Chapter 3
Return to Prisoners of Liberation: Four Years in a Chinese Communist Prison
Chapter 3
Dell: In mid-January one of our friends at Yenching went in to the police station to pick up her exit permit. We asked her to inquire about ours while she was there. Her face told us the answer on her return, and, over a cup of tea, she went on to explain, “They had a stack of permits there on the desk— there must have been sixty or seventy of them. I asked the fellow, who used to be an English student of mine, by the way, whether yours were in the pile. He went through every one, but they weren’t there. I just don’t understand it. Why should they keep two students like yourselves from leaving?”
“They’re holding them as hostages,” broke in another foreign friend. “They want those Chinese students in the United States, and they think they’ve got a talking point as long as a few students are held here.”
“But Bert got his permit and left the day after Christmas,” exclaimed another. “He’s an American student. It’s my theory that their being Fulbright is the cause. Look at the picture— all three of them were Fulbright students.”
“That may be,” I said wryly, “but look at all the other Fulbright students who were allowed to leave. I think they’re just being ornery. They’ll give us the permits when they get good and ready and not before.”
I do not think it could have occurred to any of our foreign friends at that time that we might be spies, since on the surface we seemed to be serious-minded students, a little Bohemian as far as the missionaries were concerned, but still students. In true ostrich fashion, we kept hoping that the People’s Government would also look on us as innocent scholars and eventually let us go.
We kept in touch with Harriet, who, in the city, continued to try every means possible, through the embassies and Chinese friends, to obtain our permits or at least some news of them. We even discussed writing a letter to Chou En-lai, but by that time Rick decided we would do better to lie low.
Rick: To our surprise, the excitement caused by China’s entry into the war actually made it easy for us to return to the campus, for in those first few days people were far too busy with other things and our presence went almost unnoticed. As time went on, most of them seemed to have forgotten that we had ever been intending to leave and we gradually slipped back into the regular routine. It was only our own insecure state of mind and antipathy toward what was going on around us that made those days so unpleasant.
China’s entry into the Korean war probably did not come to most informed Chinese with the same degree of surprise that it did to people in this country. Any illusions which some Chinese may have had about the good intentions of the American government had been dispelled by Truman’s sending the Seventh Fleet to protect Chiang on Formosa. The Chinese press, which had been telling the people all along not to be taken in by Truman’s January 5 statement that the United States would not intervene in Formosa, could now say “I told you so.” To the British and Americans in Peking, from the point of view of Western prestige in China, this had appeared to be the blunder to end all blunders.
The American action in Formosa and its crossing the 38th Parallel in Korea in spite of explicit warnings by the Chinese government that they could not permit American troops to approach their borders, combined with the threatening statements of American political figures and the persistent bombing of China’s territory along the Yalu River, had given rise to bitterness among the Chinese. There was a growing conviction among them all through the latter part of 1950 that the real aim of the United States was not to carry on a mere “police action” in Korea
but to launch a two-pronged attack from both the north and south against their young republic in hopes of crushing it before it could become really stabilized. Some sort of clash seemed inevitable, but still when war actually came it was a shock and was followed for many people, even those wholeheartedly supporting the action of the People’s Government, by a brief period of uncertainty and depression.
To many it seemed unbelievable that China, which for over a hundred years had been kicked around at will by almost everyone and whose backward economy was still in dire straits, could take up arms against the mightiest industrial and supposedly strongest military power in the world.
These doubts even affected some of the liberal leaders in the new government and there appeared signs of wavering among a few of them. One such person in a very high position had paid us a surprising visit in the city several days after it became generally known that we were planning to leave. As we sat in Harriet’s cold little study he had become eloquent about his friendship for the American people. It was only the policies of the American government to which he and other Chinese objected. His wording had all been very subtle but his manner had left no doubt that he would be very happy if we were to let the right people in the United States know that they had a sympathetic friend in Peking in case the situation should change and Americans were to return to the mainland of China.
But as the Chinese troops in Korea scored one victory after another these first reactions began to pass away. Perhaps the United States was only a “paper tiger” after all. A new-found confidence grew with leaps and bounds, and with it a determination to win. When the Chinese entered the war, the government called on the people for volunteers to serve in Korea and asked for contributions to support the war effort from those remaining at home.
