6 "Talking about Love"

六 “谈恋爱”

——A Revolutionary Marriage (1948-1949)

——革命的婚姻(1948—1949年)

My mother set off to see Comrade Wang one morning on a mild autumn day, the best time of year in Jinzhou. The summer heat had gone and the air had begun to grow cooler, but it was still warm enough to wear summer clothes. The wind and dust which plague the town for much of the year were deliciously absent.

在一个凉爽宜人的秋日早晨，我母亲去见王同志。秋天是锦州一年之中最好的季节，暑热已消，但仍然暖和，可着夏装。狂卷了大半年的风沙，此刻已消逝无踪。

She was wearing a traditional loose pale blue gown and a white silk scarf. Her hair had just been cut short in keeping with the new revolutionary fashion. As she walked into the courtyard of the new provincial government headquarters she saw a man standing under a tree with his back to her, brushing his teeth at the edge of a flowerbed. She waited for him to finish, and when he lifted his head she saw that he was in his late twenties, with a very dark face and big, wistful eyes. Under his baggy uniform she could see that he was thin, and she thought he looked a little shorter than herself. There was something dreamy about him. My mother thought he looked like a poet.

她穿着一件裁剪得体的传统式蓝旗袍，围着白纱巾。为了赶上革命的新潮流，她刚把头发煎得短短的。在新政府机关的一个内院里，她看见有个人蹲在树下，背朝着她，正在花台边上刷牙，她站在一旁静静地等候。当那人抬起头时，一张黝黑的脸映入我母亲的眼帘，他年约二十七八岁，眼睛挺大略带忧虑。在宽大的制服下，我母亲看得出他很瘦，个头大约比自己稍稍矮一点。他若有所思，梦一般的表情使我母亲觉得他像个诗人。

"Comrade Wang, I am Xia De-hong from the students' association," she said.

“您是王愚同志吧！我是学联的夏德鸿。”

"I am here to report on our work."

"Wang' was the nora de guerre of the man who was to become my father. He had entered Jinzhou with the Communist forces a few days earlier. Since late 1945 he had been a commander with the guerrillas in the area. He was now head of the Secretariat and a member of the Communist Party Committee governing Jinzhou, and was soon to be appointed head of the Public Affairs Department of the city, which looked after education, the literacy drive, health, the press, entertainment, sports, youth, and sounding out public opinion. It was an important post.

“王愚”是化名，他后来成为我父亲，自1945年以来，他一直是这个地区的游击队指挥官之一，几天前，随共产党军队攻入锦州。进城后他担任共产党市委秘书长、市委执行委员。后来又任市委宣传部部长，主管教育(包括扫盲运动)、卫生、出版、娱乐、体育、青年工作以及收集公众意见等，是个不小的官。

He was born in 1921 in Yibin in the southwestern province of Sichuan, about 1,200 miles from Jinzhou. Yibin, which then had a population of about 30,000, lies at the spot where the Min River joins the Golden Sand River to form the Yangtze, the longest river in China. The area around Yibin is one of the very fertile parts of Sichuan, which is known as "Heaven's Granary," and the warm, misty climate in Yibin makes it an ideal place for growing tea. Much of the black tea consumed in Britain today comes from there.

我父亲出生于离锦州大约一千二百哩远的四川省宜宾。宜宾位于岷江和金沙江的交汇处，素有长江第一城的美名，人口当时约三万人。这一带地方是“天府之国”四种的富庶地区之一，温暖湿润的气候很适合种茶。今天英国人品尝的中国红茶，大部分来自这里。

My father was the seventh of nine children. His father had worked as an apprentice for a textile manufacturer since the age of twelve. When he became an adult he and his brother, who worked in the same factory, decided to start their own business. Within a few years they were prospering, and were able to buy a large house.

我父亲排行老七，有九个兄弟姊妹。我爷爷张德华十二岁开始就在一家布区商号当学徒。成人后，和在同一商号做事的哥哥一起创业，几年功夫发了财，买下了一座大宅。

But their old boss was jealous of their success, and brought a lawsuit against them, accusing them of stealing money from him to start their business. The case lasted seven years, and the brothers were forced to spend all their assets trying to clear themselves. Everyone connected with the court extorted money from them, and the greed of the officials was insatiable. My grandfather was thrown into prison. The only way his brother could get him out was to get the ex-boss to drop the suit. To do this he had to raise 1,000 pieces of silver. This destroyed them, and my great-uncle died soon afterward at the age of thirty-four from worry and exhaustion.

谁知，从前的老板眼红他们的成就，一状告到官府，咬定张家商号起家的本钱是偷他的，官司一打就是七年。参与审案的大小官吏，个个贪得无厌。张家兄弟为了洗清恶名，几乎贴光了财产、资本，仍未能斗过财大气粗的老板，爷爷被关进监狱。唯一解救的办法是让老板撤回诉讼，这下又花去他哥哥一千块银元。爷爷出狱了，张家也倾家荡产，仅剩下那座大宅。他哥哥又气又恨，加上连年劳累，一病不起，死时才三十四岁。

My grandfather found himself looking after two families, with fifteen dependents. He started up his business again, and by the late 1920s was beginning to do well. But it was a time of widespread fighting among warlords, who all levied heavy taxes. This, combined with the effects of the Great Depression, made it an extremely difficult time to run a textile factory. In 1933 my grandfather died of overwork and strain, at age forty-five. The business was sold to pay off the debts, and the family was scattered. Some became soldiers, which was considered pretty much a last resort; with all the fighting going on, it was easy for a soldier to get killed. Other brothers and cousins found odd jobs and the gifts married as best they could. One of my father's cousins, who was fifteen years old and to whom he was very attached, had to marry an opium addict several decades her senior. When the sedan chair came to carry her away, my father ran after her, not knowing if he would ever see her again.

我爷爷不得不承担起养活两家十五口人的重任。他开始重新经营商号，生意终于在1920年出现转机，但很快又陷入困境。军阀混战，苛捐杂税多如牛毛，再加上经济大萧条，他穷于应付，心力交瘁，1933年正当四十五岁壮年时，就撒手而去。为了还清债，他们被迫收了生意，卖了家当。孩子们从此星流云散，有的出外打零工，有的被迫当了兵——当时到处打仗，当兵等于送死。女孩们则尽可能找个经济宽裕的人家嫁。我父亲最喜欢的一位堂姐，当时刚十五岁，只得嫁给一个比她大几十岁的鸦片烟瘾君子。轿子抬走她那天，我父亲光着脚，跟在轿子后面跑，不知以后还能不能再见到她。

My father loved books, and began to learn to read classical prose at the age of three, which was quite exceptional.

我父亲自幼酷爱读书，三岁便能吟通古文，邻里称奇。

The year after my grandfather died he had to abandon school. He was only thirteen and hated having to give up his studies. He had to find a job, so the following year, 1935, he left Yibin and went down the Yangtze to Chongqing, a much bigger city. He found a job as an apprentice in a grocery store working twelve hours a day. One of his jobs was to carry his boss's enormous water pipe as he moved around the city reclining on a bamboo chair carried on the shoulders of two men. The sole purpose of this was for his boss to flaunt the fact that he could afford a servant to carry his water pipe, which could easily have been put in the chair. My father received no pay, just a bed and two meager meals a day. He got no supper, and went to bed every night with cramps from an empty stomach; he was obsessed by hunger.

爷爷去世第二年他十三岁，正在初中读书，因无钱以继，只好辍学外出寻找生路。又过了一年，即1935年，他沿长江而下，来到重庆。这是个比宜宾大得多的城市，他在一家杂货店里当学徒。一天工作十二个小时以上，做完店里的差事，还得帮老板家打杂。每当老板坐滑杆在城里兜风时，我父亲就得帮他提着水烟袋一路跟着小跑。笨重的水烟袋本来可以挂在滑杆上，老板为了摆阔气让人提着，显示他雇得起人专门提水烟袋。我父亲没有工资只有一张床和每日两餐不能果腹的饭，每到夜晚，他饥肠辘辘，难以入睡。

His eldest sister was also living in Chongking. She had married a schoolteacher, and their mother had come to live with them after her husband died. One day my father was so hungry he went into their kitchen and ate a cold sweet potato. When his sister found out she turned on him and yelled: "It's difficult enough for me to support our mother. I can't afford to feed a brother as well." My father was so hurt he ran out of the house and never returned.

我父亲的大姐在重庆，嫁给一位教师。我爷爷去世后，奶奶就搬来重庆与她同住。有一次，我父亲饿极了，跑到姐姐家的厨房里抓了一块冷番薯吃。他姐姐发现后冲过来对他喊着：“养母亲已经够难的了，我可再养不起一个弟弟。”我父亲很伤心，奔出屋去，再也没有去过大姐家。

He asked his boss to give him supper. His boss not only refused, but started to abuse him. In anger, my father left and went back to Yibin and lived doing odd jobs as an apprentice in one store after another. He encountered suffering not only in his own life, but all around him. Every day as he walked to work he passed an old man selling baked rolls. The old man, who shuffled along with great difficulty, bent double, was blind. To attract the attention of passersby, he sang a heart-rending tune. Every time my father heard the song he said to himself that the society must change.

他向老板要求一天吃三餐饭，老板非但不给，反而骂他。一怒之下，我父亲跑回宜宾，到处打零工。一天找不到活干，一天就饿肚子。周围的人，也各有辛酸史。每天他步行去做工时，总会碰到一个卖烤饼的老人，驼着背，瞎了眼，摸索着走。为了招引行人的注意，他总用颤抖的声音唱着小曲。每当我父亲听到这令人心碎的曲子，他就对自己说；“这个社会非变不可！”

He began to cast around for some way out. He had always remembered the first time he heard the word 'communism': it was when he was seven years old, in 1928. He was playing near his home when he saw that a big crowd had gathered at a crossroads nearby. He squeezed his way to the front: there he saw a young man sitting cross-legged on the ground. His hands were tied behind his back; standing over him was a stout man with an enormous broadsword. The young man, strangely, was allowed to talk for a time about his ideals and about something called communism. Then the executioner brought the sword down on the back of his neck. My father screamed and covered his eyes. He was shaken to the core, but he was also hugely impressed by the man's courage and calmness in the face of death.

出路在哪里呢？我父亲还能清晰地记得第一次听到“共产主义”这个字眼的情景。那是1928年，他刚七岁。这天，他在离家不远处玩耍，忽然望见一大群人围在市中心十字路口。他从人缝中挤到前面，只见一个年轻人盘腿坐在地上，双手被反绑着。身旁站着手持大刀的彪形大汉。年轻人向围观的人讲说他的理想——“共产主义”，一讲就是一个多小时，讲完后，刽子手举刀从他背后一刀砍下他的头。我父亲吓得“哇！”的一声用手蒙住双眼，血淋淋的场面令他毛骨悚然，而年轻人临刑前的镇定和视死如归，给他留下深刻的印象。后来，他听说这人叫李家勋。

By the second half of the 1930s, even in the remote backwater of Yibin, the Communists were beginning to organize a sizable underground. Their main plank was resisting the Japanese. Chiang Kai-shek had adopted a policy of nonresistance in the face of the Japanese seizure of Manchuria and increasing encroachments on China proper and had concentrated on trying to annihilate the Communists. The Communists launched a slogan, "Chinese must not fight Chinese," and put pressure on Chiang Kai-shek to focus on fighting the Japanese. In December 1936 Chiang was kidnapped by two of his own generals, one of them the Young Marshal, Chang Hsuehliang, from Manchuria. He was saved partly by the Communists, who helped get him released in return for his agreement to form a united front against Japan. Chiang Kai-shek had to consent, albeit half-heartedly, since he knew this would allow the Communists to survive and develop.

