The Good Women of China: Hidden Voices (26 page)

‘The class was in a smallish room furnished like a home, with beds, a dining table and several chairs similar to the ones at school, but bigger. There was also a big bookcase full of revolutionary works. Quotations of Chairman Mao and revolutionary slogans written in red were pasted on all four walls of the room. I had only just started my fourth year of primary school, so I could not understand all of them.

‘The Red Guard who had taken me there gave me a Little Red Book of quotations of Chairman Mao – I had always envied my sister hers – and asked, “Do you know that your parents are secret agents?”

‘I nodded, wide-eyed. I was afraid they would not allow me to take part in the study group after all.

‘“Do you know that everyone in the study group is a Red Guard?”

‘I nodded again. I wanted to be a Red Guard so much, so that people would not curse me any longer, and so that I could sit on the back of a lorry and go out into the street to shout slogans; all that power and prestige!

‘“So you mustn’t let the secret agents know about the Red Guards’ affairs, understand?” he said.

‘Thinking of the stories about the underground Party and secret agents I knew from films, I stammered, “I – I won’t tell my family.”

‘“Stand up now, and swear to Chairman Mao that you will keep the Red Guards’ secrets.”

‘“I swear!”

‘“Good. Now, first you will read Chairman Mao’s quotations alone. After we’ve eaten we’ll teach you how to study them.”

‘I was amazed to hear that I would be provided with food. No wonder, I thought, that my sister had never said anything about the study group. She had been sworn to secrecy, but she must also have been afraid that my little brother and I would be very envious at the mention of food. As these thoughts were going through my mind, I stared at the pages of my Little Red Book, not understanding a word.

‘After I had finished eating, two more Red Guards came in. Both of them were very young, only a little older than my sister. They asked me, “Have you made your promise to Chairman Mao?” I nodded, wondering why they asked.

‘“All right,” they said, “we’ll be studying until very late today, so you should rest for a while first.”

‘They took me in their arms and carried me to the bed, smiled at me and helped me unfold the quilt and undress, right down to the last piece of underclothing. They turned off the lights with a loud click of the switch.

‘No one had ever told me about what goes on between men and women, not even my mother. All I knew about the difference between men and women was that men’s trousers fastened in front, and women’s trousers at the side. So when three men started to fumble with my body in the dark, I had no idea what this meant, or what was going to happen next.

‘I felt very tired. For some reason, I could not keep my eyes open. In the confusion, I heard the men say, “This is your first lesson. We have to know if there are counter-revolutionary influences in your body.”

‘A hand pinched my undeveloped nipple and a voice said, “It’s small, but there must be a bud in there.”

‘Another hand spread my legs apart, and a different voice cut in, saying, “Counter-revolutionary things are always hidden in the most secret places of a person’s body, let’s have a look.”

‘A wave of terror like nothing I had felt before swept over me. I started shaking with fear, but a thought flashed through my mind: only good people were in the study group, they wouldn’t do bad things.

‘Then a man said, “Jun’er, this one’s for you. We brothers keep our word.”

‘I did not understand what they were talking about. By now, I had lost all control of my body. Later, when I was older, I realised they must have put sleeping pills in my food. Something thick and big stabbed my childish body as if it were going to pierce right through me. Countless pairs of hands rubbed my chest and bottom, and a foul tongue was stuffed into my mouth. There was urgent panting all around me and my body burned with pain as if I were being whipped.

‘I don’t know how long this hellish “lesson” lasted. I went completely numb.’

Hua’er’s face was deathly white. I had to bite my lip to stop my teeth from chattering. When I reached out a hand to her, she ignored it.

‘Finally, all the noise and movement stopped. I cried and cried.

‘In the dark, several voices said to me, “Hua’er, later on you’ll like it,” “Hua’er, you’re a good child, there is nothing evil about you. Your father will be let out very soon.”

‘I was passive as a rag doll as they bent and lifted my body to dress me.

‘One of them said very quietly, “Hua’er, I’m sorry.” I have always wanted to know who it was who said that.