The students, as usual, were among the first to respond. They volunteered en masse for officer training schools. In the end very few were accepted; they were more needed
for reconstruction work at home. Their enthusiasm, however, helped mobilize the people at large. Especially the propaganda teams, which they organized with great gusto to visit the factories and countryside, played an important part in arousing the people.
At first many people, in particular the peasants, were rather apathetic to the whole business of the war. The slogan “Resist America and Aid Korea” failed to impress them very much. America, even with its troops in Korea, seemed a long way off to the ordinary man, and as for the Koreans, throughout history the Chinese had somewhat looked down on them. This feeling had not been helped by the fact that before and during the war against Japan most of the Koreans whom they had known had been either opium peddlers or secret agents for the Japanese. Therefore, they had no great feeling that the United States was a menace which must be resisted and certainly there was no enthusiasm for aiding the Koreans.
But their apathy disappeared when press and spokesmen pointed out the dangerous implications of the Seventh Fleet in Formosa, the revitalization of the American alliance with Chiang Kai-shek, the rearming of their deadly enemy, Japan, and the all too striking parallel between the path being taken by the American troops in Korea and that followed by the Japanese in their aggression against China almost twenty years before. It would be only a short step for the Americans to enter Manchuria and then sweep down on all of China just as the Japanese had done. They knew all too well that if the Americans did come they would bring Chiang and his Nationalists with them, and they also knew what would happen then to that newly won land, to their jobs, their unions, and even their very lives. To them the war then became a life-and death struggle.
On November 21, as I walked across the campus I noticed a large group standing around the newspaper posted on the bulletin board in front of the library. From the stirrings of the crowd, I could tell that something was up, so I discreetly edged my way into the group to see what was there. I was afraid it was bad news, but I hardly expected it to be as bad as it was. There on the bulletin board were two issues of the People’s Daily, one had reproduced a page from U.S. News & World Report of October 13, showing a map of North Korea and Manchuria, with arrows pointing from Korea toward the various centers of northern China and giving the exact bombing distances to each. The other was a reproduction of a page from Collier’s for September 16, containing an article by Brigadier General Fellers and another map with arrows from Japan and Korea, Okinawa and Formosa, driving into the heart of China.
As I stood there I felt my blood run cold and swore under my breath, “Don’t those fools in the States think anybody else can read! Now no amount of talking will ever convince the Chinese we didn’t intend to invade them!” The fact that both maps had been printed well before the Chinese had entered the war was not lost on the crowd. There was real anger in the murmuring I heard around me. “Ta-ma-di!” (“His mother’s”) swore one of my classmates to his friend. “They had everything figured out.” As he turned to leave, his eyes met mine but they seemed to look right through me, and I heard him mutter through clenched teeth, “Hao-le, wo men kan ba!” (“Okay, we’ll see about that!”)
When these people became convinced they were quick to convince others. Thousands of groups of students, office clerks, politically advanced workers, peasants, and housewives spread into every factory, shop, and village to make speeches, display posters, sing improvised songs, and put on skits. These skits usually showed “courageous Chinese People’s Volunteers” putting to flight a tall, villainous looking Uncle Sam with caricatures of Chiang Kai-shek and Japanese war lords following close at his heels like “running dogs.” As these amateur propaganda teams reached everywhere, they aroused the whole population to form a mighty patriotic movement.
For us in the United States, propaganda is something more or less left to the professionals, who get paid for turning out millions of words for the press, radio, television, and films. But in China, where such mechanical mediums have relatively little currency except in the larger cities, propaganda becomes a business of the ordinary people, especially as they take part in these amateur propaganda teams. By our standards their art often appears extremely crude and simple; yet, because of the fact that it is something which comes from the people themselves and therefore expresses their own feelings, it has an appeal and force frequently beyond our comprehension.
This patriotic movement which swept through China was further intensified by a real sympathy which the Chinese soon came to have toward their Korean neighbors. As letters and reports describing the terrible destruction wrought by American bombing in North Korea came, they quickly related it to what they had suffered under the Japanese, and their former indifference and condescension gave way to the comradeship and admiration which one people develops for another in the face of mutual hardship and a common enemy.