三十年代中期，即使在宜宾这样的偏远城市，共产党也已组织了一个有规模的地下组织。他们当时的行动纲领是抗日。蒋介石对日本人占领东北、侵犯华北实行不抵抗政策，集中力量围剿共产党。共产党的口号是：中国人不打中国人。向蒋介石施加压力要他取消“剿共”联合抗日。1936年12月西安事变，蒋介石被他自己的两员将领扣了起来，其中一位是从东北撤退出来的少帅张学良将军。后来蒋介石获释，部分功劳是共产党出面调停，条件是他答应共产党建立抗日统一战线。蒋介石明知同意这个条件会使共产党得以生存和发展，但却不得已而为之。

"The Japanese are a disease of the skin," he said, 'the Communists are a disease of the heart." Though the Communists and the Kuomintang were supposed to be allies, the Communists still had to work underground in most areas.

照他看来，日本人只是“疥癣之患”，而共产党才是“心腹大患”。国、共虽然结成联盟，但共产党在大多数地区仍得从事地下工作。

In July 1937 the Japanese began their all-out invasion of China proper. My father, like many others, felt appalled and desperate about what was happening to his country.

1937年7月，日本对中国发动全面战争。和许许多多中国人一样，我父亲对祖国存亡痛心疾首，投身于抗日救国活动中。

At about this time he started working in a bookshop which sold left-wing publications. He devoured book after book at night in the shop, where he functioned as a kind of night watchman.

当时他在一家出售左翼出版物的书店当店员，利用守夜的机会读了大量左倾书籍。

He supplemented his earnings from the bookshop with an evening job as an 'explainer' in a cinema. Many of the films were American silents. His job was to stand beside the screen and explain what was going on, as the films were neither dubbed nor subtitled. He also joined an Anti Japanese theater group, and as he was a slender young man with delicate features, he acted women's roles.

他的另一个工作是在一家电影院为当时风行的美国默片当解说员。他还加入了一个抗日剧团，因为身材瘦削，面且还算清秀，多扮演女角。

My father loved the theater group. It was through the friends he made there that he first entered into contact with the Communist underground. The Communist stance about fighting the Japanese and about creating a just society fired his imagination and he joined the Party in 1938, when he was seventeen. It was a time when the Kuomintang was being extremely vigilant about Communist activities in Sichuan. Nanjing, the capital, had fallen to the Japanese in December 1937, and Chiang Kai-shek subsequently moved his government to Chongqing. The move precipitated a flurry of police activity in Sichuan, and my father's theater group was forcibly disbanded. Some of his friends were arrested. Others had to flee. My father felt frustrated that he could not do anything for his country.

在剧团里，父亲结识了不少朋友，而且第一次接触到共产党地下组织。他对共产党关于抗日和建立公平社会的主张很是倾心，1938年十七岁时加入了共产党。当时，首都南京刚于1937年12月落入日本人之手，蒋介石把政府迁到重庆。为保障首都安全，国民党警察和特务在四川严防共产党。我父亲的剧团被迫解散，一些朋友被捕，有的则逃走了。我父亲不知如何为抗日救国出力，深感愤懑。

A few years before, Communist forces had passed through remote parts of Sichuan on their 6,000-mile Long March, which ultimately took them to the small town of Yan'an in the northwest. People in the theater group had talked a lot about Yan'an as a place of camaraderie, uncorrupt and efficient- my father's dream. At the beginning of 1940 he set out on his own long march to Yan'an. He first went to Chongqing, where one of his brothers-in-law, who was an officer in Chiang Kai-shek's army, wrote a letter to help him cross Kuomintang-occupied areas and get through the blockade that Chiang Kai-shek had thrown up around Yan'an. The journey took him almost four months. By the time he arrived it was April 1940.

几年前，共产党红军进行了两万五千里长征，曾穿过四川边远地区，最后在陕西延安落脚。剧团的朋友屡屡谈起延安的生活：平等友爱，朝气勃勃，没有腐败，工作充满效率——俨然是我父亲向往的理想社会，1940年初，他一个人踏上了延安之途。他先到重庆，从一位当国民党军官的姐夫那里弄到一封信，以通过国民党控制区和延安外边的封锁关卡。由于没有钱，交通又不便，他多是步行，整整走了四个月，到达延安时，已经是1940年4月了。

Yan'an lay on the Yellow Earth Plateau, in a remote and barren part of northwest China. Dominated by a nine tiered pagoda, much of the town consisted of rows of caves cut into the yellow cliffs. My father was to make these caves his home for over five years. Mao Zedong and his much-depleted forces had arrived there at different times in 1935 -1936, at the end of the Long March, and subsequently made it the capital of their republic. Yan'an was surrounded by hostile territory; its chief advantage was its remoteness, which made it difficult to attack.

延安坐落在黄土高原，以九层宝塔为中心，整个小镇是由一排排土黄的窑洞组成。我父亲就是在这种窑洞里住了五年。毛泽东和他的筋疲力尽的军队已分别于1935年和1936年来到延安，随后在这里建立起共产党的大本营。延安位于穷乡僻壤、几省交界地方，使共产党得以立足。

After a short spell at a Party school, my father applied to join one of the Party's most prestigious institutions, the Academy of Marxist-Leninist Studies. The entrance exam was quite stiff, but he took first place, as a result of his reading deep into the night in the loft of the bookshop in Yibin. His fellow candidates were amazed. Most of them had come from the big cities like Shanghai, and had looked down on him as a bit of a yokel. My father became the youngest research fellow in the Academy.

我父亲在陕北公学呆了一段时间后，申请进入共产党最高理论研究机构——马列主义研究院。入学考试很严，但他考了第一，这多半归功于他在宜宾书店阁楼上日夜的苦读。一起应考的同伴们都很惊讶我父亲这个“乡巴佬”居然会比他们强，他们大部分来自像上海这种大城市。我父亲成了学院最年轻的研究员。

My father loved Yan'an. He found the people there full of enthusiasm, optimism, and purpose. The Party leaders lived simply, like everyone else, in striking contrast with Kuomintang officials. Yan'an was no democracy, but compared with where he had come from it seemed to be a paradise of fairness.

他热爱延安，发现这里的人充满热情、理想而且乐观。共产党官员们生活简朴，和普通人差不多，这与国民党官员的奢华生活形成强烈对比。延安不是民主社会，但与他以前的世界来比，简直是天堂。

In 1942 Mao started a "Rectfication' campaign, and invited criticisms about the way things were being run in Yan'an. A group of young research fellows from the Academy, led by Wang Shi-wei and including my father, put up wall posters criticizing their leaders and demanding more freedom and the right to greater individual expression. Their action caused a storm, and Mao himself came to read the posters.

1942年，毛泽东发动了一场运动，要大家提意见改进工作，叫作“整风”。研究院的一群年轻人，包括我父亲，由王实味领头贴出大字报，批评研究院负责人，要求自由和个人有更多的发言权。

Mao did not like what he saw, and turned his campaign into a witch-hunt. Wang Shi-wei was accused of being a Trotskyite and a spy. My father, as the youngest person in the Academy, was said by Ai Si-qi, the chief exponent of Marxism in China and one of the leaders of the Academy, to have 'committed a very naive mistake." Earlier, Ai Si-qi had often praised my father as a 'brilliant and sharp mind."

此事在延安引起轩然大波，毛泽东也来看大字报，他很不高兴。后来整风演变成了整人，王实味被指控为托洛斯基派和间谍。我父亲是研究院参加“市事”的最年轻学员，院领导之一、中国马克恩主义理论权威艾思奇一向很欣赏他，说他头脑敏锐，绝顶聪明。此时他说我父亲“犯了一个天真的错误”。这样我父亲没被毁掉，但连续好几个月，他和他的朋友耳边仍灌满了无情的批判声，说他们在延安制造混乱，削弱共产党的团结和纪律，损害抗日救国的伟大事业。他们得参加一个又一个会议，在会上一次又一次地自我检讨，共产党领导干部则一再向他们灌输：为了救国必须绝对服从党。

My father and his friends were subjected to relentless criticisms and obliged to undertake self-criticisms at intensive meetings for months. They were told that they had caused chaos in Yan'an and weakened the Party's unity and discipline, which could damage the great cause of saving China from the Japanese and from poverty and injustice. Over and over again, the Party leaders inculcated into them the absolute necessity for complete submission to the Party, for the good of the cause.

The Academy was shut down, and my father was sent to teach ancient Chinese history to semi-literate peasants turned-officials at the Central Party School. But the ordeal had turned him into a convert. Like so many other young people, he had invested his life and faith in Yan'an. He could not let himself be easily disappointed. He regarded his harsh treatment as not only justified, but even a noble experience soul-cleansing for the mission to save China.

学院关了门，我父亲被派到中央党校教那些农民出身的半文盲军官中国古代史。这番严峻的考验使我父亲完全皈依了共产党。就像许多热血青年一样，他历经万难才来到延安，对共产主义倾注了全部身心，他不会轻易放弃这个事业。

He believed that the only way this could be done was through disciplined, perhaps drastic, measures, including immense personal sacrifice and the total subordination of the self.

他觉得严酷的磨练是应该的，甚至认为这是一种宝贵的经历，为救国大业而净化灵魂。他相信救国的唯一办法就是执行铁的纪律，牺牲小我，完成大我。

There were less demanding activities as well. He toured the surrounding areas collecting folk poetry, and learned to be a graceful and elegant dancer in Western-style ballroom dancing, which was very popular in Yan'an many of the Communist leaders, including the future prime minister, Zhou Enlai, enjoyed it. At the foot of the dry, dusty hills was the meandering, dark-yellow, silt-filled Yan River, one of the scores which join the majestic Yellow River, and here my father often went swimming; he loved to do the backstroke while looking up at the simple solid pagoda.

当然，延安的生活也有轻松的一面。我父亲踏遍了附近山山水水，搜集黄土高原的民谣，也学会了优雅地跳西方交际舞。交际舞在当时的延安很流行，许多共产党领导人，包括后来的总理周恩来，都喜欢跳。黄河支流延河沿着宝塔山蜿蜒而下，河水充满黄沙，我父亲常来这里游泳，他喜欢仰泳，从水面上仰望立在山尖上的古老石塔。

Life in Yan'an was hard but exhilarating. In 1942, Chiang Kai-shek tightened his blockade. Supplies of food, clothing, and other necessities became drastically curtailed.

延安的生活虽艰苦、但也令人振奋。1942年，蒋介石对延安加紧封锁。粮食、布匹和其他日用品一下子几乎都没有了。

Mao called on everyone to take up hoes and spinning wheels and produce essential goods themselves. My father became an excellent spinner.

毛泽东号召军民挥锄种粮，纺纱织布，自制必需品。我父亲成了手工纺纱的能手。

He stayed in Yan'an for the whole of the war. In spite of the blockade, the Communists strengthened their control over large areas, particularly in northern China, behind the Japanese lines. Mao had calculated well: the Communists had won vital breathing space. By the end of the war they claimed some sort of control over ninety-five million people, about 20 percent of the population, in eighteen 'base areas." Equally important, they gained experience at running a government and an economy under tough conditions. This stood them in good stead: their organizational ability and their system of control were always phenomenal.

整个抗战期间他都在延安。尽管被封锁了，共产党仍在大片地区巩固了自己的统治，尤其是在日本人占领的华北地区。毛泽东的确高明，联合抗日使共产党获得生死攸关的喘息空间。到抗战结束，他们已有效地控制了十八个根据地，大约九千五百万人口，约占当时中国总人口的两成。同样重要的是，他们还积累了如何管理政府的经验，学会了在艰苦条件下搞经济，这些年训练出来的组织能力和控制体系更是举世无双。

On 9 August 1945, Soviet troops swept into northeast China. Two days later the Chinese Communists offered them military cooperation against the Japanese, but they were turned down: Stalin was supporting Chiang Kaishek. That same day the Chinese Communists started to order armed units and political advisers into Manchuria, which everyone realized was going to be of critical importance.

