Last Kiss in Tiananmen Square (13 page)

In the next week, Baiyun worked in the radio broadcasting station every afternoon, and stayed late into the night. Mornings, she would go to the library and study TOFEL. Sometimes, she wondered where Dagong was and wished he could join her to study TOFEL. Yet she remembered Meiling’s warning and didn’t think she should have a boyfriend now. But why had he just disappeared like he did? She found herself often asking herself. Has anything happened to him? She thought of looking for him but had no idea where to start. She was waiting patiently.

The station was getting busier and busier. Every day each university in Beijing, Tianjin, and Shanghai sent a representative to the station with the daily news about their campus activities. Baiyun enjoyed meeting all the representatives. Unlike the often-pedantic students from Beijing University, she found that students from smaller universities were easier to talk to. Talking to her own classmates sometimes made her feel inferior. But this rarely happened to Baiyun, the reporter. She was a confident girl. During the course of several days when she was working at the radio station, she had never found her life so occupied and interesting. She interviewed people, wrote scripts and did some announcing. She liked to be an announcer, which made her feel like an actress.

On the third day when Baiyun was discussing a radio script with a journalist, two students with heavy southern China accent rushed in. They looked tired and dirty. They eyes were red, their faces and clothes gray and covered with coal dust. They must have been on the train for several days.

“We came from Xian. Please help us,” said the tall slender student.

“It’s terrible! It’s terrible.” The smaller student started crying.

From their state of mind, Baiyun knew that something serious had happened.

“Please sit down.” Baiyun moved out the only two chairs in the room. She went to sit on the lower level of the bunk bed. She made two cups of hot tea for the students and started interviewing without a notepad since she didn’t want to make them nervous.

The tall student gained the strength after drinking the hot tea. He wiped his face quickly with the towel from Baiyun and started telling the story.

“On the day of Hu Yaobang’s memorial service, we planned a peaceful demonstration. We gathered quietly in the athletic field in our university and presented our hand-made wreath in order to pay our last moment of respect to him. When we were praising Hu Yaobang’s past and talked about our country’s reform, the police interrupted our meeting. They declared that some of our participants were unemployed workers who looted stores during the course of the peaceful demonstration. Then the police rushed into the crowd and opened fire. They killed many innocent people. In response, we burned police vehicles. The Public Security Bureau people dragged many students away to the yard of the city government building…,” the tall student started weeping uncontrollably.

“What happened then?” Many pairs of compassionately eyes now stared at him and helped him to continue.

“They beat them to death or threw them against the wall.”

“Please help us to fight those wild animals.” The small boyish looking student stared at Baiyun and others earnestly and pleaded for help.

Baiyun suggested someone to lead these two students to a dormitory to rest first.

After they had left, many people asked in unison, “Do you believe it? Do you believe it?”

Baiyun didn’t say anything. She knew that she had no way to verify the story. They had no fax machines or long-distance phones. It would take many weeks for them to find the right person and communicate through the mail. By then, the news would be too old.

But in her mind, these two students’ eyewitness accounts were more real than any other rumors she encountered recently. She heard the police were surrounding Tiananmen Square. Troops were moving in from other provinces. She suddenly felt a chill passing through her body. There might be blood involved. She was both excited and afraid. She was excited because it could be a golden opportunity for heroic acts to be performed. During the communist education in her grade school and high school years, becoming a hero was everyone’s dream. She was also afraid because she might lose her life if she got involved too much. She closed her eyes. Dagong’s lanky body showed up in her mind. How much did she want to see him now! A hug from him would make her brave again.

Chapter 8

For three days, Dagong had been going to work during the day and studying TOFEL in the evenings trying to forget about Baiyun. But the harder he tried, the stronger her image became, sometimes so real that he could sense her presence. When he couldn’t stand it anymore, he went to Tiananmen Square to look for her among the students. He walked to the Beijing University station at Tiananmen Square asking about her. No one had seen her. He told them the warning from Lao Liu about the moving in of the police but then he realized that they were already posted everywhere around the square.

“What do you think the police are doing here?” Dagong asked a student at the Beida station.

“I don’t know. I think they are targeting us so we have something to demonstrate about. Just kidding. I think the government just tries to scare us by sending the police and troops here so we will give up. But it is not that easy. Reporters from all over the world are here so the government has to consider their reputation. They don’t want to lose face. They don’t want to be the first ones to open fire.”

“Have you achieved your goal of having a dialogue with the government?” asked Dagong.

“No. The government still refuses to talk to the United Student Federation. We are waiting patiently. If they still don’t agree to meet with us, we are planning to have another rally in a week to coincide with the seventieth anniversary of the May 4
^th
student movement.”

“Really, it is great. On May 4
^th
, 1919, students from Beijing University played a crucial role in the movement against the Versailles Treaty that awarded the German rights of Shandong province to Japan. You can do it again seventy years later.” Dagong waved his fist in the air. “Do you need our workers protection? In the next few days, I can find a group of strong workers to meet with you in Beida. We can serve as a human shield for you students.” Dagong couldn’t believe that he was getting excited. He would be able to see Baiyun again and march with her. For the time being he could not stop seeing her. Whatever it took, he would pursue it.

“Sure. I would like that.” The student shook hands with him.

Just as he was about to walk away, he heard a familiar voice.

“Dagong.”