The movement to “Resist America and Aid Korea” then came to affect the life of practically every man, woman, and child in China. In every village the peasants pledged themselves to make contributions of grain, cotton, and other vital materials by increasing production. They also organized themselves to support the relatives of those volunteering for service in Korea by working their land for them while they were away. In the cities almost every
worker pledged to contribute a specific amount of his monthly income and at the same time to strive to increase his output and practice economy. The businessmen made large donations and promised to increase production and cut costs in order to support the war effort.
Of course, not all of this was as sincerely voluntary as appeared on the surface. But, as far as I was able to learn, force as such was never used. In fact, it was not necessary, for in China, where “face” still meant a great deal, there was strong pressure to conform simply because the movement had the complete support of public opinion and anyone who did not go along with it felt like a social outcast.
Dell: At Yenching, the scene was a replica in miniature of what was going on all over the country. The students had all been caught up in a swirl of activity which had risen to such proportions that classes had been called off for a few days.
Though the students returned reluctantly to classes after the first few weeks of mobilization work throughout the countryside, the movement continued to play an important part in the life of the university. One of its most striking manifestations was the emphasis placed on physical education from a patriotic point of view. When the government called on the students to build up their bodies as well as their minds as a patriotic duty, the first gropings toward an active program were made. Extracurricular sports such as volley ball, basketball, track, and gymnastics were carried on every afternoon, and whenever one heard shrieks and embarrassed giggles one could be sure that a circle of boys and girls throwing a volley ball back and forth was in the vicinity.
The regularly scheduled gym classes consisted in part of body-building exercises with a faint flavor of guerrilla warfare practice. I went to these classes with mixed feelings. On the one hand I wanted to show off my skill. I felt that with my long legs, long arms, and years of training in various sports I could far outshine the fragile little Chinese girls. But on the other hand, I was not very happy with the idea of throwing mock hand grenades or running with a twenty-pound pack on my back in companionship with people who were practicing these things as part of a “Resist America” program.
My arrogance and curiosity, plus the fact that the whole thing seemed like a big game far removed from any warlike implications, made me decide to participate, and I threw and jumped and ran with the others. What was my chagrin, however, when the final tests were run off in late
spring, to find that my young classmates were not so weak and inferior as I had thought! In the 500-meter dash I strained my bursting lungs, but as I lumbered, gasping and red-faced, up to the finish line I found that six girls had come in ahead of me. It was a terrible blow to my ego and
at that point I wished even more that the whole “Resist America and Aid Korea” movement would die a quick death.
But as the spring progressed the movement seemed to be intensified. The faculty and staff workers were as enthusiastic as the students, though their activities developed along different lines. One day in late spring Rick and I were sitting in the garden of an American missionary friend when an elderly man walked by with an armful of fans which he told us some of the university workers had made for sale. They were quite cheap and rather pretty, so we bought one made of split rushes and another of bright yellow and blue feathers. Upon closer examination we found that the four characters “Resist America Aid Korea” were imprinted on the fans. Anyone looking at our faces at that moment would undoubtedly have burst out laughing.
“Oh, well, the characters are only on one side,” Rick said at last with a shrug of resignation, “and if we turn them over, we won’t have to look at them.”
The following week, when I went to the infirmary for a routine typhoid shot I was greeted at the door with the smell of doughnuts frying.
“Come on in and sample one of our doughnuts,” said the nurse. “We’re making them to raise money to buy planes.”
I was caught in an awkward position. To have refused might have created an unpleasant situation, which we could ill afford, but I certainly had no wish to contribute a single penny to their old plane-buying campaign. However, since a few pennies spent on a couple of doughnuts would not have much effect on the total war situation, I finally bought two.
It seemed as if everywhere we turned we were reminded of the Korean war, and yet it all seemed to me so inconsequential. As I watched the university busily making fans and doughnuts, and cutting down on expenses wherever possible in order to give to the war effort, I could not help thinking, “What good will that measly little bit do against all the tanks, planes, bombs, and equipment we are pouring into Korea? These people are crazy!”
But what I forgot was that when 600 million people each contribute one penny, they have $6,000,000 to work with. The activities at the university could contribute only a small share to the total, it is true, but they were part of a gigantic movement which had the support of the people, and as such it represented a tremendous force.
