• Eighty •

After more than seven years’ imprisonment, Lily and Jin Shan got out of jail in the early summer of 1975, within days of each other. The incarceration had ruined their health, so neither of them were able to work like before. Lily went to stay with her elder sister’s family, while Jin Shan returned to his home. Finally they came to know that Yomei had been killed long ago. Crushed and wrecked, Jin Shan was resolved to keep his home as it had been when Yomei had lived there. He was frail, having in seven years’ imprisonment aged at least two decades, and couldn’t manage on his own, so Yolan came every weekend. She cooked for Jin Shan and helped him tidy up the house. He was often off his head, taking Yolan as her sister, calling her Yomei and even patting her. She didn’t blame him, though he would apologize when his senses returned.

She was touched by his attachment to the memory of her sister. Sometimes she stayed in Yomei’s room on weekends. Gradually Jin Shan depended more and more on her help. As they got to know each other better, he proposed to her, with the provision that they keep everything in the house as it had been as when Yomei had been there. Without a second thought Yolan accepted the offer—she too wanted to remain faithful to her sister’s memory. The two of them went to the local office and got a marriage certificate, but they didn’t hold a wedding, feeling there was nothing to celebrate. It was fate that had thrown them together, assembling them as one family again. Jin Shan loved Yolan’s children and accepted them as his own, though somehow he fell out with Little Lan, grumbling about her friends, who had borrowed his precious books but never returned them and also about her having a boyfriend, who was nothing but a dandy in his eyes. As a result, the girl no longer acknowledged him as her father, though she always thought of Yomei as her mother.

Jin Shan and Yolan lived peacefully in spite of so many historical events taking place. In 1976 alone, Zhou Enlai died in January, Zhu Deh passed away in June, Mao Zedong breathed his last breath in September, and in the following month Jiang Ching and three of her close accomplices—the Gang of Four—were overthrown by a coup mounted by Marshal Yeh Jian-ying and Deng Xiaoping. The gang was arrested and thrown into prison. Their overnight downfall was celebrated throughout China by common citizens. At her trial, Jiang Ching insisted on her total innocence, crying out, “I’m Chairman Mao’s dog and would bite whoever he set me upon.” To her mind, there was simply no one entitled to try her. Later she hanged herself in her prison cell, with handkerchiefs tied together and fixed to a small iron shelf that supported her washbasin. She claimed she was to join Chairman Mao in the netherworld. Years before, in the fall of 1971, Yeh Qun and her husband, Lin Biao, perished in a plane crash in Mongolia as a result of their failure in the struggle against Mao. Scared of Mao’s retaliation, the couple had fled China, but their plane hadn’t been able to reach the Soviet Union and crashed. Their bodies were buried together with those of their followers in a stopgap grave dug at the site, in the wild prairie outside Öndörkhaan, except for Lin Biao’s head, which was collected by the KGB and later pickled in formalin. All those powerful figures disappeared as if a gust of wind had swept them away and scattered them like puffs of smoke. In spite of everything, Jin Shan and Yolan continued to live uneventfully.

Then Yomei’s reputation was restored. All her “crimes” were dismissed. The only accusation remotely true was that she had personally gone to Lisa’s home a few times to give her some free theater tickets (which had been treated by her persecutors as Yomei’s way of passing intelligence on to Soviet agents). On June 9, 1977, the Ministry of Culture held a memorial service in honor of Yomei, which was attended by more than two hundred people, mostly her friends and colleagues. Many couldn’t hold back their tears and spoke about their love and affection for her and about what the loss of such a brilliant stage director meant to contemporary Chinese theater, and also to themselves. Memory after memory, all were stained with tears and blood, mixed with grief and joy—

“Sun Yomei was a transparent person and an endearing artist. It was the Cultural Revolution that prevented her career from reaching its peak. She is a people’s martyr among our artists and a people’s hero among our artists. In this aspect, no artist can be compared to her. She is a nonpareil, in a class of her own.”—You Benchang, actor

“Sun Yomei is by all accounts a founder of the new China’s new theater. She was a torch blazing like a beacon for all the latecomers in our field. Her work still can teach us how to navigate the sea of theater arts.”—Zhou Zhi-qiang, president of the National Theater of China

“Every play she directed gave you a new sensation. She always experimented with new methods and new forms. People who saw her plays all had such an impression: some of her plays were like a series of pictures of life, full of the aura and the feeling of reality; some were like sets of oil paintings, abundant, raw, bold, thick with colors; some flowed like lyrical poetry; some were like a symphony, lively and fresh, lingering with meaning and emotion afterward.”—Jin Zhenwu, actor