1945年8月9日苏联军队开赴东北扫除日军，两天后。中国共产党提出与苏联人军事合作共同打击日本人，但被拒绝，因为斯大林认的是蒋介石政府。同一天，中国共产党命令自己的战斗部队和政治干部进入战略上至关重要的东北。

A month after the Japanese surrender my father was ordered to leave Yan'an and head for a place called Chaoyang in southwest Manchuria, about 700 miles to the east, near the border with Inner Mongolia.

日本投降后一个月，我父亲奉命离开延安前往东北的西南部一个名叫朝阳的地方，它位于延安东面七百哩处，靠近内蒙古边界。

In November, after walking for two months, my father and his small group reached Chaoyang. Most of the territory was barren hills and mountains, almost as poor as Yan'an. The area had been part of Manchukuo until three months before. A small group of local Communists had proclaimed its own 'government." The Kuomintang underground then did the same. Communist troops came racing over from Jinzhou, about fifty miles away, arrested the Kuomintang governor, and executed him for 'conspiring to overthrow the Communist government."

步行了两个月，我父亲一行人于11月来到朝阳县。这里多是荒山秃岭，差不多和延安一样穷。三个月前，朝阳还是“满洲国”的一部分。苏军进驻朝阳县的第二天，当地共产党地下小组即宣布成立共产党政府，但国民党地下工作人员也亮出国民党牌。结果共产党军队马上从五十哩外的锦州赶来，逮捕并处决了国民党首领，罪名是“阴谋推翻共产党政府。”

My father's group took over, with the authority of Yan'an, and within a month a proper administration began to function for the whole area of Chaoyang, which had a population of about 100,000. My father became its deputy chief. One of the first acts of the new government was to put up posters announcing its policies: the release of all prisoners; the closure of all pawnshops pawned goods could be recovered free of charge; brothels were to be closed and prostitutes given six months' living allowance by their owners; all grain stores were to be opened and the grain distributed to those most in need; all property belonging to Japanese and collaborators was to be confiscated; and Chinese-owned industry and commerce was to be protected.

我父亲的小组是延安共产党总部正式委派的，他们接管了政权，我父亲成为核心领导人之一。新政府在一个月内开始有效地管理这个有十万人口的地区。第一件事是到处张贴安民告示：(一)释放所有在押犯人；(二)关闭当铺——当物免费领回；(三)关闭妓院，放走妓女，由老鸨发六个月的生活费；(四)开官仓发粮救济贫民；(五)属于日本人汉奸的财产全部没收；(六)中国人的工商业受保护。

These policies were enormously popular. They benefited the poor, who formed the vast majority of the population. Chaoyang had never known even moderately good government; it had been ransacked by different armies in the warlord period, and then occupied and bled white by the Japanese for over a decade.

这些政策大受欢迎，因为对绝大多数的穷人好处最多。当地人们都说从来没有见过比这更好的政府。在军阀混战期间，朝阳地区遭到各方势力的烧杀掳掠，后来又被日军占领，劫夺了十余年。

A few weeks after my father had started his new job, Mao issued an order to his forces to withdraw from all vulnerable cities and major communication routes and to pull back into the countryside 'leaving the high road alone and seizing the land on both sides' and 'surrounding the cities from the countryside." My father's unit withdrew from Chaoyang into the mountains. It was an area almost devoid of vegetation, except for wild grass and the occasional hazelnut tree and wild fruits. The temperatures fell at night to around minus 30 F with icy gales. Anyone caught outside at night without cover froze to death. There was practically no food. From the exhilaration of seeing Japan's defeat and their own sudden expansion into large tracts of the northeast, the Communists' apparent victory was seemingly turning to ashes within weeks. As my father and his men hunkered down in caves and poor peasant huts, they were in a somber mood.

我父亲新工作刚开始几个星期，毛泽东发布命令，要共产党军队撤出易受攻击的城市和主要交通线，退到附近的农村，“让开大路占领两厢”、“农村包围城市”。我父亲的部队于是进了朝阳荒山，与他们终日为伍的只有一些零零落落的野花和偶然碰到榛子树、野果，很少找到吃的东西。夜间温度低到零下二三十的摄氏度，室外过夜如果缺少御寒衣物，会很快冻死。本来，几个星期前还眼看着日本人战败，东北地区共产党的根据地聚然扩大，似乎胜券在握，但此刻却化为乌有。当我父亲和战友们躲在山洞，蹲在穷苦老百姓的茅屋里里，他们的心情极度沉重。

The Communists and the Kuomintang were both maneuvering for advantage in preparation for a resumption of full-scale civil war. Chiang Kai-shek had moved his capital back to Nanjing, and with American help, had transported large numbers of troops to North China, issuing secret orders for them to occupy all strategic places as fast as possible. The Americans sent a leading general, George Marshall, to China to try to persuade Chiang to form a coalition government with the Communists as junior partners. A truce was signed on 10 January 1946, to go into effect on 13 January. On the 14th the Kuomintang entered Chaoyang and immediately started setting up a large armed police force and an intelligence network and arming local landlords' squads. Altogether, they put together a force of over 4,000 men to annihilate the Communists in the area.

这段时间，共产党和国民党都忙于调兵遣将，准备全面内战。蒋介石把首都迁回南京，在美国人帮助下把大批军队运到华北，并密令他们尽快抢占战略要地。美国人派马歇尔将军到中国，劝蒋介石容纳共产党，建立国共联合政府。1946年1月10日，国共停战协定签字，于1月13日生效。1月14日国民党开进朝阳县城，立即建立起庞大的武装警察部队和情报网，组织地主武装，共同剿共，武装力量达到四千余人。

By February my father and his unit were on the run, retreating deeper and deeper into more and more inhospitable terrain.

到了2月，已赶得我父亲一行人节节后退，进入越来越荒凉的地带。

Most of the time they had to hide with the poorest peasants. By April there was nowhere left to run, and they had to break up into smaller groups. Guerrilla warfare was the only way to survive. Eventually my father set up his base at a place called Six Household Village, in hilly country where the Xiaoling River starts, about sixty five miles west of Jinzhou.

大多数时间他们只能躲在最穷的农民家里。到了4月，他们无路可退了。唯一生存的办法就是分散开来打游击。我父亲以一个名叫六家子的村庄为中心，建立了他的根据地。这个山村位于小凌河源头，在锦州西面约六十五哩。

The guerrillas had very few arms; they had to obtain most of their guns from the local police or 'borrow' them from landlord forces. The other main source was former members of the Manchukuo army and police, to whom the Communists made a particular pitch because of their weapons and fighting experience. In my father's area, the main thrust of the Communists' policy was to reduce the rent and interest on loans the peasants had to pay to the landlords. They also confiscated grain and clothing from landlords and distributed them to the poor peasants.

游击队武器很少，只能靠袭击当地警察补充，或向地主“借”。他们特别努力争取过去“满州国”的伪军和警察，因为这些人既有武器又有战斗经验。在我父亲的根据地，共产党的主要工作是推行减租减息，没收地主多余的粮食、衣物，钱财等分给贫苦农民。

At first progress was slow, but by July, when the sorghum had grown to its full height ready for harvesting, and was high enough to conceal them, the different guerrilla units were able to come together for a meeting in Six Household Village, under a huge tree which stood guard over the temple. My father opened by referring to the Chinese Robin Hood story, The Water Margin: "This is our "Hall of Justice." We are here to discuss how to "rid the people of evil and uphold justice on behalf of Heaven."

刚开始时进展缓慢，游击队实力单薄，根据地也不巩固。到了7月，当高粱将熟，“青纱帐”内可以藏身时，形势有了明显好转，各路游击队已能够齐集六家子村开会。会场设在寺庙内，我父亲任主席。他引梁山泊好汉的故事做开场白：“这里就是‘聚义堂’，让我们在此共商怎样‘替天行道，除暴安良。’”

At this point my father's guerrillas were fighting mainly westward, and the areas they took included many villages inhabited by Mongolians. In November 1946, as winter closed in, the Kuomintang stepped up their attacks. One day my father was almost captured in an ambush. After a fierce firefight, he just managed to break out. His clothes were torn to shreds and his penis was dangling out of his trousers, to the amusement of his comrades.

我父亲的游击队向西挺进，攻占的地区包括大部蒙古人居住的村庄。1946年冬天降临时，国民党加紧了清剿。11月的一天，父亲的游击队中了埋仗，他本人险些被抓。经过激烈的枪战，他侥幸突围，衣服裤子被树枝扯成了碎片，至今他的同志们忆及此时还忍不住哈哈大笑。

They rarely slept in the same place two nights running, and often had to move several times in one night. They could never take their clothes off to sleep, and their life was an uninterrupted succession of ambushes, encirclements, and breakouts. There were a number of women in the unit, and my father decided to move them and the wounded and unfit to a more secure area to the south, near the Great Wall. This involved a long and hazardous journey through Kuomintang-held areas. Any noise might be fatal, so my father ordered all babies to be left behind with local peasants. One woman could not bring herself to abandon her child, and in the end my father told her she would have to choose between leaving the baby behind or being court-martialed. She left the baby.

他们几乎天天变更宿营地，有时一个晚上得转移好几个地方。睡觉从不脱衣服，生活就是一连串不间断的埋伏、包围和突围。游击队里有一些妇女，我父亲决定把她们和伤病员向南移到靠长城较安全的地区去。这是一次穿过国民党控制区的漫长危险之行，任何声响都可能导致全军覆没。我父亲万不得已命令把所有的孩子留给当地农民寄养。有位妇女实在难舍孩子，我父亲最后让她选择：留下孩子或军法处置，她把孩子留给了农民。

In the following months, my father's unit moved eastward toward Jinzhou and the key railway line from Manchuria to China proper. They fought in the hills west of Jinzhou before the regular Communist army arrived. The Kuomintang launched a number of unsuccessful 'annihilation campaigns' against them. The unit's actions began to have an impact. My father, now twenty-five, was so well known that there was a price on his head and "Wanted' notices up all over the Jinzhou area. My mother saw these notices, and began to hear a lot about him and his guerrillas from her relatives in Kuomintang intelligence.

随后几个月，游击队逐步向锦州和铁路沿线靠近。国民党发动了好几次围剿想消灭他们，但一次也没成功。游击队影响越来越大，当时二十五岁的父亲已声名远播，以至锦州城里四处都贴有通缉令悬赏捉拿他。我母亲看过他的通缉令，也从她的国民党特务亲戚口里听到不少有关他和他的游击队的故事。

When my father's unit was forced to withdraw, Kuomintang forces returned and took back from the peasants the food and clothing which the Communists had confiscated from the landlords. In many cases peasants were tortured, and some were killed, particularly those who had eaten the food which they had often done because they were starving and could not now hand it back.

父亲的游击队每离开一个地方，地方就被国民党军队反攻回来，强迫农民交回分去的粮食和农物等。不少因饥饿吃掉了粮而交不出的农民受到严刑拷打，有的还被杀。

In SIX Household Village the man who had owned the most land, one Jin Ting-quan, had also been the police chief, and had brutally raped many local women. He had run away with the Kuomintang and my father's unit had presided over the meeting which opened his house and his grain store. When Jin came back with the Kuomintang the peasants were made to grovel in front of him and return all the goods they had been given by the Communists.

六家子的头号大地主金廷泉当过“满洲国”警察署长，曾野蛮地强奸过村里众多妇女。当我父亲的游击队来此安营扎寨时，他逃掉了，游击队打开他的粮仓济民。金廷泉随国民党军队还乡后，逼着农民跪在他面前，向他讨饶，归还共产党分给他们的东西。

Those who had eaten the food were tortured and their homes smashed. One man who refused to kowtow or return the food was slowly burned to death.

