the Chinese major in charge of his prison had been a Harvard man. The major would have been about my age, and possibly even a classmate, but I had never befriended any Chinese. According to Lawes, he had studied physics and mathematics, so I would not have known him in any case. “His daddy was a big landlord,” said Lawes. “When the communists came, they made his daddy kneel down in front of all his tenants in the village, and then they chopped off his head with a sword.” “But the son could still be a communist—after that?” I said. “He said his daddy really had been a very bad landlord,” he
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