was called Zhang Guoxiang. When the construction of the Cow Shed was completed, I did not see him. He arrived later. I had no idea why and how he was sent there. Those things were classified by the Nie's Beida Revolutionary Committee, none of our business. Meanwhile, we "criminals" dared not make an inquiry. Upon his arrival Zhang put on an air of difference like a crane towering over chickens. But to my mind he was just an ordinary follower rather than a leader. But he went out his way to assume as many responsibilities as possible. Often I saw him on a bike, which he previously had taken from a home-raiding of a "criminal," riding around the Cow Shed yard for fun. The property of any "criminal," even his life, automatically became a possession of the reform guards once the "criminal" was rounded up to the Cow Shed. Guards could go to any "criminal's" home and take whatever personal belongings they needed. Nevertheless, this man's bike-riding pastime appeared conspicuous against the hush of terror that hung over our penitentiary.

For a couple of days, after the evening admonishment speech and, sometimes, even after ten at night, the time at which the "prisoners" were supposed to turn in, this jailer Zhang sat on a chair, in bright lamplight, under the big elm tree in the yard. With one foot lying on the seat of the chair, he kept rubbing and scratching, with his fingers, between his toes, while asking questions or ferociously yelling at a "criminal" standing in front of him with the head lowered. I was accustomed to this sort of thing. But the way he sat was strange to me and struck me profoundly. What disturbed me more was that one evening I noticed the man standing in front of him was Lu Ping, president and secretary of the Party Committee of Beida. Lu was one of the leaders in the "December 9th Movement" and, after the founding of new China, worked as deputy minister of Railway Transportation.[1] As one of the few "major criminals" especially attacked by the "Old Dowager" in her big-character poster, Lu was originally housed somewhere else, not with us in the inferno. Now he suddenly showed up here. I had no idea for how long or what kinds of questions Zhang Guoxiang had asked him or what had happened to him later. But the whole event looked peculiar to me.

At that time I never thought such mishap would befall me a few days later. One night, a while later after the bedtime bell rang, I heard a sudden shout, "Ji Xianlin," shooting from behind the Building of Democracy. By that time we were all hyper-tense in "combat readiness." Then I raced as fast as my legs could carry me to the front yard. I saw Zhang Guoxiang sitting there as described previously, his right-hand fingers stroking between his toes. He tossed a question toward me,

"How did you contact the secret agency of the enemy?"

"I have never had such contact."

"Why did you say Jiang Qing gave a morphine injection to the 'New Beida Commune'?"

"I used a figure of speech."

"How many wives do you have?"

I was shocked and replied cautiously,

"I don't have many."

After a "chat" like this, he said,

"I'm pretty merciful toward you tonight!"

Yes, I should admit his words were true. I was not beaten, kicked and humiliated with "Chinese swearing remarks." Wasn't he very merciful to me? I should be grateful for the "imperial favors" bestowed unto me.

But I certainly missed the undertone of "threat" in his voice. "I'm pretty merciful toward you tonight." How about tomorrow?

The following night, after the ringing of the bell for bedtime, I was ready to retire. Suddenly a cry struck like a thunderbolt, "Ji Xianlin!" I rushed out of the room faster than yesterday and saw Mr. Zhang standing in rage around the corner of the two rows of one-story houses rather than in the center of the yard,

"Didn't you hear me calling you? Are you deaf?"

Now I knew I was in trouble. Before I had a chance to think a little more, I felt hot on my face and head, as a rubber-wrapped bicycle chain struck me like a shower of lightning bolts. It hit the upper half rather than the lower half of my body, the vital part of my head. My head swam as I saw stars. Not daring to dodge, I stood upright and motionless. For the first few moments there was a little pain. Gradually my senses were gone as I felt pangs of feeling searing my top of head, eyes, nose, mouth and ears, not really painful but more unbearable than pain. I almost fainted and tumbled. But I instinctively held on. More bike-chain strikes leaped in front of my eyes as verbal abuses, which I was unable to hear clearly (if they were uttered at all), resounded in my ears. I was dazed and did not know how long the flogging lasted. Actually it was quite long, according to what some yard mates living near the corner told me later. They were terrified by the happening and still felt uneasy when talking to me after the event. In contrast I nearly turned into a log or rock at the time, passing out and feeling less horrible than the spectators. A while later I heard, as if in a dream, a shout, "Beat it!" I started to regain consciousness, understanding that this fiend was showing "mercy" to me. So I staggered back to my room in terror.

