by Ha Jin
So the woman, the old man, and I went up to the boy together. His chest was crushed and his left thigh drilled by a bullet, but he was still breathing. He looked about thirteen, wearing a middle school badge. As I squatted down, about to use my shirt to bind his gun wound, the woman said, “We’ll need that. Take this.” She bit the bottom of her blouse, with one rip tore its hem off, and handed the broad strip of cloth to me. With it I tied up the boy’s thigh to stanch the bleeding. Meanwhile, the old man shed his jacket and wrapped the boy’s wound with it to prevent tetanus. We placed him on the board and carried him away.
Together we hurried toward the hospital. All the way the woman raised my shirt high so that the soldiers might not fire at us.
The boy wasn’t heavy, about ninety pounds. Yet soon the old man at the front started panting and tottering, and we had to slow down a little. The street was strewn with caps, bags, shoes, bicycle bells, jackets, plastic ponchos. After three or four turns, we reached a broader street and saw buses and trucks in flames. In fact, by now it looked as though the whole city was burning, fires and smoke everywhere. At one place there was a pile of bicycles crushed by a tank or a personnel carrier—metal and bloody clothing all tangled in a mess. Not far away a group of double-length buses were smoldering, each having a wide gap in the middle, punched by a tank. Here and there were scattered concrete posts, steel bars, bicycle-lane dividers, lampposts, oil drums, even some propane cylinders.
We reached the hospital at about four o’clock. The building was swarming with wounded people, many of whom were dying. Some had already died before they arrived. The boy we had carried over was still breathing, but his heart stopped a few minutes after the nurses pushed him into the operating room. A head nurse told us woefully, “We didn’t anticipate this carnage. We thought they’d use tear gas, so we stocked some eyedrops and cotton balls. Many people died because we didn’t have the medicine and blood they needed.”
I was astounded by the number of the wounded in the hospital. The corridors and the little front yard were crowded with stretchers loaded with people, some of whom held up IV bottles and tubes for themselves, waiting for treatment. A deranged young woman cried and laughed by turns, tearing at her hair and breasts, while her friends begged a nurse to give her an injection of sedative. I was told that there was a morgue here, but it was too small for all the bodies, so some of the dead were stored in a garage in the backyard. I went there to have a look. The tiny morgue happened to adjoin the garage, and three nurses were in there, busy listing the bodies and gathering information about the dead. An old couple were wailing, as they had just found their son lying among the corpses. Most of the dead were shot in the head or chest. I saw that a young man had three bayonet wounds in the belly and a knife gash in the hand. His mouth was wide open as though still striving to snap at something.
But the garage was an entirely different scene, where about twenty bodies, male and female, were piled together like slaughtered pigs. Several limbs stuck out from the heap; a red rubber band was still wrapped around the wrist of a teenage girl; a pair of eyes on a swollen face were still open, as though gazing at the unplastered wall. A few steps away from the mass of corpses lay a gray-haired woman on her side, a gaping hole in her back ringed with clots of blood. My knees buckled. Crouching down, I began retching, but couldn’t bring anything up. On the ground sparks seemed to burst like fireworks as I slapped my chest with both hands to get my wind back.
Three or four minutes later I rose to my feet and staggered away. Reentering the hospital building, I was too exhausted and too numb to do anything, but was still lucid. I wondered whether I should stay in Beijing or return to Shanning. Since it was impossible to reassemble my group, I decided to go back as soon as I could. I asked a nurse for directions; it happened that the train station wasn’t far away. She took off her robe and said, “Put this on. It’s dangerous to be in your bloody clothes.”
I looked down and found my undershirt and pants stained with the boy’s blood. “Don’t you need this?” I asked her about the robe.
“We have plenty.”
I thanked her and slipped on the robe, which turned out to be more than helpful. On my way to the train station, the soldiers didn’t question me, taking me for one of the medical personnel. By now it was already daylight, and the troops seemed too tired to move around. The farther south I walked, the more people appeared on the streets, some of which resembled a battlefield, littered with scraps of metal, bloody puddles, and burned trucks and personnel carriers. I was amazed that the civilians, without any real weapons in their hands, had somehow managed to disable so many army vehicles. Although few guns were fired now, smoke kept rising in the west.
