Cao Yu and Fang Rui: Love and Silence during the Cultural Revolution

For more than two years, Wan Fang has been writing a book. She wants to tell the story of her parents' love and life. As an experienced novelist and playwright, this time she found it difficult to write. During that time, her blood pressure rose and she was unable to write several times, so she had to take her puppy for a walk on the street.

Regarding writing about the love history of his father Cao Yu and Fang Rui, Wan Fang hesitated for more than ten years before overcoming his concerns. "My mother is a third party. This is not something I can talk about with pride. There is always an obstacle in my heart." But after writing it, Wan Fang seemed to have a better understanding of what a real mother is like. "She is very clean at heart and is so pure about love."

At the end of 2019, on a sunny afternoon, Cao Yu's daughter Wanxiang recalled the past to me: "One year, my good aunt sent a New Year's card from Hong Kong. Dad looked at it for a long time, and I asked him what he was thinking. He said that in Jiang'an, When your mother promised me, I cried in the street..."

My parents have been away from Wanfang for a long time. In 1940, they fell in love in Jiang'an, the county town; in 1974, their mother Fang Rui died in Beijing; in 1996, their father Cao Yu died in Beijing. After his father passed away, Wan Fang obtained the correspondence between his parents when they were passionately in love. After reading the letter, Wan Fang felt that he understood his mother better. "She was not only a gentle and caring mother, but she also had a burning love."

Wan Fang found his parents' correspondence very touching, especially during the period when they were separated. "Love is so specific that I can't generalize it. Their love letters will be remembered by others. The emotions when two people are in love but can't be together." Expression, very beautiful and affectionate. Beautiful things will be remembered".

"Tender love nourishes the father"

In 1939, when the Anti-Japanese War entered its mid-term, Cao Yu, who had just moved from Nanjing to Chongqing for more than a year, followed the National Drama School to Jiang'an County, Yibin, Sichuan. This small county on the Yangtze River had a population of only 10,000 at the time. Standing at the crossroads in the city, you could see the surrounding city walls. Small towns are less disturbed by air raids.

At that time, Cao Yu had already written classic works such as "Thunderstorm", "Sunrise" and "The Wilderness", and was a famous playwright in China. In order to welcome the teachers and students of the drama school, the county specially arranged a performance of "The Wilderness" at the Confucian Temple. The wonderful scenery and the lines in Sichuan dialect made Cao Yu feel fresh and moved.

Life in the small town was very peaceful. Cao Yu started writing the drama "Transformation". His wife Zheng Xiu and their newborn daughter also took a boat from Chongqing to Jiang'an. A year later, Fang Rui came to Jiang'an with his sister Deng Wansheng, who was studying at the National Drama School at the time. They live next door to Cao Yu's residence. Naturally, the lively younger sister introduced her elder sister to the teacher Cao Yu.

The peaceful life began to have ripples. It is said that Fang Rui had read Cao Yu's script very early and admired it deeply. Deng Wansheng also recalled to his niece Wan Fang that Cao Yu fell in love with his sister at first sight. The few of them often eat together. After dinner, Fang Rui will make tea and listen to their chat quietly.

In that era, young people were concerned about society and progress, and 21-year-old Fang Rui seemed a little special. She is introverted and rarely spends time with other people, preferring to stay in her room drawing and writing. Fang Rui was born in a literati family in Anhui. Due to illness and frailty since childhood, he never went to school for a day and instead received education in a private school. Her father Deng Chu is a doctor, and her third uncle Deng Yizhe is a famous esthetician. The third uncle has a large group of friends, including Cai Yuanpei, Hu Shi, Liang Shiqiu, Xu Zhimo, Yang Zhensheng, Zhu Ziqing... When they come to visit the house, they often give advice to this quiet little girl.

Among these elders, Yang Zhensheng cares most about Fang Rui. When she was in Beijing for medical treatment, he often took her to the hospital. In 1930, Yang Zhensheng served as the president of Qingdao University, and Fang Rui's father worked as a school doctor at the school. Fang Rui attended several university courses, but mostly received traditional Chinese education.

