One afternoon in midfall, three men came to ask Yomei and Jin Shan about Iron Man Wang in the oil field, the model worker known throughout the country. The stocky one of the three investigators declared, “The so-called Iron Man is a fake. He joined the Nationalist ranks in his early twenties and has just pretended to be loyal to the Communist Party. Now you must help us expose him.” At those words, Yomei couldn’t keep mum anymore, her blood in flames and her eyes smoldering. She asked them, “If you say Iron Man Wang was a Nationalist, then you must show some evidence. You can’t malign someone this way. Show me your proof if you have any; otherwise you’re committing a vicious calumny.”
The same short, hatchet-faced man, apparently the leader of the trio, responded, “Of course we have evidence, we have ironclad evidence, solid like a mountain.”
Jin Shan stepped in, “If so, why bother to ask us? We didn’t get to know him until recently, and we’re totally ignorant of his past.”
That seemed to have gagged the investigators. Yomei seized the moment of their confusion and added, “Yes, I met him in 1964 for the first time. You all know that the Nationalist Party disappeared from the mainland fifteen years prior to that.”
The tallest one of the three persisted, “But he isn’t a model worker as he has been portrayed. At least you can help us prove he’s a fraud.”
Yomei said, “Bah! We have no idea how he became a model worker in the oil field, but we spent some time with him and saw with our own eyes how dedicated he was to his work and how kind and considerate he was to his fellow derrick men. I respect him. In every way I must admit he’s a good Iron Man, one who absolutely deserves the moniker.”
The three investigators were incensed and insisted that neither Yomei nor Jin Shan nor the big shots behind Iron Man Wang could protect him anymore. He was nothing but an iron statue with feet of clay who could be toppled easily. In fact, they claimed that Iron Man Wang was already in jail, so it would be futile for Yomei to defend such a black-hearted traitor. She and Jin Shan were astounded by the news and asked where Iron Man Wang was imprisoned, but the investigators refused to tell them, just smirking as if relishing the pain and shock that transfixed the couple. They reminded Yomei not to be in collusion with that wicked man.
There was another group from the Ministry of Culture who wanted to know how Yomei and Jin Shan had started working on The Rising Sun. These investigators were experienced officials, not regular Red Guards. Yomei insisted that she herself had volunteered to go to the oil field after reading the heroic deeds of the workers there, particularly the long reports in The People’s Daily on Iron Man Wang. She surmised the implications of their questioning, so by any means she didn’t want to implicate Father Zhou.
The leader of this group, a bespectacled man with a flat face, seemed dubious about her reply. He pressed on, “Who were the officials behind your dramatic project?”
Yomei realized they meant to link her project to the State Council, so she said, “No leaders were involved at all. The whole thing started from the entertainment group in the General Machinery Plant of the oil field. They made a skit by themselves, titled The Broad Road, which took both Jin Shan and me by surprise. We were so moved by it that we decided to expand it into a full-length play. Of course we went to talk to the leaders of the oil field, who were all supportive.”
Jin Shan reiterated the same story, emphasizing that the short play had blown him away and praising the leaders of the oil field for their support and enthusiasm. In brief, everything had come from the grass roots and there was no power from above that had intervened. Nonetheless, the investigators were skeptical. One of them, a middle-aged woman, asked Yomei, “So nobody in the State Council gave you any instructions?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Then how come the troupe went to perform inside of Zhongnanhai?”
“That was not planned at all. When we brought the play to Beijing, invited by the Ministry of Petroleum Industry, we thought we were going to stage it here just two or three times. The actors told their families that they’d go back for the spring festival. But once we started to perform in Beijing, the play ran wild and we got more and more invitations. Finally the Office of General Affairs in Zhongnanhai heard of us and invited us over.”
