Barbara Taylor Bradford - Remember

As he picked it up, Jimmy called out, ‘Arch, before you get involved with New York, could you come over here for a minute, please? I’d like you to stand in for Nicky.’

‘It’ll be my pleasure,’ Arch replied, putting the receiver down, pushing his chair back, and walking over to the window. ‘But what exactly do you have in mind?’

‘I’d like you to go outside on the balcony, so that I can get my camera angles set properly. It’ll save time later. Shooting from this angle, I can get some good close-ups of her,’ Jimmy explained. ‘And with my long-range lens, if I position myself here among these plants, I can pick up the end of Changan Avenue and Tiananmen Square. We’ll have to film when it’s fairly light, unless I can rig up some sort of lighting out there. But it’ll work, Arch, don’t worry.’

‘I’m not at all worried, James. Not when you’re behind the camera.’

It was a balmy night, almost sultry.

Nicky walked along Changan Avenue at a steady pace, dodging in and out between the other pedestrians who were heading in the same direction.

When she first arrived in Beijing, Clee had told her that the Chinese always made their way to the square in the evenings and at weekends, whether to demonstrate or celebrate, mark a memorable occasion or simply while away the time. He had gone on to explain that they went there to think, to mourn, to stroll, and that it was also a place for Sunday outings.

Lately it had become a place for protests.

Since April students from every province in China had been peacefully demonstrating for democracy and freedom. It had actually begun at a memorial in the square for Hu Yaobang, a liberal and enlightened member of the government. A special favourite of the young, he had died earlier that month, and they had come to mourn his passing and celebrate everything he had stood for. Unexpectedly, the memorial had turned into a kind of sit-in, and then the hunger strikes and non-violent demonstrations had started.

This had happened over six weeks ago, and the students were still occupying the square - hundreds of thousands of them. What’s more they were being fully supported by the citizens of Beijing, who brought them food and drinks, quilts and tents and umbrellas. And they sat with the students, commiserating and agreeing and airing their own grievances.

At exactly the same time these demonstrations were starting in Beijing in April, Nicky and her crew were in Israel, where they were doing a special on Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service. But by the end of the month, as they were finishing the special, Nicky had decided they must go to China. Mikhail Gorbachev was due to arrive in the Chinese capital in the middle of May for a state visit and, being fully aware of what the students were doing, Nicky smelled a story developing. A big story. She had phoned the President of News at the ATN network. ‘Listen, Larry, the students aren’t simply going to fold their tents and quietly steal away when Gorbachev comes to town,’ she had pointed out. ‘And it’s my belief real trouble is brewing over there.’

Larry Anderson had hesitated momentarily, and she had pushed harder. ‘Just think of it, Larry. Think of the scenario! How will the kids behave during Gorbachev’s visit? Will they continue to demonstrate? Will they embarrass the government? How will Gorbachev react to them? And just as importantly, how will the Chinese government react to the situation? And what will they do?’

These were only a few of the questions she had posed that morning on the phone from Tel Aviv, and she had obviously been persuasive. After talking to Arch, Larry had agreed they should go. He had immediately pulled them out of the Middle East, brought them back to New York for a week’s rest, then sent them jetting off to Mainland China with his blessing.

She and the crew had arrived on 9 May. Ostensibly they had come to cover the state visit of Mikhail Gorbachev, which was due to commence on 15 May. But they were really there because of the students - and Nicky’s anticipation of trouble.

By the time the Russian leader, his wife, and entourage had descended, Nicky, Arch, Jimmy, and Luke were well ensconced in the Beijing Hotel, along with over one thousand foreign correspondents from every country in the world.

Just as Nicky had suspected, Gorbachev received something of a hero’s welcome from the students, but there was a great deal of turmoil during his three-day visit, and the demonstrations continued unabated. As far as Nicky was concerned, the students had totally upstaged the summit meeting between the Russian and Chinese politicians, just as she had predicted they would. And she had made a point of focusing on the students and their predicament in her news reports.

At one point during Gorbachev’s stay, one million demonstrators had converged on Tiananmen, demanding democratic rights, freedom of speech and a government free of corruption and graft. The students had hunkered down in the square, determined to remain there despite the heat of a scorching sun, sudden, violent thunderstorms and heavy rain.

Arch had made sure that Jimmy got everything on film, and Nicky’s brilliant daily newscasts had been transmitted back to the States via the satellite. And for the short time that Gorbachev and the hordes of foreign reporters remained in Beijing, the government had turned a blind eye, assumed an air of tolerance about the students - and the foreign press as well.

But the authorities were quick to make their move two days after the Russians and much of the press had departed. They enforced martial law. Nicky and the crew had stayed on, as had several hundred other journalists. Something extraordinary was happening in China and the newsgatherers wanted to be there to do their job, to report unfolding events, history in the making.

Now, as she walked toward the square on this warm June night, Nicky’s mind raced. She knew the end was imminent. The children were going to die. Thousands of them. With this terrible thought her step faltered, but only for a moment. She recovered herself at once, and walked on as steadily as before, even though her heart suddenly felt like a lead weight in her chest.

As a chronicler of war, revolution, famine, flood and earthquake, she was a constant witness to death and destruction, pain and anguish … on every level, in many countries. And she never grew accustomed to it, was forever pained and sickened by these catastrophic events.

Over the years she had come to know the world as a most terrifying and horrendous place to live. Unfortunately, there was nowhere else to go.

What she saw and reported on bit like corrosive acid into her. Yet she had learned a rigid self-control, had found a way to conceal her true emotions, not only for that all-seeing eye of the television camera, but for her crew and friends as well. Not even Clee knew her real feelings about such things, and he was the one person to whom she was the closest these days.

Nicky’s pace quickened as her thoughts settled on Clee. He was in Tiananmen, and she needed to talk to him, to get his input. His instincts were excellent, and he had an emotional, visceral and intuitive response to events, just as she herself did. Moreover, she trusted his judgement. She always had, ever since they had first met in Lebanon, when they were both covering the long-running war there. They had been introduced on 3 June, the day after Premier Rashid Karami was assassinated, when a bomb had exploded in his helicopter. That was in 1987. Tomorrow she would have known Clee for exactly two years.

It was Arch Leverson who had made the introduction. Clee was an old friend of his, and they had accidentally bumped into each other in the lobby of the Commodore in West Beirut, the hotel favoured by the foreign press corps. Arch and Clee had made a date for drinks in the hotel bar that evening, and Arch had insisted on dragging her along.