When I came to, my body hurt severely all over. The first thing I wanted to do was to run a "physical exam," on my own, of all the wounds on me. I first looked at my limbs, which did not fall apart. Then I checked my facial features. My eyes were swollen. I tried to open them and found both of them all right. I was set at ease. A further look showed my face, nose, mouth and ears were all bleeding. Opening my mouth, I ascertained that none of my teeth was gone. I ignored the bleeding from other parts of my body, because it was not fatal. Then I bore the agony.

You can imagine. Would I be able to go to sleep that night? I lay on the board, rolling over and over and feeling hurt. Blood oozed from the cuts and I had to sustain the pain. I did not have a mirror, so I was unable to take a look at my "impressive appearance." In the past I had shuddered at the sight of people who got tortured for a night and came back black and blue, such as the old professor from the Department of Geophysics and the woman instructor from the Department of Eastern Languages. Tonight my cheeks not only were swollen but blue as well. I was not very much concerned because I couldn't see what I looked like.

The following morning, work resumed and the quotations were read aloud as usual. I was assigned the work of sifting sand on the roadside outside the northern mill of building materials. How was I? How did I feel? I became muddled. My body was numbed. I even forgot that committing suicide was a way of relief.

Misfortune never comes singly as the old saying goes. Before this suffering was over, Mr. Zhang broke into my room one noon, telling me to move. Having rolled up my bedding, which included most of my personal belongings, I moved to the room in which I had been tortured previously. The room did not come to mind as something special during the day. However, that night it dawned on me that it was a "private room" for imprisoning important convicts. Throughout the night lights were not allowed to be turned off, and inmates were required to take turns in being a guard instead of sleeping. What should we "guard"? I had no idea. Was the guarding for preventing inmates from escaping? That was absolutely impossible. Intellectuals had the least guts and dared not escape. Then, most probably, the procedure was to guard against suicides committed by inmates, such as hanging oneself. I gradually realized my status had been elevated in the hellish place, after cruel torture, to a higher level. The "most important criminal," Lu Ping, was housed here. I was condemned to imprisonment in a place like the Buddhists' Avici Hell or the jail for convicts awaiting execution.

But it was not the end of my purgatory. It was Mr. Zhang again who told me, along with a professor of Chinese surnamed Wang, to push a tank cart and fetch hot water three times each day for all inmates housed there. I wondered why Professor Wang qualified for being with me. So far as I knew, he did not join "Jinggangshan," nor did he commit heinous crimes. Why should he be punished so cruelly? Fetching water was no easy job. Three times a day we did it, in addition to the daily quota of labor and loud reading of Mao's quotations. At dinner I watched others eat as I took care of the water. In times of rain I battled with the tank cart until my clothes were soaked through. Even if a downpour brought down daggers, I could not risk being perceived as late in bringing back hot water. The suffering would be inconceivable. To my surprise, Professor Wang took advantage of the job; secretly he made a cup of tea at the boiler and smoked a pipe of tobacco. I could tell he was grooving.

    (12) A Special Program

Our reform guards certainly knew what they were doing in terms of their mission. After more than half a year of reforming us through a blend of physical labor, preaching, and torturing of slaps in the face and clubs, they probably thought we had gone through enough physical and ideological discipline, it was time to treat us differently.

Therefore the special program came into being.

I had no idea by what standards our reform guards singled out some of us "reform criminals" for this special program.

This program was run in the Building of Foreign Languages. But the building's entrance was not to be used, while the rear door was locked. Therefore one window served as its passageway, with one long wooden board placed inside the window and another outside as footsteps. One could enter the building through the window which led to a small classroom. What did this classroom look like? Was there any furniture inside? I had no idea. In my eyes, it was close at hand but seemed worlds apart from me.

I craved this program. I thought we would be able to hang on in enduring days of beating, insults, starvation and thirst. But we could not remain unconcerned about our future. When would our suffering come to a close? In my mind I saw myself facing a vast ocean with no way of crossing it because of the lack of a boat and no island in sight. I longed for a break in the course of my life. What a hard time I had to endure in hoping against hope! Now they would run a special program, which I saw as a boat for crossing the ocean.

