“I think there are two possibilities.” Another student joined in. “One is that the citizens will prevent the troops from coming in. And secondly, if troops do come into the Square, they would simply send us back to our schools. Maybe they will just push us and shoot us with some rubber bullets to scare us away.”
“What do you think, Dagong?” asked Yumei.
Dagong stared at the distance and did not answer. Baiyun nudged him. “What happened to you?” He buried his head between his knees, and still did not say anything. Then he raised his head and said, “I don’t know. Anything could happen.”
“Let’s not worry about it. It is useless to be worried now.” Everyone became silent. Then someone started humming the “International” along with the loud speaker in the distance. Others joined in. After so many days of malnutrition they lost some of their youthful enthusiasm and sense of invincibility; their voices sounded somber, almost suicidal, especially Yumei’s voice.
The square was very noisy. Besides the many student-controlled PA systems, which were broadcasting the “International” or Rock & Roll music constantly, there were government-controlled loudspeakers, which were repeatedly broadcasting the same warning message.
“Now the situation is getting fairly grave. A small number of thugs spread rumors…”
“The government is farting again,” said Yumei.
“I hope that it wouldn’t blow everything away with its smell.”
But something opposite had happened. The half emptied Changan Street was full of people again. Some people, mostly Beijing citizens, had left home and streamed into the street with bicycles to help protect the students.
“What do you want to do?” Dagong looked into Baiyun’s eyes.
“Stay here. Right, Yumei?” She pushed Yumei, who fell back under the blanket again.
“I don’t know.” Yumei murmured.
“Baiyun, your mother is here!” Li Yan came over, who was still very energetic and was followed to the tents by the loud sound of motorcycles.
“Baiyun.” Baiyun’s mother jumped off her motorcycle.
“Mom.” Baiyun ran toward her and held her pair of hands in leather gloves.
Now wearing a hat on her permed black hair, her mother seemed to have lost some weight. Her freckled face was thin; and her belly had disappeared. Although there were some wrinkles on her face, her trimmed body made her look younger.
“Hi, Baiyun, brave girl, still holding on to the square.” Lao Zheng came over and gave Baiyun a handshake that almost made Baiyun cry.
“Yes. It seemed safe. No one believes the Government’s warning. People are getting out again.” Baiyun said, looking straight at Lao Zheng whom she no longer felt shy in front of.
“That’s why we are here.” Lao Zheng said seriously. “Why don’t you tell her?” He nudged Meiling.
“The shooting has already started!”
Baiyun startled. She looked at Meiling first, and then turned to Dagong and Yumei, and back to Meiling again.
“You can tell the students later about this news,” said Meiling as though she had read her daughter’s mind.
Baiyun signaled Dagong to come over. “Mom, this is my….” She looked at Dagong who was approaching them, for an answer. But Dagong was silent while staring at Meiling as though to retrieve a memory from long ago. Meiling looked startled too.
After shaking hands, they suddenly backed away from each other.
“Meiling, you still look the same,” said Dagong.
“You, Dagong. Is that you?” Meiling edged toward him slowly. “Ha, ha. You rascal!” She jumped at him and gave him a hug.
“What? You know each other?” Baiyun’s eyelids were wide open.
“How have you been?” Without listening to her daughter, Meiling said to Dagong. “I hardly can tell it’s you. Maybe it’s just your beard.” She touched his brushy beard. “But it looks good on you. You used to have mustache, correct? But this looks better.”
“Oh, thank you. You know that I can’t go back to you after I have gotten out of the Zoo. So…”
“But at least you should write to me.”
“Then I got married and had a son. You know, it’s a long story.” He sighed.
“I see.” Then she looked at Baiyun, turned back to Dagong and gave him a questioning look.
“Don’t worry. I will take care of Baiyun.”
“Ok. I will have to go. Nice to see you all.” Then she turned to Baiyun, “Baiyun.”
“Mom.”
“I have to go to some other places to spread the news. You can decide whether to stay or go now. Just be careful.”
“How about you?” Baiyun looked at her mother, eyes full of tears.