Fang Rui has been growing up under the care and care of his elders. This frail eldest daughter is also deeply loved by her father. As the war situation became tense, Fang Rui's family moved to other places several times, and the luggage they could take with them became less and less. However, his father still allowed his daughter to take her paintings with her as much as possible.

After meeting Cao Yu, Fang Rui almost started a new life.

However, this relationship did not seem to be favored by the elders who loved her, and her father and Yang Zhensheng almost severed ties with her. In the small Jiang'an, Cao Yu and Fang Rui maintained an underground love affair. They expressed their feelings through letters. Once, Cao Yu was reading a letter in a teahouse and was discovered by his wife, so he had to swallow the letter.

Wan Fang asked his aunt Deng Wansheng about these past events. "They rented a small bamboo house on the bank of the Yangtze River and dated there. My mother was a great person at the time. In the past, she was always cared for by her elders, but after she made a decision, only her younger sister supported her." She. The strange thing is that when the students found out, they all protected my parents and kept it a secret from the teacher. I think young people will feel that it is great that the two of them love each other so much, and love is worth cherishing."

At that time, the marriage between Zheng Xiu and Cao Yu was not very harmonious. Zheng Xiu’s best friend Wang Yuanmei narrated past events to her daughter in 2019. She said that Cao Yu and Zheng Xiu had different personalities. Cao Yu got up very early to go to class, while Zheng Xiu got up at 11 noon, had breakfast and then went to take a nap. Mahjong, "regardless of Cao Yu's diet." Cao Yu, who is forgetful and lives an informal life, often has to avoid his wife's harsh criticism. Zheng Xiu once complained to Wang Yuanmei, "That night he went upstairs to wash his feet. I waited downstairs for an hour and didn't see him come down. I only heard the sound of water upstairs. He didn't even take off his socks and shoes, and he was sitting upright by the footbath. , one hand is paddling in the basin, but the other hand is holding a book and reading it enthusiastically. This guy is lying to me, it’s really ridiculous!”

Wan Fang believes that it is difficult to simply attribute the feelings between parents to "the relationship between Cao Yu and Zheng Xiu is not very harmonious." It can even be said that the two are not necessarily connected. Because "the arrival of love is difficult to explain. My mother chose her father, which was the bravest thing she ever did. On the other hand, my father's love is so powerful that it can make a quiet 21-year-old girl decisively cut off the past." "

When Tian Benxiang wrote "The Biography of Cao Yu", Cao Yu told the author, "You should write about my depression." When he was young, Cao Yu had a sense of depression, especially after his 19-year-old mother died in childbirth. This kind of loss followed him throughout his life. Fang Rui had exactly the gentle and considerate love he needed. Wan Fang believes that a man with literary genius like his father needs women to admire him and give him unconditional love. "Tender love nourishes him."

Fang Rui also inspired Cao Yu's writing. Su Fang in the drama "Beijing People" is based on her. Every time Wan Fang watches this drama, he thinks of his mother, "Sufang is not an outgoing person. She has deep emotions flowing in her heart. This is particularly attractive to my father."

Cao Yu filed for divorce from his first wife many times, but was rejected. Fang Rui lived like this for ten years. In Jiang'an, before the two of them lived together, Cao Yu wrote to her: "My translator, I think of you locked in that small room all day long, thinking, thinking, waiting and hoping all the time. And I feel really sad that I can’t get anything right away!”

In 1946, Cao Yu and Lao She went to the United States to give lectures. Wan Fang believed that his mother did not feel insecure during this relationship, and the saddest part was just missing her. When they were in the United States, the two communicated through long letters. Fang Rui's words were very enthusiastic, "I have received seven letters from you in a row. There is no greater happiness than getting your letters. These six months are such a long time. I I’m imagining and dreaming all the time, hoping to hear the sound of your footsteps and that you’ve come back from going out.”

After returning from the United States, Cao Yu and Fang Rui lived together in Shanghai and later moved to Beijing. It was not until 1951 that Cao Yu and Zheng Xiu divorced, and Cao Yu and Fang Rui officially got married. After the marriage, they had two daughters.

"If communication is all about pain, it's better for everyone to bear it silently and not talk about the pain."

