Gods double agent, p.8
God's Double Agent, page 8
The campus, reeling from the massacre, went into shock. For a couple of days, students milled around, compared notes, and comforted each other as the death tally rose. The official tally never was officially settled and figures vary from several hundred to several thousand. It was such a substantial blow to the students in our nation that we suddenly had a new language to connote time: there was before the incident on June 4, and after it. The students stuck close to campus in the immediate aftermath of the massacre, but classes were canceled due to the boycott or the shock of the tragedy. After a few days most people packed their bags and went back to their respective hometowns, since nothing was going on academically. Gradually, the campus became a ghost town, and I couldn’t wait to get home to tell my dad all that happened. Maybe he could help me make sense of it all.
As I was leaving, I noticed one of my American teachers, a guy named Dan from San Francisco, sitting in the courtyard.
“What are you doing?” I asked, sensing he was listless from being so far from home and without students to teach.
“Just watching everyone skip town,” he said, smiling.
“Why don’t you come with me? I can show you around my hometown and we can think about setting up a summer English camp for high school students there.”
It didn’t take much to convince him. He threw some clothes in a bag and we jumped on a train. When we arrived, however, he caused quite a commotion.
“Yang guizi!” the villagers called out, using the sarcastic and affectionate nickname Chinese people call all foreigners. It meant “foreign devil.” Dan was tall, had brown hair, blue eyes, and fair skin, and was very obviously not from around there. Because he was the first yang guizi to come to our peasant village, he was treated like a panda in the zoo. No matter where he went, he was encircled with villagers asking him the same three questions: Where are you from, how old are you, and are you married?
“Let’s have some fun,” I said, pulling him aside after detecting this pattern.
“Oh,” Dan said. “Suddenly, the student has become the teacher!”
After a little coaching, Dan dazzled the villagers by preemptively telling everyone he met three pertinent facts.
Every time someone came up to him, he said, “Wo shi meiguo ren” (I am an American), “San shi sui” (I’m thirty years old), and “Guang gun” (I am a bachelor). Actually, the last was a local saying that means, literally, “I am a piece of single stick,” but the notion was communicated: he was available. This caused quite a stir, because the villagers were amazed at the single foreign devil who could speak fluent Chinese and also read their minds! In spite of the grievous circumstances of our return home, his presence in my village was a fun—if temporary—distraction.
A week after we’d arrived, however, a police car pulled up to my home, stirring up a cloud of dust.
“What’s going on out there?” my dad asked, peering through the window at the somber-looking officers who banged on our door.
I looked at Dan, who’d broken out into a complete sweat, and then rushed to the door, hoping perhaps they’d come to the wrong house.
“What’s the matter?” I asked, shocked at the grave expressions that met me when I opened the door.
“You.” One of police officers pointed to Dan, who was standing behind me. “You have to leave this area voluntarily.”
“What’s so ‘voluntarily’ about it if you’re forcing me out?”
“You obviously have a choice. You can leave voluntarily now, or stay here and face serious consequences.”
“Could we leave in a few days?” I protested. The journey had taken us a great deal of time, money, and effort. Plus, there was no reason to go back to a desolate college.
The officer opened his mouth, as if he was about to explain the tense political environment, then thought better of it. Instead, he simply said a cold, harsh, “No!”
Another officer said, “In fact, you must go now, without delay. We can give you a ride to the train station in the county headquarters of Gaomi County.”
“How far away is that?”
“Fifty miles,” the officer responded. “So, let’s get going.” They gave us about three minutes to grab our things before placing us in their police car. To our surprise, they “asked” us to sit on the back box of the car where criminals were forced to sit. Dan’s presence in the village had caused so much commotion independently of any sort of scandal. However, when we were whisked away like hardened criminals, the villagers stood along the main road terrified, wondering what we’d done. My family believed we were being taken away to prison, but the officers did take us to the train station.
“Don’t come back,” the officer said to Dan as we got on the train to go back to the university.
When we arrived back at college, we walked through campus a little shaken. My entire life, I had wanted to help better my nation. At first, I believed being wealthy would help me have enough influence to meaningfully change things. Then I began to think that reform would only occur through government influence. If only I could become a leader in the Communist Party, then I could issue changes that could make things more equitable and fair. After being faced with communism’s corruption, however, democracy seemed like my only hope of reform. But if my own nation’s government would turn their tanks on their own citizens—what hope was there?
Dan grabbed my arm, and stopped me right there on the sidewalk next to the campus’s official message board.
“This isn’t good,” he said, pointing to a newly posted white sign.
“The Communist Party has made a decisive decision to crack down on counterrevolutionaries,” I read aloud. “We urge these leaders of the illegal organization to surrender.”
“Isn’t that you?” he asked. “You’re the main leader. They’re going to arrest you!” Dan and I both were a little rattled after our incident with the police.