In their answers, Yomei and Jin Shan tried to distance Premier Zhou from the play as much as they could. Obviously the investigators suspected that Zhou Enlai had masterminded the dramatic project, probably as a countermove to the revolutionary model plays that Jiang Ching had been producing. That must be why both the stage play and movie of The Rising Sun had been called off. Yomei and Jin Shan were amazed to see that without any premonition they had gotten entangled in politics of the highest circle, as if fighting at the artistic front for a faction and engaging the First Lady head-on. As a consequence, they were unwittingly confronting Chairman Mao. How naively they used to believe that art could stay totally detached from power. Deep down, Yomei could see that from Father Zhou’s point of view, after he had seen the play, she and Jin Shan could serve as a counterforce against Jiang Ching’s effort to break into the political arena through the avenue of theater arts. That may have been why Father Zhou had suggested forming another acting crew so as to disseminate The Rising Sun in the central provinces and creating a second and even a third of such a play. The premier may have meant to let their play outshine Jiang Ching’s dramatic efforts. Luckily, Yomei and Jin Shan hadn’t taken up another project right away, which might have plunged them deeper into the politics of the top circles.
Then one evening two men came and said they were from the Committee of the Cultural Revolution, which was the highest office in charge of the mass movement. The instant they sat down they began to question Yomei about Zhu Deh’s reactionary deeds and words. She turned aghast. How could they dare to doubt that revered old man, who used to be ranked together with Chairman Mao as one of the two supreme leaders of the Red Army? She gave them a hard look and then said, “Why do you have the temerity to come investigate Marshal Zhu Deh, who is my uncle? He and my father were sworn brothers. How could you expect me to say anything against him?”
“Don’t be so smug! Get a grip of yourself,” one of the men spluttered. “Comrade Jiang Ching said Zhu Deh was just a warlord plus an opportunist.”
“If Jiang Ching believes so, then you should ask some leaders more senior than her. They’ve known Uncle Zhu Deh much longer than Jiang Ching has.”
“Who are those?” asked the older one of the two, who had a doughy face and gave a gappy grin.
“Go ask Chairman Mao how Zhu Deh led more than ten thousand troops to join him on Jinggang Mountain. If Zhu Deh were a warlord, he wouldn’t have bothered to join the Communist Party, would he? He and my dad both wanted to liberate the common Chinese people from the oppression of feudalism and bureaucratic capitalism. They were revolutionaries through and through.”
The younger investigator, in his thirties, jumped in: “You’re talking as if your father and Zhu Deh were born revolutionaries. Don’t feel so complacent. Maybe your father was merely a flunky serving a warlord. He would become a target of our investigation too, if he were alive.”
“My dad was murdered by Chiang Kai-shek. He was a revolutionary martyr. How dare you pass that sort of judgment on him!”
“How can you prove that—I mean your father’s martyrdom?” the older investigator said, hefting himself up and turning his chair. He sat on it again, sideways now, as if this was more comfortable for his ass.
“Go ask Premier Zhou,” Yomei told him. “It was he who introduced Zhu Deh and my father to the Communist Party together.”
“When was that?”
“1922 in Berlin,” she answered, blazing up. “You’d better bone up on your knowledge of the Party’s history before coming to see me again.”
They both looked frustrated, their faces heated with colored blotches. The younger one said through his teeth, “Stop bragging about those old farts. They’ve only appeared red, but at bottom they have all become capitalist roaders.”
“Shut your stinking mouth!” Yomei growled, shaking with a flare of anger. “I came to know Uncle Zhu Deh and Premier Zhou even before I could walk. They’re my heroes. If you want to get any negative information on them, don’t ever come here—you won’t get anything from me. Also, tell those who are behind you, stop heckling those top leaders who have more important work to do. No one has time for this kind of claptrap and idiocy.”
They looked astonished. The older one said, “Don’t blow your top like this. We just asked you to help us to figure out some problems and facts unclear to us.”
“But those are wicked questions, and I won’t bother to answer them.”
“OK, we understand.”
Nevertheless, before leaving, they warned Yomei that she must bear in mind that her brother Sun Yang could help them clarify Zhu Deh’s case. At the mention of Yang, she went ballistic. She pointed at the door and shouted, “Get out, both of you! You’re not welcome here!”
