Last Kiss in Tiananmen Square (19 page)

“Let’s go,” said Meiling.

After they got out, Meiling said, “how about we take Baiyun to a restaurant?”

“No, I just want to go home,” said Baiyun.

“Ok. You both jump on the back of my bike,” said Lao Zheng.

In her state of confusion, Baiyun made the worst decision she could make --- to go home. But what else could she do, going back to school and telling Yumei that Dagong was married with a kid? Her friends would laugh their heads off. Yet the decision of going home was still much better than going to a restaurant listening to Meiling’s lecture again. Who knows what’s worse, she said to herself. She didn’t want the most comfortable solution. She just wanted to sort it out or go somewhere far away and cry her eyes out. Sandwiched between Lao Zheng and Meiling, Baiyun didn’t feel better. She leaned on Lao Zheng’s leather jacket pretending to sleep while soaking tears on it.

“What a sneaky guy who dares to steal my daughter’s heart. I hope I can punch him in the face.” Meiling couldn’t stop cursing Dagong.

Baiyun wanted to talk back but was too tired to say anything. Lao Zheng took some shortcuts so in no time they arrived at the Beijing Industrial University, where life was not going on as usual. Instead of rushing back from work on bicycles, people formed small circles by the roadside discussing, debating or simply gossiping. Students marched on the streets holding flags and banners that displayed “Never forget the spirit of May Fourth” and “Fight the Official Corruption”. They were on their way to join the students in Tiananmen Square. Occasionally, people would stop them and offer them tea and homemade steamed buns. They would tell students, “Keep up the good work.” Students would say, “Join us next time.” “Let’s form a Great Wall of people.” The old men and women would nod and smiled whole-heartedly.

They arrived at the apartment. While Lao Zheng parking the motorcycle, Meiling and Baiyun went in first. As soon as they opened the door, they could hear the loud, haunting strains of Mendelssohn’s first violin concerto, which echoed within the small apartment.

“Good, the old man is partying and completely unaware of the demonstration outside,” said Meiling as she and Lao Zheng walked in toward Meiling’s bedroom. Then she stopped and turned toward Baiyun, “we will take a break. After that uncle Lao Zheng will make pot-stickers for you.”

“I’m not hungry,” said Baiyun while leaping over the vegetables in the hallway toward the middle room next to the living room. She could see her father professor Yang and his friend Lee Fe sitting on Father’s bed, facing each other. Lee Fe was playing the violin. His right arm pushed up and down rhythmically, his head moved along passionately and his black-framed glasses had slid down to the tip of his nose due to the sweat. Father stared at him while his old eyes were twinkling and his salt and pepper hair danced as he swayed his head along with the music. On the round dining table next to the bed, there were two half-drank glasses of red wine. Father picked one up and had a sip, “Meow. Meow!”

Baiyun lay down on her bed in the middle room. She could not help looking at the tall bookshelf next to her that contained all the school text books she had ever used including notebooks, final exam papers, and her report cards. Meiling saved everything. Yet the most visible ones were TOFEL books. They were “The Official Guide to the TOFEL Exam”, “TOFEL Essentials”, “Practice Exercises for the TOFEL with Audio CDs” and “400 Must-have Words for the TOFEL”. These reminded Meiling of her derailed attempts to go to America. Maybe Meiling was right to encourage her to go abroad. Maybe she would soon pick up the pieces and try again. She closed her eyes. All she could see was Dagong surrounding by his weeping wife and son. She could see Dagong’s agonized face. She tried to forget about him, even thinking about hating him. Yet she utterly failed. Instead, she was even more curious about him. She wondered why he had never mentioned his wife or even his son to her. She needed to confront him to find out, and sooner rather than later.

“Hey, Baiyun, want something to eat?” A voice woke up Baiyun from her nap. She opened her eyes and saw Lao Zheng standing by the bed with a plate of steamed meat dumplings in his hand. She sat up immediately rubbing her eyes.

