In the years when he was working, we had continuously looked forward to, had hoped for, the day he would leave those red walls behind. I never thought that the day would come when he would be planning to go back. I was so unhappy about the whole thing. I really didn’t want him to go! When Director Wang asked my opinion on the matter, I told him the truth. I told him no; I said I couldn’t bear it. I also told him that I was planning to quit my job and stay at home to take care of Father. Father was really furious with me afterwards for what I had said. Then I realized I really didn’t have any power to oppose this new assignment, so my opposition was pointless. What if I had resigned my position, intending to look after him every minute of every day, how was that going to be? Father’s illness would still be the same as before; the problems would be the same as before: we simply couldn’t make him happy. There was nothing we could do to make him happy, but there was something that they could do. I remember his face on that day. You can’t imagine it – he was so pleased, he’d spent more than two hours on the phone with Ah-bing. The topic never veered far from what was making him so content: he had a new assignment; he was going back to work.

On the following day, Father really ‘went back to work’. I remember it clearly. It was 1986, a cold, windy, wintry day – cold enough to freeze you to the bone. Slushy snow wet the ground. I escorted Father out to the gate of our housing compound to the car that was waiting to carry him back behind the red walls. As the car pulled away, as I watched his back recede into the distance, my mind returned to those red walls, the large iron gate, to the image of him disappearing inside … unable, unwilling, perhaps, to turn round and give me one last look.

Father! Dad!

Those red walls!

And that was how, 827 days after he exited Unit 701, he was welcomed back into its bosom.