Coming close to the train station, I saw a column of tanks standing along a street. Their cannons pointed north, their engines were idling, and their rears were emitting greasy fumes. The air was rife with diesel fuel. Some civilians were talking to the soldiers; many of them wept and scrunched up their faces. I stopped to watch. An officer in breeches was listening to the civilians attentively and went on sighing and shaking his head in disbelief. Among the crowd an old man held up a long placard that said PUNISH THE MURDERERS! A white banner displayed the slogan THE DEBT OF BLOOD HAS TO BE PAID IN BLOOD!
A young man standing beside me remarked with a thrill in his voice, “These tanks are the most advanced type our country has made, modeled after the Russian T-62. These fellows belong to the Thirty-eighth Army. They’re good troops, moving in to shell those bastards from Datong.”
“Long live the Thirty-eighth Army!” a male voice shouted.
People joined in, raising their fists.
“Wipe out the fascists!” broke from the same man.
Once more people roared together. Their voices quickened my heart a little, and my spirits began to lift. Then I noticed that all the muzzles of the tanks’ cannons still wore canvas hoods, and that all the antiaircraft guns atop the tanks were covered too. My heart sagged again. When I was a small boy, my pals and I had often played near the barracks of an armored regiment garrisoned in my hometown. Occasionally we sneaked into the army’s compound to pick up used batteries and cartridge cases. Whenever the tanks and self-propelled guns rolled out for a live ammunition exercise, they would shed all the canvas hoods and covers before they set off. So now I could tell that the troops in front of me were not prepared to fight a battle at all, and that probably they too had come to smash the “uprising.” These civilians here were misled by their own wishful thinking. I wondered if I should tell them the truth, but decided not to.
Hurriedly I went to the train station, where I ran into two of the undergraduates from my group, a boy and a girl. At the sight of me they broke out sobbing. I had no idea how to comfort them and joined them in weeping.
“I’m going to write a novel to fix all the fascists on the page,” announced the bespectacled girl, stamping her feet. Fierce light bounced off her glasses.
“Yes,” the boy backed her up, “we must nail them to the pillory of history!”
I didn’t know how to respond to that, unsure whether we could fight the brute force with words only, so I remained speechless. The girl was one of those budding poets who had often shown up at the literary gatherings on campus.
Around us were hundreds of students waiting for trains, many of which had been canceled. Some of the youngsters were wounded, weeping or cursing continually. Outside it began raining, the initial downpour pattering on the gray plaza, and whitish vapor leaped up, rolling like waves of smoke, so we couldn’t go out to look for the rest of our group. In fact, we were too terrified to reenter the city. We stayed together in a corner of the waiting hall for a whole day until the first train was available.
35
Although I’d slept twelve hours since I came back from Beijing, I hadn’t recovered from the trip yet. For a whole day I didn’t go out except at noon, when I went to fetch some hot water and buy a few wheaten cakes at a food stand. When I walked, my l
egs still trembled a little, so I stayed in bed most of the time. Huran asked me again and again about the massacre in the capital. He had heard of it from the Voice of America, but he didn’t seem surprised, saying he had expected such an outcome. Unlike him, most of the students in the dormitory houses were outraged, and a few brave ones even put on black armbands. Still in shock, I couldn’t talk to Huran at length. I just repeated, “They killed lots of people, lots.”
Mantao wasn’t back yet, and I worried. Toward evening I went out to mail a letter to my family, telling them what I had seen in Beijing. On my way back I ran into an undergraduate who had been in Mantao’s group and had returned that morning. He said they hadn’t reached Tiananmen Square either. I asked him where Mantao was.
“You don’t know?” His dreamy eyes gleamed.
“Know what?”
“He was shot in the face when he pitched a Molotov cocktail at a personnel carrier.”
“Where is he now?”
“I’ve no idea. I heard he died on the way to the hospital.”
My chest and throat contracted with pain, but I managed to ask, “How about the others in your group?”
