My father’s eyes appear before me. There are three parallel lines on his forehead. When he speaks, the red tip of his cigarette and his smoke-filled mouth move up and down. The dirty collar he’s attached to his shirt has left a streak of grime around his neck. He’s sitting at the end of the table next to a pile of music scores and LPs. There’s a mountain landscape painted on the bamboo brush-pot next to his ashtray. I can even see his saw propped against the wall behind him.
‘With a thousand arms to aid me, I could drive the mill wheels wildly…’ my mother sings out from the sitting room. If my father were still alive, he’d interrupt her now and say, ‘That “wildly” was too loud…’
‘With the strength of the storm winds blowing, I could keep the millstones going…’ Her voice relaxes as it reaches for the top notes.
My father would say, ‘That’s Schubert’s “Maid of the Mill”, isn’t it? I heard it performed in America.’
And my mother would say, ‘Stop going on about America. We’re in China now. If you like America so much, why don’t you go back there?’
One night my father’s violin slipped off the sofa and fell onto the floor. It probably cracked. He flew into a rage and yelled, ‘Stop shrieking! You’ll never get a solo role if you sing like that.’ My mother stopped singing, and a few seconds later we heard a cup smashing to the ground.
It’s the early afternoon now. My mother turns on the radio and coughs into her hand. Because of me, she’ll never be able to perform on stage again. ‘Last week, experts from seventeen provinces and cities held a conference to debate the ethics of euthanasia. Shanghai is currently conducting a trial programme… It has been reported that of the 100 million elderly citizens in China, 6 million have suffered various levels of abuse. One man in Wuhan placed his mother in a coffin while she was asleep and took her to be cremated…’ The sky is overcast, so the radio signal is poor and there’s a constant background hiss.
‘If only you could die happily in your sleep like that old woman,’ my mother says, patting my shoulder. ‘Have you made up your mind to die yet? Why don’t I sign you up for euthanasia? We could make a trip to Shanghai. What do you say? I tell you, I can’t go on like this any longer.’
I remember a dream I had yesterday afternoon. My hair grew long and thick and became a lush forest. I stood on a treetop. The sky was blue. A field of sunflowers lay spread out below me. I began to float like a cloud. I looked down and tried to grab hold of someone standing on the ground, but I was so high up, my arms couldn’t reach them.
While you wait to decompose, the iron bedstead creeps into your body, transforming it into a rigid tree.
When the sun began to set, the heat in the Square became less stultifying and a few lights twinkled in the pale grey sky. The Beijing residents were less afraid than they’d been at the start of martial law, and the shops and stalls of Qianmen market south of the Square were bustling with customers again. Tian Yi, Wang Fei, Bai Ling and I walked into a small privately-run restaurant there. I’d invited them to supper.
I looked at the menu. At the top were pork dumplings priced at two yuan a jin, and below that was a list of stir-fried dishes. I ordered spicy tofu and stir-fried tomato and eggs, which I knew Tian Yi liked, and two bottles of beer. I’d spent five yuan on Tian Yi’s present, and only had twenty yuan left in my wallet, so I didn’t dare order anything too expensive.
‘And let’s have three jin of dumplings as well, a plate of boiled peanuts and some cold bean vermicelli,’ I said to the manager before he walked away.
‘Order some Coca-Cola as well,’ Tian Yi said. ‘We’ll need it on a hot day like this.’
‘I didn’t know you were inviting us for a vegetarian meal!’ Wang Fei said, then called out to the manager, ‘Hey, and bring us some braised pigs’ trotters too!’
‘Why are you ordering so much food?’ Bai Ling said. ‘This isn’t the Last Supper, you know.’ She was wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses.
‘Come on, let me tell them,’ I said, glancing at Tian Yi. ‘It’s her birthday today!’ I was sitting next to Tian Yi on one side of the table, and Wang Fei and Bai Ling were sitting opposite us.
‘Oh, how embarrassing!’ Bai Ling said. ‘I haven’t got a present for you. I’ll make it up when we return to the campus. So what did you give her, Dai Wei? Show me. I remember how you wheedled your way into our party last year, just so that you could catch a glimpse of Tian Yi.’ When Bai Ling smiled, which didn’t happen very often, you could see her two pointed canines.
I’d bought Tian Yi a fold-up sandalwood fan in the craft shop next door to the restaurant. I’d remembered A-Mei had bought a similar fan in the Friendship Store in Guangzhou. She’d told me they were worth a lot of money abroad. I pulled the present out of my bag and placed it on the table. Tian Yi tore open the wrapping paper, sniffed the fan and said, ‘Well, I suppose it’s the thought that counts.’
I noticed a glazed expression on Bai Ling’s face. It was the look girls adopt when they feel embarrassed and want to avoid attention. Trying to alleviate her discomfort, I said jokingly, ‘I wonder what Wang Fei will give you for your birthday. Go on, ask him!’ At this, Wang Fei leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. Bai Ling smiled coyly. They clasped hands under the table. Although streaked with dirt, Bai Ling’s calves looked smooth and rosy.
Tian Yi ruffled her fingers through my hair and said, ‘I hope that on my next birthday we can all go for a picnic in the Fragrant Hills.’
‘Yes, as long as we’re not in prison,’ Bai Ling said, curling a finger behind her sunglasses and rubbing the corner of her eye. ‘A student from Shanghai told me that his classmates are very disillusioned with our movement. Six hundred students from his university travelled up to Beijing, and only ten of them are still here.’
‘Many of the provincial students have left now,’ I said. ‘The ones who’ve remained have lost their enthusiasm, and are worried about what will happen next. I spend most of my time trying to break up fights. I really think it’s time we withdrew.’
‘Retreat would be tantamount to capitulation,’ Wang Fei said. He puffed his cigarette, then picked up a peanut with his chopsticks and put it into his mouth.
‘I agree. We must bide our time and wait until the government resorts to using force. We must let the people see the true face of this government.’ Bai Ling’s fingers were almost as slender as the chopsticks she was holding. She glanced at Wang Fei and added, ‘The hunger strike declaration I read out made a big impact on the students. It’s my responsibility to carry on.’ She put a small bundle of vermicelli into her mouth and slowly chewed on it.
‘The Square is our only home now,’ said Wang Fei. ‘There’s nowhere left for us to go. If we went back to our parents, they’d hand us over to the police.’
‘Yes, Mao destroyed the traditional family system so that we’d all have to depend on the Party,’ Tian Yi said. ‘We’re a generation of orphans. Our parents gave us no emotional support. As soon as we were born, they handed us over to the Party and let it control our lives.’ She paused for a moment to swallow some food. The straps of her denim dress were constantly slipping off her shoulders. I kept having to push them up again for her. Having drunk some beer and eaten a few mouthfuls of hot food, I began to break out in a sweat. Tian Yi’s neck was covered with perspiration as well. I picked up a dumpling and put it on her plate.