Rick: The outbreak of the war had a far deeper effect on the intellectuals than merely rousing patriotic emotions of the moment. It marked the beginning of their final and complete break with the West.
One day in December Dell and I cycled to Tsinghua to visit our old friend Mr. Wu, whom we had not seen since the night he and Mr. Jao had come to dinner before we moved. We were not sure how we would be received, as we had become generally unpopular during the intervening months. As soon as he saw us, however, he threw open the door and shook hands with us with more emotion than I had ever before seen him display.
“Come in, come in,” he said. “I heard you didn’t get your exit permits and I’ve been worried about you.”
I searched his face for an explanation. Had he heard anything about me? But, without another word, he turned and led the way into his living room. He asked us to sit down and then disappeared, to come back in a moment with three cups of tea. Our conversation soon turned to the Korean war.
Playing upon what I thought was his weak point, I said, “Irrespective of the justification of China’s cause, for the country at the present time to become involved in a hopeless war against the United States, and for that matter the entire West seems to me like national suicide. How will you ever complete the revolution and go on with your industrialization?”
“There wasn’t anything else we could do,” he replied simply. “We couldn’t sit by and see our country invaded again.”
I was left speechless, for though I knew that Wu’s thinking had undergone considerable change during the past year and a half I had always had great respect for his judgment and knew he was not one to be influenced easily. If even he had been taken in so completely, there seemed little hope left.
If I needed any more to convince me, I certainly got it. A few days later, on December 23, I met Charlie Cheng at a wedding reception. He was an architect with one of the government’s planning commissions, and his precise Oxford accent seemed completely out of keeping with his dirty, padded blue uniform and run-down boots. He appeared extremely friendly and willing to talk, so after the reception I invited him to the Peking Club for dinner and a drink.
There was a small dance going on that evening and, after tossing off several martinis and wolfing down the club’s best pheasant dinner, he made himself the life of the party by dancing with all the embassy women there. As the club’s steam heat, drinks, and dancing began to make themselves felt he tossed his padded jacket aside, revealing several layers of flannel pajamas and woolen underwear.
“It’s a little cooler than this in the Planning Commission dormitory,” he said with a grin. “In fact, we have no heat at all there now.”
“How do you stand it?” I asked sympathetically. “I should think it would be impossible to do any work at all under such conditions.”
“Well, one gets used to it, though it certainly isn’t like the old days. But, you know, there is something about it—really doing constructive work for a change. When I was in Nanking before liberation all I did was sit around in a big office and draw up occasional plans which I knew never had a chance of developing into any tiling. Now, for the first time since I returned to China, I can see my drawings being transformed into reality.”
“How much chance do you think there will be for any continued building with this war going on?”
“That remains to be seen. They’re certainly keeping me busy enough at present,” was his answer.
I then began hammering away on the old line that, by going into Korea, China was merely pulling Russian chestnuts out of the fire.
By now Cheng had begun to feel all those martinis a little and, with a flushed face, he said, “My friend, I was in Shanghai when it was liberated. I had seen armies marching up and down China for over thirty years and that was the first time I ever saw troops move through an
area without so much as damaging a stalk of grain or taking as much as a stick of wood. I don’t know anything about your international politics but I know this, when our government says it is a people’s government I believe it and I support it, because only a people’s government and a people’s army could do the things I saw them do in Shanghai and since. And when our government says we must go into Korea to defend our own land I believe it, and you can jolly well take your Russian chestnuts and st-“
With an embarrassed glance at Dell, he stopped talking for a moment. Then, leaping to his feet, he bowed from the waist with exaggerated politeness. “May I have the next dance?”
When these changes came to affect even my closest friends, people whom I had considered absolutely loyal to the ideas I represented, I began to feel the world must have gone mad.
Our best friend at Yenching, George Lee, was an American-born Chinese who had served in the U.S. Army with distinction during the war. He was an anti-Communist liberal and our ideas had always seemed to go along similar lines. He had also been one of my best information contacts at Yenching. He too had been worried about what might happen to him when the Chinese first entered the Korean war, and in November, 1950, while Dell and I were trying to leave he had sweated off several pounds wondering whether he dared ask for an exit permit or not. Finally, he decided against it, because he believed that if I were not given one he certainly would not get it. Since the problem of dual citizenship had not yet been settled and he could still be legally regarded as a Chinese citizen, he felt that his position was even more dangerous than mine.