“Aren’t you having fun yet? Let’s rock & roll!” Meiling waved her arms and went away on her loud thumping motorcycle.
Looking in the direction where Meiling had disappeared, Baiyun’s heart sunk. She felt like she had lost something. Dagong came over and put his hand on her shoulder. Baiyun gazed at him, and he in turn stared at her. There was suddenly a wall between them. But it seemed not a good time to talk about it.
“The shooting has started at Mushidi!” yelled Baiyun.
“Oh, really? God dammed. Those bastards.” Then he suddenly jumped up, “Ok, Baiyun. Tell me what do you want to do? If you want to stay here, let’s stay here and fight to the end!”
Baiyun smiled. She was happy to see Dagong had gone back to his old toughness. She liked it.
“Ok. Let’s stay,” said Baiyun firmly. As possible death approaching, she felt fearless. She was so startled to feel like this. It must be the camaraderie that made her tough-minded.
“Let’s go to the headquarters to see what is going on,” said Dagong.
As they passed by the tent, they saw Yumei was still lying there, looking depressed.
“Yumei, we are going to see what is going on at the headquarters. Do you want to come along?
“That’s fine. You two can go. I will just stay here and die alone. ”
“Come on. We are going to have some fun.” Baiyun couldn’t believe that she said that.
“Fun? You must be crazy like your mom,” then she sat up. “I’m waiting for Longfe. Where is he?” She opened her arms to the sky.
“I don’t know. Maybe he is busy organizing,” said Baiyun.
The headquarters near the monument was very noisy. The student broadcast was blaring, telling the story of brave Beijing citizens blocking the troops from coming to the square all over the city, building barricades, exhorting the troops, and some dying under the gun fire. People were jammed in a circle. Dagong went on to find out what was going on.
“Fighting has already started at Mushidi. They are going there to help,” said a middle-aged lady.
The crowd gradually opened a passageway. A row of hefty students, all wearing white headbands, marched out. They were armed with iron bars, wrenches and wooden clubs. Some of them carried sharpened wooden sticks. They were joined by hundreds of bicyclers, shouting “Down with Li Peng!” “Long Live the People!” An open truck, packed with young men and women, also wheeled past. “One, two, three, stop the army!” They chanted.
“It looks like everything is still alive,” said Dagong, sounding energetic and excited. He felt relieved that Baiyun finally knew about his association with Meiling.
Baiyun, on the other hand, felt uneasy. Knowing Dagong’s past relationship with Meiling had added an additional complication to their relationship. Dagong suddenly became much older in her eyes. And the feeling of possibly suddenly becoming her mother’s rival made her a little nervous.
“Let’s go. Let’s see what’s going on!”
Holding hands, they joined the crowd on Changan Avenue. Ten of thousands of bicyclers filled the six traffic lanes. Random shouts of “Down with Li Peng!” and “Long Live the people!” mingled with the continuing ringing of bicycle bells. The further they went, the more roadblocks they encountered. The barricades were heavy co
ncrete bars, steel guardrails and garbage cans. Many bicyclers had to lift their bicycles up to pass the barricades. Hurdling over the barricades, Baiyun and Dagong looked at each other and smiled.
“Mother used to be a hurdler in college,” said Baiyun.
“Yes, she told me about it before. I guess you must be very good at it too.”
“Good at what?” Baiyun challenged.
“Good at everything.” Dagong surrendered.
“Do you mean better?” Baiyun marched further.
“Um…yes. Look,” Dagong held her shoulder, “what happened between your mother and me is over. It was a short relationship more than twenty years ago. That’s the past. Don’t burden yourself with it anymore.”
“Ok, what else should I worry about then?”
Dagong frowned. Obviously, Baiyun meant his wife Zhang Ping. “We can talk about it later. Let’s survive this first.”
“Let’s survive this first!” Baiyun reciprocated.
They ran ferociously pass the slow moving crowd. As they approached Xidan, people stood by the side of the road and stopped moving completely.