They stood up, dropped their cigarette butts on the floor, then turned to the door. She picked up the butts and felt her blood throbbing with rage. She and her husband looked at each other speechlessly.
Time and again, Yang became the center of investigators’ questions. They wanted to know whether some foreign powers had been involved in producing Zhu Deh’s biography, particularly the Soviets. One man even asked Yomei, “Doesn’t your brother Sun Yang have lots of Russian friends?”
“I don’t think so,” she replied. “Yang went to the Soviet Union for only a few months in 1953 to attend a cadre-training program. Afterward he had no contact with anyone there. He doesn’t know Russian, and is unable to mix with the Soviets. To my knowledge, the Russians never liked Marshal Zhu Deh and viewed him as a hick of a leader. Why would they sponsor the writing of his biography? They haven’t supported Chairman Mao or Premier Zhou that way, and they were more international in their eyes. Your question makes no sense and bothers me terribly. It’s like a gnat that flew into my mouth.”
That shut the man up, but then he managed to continue, “You must cooperate with us, because Sun Yang’s problems are extremely serious. Comrade Jiang Ching already says he’s not just a capitalist roader but also a running dog of Zhu Deh’s.”
“Sun Yang used to be Zhu Deh’s secretary. The job was assigned to him by the Central Committee. It was his duty to serve Marshal Zhu conscientiously. I can assure you that Sun Yang is an honest and upright man.”
“Then why did he work against Chairman Mao?”
“He never did!”
“We have a letter he wrote to the Central Committee, complaining about the Great Leap Forward.”
“He did mention the awful steel product he had seen. Keep in mind that he studied in Japan and knew that industrialization couldn’t be realized overnight. How could you justify that type of mass production of steel, surrendering metal containers and beds, kitchenware, even watch belts, to the backyard smelting furnaces? You all have seen what sort of trash those furnaces produced—they couldn’t even produce pig iron, let alone high-quality steel. It’s common sense that no country could modernize its industry that way. On top of that, you all know that during the famine years a lot of people starved to death in the provinces. That resulted also from overcollectivization, didn’t it?”
Jin Shan was perturbed by Yomei’s outspokenness and jumped in, “You ought to look at Sun Yang’s entire history and see how much work he has done for the Party. In many ways he was a picture of selfless dedication. All his colleagues loved and respected him. Where can you find a better president for a university? There aren’t many such good and capable men around.”
Again the investigators were nonplussed. Still, before leaving, they told Yomei that her brother’s case was far from over and he might be incarcerated for a long time, maybe for some years. She’d better be more cooperative so that they could solve his case sooner. Their remarks unsettled her.
Since the fall, she had been trying desperately to find a way to get Yang out of the incarceration. She had heard that he was confined in the basement of the university’s main building and was often beaten at night. Out of despair, she wrote a letter to Father Zhou to report Yang’s persecution. She begged him to intervene on his behalf, considering Yang had a young wife and three small children at home. At least they should let him return to join his family at night. Given that Yang had worked for the Party for more than three decades, they should treat him with basic decency.
The letter was mailed out, though Yomei was uncertain if the premier could receive it. For more than a month, she didn’t hear a word from him. Probably the Zhous were also in a tight spot, unable to protect others. That must be why Father Zhou had told her in the oil field last year that she shouldn’t visit his home too often lest his opponents pounce on her.
Though loving him like a father, she began to have misgivings about his integrity and smoothness. Recently one incident had disturbed her considerably. Two months before, Jiang Ching had gone to the Great Hall of the People to join a meeting presided over by Premier Zhou. Before she arrived, her assistant had phoned Cheng Yuan-gong, the premier’s chief of guards, to tell him that Jiang Ching would need to eat lunch before she attended the meeting. So at the sight of Ching, Yuan-gong said to her, “Your lunch is ready in the Jiangsu Hall. Premier Zhou and the other leaders are in the meeting. You can join them after lunch.”
