The Corpse Walker: Real Life Stories: China From the Bottom Up (26 page)

WU:
You are right. I'm sorry. It was in 1989, 1989! That was the longest letter he had ever written. The letter was filled with excitement. He used very poetic language when he described the memorial service in Tiananmen Square, the demonstrations on the street, the slogan shouting, and the eulogies. He said all his classmates and teachers were involved. I immediately wrote him back and reminded him to focus on his studies and stay out of politics.

LIAO:
That was a very typical response of Chinese parents.

WU:
We were not educated enough to advise him. But we knew instinctively that he could face terrible consequences if he opposed the totalitarian government. My generation went through many political campaigns. We've seen them all. One minute, the Party seems to relax its political control. Once you let down your guard, they come out to get you. They've played this trick for years. The Communist leaders change their face like the April weather. I guess living with the fear of persecution made us jaded and overcautious. Guofeng lived in Beijing and was at the center of everything. He was hot-blooded and wouldn't listen to our advice. We wrote back four or five times and I couldn't get him to change his mind. In one of his letters, he asked for one thousand yuan [US$130]. I bowed to his request and sent him the money over a period of two months.

LIAO:
That was a big sum of money. Why did he need so much money?

WU:
He told me he had lost his bicycle. He also needed the money to cover his books and food. I was so concerned about him. I sort of spoiled him a little bit.

LIAO:
Was he up to something with that money?

WU:
I was completely in the dark. I became so worried, but the only way to reach him was through letters. I knew that he and other students were pursuing the right path for China and it was hard to turn him around. But I kept warning him. In my letters, I wrote: The Communist Party is brutal. They have persecuted thousands of people to death in the past and have never even bothered to apologize or make compensation. Guofeng, you have been blessed with the good karma brought about by the hard work of generations of the Wu family. You were born at the right time, in the post-Mao era. You have the opportunity to enter college. If you study hard, you will have a promising future. You will change the miserable fortune of our family. Don't ruin it.

Oh well, Guofeng was still the young cub, quite inexperienced. Of course, he wouldn't listen to my advice. In the end, he didn't want to get into any arguments with me. He simply stopped writing. Later on, after his death, we found out that he had purchased a camera with that money. He told his classmates that he wanted to record history and leave some valuable snapshots for future generations.

LIAO:
He was quite visionary.

WU:
We were in a state of feverish fear, like ants crawling on a hot tin pan. After work, I came home and stared at the TV all night long. Initially, the government media called the student demonstrations a patriotic movement. Then, on April 26, the
People's Daily
newspaper carried an editorial, calling the movement a riot. Those bastards! Then, in late April and May, there were more protests against the editorial in the
People's Daily,
followed by a hunger strike. Students knelt in front of the Great Hall of the People to present their petition to the senior leaders. Then Premier Li Peng hosted a dialogue with student leaders. After that, the government imposed martial law . . . I couldn't take it anymore, I wanted to travel to Beijing to get my son back. Finally, on May 31, I received a telegram from Guofeng, saying that he was ready to come home but didn't have money for train fare. At that time, I didn't know he had bought the camera. I began to wonder where he had spent the money. Despite my doubts, I sent him another two hundred yuan [US$26] and waited for him to come home. I calmed down a little bit. Two days passed and he hadn't arrived. Then, the political situation in Beijing changed dramatically. The troops had been ordered to crack down on the student protesters. I tried to put a positive spin on the crackdown. The government probably used tanks to scare students. Well, I thought to myself, chasing them back to campus wasn't a bad idea.

In the next few days, I became more worried. The stress had led to a partial paralysis on my face. I had to see an acupuncture doctor every day. On June 8, I was feeling better and sat outside, relaxing in the sun. Then two strangers showed up. They were sent by the Xinjing Township government. I was told that an official wanted to see me. So I got up and followed them to the township government building. After we entered the building, I was led to an office. A guy who looked like a senior official said without any introductions or greeting: Wu Dingfu, do you know that your son was involved in the counterrevolutionary riot in Beijing?

His words scared the daylights out of me. I just automatically blurted out a question: What are you saying?

The official cleared his throat and said slowly: We want to notify you that your son, Wu Guofeng, has died.

My mind went blank. I could hear myself saying: Can't be true, can't be true.

The official answered in a stern tone: We just received a telegram from the authorities in Beijing. Your son is dead.

My body slumped to the floor, like a soft noodle. I tried to support myself against the chair: What, what telegram? Could you give me some more details?

The official said bluntly: We don't know any details. We have decided to purchase for you two train tickets. The deputy Party secretary will accompany you to Beijing to handle the cremation and help bring your son's ashes home.

I said: OK. Then, I began to shake uncontrollably, which was followed by cold sweats. I tried to stand up, but collapsed. Two people helped me to my chair. I rested a few minutes and then struggled to stand up and leave. One guy came over to assist me. I pushed him away, saying: Don't grab me like this. It's not like I'm going to the execution ground. I can manage myself.

I wobbled across the street and headed home. Everything seemed so unreal, the people, the traffic . . . I didn't know how I got home. I stood by the wall, tears and sweat running down my face like rainwater. My wife kept shaking my arm and asking what had happened. I started to wail. She asked again: Old man, what happened? I clenched my teeth and yelled with all my strength: Guofeng is dead.

The next thing I knew, my wife fell to the floor and passed out. No matter how hard I tried shaking her, she didn't respond. She lay in bed unconscious for almost two days. When she came to, she just cried and cried, refusing to take water or food. She kept murmuring: Guofeng, how could you leave us like this?

On the morning of June 9, the local government delivered two train tickets to my house. The deputy Party secretary, who was supposed to accompany us, never showed up.

LIAO:
Did he change his mind?

WU:
Local officials here were nervous about my son's death. Nobody wanted to be involved for fear of losing their jobs. So the deputy Party secretary bowed out at the last minute.

LIAO:
Let me interrupt one second. Didn't you say you received a telegram from Guofeng on May 31? When he didn't come home right away, did you have any premonition that something had gone wrong?

WU:
Our only source of news was from TV. After June 4, all the TV channels began to broadcast the same tapes provided by the Central Television Station, saying that the army had imposed martial law to keep order and had successfully ended the counterrevolutionary riot. Who would have thought the People's Liberation Army could kill its own citizens? I naively thought that the government would arrest a number of student leaders as scapegoats. That was it. If Guofeng had the bad luck to get arrested, he would get some disciplinary action. After all, he was just a kid. Even if they threw him in jail or a labor camp for a couple of years, it wouldn't be a big deal. We had witnessed persecution before and there was nothing to be ashamed of.

LIAO:
The whole world saw the tapes of the bloody crackdown. The Chinese were the last ones to learn the truth.

WU:
Xinjing is a small town. The Communist Party did a good job of blocking news. We didn't know anything about the killings.

LIAO:
Didn't any of his classmates from Beijing contact you about Guofeng's death?

WU:
In the evening of June 8, right after I got home from the government office, we received a telegram from Xuzhou city, Jiangsu Province. It was sent by a relative's daughter. She was one year older than Guofeng and studied at the Beijing Second Foreign Languages Institute. She heard about Guofeng's death on June 4. But, at that time, the army had occupied the post office. It was also risky to send a telegram like that. So she and another student from Xinjing left Beijing on a train and arrived in Xuzhou. She sent the telegram from there.

To keep the story short, my wife and I left Chengdu for Beijing on the afternoon of June 9. We were overcome with grief and hadn't eaten for two days. We simply carried some water. After we arrived in Beijing, a woman, Comrade Zhang, met us at the station. She was the deputy Party secretary of Guofeng's department. After we exchanged greetings, silence fell. She put us up at the university guesthouse and said: Get some rest. We'll talk tomorrow.

The next morning, the department Party secretary briefed us on the situation surrounding Guofeng's death: on the night of June 3, university officials went from door to door, warning students not to leave campus because the army had already moved into the city. As an exception, students were allowed to play cards or mah-jongg if they wanted to. On that night, Guofeng had broken his ankle and was limping around in the dorm. He promised that he would stay in. However, after university officials left, Guofeng grabbed his camera and snuck out with one of his classmates. They rode their bikes and rushed out onto the street.

It was then that I found out about the camera. Starting from the death of Hu Yaobang, he had taken hundreds of pictures of the student protests. I found piles of pictures and undeveloped rolls of film under his pillow.

LIAO:
Was he in Tiananmen Square that night?

WU:
No. But as you probably remember, the protest movement lost momentum in late May. While most of the students in Beijing had returned to campus, thousands more from outside Beijing poured in and took up the spots in Tiananmen Square. On the night of June 3, when the government sent troops to Beijing, many residents and students came out again to rally support. My son and his buddy, a Mr. Li, left campus and soon they lost each other in the crowd. Li said he saw a large number of soldiers shooting at residents. He was so scared. He ducked into a small alley. Eventually, he found his way back to campus. But Guofeng never returned.

LIAO:
Where exactly was he killed?

WU:
Somewhere near Xidan, west of Tiananmen Square. The soldiers and tanks marched along Chang-an Boulevard, which leads to Tiananmen Square. They would shoot at residents who were taking pictures, shouting slogans, throwing rocks, or trying to set up roadblocks. Since Guofeng was carrying a camera, he was a prime target. They shot him on the spot. His bicycle was crushed by a tank. After those butchers marched away, some residents stepped out and carried him to a nearby hospital that was affiliated with the Department of Post and Telecommunications.

When I saw Guofeng's body, I begged the school authorities repeatedly to allow me to take him back to Xinjing. I had put the Party secretary in a difficult situation because the Party Central Committee strictly ordered that all victims be cremated right away. We told him that Guofeng's grandparents, his brother and sister needed to say goodbye to him. They still wouldn't budge. Eventually, I asked if I could take some pictures so I could show them to the rest of my family. The Party secretary had a meeting and then granted my wish, on condition that I keep those pictures confidential. He made me promise not to use the pictures to tarnish the image of our government.

Look at these pictures: He was covered with blood. The hole in his right chest was the fatal wound. Apparently he was struck by several bullets. Look at the holes in his shoulder, his arm and ribs. There is a cut here on his lower abdomen. The knife or bayonet was stabbed in and then slashed all the way down here. The cut is about seven or eight centimeters long. All his intestines were cut into pieces. A doctor who didn't want to disclose his name saw the picture. According to his analysis, the solider or soldiers had probably shot Guofeng several times. When they saw that the bullets hadn't killed Guofeng, one soldier pulled out his bayonet and stabbed him. I found two deep cuts on both of Guofeng's hands. He must have experienced excruciating pain and instinctively grabbed the bayonet . . .

LIAO:
While you were in Beijing, did you talk with any of his classmates?

WU:
Yes. They gave me some information but everyone was nervous. In that week, the top student leaders were put on the government's most-wanted list. Some had been arrested. The rest of the student participants were forced to attend political study sessions. They had to pledge loyalty to the Party and denounce the movement as a counterrevolutionary riot. During my stay, the university authorities assigned four students to accompany us. They were nice and took turns consoling us with kind words. On June 12, my wife and I went to the morgue inside the hospital. A staff member washed the blood off his body and put some new clothes on it. Based on the tradition in my hometown, we wrapped his body around with a layer of white linen that we had brought with us.

LIAO:
What was its significance?

WU:
The white linen symbolized his purity. Even though Wu Guofeng was not married and didn't have children to carry on the family name, he was considered a dutiful son. On June 13, we held a wake at the hospital's memorial hall. His body was laid on a platform in the middle. Several of Guofeng's former classmates, friends, and even his teachers came. They walked around the body in tears. Nobody dared to say anything. After the wake, his friends helped us move the body to the Babaoshan Crematorium.