“Stop, Baiyun. Be careful!” Dagong pulled Baiyun to a side street where People pushed each other as though they tried to hide behind each other. Baiyun could feel a sense of panic floating in the air. It was getting dark and people were unusually quiet.
“Look, there are tanks.” The bright headlights of the army carriers were blinding. Tanks ran over or broke through the barricades and were approaching slowly. People began throwing stones, bricks and broken pieces of steel railing at the tanks. Obviously it didn’t stop the tanks. But people were not deterred. They threw more things at the tanks including burning torches that set some of the tanks on fire.
“Hooray!” Excited people cheered.
“What are they throwing at the tanks?” Baiyun was just as happy as everyone else but she was puzzled.
“Molotov cocktail.” A tall slender young man with long hair showed Baiyun a brown tall bottle. “We just fill these beer bottles with gasoline and kerosene, and light them. We made them in our factory.” He smiled proudly and leaped forward. “Get out, butcher.” He shouted toward a stopped blazing tank. The fire mixed with the smoke shoot toward the sky, which made the Square like a battleground or a New Year’s Eve party with too much firework. As soon as the driver got out of the tank, his clothes were immediately on fire. He jumped to the ground and rolled. People ran toward him and screamed as though they were going to eat him alive.
“He is dead. He is dead three times over,” said an old man next to Baiyun.
Then more people ran toward a tank that was trapped by a concrete barricade. The tank lurched back and forth, and stopped. The grounding of the tank’s treads against concrete generated a shower of sparks like welding. A young man in shorts and a tank top jumped onto the top of the tank, hammering the tank with a steel bar, and others followed. They first used the Molotov cocktail and set the tank on fire. The young man in shorts laid a blanket soaked with gasoline on top of the tank. The crowd was pounding the tank to force the driver to get out.
Looking at Baiyun’s radiant face near the blazing fire, Dagong asked, “Are you afraid?”
“No. It’s exciting!” Baiyun jumped against Dagong and hugged him.
“Let’s join them,” said Dagong. Just when they were about to dive into the crowd, beams of light leaped through the sky, followed by several whistling sounds.
“They’ve started shooting.” Dagong jumped on top of Baiyun and pushed her down.
“What….?” Baiyun was bending down and lying against the wall of a building along the street. She was shivering violently. It was the first time in her life she ever heard real bullets flying in the sky.
People swarmed back to the side streets. Their yelling and screaming mixed with the sound of bullets. Some struggled in the crowd to find their loved ones; some tried to get out and help save others.
“It’s real bullets. They were shooting people. I saw a boy shoot in the head and die,” said an old woman, tears smeared her face.
“Baiyun, are you Ok?” Dagong tried to get her up.
She buried her head into Dagong’s chest, crying. “It’s terrible. It’s terrible.”
“Ok, Ok. It looks like they haven’t shot people on the sidewalks yet.” Dagong patted Baiyun. “I think we should run back to the square to tell them what is going on. Are you ready? We have to run fast.”
Baiyun nodded. They began running hand in hand down the side streets.
It was a moonless night. The square was dark and frightening. Fire from the burning vehicles and buses flickered in the distance. The smoke in the sky had further decreased the visibility. Bullets whistled through the sky intermittently. Tanks stopped people. People ran back and forth around the center of the Tiananmen Square, shouting and cheering each time a tank caught fire.
Baiyun and Dagong ran along the trees on the sidewalk. Some trees were burning while the speculators occupied some others. Frightened people escaped from the streets, trying to find a hiding place. But most of the larger buildings along the streets were closed. They held onto each other tightly.
“Ah, my shoes, Dagong,” yelled Baiyun as her shoes were kicked away by the crowd and she was left with her bare feet.
“What has happened?” They stopped and soon were being pushed off of the sidewalk by the crowd. “Put on mine,” said Dagong.
“No, they are too big. Let’s just take a break.” They sat under a tree, watching people cheering, clanking metal pots and pans. Tanks barely could inch forward.