‘Several of the Red Guards took turns to carry me on their backs in the piercing autumn wind. They put me down a long way from home, saying, “Don’t forget, you have sworn on Chairman Mao.”

‘I tried to take a step, but I couldn’t move. My lower body felt as if it had been ripped to shreds. One of them picked me up in his arms and carried me to the door of my home, then he and his companions slipped away quickly in the darkness. My mother opened the door when she heard their voices, and took me in her arms.

‘“What is it, Hua’er? Why are you back so late?” she asked.

‘My mind was empty: I did not think about my promise to Chairman Mao. All I could do was cry. My mother carried me to bed as I wept. Seeing me in the light of the lamps, she understood everything.

‘“Dear God!” she gasped.

‘My sister Shu shook me and asked, “Did you go to the study group?” but I just continued crying and crying. Yes, I had gone to the “study group”, a woman’s study group, a . . .’

Finally, Hua’er was crying. Her shoulders shook with weak, exhausted sobs. I put my arms around her, and felt her whole body shivering.

‘Hua’er, don’t say any more, you won’t be able to bear it,’ I said. My face was wet with tears, and the weeping of the girls from the study group at my brother’s school echoed in my ears.

It was noon, and a guard brought us some food. The two meals were completely different. I swapped my tray with Hua’er’s, but she barely glanced at it. Still sobbing, she continued, ‘I was so young. Despite the pain, I still managed to fall asleep to the sound of my mother and sister crying.

‘I woke with a start. My elder brother Shan was standing outside our door, shouting, “Help, somebody! My mother’s hanged herself!”

‘My sister Shu was wailing, “Mama, why have you abandoned us?”

‘My little brother Shi was clinging to something and crying. I got out of bed to look at what he was holding on to. It was my mother, hanging from the door lintel.’

Hua’er was gasping for breath. I rocked her in my arms, saying her name over and over again.

A few minutes later, I saw a slip of paper held up to the observation window. There was a message on it: ‘Please maintain a suitable distance from the prisoner.’

I swore silently and knocked for the warden to open the door. Leaving Hua’er in the interview room, I went to the prison governor’s office – Chief Constable Mei’s letter in hand – and insisted that Hua’er be allowed to stay in my room for two nights. After much hesitation, he agreed, on condition that I gave him a written undertaking absolving him from responsibility if something unexpected occurred while Hua’er was with me.

Back in the interview room, I found that Hua’er had cried all over the food before her. I took her back to my room, but she barely said a word for the next twenty-four hours. I thought she was probably fighting her way out of the depths of her pain, and dared not imagine that she had yet more tragic experiences to grapple with.

When Hua’er had the strength to speak again, she told me that her father was released four days after her mother committed suicide, but he did not recognise his children. Years later, someone told them that Hua’er’s father had lost his mind after being told that his beloved wife had taken her life. He had sat immobile in the same position for two nights running, asking, ‘Where is Youmei?’ over and over again.

Neither Hua’er nor her sister had ever dared to find out if their father had known about the ‘study group’, or if this knowledge had contributed to his breakdown. After his release, their father lived with them as if with strangers. In over twenty years, the only thing his children managed to teach him was that ‘Papa’ was their word for him. No matter who uttered this word, in whatever place, he would respond to it.

Hua’er’s sister Shu never married. She had been taken home early from the study group that day because she was pregnant, and the men in the group had decreed that she could not continue ‘studying’. She was fifteen at the time, and her mother did not dare to take her to the hospital because the Red Guards would condemn her as a ‘capitalist’ and ‘a broken shoe’, and take her away to be paraded through the streets. Instead, her mother planned to look for a medicinal herb to induce an abortion. Before she could do this, Hua’er’s rape the next day pushed her over the edge.

