Ghosts Story
 
(1)
 
I can feel their presence.
There are four of them, sitting side by side.
No, I do not see them.
It is night and all the lights have been turned off.
Come to think of it, it is quite bizarre to have four visitors sitting “side by side”.
My cell is small; hardly space enough to house my fragile body which has dwelled here for nearly eight years, on and off.
But they are there. I feel it. I know it.
They say those who are about to die see things, things that are not supposed to be seen by ordinary folks.
So, am I going to die, soon?
I am not afraid.
I have prepared myself for this, since they put me in here, since the very first day I took my stand for what I believed in.
Looking back, I have come a long way, from being the flower of the renowned Beijing University to become a prisoner in this chilly solitary cell in Shanghai, a prisoner tortured in uncountable ways for over two thousand days.  
Three years ago, in 1965, I was sentenced to twenty years.
I have persisted in declaring my innocence.
How can one be guilty for just being outspoken of one’s belief? How can one be guilty for trying to wake up the people in this madness, this disease of placing a mortal man on the pedestal of a god, no, of THE GOD, holding every single word he says as absolute truth and any doubt of such absoluteness is same as treason?  How can it be guilty to denounce falsehood, to see through deceit, to combat oppression, especially against one who has declared himself the Savior of the people.
Oh, I have made my follies too.  When I was younger, more innocent to take in whatever was preached.  I had my share of chanting “Long Live Chairman Mao” in uncontrollable frenzy. I had truly believe that we all owed this man our liberation, our future, our destiny.  Oh, the naivety of youth!
I had waken up.
How can one not reflect on our past conviction when hundreds of thousands, may be more, have been taken away simply for uttering the slightest different opinion?  How can one not reflect when so many had died of in that three terrible years of famine?  They told the people it was the unpredictable climatic change.  But many knew better.  Over eagerness to attain an utopia of communism led to senseless policies and “divine” directives.  
May be those who have died then are the more lucky ones.
I still cannot judge which is more terrible: the hunger for food, or the hunger for truth.
They call me a traitor.  
They have tried to break my spirit by putting me under unspeakable ordeal: the constant questioning, the depravation of sleep, the application of shackles on my wrists, days and nights, even when during my menstruation.  They told me I was insane.  They secretly tried to make bargain, saying that I would be released if only I would confess my guilt and beg for forgiveness from the great leader.
I had laughed and they backed away, too fearful to look into my eyes.
I had written to the People’s Supreme Court, declaring my innocence.  I had written my manifesto to all the people in the world of what I believe in.  They had it taken from me.  They had taken away every single pen and paper when it was my right to be given them to state my views.  I will not bend!  Instead of ink, I have written with my own blood on the bed sheets, on walls, on anything!  I know they will take it away.  They may not destroy it for to them, it is a testimony of my crime against the chairman and the state.  That is fine with me.  One day, they may become testimony of their crime, against truth, against humanity.
Ah, but enough of this.
I must not let my visitors dwell on my silence.
How I wish to speak, to share, even with the dead.
I know they are from the realm of the dead.  Who else can penetrate these walls separating those held inside from the world without?  
But what do I have to fear?  
The dead is far less likely to harm a living person than another living fellow.  A friend can turn an accuser these days, a careless phrase dropped, an evidence of treason to be brought against you when you least expected.
The dead will not betray the dead, or the one about to die.
I am ready to receive my first visitor.
I am Peng Lingzhao, better known as Lin Zhao, sole resident of this cell in the People’s Prison at 147, Chang Yang Road, Shanghai.
 
(2)
 