“You woke me up,” she protested, yet she couldn’t refuse such good food. However obnoxious, Lao Zheng was a good cook. She took the plate and gobbled down dumplings quickly.

Lao Zheng sat down on the bed and leaned toward Baiyun. He wore a fake smile that would make Baiyun throw up at any moment. His small pea eyes aglow, his crooked teeth exposed. “What do you say? Let’s go out sometime on my motorcycle and have some fun.”

Oh, my God. Here he goes again, Baiyun said. Normally she would get up and rush out of the door in a second. But today she was a very tired and even more confused.

“Ok.” Baiyun kept eating.

“When should we go? Maybe I can take you back to school.” Lao Zheng inched toward Baiyun a little more.

“If you would excuse me, I need to run to the bathroom.” Baiyun stood up, pushed Lao Zheng to the side and squeezed through the gap between the bed and the bookshelf to the bathroom. She slammed the door. In a second, she could hear Meiling yell at Lao Zheng, “What are you doing in there by yourself? Where is Baiyun? Did you scare her away?”

“No. She went to the bathroom.”

Baiyun held her head between her hands trying to think straight. The troops had moved in. Soldiers had been posted everywhere in Tiananmen Square. She needed to get back to school so she could help. She would not be a coward. Even though she might not see Dagong again, she still had many friends and classmates at Beida. Life would still be interesting, she told herself.

After she flushed the toilet and got out of the bathroom, she decided to go to sleep and leave early in the morning. She stuck her head into the living room and saw that both Professor Yang and Lee Fe were so engrossed in the violin playing that they didn’t notice her. They were playing the “Tchaikovsky's First Violin Concerto”. It reminded her of the platonic love affair Tchaikovsky had with his patron and lover Nadezhda von Meck. They never even met each other yet Tchaikovsky could write such romantic music for her. She thought of Dagong and sighed. She cared about him very much. She wished he had kissed her that last time in front of her dormitory. Maybe he would come and see her at Beida. With that thought, she went to bed accompanied by the beautiful music.

In the morning at 8:00 AM, Baiyun got up and ventured to her father’s room. Lee Fe was gone and Father's head lay sideways on the round table, sound asleep. Loud snoring could be heard. The wine glass tipped and soaked through the paper on the table. Under the dim lamplight that burnt through the night, the flushing of his face made him look like a roasted animal.

She gathered up a few things from her room and left without saying farewell to anyone.

Chapter 12

Baiyun returned to her dorm and found Yumei in bed among many blankets, eating lunch.

“Hi, Yumei. Are you sick?”

“No. I’m tired of staying at Longfe’s home. They invited me to stay with them last night. Her parents are hard to deal with. They are typical Pekingese and looked down upon small town people like me.” Yumei yawned and pulled her long and thick hair to the back of her head. Her eyelids were slightly swollen. Her high cheek-boned face had a few new pimples, which were shining under the rays of sunshine from the window. Her naturally oily face was the culprit and the thick lotion she put on sometimes made it worse.

“Where is Longfe?” Baiyun sat on the bed across the table from Yumei.

“His parents want him stay at home for a while. I am not going to wait for him. I am going to do something exciting!” Yumei smiled while putting a dumpling into her mouth.

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to try to be one of representatives from the chemistry department in the dialogue delegation. I know the head of this organization who is also from my home town.” Yumei sounded very confident.

“Is he that student from the political science department?”

“Yes.”

“That’s great. He is really one of the top student leaders.”

“That’s right. What have you been doing?”

“I have been working for the News Center as a reporter,” said Baiyun modestly.

“I know. I thought you had followed Dagong home after he and some workers had been beaten by the police.”

“Yes. Then my mother’s boyfriend took me home.” Baiyun stood up and wanted to leave before she had to tell her Dagong was married.

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. So you didn’t stay with Dagong and take care of him?” Yumei probed further.

“No. There were plenty of help there. What do you think? You think we are husband and wife already?” said Baiyun before stepping out of the door.

