by Ha Jin
“It was not a rebellion!” Tian almost shouted.
That silenced her. Tian felt he might not be able to take them as real friends anymore—obviously, they and he had different worldviews. He said calmly, “The Communist government wants people to forget, but I choose to remember and do something to make others remember. We mustn’t let that part of history vanish like smoke.”
They both smiled without speaking, shaking their heads. Tian wondered why Yabin, a longtime dissident, had changed his position on the Tiananmen massacre—perhaps he’d heard too many stories of corruption among the former student leaders who had fled to the West. Some of them had taken bribes, some pocketed funds raised in the name of supporting dissidents’ families, and some even covertly worked for the Chinese government.
Tian went to Boston Common for the memorial on Sunday, June 3. The afternoon sun was mild after a light shower in the morning, and about two hundred people had gathered by the time he arrived. The modest number of attendees disappointed him, and he understood why Yabin wouldn’t come this year. Yabin seemed to have sensed the public’s loss of interest in democratic movements, and Laura, too, had influenced him for the worse.
A row of blown-up photographs of the Tiananmen massacre stretched along the front of the makeshift platform. Two former student leaders were present, including Chai Ling, who was a local now, living in Cambridge, and slightly plumper than she’d been three years prior. She spoke about the importance of the twenty-third anniversary of the democracy movement and demanded that the Chinese government admit its crime, publish the names of the dead, punish the murderers, and compensate parents for their killed children. The other speaker, an eloquent Harvard sociologist with a broad forehead and wide cheeks, repeated the same demands, but he added that in hindsight, the students had been too docile and should have rebelled with arms because their enemies were savage and brutal and never hesitated to kill.
A young student went up and spoke about how she and her peers had been brainwashed back in China and how their eyes had finally been opened in the course taught here. She went on to say, “My mother was Deng Xiaoping’s English interpreter, but she never divulged a word to me about the bloodshed. After learning the truth at Professor He’s seminar, I called home and asked my mother where she’d been on that bloody night. She said she was with Deng Xiaoping in an underground bunker, because the top Communist leaders feared that the government might be overthrown. She knew, everybody knew, the Communist Party had committed a horrible crime!” The girl grew so emotional that she wept.
What she said shocked Tian. He’d never thought the Communist regime could be that fragile. No wonder many of the top leaders had bank accounts in Switzerland—they were prepared to flee the country anytime.
“Fight for a free China!” a young man shouted.
Some of the audience repeated the slogan, raising their fists.
“Democracy will prevail!” he cried again.
More people shouted in one voice, a swarm of arms thrust up in the air.
Then an American journalist, a tall fiftysomething man wearing a brown jacket, went up and spoke about what he had witnessed on the night of June 3, 1989. He saw pedestrians hit by random bullets, two civilians run over by a combat personnel carrier, and a gruesome scene at the front of a hospital, where dozens of bodies were lined up, waiting to be identified and claimed. “That night destroyed my vision of China,” he said. “I used to study Chinese history and literature passionately at the University of Washington, dreaming of becoming a scholar in Chinese culture. The gunshots and bloodshed at Tiananmen Square killed the imagined China in my head and shattered my youthful dream. I simply can’t forget the brutal and grisly sights. I want to shout to the world: Don’t forget Tiananmen!”
After his speech, the performances began. Tian was the first, and he sang soulfully, giving all he had. With his eyes half closed, he began the song “I Cannot Forget”:
Mama, I still remember the lullaby you used to sing.
Nestling in your arms, I went to sleep
While your voice lingered in my ears.
Mama, your sweet songs gave me
Beautiful dreams and a lifelong blessing,
But now you are no longer here.
Mama, now I’m far away from home,
But I still hear you murmuring at night.
Whenever I think of you, I’m full of tears…
As he was singing, he saw his mother’s lined face, mild and radiating love. She now smiled, now frowned, now glowed. Tears streamed down his cheeks. He could hardly hold himself together, but managed to finish the song.
Out of habit, he didn’t stay for the rest of the program, afraid that people would accost him or take photos with him. He never felt comfortable among a crowd. His throat was still tight and his temples kept throbbing. He could see that this memorial gathering had fallen short of expectations. Indeed, over the years such efforts had shrunk more or less to mere academic affairs, and the public seemed to have grown less interested and more forgetful. Hurriedly he edged away and headed for the Park Street station to catch the train back to Quincy.
The local Chinese-language media reported on the memorial event in Boston Common. One article praised Tian’s performance, saying that he had put all his heart into the song and that he was clearly a devout patriot. The writer went so far as to claim: “Yao Tian must see the mother in his song as the motherland that has abandoned him and her other children abroad, though all of them still love her wholeheartedly.”
“What a stupid cliché!” he said to himself. In the context of the Tiananmen massacre, China seemed to him more like an old hag, so senile and so ailing that she had to eat the flesh and blood of her children to sustain herself. In the back of his mind lingered a question to which he didn’t yet know the answer: If a country has betrayed a citizen, isn’t the citizen entitled to betray the country?