Naturally, his feelings toward the People’s Government could hardly be considered friendly, but during the ensuing months something happened to him, with the result that the once friendly discussions we engaged in almost every day turned into violent arguments which
often left us both shaking. Formerly we had both damned the Truman administration’s policies toward China, but there was a difference which, though at the time seemingly unimportant, now became the basis of our disagreement. I felt that Truman’s policies were stupid and had achieved the exact opposite of their intentions— the restoration of American influence in China. George had also wished to see the return of American influence there to a certain extent, especially since, as a citizen of both countries, his own personal interests were involved, but he had damned Truman’s policies more for what he considered their basic lack of principle and justice.
A climax was reached one evening in March during one of our endless arguments about the Korean war. I angrily asserted, “By going into Korea the Chinese have brought us to the verge of a third world war, and whatever you may try to say that is good about them is nullified by that.”
George’s round face flushed slightly as he replied, “Listen, Rick, you know perfectly well that when MacArthur crossed the 38th Parallel he was on his way to Manchuria. The Chinese could not stand for that. Besides, what business had the United States intervening in a completely internal Korean question in the first place?”
“The North Koreans were the aggressor,” I interrupted hotly.
“Nonsense! How can a people aggress against themselves? The 38th Parallel was never meant to be more than a line for the demarcation of temporary American and Russian occupation. The problem of Korean unification has been going on ever since the war ended and there has been fighting back and forth across that line for some time. Hardly a week went by without Rhee shouting about marching to the north. Whether it was North Korea or South Korea which made the first push on June 25 is merely academic. They were Koreans settling their own
problems. What right had the U.S. to come 6,000 miles across the Pacific to force Syngman Rhee down their throats?”
“In the first place it is not the United States but the United Nations—”
“Nuts! Truman ordered American troops into Korea before the U.N. could say anything about it. The only thing the British and French could do was tag along whether they liked it or not. It’s like the business of supporting Chiang Kai-shek all over again. Only this time the brass in Washington decided to throw their own troops in too.”
“Yeah, well what about the Russians?”
“Well, what about them? The Russians haven’t sent their troops to intervene in Korea, but we sure have. The trouble with you, Rick, is you can’t see anything but Russian red. If the Koreans want to kick out an evil old rascal like Rhee and unite their country, it’s the Russians. If the Chinese don’t like the Americans taking over their territory, Formosa, it’s the Russians. If the Indo-Chinese have had enough of the French, it’s—”
“I don’t care. The Chinese practically set the entire world on fire just when we were about to have peace.”
“What peace? If MacArthur could have set himself up on the Yalu he would have been in Manchuria within a year. As I said before, China had to go in for her own protection.”
“Fine protection! You know what it’ll mean if this war spreads. China will be finished. What could it do in a modern, atomic war?”
George laughed. “In a country like China with no great concentration of industry, what good will your atomic bombs do?”
“By God! They’ll do plenty,” I exploded. “Maybe there are no big factories, but you know what a few bombs dropped along the Yellow River dikes would do. The Chinese would be helpless. Your guerrilla warfare is no good against that.”
As I raged on, George’s face went white. “Rick,” he said with suppressed emotion, “I am an American and I’ve always been proud of it, but if the United States were to do something like that— I don’t care, I’m through.” He then continued, more quietly, “In the past few months I’ve thought over a lot of things. Here we Americans are supporting every lousy, stinking, two-bit crook in Asia from Syngman Rhee and Chiang Kai-shek to Bao Dai, up and down. And now that the Chinese at last have a government which is really trying to do something for its people— what do we do but try to cut its throat? Just take a look around you. You know what it was like before under the Nationalists, and how much better it is now. They may make a lot of mistakes but I think they’re on the right track.”
I stamped out of the room and slammed the door. For a moment I stood trembling, realizing I had lost. None of my arguments seemed to faze him or anyone else, and I knew I had gone too far in the business about atomic bombs. I thought to myself, “Why do these people have to get so damned moral about everything? Don’t they know there’s no such thing in practical politics?”
