Last Kiss in Tiananmen Square (16 page)

“Ha. .ha, you come back. Where have you been?” said Mrs. Wang.

“I stopped by Tiananmen Square and helped the police to direct traffic. I could not stand the chaos. Chaos always makes me nervous. Why can’t they find a better way to solve the problems?” said Mr. Wang quietly, a little ashamed of what he had done.

“Good Lord, when did you become such a nice person?”

“I don’t think the police are bad. I can’t bear to see people throw stones at them.”

“You shouldn’t be there in the first place.” Mrs. Wang pulled a boy’s wet hair to release her anger.

“Ow….” The boy cried.

“Be quiet!” She pushed the boy’s head back to the basin and almost choked him.

Mr. Wang sighed, went inside of their apartment and came out with a tobacco pipe in his hand. He sat on a stool and started smoking. Mrs. Wang still kept lecturing him.

“You are too nice, and you like to wipe other people’s asses. And you don’t realize you’re the one who eventually would get hurt.”

It seemed that Mr. Wang and Mrs. Wang’s were perfectly matched in their marriage. Their life together consisted of Mrs. Wang’s endless lecturing and Mr. Wang’s non-stop smoking. Recently the balance had been tipped. Mr. Wang stood up.

“Stop, would you!” He went over and grabbed Mrs. Wang’s shoulder, shaking. “I have had enough of this! I have had enough of this!”

“What? You want to beat me?” Mrs. Wang shook water off her hands and sat down on the ground, crying and hitting the ground repeatedly with her fists. “You want to get rid of me, eh... You want to get rid of me. Okay, I’m leaving. I’m leaving. You can cook for yourself. You can clean the room yourself. And you can take care of your sons.”

“Get up, bitch!” Mr. Wang tried to drag her up by pulling her shirt collar. But Mrs. Wang hit his chest repeatedly with her small bony fists. Mr. Wang slapped her on the face several times. “You get out of here, bitch!”

Pumpkin rushed over and tried to separate them. Instead she was the one who got hit the most. The fat on her body helped to absorb the hits. Finally with the help of Marshmallow, the fight stopped. The four boys had long disappeared. Mrs. Wang went inside and Mr. Wang resumed his smoking.

At this moment in another corner of the courtyard, Lili’s mother Wu Zheng was talking with Lili and her new college student friend. As an administrator in the local government, she was a serious woman with short straight hair and a nice kind face.

“We understand how you students feel. We in the Government would like to work with you to achieve your goals,” said Wu Zheng earnestly.

“I know. We like to work with our government too. That’s why we try to keep our whole movement peaceful, non-violent and not to disturb the traffic. We also try to communicate with the government by sending our representatives to deliver our requests.” His eyes behind the white-framed glasses opened very big.

“That sounds reasonable.”

“But we haven’t got any reply yet. The government seems to think we are too insignificant to talk with. That’s why things have become a little more chaotic.”

“You know, the high-ranking officials are busy. It takes time for them to decide anything and takes even longer for them to reply to you.”

“But our country has waited for thirty years,” said Xiao Dong passionately.

“Yes, you are right. We need to be more efficient to gain back the lost time.”

Lili rested her head on her right hand listening attentively.

“Hi, mother. I hope I’m not too late to cook dinner.” Little Pea and Yu Gang returned and saw Pumpkin working hard in the yard.

“No, I’m going to cook today,” said Pumpkin while hanging clothes on the clothesline in the yard.

“Why?”

“Because I want you young people to do something more important.”

“Mother, we are back. It’s too crowded over there.” Little Pea picked up a bok choy and went over to the sink to wash.

“Ok, you prepare it and I’ll cook.” Pumpkin went inside and Marshmallow sat in front of their apartment, reading the newspaper. He frowned and said, “The Newspaper is actually telling the truth nowadays.”

“Really?” asked Little Pea. She was busy with chopping the pork loin into ground pork.

Yu Gang strolled behind Marshmallow and glanced over his shoulder to read the newspaper. “Ha, ha..” he laughed, “nothing on the demonstration. They are still talking about everyone is working hard for the socialist system.”

When Little Pea finished chopping ground pork, she cleaned some green beans and bok choy. Yu Gang helped light up the coal stove, and Pumpkin cooked.

In a while the yard was full of smell of meatball soup, stir-fried vegetables and steamed rice. The radio was playing a Peking Opera as usual. The stir-fry smoke mixed with the melody of the Peking Opera lingered over the yard like an invisible roof.

