Last Kiss in Tiananmen Square (3 page)

“Yes, we smell like wolves, we smell like wolves.” They sang together as they ran toward the shower room.

The shower room was not as fogged by the hot steam as it usually was. It was clear and cold. The noise of running water, bouncing against the cement floor told them that they were not alone. They passed several rows of showers separated into stalls by concrete walls and found their favorite stalls. Since not every shower worked and not all of those worked well, it was very important to find a good one. Some were too weak; it took a long time to wet your body with a thin stream of water. Some were so powerful that the water peppered your body like bullets, giving you a headache. After three years of taking showers here, they knew the best showers, the second best ones and the ones to avoid. Usually they had to stand in line to get to the good ones. Today they were lucky.

They chose two showers next to each other, and started washing. Yumei’s hair was light and fluffy while Baiyun’s dark and straight. They had to shampoo two or three times in order to get rid of a week of hair grease. This was how often they took showers.

“My head is so itchy,” said Yumei.

“Me too. But I have to be careful. I’m beginning to lose too much hair.” Baiyun scratched her head under the shower.

“You have studied too hard.”

“It’s worth losing a few hairs to get more knowledge.”

“You are kidding, right? If you lose any more, you’ll look like a monk. You are so stubborn. Nowadays everyone cares only about making money, getting rich. No one cares about studying anymore.” Yumei struggled to pull a comb through her long hair. Then suddenly she stepped back. “Oh, the water turned cold.”

“That’s why we have to go to the monastery to study. Only there can one find a peaceful environment.”

“Baiyun, the water is cold.” Yumei pulled Baiyun out.

“No wonder it feels a little cooler.” Baiyun stared at Yumei and said.

“Oh, my great intellectual. Maybe we should begin to rub our backs.”

Baiyun helped Yumei tie her hair into a knot on the top of her head. Then she wet her towel under the cold water, squeezed it hard and rolled it into a spindle. “I’ll help you first.”

“Ok.” Stretching her arms, Yumei bent forward and held herself against the stall with her palms. Baiyun scraped Yumei’s back hard. Soft, black gums of dirt rolled down on her back. Very soon her back turned red.

“Ah! Ah!” Yumei whined.

“Am I hurting you?”

“No, scrape it hard. Ah... I want it clean. Ah.”

Then Baiyun rubbed Yumei’s shoulders, hips and circled around her breasts.

Baiyun always envied Yumei’s big breasts. She wondered what she did to deserve them. She suspected that as a small town girl, Yumei probably grew up in a freer environment than she did. The wind of many political movements never blew that far. She was probably able to talk to those boys, play with them and even go out on dates with them during high school. Unlike Yumei, Baiyun was reared in the political and cultural center of China, the capital and the second largest city in China, which was akin to being raised in a convent. She was so used to that kind of life that she even contemplated becoming a monk at one point in her life. Her mother always told her that pretty women usually did not have good luck. Looking at her mother’s life, she believed it. But deep in her psyche, she wished that one day a prince riding a white horse would come to her, say he loved her, and carry her away.

“Hey, are you daydreaming again?” Yumei asked.

“Oh! It’s done. I was ruminating.”

“Ruminating? I call it slow to react.”

By the time both their backs were hot and burning, the water became warm again. They quickly soaped their bodies, rinsed them and were ready to dry off.

More students were coming into the bathhouse. Soon the baths became crowded. Steam and fog, like a thin veil, shrouded the small mostly bony college students. Some were too young, yet to grow into full-sized adults; some were simple small elegant girls from southern China.

Baiyun and Yumei wound their way through the now crowded sea of naked bathers, trying to avoid being splashed by soapy, brown water.

“Yes, I feel so clean, so good.” Yumei leaped forward. She ran so fast that one of her slippers flew away and Baiyun had to pick it up for her.

It was dark outside. The spring blossoms filled the air with sweet fragrance. Baiyun was in high spirits. The earlier uneasiness caused by the strange encounter with her mother’s boyfriend and compounded by the fantasy in the bathhouse had suddenly disappeared. Spring always meant hope, didn’t it? She asked herself. Maybe she should do something besides studying.

