In my father's study, the Tings told him about their rehabilitation and their new status. They said they had been to his deparisaaent and been briefed by the Rebels there about the trouble he had gotten himself into. However, they said, they had always liked him in those early years in Yibin, still had high regard for him, and wanted to work with him again. They promised that all the incriminating things he had said and done could be forgotten if he cooperated. Not only that, he could rise again in the new power structure, taking charge of all cultural affairs in Sichuan, for example. They made it clear it was an offer he could not afford to refuse.

My father had heard about the Tings' appointment from my mother, who had read it on wall posters. He had said to my mother at the time: "We mustn't believe in rumors.

This is impossible!" It was incredible to him to see this couple placed in vital positions by Mao. Now he tried to restrain his disgust, and said, "I'm sorry, I can't accept your offer."

Mrs. Ting snapped, "We are doing you a big favor. Other people would have begged for this on their knees. Do you realize what a spot you are in, and who we are now?"

My father's anger rose. He said, "Whatever I have said or done I take responsibility for myself. I do not want to get mixed up with you." In the heated exchanges that followed, he went on to say that he thought their punishment had been just, and they should never have been trusted with important jobs. Stunned, they told him to be careful what he said: it was Chairman Mao himself who had rehabilitated them and had called them 'good officials."

My father's outrage spurred him on.

"But Chairman Mao could not have known all the facts about you. What sort of' good officials" are you? You have committed unforgivable mistakes." He checked himself from saying 'crimes."

"How dare you challenge Chairman Mao's words!" exclaimed Mrs. Ting.

"Deputy Commander Lin Biao said: "Every word of Chairman Mao's is universal absolute truth, and every word equals ten thousand words"!"

"If a word means one word," my father said, 'it is already a man's supreme achievement. It is not humanly possible for one word to mean ten thousand. What Deputy Commander Lin Biao said was rhetorical, and should not be taken literally."

The Tings could not believe their ears, according to their account afterward. They warned my father that his way of thinking, talking, and behaving was against the Cultural Revolution, which was led by Chairman Mao. To this my father said he would like a chance to debate with Chairman Mao about the whole thing. These words were so suicidal that the Tings were speechless. After a silence, they stood up to leave.

My grandmother heard angry footsteps and rushed out of the kitchen, her hands dusted with wheat flour into which she had been dipping the dumplings. She collided with Mrs. Ting and asked the couple to stay for lunch.

Mrs. Ting ignored her, stormed out of the apartment, and started to tramp downstairs. At the landing she stopped, turned around, and said furiously to my father, who had come out with them, "Are you crazy? I'm asking you for the last time: Do you still refuse my help? You realize I can do anything to you now."

"I want nothing to do with you," my father said. "You and I are different species."

Leaving my startled and fearful grandmother at the top of the stairs, my father went into his study. He came out almost at once, and carried an ink stone to the bathroom.

He dripped a few drops of water onto the stone and walked thoughtfully back into the study. Then he sat down at his desk, and started grinding a stick of ink round and round the stone, forming a thick black liquid. He spread a blank sheet of paper in front of him. In no time, he had finished his second letter to Mao. He started by saying: "Chairman Mao, I appeal to you, as one Communist to another, to stop the Cultural Revolution." He went on to describe the disasters into which it had thrown China. The letter ended with the words: "I fear the worst for our Party and our country if people like Liu Jie-ting and Zhang Xi-ting are given power over the lives of tens of millions of people."

He addressed the envelope to "Chairman Mao, Peking," and took it to the post office at the top of the street. He sent it by registered airmail. The clerk behind the counter took the envelope and glanced at it, maintaining an expression of total blankness. Then my father walked home to wait.

On the afternoon of the third day after my father posted his letter to Mao, my mother answered a knock on the door of our apartment. Three men came in, all wearing the same baggy blue uniform like clothes as every other man in China. My father knew one of them: he had been a caretaker in his department and was a militant Rebel.

One of the others, a tall man with boils on his thin face, announced that they were Rebels from the police and that they had come to arrest him, 'a counterrevolutionary in action bombarding Chairman Mao and the Cultural Revolution." Then he and the third man, who was shorter and stouter, gripped my father by the arms, and gestured to him to go.

They did not show any identity cards, much less an arrest warrant. But there was no doubt that they were Rebel plainclothes policemen. Their authority was unquestionable, because they came with a Rebel from my father's department.

Although they did not mention his letter to Mao, my father knew it must have been intercepted, as was almost inevitable. He had known that he would probably be arrested, because not only had he committed his blasphemy to paper, but there was now an authority the Tings to sanction his arrest. Even so, he had wanted to take the only chance there was, however slight. He was silent and tense, but did not protest. As he was walking out of the apartment, he paused and said softly to my mother: "Don't bear a grudge against our Party. Have faith that it will correct its mistakes, however grave they may be. Divorce me and give my love to our children. Don't alarm them."

When I came home later that afternoon, I found both of my parents gone. My grandmother told me my mother had gone to Peking to appeal for my father, who had been taken away by Rebels from his par anent She did not say 'the police," because that would have been too frightening, being more disastrous and final than detention by Rebels.

I rushed to my father's deparl,nent to ask where he was.

I got no answer except assorted barks, led by Mrs. Shau, of "You must draw a line from your stinking capitalist-roader father' and "Wherever he is, it serves him right." I forced back my furious tears. I was filled with loathing for these supposedly intelligent adults. They did not have to be so merciless, so brutal. A kinder look, a gentler tone, or even silence would have been perfectly possible, even in those days.

It was from this time that I developed my way of judging the Chinese by dividing them into two kinds: one humane, and one not. It took an upheaval like the Cultural Revolution to bring out these characteristics in people, whether they were teenage Red Guards, adult Rebels, or capitalistroaders.

Meanwhile, my mother was waiting at the station for the train that was to take her to Peking a second time. She felt much more despondent now than six months before.

There had still been a chance for some justice then, but it was virtually hopeless now. My mother did not give in to despair. She was determined to fight.

She had decided that the one person she had to see was Premier Zhou Enlai. No one else would do. If she saw anyone else it would only hasten the demise of her husband, herself, and her family. She knew that Zhou was far more moderate than Mme Mao and the Cultural Revolution Authority and that he exercised considerable power over the Rebels, to whom he gave orders almost every day.