A labourer who’s knocking down a wall next door teeters across a broken beam and peers into my room. ‘Bloody hell! The Fascist has gone mad. Call the foreman. If she kills herself, they’ll dock our pay…’
Two or three of them sneak over into my room and shine their torches on the floor. ‘Look — she’s become a vegetable too, now. You can send her off to hospital, and take the other one who’s lying on the bed as well, while you’re about it.’
‘I want to submit a petition! I want go on a march,’ she mumbles. ‘Down with corruption!’
‘Don’t poke her with that stick. If you injure her, you’ll have to pay compensation…’
‘Look, there’s white foam coming out of her mouth…’
‘Down with… Down with… Down… Down…’
‘Be sensible, old lady. Those Hong Kong developers have got the backing of the government. You’re just digging your own grave, acting like this.’
‘I heard that the chairwoman of the company — Zhang Lulu, I think her name is — used to live in this district as a child,’ the drifter says. ‘That’s how the company managed to buy such a bloody big plot of land. They used all her back-door connections.’
So it’s Lulu who is building this shopping centre… My mind returns to those winding lanes we used to wander through together. The ancient trees, the sunlight…
‘I want to go to the Square. I want to go on a hunger strike…’ my mother says blankly.
You are as brave as a solitary red-billed lovebird that flies out alone, gripping tightly to the wind.
I went to sit on the kerb outside the hospital. I looked across the street and saw a restaurant with a sign above it that said LULU’S CAFÉ. I remembered Lulu mentioning that her restaurant was opposite Fuxing Hospital. The door was locked. The painted characters of her name looked like strings of raw bacon. I looked down and saw blood trapped between my toes. I gagged and retched again.
‘If any of you have got any balls, come back to the Square with me and help me rescue some injured people,’ a middle-aged man shouted. I got up and walked over to him. A group of provincial students stumbled towards us, looking dishevelled and exhausted. A few of them had lost their shoes and had wrapped strips of cloth around their feet.
‘Where have you just come from?’ I asked.
‘We were with the last group of students who stayed on the Monument. There’s a massacre taking place in the Square. Don’t go.’
It suddenly occurred to me that I should return to the Liubukou intersection and see if anyone there needed help. I set off, but just before I reached the intersection, a group of residents blocked my path and said, ‘Don’t go any further. Run away, quickly.They’ve just let off another smoke bomb. They don’t want anyone to see the bodies.’
‘The animals!’ said an old man in a long cotton shirt. ‘They must be on drugs. They’re shooting everyone in sight. They’ve got big grins on their faces.’
A woman walked out in her slippers, tears streaming down her face. ‘The soldiers stormed into our courtyard. They said there was a violent thug hiding on our roof and sprayed it with bullets. Fangfang was only ten years old. He was petrified. He’d never seen anything like it. He tried to escape into the back yard, but as soon as he ran, they mowed him down. How could they fire so many bullets at a child? His poor grandfather is so distraught, he can’t speak.’
‘You haven’t got any shoes on, young man. Your feet are bleeding. You should go to the hospital and have them seen to.’
I looked down. My feet were drenched in blood, just as they were when I emerged from my mother’s womb.
Through the gaps between these people’s heads, I could see Bai Ling’s flattened corpse in the distance. As if refusing to be crushed, the flesh and bones had risen a fraction from the tarmac.
I thought about A-Mei and wondered where she was. I wanted to find her… I had visions of her moist eyes, and of her glancing round and smiling at me before walking naked into the bathroom… Then I heard the tanks start to move again. Everyone around me turned and fled. A woman shouted, ‘That tank’s number is 107. Someone write that down!’
I stayed where I was. There was no one else around now.
I stepped onto Changan Avenue, and saw the long wall of green soldiers again. Everything was green: the soldiers, the tanks behind them, the buildings on either side. The sky was green, and the sun was greener still… Then I saw her: it was A-Mei, in a long white dress, her freshly washed hair floating softly around her shoulders. Why was she standing in the line of fire like that? I pulled the bloodstained letter from my pocket, waved it in the air and ran towards her… I remembered going for a stroll with her one day and being irritated at how slowly she walked. I began to imitate her gait, which annoyed her so much, she pushed me off the pavement… There was a loud gunshot, flecks of black light, then I saw her fall to her knees.
Did the bullet hit her? As the question came to my mind, my head exploded. My skeleton was shaken by a bolt of pain. I’d been struck too. I was going to die. Hot, sticky blood poured down my face. My hand reached out to touch my head, but couldn’t find it…
A-Mei is still living inside me. When my soul detaches from my body, I will have to leave her behind… But none of that is important any more. I am ready at last to break out of this fleshy tomb, and let my spirit scatter into the light…
There is a species of bird that has only one wing and one eye. It must pair up with its mate if it wants to fly.
I feel a wisp of dawn light fall on my eyelids. My body is like a bird’s nest that’s fallen to the ground. All that remains of me is a cage of ribs propping up a rough sack of skin that allows my organs to retain what little moisture they have left.
The sparrow has rubbed off its last feather. It creeps about like a snail that has lost its shell, trying to return to the spot that it fell from last night. It pauses for a moment, its one remaining wing scratching at my stomach like a claw. Then it crawls up onto my pillow, slips down my neck and squats on my chest. Slowly, it transforms into a red-billed lovebird with dark brown wings and a golden breast. It chirps loudly, as though something has caught its notice. The skin on my stomach that it scratched a few moments ago begins to sting a little. Perhaps my nervous system is about to start functioning properly again… I’m not sure whether my eyes are open yet or not. All I can see are splinters of light, like those that scatter across a lake when you try to scoop out the reflection of the moon.
I see a public square. It’s a flattened expanse of broken bricks, shattered tiles, sand, dust and earth. Positioned at its centre is not a memorial, but me and my iron bed, lying inside this building that’s been carved away like a pear eaten to its core. On the ground below, I spot the frog I buried in a glass jar. Its delicate white skeleton has a divine quality, and conveys much more than its skin and flesh ever could.
Through the gaping hole where the covered balcony used to be, you see the bulldozed locust tree slowly begin to rise again. This is a clear sign that from now on you’re going to have to take your life seriously.
You reach for a pillow and tuck it under your shoulders, propping up your head so that the blood in your brain can flow back down into your heart, allowing your thoughts to clear a little. Your mother used to prop you up like that from time to time.