“One of the most salient features of Comrade Sun Yomei’s directing was that she emphasized what was behind your lines. She demanded that actors substantiate their characters’ inner lives and must imagine every specific monologue to find the precise unspoken lines. Once the inside of a character was filled and specified, the character’s language and movement onstage would become active and powerful, and then the thoughts and feelings could become more realistic.”—Jin Shuzhi, actress

“I can forgive Jiang Ching many bad things she did, but one thing I will never forgive her: the murder of my dear friend Yomei. Why destroy such a brilliant, beautiful woman, who was harmless to everyone?”—Lisa Kishkin

“Sun Yomei was straightforward, so her words were sharp, even piercing. Everyone, however experienced or famous, was equal on her rehearsal stage, no more than an actor. When taking part in her rehearsal, you were excited but also antsy. With her help, you always could find something new and get enlightened. But once she caught any defect you had, you’d have to pay for it. She was good at imitating you, so through her imitation, your defect would be enlarged and even stretched. The observers around you would laugh out loud while you didn’t know how to take it, beyond being embarrassed, of course. It was like placing germs under a microscope, so you wouldn’t dare to touch them again. Therefore, those imitated and embarrassed by her learned the most from her. Her acumen and fearlessness daunted you, while her generosity and open-mindedness encouraged you to make bold and get better. This individual’s personality had so many solid facets, unforgettable.”—Yang Zongjing, stage director

“My mother was always kind and considerate to others, and she was never guarded to anyone. In the early 1960s, there was the famine, and whenever her acting crew came to our home to discuss a play, she would ask our nanny to stir-fry some flour, then let everyone have a bowl of it mixed with sugar. A down-and-out actress named Jin Minju from the northeast once came to our home because her husband was branded as a ‘rightist.’ When the woman was leaving, my mother gave her a fine fur overcoat, the only one she had, because the woman was wearing thin clothes…Mother enjoyed playing with me like a little girl. Together we jumped rope, skipped and danced over a chain of rubber bands, played hide-and-seek, kicked the shuttlecock, played hopscotch, made origami creatures and colored pinwheels, flew kites and paper planes, built temples and vehicles with toy bricks, and tossed marbles, though she was already close to forty…She was always fun. She was almost never made-up but always glowed with beauty and ease. Her beauty was true, coming out from within.”—Little Lan

“She was a big director but had no airs. Once, rehearsing a play, she let You Benchang chase some refugees. I was playing a refugee, and while escaping from Benchang, I couldn’t stop in my tracks and hurt my back and broke a rib. I was hospitalized. It was in the middle of the famine, and without enough food, I was bloated and couldn’t sleep at night, suffering from a psychological disorder and being emaciated. Sun Yomei often went to the hospital to see me and gave me some sleeping pills, saying they were from Russia, so I should take one tablet only when I really couldn’t sleep. Later she also gave me a bottle of vitamin B₁₂. The capsules were in a pink bottle, and were very precious at the time. I still have the bottle at home. During the Cultural Revolution, when I heard she was gone, I gripped that bottle and cried for hours…In real life she was a scatterbrain. She bought a monthly bus pass but used it only three times and later had no idea when it expired. Once she purchased a floor lamp in Guangzhou and consigned it for shipment to Beijing. After a long time, when we were rehearsing Joys and Sorrows, as the senior official was sitting in the living room and reading a newspaper, Yomei said, ‘Well, if only there were a floor lamp while he’s reading the paper’—she stopped and went spacey. We were all at a loss and asked what happened to her. She said, ‘I have a chrome floor lamp somewhere at home. But I don’t know where it is nowadays. I remember paying for it.’ By then, half a year had passed. She had actually forgotten to collect the lamp from the railroad cargo office. On the other hand, we were often amazed by her photographic memory when she worked on a play.”—Song Geh, actor “When we were performing The Brothers Yershov in the Great Hall of the People, my baby was sick and I was overwhelmed at home, so I couldn’t concentrate onstage, and many things went wrong: I missed one of my scenes, my beard fell off, even the fly of my pants was not buttoned. One night, Vice Premiere Chen Yi came to see our play, and Yomei accompanied him. But they couldn’t find me, so they had to drop the curtain and look for me again. Afterward Yomei’s chauffeur told me, ‘Director Sun wants to replace you.’ I said I was prepared for that, knowing I had embarrassed her and my fellow actors…The next day Yomei told me to come to her home in the evening. I thought she’d dress me down. When I arrived in the evening, she was writing at a desk. I said, ‘Comrade Yomei, I’m here.’ She just uh-huhed. She kept scribbling directing notes in Russian, so after waiting a while I said again, ‘Comrade Yomei, I’m here.’ Without raising her head, she said, ‘I know. There are two baked pies on the dining table. You should eat them.’ I said, ‘Comrade Yomei, you can criticize me and even curse me if you want to.’ She said, ‘I’ve heard you’re a good father and a loving husband, but you must also be a fine actor. You can go now.’ I was stupefied and wondered, Is this all? She didn’t blame me but fed me and even gave me a pack of expensive Phoenix cigarettes, telling me not to let Jin Shan know. That was in the famine time! From her home in Iron Lion Alley to our theater’s dorm, I wept all the way, murmuring in my heart, Rest assured, Comrade Yomei, I’ll become a good actor!”—Lei Keh, actor