Putting a small dining table and a few stools in the yard, Little Pea realized her brothers were not there. “I’m going to look for Broomstick and Potatofeet.”

Just outside of the yard Little Pea found Potatofeet sitting against the wall crying. His clubfeet twisted outward, laying flat on the dirt. Tears streamed out of his puffy eyes and rolled down on his swollen cheeks. Saliva leaked out of corners of his mouth.

“Broom. . .Broomstick is.. . is gone,” he murmured.

“Where did he go?”

“He. . .he left with a group of motorcycle guys. They. . . they call themselves...’Flying Tiger...Tiger Brigade.’”

“I see. We’ll find him later. Let’s go in and eat.” Little Pea pulled Potatofeet’s arm, trying to help him get up. She succeeded in the second try. Dragging his clubfeet on the gravel, Potatofeet followed Little Pea into the gate.

People had already sat around the table on little stools. Pumpkin was serving beer from a big tall brown bottle into small tin cups.

“Woo, feel like ice. I just took it out of the refrigerator,” said Pumpkin. She already acted drunk without taking a sip of beer.

Lili and her mother, and her student friend sat among Pumpkin’s family. They were guests. Actually the real guest was Lili’s student friend.

“This is my friend Xiao Dong. He is a student from Nankai University. This is his first time in Beijing and he was impressed by its size, and of course, the hospitality.”

“Thank you.” Xiao Dong nodded. Lao Liu’s police summer uniform did not fit him, a little too big for him, yet his swarthy face and big dark eyes behind his white-framed glasses made him a handsome policeman.

Lili served some dishes for Xiao Dong. Her face was radiant due to the beer and, of course, Xiao Dong. While eating diligently, Wu Zheng watched them once in a while in amusement.

“Let’s cheer for everyone’s happiness, health and prosperity.” Yu Gang bounced his small beer cup against Pumpkin’s, Marshmallow’s and everyone else’s.

“Let’s cheer for our students’ victory in Tiananmen Square!” Pumpkin raised up her beer cup once more.

“Let’s cheer for our country’s bright future!” Wu Zheng cheered. She grinned, took off her glasses and wiped her eyes. Working as an administrator in the city government in charge of propaganda, she rarely showed her emotion. No one said it was an easy job, especially now during a time of confusion. It was hard to comply with the official policy and satisfy people’s demands for reform at the same time. Secondly, she had her husband’s depression to deal with. She knew that her husband’s problem came from his many years of working in the legal system. “I have to play my role every day and I’m tired of it.” He told her this every day. Now he was working on some really tough cases. The Government has realized they were wrong during the Cultural Revolution. They wanted to reverse some cases where they had wrongly prosecuted innocent people during that period. But it was too late in most cases. People had already died or became crazy. Daily dealing with these sad cases had turned him into a moody person. She thought of herself. She had to go to work tomorrow. God knows what was waiting for her to do. She hoped it was not something too difficult. Although her boss was a nice person, they never could predict or change the official policy. Anyway, she had to capture this moment to be happy. She swallowed half cup of beer and became more talkative.

Taking another sip of beer, Wu Zheng said, “My husband is a softy. He has never hurt anybody. He has helped many people secretly in his life. He just does not boast about it. Whenever something happens, he is the one who suffers the most. He has told me that no matter what happens, he would never kill a student,” not realizing that she had revealed a secret which might cause her husband Lao Liu trouble.

“Really? I should go and offer my apologies to him. We scorned him when he came back from work. I thought he didn’t look like one of those goddamn cowardly policemen,” said Pumpkin loudly.

The sun dropped below the roofline and the night reached every corner of the yard. Under the dim overhead light hanging down from the porch ceiling, the party was still on. Like bugs circulating around the light, everyone was still in high spirits. Broomstick was back, telling everyone about his adventure with “The Flying Tiger Brigade.”

“Exciting! They are exciting guys, really. Wild, gee, they are wild too.” In a big hurry, he did not have time to form his sentence.

“What did you do?” asked Little Pea.

“Em... Let’s see... We transported sick students home. We are messengers for the headquarters of different universities and we are guards to watch for the police coming.” He was so excited as though he was living in his dream world. “It’s just like the chase games we played when we were young, except this time it’s for real.”

Mr. and Mrs. Wang and their sons were eating in the dark. Everyone was very quiet and no one bothered to turn on the overhead porch light in front of apartment doors. The boys fought occasionally, but soon their angry mother stopped them.