She is young, perhaps in her early twenties.
Do ghosts keep their age and form at the time of their deaths?
Perhaps I should consider myself lucky.  I am thirty-six and I can still consider myself good-looking, perhaps even better looking than when I was in my school-days.
Her skin is pale, white. She is definitely not Chinese.  I like her eyes, intelligent, ash-brown with a fire inside them.  She speaks in a very foreign tongue; German, I finally made out.  At first, I am not certain if I can understand her but that doubt vaporized quickly.  I cannot explain it but suddenly I am able to absorb every single word she says.
“I am Sophie,” she says.
“Lin.” I decide not to extend my hand for a shake; it is not our social habit and it seems funny to shake hands with a ghost.
Silence.
It is I who break the uneasiness.
“Why have you come? Am I going to die soon?”
She gazes at me, then slowly nods.
“When?”
“Soon.”
“How?”
There is such sadness in her eyes. I can guess.  They are coming to get me, may be as early as day-break!  I only have a few hours to live!
I cannot stop myself from trembling.
No, I am not afraid, I repeat to myself.  But I am innocent!  I am no traitor and I love my country!  Will they remember me for what I have said, done, thought?
Will they remember me at all?  Or will I be swept away like a peck of dust by these thugs, minions, who can continue to live and bask in the glory of the sun? Will my mother be informed of my execution?  Mother, oh, mother!  I will pay every price just to see her once again before I go.  And my sister?  What will become of her?
What will become of our country, our people?  When will this madness end?  When will this plague on sensibilities be cleansed from our land?
“Lin, do not worry.  Everything will be fine in the end.  You are not alone.”
I feel her “touch” though I see no extended hands.  I feel her embrace, her own sorrow.  When she died, she must have felt the same way as I feel now.
“But I have just one more night, a few hours…”
“I had even less time before they came to get me,” she said.
“When did you die?”
“22nd February, 1943”
“1943…and your name is Sophie…”
A sudden recognition ignited inside me.
Sophie Scholl!
The White Rose movement, another era, another dictator, another execution.
I must have read about her though such material should be forbidden.  But we always found our ways to some of those hidden away books.
She was executed along with her brother Hans, guillotined, for distributing handouts against Adolf Hitler!
“Was it painful when…”
“When they cut off my head?  A little but it ended very quickly.  When I heard the sound of the blade being released, my head was already in the basket.”
“Then?”
“An exploding blinding light, then silence, darkness, and peace.”
“What happens after that? Is there a heaven? Hell?”
She laughs. “That is for you to find out.  Trust me.  You have nothing to fear.”
“Is it the reason you come here, to ease my fear so that I can face it?”
“You can face it.  Everyone has to, sooner or later.  It is the living days that some should fear facing when they look back.”
“I do not understand you.”
“Perhaps you do.  Some people die and they live forever, others live, but have died long since. You have lived.”
I sigh. I am not sure if this is worth it. Living, breathing, to be in love, loved; these are the things that seem so treasurable to me now.  And what will I leave behind?  A name, a story perhaps, and my writings, my poems…
My poems…what will happen to them?  Will they be incinerated together with my body, reduced to ashes?  I can still remember the lines clearly.
 
    “When, the great land, will you be reborn
     When will the oppressed fate be finally understood?
     Oh, omnipotent humans, mother of eternality
     The tumult of love for you that reside in my breasts
     I know, once you awake,
     The lofty Mount Olympus will melt like cascading snow…
 
“One Day in the suffering of Prometheus,” she said.
“You know my poem?” I am taken by surprise.
“Of course,” she smiled and continued where I left off.
 
    “Far away, in that land still in slumber
     A streak of light breaks the oppressing darkness
     “Fire,” thought Prometheus with a smile,
     Pain, thirst and hunger instantly forgotten.”
 
I find tears running down my face.
I know I have not fought in vain.  Something will linger, pass on.  A light will slice open the canopy of darkness.  “Fire!”  and the gods will tremble for their days, no matter how long it is to last, are numbered.
“Thank you.”
“For remembering your poetry?”
“For letting me know that I am not alone.”
“Of course you are not alone. Look!”
And the second visitor rises  and walks  out of the shadow.
 
(3)
 
