Last Kiss in Tiananmen Square (18 page)

“Wow, you are fast,” exclaimed Dagong who looked at Baiyun passionately.

“Of course.” Baiyun stared him back with a big smile. How heavenly this was, she said to herself.

It didn’t take long before they caught up with the “Beijing Worker’s Union” group. Dagong and Baiyun took over a banner stating “Democracy in China Now” and marched in the front row. A middle-aged worker pointed to Baiyun and said, “Good for you, Dagong. You even recruited a girl for our team. What boost for our morale!” Dagong nodded happily to him.

The street was getting very crowded. Thousands of Beijing citizens left work and school joining the march. Some climbed up to trees shouting, “We love you, students!” “We support you whole heartedly!” When they were approaching the Three Ring Road, students from other universities like “Qinghua University” and “Beijing College of Economics and Politics” joined them. The common folks were lining the street cheering and hitting pots and pans. When everyone was in high spirits, the march screeched to a halt. A row of policemen in crisp green uniform and red stars on their hats above visors stood in front of the demonstrators facing them. Each of them carried a club. A pistol was visible at their sides. Their faces were emotionless.

“Let me talk to them,” Longfe squeezed forward with a loud speaker.

He walked toward one of the police in the middle followed by Big Li and Yumei.

“Should we go and back him up,” whispered Baiyun to Dagong. She was worried about Longfe, Big Li, and especially Yumei. She knew how ruthless these policemen could be.

“Not yet,” said Dagong. Involuntarily, Dagong inched forward a few steps ready to leap over come to the aid of the students.

Longfe stopped about a meter before the middle policeman who moved forward a few steps. He saluted to Longfe and Longfe saluted back.

“We students are marching peacefully. Would you please let us go by?”

“You have to guarantee to march orderly with no destruction of public property,” said the policeman.

Longfe turned back to the crowd and asked, “Can we promise not to destroy any public property?”

“Yes.” The crowd said in unison.

“Do we want to turn back to our universities?”

“No.”

Longfe turned back to the policeman. The policeman nodded and indicated the other policemen to open the road.

“Victory!” The crowd roared. More people were joining the march now. When they were passing the Friendship Hotel, students from “Beijing Normal University” and “Beijing Agricultural University” joined in. They had taken over the entire street. The street traffic had virtually been stopped. Buses and even bicycles had been paralyzed in place. Another wall of policemen stopped the flow of the demonstrators. Before Longfe could go forward to talk to the police, a few students from “Beijing Normal University” broke through the line by sneaking through between policemen.

“Peace, peace,” yelled Longfe with the loud speaker. The policemen somehow believed Longfe and opened up the road.

“The policemen are so civilized,” commented Baiyun. Her face was red with excertion and her pink sweater was soaked with sweat. Yet her spirit was high. She held the banner and was writing the best episode of her life.

“Don’t be happy too early,” warned Dagong. Being older, he was much more cautious. Yet he could do nothing but follow the sea of people. He thought this display of tolerance by the government was only temporary. He had seen these situations happen many times before. During the 1957 anti-rightest movement when he was very little, the government encouraged people to criticize the government. In the end, the people who were honest and dared to stick their necks out were thrown into jail for life. It happened merely thirty-two years ago. The old saying was that it takes a generation to forget about things like that. What was in these people’s mind? The students were young and wouldn’t have witnessed the anti-rightest campaign. Hadn’t their parents told them? Hadn’t they heard from the news? Hadn’t they learnt from their history lessons? They must have gone mad including him. What is a human life worth in China anyway?

As they were moving forward, Baiyun noticed they were approaching Tiananmen Square. The sun had hidden itself behind the clouds temporarily. The cool breeze swept through people along with some dust, which was normal for the Beijing Spring. She heard people started to shout different slogans like “We love the People’s Liberation Amy!” and “The People’s Liberation Amy loves People!” She glanced around. She experienced a bone-chilling shiver, which would typically only happen in winter. Soldiers equipped with rifles were posted everywhere. Some stood in a row along both sides of the Changan Avenue. Some were marching in the distance.

