‘The only leader left here now is deputy commander-in-chief Wang Fei,’ Chen Di said. ‘But no one will follow his orders, apart from Bai Ling.’
‘We need someone to take charge. A bird without a head can’t fly.’ Sister Gao took off her straw hat, scratched her head, then put it on again.
‘What do you mean we need a leader?’ I said, after swallowing a mouthful of dry instant noodles. ‘Our problem is that we’ve got too many. A bird with nine heads can’t fly either.’
‘Look at Mou Sen!’ Chen Di said. ‘He gave me loads of jobs to do, just so that he could come up here with Nuwa and reenact the love scene between Robert Taylor and Vivien Leigh in Waterloo Bridge.’ Chen Di never took off his baseball cap, so although his nose was sunburnt, the rest of his face was pale.
‘This is the Monument to the People’s Heroes,’ Sister Gao said disapprovingly. ‘He shouldn’t be canoodling with her like that in the full view of the Square. It’s no way for a student leader to behave.’
Mou Sen was leaning against the marble balustrade on the other side of the terrace, his hand on Nuwa’s waist. They were looking into each other’s eyes and taking gulps from the same bottle of mineral water. Nuwa lowered her head. It looked as though she was waiting for Mou Sen to kiss her. A crowd of kids half their height were skipping around them, wearing brightly coloured clothes and red neck scarves.
Tian Yi told me to call Mou Sen over, then said to Sister Gao, ‘Don’t look so shocked! Didn’t you hear that Wang Fei dumped Nuwa and is going out with Bai Ling now?’
I shouted out to Mou Sen. He and Nuwa glanced round and walked over to us. I felt another pang of hunger.
‘Ah! Young love amid the revolution!’ Chen Di laughed. ‘You’re like those two activists in the 1930s who married each other on the execution ground before the Guomingdang shot them dead.’
‘If I’m going to be a rebel, I might as well go the whole way!’ Mou Sen said. ‘The enemy has surrounded the city. There’s not much hope for us now.’
‘Yes, you look like you’re acting out the tragic love scene from that Beijing opera, King Ba Bids Farewell to his Concubine,’ Sister Gao said in a disapproving tone.
I remembered A-Mei telling me she disliked boisterous, muscular men. The girls that I liked always seemed to be attracted to frail, bookish guys like Mou Sen.
‘As long as we’re still in the Square, we must continue to fight and to love!’ Mou Sen exclaimed, his sun-scorched face dripping with sweat. ‘Why did you call me over?’
‘Here’s your great masterpiece, on the front page!’ Tian Yi said. As soon as she showed him the newspaper, Nuwa snatched it from her hands.
‘Hey, let me see it!… “Here is the blue sky of May, the white dress of spring…”’ Nuwa read out the first line of the poem then smiled at Mou Sen adoringly.
Sister Gao cleared her throat and laughed. ‘You two should hurry up and get married! You can’t go on smooching around like this.’
‘That’s a great idea!’ Mou Sen said excitedly. ‘Dai Wei can be our best man, Tian Yi can be the bridesmaid, Sister Gao can be the maid of honour and Chen Di — you can be the witness. Everything’s set, then. Let’s have the wedding right away!’ Mou Sen turned round and kissed Nuwa on the lips, right in front of me. The light shining from Nuwa’s lipstick contorted the shape of her mouth. I began to feel dizzy.
Chen Di shouted through his megaphone: ‘Everyone gather round. We’re about to have a wedding!’
A crowd of students and residents rushed up to the lower terrace and formed a circle around us. The children shouted, ‘When are the bride and groom going to hand out the sweets?’ The bright sunlight shone down on us benevolently. It felt as though we were attending a wedding ceremony on the green lawn of some beautiful estate. The people at the front of the crowd pushed back the people behind. I pushed them back too, then shouted for everyone to stay still. Chen Di announced that it was time for the groom to put a ring onto his bride’s finger. With a blush rising to his cheeks, Mou Sen pulled out a ballpoint pen from his pocket, got down on his knees, then took Nuwa’s finger and carefully drew a ring around it. Tian Yi quickly adjusted the aperture and shutter speed of her camera and began snapping away. I gripped her hot shoulders. Sister Gao hadn’t had time to squeeze her way out of the crowd, so she had to stand beside them, smiling awkwardly.
‘Wonderful! Now, let’s ask the groom to tell us the story of this beautiful love affair! A round of applause, please, everyone!’
Mou Sen stood up again, his face now completely red. ‘I… I think I’ll just recite a poem, if that’s all right.’ He picked up the newspaper Tian Yi had given him. He’d removed his glasses, so I knew he wouldn’t be able to see properly. Undeterred, he peered at the page and began to recite: ‘“Our souls belong to the sun. / The sky is our eternal cradle…”’
Seeing him begin to struggle, Nuwa edged closer to him, lifted Chen Di’s megaphone to her red lips and continued: ‘“We the people stand in the People’s Square, while a thousand rifles point at our heads. / We will never abandon the Monument to the People’s Heroes. / We will guard it for ever, as solemnly as a terracotta army…”’
I could see her pale finger, marked with the black-ink ring, resting inside Mou Sen’s palm. A golden light shone from the megaphone as she waved it in the air.
‘“. . Let the bullets fly. / We are the suns that can never be shot down…”’
When she came to the end, the crowd applauded rapturously. She and Mou Sen clasped hands and said, ‘Thank you! Thank you!’
Chen Di took the megaphone from them and said, ‘Great! I now pronounce Mou Sen and Nuwa man and wife. Let’s wish them a lifetime of happiness. Please kiss the bride!’
Nuwa kept having to wipe away the tears that clung to her lashes. Mou Sen’s shirt was drenched in sweat. He grabbed my megaphone and said, ‘Thank you for your applause. I never imagined that I’d get married in Tiananmen Square. I’m so happy! When we’re all free, I’ll invite you to come and share some Maotai wine with us!’
Tian Yi put down her camera and joined the applause. I grabbed her hand and squeezed it tightly.
Yu Jin pushed his way to the front of the crowd, waved his cap and shouted, ‘That’s enough, Mou Sen. Now let the bride say a few words!’ Everyone pulled out their cameras. Someone put a tape in the cassette player and told the newly-wed couple to dance.
‘I’d just like to thank Premier Li Peng,’ said Nuwa. ‘If it weren’t for him, Mou Sen and I would never have met! That’s all I’ve got to say…’ She wiped the sweat from her forehead and smiled at Mou Sen. Then she swirled around him, her red skirt and black hair twirling like a paintbrush across a page. Mou Sen couldn’t dance, so he just jigged about stiffly. Their hands would lock briefly, then separate as she twirled round again. The crowd of children and adults began to dance too. The air and sunlight seemed to move to the rhythm. As the crowd spread out, the paved terrace began to shake.
‘This is the season of love. You can smell the love in the air. Everyone needs to fall in love…’ Soon everyone on the Square was dancing. Tens of thousands of people were singing, clapping and stamping their feet. The Goddess of Democracy’s upheld arms looked like a flock of white doves soaring into the blue sky.
In the Land of Hidden Thoughts, men and women are able to conceive a child merely by yearning for one another.
My mother has woken up. The sun is rising. She walks into my room and turns on the light. Her footsteps sound aged and weary.
As soon as the light is switched on, flecks dart before my eyes. They look like splinters of electroplated metal.