IF THE FATHER IS A HERO, SO IS THE SON! IF THE FATHER IS A COUNTER-REVOLUTIONARY, THE SON MUST BE A SON OF A BITCH! DIG OUT THE CHILDREN OF RIGHTISTS, CAPITALIST ROADERS, AND COUNTER-REVOLUTIONARIES, DIG OUT THE SNAKES OF THE OLD REGIME! LONG LIVE CHAIRMAN MAO, LONG LIVE THE DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT, LONG LIVE THE GREAT PROLETARIAN CULTURAL REVOLUTION!
Prokofiev continued, the third movement now, with its poetic sweep, the violin teetering on discordant notes while the orchestra carried on, oblivious. Prokofiev was a world-weary, cantankerous grandfather shuffling ahead of her, a celebrated pianist whose sonatas sang as if they had been written for the violin. After his return from a tour in 1938, his passport was confiscated. In the campaigns that followed, his music was denounced by the Politburo as formalist, bourgeois and counter-revolutionary and he never composed again. Sparrow had told her that when Prokofiev died, in 1953, there were no flowers to be had because all the city’s flowers had been rounded up for Stalin’s death, which had occurred a few days earlier. People had made do with paper flowers instead. Sparrow had heard it from the conductor, Li Delun, who had been studying in Moscow at the time. Because of the grandeur of Stalin’s funeral, no musicians were available to play for Prokofiev, and so his family played a recording of the funeral march from Romeo and Juliet. The first 115 pages of the newspaper carried tributes to Stalin; on page 116, there was a small notice on the death of the great composer.
Her long braid touched the small of her back, a pressure like her mother’s hand guiding her through the invisible, ever-watching crowds.
—
Just before dawn, Sparrow looked up to see a figure standing in the doorway of his office. He put down his pencil. Kai stepped into the light and yet, in the same moment, seemed to disappear. In just two weeks, since their return to the city, he had lost weight. There was a confusion in his eyes, and he appeared much older than his seventeen years. “Am I disturbing you, Teacher?”
“Come in.”
Kai turned and looked over his shoulder. He retraced his steps, reached the door and shut it, and the click of the lock sent a chill down Sparrow’s spine. He stood up and busied himself with the thermos. The teacups clinked mildly against the table and Kai sat down in Old Wu’s chair. Old Wu had not shown up in the office for at least a month and his desk was covered in a film of dust.
“You didn’t come to class yesterday,” Sparrow said.
“Did anybody come?”
He lifted the cups and turned back to Kai. “Two students.”
“Let me guess,” Kai said, smiling in an off-putting way. “Was it–”
“No, don’t. It isn’t important. Tell me how you are. I haven’t seen you since…well, since a few nights ago.”
“I’m fine,” Kai said. “Don’t I look it?” He smiled again but this time it was warmer, meant for Sparrow. “Teacher,” he said. Then, beginning again, “Comrade, you must be the only one in the building. Do you never rest?”
“Isn’t Zhuli here?”
“What time is it?” he said distractedly, standing up and coming to where Sparrow was. “Around four, I imagine.”
“The best time for composing. It’s like another world.”
Kai took the tea and peered out the window.
When Sparrow followed his gaze, he saw only the darkness. I’m a teacher, the eldest son of a revolutionary hero, Sparrow told himself, and there’s no reason for me to be afraid. “Is something worrying you?” he asked.
“No,” Kai said. And then, more credibly, “No, I don’t think so. It’s quiet tonight.” He shifted and Sparrow noticed the armband on the pianist’s sleeve.
“Have you joined the Red Guards then,” he said touching the red cloth.
“Joined?” Kai said, his hand resting overtop of Sparrow’s. His voice was lightness itself. “People like me don’t join anymore. We are Red Guards, that’s all.”
We, Kai meant, as in those with revolutionary class backgrounds. Uneasy with the subject, he searched for another but could think only of Kai’s adoptive father and his dream of a great musical community. “How is Professor Fen?” he said, pulling his hand back.
“The same,” Kai said. “Superior and forgiving as always, even though his students at Jiaotong have begun denouncing him. He’s convinced this campaign is a little jolt, nothing more. A few denunciations and it will all blow over. He applauds their revolutionary fervour.” Kai sipped his tea and set the cup down noiselessly. “Maybe he’s right. He usually is.”
“This new campaign is just beginning,” Sparrow said.
“The Professor thinks it’s still 1919 and the era of New Culture,” Kai said bitterly, as if he had not heard him. “He really thinks that he can have these open discussions just as they did back then, that everything and anything is up for debate. His position has made him naive! The worst is that he’s dragging San Li and Ling down with him. They’re devoted followers. They mistakenly believe he has the ear of the Party. If something happens to Ling, I’ll never forgive him.”
The only light in the room was a candle flickering unevenly. There must be a draft, Sparrow thought, looking up into the darkened corners.
“I nearly had an exit visa,” Kai said, “but yesterday…everything fell apart. The Professor arranged for me to study in Leipzig, he had arranged it through a contact in the Premier’s office. But it’s all gone. I didn’t tell you because…it’s not that I don’t want to stay and serve the Revolution…I was waiting until I had the exit visa in my pocket. It was only a matter of days. The visa was already approved, the last steps were formalities. But now…this morning, the cadre who signed my papers was denounced. They say he’s going to be expelled from the Party…Teacher, what if suspicion filters down to the Professor and to me? The Professor tells me not to worry. He says his brothers and his wife died at the hands of the Kuomintang and the Japanese, they died as revolutionary heroes and therefore he is untouchable. It is his right, his right, he says, to criticize the Party and its policies because of his family’s status. He sees nothing, hears nothing! My whole life was about to be transformed but now…if I can’t get out, what will happen to me?”
The pianist caught himself. He put his hands around his elbows and stood very still. “I have to leave,” he said, more calmly now. “I want the same overseas ticket that Fou Ts’ong got by sheer will and talent. It is the only thing I have ever wanted.”
How much like Zhuli the young pianist was, Sparrow thought numbly. How strange he had never noticed it before. They believed they could attain what the Party had put beyond their reach, that they could strive and strive and go unpunished for their longings. From where had this blind ambition come?
“You must take precautions,” Sparrow said. His own words surprised him. Had it always come so naturally, he wondered, to speak words that didn’t suit him?
“Yes,” Kai nodded, relieved. “I must.”
“Perhaps,” Sparrow continued, “you should go down to your home village for a few days. In any case, classes have been suspended. Didn’t you say there was a piano there? You could continue to practise. There’s your concert, after all, in just a few months.”
“Yes,” Kai said again. And then, absent-mindedly, “I’ll play Beethoven, of course. Concerto No. 1 or, well, I don’t know, No. 5. I’ve always preferred the later works. But do you think No. 5 is too full of sentiment? The second movement worries me.” He hummed a few bars and stopped, contemplating. Kai had cut his hair, it was close-cropped now, accentuating the graceful line of his neck. Sparrow glanced out the window again, fearful that someone was watching them. There was nothing.