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With the coming of warmer weather my general health seemed to improve somewhat. One piece at a time, I washed my winter sweaters and socks and laid them out to dry. Be prepared for a long stay in the detention house, I told myself. One spring day, I was handcuffed again and taken to a red brick building I had never seen before. Two strong women guards led me into a crowded room and deposited me in front of a microphone opposite the platform. One of them pushed my head down so that I was forced to look at the floor. The audience was shouting slogans and waving Little Red Books. A man in front of me gave an account of my family background and personal life. Each time my story was recounted I became richer and my way of life more decadent and luxurious. Now the farce reached fantastic proportions. When the speaker told them I was a spy for the imperialists, people jumped up and crowded around me to shout abuse.
Instinctively I raised my head to respond. The women suddenly jerked up my handcuffs. Such sharp pain tore at my shoulder joints that I had to bend forward with my head well down to ease the agony. They kept me in this position throughout the man's denunciation. Another man spoke about my ''disobedience'' to the Communist Party, my refusal to confess. The audience was now even more angry. I was pushed and fell to the floor. The female giants by my side pulled me up with their strong arms. The people in the audience worked themselves into a state of hysteria. Their shouts drowned out the speaker. Someone pushed me hard from behind. I stumbled and knocked over the microphone. One of the women tripped over the wires and fell, dragging me by the handcuffs. I fell in an awkward position. My face was pressed on the floor; many others fell on top of us in the confusion. Everybody seemed to be yelling. There was pandemonium. Finally I was pulled up again. Every few days, I was taken to another struggle meeting. When the audience was very violent, I suffered much. Afterward, I would be asked whether I was ready to confess. I would say, ''I have nothing to confess'' or ''I'm not guilty'' or simply remain silent. Then I would be taken to yet another struggle meeting. This ''rotating struggle,'' as it was called, was mind- numbing. Day after day, my ears were filled with the sound of angry, accusing voices, my eyes were blurred by images of hostile faces, and my body ached from physical abuse. I no longer felt like a human being, just an inanimate object. ; This series of interrogations lasted nearly seven months, until the end of 1969. Then I was no longer called to the interrogation room. Months passed. The misery of my life in the winter of 1969-70 was beyond imagination. Looking back on those months of heavy snowstorms, intense cold and constant pain, I marvel that I could have lived through it all. Rations were cut again. Often a small lump of fat rather than meat appeared with my rice. The processed straw toilet paper was replaced by something even coarser, and this also was rationed. In early spring, I again became ill with pneumonia and was taken to the prison hospital. I made a slow recovery, but prolonged hardship and privation were eroding my mental powers in a frightening way. The stalling of my investigation produced in me a deep feeling of despondency.
MANACLED