“Dagong, did you see the armed soldiers? Am I hallucinating?” asked Baiyun.

“No. They are real,” said Dagong solemnly. “We should be very careful.” He added.

As they were talking, the march stopped suddenly at the intersection of the Changan Avenue and Xidan Avenue. Looking ahead, Baiyun could see a huge wall of soldiers ahead of them blocking the road. Big Li ventured forward and tried to run through the imposing barrier, only to see him fail this time. Two soldiers crossed their riffles in front of him trying to push him away. The more the soldiers tried to block him; the more he tried to push forward. Longfe and another student tried to pull Big Li back.

“Let’s turn around, Big Li. We have done more than enough,” said Longfe. Big Li struggled and still pushed forward.

“We are almost there. Ten more steps, we are in Tiananmen Square.” A soldier hit Big Li on the head, grabbed his arms and twisted them behind him.

“The People’s army loves people,” said Longfe calmly. “Please let him go. We will turn around.” A soldier clubbed Longfe on the shoulder with his rifle butt.

Dagong jumped forward to the soldiers. “Don’t hit the students. Hit me. I’m guilty of encouraging them to go forward.” He waved his fist in front of the soldier. A soldier pulled him over and started beating him with his rifle butt. Other workers joined in to fight the soldiers. Some of the workers shielded students away.

Seeing Dagong was getting hurt, Baiyun cried out, “Dagong.” She ran toward him but quickly blocked by a worker. “Crazy girl. You will be hurt.” The workers, true to their pledge to work as bodyguards, got together and formed a shield between the soldiers and students.

“The People’s Army loves people,” chanted citizen on the streets.

“Stop hurting the students. Be on the winning side!”

“Down with the corrupted government!”

“Free Press. Democracy in China!”

Once again, the sheer mass of the people’s power overwhelmed the army. The clouds moved aside as well as the soldiers and the sun was shining once again. People swarmed into the vast square.

“Dagong.” Baiyun broke loose from the worker who restrained her from going forward. Lying on the ground surrounded by many students and workers was Dagong. Blood was streaming down from his forehead and one of his eyes was swollen. Baiyun knelt by him and wept.

“He tried to protect us. So he got the most hits,” cried a young worker.

“I’m a doctor and I can take care of him,” said a middle-aged woman in a white coat with a stethoscope draped softly over her shoulders.

“Please take care of him first,” whispered Dagong while pointing his hand toward the other worker lying with blood dripping off the edge of his mouth.

“I can do both. I need to take care of you first since you have a head wound,” said the doctor.

She put antiseptic on Dagong’s wounds and wrapped them with bandages, and then she went to take care of the other wounded worker. Baiyun held Dagong to her chest and fed him some water. Dagong gazed at her, and to him, she looked exceptionally beautiful at that moment. Dagong smiled. He could never find anything better than this, to be held and nursed by Baiyun. He wished this moment would last forever.

“De, De, De.” The sound of motorcycles approaching could be heard. Meiling sitting on the back seat of Lao Zheng’s motorcycle, Broomstick and two other young men on scooters were slowly approaching as the gathered crowd opened up a path for them.

“Baiyun, are you Ok? My poor daughter.” Meiling jumped off the slowly moving motorcycle, tripped and almost fell. She ran to Baiyun, kneeling and holding her face.

“Mother, I’m fine. Look at my friend. He’s the one you should be concerned about.” Baiyun shoved Meiling away and felt embarrassed.

“Ok. We can take him home. Do you live close by?” asked Meiling.

“Yes.” Dagong tipped his face toward the side and closed his eyes.

“Dagong, what a hero. I’m proud of you.” Broomstick squeezed his skinny body through wall of people. “I can take you home. Ok?” He said as he squatted by Baiyun and said in a soft voice. Dagong nodded.

Dagong didn’t want to go home. He wished that he could just die here. But fate didn’t give him the easiest solution. Now he had to go home to face his wife Zhang Ping and his son Little Turnip. Baiyun would find out everything. Even worse, Zhang Ping would discover everything. But his head hurt and his whole body was in pain. He could do nothing but oblige.

