—
When Sparrow arrived home from the factory he turned their own radio on straightaway, even though they could hear the neighbours’ radios just fine. He had been caught in the rain and his wet hair looked sad on his forehead. Ai-ming took a towel and rubbed it violently over his head.
“What did you study today?” he asked, muffled.
“Everything. Are we bringing flowers to Tiananmen Square?”
He pushed a corner of towel out of his face. “Flowers?”
“Look, all our neighbours are making them.” She could see into the rooms across the narrow alleyway, and also the rooms adjoining their kitchen, where the Gua family were folding white paper chrysanthemums, the symbol of mourning. “For Comrade Hu Yaobang! He died today, you know.”
“Mmm,” Sparrow said. He was tilted over, trying expel water from his ear. Now his hair was standing straight up and he looked like a porpoise.
She said nonchalantly, “You know, when he was asked which of Chairman Mao’s policies might still be relevant in China, Hu Yaobang said: ‘I think, none.’?”
“You know better than to repeat such things.”
“If the General-Secretary can say it, why can’t I?”
Her father straightened. “Since when did you become the General-Secretary? And wasn’t he purged?”
On the radio, Red Guards were shouting ridiculous slogans at a disgraced Hu Yaobang. This was the 1960s, before Ai-ming was born, and the frenzied sound clip lasted only a few seconds before moving on to better days. Here he was in the new economic zones, here he was with cadres in the Northwest. After the Cultural Revolution and the downfall of the Gang of Four, Comrade Hu worked for the rehabilitation of those who had been wrongly accused….He travelled through 1,500 districts and villages, all the way to remote Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia, to see how Partly policies manifested in people’s lives….
It rained harder. Ai-ming slowly peeled an orange.
In the alleyway, Yiwen walked by wearing a new pink dress, it swayed against her hips as she went, floating against her long pale legs. Ai-ming felt as vulnerable as this naked orange in her hand. They were the same age but she was a child compared to Yiwen, who was an actual university student. Yiwen had a portable cassette player and she was always listening to music as she walked. It was very modern and deeply Western to listen to music that no one else could hear. Private music led to private thoughts. Private thoughts led to private desires, to private fulfillments or private hungers, to a whole private universe away from parents, family and society.
The squeak of Sparrow’s plastic slippers interrupted her thoughts. Ai-ming gave him the peeled orange and he smiled as if she had given him the sun. He went to the record player and Ai-ming flicked off the radio, silencing Hu Yaobang in mid-sentence.
She crawled into bed even though it was still early. The fugue of Bach’s Musical Offering circled in the darkness like a dog chasing its tail. Ai-ming heard her mother come home, and the routine words her parents exchanged. Same bed, different dreams. The old saying described Sparrow and Ling perfectly. How could it be that her mother was such an independent, modern creature? Why did her father love someone so far away from his present reality? How could Ai-ming live a better life than theirs? To her, the only essay question that mattered was, How was it possible for a person to write her own future?
—
On Monday, Ai-ming ran into the neighbour Yiwen at the water spigot. “You’re going to Tiananmen Square this morning, aren’t you?” the older girl asked.
Taken aback, Ai-ming could only say, “Why?”
The girl laughed. She lifted her full water bucket, staggering backwards. “Yes, why?” Yiwen said, still laughing. “I almost believed you! Ai-ming, you really tricked me. What a straight face! If I ever need someone to give an alibi for me, I’m coming to you first.”
Ai-ming smiled. She watched Yiwen’s pink dress float down the alley.
Back in her room, she stood for a moment looking at the stack of books on the desk. The university examinations were still three months away. She drew the curtain across the window, changed her dress and left the apartment.
She pedalled slowly, in love with the wind against her face. Long before Jianguomen changed into Chang’an Avenue, she saw bits of flowers, paper and ribbon all over the road, accumulating like clouds until, at the Square, she arrived at an unreal scene. Thousands of funeral wreaths, with their paper ribbons, were pulsating in the breeze. Just off the Avenue, factory workers were having a public meeting, some girls were reciting poetry, and a group of university students huddled on the ground with ink, brushes and paper, writing essay-length posters. She walked deeper into the Square, searching ludicrously for Yiwen. The concrete seemed to expand from her own feet like an endless grey footprint.
At the Monument to the People’s Heroes, three grandmothers were muttering subversively. “Heart attack.” “Just like that! Right in the middle of a Politburo meeting.” “Those foxes humiliated him, they bullied him until his heart gave out….” A colossal black-and-white Hu Yaobang towered above them, the photo blown up so big that Comrade Hu’s nose was the height of a man. Posters were everywhere, on the ground, affixed to the Monument, on makeshift boards. The ones who should drop dead still live. The one who should live has died. Just reading the poster made Ai-ming feel as if she had cursed the government or ratted out her father.
She actually lifted a hand to cover her eyes. Still the words on the posters slipped between her fingers. Why is it that we can’t choose our own jobs? What right does the government have to keep a private file on me?
She turned around only to find herself facing another wall of paper.
Is it not time to live like human beings?
Do you remember?
I am lonely.
She stepped closer, squinting at the characters. Do you remember?
What illegal thoughts. The ones who should die…But actually, why should anyone’s thoughts be illegal? In the distance, the concrete was shifting, it metamorphosed into a small crowd. The small crowd seemed to replicate itself, more and more demonstrators appeared with banners elongated like ships above their heads. “Arise, slaves, arise! We shall take back the fruits of our labour…” A Tsinghua University flag dipped and slid sideways, and there were others, too, flags announcing the Institute of Aeronautics and People’s University. The students met a line of police. From far away, it looked like a grey wave gulping up a string of fish. The police disappeared and the crowd grew fatter. A banner floated, delicate as a finger, towards her, “Long live education!”