Jiang Ching had forgotten about the lunch arranged beforehand by her assistant, so she blew her stack, convinced that Yuan-gong was blocking her way to the meeting. She blasted, “You’re just a dog of Zhou Enlai’s, but you treat me like a wolf. Come,” she motioned to others around, “have him arrested!” But people were too stunned to act, a few turning aside and speaking in nervous whispers.
Later Jiang Ching told Wang Dongxing, the chief of general affairs at Zhongnanhai, to apprehend Yuan-gong, but Wang refused to carry out the order and told others, “With just a wild conjecture Jiang Ching worked herself up into a fury. She can’t use me like a loaded gun.” He had known Yuan-gong since the early 1940s in Yan’an and trusted him, so he couldn’t see any reason for arresting the man. Yet his disobedience riled Jiang Ching up, and she spoke to Zhou Enlai directly, demanding that he get rid of Yuan-gong.
Yomei had known Yuan-gong for more than two decades and treated him like a younger brother. So when she heard him describing this manic incident, she got worried, but he said the premier wouldn’t listen to Jiang Ching, an irascible woman who’d see red on all sides, so he, Yuan-gong, would be all right. But just three weeks later, he disappeared from Zhongnanhai, and Yomei had no idea where he was now. Rumor was that he’d gone to a labor camp in Jiangxi Province. Evidently Father Zhou had caved in to Jiang Ching and dismissed his chief of guards, who had served him loyally for twenty-five years. Such an outcome agitated Yomei, making her see that Father Zhou wouldn’t be that reliable in helping her brother Yang, since he too could be coerced by Jiang Ching. What’s worse, it was the premier’s habit to sacrifice people close to him so as to save his own skin. He was always afraid that Mao might get rid of him. He was like a lizard that, if seized from behind, would sever its tail to survive.
Yomei’s anxiety grew more acute when she went to see Zhu Deh. The old man and his wife both sighed and were genuinely concerned. The old man said, “Yang was with me for so many years. I know what kind of man he is. His only fault was that he worked for me conscientiously and wrote my biography. It was I who ruined him.” He turned tearful and kept blinking his bleary eyes, his rustic face turning stony.
Yomei said, “Don’t feel so bad, Uncle Zhu. I’m more worried about Yang’s wife, Shih Chee, and their three children. Their family is shattered, and how can they survive? Maybe I should go beg Father Zhou and Mother Deng to help, since Father Zhou heads the Committee of the Cultural Revolution.” From a bowl she picked a Roma tomato, which the Zhus had grown in their tiny garden. She took a bite. The fruit was sharp and pungent.
“There’s no use,” Zhu Deh said. “I spoke with Premier Zhou about Yang last week. He knew Yang well and could see plainly that the false accusation was malicious, purely a fabrication. But your father Zhou told me, ‘Many people could have remained safe, but because of my intervention, they got hurt more and even destroyed.’ So the premier can’t do anything for Yang either.”
Yomei wasn’t sure of that, knowing Father Zhou was a shrewd and resourceful man. Apparently these days he had been busy protecting himself. There was no doubt that he loved power so much that he was willing to sacrifice anything and anyone for it, including some of his close comrades. Yomei thought of sharing her doubts with Jin Shan, but she refrained. Despite the letdown, she’d still take Premier Zhou as a father figure, whose defects she was eager to conceal from others. But she did speak with Yolan about the difficulties in getting their brother rescued. Lately Yolan had visited Shih Chee, who was terribly worried about her husband. In his most recent letter Yang told Chee, “Maybe I am already behind the times—the revolutionary movement is moving so fast that I can no longer keep up with it.” Yolan had also run into some trouble with the Red Guards at Beijing University, but so far she was safe, in spite of her Soviet education. She too believed that Father Zhou might not be willing to help their family anymore, having to protect himself from Jiang Ching, behind whom loomed the ultimate power—Mao himself. In the eyes of Mao and Ching, Yang must have been Uncle Zhu Deh’s frontline soldier, and had to be shot down.