已吃掉粮食的农民被拷打，家也被砸了。有个农民既不还粮，也不磕头，金廷泉竟当众用火把他慢慢烧死。

In spring 1947 the tide began to turn, and in March my father's group was able to retake the town of Chaoyang. Soon the whole surrounding area was in their hands. To celebrate their victory, there was a feast followed by entertainment. My father was brilliant at inventing riddles out of people's names, which made him a great hit with his comrades.

1947年春天，形势开始对共产党有利，父亲的游击队重新占领朝阳城控制了周围广大地区，庆功宴会后是晚会，父亲巧妙地把战友名字作成谜底，编成谜语，猜得大家喜笑颜开。

The Communists carried out a land reform, confiscating land which had hitherto been owned by a small number of landlords and redistributing it equally among the peasants.

土地改革随即进行，把占人口极少数的地主拥有的大部分土地平分给农民。

In Six Household Village the peasants at first refused to take Jin Ting-quan's land, even though he had now been arrested. Although he was under guard, they bowed and scraped to him. My father visited many peasant families, and gradually learned the horrible truth about him. The Chaoyang government sentenced Jin to death by shooting, but the family of the man who had been burned to death, with the support of the families of other victims, determined to kill him the same way. As the flames began to lick around his body Jin clenched his teeth, and did not utter even a moan until the moment the fire surrounded his heart. The Communist officials sent to carry out the execution did not prevent the villagers from doing this.

但在六家子无人敢要金廷泉的地。尽管他已是阶下囚，农民们见到他还是点头哈腰。我父亲走访了许多农民，终于了解到金廷泉上次还乡后的暴行。朝阳县政府据此下令处金死刑，执行枪决。但被金烧死的那个人的家属和其他受害者则要求以牙还牙，烧死金廷泉。当火焰在金廷泉周围熊熊燃烧时，他咬紧牙关，一声不哼，直到火舌舔到胸膛才叫了一声。

Although the Communists were opposed to torture in theory and on principle, officials were told that they should not intervene if the peasants wished to vent their anger in passionate acts of revenge.

共产党理论上反对酷刑，但通知干部在农民要求复仇时，不应干涉。所以派来对金廷泉执行死型的共产党人没有阻止农民。

People such as Jin were not just wealthy owners of land, but had wielded absolute and arbitrary power, which they indulged willfully, over the lives of the local population.

像金廷泉这样的人并非一般的富裕地主，他们在其势力范围内有莫大的权力，肆虐乡民，叫作“恶霸”。

They were called e-ba ('ferocious despots').

In some areas the killing extended to ordinary landlords, who were called 'stones' obstacles to the revolution.

有些地区，非恶霸的一般地主也被算作“石头”，意即革命的阻力。

Policy toward the 'stones' was: "When in doubt, kill." My father thought this was wrong and told his subordinates, and the people at public meetings, that only those who unquestionably had blood on their hands should be sentenced to death. In his reports to his superiors he repeatedly said that the Party should be careful with human lives, and that excessive executions would only harm the revolution. It was partly because many people like my father spoke up that in February 1948 the Communist leadership issued urgent instructions to stop violent excesses.

“对石头”的政策是“可杀可不杀者，杀！”我父亲认为这是错误的。他告诉部下和群众，只有那些罪证确凿的人才应处死。他一再给上级报告提出对人命要谨慎处置，过多的死刑只会损害革命。由于许多像他这样的人直陈己见，1948年2月共产党中央发出紧急命令，要各地禁止滥杀。

All the time, the main forces of the Communist army were coming nearer. In early 1948 my father's guerrillas joined up with the regular army. He was put in charge of an intelligence-gathering system covering the JinzhouHuludao area; his job was to track the deployment of Kuomintang forces and monitor their food situation. Much of his information came from agents inside the Kuomintang, including Yu-wu. From these reports he heard of my mother for the first time.

共产党的正规部队到来后，1948年初，我父亲的游击队受命与他们共同作战。他转为负责锦州——葫芦岛一线的情报系统，搜集国民党部队部署及粮食供应情况。他的情报主要来自国民党内部的地下工作人员，包括夏家的房客毓武。从这些报告中，我父亲第一次听说了我母亲。

* * *

The thin, dreamy-looking man my mother saw brushing his teeth in the courtyard that October morning was known among his fellow guerrillas for his fastidiousness. He brushed his teeth every day, which was a novelty to the other guerrillas and to the peasants in the villages he had fought through. Unlike everyone else, who simply blew their noses onto the ground, he used a handkerchief, which he washed whenever he could. He never dipped his face towel in the public washbasin like the other soldiers, as eye diseases were widespread. He was also known as scholarly and bookish and always carried some volumes of classical poetry with him, even in battle.

在那个10月的早晨，我母亲见到的那个瘦瘦的、看上去喜欢梦想的年轻人，在游击队中非常出名的讲究。他天天刷牙，这对游击队和农民都是新鲜事儿。其他人流鼻涕，不是随地一甩，就是顺手往裤子上一擦。而他不仅用手帕，还有空就洗。他从不在公共脸盆里搓手巾，因为当时眼疾流行。人们还说他书生气十足，身上总带着几本古诗集，就是打仗也不例外。

When she had first seen the "Wanted' posters and heard about this dangerous 'bandit' from her relatives, my mother could tell that they admired as well as feared him. Now she was not a bit disappointed that the legendary guerrilla did not look at all warrior like

当我母亲每一次看到那张通缉令，从亲戚那儿听到他们谈论这个危险的“共匪”时，她看得出他们既怕他又佩服他。现在，这位传奇式的游击队首领就站在面前，并非腰圆膀粗的黑旋风李逵。不过，她一点儿也不觉得失望。

My father also knew of my mother's courage and, most unusual of all, the fact that she, a seventeen-year-old girl, was giving orders to men. An admirable and emancipated woman, he had thought, although he had also imagined her as a fierce dragon. To his delight he found her pretty and feminine, even rather coquettish. She was both soft spoken and persuasive and also, something rare in China, precise. This was an extremely important quality for him, as he hated the traditional florid, irresponsible, and vague way of talking.

我父亲也听说过我母亲勇敢过人，一个十七岁的女孩子居然向男人们下命令。他曾敬佩地想：这真是个解放的新女性。但他把她想成是个母夜叉。结果呢，他喜出望外，发现我母亲富有女性美，甚至还有点俏皮。谈论问题时虽然柔声柔气，却带着少见的精确性，很有说服力。这对父亲是至为重要的，他不喜欢那种夸夸其谈、华而不实、模棱两可的谈话方式。

She noticed that he laughed a lot, and that he had shiny white teeth, unlike most other guerrillas, whose teeth were often brown and rotting. She was also attracted by his conversation. He struck her as learned and knowledgeable definitely not the sort of man who would mix up Flaubert and Maupassant.

我母亲发现他很爱笑，牙齿雪白，不像有游击队员一口大黄牙。她也很喜欢听他说话，觉得他懂得真多，可不是那种会把福楼拜与莫泊桑搅在一起的人。

When my mother told him she was there to report on the work of her students' union, he asked her what books the students were reading. My mother gave him a list and asked if he would come and give them some lectures on Marxist philosophy and history. He agreed, and asked her how many people there were at her school. She gave him an exact figure at once. Then he asked her what proportion of them backed the Communists; again she immediately gave him a careful estimate.

在我母亲汇报会联会工作时，他问她女子中学有多少学生，我母亲马上报了个准确数目。他又问学生们读些什么书，我母亲不假思索地说出一串书名。随后的问题是约有多少学生支持共产党，她都给了有根有据的估计数目。

A few days later he turned up to start his course of lectures. He also took the students through Mao's works and explained what some of Mao's basic theories were. He was an excellent speaker, and the girls, including my mother, were bowled over.

我母亲邀请他给学生们演讲马克思主义哲学和历史，他爽快地签应了。几天后，他如约而来，口若悬河，深入浅出地讲解难懂的哲学，令在座的女孩子们——自然有我母亲在内——大为倾倒。

One day, he told the students that the Party was organizing a trip to Harbin, the Communists' temporary capital in the north of Manchuria. Harbin was largely built by Russians and was known as 'the Paris of the East' because of its broad boulevards, ornate buildings, smart shops, and European-style cafes. The trip was presented as a sight seeing tour, but the real reason for it was that the Party was worried that the Kuomintang was going to try to retake Jinzhou, and they wanted to get the pro-Communist teachers and students , as well as the professional elite like doctors, out in case the city was reoccupied but they did not want to set off alarm bells by saying so. My mother and a number of her friends were among the 170 people chosen to go.

一天，他告诉学生们，党将组织她们去哈尔滨参观。哈尔滨是当时共产党在东北的临时首府。那里的许多建筑是俄国人建造的。宽阔的林荫大道，带雕塑的小洋楼，时髦华美的商店以及欧洲风味的咖啡馆，使它享有“东方小巴黎”的美誉。这次旅行名义上是观光，真实原因是共产党担心国民党会卷土重来，想预先把亲共的教师、学生和其他专业人才如医生等撤离锦州保护起来。但他们不愿言明这一点，怕引起恐慌。我母亲被列为一百七十名首批北上的人员之中。

In late November my mother set off by train for the north in a state of high excitement. It was in snow-covered Harbin, with its romantic old buildings and its Russian mood of lingering pensiveness and poetry, that my parents fell in love. My father wrote some beautiful poems for my mother there. Not only were they in very elegant classical style, which was a considerable accomplishment, but she discovered that he was a good calligrapher, which raised him even higher in her esteem.

11月下旬，她兴高采烈地登上火车。此时哈尔滨正笼罩在冰雪之中，像童话世界，俄罗斯建筑群似乎带着浪漫的诗意。在这里我父母相爱了，他为母亲写下了优美的古体诗，造诣很深，使她惊服。当她发现父亲书法也是一流时，就更是佩服得五体投地了。

On New Year's Eve he invited my mother and a girlfriend of hers to his quarters. He was living in an old Russian hotel, which was like something out of a fairy tale, with a brightly colored roof, ornate gables, and delicate plaster work around the windows and on the veranda.

除夕夜，我父亲邀请我母亲和她的一位女朋友到住处作客。他住在一家古老的俄国式旅馆里，彩色的屋顶，华丽的内墙，窗沿阳台边是一溜石膏浮雕。走进房间，我母亲发现在“洛可可”式桌子上放着一瓶香槟，我父亲在此之前只是在翻译小说中读到过这个名字。

When my mother came in, she saw a bottle sitting on a rococo table; it had foreign lettering on it champagne.

My father had never actually drunk champagne before; he had only read about it in foreign books.

By this time it was well known among my mother's fellow students that the two were in love. My mother, being the student leader, often went to give long reports to my father, and it was noticed that she did not come back until the small hours. My father had several other admirers, including the friend who was with my mother that night, but she could see from how he looked at my mother, his teasing remarks and the way they seized every chance to be physically close to each other, that he was in love with her.

那时，母亲的同学都猜到了他俩相爱了。她身为学生领袖，常去向他汇报工作，一汇报就是几个小时，有时深夜才回来。父亲有一些崇拜者，包括那天和我母亲一块做客的女孩子。那天晚上，当她看到我父亲注视我母亲的异样眼神，听到两人互开玩笑，发现他们怎样抓住机会彼此亲近时，她明白了我父亲爱的是我母亲。当她午夜独自离开后，父亲在喝空的香槟酒瓶底下发现一张纸条：香槟酒瓶太偏心！祝你们的香槟酒瓶永远是满的！

When the friend left toward midnight, she knew my mother was going to stay behind. My father found a note under the empty champagne bottle: "Alas!? I shall have no more reason to drink champagne!? I hope the champagne bottle is always full for you!"