He turned around. He couldn’t believe his eyes. It was Baiyun. She was wearing a blue and white floral long sleeve shirt and blue jeans. On her head sat a broad-brimmed hat. She beamed at him with her two big innocent eyes. Under the bright sunshine, she looked like a flower in full bloom. She extended her hand toward him. He grabbed it, opened his arms and gave her a big hug. Baiyun rested her head on his warm chest. They hugged for a long time. He hadn’t felt so comfortable for a long time. If not for the others around here, he would definitely have kissed her. He broke loose of her and breathlessly exclaimed:

“I finally found you. What brought you here?”

“I’m a reporter now for the Beida News Center. So I have to come here once in a while to report on what’s going on. The rest of the time, I have been studying TOFEL because Mother asked me to promise that I would. I keep thinking it would be nice if I could study with you.” She looked longingly at his swarthy face.

“I have been thinking about the same thing. Let’s take a stroll since we have been so good, too good, I mean.” He wrapped his arm around her waist and guided her away from the crowd. “Let me show you downtown Beijing.”

“Sure. Where are you going to show me?” Baiyun looked at him sweetly. Her heart was beating a little fast.

“It’s a secret,” said Dagong. How much was he looking forward to this?

As they walked across Tiananmen Square hand-in-hand, they heard loud cheering coming from one of many circles of crowd.

“Let go and see.” Baiyun pulled Dagong forward to the crowd.

“I thought I was showing you around,” murmured Dagong. But he followed. What else could he do?

Baiyun came to the wall of the crowd and could see nothing. So she pushed, shoved and ducked under people’s arms. Dagong followed with difficulty because people cursed after Baiyun as she moved forward. Finally they arrived at the front row. Baiyun wasn’t sure she wanted to see.

Many bald men piled on top of a small bald man wearing a white cotton robe and whose neck was resting on an edge of a knife. His face was red and the blood vessels bulging yet his neck was intact. His eyes were closed and he looked serene and peaceful.

“Is this Qigong?” asked Baiyun.

“Ya. This must be a top Qigong performing troupe,” said Dagong while watching intensively.

People’s cheering was getting louder as more bald men climbed on top of the pile in the center. The man on the bottom was holding tight. You can almost see the edge of knife made a grove on his neck but no blood streamed out.

“Let’s go. I can’t stand it.” Baiyun pulled Dagong out of the crowd.

“Wow, that was impressive. Are you a little scared?” Dagong put his arm around Baiyun and looked into her face smiling.

“Not really. You don’t know how brave I am. It just reminds me of something scary,” said Baiyun sinking into deep thought.

“Later. Let’s go and see the poetry reading over there, which is not so crowded.”

“Sure. I love poetry.”

“You too?”

“Yes. It is the language of your soul, isn’t it?”

“I agree.” Baiyun nodded.

“Do you have any poems that I can read to see your soul?” asked Dagong.

“Yes. I’m not sure I want you to read them. It’s too revealing.” Baiyun made a face to him. “You?”

“No. But I can write some for you.”

“Sweet.” Baiyun smiled.

They arrived at the Poetry Reading crowd at the edge of the Tiananmen Square where the Great Hall of People was. A very young looking man stood in the center on a makeshift stage that was put together with boxes piled up in a pyramid shape. He wore a wrinkled white shirt and a white headband with “fight” in Chinese on it. He waved his hands as he spoke while trying to balance himself on this shaky stage:

In my grief I hear demons shriek; 


I weep while wolves and jackals laugh. 


Though tears I shed to mourn a hero,

With head raised high, I draw my sword

“Good job, young man! Do another one!” Someone in the crowd shouted.

A young lady with short hair and a red string headband on her head jumped up in the front row and rushed to the stage. She pushed the young man off the boxes after getting on. The stage wobbled and she, too, fell off. The crowd laughed.

The young lady stood on the ground and started reading:

As I look into the sea of people

I see anger

As I look into the sea of people

I see courage

As I look into the sea of people

I see victory

“Let’s go,” said Dagong. “We can pick up something to eat”

They walked to a vendor with a cart full of steamed buns. Behind it was a plump lady in a green polyester shirt and a ponytail tied up with a red ribbon. Dagong ordered ten pork steamed buns and two bottles of orange soda. When he handed the money to her, she asked, “Are you with the students?”

“She is from Beida.” Dagong pointed at Baiyun

“Ok. It is free then,” said the lady with a big smile.

“Thanks.” Dagong shook her hand. Then he turned to Baiyun and said, “Now we are going to Wangfujing shopping mall to get some deep-friend cream puffs.”

“Sure. I haven’t been there for a long time,” said Baiyun. She was getting very excited.

“Sounds like you are a country girl,” said Dagong teasingly.

“Bad.” Baiyun jabbed him on the ribs.

They had to fight their way through the crowd with a mixture of students, citizens from many parts of China and police in green uniforms. As they approached the Wangfujing Street, the famous shopping center, many shops with neon lights and signs and with merchandise inside and outside appeared. The signs said, “Olympus”, “KFC”, “Rolex”, “Gourmet Street”, “
Calvin Klein”, “Nina Ricce”, “Gucci”, “Prada”
and so on in both Chinese and English. It was noisy. The voice of people bargaining and merchants yelling could be heard. Then Dagong spotted something and quickly pulled Baiyun toward a vendor who had a table full of fried crickets, scorpions and grasshoppers on sticks.

“Baiyun, want one? I bet you have never had one of these.”

“Fried bugs, Yuck. When I was in high school, my classmates used to eat fried cicadas and frogs. I had never been popular enough to have a friend who ate them. It is too bad. Otherwise, I would have developed a taste for them at an early age.” She looked at the dead stiff crickets on sticks and frowned.