My mother went to the dominant Rebel group in my father's department and asked them to authorize hospitalization. This was the group led by Mrs. Shau, and firmly in the hands of the Tings. Mrs. Shau snarled at my mother that my father was faking mental illness in order to escape his punishment, and that my mother was helping him, using her own medical background (her stepfather, Dr. Xia, having been a doctor). My father was 'a dog that has fallen into the water, and must be flogged and beaten with absolutely no charity," said one Rebel, quoting a current slogan vaunting the merciless ness of the Cultural Revolution.

Under instructions from the Tings, the Rebels hounded my father with a wall-poster campaign. Apparently, the Tings had reported to Mme Mao the 'criminal words' my father had used at the denunciation meeting, in his conversation with them, and in his letter to Mao. According to the posters, Mme Mao had risen to her feet in indignation and said, "For the man who dares to attack the Great Leader so blatantly, imprisonment, even the death sentence, is too kind! He must be thoroughly punished before we have done with him!"

The terror such wall posters induced in me was immense. Mme Mao had denounced my father! This was surely the end for him. But, paradoxically, one of Mme Mao's evil traits was actually to help us: Mme Mao was more dedicated to her personal vendettas than to real issues, and because she did not know my father and had no personal grudge against him, she did not pursue him.

We were not to know this, however, and I tried to take comfort in the thought that her reported comment might only be a rumor. In theory, wall posters were unofficial, since they were written by the 'masses' and not part of the official media. But, deep down, I knew that what they said was tale.

With the Tings' venom and Mme Mao's condemnation, the Rebels' denunciation meetings became more brutal, even though my father was still allowed to live at home.

One day he came back with one of his eyes badly damaged.

Another day I saw him standing on a slow-moving truck, being paraded through the streets. A huge placard hung from a thin wire that was eating into his neck, and his arms were twisted ferociously behind his back. He was struggling to keep his head up under the forceful pushing of some Rebels. What made me saddest of all was that he appeared indifferent to his physical pain. In his insanity, his mind seemed to be detached from his body.

He tore to pieces any photographs in the family album which had the Tings in them. He burned his quilt covers and sheets, and much of the family's clothing. He broke the legs of chairs and tables and burned them, too.

One afternoon my mother was having a rest on their bed and Father was reclining on his favorite bamboo armchair in his study, when he suddenly jumped up and stamped into the bedroom. We heard the banging and dashed after him and found him gripping my mother's neck. We screamed and tried to pull him away. It looked as if my mother was going to be strangled. But then he let go with a jerk, and strode out of the room.

My mother sat up slowly, her face ashen. She cupped her left ear in her hand. My father had awakened her by striking her on the side of the head. Her voice was weak, but she was calm.

"Don't worry, I'm all right," she said to my sobbing grandmother. Then she turned to us and said, "See how your father is. Then go to your rooms." She leaned back against the oval mirror framed in camphor wood which formed the headboard of the bed. In the mirror I saw her right hand clutching the pillow. My grandmother sat by my parents' door all night. I could not sleep either. What would happen if my father attacked my mother with their door locked?

My mother's left ear was permanently damaged, and became almost totally deaf. She decided it was too dangerous for her to stay at home, and the next day she went to her department to find a place to move to. The Rebels there were very sympathetic. They gave her a room in the gardener's lodge in the corner of the garden. It was terribly small, about eight feet by ten. Only a bed and a desk could be squeezed in, with no space even to walk between them.

That night, I slept there with my mother, my grandmother, and Xiao-fang, all crammed together on the bed.

We could not stretch our legs or turn. The bleeding from my mother's womb worsened. We were very frightened because, having just moved to this new place, we had no stove and could not sterilize the syringe and needle, and therefore could not give her an injection. In the end, I was so exhausted I dropped into a fitful sleep. But I knew that neither my grandmother nor my mother closed their eyes.

Over the next few days, while Jin-ming went on living with Father, I stayed at my mother's new place helping to look after her. Living in the next room was a young Rebel leader from my mother's district. I had not said hello to him because I was not sure whether he would want to be spoken to by someone from the family of a capitalistroader, but to my surprise he greeted us normally when we ran into each other. He treated my mother with courtesy, although he was a bit stiff. This was a great relief after the ostentatious frostiness of the Rebels in my father's department.

One morning a couple of days after we moved in, my mother was washing her face under the eaves because there was no space inside when this man called out to her and asked if she would like to swap rooms. His was twice as big as ours. We moved that afternoon. He also helped us to get another bed so we could sleep in relative comfort.

We were very touched.

This young man had a severe squint and a very pretty girlfriend who stayed overnight with him, which was almost unheard of in those days. They did not seem to mind us knowing. Of course, capitalist-roaders were in no position to tell tales. When I bumped into them in the mornings, they always gave me a very kind smile which told me they were happy. I realized then that when people are happy they become kind.

When my mother's health improved, I went back to Father. The apartment was in a dreadful state: the windows were broken, and there were bits of burned furniture and clothing all over the floor. My father seemed indifferent to whether I was there or not; he just paced incessantly around and around. At night I locked my bedroom door, because he could not sleep and would insist on talking to me, endlessly, without making sense. But there was a small window over the door which could not be locked. One night I woke up to see him slithering through the tiny aperture and jumping nimbly to the floor.

But he paid no attention to me. He aimlessly picked up various pieces of heavy mahogany furniture and let them drop with seemingly little effort. In his insanity he had become super humanly agile and powerful. Staying with him was a nightmare. Many times, I wanted to run away to my mother, but I could not bring myself to leave him.

A couple of times he slapped me, which he had never done before, and I would go and hide in the back garden under the balcony of the apartment. In the chill of the spring nights I listened desperately for the silence upstairs which meant he had gone to sleep.

One day, I missed his presence. I was seized by a presentiment and rushed out of the door. A neighbor who lived on the top floor was walking down the stairs. We had stopped greeting each other some time before in order to avoid trouble, but this time he said: "I saw your father going out onto the roof."

Our apattsnent block had five stories. I raced to the top floor. On the landing to the left a small window gave onto the flat, shingled roof of the four-story block next door.

The roof had low iron rails around the edge. As I was trying to climb through the window, I saw my father at the edge of the roof. I thought I saw him lifting his left leg over the railing.