That night, my father asked my mother whether she was committed to anyone else. She told him about her previous relationships, and said the only man she had really loved was her cousin Hu, but that he had been executed by the Kuomintang. Then, in line with the new Communist moral code which, in a radical departure from the past, enjoined that men and women should be equal, he told her about his previous relationships. He said he had been in love with a woman in Yibin, but that that had ended when he left for Yan'an. He had had a few girlfriends in Yan'an, and in his guerrilla days, but the war had made it impossible even to contemplate the idea of marriage. One of his former girlfriends was to marry Chen Boda, the head of my father's section of the Academy in Yan'an, who later rose to enormous power as Mao's secretary.

就在那天夜里，我父亲问母亲是否与别人有过婚约。她告诉他，她唯一的爱过的人是胡表哥，但他已被国民党枪杀了。父亲按照共产党男女平等的规矩，也谈了他以前的恋爱史。在宜宾他曾爱过一个女孩，关系在去延安后就中断了。在延安和游击队，他也有过几个女朋友，但战争使人连想也不敢想结婚这种事。

After hearing each other's frank accounts of their past lives, my father said he was going to write to the Jinzhou City Party Committee asking for permission to 'talk about love' (tan-lian-ai) with my mother, with a view to marriage.

谈完过去，我父亲表示他要写信给共产党锦州市委，请求批准与我母亲“谈恋爱”。这在当时是必需的手续，大概就像是请示家长。实际上就是这么回事。共产党取代了家长。那天晚上，在长谈之后，母亲收下父亲的第一件礼物：一本苏联小说——《不过是为了爱》。

This was the obligatory procedure. My mother supposed it was a bit like asking permission from the head of the family, and in fact that is exactly what it was: the Communist Party was the new patriarch. That night, after their talk, my mother received her first present from my father, a romantic Russian novel called It's Only Love.

The next day my mother wrote home saying she had met a man she liked very much. The immediate reaction of her mother and Dr. Xia was not enthusiasm but concern, because my father was an official, and officials had always had a bad name among ordinary Chinese. Apart from their other vices, their arbitrary power meant they were thought unlikely to treat women decently. My grandmother's immediate assumption was that my father was married already and wanted my mother as a concubine. After all, he was well beyond the marrying age for men in Manchuria.

第二天，她写信回家，说她遇见一个非常喜欢的人。姥姥和夏医生的第一个反应是担心而不是热衷，因为我父亲是个当官的，而在普通老百姓心目中，当官的名声向来不好。他们大权在握就专横跋扈，往往不会善待女人。姥姥认定我父亲年龄远大于东北男子成婚岁数，一定已结过婚，娶我母亲不过是多个小老婆而已。

After about a month it was judged safe for the Harbin group to return to Jinzhou. The Party told my father that he had permission to 'talk about love' with my mother.

一个月后，共产党认为安全了，就让哈尔滨那批人回锦州。共产党这时批准了我父亲“谈恋爱”。

Two other men had also applied, but their applications came too late. One of them was Liang, who had been her controller in the underground. In his disappointment he asked to be transferred away from Jinzhou. Neither he nor the other man had breathed a word of their intentions to my mother.

另外有两个人也提出这种申请，但比我父亲晚了一步。其中一位是我母亲以前的地下上司梁先生，他失望之余，要求调离锦州。这两位申请人都是直接向党申请，没对我母亲表达过爱意。

My father got back to be told he had been appointed head of the Public Affairs Department of Jinzhou. A few days later my mother took him home to introduce him to her family. The moment he came in the door my grandmother turned her back on him, and when he tried to greet her she refused to answer. My father was dark and terribly thin the result of the hardships he had been through in the guerrilla days, and my grandmother was convinced he was well over forty, and therefore that it was impossible he had not been married before. Dr. Xia treated him politely, if formally.

我父亲回到锦州，被任为共产党锦州市委宣传部长。几天后，我母亲带他去见家人。一进门，姥姥就转过脸去，他向姥姥打招呼，她也故意不理睬。我父亲由于长年在外打游击，又黑又瘦。姥姥因此认定他岁数已超过四十，不可能没结过婚。夏瑞堂则对他很客气。

My father did not stay long. When he left, my grandmother was in floods of tears. No official could be any good, she cried. But Dr. Xia already realized, through meeting my father and from my mother's explanations, that the Communists exercised such tight control over their people that an official like my father would not be able to cheat. My grandmother was only half reassured: "But he is from Sichuan. How can the Communists find out when he comes from so far away?"

我父亲没呆多久。他前脚一走，我姥姥就哭开了，不断重复她那套“当官的都不是好东西”的观点。夏瑞堂在与我父亲接触后，以及从我母亲的解释当中，了解到共产党对自己的成员行为约束很严格，所以我父亲不可能骗人。但我姥姥硬是不信，“四川那么远，这里的共产党怎么查得出他以前的事？”

She kept up her barrage of doubts and criticism, but the rest of the family took to my father. Dr. Xia got on very well with him, and they would talk together for hours.

姥姥一直不喜欢我父亲，但家里其他人都与他相处得不错。夏瑞堂跟他一聊就是好几个小时，玉林夫妻也喜欢他。玉林的妻子出身贫苦，她外祖父在赌钱时把她母亲当赌注押了上去，结果输了，她母亲被迫接受了不幸福的婚姻。她哥被日本人抓去做了三年苦工，日本投降后才放出来，已是半死不活。和玉林结婚后，她每天早上三点钟就得起床，按满族复杂的传统习俗准备各种各样的饭菜。我姥姥管家，虽然他们是同一辈份，但玉林妻子总感到自己矮了一截，因为他们夫妻生活得靠夏家。她觉得我父亲是第一个平等待她的人，第一个完全不拿架子的官员。他好几次给他夫妇电影票，这是难得的享受，玉林妻子因此认为共产好得不得了。

Yu-lin and his wife also liked him very much. Yu-lin's wife had come from a very poor family. Her mother had been forced into an unhappy marriage after her grandfather had staked her in a card game and lost. Her brother had been caught in a roundup by the Japanese and had had to do three years of forced labor, which destroyed his body.

From the day she married Yu-lin, she had to get up at three o'clock every morning to start preparing the various different meals demanded by the complicated Manchu tradition. My grandmother was running the house and, although they were in theory members of the same generation, Yu-lin's wife felt that she was the inferior because she and her husband were dependent on the Xias. My father was the first person to make a point of treating her as an equal, which in China was a considerable departure from the past, and several times he gave the couple film tickets, which for them was a big treat. He was the first official they had ever met who did not put on airs, and Yu-lin's wife certainly felt that the Communists were a big improvement.

Less than two months after returning from Harbin my mother and father filed their application. Marriage had traditionally been a contract between families, and there had never been civil registration or a marriage certificate.

从哈尔滨回来不到两个月，我父母就交了结婚申请。结婚在传统上一直是“父母之命，媒约之言”，既没有结婚证书，也无需结婚登记。

Now, for those who had "joined the revolution", the Party functioned as the family head. Its criteria were '28-7-regiment-l' which meant that the man had to be at least twenty-eight years old, a Party member for at least seven years, and with a rank equivalent to that of a regimental commander; the '1' referred to the only qualification the woman had to meet, to have worked for the Party for a minimum of one year. My father was twenty-eight according to the Chinese way of counting age (one year old at birth), he had been a Party member for over ten years, and he held a position equivalent to that of a deputy division commander. Although my mother was not a member of the Party, her work for the underground was accepted as meeting the '1' criterion, and since she had come back from Harbin she had been working full time for an organization called the Women's Federation, which dealt with women's affairs: it supervised the freeing of concubines and shutting down brothels, mobilized women to make shoes for the army, organized their education and their employment, informed them of their rights, and helped ensure that women were not entering into marriages against their wishes.

现在对“参加革命”的人来说，党就代替了父母。党的结婚规定是“二八七团一”。意思是：男方必须二十八岁以上，七年党龄，团级以上干部，只有“一”字是会对女方；至少参加革命一年。我父亲虚岁正好二十八岁，党龄已十多年了，职位是副师级。我母亲虽然还不是党员，但她做地下工作的时间符合了“一”字。从哈尔滨回来后，她又一直在“妇联”工作。妇联主管妇女事务，做些解放姨太太、关闭妓院、动员妇女为部队做军鞋、安排妇女就业、帮助妇女婚姻自主、扫盲等工作。

The Women's Federation was now my mother's 'work unit' (dan-weO, an institution wholly under the control of the Party, to which everyone in the urban areas had to belong and which regulated virtually every aspect of an employee's life like in an army. My mother was supposed to live on the premises of the Federation, and had to obtain its permission to marry. The Federation left it up to my father's work unit, as he was a higher official. The Jinzhou City Party Committee speedily gave its written permission, but because of my father's position, clearance also had to come from the Party Committee for the province of West Liaoning. Assuming there would be no problem, my parents set the wedding day for 4 May, my mother's eighteenth birthday.

妇联现在成了我母亲的“工作单位”。单位完全由党控制，城市里的每一个人都属于某一单位，他们的生活各个方面都由单位管理，就像在军队里。我母亲得住在妇联，本来也得经过妇联批准结婚，但由于我父亲职务更高，他们的婚姻就由父亲单位作主了。锦州市常委很快就表同意。可是我父亲是副师级，还得获上一级辽西省党委认可。我父母以为不会有什么问题，于是把婚期定在5月4日，那天我母亲满十八岁。

On that day my mother wrapped up her bedroll and her clothes and got ready to move into my father's quarters.

5月4日一到，母亲打点被子、衣物，准备搬到父亲住处。

She wore her favorite pale blue gown and a white silk scarf.

她仍穿着一向家穿的蓝旗袍，围一条白纱巾。

My grandmother was appalled. It was unheard of for a bride to walk to the bridegroom's house. The man had to get a sedan chair to carry her over. For a woman to walk was a sign that she was worthless and that the man did not really want her.

姥姥与其说吃惊，不如说是气愤，新娘自己走到新郎家，既无吹吹打打，又无花轿迎接，真是闻所未闻。“你就这样自己走去？”姥姥冲着我母亲发脾气，“他一定不是真心娶你，一定的！”

"Who cares about all that stuff now?" said my mother as she tied up her bedroll.

“现在谁还理会这些规矩！”我母亲依然埋头整理行李。

But my grandmother was more dismayed at the thought that her daughter was not going to have a magnificent traditional wedding. From the moment a baby girl was born, her mother would start putting things aside for her dowry. Following the custom, my mother's trousseau contained a dozen satin-covered quilts and pillows with embroidered mandarin ducks, as well as curtains and a decorated pelmet for a four-poster bed. But my mother regarded a traditional ceremony as old-fashioned and redundant. Both she and my father wanted to get rid of rituals like that, which they felt had nothing to do with their feelings. Love was the only thing that mattered to these two revolutionaries.

一想到女儿不能有一个盛大的传统婚礼，姥姥心里难受极了。按照习俗，女孩子一出世，母亲就开始为她置办嫁妆。我母亲的嫁妆包括十几条缎子被面和十几对绣着鸳鸯的枕头，四季穿的漂亮衣服以及绣花床幔，这些现在却成了过时的累赘。我父母也不要繁琐的婚礼仪式，他们觉得这些与感情无关。对这两个革命者来说，爱情才是最重要的。

My mother walked, carrying her bedroll, to my father's quarters. Like all officials, he was living in the building where he worked, the City Party Committee; the employees were housed in rows of bungalows with sliding doors situated around a big courtyard. As dusk fell, and they were on the point of going to bed for the night, my mother was kneeling down to take off my father's slippers when there was a knock on the door. A man was standing there, and he handed my father a message from the Provincial Party Committee. It said they could not get married yet. Only the tightening of my mother's lips showed how unhappy she was. She just bent her head, silently gathered up her bedroll, and left with a simple "See you later." There were no tears, no scene, not even any visible anger.

