At the get-together, he had talked about Ehrenburg's memoirs, Paris at the beginning of the century, and the bar frequented by that group of surrealist poets and artists. He had also talked about Meyerhold, who was shot for his involvement with formalism. What Big Head talked about was even more frightening. They listened with bated breath as he told them about Khrushchev's secret report on Stalin, which he had read in the English edition of Moscow News. At the time, strict controls on foreign-language publications in university libraries were not yet in place. The fourth person at the get-together was studying biology and genetics, and he had raved on about Indian philosophy and said that Tagore's poetry was like a meeting with immortals. The people who came to question him didn't ask about any of this. In other words, Mandarin Jacket was indeed a good friend and had not betrayed them. What they asked was whether women students were present and whether he knew anything about Cheng's off-campus relationships with women. At this he knew they were out of danger. So ended their one and only get-together.
You had been living in Paris for a number of years but had never thought to look for that bar. Once, quite by chance, after dinner at the home of a French writer, you left with a Chinese poet who was also living abroad. It was a lively scene at the Latin Quarter at midnight, and, passing by a bar crowded with people sitting inside and outside the door with a glass panel, you looked up and saw the neon sign la rotonde. It was that bar! The two of you sat down at a small round table that had just been vacated; around you were tourists speaking English or German. On the eve of a new century, the French poets and artists had all gone elsewhere.
All of you refused to take part in any movements, refused to commit to any ideology, and refused to join any groups. Luckily, those of you at the Purple Bamboo Courtyard Park managed to pull the brake in time. No one reported on the others; otherwise, even if you had not been branded counterrevolutionaries, the things you talked about would have been recorded in your files, and you wouldn't be here today. Afterward, all of you learned to wear a mask, and either extinguished your voice or else hid it deep at the bottom of your heart.
On waking, a few clouds are slowly drifting in the night sky outside the window, and, for an instant, you don't know where you are; you are relaxed and lethargic. It has been a long time since your thoughts have meandered like this into the past. You look at your watch and get out of bed. You must get to the theater before the end of the performance, for photo ops with the actors and stagehands, and then go to dinner with them. Parting after the last performance is always somehow sad.
From city to city, country to country, your journey is less secure than a migratory bird's, you simply enjoy these moments of pleasure. As long as you can fly, you persevere, and if your heart and body die, you will just drop down. You are now an unfettered bird, seeking joy in flight, and no longer need to go looking for suffering.
A private room has been reserved at the restaurant, and the group of thirty or forty clink glasses, laugh, talk, and exchange addresses. But most of you will never meet again, the world is just too big. The sturdy young woman with big eyes who played the female lead wants you to write something for her on a poster, so you write next to her name: "A good woman."
Her eyes narrow as she wickedly asks, "Good in what way?"
"Good in being free," you say.
Everyone cheers, so she raises both arms and pirouettes to show off her supple and beautiful figure. Another, a brash guy, asks, 'What do you think about marriage?"
You say, "Anyone who hasn't been married should get married."
"What about those who've been through a marriage?" he goes on to ask.
You can only say, "Then try a second time." Everyone claps and cheers. The brash guy does not let up and goes on to ask, "Do you have lots of girlfriends?"
You say, "Love is like sunshine, air, and wine."
Everyone rushes up to have a drink with you. With young people, there are none of those rules and etiquette, it's rowdy and a lot of fun.
"Then what about art?" It is the shy voice of a young woman standing a couple of people away from you.
"Art is simply a mode of life."
You say that you are living at this time and in this instant, and do not seek immortality. Epitaphs are erected for the living and have nothing to do with the dead. You have had a lot to drink, and it doesn't matter if you rave on. Writing plays is for enjoyment, and when you write them, you enjoy yourself to the full. You say that working with them was a pleasure and thank everyone.
Your associate director is a slim man, cool-headed and experienced, older than the actors. Speaking on their behalf, he says they all really like this play that you had written ten years ago but had not dated. They hope you will return to stage your new plays. You do not want to disappoint them, and say that the world is not big, Hong Kong can be seen at a glance on the map, and there would be opportunities. Of course, you know quite well that once a bird has flown from its cage, it will not want to fly back into it. You think about the parched high plateau of Central France, where you once looked down from the cliff at the little city with its prominent church spire at the foot of the mountain. Some distance from the highway, a Frenchwoman lay on her back sunbathing naked among the bushes. Her voluptuous arms shading her eyes were a dazzling white in the sun, like the rest of her body. The wind brought with it the screeching of eagles and the flapping of their wings as they circled below your feet, halfway down the mountain. French eagles became extinct a long time ago, and these eagles had been purchased in Turkey, then set free here.
You need to distance yourself from suffering, calmly scan those dim memories, and find in them some bright spots, so that you will be able to investigate the road you have traveled.
They are still young, but do they have to go through your experiences? That is their affair, they have their own fates. You do not take on the sufferings of others, are not the savior of the world, you seek only to save yourself.
18
You find retelling that period quite difficult, and for you now, he of that time is hard to comprehend. In order to look back, you must explain the vocabulary of those times, restore special meanings to words. For example, the proper noun "Party" was totally different from the word used in the saying "The morally superior person comes together with others but does not form a party." As a child, he often heard his father proclaim this to assert his own moral superiority, but afterward, his father did not dare say this again. At the mention of the word "Party," his father turned solemn and reverent, and his hand shook so badly that liquor spilled from the cup he was holding. If he had not been so terrified, he would not have tried to kill himself. Such was the greatness and might of the noun "Party." The great and mighty nation, moreover, ranked below the Party and, needless to say, the place where persons worked, were paid, and ate meals-the "work unit"-belonged to the Party. Thus, a person's residential permit, grain allocation, housing, as well as personal freedom, were determined by the Party "work unit." However, this did not apply to the enemy, and hence the word "comrade" assumed extreme importance, and everyone used all means to ensure that that word would remain attached to his or her name. To fail to do so made one an "Ox Demon and Snake Spirit," who had to be "purged" from the "work unit" and forced to undertake "reform through labor."