Madeleine Thien - Do Not Say We Have Nothing

The first clear words that filtered through were, “Students, we came too late.”

The Square itself seemed to widen, like something pulling apart.

“Students, I am sorry. Whatever you say and criticize about us is deserved. My purpose here now is to ask your forgiveness.”

He saw a look of pain pass over Ling’s face. Only it wasn’t pain, he realized, but fear. The General-Secretary’s voice was reedy, he seemed to be struggling against overwhelming emotion. “You cannot continue to…after seven days of hunger strike…to insist on continuing only until you have a satisfactory answer. You are still young and have much time ahead of you.”

People from the restaurant had all come out now, Sparrow saw the waitress and two cooks, and a few old diners in their undershirts. A jumble of teenagers. “It’s the same as always,” one of them shouted. “They want us to be obedient and go home!” Murmuring all around, approval or disapproval, Sparrow could not tell.

“You are not like us,” Comrade Zhao continued. “We are already old and do not matter. It was not easy for the country and your parents to nurture you to reach university. Now in your late teens and early twenties you are sacrificing your lives. Students, can you think rationally for a moment? Now the situation is very dire, as you all know. The party and the nation are very anxious, the whole society is worried, and each day the situation is worsening. This cannot go on. You mean well and have the interests of our country at heart. But if this goes on it will go out of control and will have various adverse effects. All in all, this is what I have in my mind. If you stop the hunger strike, the government will not close the door on dialogue, definitely not! What you have proposed, we can continue to discuss. It is slow, some issues are being broached. I just wanted to visit you today and at the same time…tell you how we feel, and hope that you will calmly think about this. Under irrational circumstances, it is hard to think clearly. All the vigour that you have as young people, we understand because we, too, were young once, we, too, protested and we, too, laid our bodies on the railway tracks without considering the consequences. Finally, I ask again sincerely that you calmly think about what happens from now on. A lot of things can be resolved. I hope that you will end the hunger strike soon and I thank you.”

The broadcast devolved into static.

Sparrow looked up at the sky, it was too bright in the city to see any stars, everywhere he looked was a deep blue, a never-quite-black.

“What does it mean?” Ai-ming said.

Ling was weeping.

“I want to go home,” Ai-ming said. She was still so young but why did she already look so empty? “I want to go home.”

Now it was Sparrow who led them, silently, as if they were thieves, through the dark night, past speakers where Zhao Ziyang’s address was being replayed, “Students, we came too late, I am sorry…” past groups of people listening for the first time, past blossoming trees and a row of magnolias whose flowers he couldn’t see, but whose fragrance remained in the air, unrelenting, intoxicating.

Late the next morning, when he woke, disoriented, he heard Yiwen telling everyone that General-Secretary Zhao Ziyang had been removed from office. Someone inside the Party had leaked this information. Demonstrations had broken out in 151 cities and the government intended to declare martial law. The army had already arrived at the perimeter of the city.

—

The national examinations still had to be written. To Ai-ming, the entire process was plainly ludicrous. Theory and practice, practice and theory, if she analyzed another poem by Du Fu she might go into exile herself. She was curled up on the sofa, eating a cucumber, when Sparrow appeared, groggy, all the hair on his head mashed to one side. After wishing him good morning, she asked him, “Were you fighting someone in your sleep?”

Sparrow smiled confusedly. He took the cucumber from her hand and started to eat it.

Radios blared in the alleyway, families were shouting at each other about matters big and small, but she and Sparrow both pretended they heard nothing. Ai-ming told him that, early this morning, she had been determined to study. She’d opened the exam catalogue and found herself at the 1977 questions. That year, the national essay had been: “Is it true that the more knowledge, the more counter-revolutionary? Write at least 800 characters.” What if a similar question appeared on this year’s test? For over an hour, she’d struggled to compose an opening line. The page was still blank. She could no longer make sense of the word counter-revolutionary.

Sparrow crunched the cucumber and listened.

“How can I write the examinations?” she said. “How should I…”

“Don’t worry so much about the essay question.” Her father’s voice sounded thick, like a full sponge. “Why don’t you go back to studying literature or mathematics?”

She nodded but this wasn’t what she meant. It was the whole idea of answering, the fear that every word had multiple meanings, that she was not in control of what they said.

Sparrow said that he was going to the factory to see what was happening.

Had he forgotten what year this was? And why did he look like he was in pain? It was only now that she realized he was wearing his factory uniform. “But Ba!” she said. “Everyone says the army will come in from that side, from Fengtai.”

He nodded without hearing. “Ai-ming, don’t go to the Square today. Promise me.” He looked at the door then back again. “Where’s your mother?”

“Radio station.”

“Oh.” He nodded but his eyes were glassy. “Ai-ming, I have a friend in Canada who might sponsor you. I’m willing to do everything I can. I’m going to meet with him in Hong Kong in June—”

“What friend? You’re going to Hong Kong?”

“—but first you must write the examinations and you must do well. Without a high score, even sponsorship won’t help you…” He was talking in a kind of perturbed state. Was it a trick, she wondered. So that she would stay where she was, live inside books, ignore what was happening to her thoughts? And who was this friend?

“I’ll excel in the examinations.”

When she said this, the Bird of Quiet looked incredibly glad, like a child. She tried to steel herself against her father’s innocent smile.

“You’re a good child, Ai-ming. A good daughter. I’m a lucky father.”

Sparrow left for the factory. Ai-ming changed her clothes, pulling on a dress of Yiwen’s. In the courtyard, she took Yiwen’s clothes down from the laundry line, stuffed them into a bag along with a toothbrush and washcloth, books, and a few coins her mother had given her. She hopped onto her bicycle and hurried out.

—

The city seemed loosened by the heat. She pedalled hurriedly to Tiananmen Square but found it unexpectedly quiet. One of the student marshals, a physics student who called himself Kelvin, told her that Yiwen had gone out with a “battalion” to the western suburbs in an effort to blockade the roads and prevent the army from reaching the Square. Ai-ming turned around and cycled back the way she had come.

At the Muxidi Bridge, nobody could pass: bicycles, buses with punctured tires, burned-out sofas, shouting people, and stockpiles of wood overflowed the intersection. When Ai-ming finally made it across, she glimpsed broken glass, swerved hard and nearly collided with a scooter. The driver’s “Sorry, sorry!” fluttered backwards. Her front tire made a sad, sucking noise before going flat. She got down and began pushing the bicycle on. The scraping of the rim against concrete made her teeth ache. Unable to see through her tears, Ai-ming locked the stupid, useless, unforgivable bicycle to a tree, took the bag of clothes and kept walking. Her whole body was coated in sweat. A bus came and she jumped on, but almost immediately the bus stopped. She tumbled out with the other passengers: here was the army now.