就这样，我母亲背着行李，自己走去。我父亲和所有其他共产党官员一样，住在自己的工作单位。他的住处是市委机关一栋带滑门的日式平房。这天夜里，他们准备上床了，当我母亲蹲下来为我父亲脱鞋时，忽然有人敲门，一个人站在门口把省委的通知送到我父亲手上——他们的婚姻还没有批准。我母亲低下头来，静静地收拾完行李后，轻轻说了声：“再见！”就悄然而去，没有眼泪，没有抱怨，甚至一丝丝怒气都没有流露，只是从她紧闭的双唇上，父亲才能察觉到她有多么难受。

The moment was etched indelibly into my father's mind. When I was a child he used to say: "Your mother was so graceful."

这一幕情景使我父亲印象深刻。在我童年时，他每每提到此事总是说：“你母亲真不简单。”

Then, jokingly, "How times have changed!? You're not like your mother! You wouldn't do something like that kneel down to take off a man's shoes!"

然后开玩笑似地说，“时代变了，你不会像你母亲那样跑下来替男人脱鞋！”

What had caused the delay was that the Provincial Committee was suspicious of my mother because of her family connections. They questioned her in great detail about how her family had come to be connected with Kuomintang intelligence. They told her she must be completely truthful. It was like giving evidence in court.

未准婚姻的原困是省委对我母亲不信任。他们一再追问她的家怎么会与国民党特务有关系。他们要她忠诚老实，一一说明为什么有好几个国民党军官会向她求爱，为什么有那么多三青团朋友。我母亲说她的朋友都是最抗日的、最富正义感的人，当代表中国政府的国民党在1945年来到锦州时，她们当然加入了。她本人当时要不是太小(才十四岁)，早也加入了。而且她的朋友们很快就倾向了共产党，有的还参加了共产党地下工作。

She also had to explain how each of the Kuomintang officers had sought her hand, and why she was friends with so many Kuomintang Youth League members. She pointed out that her friends were the most anti-Japanese and the most socially conscious people; and that when the

Kuomintang had come to Jinzhou in 1945, they had seen it as the government of China. She herself might well have joined, but at fourteen she was too young. In fact, most of her friends had soon switched to the Communists.

The Party was divided: the City Committee took the view that my mother's friends had acted out of pamofic motives; but some of the provincial leaders treated them with open-ended suspicion. My mother was asked to 'draw a line' between herself and her friends.

党组织的意见不一：市委认为我母亲的朋友们出于爱国心，无可非议。但某些省委领导却仍没完没了地猜疑。他们要我母亲与朋友们划清界限。

"Drawing a line' between people was a key mechanism the Communists introduced to increase the gap between those who were 'in' and those who were 'out." Nothing, even personal relationships, was left to chance, or allowed to be fluid. If she wanted to get married, she had to stop seeing her friends.

“划清界限”是共产党区分“内”“外”、“敌”“我”的主要方法之一，即使私人关系，也是以政治为准，不能不清不楚。如果她想结婚，她就不能再见过去的朋友了。

But the most painful thing for my mother was what was happening to Hui-ge, the young Kuomintang colonel. The moment the siege was over, after her initial exhilaration that the Communists had won, her strongest urge had been to see whether he was all right. She ran all the way through the blood-soaked streets to the Jis' mansion. There was nothing there no street, no houses, only a gigantic pile of rubble. Hui-ge had disappeared.

最使我母亲痛苦的是汲上校现在的遭遇。锦州之战一结束，她在为共产党高兴的同时，就迫切地想知道汲上校是否安全。她沿着满是死尸的道路一路跑到汲家大院，那里什么也没有了，没有房屋，没有街道，只有一堆废墟。汲上校也不见了。

In the spring, just as she was preparing to get married, she found out that he was alive, a prisoner- and in Jinzhou.

当她准备在春天结婚时，突然听说他还活着，就关在锦州一个监狱里。

At the time of the siege he had managed to escape south and had ended up at Tianjin; when the Communists took Tianjin in January 1949, he was captured and brought back.

原来他在锦州被共产党攻击时，没法往南逃到天津。结果共产党在1949年1月攻下天津，他被逮捕，旋即押回锦州。

Hui-ge was not regarded as an ordinary prisoner of war.

汲上校没有被算作一般的战俘。

Because of his family's influence in Jinzhou, he fell into the category of' snakes in their old haunts," meaning established powerful local figures. They were especially dangerous for the Communists because they commanded loyalty from the local population, and their anti-Communist inclinations posed a threat to the new regime.

由于他的家族在锦州势力强、影响大，他被划为“地头蛇”。由于这类人在老百姓中有号召力，共产党认为，他们的反共倾向对新政权的威胁很大。

My mother felt confident that Hui-ge would be fairly treated after it was known what he had done, and she immediately started to appeal on his behalfi As was the procedure, she had to talk first to her immediate boss in her unit, the Women's Federation, which forwarded the appeal to a higher authority. My mother did not know who had the final say. She went to Yu-wu, who knew about, and indeed had instructed, her contact with Hui-ge, and asked him to vouch for the colonel. Yu-wu wrote a report describing what Hui-ge had done, but added that he had perhaps acted out of love for my mother, and that he might not even have known he was helping the Communists because he was blinded by love.

我母亲很自然地认为只要共产党组织了解汲上校为共产党所做的一切，他就会受到宽待，她立即开始为他奔走。按共产党的规矩，她先向自己单位汇报了这件事，由妇联再向更高一级机构报告。我母亲不知道谁有决定权，她去找毓武为汲上校作保，他清楚汲上校的事，正是他让我母亲与汲保持联系的。毓武写了一份关于汲上较为共产党所做事情的报告，但却说汲这样做是出自对我母亲的倾慕，他也许并不知道自己是在为共产党工作，只是被爱情冲昏了头。我母亲说她和汲上校没有相爱过，但她拿不出任何证据。

My mother went to another underground leader who knew what the colonel had done. He too refused to say that Hui-ge had been helping the Communists. In fact he was not willing to mention the co loners role in getting information out to the Communists at all, so that he could take full credit for it himself. My mother said that she and the colonel had not been in love, but she could not produce any proof. She cited the veiled requests and promises that had passed between them, but these were regarded only as evidence that the colonel was trying to buy 'insurance," something about which the Party was particularly chary.

母亲又去找另一位地下组织领导，那人也清楚汲上校为共产党做的事。但他拒绝提供任何帮助，他不愿意提到汲帮助送情报这回事，希望把这份功劳算在自己身上。

All this was going on at the time that my mother and father were preparing to get married, and it cast a dark shadow over their relationship. However, my father sympathized with my mother's quandary, and thought Hui-ge should be treated fairly. He did not let the fact that my grandmother had favored the colonel as her son-in-law influence his judgment.

所有的这些事都是在我父亲准备结婚时发生的，自然他们的关系投下了阴影，不过，父亲同情母亲的困境，也认为汲上校应受到公正对待，虽然他知道姥姥喜欢汲上校做女婿而不喜欢他，但他没有让这种不快影响自己的判断力。

In late May, permission finally arrived for the wedding to go ahead. My mother was at a meeting of the Women's Federation when someone came in and slipped a note into her hand. The note was from the city Party chief, Lin Xiao-xia, who was a nephew of the top general who had led the Communist forces in Manchuria, Lin Biao. It was in verse, and said sun ply "The provincial authorities have given the okay. You can't possibly want to be stuck in a meeting. Come quickly and get married!"

5月底的一天，我母亲正在妇联开会。突然有人进来塞了张条子给她，纸条是市党委负责人共产党东北部队总司令林彪的侄儿林肖侠写的，几句话像诗一样：“省委已经同意了，你还有心思开会吗？赶快回来结婚吧！”

My mother tried to look calm as she walked up and gave the note to the woman presiding over the meeting, who nodded approval for her to leave. She ran all the way to my father's quarters, still wearing her blue "Lenin suit," a uniform for government employees that had a Double breasted jacket tucked in at the waist and worn over bag~ trousers. When she opened the door, she saw Lin Xiao-xia and the other Party leaders and their bodyguards, who had just arrived. My father said a carriage had been sent for Dr. Xia. Lin asked: "What about your mother-in-law?" My father said nothing.

母亲忍住内心的激动，静静地把纸条交给会议主持，主持人点点头同意她走。她直奔我父亲住处，身上仍穿着蓝布的列宁装，双排钮扣，收腰，下摆刚好罩住肥大长裤的上部。一拉开门，她看见林肖侠和其他党委领导人，以及警卫员们都聚集在屋里，他们也是刚到。我父亲说已叫了一辆马车去接夏瑞堂。林问：“丈母娘呢？”我父亲不吭气。

"That's not right," Lin said, and ordered a carriage to be sent for her. My mother felt very hurt, but attributed my father's action to his loathing of my grandmother's Kuomintang intelligence connections. Still, she thought, was that her mother's fault? It did not occur to her that my father's behavior might have been a reaction to the way her mother had treated him.

“这就不对了。”林说，随即派车去接姥姥。我母亲当然很伤心，她猜我父亲是讨厌姥姥和那些国民党特务亲戚的关系。这难道是我妈的错吗？她忿忿地想。当然，她压根儿没想到这或许是我父亲回敬丈母娘对他的不理不睬呢！

There was no wedding ceremony of any kind, only a small gathering. Dr. Xia came up to congratulate the couple. Everyone sat around for a while eating fresh crabs which the City Party Committee had provided as a special treat. The Communists were trying to institute a frugal approach to weddings, which had traditionally been the occasion for huge expenditure, far out of proportion to what people could afford. It was not at all unusual for families to bankrupt themselves to put on a lavish wedding.

传统婚礼，往往极尽铺张，远超出常人的经济能力，办一桩体面的婚礼而倾家荡产是屡见不鲜的。共产党提倡废除旧俗，节俭办婚事，所以这个小小的聚会就是我父母的全部婚礼。

My parents had dates and peanuts, which had been served at weddings in Yan'an, and dried fruit called long an which traditionally symbolizes a happy union and sons. After a short time, Dr. Xia and most of the guests left. A group from the Women's Federation turned up late', after their meeting was over.

夏瑞堂来了。大家围坐在一起吃市委作为特殊招待送来的新鲜螃蟹。另外是红枣和花生，还有桂圆，传统上这些都是团圆多子的象征。过了一会儿，夏瑞堂和大部分客人起身告辞，开完会的妇联干部这时来了。

Dr. Xia and my grandmother had had no idea about the wedding, nor did the first carriage driver tell them. My grandmother only heard that her daughter was about to be married when the second carriage came. As she hurried up the path and came into view through the window, the women from the Federation started whispering to each other and then scut fled out the back door. My father left as well. My mother was on the verge of tears. She knew the women from her group despised my grandmother not only because of her Kuomintang connections but also because she had been a concubine. Far from being emancipated on these issues, many Communist women from uneducated peasant backgrounds were set in their traditional ways. For them, no good gift would have become a concubine even though the Communists had stipulated that a concubine enjoyed the same status as a wife, and could dissolve the 'marriage' unilaterally. These women from the Federation were the very ones supposed to be implementing the Party's policies of emancipation.

夏瑞堂和姥姥对婚礼的事一无所知。第一辆马车也没有说接夏医生做什么。第二辆马车到时，姥姥才知道是女儿结婚，于是匆匆赶去了。当妇联的有位领导透过窗户望见她到来时，与别的人耳语一番，大家几乎同时站起来，急急忙忙从后门走掉了。我父亲也跟着她们走了，我母亲差点哭出声，她知道妇联的人瞧不起她母亲，不光是因为国民党亲戚关系，还因为她曾经当过姨太太。虽然妇联管的就是妇女解放，可是有的出身农民的妇联干部非常守旧。尽管共产党政策规定姨太太享有与妻子同样地位，而且可以单方面解除婚约，尽管她们自己就是这些政策的执行人，她们却认定好人家的姑娘绝不会当小老婆。

My mother covered up, telling her mother that her bridegroom had had to go back to work: "It is not the Communist custom to give people leave for a wedding. In fact, I am about to go back to work myself." My grandmother thought that the offhand way in which the Communists treated a big thing like a wedding was absolutely extraordinary, but they had broken so many rules relating to traditional values, maybe this was just one more.

