Yomei couldn’t figure out whether her visit to Mao and her letters to Jiang Ching had precipitated her brother’s death. It was very likely that Jiang Ching had come to know about her meeting with Mao and become more vicious, though Yomei hadn’t mentioned to the chairman anything against her. In a way, she regretted having gone to see him, since evidently her visit hadn’t helped protect Yang and might have brought him more torture. Even her entreaties for Ching’s compassion might have only provoked her or shown Yomei’s own vulnerability.
In mid-December she wrote to her daughter in Daqing Oil Field and asked her to come back for the spring festival in late January. In the letter, she wrote that she was going to invite her cousins over so that Little Lan could celebrate the holiday together with Bing, Ning, and Ming. Yomei didn’t mention Uncle Yang’s death and just said, “Something happened in their family. I will explain when you are back.” She also enclosed thirty yuan for Little Lan’s train fare and a five-pound national grain coupon so that she could get food on the way. Mother and daughter wrote each other quite often, at least twice a month, but Yomei had not revealed to the girl her and Jin Shan’s troubles yet. She wanted their daughter to be undisturbed and to concentrate on her schoolwork in Sartu.
One early morning, about a week after the letter was sent out, Yomei and Jin Shan were still in bed when someone banged on their door. Jin Shan got up to answer it. Yomei sat up and looked out of the window. It was still pale gray outside, and the streets quiet, without traffic yet. Who would be here before daybreak? she wondered.
In came a group of policemen, all wearing felt hats with the earflaps let down. “Are you Jin Shan?” a gruff voice asked.
Yomei stepped out of the bedroom, buttoning up her jacket, as Jin Shan answered, “Yes, I am. What’s the matter?”
“You must come with us,” a thickset cop said.
“Where to?”
Without another word, two men rushed up and grasped Jin Shan’s arms and clapped handcuffs on his wrists. Yomei stepped in between them and shouted, “Wait a second. He’s not a criminal. Why did you cuff him?”
Their leader, a scrawny man with a lined face and a bulbous forehead, took out a piece of paper with a big round seal at its bottom, accompanied by the signature and the square signet of the official who had authorized the arrest. “Here’s the warrant,” he told Yomei. “Are you his wife?”
“Yes, what’s the charge against him?”
“Can’t say for sure. We were just ordered to haul him in. I need you to sign this.” He put the paper on the table.
“You must first tell me what crime he committed.”
“He’s a counterrevolutionary. Never mind then, even if you don’t sign, he’s still a criminal we can pick up.” He took back the warrant and waved at the other three men, who stepped forward, and together they dragged Jin Shan away.
Yomei followed them into the yard, while her husband shook his head, indicating she should stop and that he’d be all right. They put him into a white minivan and pulled away. The vehicle let out a raucous blast.
That afternoon a team of Red Guards came. They announced that they wanted to rifle through Jin Shan’s house for evidence of the crimes committed by both Yomei and him. She had no choice but to let them conduct the search, though she was certain that neither of them was guilty of anything. The Red Guards rummaged through their chests, drawers, bookcases, and wardrobes, combing through their letters, books, and albums. For some reason, they took away all Yomei’s letters from Chairman Mao, Jiang Ching, Zhou Enlai, Zhu Deh, Kang Sheng, and other dignitaries. Some of the letters were in Russian, and the Red Guards bagged them all in a gunnysack. They also confiscated her albums of photos, some of which were historically valuable, such as those she and Mao had taken together in Moscow. She intervened, saying they couldn’t just make off with her personal memorabilia. A girl with a square, mannish face, who must have been a leader, told her, “Comrade Jiang Ching instructed us to seize whatever looks suspicious from you, especially pictures, so we’re just carrying out the orders from the Cultural Revolution Committee.”
Yomei realized this was also part of Ching’s revenge, so she made no more objection and just stood against a wall, arms crossed, and let them search every nook and cranny of her home. They collected a lot of Jin Shan’s letters and papers too. They seemed to be after something specific, but none of them was explicit about their goal and they all just kept going through their possessions. One young man found a bank deposit book of Yomei’s and was wondering whether to include it as part of their booty, but he put it back in the sideboard drawer. Yomei breathed a sigh of relief. Just two days prior, she had sent a woolen coat and her main bankbook to Jun’s and asked her aunt to keep them for her for the time being. Now she was amazed that the Red Guards seemed uninterested in anything monetarily valuable. They had filled four burlap sacks with her and Jin Shan’s belongings, mostly papers, letters, photos, posters, slides, and some books.
Before leaving, they locked the glass-front bookcases and pocketed the keys. They also sealed with bands of red paper all their cupboards, desks, chests, and the sideboard. They inscribed big crosses in black ink on the sealing paper, then told Yomei that nobody was allowed to tamper with the seals.