I was not completely alone in my feeling of hatred toward the People’s Government. There were a number of Chinese whose opposition was no less active than mine. Right after liberation the government had adopted a very liberal policy in its treatment of all ex-Nationalist officials and secret agents. Except for those who had committed extremely serious crimes, such as murder, all that was required of them was to register and refrain from any counterrevolutionary activity. By far the greater part of them responded favorably to this lenient policy and soon became at least passive supporters of the new order. I knew at that time several ex-Nationalist agents who became respected members of the new society. One was the head of a large warehouse, another a leader in cooperative work, and a third a well-known writer on agricultural problems.
There were many, however, who merely took advantage of this leniency either to continue their activities on the chance that if they were caught they would be given only light sentences or to go underground while waiting for what they considered the certain return of the Americans and Nationalists in the event of a third world war. When the war broke out in Korea, and especially after the Inchon landing, they began to feel that the time was near, and when China went into Korea they were sure that the war was on.
This brought about an upsurge in counterrevolutionary activity which, by the end of 1950, was rapidly getting out of hand. A wave of killings and sabotage swept the country. Just outside Yenching two people that I knew of were brutally murdered. Shots were fired into the windows of private homes, houses set on fire, and wells poisoned. The government was forced to take drastic action and began to tighten its control of former Nationalist agents. In February, 1951, the Standing Committee of the People’s Government passed the Articles for the Suppression of Counterrevolutionaries, under which the death sentence or life imprisonment could be meted out for almost any form of active espionage or counterrevolutionary activity.
This may seem rather harsh, and to me at the time it seemed nothing short of “Red Tenor.” but to the Chinese who were being shot at or who were finding their wells poisoned and houses set on fire the measure was wholly welcome. Even the intellectuals in the universities,
who were by nature opposed to any extremes, supported the Articles.
One day a professor at Yenching asked me if I felt under any strain because of the measures taken to suppress the counterrevolution. Lying through my teeth, I said I felt under no strain myself, but I then took the opportunity to say I felt that the movement seemed to be a reversal of the former lenient policies which had won so much support for the revolution and was the result of the evils of a dictatorship.
He nodded and said, “We must be careful to see that justice is done. We must do all we can to make sure that not one man goes to jail who doesn’t belong there. But I’m afraid when you say this is an evil growing out of dictatorship you are rather unfair. In China we have always had a dictatorship. It is just a question of whether it is a dictatorship of the majority or of a small, reactionary ruling clique like the Nationalists. I was in Kunming at Lien-da University in 1946 when Li Gung-bo and the famous scholar Wen-I-do, who had helped found the Democratic League, were brutally assassinated by Nationalist agents. Our public meetings in the university were fired on, many of us were attacked and beaten as we walked down the streets, and I myself, with some of my friends, was forced to flee.
“Our experience has taught us Chinese one thing, that if there is to be any democracy for the people it must be based on a suppression of the White terrorism of the reactionaries. You call us a dictatorship, and quite frankly we are just that. But we are a dictatorship of all the decent people in the country over the scum which would try to force us to return to the starvation and corruption of the Nationalist days.”
Other people with whom I talked pointed out that in spite of the harsh provisions of the law relatively few people were actually executed and Article 14 stipulated that
those who gave themselves up voluntarily or who made complete confessions and showed some willingness to repent might have their sentences reduced or even suspended. My violent opposition to the law, of course, was more than just academic. It was in accordance with Article 6, concerning specific acts of espionage, that I eventually went to prison.
Dell: As the counterattack against the Nationalist agents and saboteurs gathered momentum, during the spring of 1951, Rick and I began to experience repercussions in our own lives.
When we had enrolled in Yenching we had rented a room on the third floor of one of the Chinese professors’ homes, in order to have a place to study together during the day. One day in mid-March, as Rick was climbing the stairs to our room the professor stopped him and, after shuffling his feet embarrassedly for a moment, said in an apologetic voice that he was sorry but we would have to get out immediately. He was being subjected to a good deal of adverse criticism by other people on the campus for allowing us to use the room and he could not afford to have his own position jeopardized by associating with us. It was a blow to be faced with this fresh manifestation of suspicion, but there was nothing we could do.
