That evening, after a shave, we went to a cottage to be received by Major General Tong, a lean-faced man with a pointed nose and hawklike eyes. Over jasmine tea and boiled peanuts, the eighteen returned POWs briefly told him our stories. He listened to us attentively, and from time to time asked a question about other comrades. The general encouraged us to study hard to catch up on current affairs in China. He also said there was a recuperation center for the repatriates in Changtu County, Liaoning Province. We were all going to stay there for some time to recover. He and Commissar Pei had known each other before, so they remained in the house after the rest of us had left.
Ming and I stayed in the same room that night. We chatted for hours on end; there was so much to talk about. He told me that I had been sent to Pusan in his place because the commissar had depended on his service and wouldn't let him go no matter how much he wanted to. I realized he too had been a chess piece on Pei 's board, though I had been a more dispensable pawn. He felt sorry for having caused me so much suffering. My grudge against him abated somewhat, although I still believed Pei must also have meant to protect him by dispatching me to Pusan. Our conversation turned to the commissar, who Ming told me had often been depressed in the prison because Pei felt our country had abandoned us. Occasionally Pei craved alcohol so much that he even suggested bartering his felt hat for it with one of the maintenance men, but they had never done that. We also talked about Pei 's political career, with which our future might be entwined. I was afraid that he might not be well received by the Party. Ming smiled meaningfully, shaking his head and saying, "You're a smart man, Yuan."
"What do you mean?"
"To tell the truth, for some time Commissar Pei hasn't been in high spirits. He's afraid he'll be condemned and demoted by the Party once he goes back. But so far all signs are good. The higher-ups are very understanding and sympathetic. I'm sure he'll do fine."
I wasn't fully convinced, but his words comforted me some. If Pei 's status remained intact, he would be in a position to protect the rest of us. Ming added, "You shouldn't worry too much. You haven't joined the Party yet. If anything bad happens, I'm sure it will affect the Party members first. You'll be the last one to get into trouble."
That made sense and I felt relieved. He went on to tell me that the commissar was now confident that the Party would appreciate our heroic struggle in the prison camps, especially the raising of our flags on the National Day. Gradually the topic shifted to our personal lives. We both wanted to marry as soon as possible, because life had become so precious to us that we didn't want to waste a single day.
At about two in the morning, Commissar Pei returned, his eyes radiating a soft light. He said he had drunk too much tea and couldn't sleep. So we continued to chat. Outside, the autumn wind was rustling the oak trees and blowing more leaves down. Now and then an acorn dropped on the roof, rolling all the way down and falling to the ground with a crisp thud.
"Yuan," Commissar Pei said in a tobacco-roughened voice, "I want to ask you a serious question."
"Sure," I said.
"Would you like to join the Communist Party?"
Taken aback, I hesitated for a moment, then answered, "I want to, but I don't think I'm qualified yet."
"Why not?" Ming put in.
"I went to the Huangpu Military Academy, and for the last few months I got entangled with the Nationalist followers again."
"Don't take that as a burden," the commissar said. "I sent you to the reregistration and the Party is responsible for what happened. As for your past in the Nationalist academy, you have done enough to correct it."
How could I correct my past? His remark amazed me. Ming said, "Don't be so modest, Yuan. You've contributed a lot to our struggle in the prison camps. You're qualified."
"Yes," Pei said, "I can't think of another comrade, except maybe Ming, who has done more than you for our struggle. I don't mean to force you to apply for Party membership. But if you do want to, keep in mind that I'll be happy to be your advocate."
"The same here," Ming added.
"Thank you, I'll remember that," I said.
That ended our long day. A rooster crowed from the village and dawn was breaking, so we all went to bed to catch a few hours' sleep before we set out for China. My heart was again filled with warm feelings. In every way it seemed right for me to go back.
The first snow had covered Changtu Town when we arrived, and the crowns of trees, in which sparrows were twittering hungrily, looked like clouds. The returned POWs were billeted in a large barracks, altogether over six thousand men. The place was called the Repatriates Center. During the first two weeks, some top provincial officials came to visit us. They brought along live pigs and sheep, thousands of solicitous letters from the civilians, and an opera troupe that performed for us twice. One afternoon some girls from a local middle school came to sing to us and presented us with two huge bouquets of fresh flowers. On top of those, a hefty brass medal was conferred on every one of us. The leaders in charge of the center told us that we should rest well and study some to catch up with the country, and that soon we would all go to different jobs. So we felt excited and grateful. The returned officers ranking above regimental commander stayed at a guesthouse in the compound, but they and everyone else had the same kind of board, which was good, much better than what regular servicemen ate. We often had meat and fish; tofu and vegetables were plentiful, though there was more wheaten food than rice, which was scarce in the Northeast. In spite of the nourishing diet, most of us still looked sallow and much older than the staff members running this place who were roughly our age, as though we had all joined their parents' generation. Some fellows already had bald heads and gray beards, and some had lost their teeth.
To my delight, I found my young friend Shanmin here, who hadn't changed much, though he was a bit taller. He told me that Weiming had suffered a stroke and had been hospitalized in Shenyang City. Together we wrote him a letter, but we never heard from that good man.
During the first few weeks we went to study sessions to be briefed about the development of our country, but mostly we relaxed, just to recuperate, and tried to enjoy ourselves. All the men were fond of hot baths, which I rarely took for fear of revealing my tattoo to others in the bathhouse. When I had to bathe myself, I would face a wall while undressing, and would wrap a towel around my waist on my way to a pool. I was not alone in bearing such an embarrassing mark; more than forty men had anti-Communist slogans on their bodies too. I went to the clinic and begged Dr. Liang to remove the tattoo from my belly. He had been helping some other men, cutting the shameful words and signs off their skin. Sometimes he didn't get rid of the whole thing and just removed a word or two to make a dark phrase unintelligible or give it a new meaning. He knew English and would play with the alphabet. In my case, he said the procedure should be easy: he suggested keeping the word FUCK and just erasing all the letters in the word COMMUNISM except the U and the S. I was reluctant at first, but an officer in charge of disciplinary work, who happened to be present, clapped and said this was a wonderful idea, so I agreed. The doctor did a good job and even added three dots behind each word. As a result, the original tattoo was transformed into FUCK… U… S…