After putting things back in order, Yomei wondered what to do. She knew that she shouldn’t go to a relative or friend in such a state. That would have depressed others, if not compromised them. So she forced herself to cook dinner, just boiling a bowl of leftover rice and stir-frying some cabbage and cured pork. No matter what, she had to eat to keep up her strength. While at the wok, she noticed the end of a volume of Chekhov’s plays sticking out from behind the cupboard. Someone must have dropped it there inadvertently. It was a hefty book with a morocco binding and in Russian; fortunately the Red Guards hadn’t taken it. So after dinner, she sat down, an afghan wrapped around her shoulders, copying passages from Three Sisters, a play for which she always had had a soft spot, because it was the first Russian play in which she had acted a significant role. That had been two and a half decades before. How time had flitted, like a shadow that passed swiftly—so many things had appeared, then disappeared. She went on hand-copying the play, mainly to take her mind off things around her and from the thoughts frightening her. She feared that Father Zhou was reluctant to help her family anymore, unwilling to confront Jiang Ching and Mao. That was entirely possible. Yet in a time like this, she had to continue by any means. Later, lying in bed, she recited some final lines from Uncle Vanya: “We will say we have sobbed and suffered, that we had a hard and bitter struggle, and God will have pity on us, and we will see a new life, a bright and glorious life.” She kept murmuring those words in the Russian until she fell asleep.
The next morning she again went to the theater to join the political studies and a denunciation meeting. In the afternoon she was also ordered to join a public rally, though thus far she hadn’t been put on the platform yet. For a whole day she was thinking about what to do. She’d have to find a way to get Jin Shan out of those bullies’ hands.
At her wit’s end, she decided to turn to Lin Biao for help, believing that he, as the Party’s vice chairman, should be in a position to look into her husband’s case. Just the year before, at the Eleventh Plenum of the CCP’s Eighth Congress, Lin Biao had been announced as Mao’s successor, the second most powerful man in China now, and above all, he was in charge of the entire PLA, having military power in his hands. So he might be able to overrule Jiang Ching in some cases. That night Yomei wrote:
My Respected Vice President Lin,
How time is flying. Although we haven’t seen each other for eighteen years, I have often seen you in newspapers and documentary films. Since 1950, I have been a stage director in Beijing and have produced some fine plays. I enjoyed my profession and found it rewarding and enriching. But since last fall, things have changed drastically. My brother Sun Yang was seized by the masses at the People’s University and jailed in a basement there. He was accused of spying for Japan, the Soviet Union, and Chiang Kai-shek’s regime. The Red Guards paraded him through the streets and put him up on platforms for denunciation. In the freezing weather, they forced him to bow as low as possible, with his hands bound behind his back. As a result, his dripping snot formed icicles below his nose.
Needless to say, the accusation against Yang was groundless and ridiculous. You met him three decades ago in Yan’an and saw how he grew into a capable cadre and soldier. I dare say he was one of those most dedicated workers for our Party and country. Two months ago it was announced that Yang had killed himself, but this was obviously a lie. I went to see his body, which was battered, his skull broken and his knee smashed. As a devoted Party member, even after his death, Yang mustn’t be treated as a traitor, nor as someone who committed suicide.
More outrageous, his wife, Shih Chee, was also arrested before his death and accused of being a traitor. She went to school in the new China and has never been abroad or worked with foreigners. How could she possibly become a traitor? Whom would she betray? And for whom? The charge was nothing but rubbish.
Yang and Chee have three small children. Because of their parents’ arrest, the kids have become homeless. At the moment, my younger sister, Yolan, tries to look after them, because I am also under attack—my home was ransacked and my husband Jin Shan has been arrested (the charge is quite vague: “counterrevolutionary”). Both Jin Shan and I have been accused of spreading foreign and bourgeois culture. Of course, we are innocent. He has worked for our Party since the early 1930s, and you know what I was like when I was a young girl. I would say Jin Shan and I are both red from head to toe. I would even venture to claim that at some point you and I were comrades fighting in the same trench. How could I be a traitor to our revolutionary cause?
Now, dear Vice President Lin, I am writing to ask for your help, not to rescue me but to save my brother Yang’s family by getting his wife, Shih Chee, out of incarceration. Of course, I hope you can also look into Jin Shan’s case so that he will be treated properly or released.
I always have fond memories of you and believe you are a generous and kindhearted man. That is why I have made bold to write you directly to beg for your help. Many thanks in advance.
Always yours,
Yomei
She didn’t ask for a lot from Lin Biao, because she believed what she needed from him was an attitude or a gesture. As long as he expressed his interest (perhaps in secret, with a certain amount of pity) in protecting the Sun family, Jiang Ching might hold back from attacking them.
Yomei sealed the letter and wondered where to send it. Usually Lin Biao resided in Maojiawan, an alley in the western part of downtown Beijing, but during hot summer days he often lived in the Zhejiang Section in the Great Hall of the People because there was air-conditioning in there. It was winter now, so Yomei mailed the letter to Maojiawan. She hoped against hope that Lin Biao still had enough affection for her that he would lift his hand to protect her family. This should be easy for him.
She didn’t know that all letters addressed to Lin Biao had to go through his office, which was headed by his wife, Yeh Qun. Yomei’s letter was intercepted by the small woman, who flew into a wild rage after reading it. She said to her secretary, “That slut will never change, still attempting to seduce my husband.” Without explaining, she just set the letter ablaze, so Lin Biao knew nothing about Yomei’s request for help.