“What shall we do tonight?” Yumei asked.

Still indulging herself in the ecstasy of spring, Baiyun did not answer.

“I know you’re going to go to the library, study, and leave me alone in the dorm,” Yumei sighed.

“You are the one who has a lot of friends, most of whom are boys. Why do you complain about being alone?”

“I’m tired of them.”

“Perhaps we can stroll around the campus and read some big-letter posters.”

“You’re going to give up some of your precious study time?”

“You, rascal!”

On Sunday nights, the cafeteria was dim and the food supply slim with some leftover boiled bok choy, dry steam bread and cold pork sausage. Behind the counter stood a tired young man, whose small slender body was a strong indication of his obvious lack of nutrition.

“I’m tired of this stupid steam bread and terrible vegetables.” Yumei complained and bought a strip of pork sausage and half of a steam bread to wrap it in. Baiyun liked almost all the food at school. For her it was a change from the greasy food at home. She was not very choosy about her food and always looked forward to every meal. Yumei was different. Her small delicate stomach could handle only limited amounts and certain kinds of food and sometimes she could not stomach any food at all. They decided to take their food back to their room.

Yumei swiveled her hips, walking like a dancer. A nice-looking tall male student wearing blue-Jeans and a brown blazer approached Yumei.

“Hi, Yumei. How are you?” He said.

“Hi, hi.” Yumei answered, a little startled.

“Do you remember, we danced at a party last week?” The young man said tenderly. His small eyes formed a thin line, focusing on Yumei’s breasts rather than her eyes.

“Oh... yes.”

“I live in Dorm #40. You can come and visit me tonight.”

“Sure.” Yumei nodded reluctantly while the young man walked away.

“I don’t even know him. Don’t you think it’s strange?” Yumei asked. She was a little confused and a little proud.

“You must have closed your eyes when he was dancing with you.”

“You nasty woman!” Yumei hit Baiyun’s back. The blow was so weak that Baiyun could barely feel it.

A few more young men waved at Yumei. Baiyun kept quiet, still feeling a little dreamy after her fantasy in the bath house.

When they reached the building entrance, a young man jumped in front of them.

“Hi, girls,” he said.

“Uh, Longfe, you jumped in front of us like a rapist. Take this food if you want.” Yumei yelled at him to cover the excitement of seeing him.

“Ok, I’ll bring it upstairs for you.” Longfe was a tall slender smooth-faced gentleman with a pair of dark-framed glasses.

“We were planning to visit you after dinner today,” said Baiyun while they were walking up the stairs.

“Have you been waiting for us long?” asked Yumei. Sometimes she felt sorry at her cool response to Longfe’s being overly nice to her.

“Not really. I just came five minutes ago and found the light in your room was off. So I decided to wait for a while. And here you are.”

Baiyun unlocked and pushed open the shaky and squeaky wooden door.

“Wow, the ladies’ dorm is even dirtier than the men’s!” Longfe shouted and covered his nose with one hand.

“Stop complaining! If you don’t like it, you can help clean it up,” said Yumei.

“What, what do you expect me to do? I’m not your husband.” Longfe retorted.

“You sound like a mom,” Baiyun joined in.

“Ha... Welcome back!” Longfe shook Baiyun’s hands.

“I hope I’m not in your way,” said Baiyun.

“Not at all. Actually I’m going to tell you both,” he lowered his voice, “Have you heard about the march tomorrow?”

“No, we wanted to ask you,” said Yumei, moving closer to him.

“Tomorrow morning at seven, we are going to meet at the ‘triangle’.”

“What do we need to bring?” Yumei was getting excited.

“Bring some food and water. You should be prepared to spend the day in Tiananmen Square.”

“Really? That sounds like fun.” Yumei opened her eyes wide and her mouth dropped open.

“Don’t just think of having fun. I have something dangerous for you to do.” Longfe took out a bundle of pink and yellow paper from his pocket. “These are the pamphlets you can distribute among the crowd. Try to avoid letting others see while you are doing it, because it could be considered a counter-revolutionary act.”

