When winter came, the inmates resumed three meals a day, and I was able to eat fish and meat for lunch, but my health continued to deteriorate to the point that increased nutrition did not help. I had another hemorrhage. When the bleeding stopped, the woman put on civilian clothes and accompanied me to the Zhongshan Hospital of the First Medical College for a checkup. I had probably made an appointment beforehand, so we went straight to the obstetrics and gynecology department and entered the outpatient room without waiting in line.
To my surprise, the doctor, a girl just over 20, had a red armband on her arm. After a brief, sloppy examination that seemed awkward and careless, she told the caretaker that I had cancer in my womb. I didn’t believe her, because she didn’t seem to be a highly skilled doctor, like the young doctor in the guardhouse I had experienced in the past. But apparently, the guards and others believed her. My treatment improved, and some of the guards even looked at me with a kind of pity. It was not until I got out that I learned that the cadres in charge of my case, after I had been examined at Zhongshan Hospital, were anxious to find housing for me. Finally, they decided to assign me a house with a bathroom with two rooms. I was given two rooms because it was discovered that I had no children and that I needed a live-in caregiver when I was critically ill.
After lunch on March 27, 1973, as I was pacing indoors, one of the guards opened a small window and said, “Get your things in order.”
“All the stuff?” I asked her.
“Yes, everything, don’t forget anything.”
Soon the cell door opened and two young female labor inmates came in and they took all my things away and one guard said to me in the hallway, “Come out!”
I looked around at the cell that had been my “home” for six and a half years. After my basin and towels were taken away, it looked a little different again. My eyes fell on the handkerchiefs taped to the wall next to the bed. I pondered whether I should tear them up so that I would not leave any trace of myself here. But in the end I decided to leave it for the next woman who would occupy her misfortune. As I stood in my cell and looked around fondly for the last time, I felt only the cold metal handcuffs, again clasped on my wrists, and I clearly felt again and repeatedly the pain and suffering that had fallen on me physically and mentally while I was fighting unyieldingly with a strong will, and the preciousness that the omnipresent God, in the midst of the rampant leftist line, had bestowed on me was beyond words.
“Come out with me! What are you still doing in there? Haven’t you had enough?” The guard shouted from outside.
I followed her to a room in the front yard. That was the room where I registered when I entered here in 1966. There was no one inside, so I sat down on a chair.
The doctor followed me into the room, stood at the writing desk, leaned casually half against the desk and said, “I’m going to tell you the medications you should take so you can talk to the doctor after you leave here.” He told me the names of several medications.
“Thank you very much.” I said.
“Good. Are you happy that you are about to be released?” The doctor asked me.
“It was a long, long time! Six and a half years of confinement of an innocent man is a long time.” I said.
He shivered as if he had been burned by fire, then continued as if he hadn’t heard anything: “Before you leave, I want to give you some warning. This is for your own good. You have not behaved well in all the years you have been here. In fact, over the years, no inmate in our detention center has been as stubborn and aggressive as you. After you leave here, you must control yourself and not anger the masses. Shanghai now is very different from before the Cultural Revolution. You have to show respect to the proletariat, otherwise you will suffer. You’re sick, you don’t want to come back again, do you?”
I didn’t say anything, and he stayed for a while and then left. Apparently he had been ordered to come and talk to me. But I didn’t know why they were doing that. In fact, I didn’t pay attention to what he was saying. All I could think about was what happened to my daughter? Was she alive?
The two guards thoroughly examined my bag of clothes. When they finished, I was taken to an interrogation room. There it was no longer necessary to bow to Mao’s portrait and read quotations. The interrogator simply pointed to the prisoner’s seat, and I sat down.
A man I had never seen before sat next to the interrogator. The man said, “You can get out today, and we think we can let you out. Now, let’s read you the government’s conclusion of your case. If you have any comments after listening to it, you can make them.” With that he took two papers out of a briefcase and said to me, “Stand up and listen.”
I stood up.
He read out my name, then my personal information, such as my age and place of birth, and then went on to read: “The above-named person was taken to the First Detention Center on September 27, 1966, for the following reasons: First, he wrote to Britain in October 1957 to reveal the distribution of grain in Shanghai. Secondly, he reversed the case for the traitor Liu Shaoqi and opposed the resolution of the Central Committee. The circumstances were serious enough to warrant a prison sentence. However, based on her political backwardness and ignorance, we decided to give her a chance to realize her mistakes. After six and a half years of education in the First Detention Center, we felt that she had still made some progress in her thinking and had shown repentance. Therefore, we decided to treat her leniently, not to pursue the case and grant her release.” After reading, he looked up at me.
I was so angry that my face turned blue and I couldn’t breathe… I scorned them! These shameless people. But I also knew in my heart that the real criminal was not this man, but only the evil ultra-leftists! I said to myself that I would fight them to the end, no matter what price I would pay. I gave the man a hard stare and sat down.
“Do you have anything else to say? Be grateful to the government. Now that you are free, you should feel happy.” The man said.
I tried my best to control the anger inside me so that my whole body shivered uncontrollably. I said; “I can’t accept your conclusion. I will not leave until you give me a satisfactory conclusion. A correct conclusion must first affirm that I am innocent and not politically wrong, and apologize and vindicate my wrongful arrest. In addition, a statement must be published in the major newspapers in Shanghai and Beijing to apologize. I have friends and family in both Beijing and Shanghai. As for the conclusion you just read, it was a hoax. Long before Liu Shaoqi was defeated, I was arrested in the First Detention Center. How could you have foreseen at this time that I was going to defend Liu Shaoqi? As for the leak of the information about the distribution of grain in Shanghai, it was just a pretext you found reluctantly to save your appearances. In fact, you yourselves know very well that I have never leaked any secrets.”
They exchanged glances, and then the interrogator said, “The First Detention Center is not a nursing home; you can’t stay here for the rest of your life.”
“I don’t have to stay here for the rest of my life, I’ll stay until I have a proper conclusion to my case. If you give it to me tomorrow, then I’ll leave tomorrow.”
“We know your opinion. As I said earlier, we give you permission to give your opinion, and I have recorded it. We will send your comments to the higher-ups. You can go now.” Another person said.
“No, if I leave now, you will forget all about it, and this wrong conclusion will go into my personal file. I’m going to stay here.” I said.
The interrogator stood up and said, “I have never seen a prisoner, who refused to leave the guardhouse. You’re probably crazy. Anyway, if the government wants you to leave, you have to leave. Your family was waiting for you first thing this morning, how long are you going to drag your feet before you leave?”
Does he mean, does he mean my daughter is waiting for me outside? Heh! How I wanted to see her! Suddenly two female guards walked in, both grabbed me by one shoulder each, and dragged me out the second door of the guardhouse.
From a distance, by the side of a blue cab, stood a young woman, who was a little shorter than Manning. My heart sank steeply. She is my goddaughter, surnamed XI.
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