to a rush of arrogance on Puyi’s part, humiliated to be travelling in that ugly little freight plane, or even a final patriotic reflex, an indication of his self-loathing for failing to reject the idea of resuming the imperial throne, even if only as a puppet for the Japanese. At various symposia I discussed it with other, more sceptical specialists who felt Puyi’s gesture was a tad too spectacular, as if he were trying to leave an image of himself as an emperor who, even after his downfall, would not collaborate without rebelling, and this very attitude meant he was actually more than a collaborator, he doubly collaborated.”
As the professor explained his colleagues’ opinions to me, we arrived at his house and went into a small dark room, which served as dining room, sitting room, kitchen and study all at once. He lit the gas hob with a plastic gun and started making tea next to a sink filled with a teetering iceberg of filthy washing-up.
“One of my former students works at the Party Central Committee Archives where, as you know, they keep all documents classed as ‘state secrets.’ One time, in this very room, when we were talking about drug use in China, she mentioned a file relating to Puyi, which she came across by chance when she was filing archive material. This came as a surprise to me, because I thought she catalogued only documents about the Party. She recited from memory a few pages from an interrogation which took place in a Manchurian prison in 1954. It was the first time I had heard this version of the facts and, while I made notes, I prayed silently that there would be no gaps in her recollections. But she accomplished quite a feat and earned my respect. How precious they are, people with the prodigious gift of memory, who can record things in their heads, like the three-hundred-page book by Dmitri Shostakovich, which was banned but later published by one of his pupils, who made it through to the West and found all those quantities of words written by his master still anchored inside his head. I shall read you an extract of the notes I made:
INTERROGATOR B: Prisoner, can you describe for us the plane that took you to the site of your betrayal? And don’t try and make the same mistake you made in the last interrogation: when talking about yourself, you won’t say “the fallen emperor” or put all your verbs in the third person, you’ll just say “I” like everyone else.
PRISONER: I don’t remember it clearly any more, either the shape of it or the interior. I felt as if I were in a different world, not on this earth, less still in heaven, but in a world I didn’t know and which I don’t really remember. I do recall certain sounds and sensations, smells, images, but very few of the thoughts that came into my head that day, and even less of what they might have meant. I think we stayed in the plane on the ground for quite a long time, until it started to rain. But I couldn’t hear any sound, as if I were deaf. Through the open cabin door I could see the rain falling on the dusty runway, on the wings of the plane, harder and harder. Suddenly a colossal silhouette appeared at the end of the runway, looming out of nowhere and slicing through the rain carrying a chest wrapped in wet cloth in each hand. He ran over to the plane, and his feet—I’ll never forget this, he was wearing white flat-heeled thonged sandals—his feet now looked tiny in the middle of a huge raindrop, which fell slowly and made a great puddle on the ground all by itself, silently splashing his white skin and the ivory gleam of his sandals. First one then the other, his feet stepped into another raindrop, just as big as the first one, and it made me laugh, but when I got up to go to the door the vision vanished. Sound came back to my ears. The sumo was at the foot of the plane, bowing and smiling at me as he held out the two chests as though in some ridiculous theatrical performance or to celebrate a victory, but I couldn’t remember what he was bringing me or why. I think I had lost my memory. The sumo handed the two chests to the officers inside the plane.