“They’re all right, I guess. Some of them haven’t returned yet. Those who’re back can’t stop crying and cursing in the dorms. Old Ghost has a sprained arm.”
Old Ghost was a skeletal fellow, an economics major. I walked away. Tears were flowing down my face. I wished I were an army commander, though I knew that even if I were, I couldn’t have done a thing to avenge the dead, because it was the Party that controlled the army. In the indigo sky a skein of geese appeared, veering north while squawking gutturally. The sight of the birds reminded me of a squadron of superbombers. “Avenge me. . . . Kill them all!” Mr. Yang’s last words suddenly reverberated in my mind. I shook my head forcefully to get rid of the haunting sounds.
Back in the dormitory, I dozed away in bed again. Whenever awake, I would listen to my shortwave radio, and tears welled up in my eyes from time to time. On the BBC a reporter said plaintively that an estimated five thousand people had been killed, that many students were crushed by the tanks and armored personnel carriers, that a civil war might break out anytime since more field armies were heading for Beijing, that forty million dollars had just been transferred to a Swiss bank by someone connected with the top national leaders, and that an airliner was reserved for them in case they needed to flee China. However, another reporter, a woman from Hong Kong, told a different story. She said composedly that at most about a thousand civilians had been killed, that the government was in firm control of the situation, that the police were rounding up the student leaders, and that dozens of intellectuals had been detained. The foreign reporters on the radio tended to contradict one another, whereas no mainland Chinese, except for the government’s spokesman, Mu Yuan, and a lieutenant colonel in charge of clearing Tiananmen Square, dared to comment on the event. The officer repeatedly stressed that the People’s Liberation Army had successfully quelled the counterrevolutionary uprising without killing a single civilian. I listened and dozed off by turns. The dormitory was noisy, and numerous radio sets were clamoring.
Ever since I boarded the train back, a terrible vision had tormented me. I saw China in the form of an old hag so decrepit and brainsick that she would devour her children to sustain herself. Insatiable, she had eaten many tender lives before, was gobbling new flesh and blood now, and would surely swallow more. Unable to suppress the horrible vision, all day I said to myself, “China is an old bitch that eats her own puppies!” How my head throbbed, and how my heart writhed and shuddered! With the commotion of two nights ago still in my ears, I feared I was going to lose my mind.
The next morning I didn’t go out either. Toward noon, when I was lying on my bed and listening to the radio, somebody knocked on the door. I raised myself on one elbow and called, “Come in.”
It was Yuman Tan. He wore a yellow V-necked sweater, which made him look like a different man, rather spirited. Seeing his bright-colored outfit, I almost flared up. He seemed anxious, and his eyes were scanning the closed mosquito nets over the other two beds, as if to make sure there wasn’t another person in the room. I sat up and glared at him, believing he must be on an official errand. I grunted, “I’m alone here. What’s up?”
He grinned and said, “Jian, I came to tell you that the city police are coming to arrest you this afternoon. You must go.”
I was transfixed, then began to defend myself as if he were a police officer. I said almost in a cry, “I went to the capital only for personal reasons. Believe me, I was mad at Meimei and wanted to show her that I wasn’t a coward and dared to go to Beijing whenever I liked. Honestly, I didn’t mean to demand democracy and freedom and didn’t even get to Tiananmen Square. You know I’ve never been politically active.”
His face didn’t change. “This makes no difference, Jian. They’ve already decided you’re a counterrevolutionary.”
“Why?”
“I’m not sure. Yesterday afternoon Ying Peng assigned me to prepare all the material about you. I overheard her telling the police on the phone this morning that if you hadn’t lost your mind, you must be a counterrevolutionary. It’s a hopeless case. She’s made up her mind to send you either to prison or to a mental hospital. The police are coming for you early this afternoon. You’d better go now.”
“I didn’t do anything. Why should I run away?”
“Don’t be stupid. This is no time to argue. They took Kailing Wang away yesterday. You must leave now, or at least hide somewhere for a few days.”
“They arrested her? For what?”
“I’ve heard that she gave money to the students, or they couldn’t have gone to Beijing.”