Broomstick and another worker helped to carry Dagong onto the back of Broomstick’s scooter. Broomstick jumped on and tried to ride away from the narrow path opened by the bystanders. Baiyun persuaded a young man to carry her on the back of his scooter, following Dagong while Lao Zheng and Meiling trailed after.

Chapter 11

The vast Tiananmen Square had been filled with people who were Beijing citizens strolling around, students from many different universities which could be identified by their flags, the foreign journalists and photographers from all over the world and vendors who were selling a variety of food items. Armed, green-uniformed soldiers walked among citizens, who seemed not even slightly afraid. Some even offered water to the soldiers who politely accepted while keeping their solemn facial expressions.

Baiyun sat on the scooter driven by Broomstick’s friend, who was following Broomstick’s scooter toward Dagong’s apartment. The scene on the square puzzled her.

“Why are the citizens not afraid of the army soldiers?” She asked. The image of Dagong’s bloody head was still fresh in her mind.

“Did you hear the loud speaker earlier? It says the General Secretary of the Communist Party Zhao Ziyang is on the student’s side. He spoke favorably about us in an Asian Development Bank meeting so the soldiers must be told not to hurt the demonstrators anymore,” said the young man.

“I heard part of it and wasn’t sure about it. Good. It looks like we will win for sure,” said Baiyun. She liked the sound of this breakthrough. The bright sunshine, the warm weather and speed of the motorcycle made her intoxicated in a sense of victory.

They drove slowly and zigzagged around and through many small crowds. Standing on a wooden box was a young woman with short hair and red shirt. She waved her arms and said, “We are ready to sacrifice our young lives for a better and democratic China.” Many photographers snapped pictures of her.

The idea of sacrifice started sinking into Baiyun’s mind. She no longer thought that her life was too precious to lose after seeing Dagong had shed his blood for the cause. She would always fight alongside Dagong, she told herself.

After a half hour of slow riding, they arrived at Dagong’s hudong. At the entrance, there were water stands, steam-bun stands and even an umbrella stand.

Pumpkin and Marshmallow sat by a pot of steam buns, smiling until they saw Broomstick.

“What happened to the student?” Pumpkin ran toward Broomstick.

“Oh, no. Dagong.” She told Marshmallow to take care of the steam bun stand and chased Broomstick to the apartment. After Broomstick parked the motorcycle, he and Pumpkin on each side assisted Dagong to walk into the courtyard where Zhang Ping and Little Turnip sat eating lunch.

They ran to Dagong and helped him to sit in a chair. Zhang Ping squatted by him planting kisses all over him.

“How did you hurt yourself? Did the police beat you up? Have you forgotten about us? If something happens to you, what should we do?” Zhang Ping stopped kissing and started wailing, which was so loud that it turned the noise from the nearby Tiananmen Square into mere background noise.

“I’m fine. I just feel a little dizzy,” Dagong opened his eyes and held Little Turnip under his arm. Pumpkin brought over some water and handed it to Dagong. Everyone was very quiet, even the cat sat on a bench staring with its two big green eyes.

At this moment, someone broke the silence from outside the yard.

“Stay outside and wait. Why do you have to come in?” Meiling told Lao Zheng. “You don’t even know the man.”

“I want to help. I might be able to help like carrying him around in the yard. Hey, you never know when they will need a big guy like me,” said Lao Zheng. Then he wiped his face said to Meiling, “Are you embarrassed by me?”

“Yes,” answered Meiling. “OK, come in. Just be quiet.”

Meiling and Lao Zheng followed Baiyun into the yard. Something dawned on Baiyun like a light bulb suddenly lit up in her mind after seeing Zhang Ping and Little Turnip surround Dagong crying. “Oh, my God. He is married with a kid.” Her whispered was so low only Meiling could hear her. Being Meiling, she understood the situation as quickly as lightning. She and Baiyun stared at each other for a minute and then she took Baiyun’s hand and pushed Lao Zheng forward out of the yard.