Fox Spirit 56 – Another Fateful Phone Call
Golden Week was finally over. Sara’s heart quickened Monday morning when she heard Storm’s step outside her office cubicle. She turned to catch his eye, felt his hand touch her shoulder briefly, then turned back to her desk, smiling. They would meet at lunch, maybe. She took a deep breath at the thought of that meeting.
From her cubicle she could hear Storm’s cell phone ringing. She heard Storm’s “Wei?” in response, heard silence, heard the urgency in his reply without being able to make out the words, heard him push back his chair, saw him move quickly past her line of sight.
“Wait! Storm! What is it?” she called after him. He turned quickly, took two long steps back to her and bent his head so only she could hear.
“It’s Bright Liu. He’s been taken by the police. Zhang has asked me to go to his family. They live in the south of the city, near Dahongmen. Please make up a tale for Scarlet Li and Boss Wang.”
He turned to go; Sara seized his arm and pulled him back.
“But why? It is always Zhang who talks politics, Liu who makes peace! How can this be?”
“Didn’t you know? Liu is part of Falun Gong. The government has decided to crush them.”
He disappeared through the door to the lobby.
Sara stared after him, uncomprehending. Falun Gong? The peaceful demonstration from back in April? She remembered her conversation with Scarlet at the time, but why would the government take action now?
She wanted to ask Scarlet about it, but hesitated. Storm had told her to make up a tale. He and Trueheart Zhang were both gone. Storm had not wanted others in the office to know of his friend’s being taken. And what about Jade, Bright’s girlfriend? Did she know? Sara shivered in the air-conditioned office. “Taken by police.” Such an ominous phrase. Taken where? Why? For how long? “Crush them.” She had heard stories, but that was supposed to be the old China, the China of Mao, not the bustling capitalist-road China of Deng Xiao Ping and his heir, Jiang Zemin. What could Bright have been involved with?
By the next day she guessed. Bright Liu must have been part of the April demonstration near the Zhongnanhai government compound. Beijing, including the Rainbow Software office, was buzzing with speculation, though almost nothing appeared in the nightly news programs or official newspapers.
Sara joined Scarlet Li and the younger engineers who were discussing the government reaction in muted voices. “But what will happen to the demonstrators?” Sara asked Scarlet. Sara realized she knew nothing about Chinese law.
“If the government decides to punish them, it will find a law that they have broken.” Scarlet said, stepping away from the group. “You must know, Sara, if you prick the tiger with a pin, he will answer with his claws. I don’t know what will happen. Probably the demonstrators will be released after some time, after they’ve repented, after they’ve renounced their loyalty to Falun Gong. The first loyalty must always be to the government.”
“But what about a trial? Won’t there be a trial? The demonstrators harmed no one!”
“Trial? The police can detain anyone whom they feel disturbs the peace. Only after three years they must be given a trial. But even then, if the person isn’t found guilty, he may still not be allowed to return to his home. This depends on his attitude, whether he has accepted re-education.” Scarlet stopped and waited, as if expecting some comment from Sara.
“Three years with no trial?” Sara stopped in mid-question, suddenly aware of Scarlet’s lowered voice .
Scarlet looked over her shoulder toward Wang’s office. “Sometimes people just disappear, if they are stubborn. It’s better not to draw the tiger’s attention. If you had a friend involved, your interest won’t help him. I don’t ask. I don’t wish to know. I’m only offering a word.”
Sara felt sick to her stomach. Smiling, chubby-cheeked Liu, Bright Liu the peacemaker, disappeared? She couldn’t take this in. And where was Storm? What risks was he running to find his friend? Trueheart Zhang, how had he gotten news? Was it dangerous for him to pass on what he had learned? Suddenly her quiet office life, her comfort in her tiny apartment, even her passionate love, seemed unreal, like a painted screen dropped down to hide what was really going on. She remembered her amusement at the painted sunflowers which had hidden the griminess of Beijing’s outskirts on her arrival. More masks. When would she learn to look behind the masks?
Neither Trueheart nor Storm was not in the office the next day, nor the day after. On the third evening Sara returned to her apartment late in the evening after sharing dinner with Scarlet Li and her family. As she stopped her bicycle in front of her door and loosened the pollution-filtering face mask from across her face, she saw Storm’s lean form detach itself from the shadows under the wall and move toward her. He followed as she pulled the bicycle under its shelter. Her mind was full of questions as she turned. At the sight of his sober face her stomach clenched and she tasted bile.
“Liu is all right? Tell me.”
Storm hesitated before replying. “Let’s go in. It would be best to talk inside.”
He brushed past her into the room and stood looking out through the courtyard window. The dim evening light cast his face into sharp relief: the angular cheekbones, the hooded eyes, the swathe of dark hair. Even in her anxiety, Sara couldn’t help but catch her breath. He was so beautiful. She didn’t want to speak. He moved and the spell broke.
“Tell me,” she repeated. “What have you learned?”
“It isn’t me, but Zhang. He has his sources through his father’s newspaper. There’s no good news. Liu was in the front lines of the demonstration. There were video cameras, of course, almost from the first. Maybe he’s been identified from these, or perhaps there was an informer. