Fat Years - Chan Koonchung [97]
He Dongsheng thought the whole situation was preposterous. But he was not in the middle of a dream. This “live or die together” idea was a mug’s game, but Lao Chen and the others seemed to be quite serious about it. They are risking their lives to ask me a few questions and will then let me go. What on earth are these lunatics thinking? But it looks like all I have to do is agree to play the game and I can stay alive, at least temporarily. After I get out, I’ll have the initiative and everything will be easier to handle.
“You can ask your questions,” said He Dongsheng, “but I can’t reveal any state secrets.”
“That’s not up to you,” said Lao Chen. “We’re not here to haggle over prices like we do on Xiushui Street. The four of us have risked everything, and we want you to answer all our questions until we are completely satisfied. We have already put aside all considerations of death, so if we are not fully satisfied with your answers, this would all become meaningless. We are all prepared to see the jade smashed to pieces and face death together. Besides, Brother Dongsheng, whether or not you give away any state secrets, if your honorable Party suspects you of doing so, then you have given away state secrets. If we broadcast this scene up to this point only, I think you would never get clean even if you jumped into the Yellow River. ‘Live or die together’ is a complete, indivisible, perfectly unbreakable circle of agreement. Both sides either abide by it completely, or the deal is off. What do you say?”
“I have to leave at daybreak,” said He Dongsheng, afraid that if he stalled any longer Lao Chen might change his mind.
“It’s a promise.”
“Give me another glass of water.”
As Zhang Dou gave He Dongsheng another glass of water, Lao Chen took the opportunity to give instructions to Little Xi and Fang Caodi. Speaking also for He Dongsheng’s benefit, he said, “Whatever is asked and answered here tonight is only for the five of us to hear. None of it is ever to be leaked to the outside world, even if you think it should be. This is the key element of the ‘live or die together’ agreement.”
No one responded.
“You all agreed already,” said Lao Chen, “to follow my instructions even if I told you to do something you didn’t want to do. So you’ll do as I say, okay?”
They nodded.
“What are you waiting for?” asked He Dongsheng. “If you don’t ask me something soon, it will be daylight. Fire away.”
The Chinese Leviathan
The interrogation: He Dongsheng began to speak, and once he started talking, he had an irrepressible charisma. His listeners occasionally interrupted him with a question.
In the last twenty years, Chinese official discourse has hardly ever mentioned the events of 1989, as though not mentioning them would make them disappear from history. In order to avoid trouble, popular discourse also avoided discussing the entire year of 1989. Even when recalling events of the 1980s, discussions always ended with the end of 1988. So everybody joked that in China 1988 was immediately followed by 1990.
One year was not to be mentioned. Had it disappeared?
For some people that year was an indelible memory. It was just like the title of a book commemorating the June 4, 1989, Tiananmen Massacre by the Hong Kong Journalists’ Association: The People Will Never Forget.
But will the people really never forget?
For the great majority of young mainland Chinese, the events of the Tiananmen Massacre have never entered their consciousness; they have never seen the photographs and news reports about it, and even fewer have had it explained to them by their family or teachers. They have not forgotten it; they have never known anything about it. In theory, after a period of time has elapsed, an entire year can indeed disappear from history—because no one says anything about it.
According to He Dongsheng, 2009 was the ninetieth anniversary of the 1919 May Fourth Movement, the sixtieth anniversary of the establishment of the Chinese communist government, the fiftieth