The article made him reflect on his personal emotion in the context of historical memory. In his performance he’d been motivated mainly by his mourning for his mother, but the manifestation of his grief was interpreted as a collective emotion shaped by the memory of a historical event. Nobody could tell how personal his singing was—all took it as a show of his love for the motherland. This was a misinterpretation, but he couldn’t say it was a mistake—it only showed how the personal and the historical had converged.
27
From Shuna, Tian had learned that his mother’s caregivers had been paid. Freda had also shown him in an email how she’d spent the money he’d given her. After that, he’d lost touch with her for more than a month. Then he heard from Freda again. She wrote: “I am very sorry that your mother passed away. If I can be of help in another way, just let me know.”
Tianjin hadn’t worked out for her, so she was in Beijing now, at a private cultural association called Two-Way Street. She ran a lecture series there and was also in charge of its advertising program. She enjoyed living and working in the capital, though she wasn’t yet earning enough to make ends meet. Rent was exorbitant and everything pricey except for foods sold at eateries and snack bars.
His mother’s ashes were still at the crematory. It had been two months now since her death, and, having let her stay away long enough, it was time to take her home—to inter her. She should return to the countryside where his father and his sister had been laid to rest, and where Tian’s grandparents were also buried. He hadn’t yet asked Shuna to take his mother’s ashes to their home village, because he’d been thinking about erecting a headstone. His family’s grave had just a wooden plaque at its front, and he realized he needed to seize this opportunity to put up a stone. But it would be expensive—a decent one with engraving would cost at least fifteen hundred dollars.
He decided to inter his mother with his family first. Shuna agreed to take his mother’s ashes to the countryside personally and ensur
e that her casket was buried alongside his father’s and Anji’s. His home village was about forty miles east of Dalian, and the trip to the countryside and back to Beijing took her two days. She went without sending word in advance, since there were no longer any living relatives in the countryside. Most of the Yaos had left for southern coastal areas, where jobs were better paid and life more colorful. Shuna located his family’s grave and hired a villager to dig it open. His mother’s tiny casket was placed next to his father’s and his sister’s, together with his grandparents’, then the grave was closed. Shuna took photos of the site and sent them to Tian. The cemetery looked like a miniature village sprawling all over a sloping hill, some graves elaborate like tiny temples. His family’s was shabby and inconspicuous. This made him more determined to put up a decent headstone for them.
But he was afraid to ask Shuna to pay for it. He hadn’t sent her money in five months, and now that his mother was buried, he knew it was time to pick up the remittances once more. He was sure she would oppose the idea of acquiring a gravestone for his family now, no matter how hard he tried to convince her that this was the opportune time. She would say that the stone always could wait, but that their daughter’s education was more important now. Shuna had hired two tutors for Tingting, one for English composition and the other for math. In addition, she had to pay for the weekend dance classes. From her point of view it was time for Tian to resume some financial responsibilities in their household. He couldn’t argue with that. Nevertheless, he couldn’t stop thinking about the headstone he owed his family.
He decided to ask Freda to help. She seemed resourceful and well connected in northeastern China; plus, she was already familiar with his mother’s affairs. To his relief, she agreed to look into the possibility. Within two days she emailed back, saying she could find a good headstone and have it erected for his family. He was pleased and deposited twenty-five hundred dollars into her account at HSBC bank, considering the labor, shipping, and other costs. He praised her and promised to remain grateful.
She came back, “There’s no need to sweet-talk me like that. But one of these days you’d better show, with an actual deed, how you appreciate my help.”
He replied, “Of course I will. Thanks for being willing to give me a hand.”
He had no idea what he could do for her. For now, his immediate goal was to carry out his duty to his family. “Rest assured,” Freda said, “I am going to find a good headstone for your family. You will be impressed.”
Her eagerness unnerved him a little, but he appreciated her ability and alacrity. Within a week she emailed him a photograph of a fine slab, a kind of marble—it looked smooth and pinkish and expensive. He was glad and told her to buy it. Then he gave her the names of his parents and sister and his grandparents, as well as the years of their births and deaths.
Soon another photograph came showing the words and numerals etched on the slab. Freda said she’d have it shipped to his home village and then drive there personally to supervise the raising of it. Tian was amazed—she was handling the matter as efficiently as if she’d been in the funeral business for years. Their communications grew more frequent and no longer made him anxious.
By the end of August, the headstone was in place. Freda even had two dwarf cypresses planted beside the slab, one on each side. One of the photos she had sent him showed a tiny brass pot placed in front of the stone, planted with smoking joss sticks. A small pile of ghost money was burning in front of the pot. The grave looked nice and well kept now. Freda had done such an exemplary job that if she were here, he’d have had to acknowledge it with a substantial gift—a cruise voyage or front-row opera tickets. Secretively he felt relieved that she was so far away, since he wasn’t sure how to get along with her or reciprocate the favor properly. She might even assume he still viewed her as a girlfriend of sorts. So he tried to distance himself from her little by little, no longer answering her messages and calls as readily as before.
