The sparrow chirps softly. When it’s asleep, it clings to me with its claws and warms my skin. It should be living in the sky now, flying so high that people have to lift their heads to see it.
My bed shakes as the piledrivers outside ram steel bars deep into the ground. The thuds seem to pound in time with my heartbeat. I remember the heartbeats of A-Mei and Tian Yi. Everyone else seems distant from me. The hole where my left kidney used to be begins to tremble. Perhaps my left urethra is full of urine, or a few drops of blood have dripped into my bladder. I feel a change taking place. My organs seem to have received some secret signal. They appear to be preparing for something — either death or a return to consciousness… My thoughts go back to Wen Niao and the bliss I felt that afternoon she made love to me.
I hear people climbing up the stairwell. They’re not removal men or migrant labourers. These footsteps are light. They ascend to the third-floor landing and come to a halt outside our front door.
‘You’re an illegal resident here,’ a voice shouts. ‘Everyone else in this building has moved out. We’re telling you this for the last time. This building will be pulled down in the next three days. If you don’t move out now, you will have to take responsibility for the consequences.’
The pounding thuds of the piledrivers outside echo through the stairwell.
‘Who are you? Another bunch of relocation officers trying to pass yourselves off as government officials? I haven’t signed the demolition agreement. You have no right to order me to move out.’
‘I know you haven’t signed it. We’re from the demolition and relocation office. Every building has the odd stubborn resident like you. In the end, we have to remove them by force. If you resist us, you will not only forfeit any claim to compensation, you will also be breaking the law. The company has been granted a demolition licence by the public security bureau. When the building is demolished in three days’ time, the police will be present to make sure that everything goes smoothly.’
‘What a stench! It smells like a chicken hut in here. How can she bear to live like this?’
‘You businessmen are colluding with the government to oppress us ordinary citizens. But I’m not afraid of you! Go ahead and build your shopping centre, your public square, your Bird’s Nest stadium, but don’t push me out of my little nest.’
‘This is your last warning!’ They walk out without closing the door. I can hear bulldozers thud in the distance and walls topple to the ground.
On the north face of the mountain, the earth is red. A bird with six eyes lives there. Whenever it appears, a calamity will befall the land.
The tanks and armoured personnel carriers lined up on the north side of the Square began rumbling towards us, followed by a huge mass of helmeted soldiers. My head was juddering so much I couldn’t see clearly.
Wang Fei, Tang Guoxian and I sat at the front of the crowd and watched the vehicles get into line, and the sea of troops behind them organise themselves into neat columns.
I regretted not carrying Mou Sen’s corpse out of the way. A tank had already flattened the emergency tent.
Hou Dejian and Zi Duo went to negotiate with the martial law troops. When they came back, the crowd cleared a path for them allowing them to return to the upper terrace.
Soon, the students’ loudspeakers came on. ‘This is Hou Dejian speaking. We’ve just had a private discussion with the army officials. They say that, as long as you all withdraw from the Square now, they will guarantee that no one will come to harm. The four of us entreat you to leave. You can’t fool yourselves any longer. If you don’t leave now, no one will come out of this alive…’ Although his voice wasn’t very loud, everyone could hear it. ‘I know that the students who are still here in the Square aren’t afraid of dying. But you can’t give up your lives like this, for nothing! There is still so much you can achieve…’ His hoarse cry was swallowed by the night.
Suddenly all the lights went out. The Square and the sky were pitch black. The only specks of light were from the fires still flickering in the distance.
‘Fuck it! If I’d known they’d do this I would have brought a torch.’
‘The bastards! They don’t have the guts to launch the crackdown with the lights on!’
The crowd became agitated. A few girls began to shriek in panic.
‘Fellow students! Please don’t stand up or move around!’ Old Fu shouted through a megaphone. ‘We don’t want anyone to get trampled on.’
I got up and shouted, ‘Student marshals, this is Dai Wei speaking, head of security. This is it. The moment has come. You must all stand up now and link arms, and protect the crowds behind you.’
At that moment, thousands of helmeted soldiers came running out from the Great Hall of the People in the west and moved towards us. Wu Bin jumped up, pulled out a petrol bomb from his jacket and unscrewed the top. ‘If anyone dares come near me we will go up in flames together! I am doing this to avenge Mou Sen’s death!’ Before he had a chance to reach for his lighter, Tang Guoxian pounced on top of him and grabbed his hands. I smelt the petrol spilling onto the ground.
‘Where’s the lighter?’ I said, trying to snatch the bottle from Wu Bin’s hand. Everyone around us panicked and pushed back into the crowd behind, trying to edge away from the smell of petrol.
In the darkness I heard a voice cry, ‘Dai Wei? Is there anyone called Dai Wei here?’
A student handed me a letter and said that someone at the back of the crowd had passed it down. The paper felt smooth between my fingers, but it was too dark for me to read what it said, so I put it in my pocket.
Tang Guoxian managed to grab the cigarette lighter and bottle from Wu Bin’s hands. Someone in the distance lit a fire. The red flames made my blood run faster.
‘Throw away your walkie-talkie, Wang Fei,’ I said, spotting a red light glinting on its metallic cover.
‘I’m not using it. Anyway, the batteries have run out.’
The national anthem blared out again from the loudspeakers on the Monument. ‘Arise, ye who refuse to be slaves! With our flesh and blood, let us build a new Great Wall!’ As we sang along, we began to relax a little. It occurred to me that most of the people who’d been shot by the Party since 1949 had shouted ‘Long live the Communist Party!’ when the bullets were fired. I wondered whether I, too, was going to die singing the national anthem beneath the national flag. I thought about A-Mei and wondered whether she was in the Square, and whether the letter I’d been handed was from her. I hoped she was sitting safely in a hotel room.
In the distance, we heard the Goddess of Democracy crash to the ground. Everyone yelled, ‘Down with Fascism!’ Red signal flares shot into the sky, and suddenly the troops lined up directly opposite us. A dozen soldiers lay down on their stomachs, pointed machine guns at us and placed their fingers on the triggers.
The muzzles were black holes. I knew that if they lit up, I would share the same fate as Mou Sen. My veins started throbbing. Everyone linked arms. Our limbs tensed as the roar of the tanks grew louder.
Hou Dejian cried through the loudspeakers, ‘Your lives are precious. Don’t throw them away needlessly!’
Then Old Fu shouted, ‘It’s too dark for a show of hands. Let’s take a voice vote. If you think we should stay in the Square, shout “stay”!’
‘Stay!’ The bellowing cries made the crowd seem united.
‘If you think we should go, shout “go”!’
‘Go!’ Although this response was softer, it was produced by more voices.