'"One: As a Communist Party member, Chang Shou-yu is entitled to write to the Party leadership. No matter what serious mistakes the letter contains, it may not be used to accuse him of being a counterrevolutionary. Two: As Deputy Director of the Depaximent of Public Affairs of Sichuan Province, Chang Shou-yu has to submit himself to investigation and criticism by the people. Three: Any final adjudication on Chang Shou-yu must wait fill the end of the Cultural Revolution. Zhou Enlai."

My mother was speechless with relief. The note was not addressed to the new leaders in Sichuan, which would normally have been the case, so she was not bound to hand it in to them, or to anyone. Zhou intended her to keep it and show it to whoever might prove useful.

Yan and Yong were sitting on my mother's left. When she turned to them, she saw they were beaming with joy.

She caught the train back to Chengdu two days later, keeping with Yan and Yong all the time, as she was worried the Tings might get wind of the note and send their henchmen to grab it and her. Yan and Yong also thought it was vital for her to stick with them, "In case 26 August abducts you." They insisted on accompanying her to our apactment from the station. My grandmother gave them pork-and chive pancakes, which they devoured in no time.

I immediately took to Yan and Yong. Rebels, and yet so kind, so friendly and warm to my family! It was unbelievable. I could also tell at once that they were in love: the way they glanced at each other, the way they teased and touched each other, was very unusual in company. I heard my grandmother sigh to my mother that it would be nice to give them some presents for their wedding. My mother said this would be impossible, and would get them into trouble if it became known. Accepting 'bribes' from a capitalist-roader was no small offense.

Yan was twenty-four, and had been in her third year studying accounting at Chengdu University. Her lively face was dominated by a pair of thick-rimmed spectacles. She laughed frequently, throwing her head back. It was a very heart-warming laugh. In China in those days, dark-blue or gray jacket and trousers were the standard gear for men, women, and children. No pan ems were allowed. In spite of the uniformity, some women managed to wear their clothes with signs of care and thoughtfulness. But not Yan.

She always looked as though she had put her buttons in the wrong holes, and her short hair was pulled back impatiently into an untidy tail. It seemed that not even being in love could induce her to pay attention to her looks.

Yong looked more fashion conscious. He wore a pair of straw sandals, which were set off by rolled-up trouser legs.

Straw sandals were a sort of fashion among some students because of their association with the peasants. Yong seemed exceedingly intelligent and sensitive. I was fascinated by him.

After a happy meal, Yan and Yong took their leave. My mother walked downstairs with them, and they whispered to her that she must keep Zhou Enlai's note in a safe place.

My mother said nothing to me or my siblings about her meeting with Zhou.

That evening, my mother went to see an old colleague of hers and showed him Zhou's note. Chen Mo had worked with my parents in Yibin in the early 1950s, and got on well with both of them. He had also managed to maintain a good relationship with the Tings, and when they were rehabilitated he threw in his lot with them. My mother asked him, in tears, to help secure my father's release for old times' sake, and he promised to have a word with the Tings.

Time passed, and then, in April, my father suddenly reappeared. I was tremendously relieved and happy to see him, but almost immediately my joy turned to horror.

There was a strange light in his eyes. He would not say where he had been, and when he did speak, I could hardly understand his words. He was sleepless for days and nights on end, and paced up and down the apartment, talking to himself. One day he forced the whole family to go and stand in the pouring rain, telling us this was 'to experience the revolutionary storm." Another day, after collecting his salary packet, he threw it into the kitchen stove, saying that this was 'to break with private property." The dreadful truth dawned on us: my father had gone insane.

My mother became the focus of his madness. He raged at her, calling her 'shameless," 'a coward," and accusing her of 'selling her soul." Then, without warning, he would become embarrassingly loving toward her in front of the rest of us saying over and over again how much he loved her, how he had been an unworthy husband, and begging her to 'forgive me and come back to me."

On his first day back he had looked at my mother suspiciously and asked her what she had been doing. She told him she had been to Peking to appeal for his release. He shook his head incredulously, and asked her to produce evidence. She decided not to tell him about the note from Zhou Enlai. She could see he was not himself, and was worried he might hand in the note, even to the Tings, if 'the Party' ordered him to. She could not even name Yan and Yong as her witnesses: my father would think it was wrong to get involved with a Red Guard faction.

He kept coming back to the issue obsessively. Every day he would cross-examine my mother, and apparent inconsistencies emerged in her story. My father's suspicion and confusion grew. His rage toward my mother began to verge on violence. My siblings and I wanted to help my mother, and tried to make her story, about which we were vague ourselves, sound more convincing. Of course, when my father started to question us, it became even more muddled.

What had happened was that while my father was in prison, his interrogators had constantly told him he would be deserted by his wife and family if he did not write his 'confession." Insisting on confessions was a standard practice. Forcing victims to admit their 'guilt' was vital in crushing their morale. But my father said he had nothing to confess, and would not write anything.

His interrogators then told him that my mother had denounced him. When he asked for her to be allowed to visit him, he was told she had been given permission, but had refused, to show that she was 'drawing a line' between herself and him. When the interrogators realized that my father was beginning to hear things a sign of schizophrenia- they drew his attention to a faint buzz of conversation from the next room, saying that my mother was in there, but would not see him unless he wrote his confession. The interrogators play-acted so vividly that my father thought he really heard my mother's voice. His mind began to collapse. Still he would not write the confession.

As he was being released, one of his interrogators told him he was being allowed home to be kept under the eyes of his wife, 'who has been assigned by the Party to watch you." Home, he was told, was to be his new prison. He did not know the reason for his sudden release, and in his confusion he latched onto this explanation.

My mother knew nothing about what had happened to him in prison. When my father asked her why he had been released, she could not give him a satisfactory answer. Not only could she not tell him about Zhou Enlai's note, she could not mention going to see Chen Mo, who was the right-hand man of the Tings. My father would not have tolerated his wife's 'begging for a favor' from the Tings.

In this vicious circle, both my mother's dilemma and my father's insanity grew, and fed off each other.

My mother tried to get medical treatment for him. She went to the clinic that had been attached to the old provincial government. She tried the mental hospitals. But as soon as the people at the registration desks heard my father's name, they shook their heads. They could not take him without sanction from the authorities and they were not prepared to ask for that themselves.