She seemed incensed by his distancing and warned him not to be ungrateful. The more she pressured him to pay attention to her, the more jittery and cautious he became. By no means should he give her any illusion that there was some kind of intimate relationship between them. On the other hand, he mustn’t let her feel he had just used her. He was grateful and took her as a friend. If only he had known how to pay her back appropriately.
Soon Shuna came to know he was still in touch with Freda. She wrote, “What is your true relationship with this woman? Why is she still meddling with our life?”
He was taken aback but explained, “Freda and I are in touch indeed, but we are not close at all. When my mother was in the hospital I asked Freda to find caregivers for her, since I was too far away and you had your hands full. I sent her money for the caregivers’ wages. That is the honest truth.”
He thought his explanation would pacify Shuna, but when she wrote back she was even angrier: “Don’t lie to me. Your mother passed away four months ago, but you’re still sending Freda money, aren’t you? What for? Are you screwing her again? She’s shown me her ten-year U.S. visa—I know she can go and join you there any day.”
This was insane. He’d had no idea Freda had acquired a ten-year visa, and it looked like she did plan to come back. After brooding about Shuna’s accusation for a day, Tian realized that Freda must be feeding this information to Shuna directly—she seemed determined to meddle with his marriage.
Now he had to level with Shuna. More equivocation would only stir up more complications. He called to tell her about the headstone—how he had enlisted Freda’s help and how much he’d paid for it. Shuna only grew more upset by his explanation and blustered, “The gravestone could have waited. Didn’t I tell you that?”
“I don’t see it that way,” he said. “A stone was the final duty I owed to my family. I wanted to put them and myself at peace.”
That made her furious. She cried, “Do you know how hard it’s been for Tingting and me to manage this past year? When your mother died, I went to Dalian to take care of her funeral and then I took her ashes to the village to bury her with the others of your family. Did I ever ask you for a dime? Did you ever send me a dollar in spite of all the expenses? Let me tell you, I was totally broke and Tingting almost got expelled from prep school—I had to borrow from my brother for her tuition. I never troubled you with money difficulties, but then without breathing a word, you just went ahead and spent twenty-five hundred dollars for the gravestone. Let me repeat, the stone could have waited and any delay wouldn’t have hurt the dead. But we have to support our child now and give her what she needs to go to college.”
He kept silent, not knowing how to argue. He realized he’d been at fault and shouldn’t have rushed to erect the headstone. At least he should have let Shuna know beforehand and discussed the matter with her.
Their exchange upset him. He was so miserable that he walked all the way to the beach to the north and lingered at the waterside for a long time. Daylight seeped away as the tide receded, the ocean spread flat without a wave. To the west pedestrians were strolling along the beach and on the concrete embankment alongside Quincy Shore Drive. It was quiet and muggy, and he began to sing, just to get the sadness off his chest. Walking back and forth on the beach and at times standing with arms akimbo, he let out one song after another, until the moon emerged above the water, casting down soft rays. A ferryboat blew its horn from the distance, chugging away, its lights wavering in the dark.
Standing in the cool breeze coming from the ocean, he went on singing for more than two hours until he was exhausted.
28
These days, he was working for Frank full-time. In the fall their company took on a project in downtown Waltham. A businessman in Guangdong province planned on opening a massage parlor there, converting a small run-down building he’d bought, which had once been a garment factory. Their job was to gut the two-story house and then build six
teen units, which would be massage suites. Tian had misgivings about this job—according to the floor plans there’d be a full bathroom in every unit, which didn’t make sense for a massage parlor and sounded more like an underground brothel. He wondered why Frank would be involved in such a shady business, considering that the investor might immigrate eventually. On the other hand, this job would provide work for all of them for the rest of the winter. If Frank turned it down, there were always others to step in.
Waltham was fifteen miles west of Quincy, accessible mainly by car since the local train service ran just a few times a day. So every morning he’d leave with Funi. She had a small Toyota and drove like a professional—she’d formerly worked in food delivery. She came and picked him up on her way to work in the mornings and brought him back in the evenings. He wanted to cover the gas, but she wouldn’t let him, saying she’d go to Waltham anyway, with or without him. She often boasted that she’d buy a BMW someday when her ship came in. She was a little wild, full of energy and nerve.
The dismantling work in Waltham was laborious, but Tian was interested in seeing the innards of the building—how it was constructed and what materials were used and how the utility and sewage systems were put in. He was fascinated by old houses—they were, without exception, better built than new ones. The earlier builders hadn’t skimped on wood or bricks and other materials. Everything was made to last. Inside the old factory house, even the walls in the basement were made of solid wood. Everything in there was hard to tear off, but they, a team of six, managed gradually to gut the house with axes and crowbars and bolt cutters. Frank would stop by to check on their progress and to make sure that new materials were delivered on time. Yabin also showed up once in a while, mainly to handle paperwork. By chance, he mentioned to Tian that he wanted to become a real-estate agent, believing he could make more by selling houses. “Won’t you have to take a class and pass an exam for a license?” Tian asked. Yabin smiled and said that was a piece of cake and he could do it online.