“Don’t jump to conclusions,” I assured him. “It just says I need to surrender. If they’d wanted to arrest me, they would’ve done it back home.”
And so, I scurried off to find if the other student leaders were still around or if they’d gone home. I found about six others, and we made the trek to the police station, walking slowly as we tried to figure out what would happen. Would we be arrested? Would we be interrogated? Would they try to deny the truth of what some of our group had seen with their own eyes?
“So what did you see?” I asked the others to make sure I understood the basic outline of the story. As they had done when I was there, the students had set up barricades to block the tanks from entering the square. At about 10:30 p.m. on June 3, the army fired live bullets at the protestors. Later that night, after midnight, they completely broke through using tanks and armored personnel carriers. Many people were killed. Reports from the government were that no one had died. I knew for a fact that Heidi’s graduate school advisor had an eighteen-year-old son who was at the protest. He was shot to death on his mother’s birthday. I also knew that a tank pushed over the goddess of democracy statue, its hand and torch breaking off when it struck the ground. We knew the military had been watching the protests, but we never anticipated this. Not an actual massacre.
“Looks like they’re ready for us,” a friend said, nodding to a sign that read, “Illegal Organization Leaders Surrender This Way.”
In spite of the grave circumstances, we nervously chuckled. That was not the kind of sign we saw every day.
Obediently, we followed the markings, and I tried to calm myself. I was in a better position than most. First of all, I wasn’t even there at the time of the massacre. Second of all, I had acted in accordance with my school’s administration and our student body. I’d defied no one locally, and I hadn’t done anything wrong. After all, we were simply advocating for truth.
“Sit down,” a policeman barked when we walked in. “What have you done?” he said to our group collectively, without waiting for a response. I’d come in ready to defend myself, but apparently the police were not interested in negotiating.
“You all need to register as counterrevolutionaries,” he explained. First, he took our fingerprints, and I felt like a criminal. Then he slammed a form in front of each of us. “Fill these out.”
I picked up the pen, and began to carefully fill in the blanks—my name, age, hometown, parents’ names. It was the first time I’d filled in a form since my mother’s death, and I felt a pang in my heart as I wrote her name on the piece of paper. What would she think of this? I wondered. For a couple of silent hours, we were left with these forms staring at us in the face. We were forced to write general descriptions of how we were involved in the protests, when we started, and why. Finally, the agent came back into the room, collected our papers, and told us to stand.
“Go back to your school,” he said. But I had a feeling this was far from over. “Your administors will give you further instruction.”
The walk back to school was like a funeral procession.
“What have we done?” a friend lamented.
“What if they yank us from school?” another asked.
I almost tripped over the sidewalk when I heard that. The thought had never occurred to me. Getting removed from school would be devastating. After all, my family sacrificed so much for me. They placed their hopes on me alone. Had I just placed my entire family’s future in jeopardy?
The grim-faced deputy secretary of the Communist disciplinary party met me at the administration building. “I’ll be watching you,” he said. “This is your special agent from the Public Security Bureau.” He pointed to one of the other two men. “And this is the director of the investigation.” They wore plain clothes and were of similar height. Their eyes were dark and seemed to stare right through me.
“Our job is to monitor your progress,” he said. Only the next day would I begin to understand what this “monitoring” would entail. The next day, my interrogator showed up at my dorm at around eight o’clock in the morning. “Let’s go,” he said.
I assumed he’d take me to the English department and watch me sit there during class. Perhaps my activities would be restricted, but I’d still generally be living my normal life.
However, we didn’t head toward the English department.
“Here’s your area,” he said, opening the door to an empty classroom with one desk and nothing else but paper and a pencil. “Write your confession.”
“For how long?” I asked.
The officer looked at his watch. “You only have until six in the evening,” he said.
“That’s ten hours!” I said.
“You have a lot to confess,” he said. “Write what you’ve done, with all the details. Where did you go? When did you start your insurrection? Who are your witnesses? What happened when you got to Beijing?” Then he smirked at me and slammed the door shut.
But I knew he was standing on the other side of it.
I took the paper and positioned it correctly on the desk, trying not to panic. Why was I not allowed in class? What would Heidi do when she noticed I didn’t show up?
“My name is Xiqiu Fu,” I wrote, tears filling my eyes. “And I’m an enemy of the Chinese people.”
7
I slammed the button on my alarm, pulled down my covers, and yawned. Another morning. On a normal day, I would brush my teeth, grab a bite to eat, and head off to see my friends in the English department. However, registered counterrevolutionaries weren’t allowed that privilege. Instead, I walked to my solitary room for more confessions.
“You haven’t told us everything,” the deputy said, when he saw me. His clothing was pressed perfectly. Not one hair was out of place, and his general air of perfection made him look like he’d just stepped out of an expensive catalog the Communists used to order deputies. His only imperfect feature was his bottom row of teeth. Now that he was angry, he snarled a bit when he spoke, revealing that they were crooked. He tossed a notebook on my desk, which caused my pencil to fall to the floor.