As soon as she got back on the street, she heard a major news conference was held in the conference hall. She decided to go there first. When she finally arrived by foot, the conference just started. Students crowded the conference hall as well as the stairs. The hall was extremely quiet except for the speaker and thousands of beating hearts.

“It is time for us to launch a mass hunger strike!” A deep and strong male voice came through the speaker in the hallway where Baiyun stood. “Our conditions for ending such a hunger strike are, the first, the government should officially declare the movement a patriotic action, the second, it should conduct a dialogue with the students. Our movement has been successful up to now. But we have to strive hard to convince the government that we are determined so we can force them to accept our conditions fully and to bring the prodemocracy movement to a complete victory!”

Applause and cheers followed the first speaker. Students in the stairways were stirred too. Everyone tried to push forward to witness this extraordinary event. Baiyun did advance a few steps forward. But she knew it was only because the whole crowd was packed tighter and inching forward. Her armpits and chest were full of sweat. The smell of perspiration around her was suffocating. But she stood there firmly like a flagpole.

“I have an idea.” A young fresh voice came through the microphone. The crowd suddenly calmed down again. “I have been practicing qiqong since I was a child. I have gone on many hunger strikes in order to fight my father. You must master qiqong if you want to survive a prolonged hunger strike. It is the secret to victory. I want to be a hunger striker.” He said to the cheering crowd, “I want you to join me in the hunger strike. I want all of us to practice qiqong!” The crowd laughed out loud.

“Practice qiqong? Maybe we all should go to the Tiananmen Square, practicing qiqong there. Then the government would be happy about us because we would feel so peaceful and forget about the movement.” Baiyun heard somebody in a crowd next to her made the comment. She did not think the hunger strike had been decided yet. It was such a serious matter, which may put people’s lives at risk. The student leaders should at least consult with many people before they made the final decision, Baiyun thought.

“I, Longfe Huang and the rest of the Beida Student Federation have decided that the hunger strike would begin tomorrow. Everyone should feel free to join us.” The crowd turned silent as though they were hit by a blow and was slow to respond. Then she heard several voices announcing their support. Baiyun looked around. Most people were quiet except their necks were stretched longer and their feet were on tiptoes. It seemed that they could actually see the stage from the hallway if they were taller.

Baiyun was not surprised to see Longfe came back from his home this morning. He had grown into a confident student leader. But would she want to be a hunger striker? She was not ready to die yet, Baiyun told herself. She was a girl with dreams. She had worked hard and had high expectations toward the future. She had not experienced so many things in life yet. She wanted to graduate from college and to go to America. She wanted to become a scientist and a writer. Some day she would like to meet a nice young man to fall in love with and to experience real love. With Dagong, she thought she had found true love but it was short-lived. Now she was a bit confused about this relationship. Would this make her want to die? No. She still had to find out Dagong’s mystery. She once told her classmates since she had such a strong will to live, she would try to stay alive even if she had lost all her limbs.

“I will commit suicide if that happens to me,” said Wenjing. The world always looked grayer to this hard-working and intelligent girl.

“Yeck, I couldn’t imagine to live that way,” said Yumei with a smirk. She could even be a pragmatist sometimes.

After that argument, the word “weird” or “crazy” were often used to describe Baiyun, which she didn’t mind at all. In Beijing University, one could be proud to be crazy. But in this moment, Baiyun was not crazy. She knew she didn’t want to die and she was not going to risk her life either. Her own calmness surprised her. She was an adventurous girl now and was easily tempted by new challenges. Maybe she felt more comfortable to remain as an observer. She preferred to join in the hunger strike later in a quieter and less visible fashion. Nevertheless she had not sensed the urgency to start a hunger strike yet. She had a feeling that the organizers of the hunger strike had some unknown reason to announce it today.

At this moment, a tall and muscular man leaped in front of her and pushed forward by literally stepping on top of everyone. In a while, a deep and rather hoarse voice came through the speaker. Baiyun knew that was Big Li.