Baiyun picked one, spread it out, and read, “Those…”

Longfe touched his index finger on his lips.

Baiyun kept reading in a quieter voice. “Those who should die still live; those who should live have died.”

Chapter 2

Meanwhile, one kilometer from the Tiananmen Square, life in this Hudong in downtown Beijing was going as usual in this unusually hot and humid spring.

“Where have you been? Every day you come back so late. Have you lost your mind,” said Dagong’s wife Zhang Ping. She was a small, bony woman with protruding front-teeth. Her long pale face stretched longitudinally like a squash when angry. She stood up and pulled a shirt off the sewing machine. “See I’m working hard at home, making a shirt for you. You were out playing.”

Dagong sat on the bed and sighed. His white tank top was sweat-pasted to his back. The heat was already intolerable at the beginning of May. He peeled off his blue jeans and put on a pair of shorts. “There is a revolution going on. Don’t you know? Don’t you care?”

“Of course, I care! I care whether we are going to have food on the table. I care whether our clothes will be washed. I care whether our cat gets fed. What revolution? Haven’t you had enough? If not for the ‘Cultural Revolution’, you wouldn’t have to prepare for the graduate school exam right now. You’re thirty eight. You’d better go and get a real graduate degree or go to America. So you can get a decent paying job. The phony college degree you got during the ‘Cultural Revolution’ is worthless.”

“Shut up. I need quiet to study.” He walked out and sat on the cement steps leading to the corridor by his door.

Breezes were always welcome in early summer. They came at the right time when he was hot and sweaty. This was Aunt Rose’ house, a six-room one-story house that formed a closed rectangular, with a yard in the center and rooms on all sides--- “Four Corners Court Yard” or “Hudong”, a typical housing construction in downtown Beijing. Of course, it was old now. The red-tiled roof had turned dark grey: the golden paint that used to cover the walls was long gone, and in some places, even bare bricks were exposed. The paper windows with crisscross wooden frames, which used to be painted with flowers, lanterns and ancient beauties, were now covered with black and white newspapers, even blankets to keep out the cold wind in the winter. The wooden railing around the yard was fragile, too weak to lean on. Children were taught not to touch it. This had been a fancy house, but Dagong did not get a chance to enjoy it; he was born two years too late. In 1949, two years before he was born, the Communists took over Beijing and took this property from Aunt Rose. They mercifully left one room for her and Dagong and invited five more workers families in to enjoy the luxury. Dagong grew up with the idea that he, a son of capitalist’s running dog, was lucky just to have a place to stay. He was also lucky that when Aunt Rose died twenty-one years ago, they allowed him to stay in the house.

It was ironic that he had wasted one-third of his life during the Cultural Revolution --- five years of hard labor in the countryside, two years as a factory assembly worker and four years as a college student. He was, in turn, a worker’s, peasant’s and soldier’s representative to reform the universities. All these hadn’t done him any good so he became politically active again. He worked as an electrician in the same factory where he had worked after he got out of the phony college. But working conditions hadn’t improved very much. In 1977, when the government decided to resume the college entrance exam to enroll college students directly from the high schools instead from the countryside, factories and army according to one’s political performance, nobody took his college degree seriously anymore. It was phony. Everyone knew that. Back to the factory, he had a few years of easy time, playing cards and gossiping to kill time. The factory was over-staffed. They always could make up the quota just before the end of the year. But things had changed recently. Factories began to compete with each other. Workers had to work hard to get bonuses and the factory had hired some recent college graduates to do the managerial jobs. He felt insignificant and caught in between, where he could not move up and did not want to slide down. His brain was rusty and needed to be lubricated. But it was not easy; he hadn’t touched books for almost twenty years. He promised Zhang Ping he would prepare for the graduate school entrance exam (GRE) and the TOEFL exam to study in America, but it seemed as remote as the North Pole. Was going to graduate school the only way to get ahead? He remembered what Aunt Rose had told him before she died.