A wiry old man in a blue uniform ran up. Excitedly, joyfully, he announced that the new independent workers’ union had officially called for a city-wide general strike. Sparrow was stunned, but no one else seemed to react. Ling, too, was speechless. She whispered to him, “How do they dare? How do we dare?” Minutes later, a girl ran in and said that General-Secretary Zhao Ziyang and Premier Li Peng were on their way to the hunger strike command headquarters. The tent hustled into activity, and then nothing, as if news continuously arrived, burst, rained down, evaporated and was no more. Ai-ming had wrapped her arms around the neighbour girl, they stayed that way for a few moments, their eyes closed, the girl rocking back and forth, weeping. An old woman came by the entrance, she was delivering water donations and at the same time eating a fried dough stick, and the guard hissed at her, “No food here! No food!” and the old woman, pale with shame, turned and fled.
Ling tried to intervene. “She’s a citizen only trying to help.”
“No food here!” the student shouted.
“Be quiet,” the slumping nurse cried. “Just be quiet, please!”
Ai-ming emerged, crying freely, and together they pushed their bicycles around the scattering of people. It was late and they were hungry, so Ling led them to Comrade Barbarian. The kitchen was still open, though the menu was limited, the waitress said that the owner was making regular deliveries to the Square to support the student marshals and volunteers. They ate in silence and Sparrow finally said, “Ai-ming, you have to look after your health.” His daughter stared at her plate. Streaks of dried tears had left white patches on her skin. “But what about you, Ba?” she said. “In a week, you’ve aged a decade.” Ling sighed. “Come on. Everyone eat.” When they went back out, speakers were being dragged around even though it was almost three in the morning. People had come out all over again because the student broadcast centre was repeating the news that General-Secretary Zhao Ziyang had indeed arrived, along with Premier Li Peng, and they were meeting with representatives of the hunger strike. After Deng Xiaoping, they were the highest-ranked leaders in the country. Sparrow was so exhausted, he felt as if his shoes were glued to the concrete. He did not know how many minutes passed before a staticky broadcast finally dribbled out of the speakers. It was now four in the morning. The sound was not good, words were lost. General-Secretary Zhao kept clearing his throat and starting over.
The first clear words that filtered through were, “Students, we came too late.”
The Square itself seemed to widen, like something pulling apart.
“Students, I am sorry. Whatever you say and criticize about us is deserved. My purpose here now is to ask your forgiveness.”
He saw a look of pain pass over Ling’s face. Only it wasn’t pain, he realized, but fear. The General-Secretary’s voice was reedy, he seemed to be struggling against overwhelming emotion. “You cannot continue to…after seven days of hunger strike…to insist on continuing only until you have a satisfactory answer. You are still young and have much time ahead of you.”
People from the restaurant had all come out now, Sparrow saw the waitress and two cooks, and a few old diners in their undershirts. A jumble of teenagers. “It’s the same as always,” one of them shouted. “They want us to be obedient and go home!” Murmuring all around, approval or disapproval, Sparrow could not tell.
“You are not like us,” Comrade Zhao continued. “We are already old and do not matter. It was not easy for the country and your parents to nurture you to reach university. Now in your late teens and early twenties you are sacrificing your lives. Students, can you think rationally for a moment? Now the situation is very dire, as you all know. The party and the nation are very anxious, the whole society is worried, and each day the situation is worsening. This cannot go on. You mean well and have the interests of our country at heart. But if this goes on it will go out of control and will have various adverse effects. All in all, this is what I have in my mind. If you stop the hunger strike, the government will not close the door on dialogue, definitely not! What you have proposed, we can continue to discuss. It is slow, some issues are being broached. I just wanted to visit you today and at the same time…tell you how we feel, and hope that you will calmly think about this. Under irrational circumstances, it is hard to think clearly. All the vigour that you have as young people, we understand because we, too, were young once, we, too, protested and we, too, laid our bodies on the railway tracks without considering the consequences. Finally, I ask again sincerely that you calmly think about what happens from now on. A lot of things can be resolved. I hope that you will end the hunger strike soon and I thank you.”
The broadcast devolved into static.
Sparrow looked up at the sky, it was too bright in the city to see any stars, everywhere he looked was a deep blue, a never-quite-black.
“What does it mean?” Ai-ming said.
Ling was weeping.
“I want to go home,” Ai-ming said. She was still so young but why did she already look so empty? “I want to go home.”
Now it was Sparrow who led them, silently, as if they were thieves, through the dark night, past speakers where Zhao Ziyang’s address was being replayed, “Students, we came too late, I am sorry…” past groups of people listening for the first time, past blossoming trees and a row of magnolias whose flowers he couldn’t see, but whose fragrance remained in the air, unrelenting, intoxicating.
Late the next morning, when he woke, disoriented, he heard Yiwen telling everyone that General-Secretary Zhao Ziyang had been removed from office. Someone inside the Party had leaked this information. Demonstrations had broken out in 151 cities and the government intended to declare martial law. The army had already arrived at the perimeter of the city.
—
The national examinations still had to be written. To Ai-ming, the entire process was plainly ludicrous. Theory and practice, practice and theory, if she analyzed another poem by Du Fu she might go into exile herself. She was curled up on the sofa, eating a cucumber, when Sparrow appeared, groggy, all the hair on his head mashed to one side. After wishing him good morning, she asked him, “Were you fighting someone in your sleep?”
Sparrow smiled confusedly. He took the cucumber from her hand and started to eat it.
Radios blared in the alleyway, families were shouting at each other about matters big and small, but she and Sparrow both pretended they heard nothing. Ai-ming told him that, early this morning, she had been determined to study. She’d opened the exam catalogue and found herself at the 1977 questions. That year, the national essay had been: “Is it true that the more knowledge, the more counter-revolutionary? Write at least 800 characters.” What if a similar question appeared on this year’s test? For over an hour, she’d struggled to compose an opening line. The page was still blank. She could no longer make sense of the word counter-revolutionary.
Sparrow crunched the cucumber and listened.
“How can I write the examinations?” she said. “How should I…”
“Don’t worry so much about the essay question.” Her father’s voice sounded thick, like a full sponge. “Why don’t you go back to studying literature or mathematics?”