I recognize her immediately.
It is simply impossible to mistake: the shining armor, the banner in her hand, the cropped hair, like a pageboy, a glow of flame that once consumed her young body, now a crown of glory for her soul: the Maiden of Orleans! Jeanne!
“Oh, You Blessed! “ I have to hide my face in my hands to hide my weeping.
“So are you, Lin, my sister.”
She takes  me into her arms, let me rest my head on her cold plate-armor.  
How did she feel when she suffered that terrible fate one May morning in the market, burned at stake as a witch for her faith?
What is my suffering compared to hers?  My heart suddenly unlocks the spirit that has been held hostage in this cell. No! No shackle, no cell, no prison will be strong enough to keep it in again!
“How will they kill me?” I ask, without any more fear.
“Two shots.  You will not feel much pain.” The Maid touches my face with her soft hand. “And one day, you will be honored as the Maid of China, a beacon of liberty for a people still drunk with power and power-worship.”
“When will it be?”
“Patience, my child.  Justice will never be absent, though it is a frequent late-comer. But what is a decade in history?  A speck infinitesimal in the long river of Time. There will be others like you, many others before they finally understand.  Come.” She makes a hand wave and my third visitor come out of the dark.
It is a woman, in her late thirties.  She is Chinese, like me, and she is dressed in the uniform of the People’s Liberation Army.
“My name is Zhang, Zhang Zhixin.  No, you do not know me, because I am still alive. What you are seeing is the soul of a dead woman who will be executed seven years from now.  At the moment, I am still a happy mother, a scientist in the army and I am still unenlightened to what is happening, a loyal member of the party.”
It takes a while for me to accept that I am seeing a future ghost.
“You are a party member?  Why will they execute you?”
“For doubting what they told us to be truth, the absolute truth.  Any deviation thinking is a crime.  We are not to think, but to follow, to shout slogans approved by one man.  They will shut me up, declared me insane; they will try to break me by raping me and they will cut my sound cord the night before that to stop me from shouting out my innocence at the site of execution. My husband and my children will denounce me, my ashes will be uncollected.”
I shake my head in disbelief. It is so sad.
“But fear not.  My death will herald a new age, the end of the Revolution they termed as “cultural”.  The madness will have spent its vigor and the old man will soon die. And those who have been responsible for all these sufferings will be accounted for.”
“And an age of reason will descend on the land?”
She shakes her head, sadly. “Not yet.  There will be further oppressions, more blood but they cannot stop the wheel of history.  Step by step, we will see a new China, a new world.  Trust me.”
I nod.
I know she speaks the truth.  I know only human beings are born liars.
There is more light seeping in now.
Dawn is breaking.
My hour is fast approaching.
I look at the last figure in the shadow.
 
 
(5)
 
She is even younger, and yet much older.
Her attire is of a distant and ancient age.
I cannot place her.
“You ‘re right.  I never existed, not in real flesh and blood.   But I am the same as you, all of you.”
I cannot comprehend.
“I was created, by the pen of a man called Sophocles. In one of his plays, I was to die, buried alive in a cave, for breaking the law of the king, my uncle, through burying my dead brother.”
“Antigone!”
“Yes, Antigone of Thebes.”
“But you are only fictional! I mean, how can a fictional character becomes a ghost?”
“And why not?” she smiles. “What is life?  It is not just this body which can perish and turn to dust.  Life is ideas, beliefs, a code of honor.  Look around you. All of you have shared the same nature as mine: to act according to our conscience, to do what is right, and not just what is profitable or safe, even at the cost of giving up life itself.  We die in different manners, in ages far in between.  I died in solitude, a rope around my neck.  The Maid bathed in fire.  Sophie of the White Rose suffered the blade of the guillotine.  And Zhang and you will perish in gunfire.  But we all die, or should I say, we all live, for the same ideal: the evil, no matter how powerful, should never be given the last say.  They can kill me, destroy our bodies, intimidate thousands not to follow our footsteps.  But they will fail!  Their triumph will live only a while and then they will be swept aside by history, and only live in the memory of the people in shame.  No matter how powerful they have been, how cruel their torture, how strong their apparatus, how fearful their methods of execution, they cannot overcome the strongest thing in the universe: the crave for freedom, to think , to speak, to act, upon one’s conscience.”
More light now, the dawn is breaking.
I can hear the turning of keys in the other gates, the sound of shoes made by the jail-keepers as they make the alley-distance to my cell.
“Will you accompany me till the end?” I ask.
“Gladly.” It is Sophie who answers me.
I nod and hold out my hands.
We form a ring, hands locked into each other.
I am no longer afraid.
I am not alone.
I never will be.
 
(6)
 
On 29th April, 1968, Lin Zhao was taken out into the courtyard and was shot in the back, twice. Her body was cremated and the ossuary was kept in the achieve room of the prison and denied claiming by her folks until 2004.  It was then collected by her teachers and fellow students of the Beijing University and given a proper burial in a quiet and little known cemetery outside the city of Suzhou.
After her execution, the party sent someone to her mother’s home to collect fifty cents RMB to pay for the bullets used.  Her mother got mental illness and died later obscurely in Shanghai.  Her sister had immigrated to the United States of America.
 
Zhang was executed, in the manner mentioned in the story, on 4th April, 1975.  Soon after that, the Cultural Revolution ended.  One year later, Mao, Chairman, Great Leader, the object of adoration of millions of his subjects, died, an old man of 83.  His wife and the other chief culprits, termed as Gang of Four, were arrested and imprisoned.  The wife died in 1991.  She hanged herself in prison.
 
 
(written in middle of night-26/Nov/2011)