Then came the problem of what to do with our furniture. We decided to find a house in Cheng-fu, the village outside the east gate of the university. If we had to remain for some time, we ought at least to be comfortable. A servant for one of the missionary groups said a house he had bought and was refinishing would be ready for us to rent in a week or two and we could store our things in a room of his house while waiting. It seemed an ideal solution. The furniture was stored and we looked forward to having a home of our own again. The week or two had long since passed, however, and we seemed no nearer our goal. Our prospective landlord told us that the family still in the house refused to move and we would have to wait until he could find some way of getting them out. It soon became clear that this was only an excuse to cover the fact that he had been criticized so severely in the village for preparing to rent to Americans under suspicion that he did not dare go through with the deal.
It seemed as if we could become no more isolated than we were, and yet all these factors failed to bring us to our senses. That spring we ate all our meals with an American who taught piano at the university. A Chinese friend came in one evening and said to us seriously, “You ought to be more careful when you go to the British Embassy and talk about what’s going on in the university with those people. These things have a way of getting known, you know, and I have it on good authority that the security police have just about decided to pull you two in.”
My jaw dropped as I was taken aback by the force of this outspoken warning but, recovering myself, I said resentfully, “But what in the world do they think we’re doing? It’s pretty bad when you can’t even go visit your friends.”
“Yes, but Dell, whether you realize it or not, when you tell certain people in the British Embassy about what’s going on here you are providing them with intelligence and the Chinese don’t like it.”
Rick said hotly, “That’s ridiculous! I’m an American, and those people are my friends. I’ll see whom I damn well please. Besides, the British are looking out after American interests and I have a perfect right to go there.”
“It’s not that,” replied our friend. “You can go where you please and have all the friends you want, but just be careful what you tell them. Anyway, I’m just trying to tell you for your own good.” He could see that his well-intentioned words had only made us angry and quickly changed the subject.
In spite of this warning, I kept on closing my eyes to the scene around me and tended to become impatient with both Harriet and Rick, who, I felt, dramatized the situation too much. Harriet said to us very confidentially one Sunday morning while we were watching a volley ball game in the British compound, “Some of my friends at Peking University have told me that if we can get through this movement to suppress counterrevolutionaries without any trouble, we’ll be okay and won’t have to worry.”
Trying to hide the exasperation in my voice, I said, “What has that got to do with us? We’re not Chinese, you know.”
“Harriet’s right, though,” Rick added quickly. “As far as the Chinese are concerned, there would be no counterrevolutionaries if our government weren’t supporting Chiang Kai-shek.”
Although I refused to face such realities there was one thing which did disturb me, and it was to play a decisive role in my attitude after my arrest. That was fear of torture. It seemed as if every movie we saw that spring had at least one torture scene in it, either of a Japanese working over a Chinese or a Nationalist agent grilling and abusing an innocent peasant. I could not bear to watch the scenes and invariably closed my eyes until they were over.
Then, too, the reading of such books as 1984 did not help matters any.
I dreamed about these painful episodes several times and one day, unable to hold in any longer, I broke into tears and said to Rick, “I don’t care whether they put us in prison for the rest of our lives, but I just don’t think I could take torture. I’m frightened.”
Poor Rick was at a loss to comfort me because he certainly was not in any better frame of mind, but he did say something which occurred to me several months later. “If we are arrested,” he said, “the only thing to do is tell the truth, or at least never let yourself be caught in a direct lie.”
After it became obvious that we could not find a place to live at the university, we began looking for a house in the city. We asked several friends to keep an eye out for us, but here we met with the same reluctance to rent to us as Americans. It was only by agreeing to pay an exorbitant rent that, near the end of May, 1951, we finally obtained a small place on Hsin Kai Lu in the east city. It was a house built around a tiny courtyard about ten by twenty feet. Just at this time, the couple with whom Harriet had been living obtained their exit permits and we asked Harriet to move in with us.
As soon as we signed the lease we started to collect our belongings and borrowed beds, a sofa, chairs, tables, lamps, pots and pans, and everything else we could think of from friends in the city. When we had at last brought everything together under one roof I sighed with relief and said, “I’m so tired of sleeping in one place, eating in another, studying in another, and having our belongings scattered all over the place, I’d just like to sit down in this house and not move for a month!”
I was to get my wish— and then some!