Those of us chosen for the special program had some enviable privileges. They had the right to bear a badge of the great leader, conduct the morning reading of quotations, make the evening report in front of the portrait of the great leader, and so forth. While staying in the Cow Shed, Party members were stripped of their right to pay membership dues. As a Party member myself I wonder whether members in the special program regained this right or not. Often, I heard melodious singing drifting out of the special program room; there were either songs worshipping the great leader or sounds of reading the great leader's quotations. Each time the singing filled me with admiration. Some of us started to enjoy privileges. I wondered whether the privileges were granted or obtained automatically, for example, sitting cross-legged in a room and walking with the head held a little higher. I envied those people acting the way I dared not to. How I wished I could be able to step onto that long wooden board and get into the Building of Foreign Languages!

Later on, for some unknown reasons, until the dismantlement of the "Black Gang Yard," its attendants never had a chance to transform themselves into a dragon, rip through a cage and soar into freedom.

    (13) The Instructor of Indonesian from the Department of Eastern Languages

This instructor used to be a student of Indonesian; he transferred to Beida, before the founding of new China, from a program of Eastern languages at a college in southern China. After graduation he was appointed to a teaching position at Beida. He was a very intelligent and hard-working scholar. He used to produce high-quality papers. He was, indeed, a competent instructor. When he got a chance to study in Indonesia, I gave him some financial help to get over his tight budget due to his family problems. Therefore we got along well while he treated me with respect.

But people change. The Cultural Revolution split Beida into two factions when he joined the "New Beida Commune." Admittedly each person is entitled to the road he takes. But now this instructor became exceptionally hostile toward me, regarding me as a "political heretic." After I was "singled out" for condemnation, he attended all interrogations held in the Building of Foreign Languages. He raged with glaring eyes, striking tables and stools, and his emotion ran higher than that of others. It was obvious that he wanted to show his loyalty to the "Old Dowager." Did he intend to make amends for his Anti-Soviet Union and Anti-Communism background by appearing politically firm? This question repeatedly came back to my mind. Otherwise, accounting for his abnormal behavior in terms of being simply opportunistic and adding insult to injury to me was far from convincing.

Political strife left no room for personal relationship.

One morning I went out of the Cow Shed yard with my head lowered. My eyes happened to hit the characters written on the road,

"Down with the counter-revolutionary so-and-so," which was the instructor's name.

I was astonished. Not long before, he was the "extremely active man" at my small-sized interrogation sessions, quite a revolutionary full of promises. How could he become a "counter-revolutionary" overnight? It turned out that his snaky political background was revealed by someone, and he then took his own life one night by using the "capitalist way of suicide" and "alienated himself from the people for ever."

I was not delighted by his death. I understood that human life is complicated and unpredictable.

    (14) Giving Up on Myself

After a period of time of staying in the Cow Shed, I was getting more and more mentally confounded and emotionally indifferent. This place was not hell but more miserable than hell. I was not a hungry ghost but, in effect, more starved than it. If I retained any feelings, I felt I was neither a human nor a ghost but a hybrid of human and ghost. Others saw me this way, so did I myself, neither fish nor fowl but mysteriously similar to either kind. Here I use a common philosophical term to describe my state, I was already "metamorphosed."

In the past when people regarded me as human, I took if for granted. I knew I was not perfect and had never been arrogant. Small children usually split people into two categories, the good and the bad. In light of their principle I certainly set myself in the former category. Take money for example. I was not stingy, nor did I worship money. In this regard I felt "more meritorious than others, notwithstanding my weakness." One day, still a teenager in Jinan many years ago, I went to purchase medicine in a drug store. The store assistant made a calculation error and gave me an extra silver dollar in change. In the eye of a small kid like me, one silver dollar meant a fortune. But I returned it to him immediately. He blushed. Later, I gradually learned about the honor of honesty. In 1946 I returned home from abroad. I sold my gold watch in order to send money back to my family in Shandong. Then I exchanged the leftover cash into the KMT's gold currency. The bank teller also made a calculation error and gave me one more ounce of gold. At that time one ounce of gold was quite a sum. Again I returned it to him. For a well-known man, these common things are not worth mentioning. But, as an ordinary man, I don't think they are absolutely insignificant.