Baiyun was so tired that she instantly fell on Dagong’s lap. Dagong started kissing her hair, and then her ears. Baiyun turned her head around so his lips could reach hers. He unbuttoned her floral cotton shirt and touched her braless chest. Baiyun felt her body melting under Dagong’s embrace. She wished so much that this moment would last a little longer. But Dagong soon stopped.
“Maybe we should go and see whether we could help with something,” said Dagong.
“It seems that they are holding up the tanks.” Still breathing heavily with the excitement, Baiyun said.
“But the tanks are not backing off. I don’t know how long they can be held off. Let’s go. At least we should be with our fellow students and I would like to offer my apartment as a hiding place if we decide to withdraw.”
“Could I come to your apartment?” asked Baiyun uncertainly.
“Of course. Come on, we are almost there.”
When they were across the intersection to the square, the gunfire suddenly became more intense and continuous. Tanks seemed to be coming from all directions. People were running wild like animals being chased by hunters.
The square was half-empty. Besides some makeshift tents scattered around and garbage, very few people were left. Dagong ran into a tent and pushed the person inside who seemed to be sleeping.
“Where is everyone?” asked Dagong.
The student rubbed his eyes as though he was awakening from a dream. He pointed his finger to the monument, “They are over there.”
As they approached the monument, it was very quiet. Hundreds of people surrounded the monument, lowering their heads. They were mourning someone. They were so quiet that even the gradually approaching gunshots did not disturb them. Then Mozart’s ‘Requiem’ filled the air. The crowd started humming along.
“Who are you mourning?” asked Baiyun of a young man next to her.
“Oh, you don’t know them. They are ‘Flying-Tiger-Brigade’.” He stretched his arms and held his hands down with two fists. “They rode motorcycles. You know that woman who is fifty years old, although she looks like forty.”
“Oh, what happened to her?” Baiyun’s eyes widened.
“She got shot on her way here from Mushidi.” The student sighed.
“Mother!” Baiyun screamed and pushed people away violently.
“Baiyun, Baiyun.” Dagong followed. As shocked as she was, he did not know wh
at to say.
They finally reached the front of the crowd. Meiling’s body lay on the top of the steps. Lao Zheng sat next to her, holding her head and crying. Still in her leather jacket that was now ragged and stained, Meiling looked peaceful. Her eyes were closed, her swarthy cheeks sunk down, her head-full of thick black hair still gleaming, even her thick energetic eyebrows curled down as though she was having a nice dream. Baiyun rushed over and threw herself onto Meiling’s body, wailing. She held Meiling’s neck, which was wrapped with bloody bandages, and said “Mother, why did you leave me so soon? I have a lot to tell you.”
The crowd was suddenly quiet again. A student leader came in front of the microphone.
“As we are mourning the dead, we should ask ourselves what we should do to continue the work she had not accomplished. Now I would like to share a story with everyone.”
“There are a group of ants, 1.1 billion of them. One day there was a huge fire at the foot of their anthill. The ants knew that their family could only be saved if they went down the hill, so they held on to each other and rolled down the hill together. Some of ants were killed but many more were saved. So the committee has decided that we all will walk out of here together. Soldiers may fire at us; tanks may roll over us. But as long as we are together, we are strong.”
The light suddenly went off and the students formed a line marching the square in the dark with their arms locked. They are singing the ‘International’. Lao Zheng carried Meiling’s body on his back, leading the march.
Dagong and Baiyun locked their arms marching along. Baiyun was no longer afraid because dying with so many students and friends would be heroic or even exciting.
The sky turned light as they walked toward the east, through the passageway the army had opened up for them. The east side of sky was red, not just around the edge; but the whole eastern sky was red. It was like the whole place was soaked in blood.
Epilogue
It is an unusually gloomy day in late June. Dagong and Baiyun strolled together in Tiananmen Square. They have left their bicycles in Xidan Market, about half a mile away. With her hands in the pockets of her red windbreaker, Baiyun walks one kilometer behind Dagong. Her long straight black hair gleams under the dim sunlight. Her face is solemn, yet her occasional sighs show she is holding back her emotions.
Last Kiss in Tiananmen Square Page 25