“We’re finally getting rid of you,” the Communist official said, as he flipped through my release papers. He gave me a small bag with my belongings from two months ago, and I immediately rustled through it for my glasses. When I put them on, I could see everything clearly.
“Will I still be able to teach?” I asked.
“Yes. We want you to stay at the Communist Party School,” he said. “Now that you owe us, you can help make sure others are loyal to the party. But don’t get too excited. We’ll be watching you too. We’ve assigned you two special agents who will be right there with you, every step of the way. In fact, here they are now.”
I followed the direction of his gaze as two officers walked through the door. I was completely shocked when I saw their faces.
“Dingbang?” I said. “Feng?”
I knew them as the two lazy students who sat in my English class at the Communist Party School, day after day, refusing to lift their heads off their desks or learn even the most basic English phrases.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“Remember how we told you we’d been watching you for a long time?” the official asked. Suddenly, it all became so clear. No wonder they were such terrible students. They were spies. They were everywhere. Always watching. Ready to pounce. My jaw hung open, but no words came out. I thought about all the times I’d tried to teach them the basic construction of English sentences, adjectives, and even easy conversational phrases. Had I known they were spies, it would’ve saved me a great deal of time.
“These will be your special agents,” he continued. “They already know everything about you, so don’t try to pull anything over on them.”
“And quit trying to teach us English,” one sneered.
I gathered my things and began to walk out the door, overwhelmed by my situation. Even though I was free from jail, one was never truly free in China. As I turned the corner, I looked down the long, brightly lit corridor and saw a solitary figure walking toward me.
Heidi. She was pale, thin, and—when our eyes met—she smiled. That’s when I knew everything was going to be okay, and so many emotions rushed through me. I wanted to run to her, sweep her up into my arms, and kiss her. Of course, I didn’t. After all, public affection is not the Chinese way, so we didn’t even touch when we met in the hall. However, when we got to the privacy of our little ransacked apartment, I was able to properly show her how I felt. I took her hand, stepped over the overturned lamps, passed the flipped furniture, and led her to the bed. The Beijing police had dumped the mattress on the floor, but I promptly put it back onto the frame, looked at her, and said, “Want to commit a tremendous act of rebellion?”
The Communist Party was so controlling and heavy handed it reached into every aspect of life. China’s notorious one-child policy meant couples had to obtain permits for pregnancy or else the government would force an abortion or even sterilization. Every time Heidi and I were intimate, this threat loomed heavily on our minds. Consequently, we had used contraception without fail during our entire three-year marriage. In fact, birth control was given out free of charge by the Communist Party School.
“Without anything?” Heidi asked. The question hung between us as we considered the prospect. They’d kept us apart for two months, and we wanted to be together without their influence. Plus, our time in prison had created in us a severe disdain for the Communist Party. Heidi smiled, opened her mouth, and said—at the same time as I—“Beng guan tamen,” which meant, “Who cares about them?”
Seeing defiance in her eyes, I grabbed Heidi and we practiced our first act of “civil disobedience in the bedroom.”
Noncompliance never felt so right.