Shu did not know what to do or who to turn to. Naively, she bound her swelling belly and breasts with strips of cloth, but to no avail. She did not know where to find the herb her mother had spoken of, but one day she remembered that her mother had once said that all medicine was three parts poison. She swallowed all the medicine in the house in one go, and collapsed at school, bleeding heavily. Although the hospital saved her life, the foetus died and her womb had to be removed. From then on, Shu was labelled a ‘bad woman’ and ‘a broken shoe’. As the years passed and motherhood beckoned for her contemporaries, Shu changed into a cold, taciturn woman, quite unlike the kind, happy girl she had been.

The day before I left West Hunan Women’s Prison, I interviewed Hua’er one last time.

A couple of years after Hua’er’s experience in the study group, she found a book in the school storeroom called
Who Are You?
, about female biology and Chinese notions of chastity. Only after reading it did she realise the full implications of what had happened to her.

Hua’er entered adulthood with a shaky sense of identity and self-worth. She had not experienced the dreams of a young girl who is just beginning to understand love; she had no hope of a wedding night. The voices and fumbling in the blackness of that study-group room haunted her. Despite this, she eventually married a kind and good man whom she loved. When they married, virginity on the wedding night was the gold standard by which women were judged, and the lack of it often led to a bitter parting of ways. Unlike other Chinese men, Hua’er’s husband had never had any suspicions about her virginity. He had believed her when she told him that her hymen had broken while she was playing sports.

Before 1990 or thereabouts, it was common for several generations of a family to live in the same room, with sleeping areas divided by thin curtains or by bunk beds. Sex had to take place in the dark, in silence and with caution; the atmosphere of restraint and suppression inhibited married couples’ relationships and often led to marital strife.

Hua’er and her husband lived in one room with his family, so they had to make love with the lights off in order for their shadows not to show against the curtain separating their sleeping area. She was terrified of her husband touching her in the dark, his hands seemed to belong to the monsters of her childhood; involuntarily, she screamed in fear. When her husband tried to comfort her and asked her what was wrong, she could not tell him the truth. He loved her very much, but it was difficult for him to cope with her anxiety when they made love, so he suppressed his sexual desire instead.

Later, Hua’er discovered that her husband had become impotent. She blamed herself for his condition, and suffered dreadfully because she loved him. She did her best to help him recover, but was unable to suppress the fears that gripped her in the dark. In the end, she felt she ought to set him free, to give him the chance to have a normal sexual relationship with another woman, so she requested a divorce. When her husband refused and asked her for her reasons, she made up flimsy excuses. She said that he was not romantic, although he remembered every birthday and anniversary, and put fresh flowers on her desk every week. Everyone around them saw how he cheered her up, but she told him that he was small-minded and could not make her happy. She also said that he did not earn enough, even though her friends all envied the jewellery he gave her.

Unable to find a good reason for wanting a divorce, Hua’er finally resorted to telling her husband that he could not satisfy her physical needs, knowing that he was the only man who could ever do so. In the face of this, there was nothing Hua’er’s husband could say. Heartbroken, he left for remote Zhuhai, which was still undeveloped at the time.

Hua’er’s voice rang in my ears as I watched the changing scenery from the jeep taking me home after the few days in West Hunan Women’s Prison.

‘My beloved husband left,’ she said. ‘I felt as if my heart had been plucked from my chest . . . I would think: at eleven I could satisfy men, at twenty I could drive them mad, at thirty I could make them lose their souls, and at forty . . . ? Sometimes I wanted to use my body to give a chance to those men who could still say sorry, to help them understand what a sexual relationship with a woman could be; sometimes I wanted to seek out the Red Guards who had tortured me and watch their homes being broken up and their families scattered. I wanted to avenge myself on all men and make them suffer.

‘My reputation as a woman has not meant much to me. I have lived with several men, and let them amuse themselves with me. Because of that, I have been sent to two labour re-education camps and been sentenced to prison twice. The political instructor in the camp called me an incorrigible female delinquent, but that didn’t bother me. When people curse me for having no shame, I don’t get angry. All the Chinese care about is “face”, but they don’t understand how their faces are linked to the rest of their bodies.