A cat had been sleeping on the porch railing for quite a while. Awakened, she found Mr. Wang’s family sitting in the dark as though they were dead. She sauntered in front of the table and jumped in front of the soup bowl. Before dipping her head into the soup, she felt a blow on her head. She leaped forward and tipped over the soup bowl. The soup flooded the table and dripped onto the youngest boy’s pants.

“Ah. . .Ah...” He cried.

“You damn cat!” Mrs. Wang chased the cat into the yard.

The boys disappeared in a minute. Mr. Wang stayed there for a moment, and then lit his pipe. The party in front of the Pumpkin’s apartment was not disturbed until Zhang Ping came back.

“This is crazy! Oh, this is crazy!” Rushing in from outside with her son, she appeared to be angry. “Do you believe it? Do you believe it? The Police have put me in detention in a hot van for five hours.”

“Why? I can’t believe they did that to you. People shouldn’t let them. Students shouldn’t let them,” said Pumpkin.

“But they did it to me, they did it to me!” Zhang Ping screamed. “They told everyone I was crazy. How could I behave normally when I was desperately looking for my husband?” She waved her arms in the air randomly.

“Did you find Dagong?”

“No, I haven’t seen a trace of him since this morning. How can I find him among thousands in the square? But I’m sure he knows some Beijing University students. So I looked for them. The police said that they didn’t believe me to have such a young student husband. I told them my husband was not a student, but he was with them. They thought I was lying. They thought I was following the Beijing University students. What a shame! I quarreled with them, and they put me in detention.” She sat on the porch steps by her door, sighing like a dog. Her perm hair was wild, the tiny pigtail hardly visible. Her long bony face looked sad, yet her protruding front teeth made her appear more vicious than sad.

“Zhang Ping, don’t worry. Such a big man, he wouldn’t get lost. He’s probably like you, and got stuck somewhere for some crazy reason. It’s strange though. I have never known him to be interested in this sort of thing.” While trying to comfort Zhang Ping, Pumpkin found herself questioning the reason behind Dagong’s absence.

“He often talks about politics with my husband.” Wu Zheng said.

“But, he is always very reserved,” argued Pumpkin. Then the porch lights went off and the party was over.

Zhang Ping was the last on sitting in the yard. She stayed in the dark for a while, watching the sky, which was very clear. Occasionally, she could hear the rattling sound of leaves waving in the wind. The crickets’ buzzing added a soprano to this huge orchestra. Looking at the bright stars in the sky, she thought of an ancient myth --- the love story between a cowboy and a weaver. They were so far apart that they could only see each other once a year. But they loved each other and kept staring in each other’s direction every day. Zhang Ping never missed her husband so badly before. They had never been apart. Dagong was such a stable person that she never had to worry about his whereabouts. He came back home from work every day at about the same time. Then she would cook the dinner with his help. Sometimes he cooked and she assisted. After dinner, he would talk with neighbors in the yard while she did some sewing. She was aware that he might be too good for her. He was so handsome and so educated. Unfortunately such a nice and smart man grew up in a capitalist’s family, which was considered the worst kind of family background. As a man of power in the Beijing Automobile Parts factory, her father had discovered Dagong in a park where he was working as a janitor, and gave him a job. She married him because she adored him. And she still did, no matter what kind of family he came from. She considered their life together as a good life. And just like her parents, their life had been peaceful. They seldom quarreled with each other. And better than her parents, she and Dagong shared more housework together. During the weekend, she and Dagong would go shopping, or spend a day in the park, taking pictures and rowing. Maybe they did not openly show their affection to each other by kissing and hugging in public like some of those people in foreign movies. Behavior like that was for young people. That was for people who were dating, not for old couples like they were. That was not what a marriage was about. Marriage was about dealing with daily life. Maybe that was not what it was like for foreigners. But they were different. Dagong seemed satisfied with her until recently. He became short-tempered lately. Maybe she pushed him too hard to study. But like everyone else she wanted more out of her life now than before, because there was a chance now to have a better life. She wanted to see Dagong go abroad, make a lot of money, and take her and Little Turnip to see the world. Sometimes she wished she could go to school to understand Dagong better. But it was too late. She had no chance to go to college. Why worry? God knows where he was now. She suddenly felt so cold. She began shivering and goose bumps appeared on her body. The moon hid behind the cloud now. It was so dark and almost mysterious. Suddenly she was frightened. Evil thoughts came at her from all directions, trying to swallow her. Holding Little Turnip on her arms, she went inside. She sat on the bed, frozen.