“Sun Yomei was carefree, open, very transparent. She was fond of laughing, and her laughter was loud and clear, endearing and infectious…She had charming eyes that showed love and hate plainly. For her, right and wrong could not stand together; good and bad must not mix. At rehearsals, if she found you showing talent, her eyes would smile, narrowing a little. But if you did a sloppy job, she wouldn’t give you a second look at rehearsal. Her personal history, her artistic talent, her charismatic personality, her love for life and theater, her ambitious artistic pursuits, and her beauty, combined with her natural and unbending disposition, all made her stand out and appear unique. You can sing the praises of her personality endlessly.”—Shen Ling, actress

“I’ve heard that Yomei was beaten so severely that her body was covered with cuts and bruises. The medical verdict is that she died of ‘subarachnoid hemorrhage.’ But her family didn’t see her body, and even her ashes were gotten rid of because she was branded as a counterrevolutionary. The other day I took part in a meeting that was supposed to condemn Yomei’s persecutors. But nobody mentioned Yeh Qun, Lin Biao, and those involved in torturing her to death. I simply can’t resign myself to this cover-up!

“I can’t help but despair at the loss of such a theater artist at the peak of her creative powers and brilliance. Who killed her? How? Why has no one stepped up and explained it to us clearly? This is to do her a double wrong. Whenever I think of her radiant smile and ringing laughter and her graceful figure and her quick and supple movements, and how all have disappeared forever, my heart can’t help bleeding and seething with hatred…When we were young students in the Soviet Union, Yomei and I both saw a marvelous, lofty vista ahead of us after our revolution succeeded and after the new China was established. Neither of us could have imagined awaiting us was such a brutal future.”—Lin Lily, who always believed that Lin Biao may have had played a hand in destroying her friend

“Sun Yomei’s case is hard for me to mention. It always gives me nightmares. Even after so many years, I still can’t think of it. Sun Yomei was tortured to death in just half a year in prison, because there had been orders from above, which wouldn’t let her survive the year [1968]. On the other hand, she had a personality like a mountain tit. A tit cannot be caged, because the moment you put the little bird into a cage it starts bumping into the walls of bars and won’t stop until it kills itself. Sun Yomei was like that, too unbending to survive imprisonment. At the beginning of her interrogation, I joined them once, but after that, I stopped going. I was allowed to join them, but I was too scared to go. That was not an interrogation at all, that was abuse. To be specific, it was to humiliate her. In a formal term, it was a violation. They pulled her hair, whacked her across the mouth, punched her in the sides, and shouted obscenities. Once I asked my team leader why they tortured the woman like that. He showed me her file. After reading it, I realized this case was enormous, handed down from the very top. Those interrogators soon got exhausted, and during a smoke break, they would chat, saying the woman had a devil of a temper and would rather break than bend. She was uppity and delusional, acting like she were still living in Zhongnanhai. They whispered that her life was such a mess that it had been mixed up with three of the most powerful men and two of the most powerful women in China—nobody could survive that kind of entanglement, to say nothing that she was merely a stage director…I was not on duty the day she died. I went home to fetch something, then I got a call that said she had died and I must go back right away. So I hurried over. On arrival at the jail, I saw them carrying her out on a stretcher. What a horrible sight! She was naked and partly covered with a white sheet, her hands and feet still shackled, her face bathed in blood—a nail was hammered into the top of her head.”—Investigator Feng

“Among our entire Second Red Generation, Sun Yomei was the most talented and the most accomplished one. Many top national leaders viewed her as such too. The four-star general Luo Ruiching raved about her, ‘She is the first theater expert our Party has produced, a real red expert!’…She might be entitled to say to others, ‘The world is ours and the country is ours, so we must say and do what we can’…On the other hand, Sun Yomei spent so many years studying abroad that she became muddleheaded. She simply didn’t understand China’s millennia-long bureaucratic system, which dominated everything. Her eyes saw only one man among all the extraordinary figures—the actor Jin Shan.”—Zhang Langlang, writer and painter