"I have found it," he said firmly.
"Really?"
"Yes. It's Marxism," he replied in wholehearted sincerity.
For a few seconds I didn't know what to say, then I mumbled, "That's why you can act with so much certainty."
"Right."
"That can help you overcome a lot of difficulties, too."
"Yes, it's the Communist ideal that multiplies our strength and courage."
I said with full respect, "I wish I were like you."
"You should try to be. Tomorrow when your comrades criticize you, try to remain calm and patient. They only mean to help you, no hard feelings."
"I'll remember that."
Lying on my mat that night, I went over my conversation with Pei. What amazed me was that he thought of Marxism not as a sociological theory but as a kind of religion. This religious feeling might explain why so many Communists, some of them uneducated and unable to grasp Marxism at all, were so fanatic and so dedicated to their cause. To some degree I was pleased with my talk with the commissar, who seemed to understand me.
Since the Secretariat had a staff of only twelve, we were assigned to study with the kitchen squad that cooked for the regimental headquarters. In the afternoon twenty-five of us sat on the dirt floor of the cooks' tent and began our self-examination. Six or seven men by turns talked about their experiences in different compounds, all saying they wished there had been more of the Party's leadership in those places so that they could have fought the reactionary forces more actively and with a clear objective. When my turn came, I admitted my mistake in translating the hymns and my negligence that contributed to Bai Dajian's remaining with the pro-Nationalists. I had thought my admissions might preempt some criticism, but they wouldn't let me pass so easily. Questions were shot at me one after another. How had I acquired the Bible? Why did I read it every day? What made Father
Woodworth pick me to translate the songs? What else did I do for him? Their voices grew so stern that I began losing my patience, telling them bluntly that I had read the Bible because I wouldn't fritter away my time by gambling like some of them.
"But why do you still read it now?" asked one of them.
I wanted to retort, I like to; but I remained speechless, unable to think of a suitable answer.
They made me feel like a traitor under interrogation. This was ridiculous, and I couldn't help but wonder why we were doing the self-examination. If only our captors had put us all to hard labor so that we wouldn't have had so much energy for these meaningless study sessions. My patience snapped and I said, "Look, I'm your comrade, though I'm not a Party member. I suffered no less than any of you and I have never betrayed our country." I lowered my head so that they could see the dark spot on my scalp inflicted by one of Wang Yong's men.
Then a staff member, Li Manyin, raised his hand and was allowed to speak. With his round eyes riveted on me, he asked almost jokingly, "I heard that you were quite thick with an American woman in Pusan. Can you tell us about this special relationship?"
A few men snickered. I got angry and said, "That was a doctor who saved my leg."
Another man put in, "Didn't you hold her hand teaching her how to write Chinese?"
Astounded, I didn't answer, wondering how they had come to know so much. Did my friend Ding Wanlin betray me? That was possible. No, there was nothing worth reporting about my relationship with Dr. Greene. Then where did they get the information?
"Comrade Yu Yuan, please answer the question," said Hao Chaolin. He was presiding over the meeting, though he didn't say much. He must have made sure beforehand that these questions would be brought up.
"She was a doctor in charge of my case," I said. "She had grown up in China, so she treated us well. In fact she was very kind to every patient there."
"But she's an American, isn't she?" the kitchen squad leader asked.
"Yes, she is."
"Didn't you teach her how to write an ancient poem?" another cook said.
"My goodness, this is like a cross-examination! Do you think we were lovers? Ludicrous, I don't even know her first name. I taught her how to write the characters, all right. There was no secret about it. I used the poem as a sample. Commissar Pei told me to remain close to her so that I could get information from her."
"How close?" another man asked.
"Yes, what did she give you?" chipped in a third voice.
"Chocolate bars?"
"Condensed milk?"
"Cereals?"
Some of them chuckled. Chang Ming stepped in, saying with a solemn face, "We shouldn't spend too much time on this. Commissar Pei did want him to keep a friendly relationship with that woman. Comrade Yu Yuan also got some good paper from her for Commissar Pei."
A few cooks hee-hawed. But Ming's words saved my neck, and I couldn't help looking at him gratefully. Though a college graduate, he knew how to deal with these men, who liked and respected him. So his words quieted them down. I noticed a dark shadow cross Chaolin's scabbed face, but he let them move on to the next man.
We had to wrap up the meeting earlier than the other groups because the cooks started working at 3:30 p.m. Before we ended the session, Chaolin proposed a motion – I should turn in my Bible to the higher-ups – which was voted for overwhelmingly. I was the only one who didn't raise his hand, and I couldn't disobey. So my Bible became the source of writing paper at the headquarters.
I was angry at heart. The Communists were good only at maltreating their own people and people close to them. Some of their men had just been murdered in other compounds, but nobody here had bothered to examine the Communists' negligence in organizing opposition to the screening. Instead, they'd begun to discipline their own ranks. In my mind echoed the words of Han Shu, the chief of Compound 72: "History has shown that the Communists always treat their enemies more leniently than their own people. Only by becoming their significant enemies can you survive decently."
12. STAGING A PLAY
Despite the leaders' efforts to organize and inspire the prisoners, the initial enthusiasm for our union in Compound 602 soon faded away and a lot of men turned moody again. Clearly the Communists had lost the battle of the screening – out of twenty thousand Chinese POWs more than fourteen thousand had refused to repatriate, most of them voluntarily but some against their will. To rebuild the comrades' confidence and revive their spirit, a performing arts troupe was formed, a couple of songs were composed, and several entertainments were provided, including poems, cartoons, and music (played mainly on self-made instruments). Then a group of men collaborated on the script for a play, entitled The Dream on Wall Street; it was about how the American capitalists controlled the White House and the Congress, and how they were behind the Korean War, striving to rule the globe. The play consisted of three acts and five scenes. Having read the script, the compound leaders decided to have it staged. To do this, the troupe needed a platform, props, and costumes. But how could they come by those things here?
To my surprise, some men began building an "open-air theater." In front of the barracks was an open field with bumps and sunken areas in it; toward its northern end the ground bulged a little, a foot or two higher than the rest of the field. Each battalion sent over sixty men to level the ground and heap up earth to make a stage, so that all of the audience sitting in the field could see the performance. Within three days a large platform was built out of oil drums, rocks, crates, tent poles, water pipes, and canvas. In spite of the mishmash, the "theater" looked quite impressive, as good as most stages improvised in the countryside back in China, where after the fall harvest villagers would hire troupes to perform for them. I wasn't interested in the play, which was more like a propaganda skit, but I was impressed by the men's ingenuity in staging it. They overcame one difficulty after another and created all the structures and props needed for the performance. They undid flour sacks, washed them clean, dyed them with tincture of Mercurochrome or that of gentian violet, basted them together, and hung the pieces up as curtains. They also used olive green blankets to make Western suits and American officers' uniforms. The battalions sent over some electricians to install lamps. To adjust the intensity of the light to the drama, they managed to control the electric current with an ad hoc resistor – salt water in a junked porcelain sink. Most of the props were made of wood and burlap sacks, variously painted. Drums were improvised out of bottomless oil cans tightly sealed with rain cloth at both ends. Two violins were created as well – the makers used bamboo and wooden boards and unraveled some nylon shoelaces to get the sturdy strands, then twisted them into strings.