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Cover
For Arthur Rimbaud, Oscar Wilde, Marcel Proust, Jean Genet, Yukio Mishima, William Burroughs, David Wojnarowicz, and other assorted saints and sinners who got here long before me
Epigraph
“There are no homosexuals in China.”
— Mao Zedong
Prologue
Beijing — June 4, 1989: Lost
It was already past midnight when they reached the Forbidden City and stopped outside the Gate of Heavenly Peace. The air blew hot and dry on the boy’s skin. He’d been to the Red Dragon Restaurant with his sister and some friends to celebrate his eighteenth birthday. Amazing what a handful of yuan could buy these days for a gang of hungry students. The curried eel and scorpion kebabs had been especially fresh and tasty. And the ale flowing like wine! The four had indulged mightily. Then he surprised them by footing the bill: it was his gift to them.
He had plenty to celebrate. His real gift had come a few days earlier when he’d been accepted into the Beijing Institute of Foreign Trade. It was a ticket out of his impoverished past and into the world. A ticket to a new life. It also granted him exemption from military college, the prospects of which had loomed overhead for the past several years. Now he was free from that burden. This, of course, was only if he performed well in his studies. But if he did then he could leave this country one day. He could get beyond its ancient walls and dusty customs. Maybe he would even get beyond himself. He was still a boy in many ways. A boy who barely knew who he was or might become.
He glanced over at the others. Chunlan sat on a low stone wall, chewing gum, knobby knees exposed beneath the hem of her skirt. Ling had stopped to light a cigarette. Thin and ethereal, her face was pensive in the flare from the match. She took a drag then offered it to Wenwu, who pulled it suggestively through her fingers. The boy felt a flash of jealousy. When it came time to leave China, he would find a way to bring his sister with him. Only Ling knew who he really was. Only she understood him fully. Even more than he understood himself, he sometimes thought.
They continued on to Tiananmen, where the Monument to the People’s Heroes was lit up with an eerie glow. A crowd stood around as though waiting expectantly for something to begin. It was hard to see over all the heads. They’d been gathering here for weeks, but it was a shock to see the numbers, well into the thousands, in the square alone. It was far more than any of the official reports said.
The boy had lied to his parents about where they were going. His father would be furious if he knew he and Ling were anywhere near the protests. Some of the student leaders had begun to talk about disbanding the movement, though the hardliners were advocating more drastic action, possibly even hunger strikes. They should all just relax and go for a good meal at the Red Dragon, the boy thought. That would calm them down. Why all this fuss over a dead politician? He signalled to the others to bypass the crowd, but Wenwu and Chunlan were already pushing forward. Ling followed them.
They seemed to burst into the square almost by accident. An unnatural calm hung in the air. Up ahead a tank rolled in, its treads steadily eating up the pavement. It stopped in front of the Mao Mausoleum. Before the night was over there would be many more, bringing death with them. The images would crackle around the world, spread by the international media. Estimates of the number of dead would be argued over for decades, ranging from official reports of hundreds to eye witness accounts of ten thousand or more, not to mention the unaccounted for casualties, the faceless ones who languished in prisons or were tortured and executed afterward.
The protests had been growing since the death of Hu Yaobang, former General Secretary, in April. Seen by party conservatives as “soft” and “Western,” he’d been forced to resign two years earlier. A favourite with students, his demise sparked the first signs of resistance, not just in Beijing, but countrywide. The boy had seen posters eulogizing him all over the city. The calls for democracy and freedom struck a chord in him, as with so many others. It was because of Hu’s influence that he was being allowed to attend a school for international trade. Such things had not existed in China before. Who knows? Maybe the West was not such a bad place after all. Perhaps Mao’s China was finally coming undone.
The administration had reacted quickly, framing the protests as a direct attack on China’s leaders and its political system. The People’s Daily dismissed the disturbances as the work of a small group of opportunists plotting to overthrow the government. The next day, one hundred thousand students had marched into Tiananmen.
The movement grew. In Beijing, a million ordinary citizens joined the rally. How could this be? the boy wondered. He didn’t know much about politics, but he’d been taught to believe the government was always right. Two days later, martial law was declared and the city went into lockdown. In spite of this, the protests continued night after night until the army withdrew.
As the students pushed their demands, several high-ranking government officials joined them in expressing pro-democracy beliefs, first privately, then publicly. A well-known general was removed from command for refusing to clear the square of protesters. Word spread as the army prepared to advance again, sending thousands of civilians into the streets to block the troops.
This was what the boy had walked into with his sister and friends upon leaving the restaurant. It was close to one o’clock as they made their way across the square with the crowds pulsing around them. People leaned from balconies all up and down the avenues, as though watching a command performance. It was almost impossible to move.
The boy had wanted to be home in bed by midnight. As things turned out, it would not happen that night or for nearly another two weeks. The sight of armoured vehicles in the square filled him with trepidation as well as admiration. They are like powerful animals lying in wait, he thought with a sense of foreboding. Suddenly, they all began to move as one. The crowd scattered.
Afterward, the boy would remember how quickly it happened. He watched in fascination as an arm stretched overhead and hurled a Molotov cocktail. The bottle smashed against a tank, rippling into blue-and-yellow flames. A soldier sprayed the air with machine-gun fire. Bodies crumpled and fell from the balconies.
The boy looked around in a panic. Wenwu and Chunlan had disappeared. Ling was up ahead, running from the tanks and glancing over her shoulder at him in horror. The gunfire continued in short bursts. As he turned to follow his sister, a fierce stinging seared his thigh. The crush of bodies held him upright a moment longer, then he sprawled on the ground, hitting his face on the pavement.
A forest of legs surged past, stumbling over his body. Instinctively, he pushed them away. The crowd receded and he was left lying there on his own. He clutched at the pain, then brought his hands before his face. Blood covered his fingers. Being crushed to death was no longer his chief worry: bleeding to death was. From the corner of his eye, he saw someone heading toward him. An old man reached down and helped him to his feet before moving off.
The boy stood shakily against a wall. Bodies lay scattered around the square. Here and there, people were stooping to help the wounded, calling out in fear and horror. He looked around for his sister.
Ling was gone.
One
Toronto
