‘Just make sure you don’t go anywhere alone,’ Xiao Li said, glancing out of the window. ‘They can’t arrest you if you’re in a group.’ I worried for him. His peasant background hadn’t equipped him for a situation like this.
I wanted to warn Mou Sen at once that he was being followed, so I went down to the ground floor and gave him a call.
Fortunately, he was in his dorm. I told him go and stay at his girlfriend Yanyan’s flat and lie low for a few days.
I could tell from his voice that he was scared.
‘Yanyan’s away at a conference. Where else can I go?’ Although Yanyan was fond of Mou Sen, she was very ambitious and her job always came first. She was now an assistant social affairs reporter at the Workers’ Daily.
‘Move to our campus, then. You can be our resident writer. We science students are no good at writing petitions and speeches.’ I pictured him rubbing his nose. He always did that when he was nervous.
‘Oh God! I wrote a poster yesterday calling for workers, peasants, intellectuals and private entrepreneurs to support our class boycott. The government could accuse me of counterrevolutionary subversion and send me to the execution ground.’
Both our fathers had been condemned as rightists. When we talked about their lives, it always left us with a sense of powerlessness.
I tried to reassure him. ‘The government won’t do anything until after Hu Yaobang’s state funeral tomorrow. And who knows, the protests might have cooled down by then.’ I saw Yu Jin approach, and quickly put down the phone.
I bought a couple of steamed rolls from the canteen then went to find Shu Tong. He was in the library, reading up on the American constitution.
‘It’s a bit late for that now, isn’t it?’ I said, sitting down and biting into a roll. The library was usually packed, but today half the seats were empty. I lowered my voice. ‘The university’s Party committee filmed our meeting yesterday. The tape’s been sent to the Ministry of State Security. Don’t ask me who told me.’ I didn’t want to betray Mao Da.
‘I don’t have to ask! That bloody informer. He’s such a fraud. As soon as he’s screwed his girlfriend, he shows her to the door then lies down and pretends to read Buddhist scriptures. Who does he think he’s fooling? It’s obvious he’s monitoring our conversations.’ He clearly assumed that the spy was Zhang Jie.
I changed the subject. ‘Wang Fei told me that the Pantheon Society is going to set up a broadcast centre and publish an independent student paper called the News Herald.’
‘Yes, we talked about it this morning,’ he said, sticking his chin up. ‘You’re not really afraid, are you? My brother’s an officer in the Beijing Garrison Command. He said there’s no real cause for concern. Anyway, if you worry too much, you’ll never achieve anything.’
‘They’re watching our every move. Your resignation has allowed Ke Xi to take control of the Organising Committee. If he creates trouble and forces the government to clamp down, every member of the committee will end up in prison.’
‘Leaders emerge in times of chaos, and it’s always the radical ones who gain the support of the people. We should encourage Wang Fei to step forward. He’s the most militant science student. We should get him to take over the leadership of the committee, then keep him under our control.’
‘Wang Fei isn’t a good public speaker, and even when he’s following your orders, he’s not very competent. The question now is, should we strengthen the Organising Committee, or take the movement underground?’
‘We can’t go underground. After the graduate was murdered last year, some friends roped me into joining a secret organisation. Although I was trying to persuade them to go public, the university’s security office drew up a file on me and interrogated my mother. Whatever we do, we must do it openly.’ Shu Tong’s mother was a Party official at the Beijing Commodities Bureau.
‘Are you going to Tiananmen Square tonight?’ I asked, calming down a little. ‘The authorities have said they will cordon it off tomorrow for Hu Yaobang’s state funeral. But the students who want to pay their last respects to him are going to attempt to get round the curfew by camping on the Square tonight.’
‘Well, you’d better go, or you’ll be out of a job, Mr Security Chief!’
‘About 100,000 students are expected to turn up. All the flags and pennants in the fabric shops have sold out.’
‘As long as you get to the Square before the curfew comes into force, you should be fine,’ he said, tapping the copy of The Constitution of the People’s Republic of China that he was holding. ‘There’s a notice outside the Great Hall of the People saying that the 38th Army has been called into the city, but Cao Ming’s father, who’s a top general, says they refused to obey the order. It seems that factional rifts are emerging within the army.’
When I had finished the steamed rolls, I left Shu Tong and went back to the dorm. Soon after, I received a long-distance call from my brother. He said that his fellow students at the Sichuan University of Science and Technology had made three memorial wreaths for Hu Yaobang, but the authorities had confiscated them and burned them in a lane outside his campus. The students were furious, and wanted to come up to Beijing to join our memorial activities.
‘Stay in Sichuan,’ I told him. ‘Mum keeps telling me not to get involved. If you came to Beijing, she’d never let you out of the flat.’ I didn’t want him to join our student movement. He had no experience in politics.
‘The student union members are leading our protests, so I’m sure we won’t get into trouble.’
‘Don’t take them at face value. One of the guys in our dorm is the chancellor of our student union. We all thought he was on our side, but today he confessed to me that he’s been spying on us for the government.’ As soon as I said this, the line went dead. I waited for a minute in case it got reconnected, then handed the phone to the person waiting behind me.
Wang Fei panicked when I told him we were being spied on. He said he’d stay in the dorm from now on. He was terrified of being arrested.
‘You have the heart of a wolf but the balls of a rabbit!’ I laughed. ‘You strode out into the streets yesterday and set fire to a copy of the People’s Daily, but now suddenly you’re quaking with fear.’
‘Let’s wait and see what happens after Hu Yaobang’s funeral tomorrow,’ he said through gritted teeth.
You listen to the juices flowing through the pancreatic duct and the blood cells rushing down the left gastric artery to the dark-red folds of the peritoneum.
‘Let’s sing it faster this time, and with more spirit: The little white house with the pointed roof — that’s my home…’
My mother is giving a singing lesson. She took early retirement from the National Opera Company after the Spring Festival holiday, and since then has been preparing three students for the Central Academy of Music’s entrance exam. It’s Saturday today, and as usual she’s locked the door to my room to make sure her pupils don’t catch sight of me.
‘Slow down a bit here: I open my window and gaze into the sky… Now, much more emotion: The sun shines onto my house, and the first sweet kiss of spring is mine…’
The three students repeat each line after her, so loudly that the whole flat shudders. Even my intravenous-drip stand is shaking.
‘Put more passion into the words when you hit the higher notes. Come on, one more time…’
‘… and the first sweet kiss of spring is mine!’