There are two cabins in the backyard of No. 5 Zhang Zizhong, which were once the homes of Wan Fang and his parents. Now, it has become the open road of Ping An Avenue. The traces of the past have disappeared, but the memory has not been taken away.

In 1966, the "Cultural Revolution" came, and this social storm soon swept across. The gate of No. 5 Zhangzizhong Road is covered with large slogans, including "Down with Cao Yu." This year, Cao Yu changed from a "people's playwright" to a "poisonous weed" and a "rightist". In those years, Cao Yu was often called to fight and "closed in the cowshed", and spent the rest of the time hiding at home.

Fang Rui, who had always stayed away from society, was forced to get involved in this social upheaval. In the middle of the night, Cao Yu was taken away by the Red Guards and there was no news for several days. Wan Fang recalled: "Someone will ransack the house and put a seal on it at any time. My father was arrested that night, and my mother was very anxious. My father used to be at the Central Academy of Drama and the Beijing People's Art Academy. He has positions in theaters, the Beijing Federation of Literary and Art Circles, and the Chinese Dramatists Association. My mother has gone to every workplace to ask, but no one knows her whereabouts."

In those years, Cao Yu was always in a state of nervousness and breakdown. He envied the cleaners on the street, "who just sweep the floors every day." Fang Rui was worried about her husband. Wan Fang still remembered that when he returned from serving in the army, he took his mother to a bathhouse on the street. "Seeing her so thin and her hands hurt all the time, it makes me sad even thinking about it now."

These turbulent years almost destroyed the couple, who needed sleeping pills to fall asleep. During dinner, the two of them often fall asleep lying on the dining table. During the day, they also fell asleep to avoid the pain in front of them. A few days after that sudden arrest, Cao Yu was released home late at night. That night, after the little daughter was woken up, she said in a daze, "Take medicine, take medicine, and go to sleep."

This sentence became a must-have for Cao Yu when talking about the past. In the last few years of his life, one night, Cao Yu put on his pajamas, took medicine, and lay on the hospital bed. He suddenly said: "Take medicine, take medicine, and go to sleep." Wan Fang on the side was startled for a moment, and the two of them laughed. stand up. Wan Fang wrote in "You and Me", "We were able to laugh at that terrible night and put the fear behind us. It's incredible."

There is a scene that Wan Fang will never forget. During the years of the Cultural Revolution, one day, her mother suddenly asked her father: "Do you still love me?" After a long time, Cao Yu told his daughter, "At that moment, my heart was really uncomfortable." In those years, the couple lived in daily life He hardly speaks anymore. In Wan Fang's opinion, the reason why parents are like this is that "if communication is all pain, it is better for everyone to bear it silently and not talk about the pain."

"My mother must have had a lot of grievances and endured too much pressure. When she was young, she was such a beautiful woman, but during the Cultural Revolution she was completely changed and became so sick. She asked her father, 'Do you still love me?' Because love was too much for her. Importantly, the love between her and my father is the most precious thing in her life. She wants to prove this."

Fang Rui died of an overdose of sleeping pills in 1974, when she was fifty-six years old. The year before, Cao Yu took Wan Fang to the bank and changed the passbook to his wife's name. He had a premonition that he would leave earlier. He was worried that his wife, who had no job and no concept of money, would not be able to survive in society.

From the time his wife was sent to the hospital for rescue until she was pushed to the morgue, Cao Yu did not show up. Wan Fang believed that this was the cowardice in his father's character. "He did not dare to face such painful things. He fell into it and kept lying in the small study, unable to bear it."

Wan Fang will never forget that on the day he participated in the "Great Series", he was still a thirteen-year-old middle school student. In the square of Beijing Railway Station, countless young people are sitting on the ground waiting for the train to leave. A new world is waiting for them to discover. The mother found her daughter in this sea of ​​people, brought her needle, thread and cloth, and sewed ten yuan and her student ID card into her clothes.