“Good morning to you as well,” I said.
“Start all over again,” he said, “but this time don’t leave anything out.”
I couldn’t believe my ears, but I tried to shake it off. “How long should I write today?” I asked, forcing a nonchalant smile.
“How long will it take you to start telling the truth?”
I was told I needed to eat lunch at my desk, which further stripped me of time to spend with my friends. I hadn’t gotten a chance to tell them all that had happened, and I knew they were worried.
“And dinner?” I asked.
“Do I look like your babysitter? I don’t care what you do between six and eight,” he said, before beginning to walk out of the room. “But meet me at the back of the classroom in the English department so I can check your work.”
I suppressed a smile and simply nodded. I didn’t want him to know he’d given me a gift. Since I’d registered myself as a counterrevolutionary, I’d been in exile. Being able to see my friends at dinner would allow me to tell my story and, honestly, to revive my spirit a bit. My friends had become my family while at college, and I couldn’t wait to talk to them to start processing the massacre and its aftermath.
I picked my pencil up off the floor and started to write, including as much detail as possible. This time, for example, when I told the story of going to Beijing, I included a bit more.
“We got on the train,” I wrote, “but the conductor didn’t make us pay for tickets. I did not get his name, nor do I remember anything remarkable about his appearance . . .” And so, I began again, scrawling out my life on paper. The minutes eked by, and I—once again—filled the empty pages with minutiae. I wrote about the people who gave us food, the contaminated water, Heidi’s sickness, and the train ride home. When I finished writing the story of Tiananmen Square, I couldn’t think of any more details. I glanced at my watch. Only noon? I began to write in slightly larger letters, hoping to make it look like I’d written more text. I also searched my memories for specifics the government might find interesting. A second straight day in that room made me feel slightly claustrophobic. So, when the hour hand on the clock finally crawled all the way to the six, I grabbed my backpack and practically ran to the cafeteria.
It was only about a five-minute walk, and the air felt crisp on my face. Being threatened by the police had sharpened my senses, and I felt so thankful to be out of that room and out on the gorgeous campus. I passed a dorm and walked through the quad, which was decorated with beautiful flowers along the walkway. As I was admiring the rows of scarlet and yellow flowers, my eyes looked past the flower beds and landed on two men standing slightly off the beaten path. Their arms were folded, and they were standing completely still, like statues of intimidation. I recognized them immediately from the police station, and a chill ran down my spine. I knew I was going to be watched, but I didn’t expect it to be so obvious. So intentionally intimidating. I put my head down and continued quickly to the cafeteria.
“You’ll never guess what I’ve been through,” I said to my friends who were already eating at our regular table. I wanted to let the whole story spill out, to explain my unexpected absence from class, to ask what news and gossip I’d missed. I sat down in the empty seat next to Joseph and simply said, “Wait ’til you hear this!”
To my surprise, he physically recoiled when I sat by him, like I had a terrible sickness he didn’t want to contract. The others looked down at their trays, and then at each other. No one asked me what happened or where I’d been. No one even looked me in the eye. Collectively, they all stood, gathered their food, and left the table. They moved so quickly and without a word, like they were geese flying in formation to a more hospitable lake.
“They forced me to register as a counterrevolutionary.” I kept talking as I watched my friends gather their things. Slowly, I realized what had happened. They already knew. Now that I was “an enemy of the people,” I was an inconvenient and possibly dangerous friend. The last to gather her food was a girl from the English department who sat with Heidi in the front row. I caught her eye, only for a moment. She didn’t say anything, and she didn’t even smile. But her eyes were full and deep. It seemed like she was trying to convey, in that one glance, “hang in there.”
While I tried to collect my thoughts, I picked up my drink and took a sip. Not only was I trying to figure out what to do, I also wanted to look busy. I felt very conspicuous sitting there all alone in my humiliation. Was it my imagination, or was the whole cafeteria staring at me? I took a bite of rice to look casual, hoping my emotions would not betray me. Had I begun to cry—if one tiny tear had managed to escape—I wouldn’t have been able to stop. I would’ve sat there in front of all of my friends and simply wept. With much effort, I tried to look calm. I took another bite of food. Then another.
“Is this seat taken?” I heard a familiar voice. Heidi smiled at me as she placed her tray on the table across from me.
“Are you willing to take the risk?” I asked, though I’d never been happier to see another person.
When she smiled, I melted in relief. While she ate, I told her everything that had happened. I talked so much that she finished her meal before I’d even taken another bite.
“Well, you may already know this, but there’s been a great deal of criticism of you.”
“Among our friends?”
“On TV, in radio, in the newspaper,” she said. “It’s like a marathon of criticism about you and the other student protestors. Also, your teacher got up and made a speech about how you were dangerous. He said you were no longer qualified to be a class monitor.”
