Xiaobin Xu - Crystal Wedding

‘What does that mean?’ Tianyi asked.

‘Being your own guarantor means photocopying a statement of your savings when you apply for a passport with the police. They just need a statement in dollars, the amount that’s written in the invitation letter. You’ve been invited for six months, right? How much do you need? $8,000, that’s it. So long as your statement says $8,000, you should be OK.’

‘Good heavens! Where on earth am I going to get $8,000?’

‘There’s nothing to worry about,’ said Yang, sounded like God Almighty. ‘Everyone contributes, that’s how all my fellow students did it. How much have you got right now?’

‘I …’ Tianyi was embarrassed to mention it. ‘I’ve only got $2,000.’

‘No problem. We’ll get together $10,000 within three days. You get ready to deposit what you’ve got in the bank, and when you’re ready, call me and your sister and we’ll transfer the rest at the same time.

Yang spoke just as if he were her brother-in-law. But at that instant, to Tianyi, he was more than that — he was her saviour. As soon as she got out of the country, she thought, she could appeal to the world to protect Zheng. Zheng’s present predicament was truly terrible.

Three days later, Yang fulfilled his promise. The next step was for her work place to confirm that they would release her. Tianyi put on a show of optimism but was secretly worried. She could not be sure that they would let her go.

Meanwhile, the post-Tiananmen political situation was getting steadily worse. Her colleagues at the academy proposed a march in support of the students. Of course, Tianyi threw herself into it and personally made an ‘emergency appeal’. She sounded just like a proper announcer, everyone said. Tianyi was pleased and repeated it to Lian, who replied coldly: ‘When are you going to stop being so childish and act like a grown up?’ Perhaps not surprisingly, someone took it upon themselves to tape her speech and broadcast it throughout the march. The entire staff of the academy were thus able to hear Tianyi’s impassioned plea, delivered in the classic tones of Mao’s speech, ‘The divergence between Comrade Togliatti and Ourselves’! Back then, all broadcasters sounded like revolutionaries forged in the flames of battle, not like today’s mild-mannered anchor men and women.

But it was not the time or the place for revolutionary enthusiasm. One day, Peng insisted on pedalling after her to Fuxingmen Bridge. He leapt off his bicycle and whispered in her ear: ‘Don’t go on the demonstration. I’ve just heard the authorities are condemning the protest movement as a “counter-revolutionary riot”.’ That scared Tianyi, but she had been brought up on revolutionary films, she knew just what traitors looked like and she knew she would never leave the revolutionary ranks to become one. What they were doing might be dangerous but they had to carry on, or how would they face themselves in future? She sent Peng packing and carried on. But those around her must have heard Peng’s words, because gradually they melted away. She was utterly scornful of them at the time. Looking back though, she felt that they had been wiser than her, and that Peng had behaved like a real friend that day.

The authorities had turned a blind eye to her part in the appeal, but now she was applying to go abroad and the subject was raised again. Tianyi had never been subject to such scrutiny by the Party Committee and the Personnel Department. Again and again they summoned and interrogated her. The Party Committee members, whom she had always regarded as wimps, questioned her relentlessly. It all boiled down to just two points: ‘Who wrote the appeal? Who got you to read it out?’

Of course she could not tell the truth. She had not forgotten the old saying: ‘Tell the truth for a lighter sentence, and you’ll be in jail for your whole life; refuse to confess, and you’ll be out in time for New Year.’ She kept her answers simple and consistent: she had seen the appeal lying on the table and recorded it for fun, certainly not especially for the march. No one made her read it and she had no idea who wrote it. They repeated the same questions again and again, and she repeated the same answers. Until eventually she figured that, at worst, they might not let her go to America but what did that matter anyway? Going abroad was not a big deal. Being disloyal was.

She had only ever heard tell of, or read herself, old stories about, the attitude of Chinese people towards political movements, but this was the first time she had seen it with her own eyes, experienced it. She had thought that that era, when people spied on and betrayed each other had passed, never to return. But when the authorities at the academy had gathered together in all their dignity, she saw how their attitude had undergone a 180 degree turn. As each one pontificated in turn, she stared at them, and thought that in just a few days, these people had become unrecognizable. Just a few days before, they had wholeheartedly supported their students, because they did not want to be seen as behind the times. While now, with tears in their eyes and grief in their voices, they searched their souls and expressed the deepest remorse. Good heavens, would this cycle ever be broken?

This was not the right place for her, she thought. She was simply too healthy in body and mind to be this shameless, let alone this slavish. She wanted to leave, she must leave, to live the kind of life she wanted to live. But just as she was thinking this, either because someone from above took pity on her, or because her answers were unshakeable, finally Personnel certified that she had not been involved in any violence. Clutching this piece of paper, she went to the police to arrange her passport.

At that time, the passport office was still housed in a nondescript office in a narrow street near the Forbidden City, Dongjiaomin Xiang. Two police officers, a man and a woman, sat at small tables, behind each of which stretched a long queue. The officers wore severe expressions and their brusque questioning terrified her. As she queued for long hours, time seemed to freeze her into immobility, and every movement required a huge effort. At midday, the officers went off for lunch but the applicants did not dare move, as if budging an inch might shatter even that tiny remnant of hope they clung to. No one talked. Everyone held their forms close to their chest, as if afraid someone might see what they written on it. If they happened to meet someone else’s gaze, they immediately looked away.

So off she went to the passport office, filled with enthusiasm. She chose the male officer, figuring it was easier to do business with someone of the opposite sex. Then she discovered that although she could be quick-witted when the situation demanded it, her physical reactions were awkward. Just seeing the police officers made her feel guilty, as if she had something to hide. She didn’t know where to put herself. It took six visits before she finally got her passport. On that occasion, she brought a copy of The Tree of Knowledge with her, and presented it to the male officer. He looked up at her: ‘Hey, if you write stories, why didn’t you bring two copies?’ Alarmed, she shot a glance at the woman officer, who had taken the book and was flipping through it with keen interest. In her discomfiture, she stammered: ‘Next time … next time, I’ll bring you a copy.’ She always stammered when she was at her most uncertain.

But there was no next time. A short-term passport was there for her to collect. It gleamed before her eyes and suddenly she was blind to everything else. She certainly never imagined that it would be America, not China, that would bar her way.

The two weeks before she went for her visa interview at the US Embassy she spent preparing her answers until she knew them off by heart and back to front. She carefully read up on the kind of thing the visa officers liked and disliked, and how to deal with them. The day before the interview, she could not sleep, and got up to take three sleeping pills, which finally reduced her to a fuzzy-headed doze. First thing the next morning, she got up and put on a new woollen skirt, with a grey stripe on a dull red background, which Peng had bought her down south. She wore an unusual necklace, made of black threads, interwoven with tiny shells. Thinking back on it, she felt she had got her outfit wrong. She should have worn something more ordinary. But it was impossible to foresee everything, things happened so randomly. In the event, on her first visit to the American visa office, she blundered irretrievably. All the same, some things could only be blamed on fate. Previously, in the Chinese passport office, Tianyi had been able to make her choice between a male and a female officer, but in the American visa office, there was no way she could choose her officer. So when she was called to Window 3, she had a gut feeling that she was finished.