It was seven years since my confession to the police had got her into trouble. Our families hadn’t spoken since then, but I’d found out a few things about her. I knew that she hadn’t gone to university, her brother had joined the army, and her deaf grandmother had died. My mother had also heard a rumour that she’d made some money in Shenzhen, and had returned to Beijing to open a small restaurant.
I remembered going with her to buy one fen’s worth of marshmallow. The stallholder usually charged two fen, so he gave us half the amount, and shorter bamboo sticks too. We handed him the money and went to stand under a tree. Lulu held one of her sticks in each hand and moved them in and out, stretching her brown lump of marshmallow so that it hung in a thin thread between them, then pushing it back into a ball again. I sensed her observing me through the corner of her eye, so I tried to stretch my marshmallow into a longer string than hers. But as I glanced back at her, my string broke in half and a strand became stuck to my sleeve. She laughed out loud. The string left on my stick was too dry to push into a ball again, so I popped it into my mouth and sucked it. Lulu continued to stretch her marshmallow until the fine thread turned white and twinkled in the sunlight. I knew that if she’d touched it with her tongue at that moment, it would have pricked like a needle. But she was sure she could do better, so she pushed the thread back into a ball and stretched it out again, and this time it was longer than ever. ‘You can never pull it into such a thin strand when you buy two fen’s worth,’ I said.
‘Pull marshmallow between the sticks, and watch it turn from brown to white…’ she sang, pulling the sugary thread once more. The thread stayed still for a moment, then drooped in the middle and snapped. I pounced on the needle-thin strand as it fell to the ground and tossed it into my mouth. As she slapped my head, I grabbed the bamboo stick she’d dropped and popped that in my mouth as well. Clutching the remaining stick firmly in her hand, she said, ‘You horrible boy!’ then walked off in a huff.
Before Lulu and I could exchange a word, the surge of the crowd carried me forward. Everyone shouted, ‘Long live the people of Beijing!’ I joined their cries, tired but elated.
In the distance, I heard Mou Sen cry through a megaphone, ‘We should make today Students’ Day!’ Everyone cheered in agreement. As I tried to push my way over to him, I spotted Yanyan. She was wearing round glasses and a white baseball cap. Her gentle, poised demeanour made her look out of place in the packed crowd of students. I called out to her.
‘What a great day it is today!’ she said, moving closer to me. ‘You students are wonderful!’
‘For the first time in Chinese history, the people have been victorious!’ I said. ‘So, will you write something about this march for the Workers’ Daily?’
‘I’d like to, but I doubt it would get published. The chief editor is very conservative. Lots of the younger reporters and editors have joined the march, though.’ Then she smiled at me and asked, ‘And where’s Tian Yi?’
‘Back at the campus looking after the broadcast station. She doesn’t like marches. She gets stomach cramps when she’s trapped in a crowd… You must come and see us.’
I pushed forward and discovered that the People’s University students had joined the front of our procession. They sang, ‘No Communist Party, no New China!’ as they charged through the police cordons at the Liubukou intersection and Xinhua Gate.
As dusk was falling, we finally made it to Tiananmen Square and joined the vast crowd of Beijing students and citizens already gathered there. The noise and commotion were overwhelming.
Under one of the street lamps, a student waved a bloodstained shirt, and said he’d been beaten up by the police. Ke Xi climbed onto the Monument to address the crowd. As I sat down on the ground, crushed with exhaustion, Nuwa walked up and asked me whether I’d seen Wang Fei. She was wearing his blue windcheater. It seemed that I was always looking at my worst whenever she turned up. I tried to sit up straight.
‘You and your team organised things very well today,’ she said, looking down at me. ‘It was a great march.’
At the western edge of the Great Wastes lies Lake Utmost. It is the home of Bingyi, God of the Yellow River. Bingyi often roams across the land in a cart driven by two dragons.
When spring arrives, I imagine pale-green shoots poking out from the grey walls and roof tiles as I inhale the smell of earth on the carrots in the market stalls and the smoke from our neighbours’ charcoal stoves. Although this smoke is present throughout the year, in spring it smells different, because our neighbours open their doors and windows and let it warm in the sunlight along with all the other household smells.
I’m still lying on the iron bed. The lengthy conversation my mother is having with the policeman keeps disturbing my train of thought.
‘What is your position on the events of 4 June?’ Officer Liu asks my mother. He knocked twice on our door before he walked in. He’s now standing in the corner of the sitting room.
‘Do you want me to give you the truth, or the lies that you’ve asked for before?’ My mother has been hassled by the police so often these last two years that she’s lost all fear of them.
‘The truth, of course.’
‘The truth is, I still don’t understand why the army opened fire on the students, and why, after my son was shot, I’m expected to apologise on his behalf, and say he deserved it,’ my mother replies indignantly.
‘That’s all in the past now. Try to be pragmatic. If you apologise for his crimes, you will both be better off.’
‘Look at him lying there on the bed. That’s not the past! He’s alive, and I’ll have to look after him for the rest of my life. Take him away now if you want, and put another bullet in his head!’
‘I haven’t come here to listen to you moaning. Tell me what you plan to do on 4 June this year.’
‘What do I know? I’m not in a fit state to make plans. Stop asking me.’
‘It’s Grave Sweeping Festival tomorrow. Is there anyone’s death you plan to commemorate?’
‘Officer Liu, you’ve known me for some time now. My husband is under the bed — look, there, in that black box of ashes. The purple box next to it is for my son’s ashes, when he finally decides to die. My father killed himself shortly after Liberation and wasn’t even given a gravestone. So whose grave do you suppose I’d sweep tomorrow?’
‘You know I’m only following orders, Auntie. I just needed to remind you not to leave the flat tomorrow, or visit any public cemeteries. It’s no big deal. Write a statement saying that you’ll be staying indoors, and I’ll leave you in peace.’
‘If you hadn’t come round, I wouldn’t have known what day it was tomorrow. All right, you write the statement for me and I’ll sign it.’ My mother has become very strong-willed.
The clang of bicycle bells on the street outside rattles through your skull. In the room next door, you hear your mother twist open the cap of a plastic bottle.
I walked over to Tian Yi and tapped my spoon on her ear. I’d bought her a portion of stir-fried pork and celery. She was copying out a petition for the Dialogue Delegation, a group Shu Tong had founded to press for direct talks with the government.
‘Listen to this,’ she said to Shu Tong, taking the box of food from my hands without looking up at me. ‘“We request — One: official recognition that the student movement is a patriotic movement. Two: a speeding-up of political reform. Three: the promotion of democracy and rule of law…” Don’t you think these demands could be a little more specific?’
‘Yes, they are a bit vague…’ I muttered, as I sat on a bed and munched on a steamed roll.