Now I turned ghost overnight. In the beginning I was ill-adjusted and rather rebellious. But as time went on, I grew used to my new life. The line between man and ghost, good and bad, kindness and evil, and beauty and ugliness gradually blurred for me. One appropriate common phrase for describing my state of mind at that time is "writing off my life and acting recklessly." My future became bleak and hopeless. Because I chose not to commit suicide, I let things take their own course, no matter whether my status ran worse or better and what gossip circulated about me.

Meanwhile, I was in a financial predicament. The Nie's Beida Revolutionary Committee gave me a "monthly income" that could hardly support a family of three, the two old ladies and me. Even cutting our budget so that we lived only on steamed cones of cornmeal would cost more than my salary. Because of hard work and lack of greasy food, I often went hungry and tried to find something to eat to abate my appetite. A few times I followed the reform guard and asked him to give me the leftover soup in a jar of pickled bean curd, so that I could eat my steamed cone of cornmeal with it. For one period of time I was dispatched to work near student dormitory buildings 28 and 29. Our job was to clean rooms that had been wrecked in faction fighting and pick up the rubble. I remember a big room, at the southern end of Building 28, that was filled with miscellaneous things with tons of trash littered all over the place. Suddenly I spotted a few chunks of dried, moldy steamed bun on a worn-out wooden steaming rack. The food looked like a treasure to me. I snatched it up and slipped it into my pocket. Later, when I found myself alone, I devoured the rotten bun, ignoring concerns about food hygiene. For a "ghost" it was meaningless to be worried about such matters.

Another accomplishment I attained, in the meantime, was lying. Upon going out to work in the morning, I sometimes found my hunger unbearable. So I told the worker in charge that I wanted to visit the doctor in the campus clinic. After being granted the request, I made my way home timidly like a mouse by picking out the least traveled path. Once home, I grabbed two steamed buns sandwiched with sesame paste and gulped them down. Then I went back to work, feigning my return from the clinic. In doing so I risked being caught by reform guards or reporters. If that happened, the consequence was imaginable.

One day I saw a few bank notes, ten and twenty cents, on the road. Being delighted, I picked them up and stuck them in my pocket. Later I often took advantage of walking with head lowered in order to find things that "free men" were unable to see. Occasionally I picked up some coins, another profit reaped. Then I discovered the hang of making such haul. The restroom of the Cow Shed was the best place to go, where I would collect some coins left on the ground. From then on I frequented restrooms to which others would shun unless out of necessity.

The stories I have told are about some insignificant occurrences that displayed indecent deeds. If I did not tell them, probably no one would think I did them. If I had not gone through those experiences, I would never have credited their existence. But they are totally true. Actually they are the most execrated doings of all. As I lost sense of sin at that time, I did not feel embarrassment about behaving that way. Now, in retrospect, I tremble with fear and shame. Early in my life I was interested in understanding a person's psychological process of moral deterioration and vaguely attributed such happenings to hereditary factors. Now, my experiences show that my original idea is incorrect.

But who is to blame for such evil doing?

    (15) The Conclusion on the "Theory of Torture"

Life in the Cow Shed was varied. What I told before constitutes only major occurrences that I chose from many. At the beginning of my narration I posited the "theory of torture" in order to "review history from a theoretical point of view." Many readers at first might have been skeptical about my theory. Having read the stories I have recounted from quite different perspectives about life in the Cow Shed, probably readers are now convinced of my theory.

What objective did those "young revolutionaries" want to achieve by virtue of torture? They would never want to reveal their "heart of darkness," nor would they be willing to have someone do the job on their behalf. A high-sounding reply to the question, which is most likely to be produced on their part, was "reform through physical labor." As I mentioned previously, physical labor was an excuse used to shield the real motive behind the torture. Actually physical labor produced effects on the body but would never change one's thinking. If the enforced physical labor did yield some fruit, it was the desire to give up on myself and let things take their own course. Torture works for a fall, instead of a rise, in one's morality.

This is the conclusion I have drawn about the "theory of torture."

[1] The "December 9th Movement, a student patriotic demonstration of anti-Japanese aggression, which took place in Beijing in 1935.