我母亲只好想法圆场，告诉姥姥新郎工作去了。“共产党不能放下工作结婚。”还说自己也得马上回去工作了。姥姥对共产党办终身大事竟如此草率大惑不解。不过自共产党执政以来，破除传统的新招一个又一个，姥姥也就见怪不怪了。

At the time one of my mother's jobs was teaching reading and writing to the women in the textile factory where she had worked under the Japanese, and informing them about women's equality with men. The factory was still privately owned, and one of the foremen was still beating women employees whenever he felt like it. My mother was instrumental in getting him sacked, and helped the women workers elect their own forewoman. But any credit she might have ?eceived for achieving this was obscured by the Federation's dissatisfaction about another matter.

我母亲当时的工作之一是教她曾去“勤劳奉仕”的统纱厂女工读书识字，给她们讲男女平等。当时厂里仍然保持工头监工的制度，有个工头对女工想打就打。我母亲帮助解雇了这个工头并组织女工选出她们自己的小组长。她工作努力，女工们也喜欢她。但女联对她没有好评，倒不是说她这件事做得有什么不对，而是嫌她不会做鞋。

One major task of the Women's Federation was to make cotton shoes for the army. My mother did not know how to make shoes, so she got her mother and aunts to do it.

妇联的中心工作之一是为军队做布鞋，我母亲不会做就让姥姥和姨妈帮忙。

They had been brought up making elaborate embroidered shoes, and my mother proudly presented the Women's Federation with a large number of beautifully made shoes, far exceeding her quota. To her surprise, instead of being praised for her ingenuity, she was scolded like a child. The peasant women in the Federation could not conceive that there could be a woman on the face of the earth who did not know how to make shoes. It was like saying someone did not know how to eat. She was criticized at the Federation meetings for her 'bourgeois decadence."

当她很得意地抱着一大捆数量远远超过她定额的精致结实的布鞋来到妇联时，出乎意料，她非但没有因聪明而受称赞，反而被训斥了一通。妇联的农民干部想象不出地球上居然有女人不会做鞋，好象是说人不会吃饭。在女联会上，我母亲因为“资产阶级作风”遭批评。

My mother did not get on with some of her bosses in the Women's Federation. They were older, and conservative, peasant women who had slogged for years with the guerrillas, and they resented pretty, educated city girls like my mother who immediately attracted the Communist men.

我母亲与妇联中的上司处不好。她们是年长守旧的农妇，多年来打游击吃尽了苦头，对像我母亲这样长得漂亮、受过教育的城市姑娘看不顺眼，更不满这些女孩子一下子就迷住了她们的男性战友。

My mother had applied to join the Party, but they said that she was unworthy.

我母亲申请入党，她们说不够格。

Every time she went home she found herself being criticized. She was accused of being 'too attached to her family," which was condemned as a 'bourgeois habit," and had to see less and less of her own mother.

我母亲每一次回家看父母都受到批评，说她“家庭观念重”，脑子里留有封建余毒。她只得尽量少回家看姥姥。

At the time there was an unwritten rule that no revolutionary could spend the night away from his or her office except on Saturdays. My mother's assigned sleeping place was in the Women's Federation, which was separated from my father's quarters by a low mud wall. At night she would clamber over the wall and cross a small garden to my father's room, returning to her own room before dawn.

当时有一条不成文的规定，革命者除了星期六外，都必须住在自己的工作单位，所以我母亲得在妇联睡觉。那地方与我父亲住处仅隔着一道矮墙。一到晚上，她就翻过矮墙，穿过小花园，来到我父亲房间，黎明时再回到自己住处。

She was soon found out, and she and my father were criticized at Party meetings. The Communists had embarked on a radical reorganization not just of institutions, but of people's lives, especially the lives of those who had 'joined the revolution." The idea was that everything personal was political; in fact, henceforth nothing was supposed to be regarded as 'personal' or private. Pettiness was validated by being labeled 'political," and meetings became the forum by which the Communists channeled all sorts of personal animosities.

这件事不久被发觉，她和我父亲均在会议上挨批。共产党机构全面管理着个人生活，尤其是那些参加了革命的人的私生活，任何事情党都要过问。有时，一会成了干预私生活的手段，会上常常讨论些琐碎的事，私人怨恨以革命的名义煞有介事地发泄。

My father had to make a verbal self-criticism, and my mother a written one. She was said to have 'put love first," when revolution should have had priority. She felt very wronged. What harm could it do the revolution if she spent the night with her husband? She could understand the rationale for such a rule in the guerrilla days, but not now.

我父亲在会上作了自我批评，我母亲则被要求进行书面检讨，罪名是“爱情至上”，而不是“革命至上”。她觉得非常委曲，如果是在战争时期，她还能理解，但现在跟丈夫过夜会给革命带来什么损害呢？

She did not want to write a self-criticism, and told my father so. To her dismay he admonished her, saying: "The revolution is not won. The war is still going on. We have broken the rules, and we should admit mistakes. A revolution needs steel-like discipline. You have to obey the Party even if you do not understand it or agree with it."

她不愿写检讨，向我父亲诉苦。没想到，我父亲反为那些批评他们的人说话，教训她，“革命还没成功，战争还在进行。我们违反了制度，就得检讨。建立新中国需要钢铁纪律，不理解不同意也得服从。”

Soon after this disaster struck out of the blue. A poet called Bian, who had been in the delegation to Harbin and who had become a close friend of my mother, tried to kill himself. Bian was a follower of the "New Moon' school of poetry, a leading exponent of which was Hu Shi, who became Kuomintang ambassador to the. United States. It concentrated on aesthetics and form and was~ particularly influenced by Keats. Bian had joined the Communists during the war, but then found that his poetry was deemed not to be in harmony with the revolution, which wanted propaganda, not self-expression. He accepted this with part of his mind, but he was also very torn and depressed.

一波未了，一波又起，而且是轩然大波：一位姓卞的诗人自杀未遂。卞是我母亲的好朋友，曾一同去哈尔滨。他是新月诗派的信徒，此流派的典型代表人物胡适先生后来成了国民党的驻美大使。新月派崇尚纯美，讲究形式，特别受英国诗人济慈的影响。卞在战争期间加入共产党，但随即发现他的诗歌表现形式与革命不能协调，革命需要的是宣传鼓的，而不是自我表现。他一方面觉得革命有理，一方面又觉得颓丧，感到自己无法再写诗了，但他的生命又离不开诗。

He began to feel that he would never be able to write again, and yet, he said, he could not live without his poetry.

His attempted suicide shocked the Party. It was bad for its image for people to think that anyone might be so disillusioned with Liberation that they would try to kill themselves. Bian was working in Jinzhou as a teacher at the school for Party officials, many of whom were illiterate.

卞的自杀震惊了共产党，解放之初有人就居然对革命如此失望！由于卞的工作是在锦州党校教识字不多的官员学文，对此事的调查就由学校党组织进行。结论武断地说他自杀的原因是对我母亲单相思。

The Party organization at the school conducted an investigation and leapt to the conclusion that Bian had tried to kill himself because of unrequited love for my mother.

In its criticism meetings the Women's Federation suggested that my mother had led Bian on and then ditched him for a bigger prize, my father. My mother was furious, and demanded to see the evidence for the accusation. Of course, none was ever produced.

妇联开会指责我母亲在哈尔滨时和卞相好，后来有了我父亲这个高干就把他甩了。我母亲气愤之极，要求她们拿出证据，而她们自然什么也没拿出来。

In this case, my father stood by my mother. He knew that on the trip to Harbin, when my mother was supposed to have been having trysts with Bian, she had been in love with him, not the poet. He had seen Bian reading his poems to my mother and knew that my mother admired him, and did not think there was anything wrong with it.

在这件事上，我父亲站在母亲这边。他清楚在哈尔滨时，我母亲爱上的是他而不是卞。他看见过卞读诗给她听，也知道她欣赏他的诗，但不觉得这有什么错。可是他们俩都无法抵挡洪水般的风言风语，特别是来自妇联有些人的刻薄话。

But neither he nor my mother could stop the flood of gossip. The women in the Federation were particularly virulent.

At the height of this whispering campaign my mother heard that her appeal for Hui-ge had been turned down.

She was beside herself with anguish. She had made a promise to Hui-ge, and now she felt that she had somehow misled him. She had been visiting him regularly in prison, bringing him news of her efforts to get his case reviewed, and she had felt it was inconceivable that the Communists would not spare him. She had been genuinely optimistic and had tried to cheer him up. But this time when he saw her face, red-eyed and distorted from the effort of hiding her despair, he knew there was no hope. They wept together, sitting in full view of the guards with a table between them on which they had to place their hands.

就在这当儿，我母亲听说她为汲上校的陈情书被驳回了，她痛苦得快发疯。她曾对汲担保过，现在觉得像是自己骗了他，她一定定期到监狱去探视汲，报告奔走的进展。她总是对他说想不出有什么理由共产党不放他，她乐观地企盼着，也设法使他高兴。但这一次，汲一看见她哭红的眼睛和为掩饰绝望而扭曲的脸，马上就明白没有希望了，两人当着守卫的面痛哭起来。当时他们相对而坐，隔着小桌子，手放在上面，汲上校抓住我母亲的双手，她也没有抽回。

Hui-ge took my mother's hands in his; she did not pull back.

My father was informed of my mother's visits to the prison. At first he said nothing. He sympathized with her predicament. But gradually he became angry. The scandal about Bian's attempted suicide was at its height, and now it was alleged that his wife had had a relationship with a Kuomintang colonel and they were still supposed to be on their honeymoon!? He was furious, but his personal feelings were not the decisive factor in his acceptance of the Party's attitude toward the colonel. He told my mother that if the Kuomintang came back people like Hui-ge would be the first to use their authority to help restore it to power. The Communists, he said, could not afford that risk: "Our revolution is a matter of life and death." When my mother tried to tell him how Hui-ge had helped the Communists he responded that her visits to the prison had done Hui-ge no good, particularly their holding hands.

我父亲知道我母亲探监的事，刚开始时他并没说什么，因为他同情她的处境。但后来却动了气，卞为她自杀的谣言还在风头上，现在又说他妻子与国民党上校有瓜葛——而他们还算在蜜月期呢！当然，对我父亲来说，个人感情还算其次，他告诉我母亲共产党的理：国民党要反攻靠的就是像汲上校这样的人。“共产党怎么敢放他呢？”他说，“我们和国民党是你死我活的斗争啊！”当我母亲争辩说汲上校曾帮助过共产党时，我父亲提醒她，探监对汲没有好处，尤其是两人拉手。自古以来“男女授受不亲”。拉手成了两人相爱的证据，汲上校为共产党做事也变成爱情故事了。我母亲觉得我父亲说得有道理，于是乎更悲痛绝望了。

Since the time of Confucius, men and women had to be married, or at least lovers, to touch in public, and even under these circumstances it was extremely rare. The fact that my mother and Hui-ge had been seen holding hands was taken as proof that they had been in love, and that Hui-ge's service to the Communists had not been motivated by 'correct' reasons. My mother found it hard to disagree with him, but this did not make her feel any less desolate.

Her sense of being caught up in impossible dilemmas was heightened by what was happening to several of her relatives and many people close to her. When the Communists arrived, they had announced that anybody who had worked for Kuomintang intelligence had to report to them at once. Her uncle Yu-lin had never worked in intelligence, but he had an intelligence card, and felt he should report to the new authorities. His wife and my grandmother tried to dissuade him, but he thought it best to tell the truth.