Throughout his life, Fang Rui remained alienated from society. Wan Fang feels that his mother's character is gentle and weak, but she is very strong inside, especially in crazy times. "Zheng Xiu also loved her father very much and cherished the correspondence between the two of them, but she burned all the letters for safety reasons. But my mother didn't know what method she used. The letters with my father, including the telegrams sent by the United States, She kept it all."

"When love comes, you have no other choice but to follow."

In the more than ten years before the "Cultural Revolution", Cao Yu and Fang Rui's family spent the happiest time.

Fang Rui has never worked in the workplace and has been working as a secretary for Cao Yu at home. Cao Yu understood his wife very well. When he was in Jiang'an in his early years, he mentioned in a letter to her, "Your sister hopes that you will go to school and live a public life, so that you can live a happier life. I agreed at the time. Later. After talking to you for a lot, I gradually changed my mind. I think that the path you are taking may be the path you are taking. A person's temperament cannot be ignored. You can achieve your poetry and yours by following your development. painting."

Wan Fang recalled that later on, her mother also made changes and would participate in street work, read newspapers to illiterate women at study meetings, and participate in snow clearing. My mother once received a large stack of paper from a printing factory, and the whole family helped fold the pages and bind them into a book. "She didn't just want to make some money, she also wanted to work and do something for society."

Cao Yu and Fang Rui have many common hobbies, such as listening to classical music, going to art exhibitions, and going to the theater. Wan Fang believes that shared hobbies are very important to the relationship between people, "I remember they went to Qi Baishi's art exhibition together and led me. Although I was very young at the time, I could feel my parents in front of each painting. Let’s immerse ourselves in appreciation and joy together.”

These joys seem so everyday and ordinary. In the 1950s, Cao Yu was writing in the Summer Palace. On weekends, Fang Rui took his two daughters to find their father. In the evening, the whole family took a walk in the Summer Palace and admired the moon. Every year before the Spring Festival, the Beijing People's Art Theater holds a Spring Festival gala. Cao Yu and Fang Rui will take their two daughters there. That is Wan Fang's happiest time. "So many uncles and aunts that I have seen on stage are sitting in the audience." , everyone is like a family.”

The whole family also went to Beidaihe together, where Cao Yu taught his wife and daughters how to swim. In the sea, the father would hold his daughter's belly first, just like teaching him how to ride a bicycle. After they became familiar with the movements, he would let go.

"After returning to Beijing, my mother learned (swimming) in the swimming pool. She was very nervous. Every time she exhaled, she raised her head and took a deep breath. Now that I think about it, I feel that I was very happy at that time." Wan Fang lamented that at that time, he was too Small, so the memory is very vague.

Wan Fang did not include these happy moments in "You and Me". She explained in the book, "Happiness is contained in the trivial matters and trivial things in life. People are not aware of them when they are in them. The clock on the wall is ticking. I won’t stop for happiness for even a second.”

In 1990, Beijing successfully hosted the Asian Games and was becoming a modern city. In a hospital in the city, the life of playwright Cao Yu came to an end. In the last six years or so, he occasionally thought of his second wife Fang Rui and fell into deep thought.

After Fang Rui passed away, Cao Yu left his wife's paintings and took them to Rongbaozhai, framed them one by one, and wrote on them. On an ink painting of a pine tree, Cao Yu wrote, "There is no need to describe the pain when the tree is in the wrong place." When Wan Fang was chatting with his father, Cao Yu often thought of the past, "Actually, your mother is quite stubborn. When she is angry, Ignore people."

For more than 20 years, Cao Yu has been playing the two roles of father and mother. When writing letters, he would remind his daughter of many details in life, "Send us things, keep writing letters, more than ten pages, telling this, telling that, it's not like what a father should do. My sister has a cold. , he wanted to remind me what medicine to take," Wan Fang recalled.

Parents' love also affects everyone. In 1981, a sudden love affair prompted her to divorce her first husband. At that time, divorce still required a letter of introduction from the employer, but the employer refused to do so. Wan Fang spent a lot of effort on this.

"I have no hesitation about emotional changes. I feel that I shouldn't. When love comes, you have no other choice but to follow."

Cao Yu and Fang Rui gave their daughter a lot of courage.

END

*This article first appeared in "New Weekly" on 2020.02.01