At last his words sank in. I got up and began gathering things I’d take with me. He said anxiously, “I must be going. Don’t let anyone know I told you this.”
“All right, I won’t.”
Before he could head away, I said, “Wait a minute. Why did you run the risk of helping me?” I knew he disliked me as much as I despised him.
He blushed a little. “I told Weiya about your case at lunch. She wanted me to inform you immediately because she doesn’t feel well and can’t come herself.”
“What happened to her?”
“She has taken to her bed since she heard that the army started attacking the students.”
“But why do you look so happy? Because some of them are dead?” I couldn’t help my derision.
“Come on, don’t think I’m heartless. I cried together with Weiya when we heard the news, and I too have soaked my pillow with tears at night, but I have to put on a cheerful face in public. If I look happy, it’s out of habit. A mask is necessary for survival.”
Still I couldn’t curb my anger. He had gained so much from Mr. Yang’s death. Now he was officially the editor in chief of the journal, had Weiya in his palm, and surely would be promoted to professor soon. No wonder he was in high spirits. I said to him, “Listen, Weiya and I were Mr. Yang’s students. To me she’s more than a fellow grad, she’s a friend. If you don’t treat her well, I’ll get even with you one of these days.”
He was taken aback. His face fell as his eyes kept flickering. Yet he said rather solemnly, “Why are you so petulant, so hostile to me? What makes you believe I’m such a lucky man? Weiya and I have just been dating. You think we’re going to get married tomorrow? I wish I were that lucky.”
For a moment I was speechless, just gazing at him. He went on, “Weiya is a such a good girl that, to be honest, I feel I’ve just begun to learn how to love a woman.” Seeing that I was still at a loss, he reminded me, “You must go now, Jian.”
I forced myself to say, “Good luck.”
“Thanks.” He nodded, his eyes brightened.
After he left, I washed my face with cold water to refresh my mind a little. I had to act coolheadedly from now on.
Outside, in the scorching sun, Little Owl shouted with both fists thrust upwar
d into the air, “Good news! Great news! The People’s Liberation Army is executing counterrevolutionaries in Beijing. Bang-bang-bang-bang! All tanks are shelling those little bastards!” He was running on his bandy legs from one dormitory to another to spread the victorious news. Then came his wild bawling; somebody must be hitting him.
I dared not take too many of my belongings, because I wanted to give the police the impression that I was still around so they would wait for me to return. I placed my pocket Japanese dictionary and an English grammar on the desk and kept them both opened with a bunch of keys and a stack of flash cards. With two changes of clothes, my Panda radio, and a few books in my shoulder bag, including an English dictionary, I walked out, leaving the door unlocked.
Quickly I pedaled north to Black Brook, a rural town about seven miles away to the east. The police must have been combing trains at the downtown station for local student leaders and for those who had fled Beijing, so I’d better go to a small town.
Biking on the dirt road that had almost no traffic, I thought about Yuman Tan’s visit. To me he used to be a mere toady, a flunky of Secretary Peng’s; but now he seemed a different man. Today he showed a modicum of decency and even some dignity. More than that, I must admit that he acted as a respectable man, capable of honorable feelings. What happened to him? What caused the change?
Weiya, of course. She must have given him some hope and happiness. Yes, he even looked younger today, despite the national tragedy on his mind. So it was happiness and love for a worthy woman that had brought some human decency out of him. How often we hear people say that suffering can purify one’s soul, ennoble one’s heart, and strengthen one’s moral fiber. How earnestly Mr. Yang had claimed on his sickbed, “I’m only afraid that I’m not worthy of my suffering!” Indeed, some great men and women are fortified and redeemed through their suffering, and they even seek sadness instead of happiness, just as van Gogh asserted, “Sorrow is better than joy,” and Balzac declared, “Suffering is one’s teacher.” But these dicta are suitable only for extraordinary souls, the select few. For ordinary people like us, too much suffering can only make us meaner, crazier, pettier, and more wretched. In Yuman Tan’s case, it was a little hope, happiness, and human warmth that made the seed of goodness sprout.