亲戚朋友的遭遇更加剧了她的痛苦。共产党攻下锦州后，立即宣布任何为国民党特务系统工作过的人必须投案自首。她舅舅玉林从来没有当过特务，但他有一张由王汉臣帮助弄到的特务证，尽管妻子和姥姥一致反对，他仍认为应该说实话，就主动汇报了。

He was in a difficult situation. If he had not turned himself in and the Communists had discovered the facts about him, which was highly likely, given their formidable organization, he would have been in dire trouble. But by coming forward, he himself had given them grounds to suspect him.

其实，他是进退两难：不汇报，让共产党查出来的话就倒大楣了，而这个可能性很大；主动交代了，他又给了他们怀疑自己的根据。

The Party's verdict was: "Has a political blemish in his past. No punishment, but can only be employed under control." This verdict, like almost all others, was not delivered by a court, but by a Party body. There was no clear definition of what it meant, but as a result of it, for three decades Yu-lin's life would depend on the political climate and on his Party bosses. In those days Jinzhou had a relatively relaxed City Party Committee, and he was allowed to go on helping Dr. Xia in the shop.

共产党的结论是“政治历史有污点，不予惩罚，控制使用”。这一结论像许多裁决一样，不是自法院，而是由党组织作主，这结论含义模糊不清，就这样，三十多年里，玉林的命运完全由政治气候和上级的态度来决定。当时锦州市委很开明，玉林被允许继续在夏瑞堂诊所里工作。

My grandmother's brother-in-law, "Loyalty' Pei-o, was exiled to the country to do manual labor. Because he had no blood on his hands, he was given a sentence called 'under surveillance." Instead of being imprisoned, this meant being guarded (just as effectively) in society. His family chose to go to the country with him, but before they could leave, "Loyalty' had to enter a hospital. He had contracted venereal disease. The Communists had launched a major campaign to wipe out VD, and anyone who had it was obliged to undergo treatment.

姥姥的妹夫效石是特务，但没有染上血腥，所以被下放到农村做体力劳动，叫作“管制”。虽然不是坐牢，但是让社会上的群众看管，同样有效率。他的全家人自愿和他一起走，行前他得住医院治疗性病。共产党正展开一场扫荡性病的运动，患者都得强行医治。

His work 'under surveillance' lasted three years. It was rather like assigned labor under parole. People under surveillance enjoyed a measure of freedom, but they had to report to the police at regular intervals with a detailed account of everything they had done, or even thought, since their last visit, and they were openly watched by the police.

管制持续了三年，其间，他有自由，但必须定时定期向地方警察部门详细汇报他都做了什么事，想了什么。

When they finished their term of formal surveillance, they would join people like Yu-lin in a looser category of 'quiet' surveillance. One common form of this was the 'sandwich' being kept under close watch by two neighbors who had been specifically assigned this task, often called 'two reds sandwiching a black." Of course, other neighbors, through the residents' committees, were also entitled and encouraged to report and inform on the unreliable 'black." The 'people's justice' was watertight, and was a central instrument of rule because it enlisted so many citizens in active collusion with the state.

管制结束后，他变成像玉林那样，被秘密监视。常见的形式如“三明治”——两红夹一黑，即由两个专门选派的邻居负责监视。其他邻居特别是居委会，即有权利又受到鼓励随时报告“坏分子”的行踪。“人民执法，天网恢恢”，让众多的公民积极参与控制，是共产党最主要、也是最有效的统治手法。

Zhu-ge, the scholarly looking intelligence officer who had married Miss Tanaka, my mother's Japanese teacher, was sentenced to forced labor for life and exiled to a remote border area (along with many former Kuomintang officials, he was released in an amnesty in 1959). His wife was sent back to Japan. As in the Soviet Union, almost all of those sentenced to detention did not go to prison but into labor camps, often working in dangerous jobs or highly polluted areas.

诸葛，那个跟田中小姐结了婚的特务，被判处“终身劳改”。他被送到边远的新疆劳改农场，1959年跟很多国民党官员一道受大赦释放，他的妻子田中小姐被遣返日本。就像苏联一样，几乎所有判刑的人不是坐牢，而是送到劳改营，做危险或污染严重的活儿。

Some important Kuomintang figures, including intelligence men, went unpunished. The academic supervisor at my mother's school had been district secretary of the Kuomintang, but there was evidence that he had helped to save the lives of many Communists and Communist sympathizers, including my mother, so he was spared.

有些重要的国民党官员，包括特务，没有受到惩罚。母亲学校教务主任是国民党区分部书记，由于他救过许多共产党人和亲共分子，如我母亲，所以他被赦免。

The headmistress and two teachers who had worked for intelligence managed to hide, and eventually escaped to Taiwan. So did Yao-han, the political supervisor who had been responsible for my mother's arrest.

那个当过特务的女校长和另两位都是则躲了起来，后来逃到台湾。送我母亲进监的政治主任尧寒也跑去了台湾。

The Communists also spared big shots like the 'last emperor," Pu Yi, and top generals because they were 'useful." Mao's stated policy was: "We kill small Chiang Kaiosheks. We don't kill big Chiang Kai-she ks Keeping people like Pu Yi alive, he reasoned, would 'be well received abroad." No one could complain openly about this policy, but it was a cause of much discontent in private.

共产党也赦免大人物，如末代皇帝溥仪，以及一些国民党高级将领，因为他们“有用”。毛泽东说他的政策是：“我们杀小蒋介石，不杀大蒋介石。”他的理由是：让溥仪这种人活着有利于国际舆论。谁也不敢公开抱怨这种杀小留大的政策。但私下却有很多不满。

It was a time of great anxiety for my mother's family.

这一段时间我母亲终日焦虑不安，挂念舅舅生死未卜。她流露的悲伤被妇联说是同情国民党，立场不稳。她得检讨又检讨。

Her uncle Yu-lin and her aunt Lan, whose fate was hitched inexorably to that of her husband, "Loyalty," were in a state of acute uncertainty about their futures, and suffering ostracism. But the Women's Federation ordered my mother to write one self-criticism after another, as her grief indicated she had 'a soft spot for the Kuomintang."

She was also sniped at for visiting a prisoner, Hui-ge, without asking for permission from the Federation first. Nobody had told her she was supposed to do this. The Federation said that they had not stopped her before because they made allowances for someone who was 'new to the revolution'; they were waiting to see how long it would take her to reach her own sense of discipline and ask the Party for instructions.

妇联有领导还责备她未经批准就擅自探视汲上校。她们说，开始由她去的原因是考虑她新参加革命队伍，她一直从旁观察，看她到底需要多长时间才会觉悟，才能主动向党请示。我母亲问：“到底哪些事我得请示呢？”回答是：

"But what are the things for which I need to apply for instructions?" she asked.

"Anything," was the answer. The need to obtain authorization for an unspecified 'anything' was to become a fundamental element in Chinese Communist rule. It also meant that people learned not to take any action on their own initiative.

“事事得请示。”“含混的事事”都请示上级，成为共产党的一项基本法则。人们因此养成了不自动自己作主习惯。

My mother became ostracized within the Federation, which was her whole world. There were whispers that she had been used by Hui-ge to help him prepare for a comeback.

妇联等于我母亲的整个天地，她在期间被孤立了。流言蜚语甚至说汲上校想利用她复辟。

"What a mess she got herself into," exclaimed the women, 'all because she was "loose." Look at all these involvements with men!? And what kind of men!" My mother felt surrounded by accusing fingers, and that the people who were supposed to be her comrades in a glorious new and liberating movement were questioning her character and her commitment, for which she had risked her life.

“看她把自己弄得多糟糕。还不是因为太轻浮，跟这么多男人有关系，又都是些什么男人呀！”

She was even criticized for having left the meeting of the Women's Federation to go and get married a sin termed 'putting love first." My mother said that the city chief had asked her to go. To this the chairwoman retorted: "But it was up to you to show your correct attitude by putting the meeting first."

离开会场去结婚成了她的过失。我母亲申辩说，这是市委领导让她去的。“那你自己是什么态度？”妇联领导反驳道，“真正的革命者应该把工作放到首位。”

Just eighteen, recently married, and full of hope for a new life, my mother felt miserably confused and isolated.

刚满十八岁，而且才新婚，对新生活充满了希望的母亲，感到从未有过的不知所措，孤立无援。

She had always trusted her own strong sense of right and wrong, but this now seemed to be in conflict with the views of her 'cause' and, often, the judgment of her husband, whom she loved. She began to doubt herself for the first time.

她向来自信有判断是非的能力。但是现在，她的同志，她在光荣崭新的解放运动中的同志，好像总是说她错，甚至对她的人格、对她的忠诚提出怀疑。而她所爱的丈夫也说她不是。她第一次开始对自己失去信心。

She did not blame the Party, or the revolution. Nor could she blame the women in the Federation, because they were her comrades and seemed to be the voice of the Party. Her resentment turned against my father. She felt that his loyalty was not primarily to her and that he always seemed to side with his comrades against her. She understood that it might be difficult for him to express his support in public, but she wanted it in private and she did not get it. From the very beginning of their marriage, there was a fundamental difference between my parents. My father's devotion to communism was absolute: he felt he had to speak the same language in private, even to his wife, that he did in public. My mother was much more flexible; her commitment was tempered by both reason and emotion. She gave a space to the private; my father did not.

她没有怪共产党，没有怪革命，也没法怪妇联的那些人，因为她们是她的同志，又代表了党的声音。她开始把愤怒转向丈夫，觉得丈夫不是站在她一边，而总是和别人站在一起反对她。在公开场合丈夫支持妻子中可能是件难事，但私底下可以说些好听的安慰话呀！可是她听不到。从结婚起，我父母之间就有了鸿沟：我父亲对共产党的忠诚是绝对的，他认为不论公开还是私下，应该说同样的话，即使对妻子也不例外。我母亲灵活多了，她兼具理性和情感，把一部分空间留给自己，而我的父亲则完全献身给党和革命事业。

My mother was finding Jinzhou unbearable. She told my father she wanted to leave, right away. He agreed, in spite of the fact that he was just about to receive a promotion. He applied to the City Party Committee for a transfer, giving as the reason that he wanted to go back to his hometown, Yibin. The Committee was surprised, as he had just told them this was exactly what he did not want to do. Throughout Chinese history, it had been a rule that officials were stationed away from their hometowns to avoid problems of nepotism.

锦州的气氛已经令人无法忍受，我母亲告诉丈夫她想离开，越快越好。我父亲同意，尽管因此他会错过眼前的一次升官机会。他向市党委提出调回家乡宜宾。市委很惊诧，因为不久前，共产党问他是否愿回老家时，我父亲的回答是“不愿意”。

In the summer of 1949 the Communists were advancing southward with unstoppable momentum: they had captured Chiang Kai-shek's capital, Nanjing, and seemed certain to reach Sichuan soon. Their experience in Manchuria had shown them that they badly needed administrators who were local and loyal.

1949年夏季，共产党势不可挡地向南方挺进，他们已经占领了蒋介石的首都南京，就要攻到四川。他们在东北的经验证明，大批忠心耿耿、土生土长的行政官员是必不可少的。

The Party endorsed my father's transfer. Two months after their marriage and less than one year after Liberation they were being driven out of my mother's hometown by gossip and spite. My mother's joy at Liberation had turned to an anxious melancholy. Under the Kuomintang she had been able to discharge her tension in action and it had been easy to feel she was doing the right thing, which gave her courage. Now she just felt in the wrong all the time. When she tried to talk it over with my father he would tell her that becoming a Communist was an agonizing process. That was the way it had to be.

共产党组织同意我父亲调动。婚后不到两个月，解放不到一年，我父母为流言蜚语所迫，离开了母亲的老家。我母亲从解放时的喜悦转为郁郁寡欢。在国民党统治下，她可以用行动发泄内心的激愤，也易于感觉到她在从事正义的事业，这就给了她勇气。现在她却似乎处处被动，样样出错。当她向我父亲诉说时，父亲告诉她：“这不奇怪，当共产党就得经过痛苦的磨练，不这样就当不了共产党员。”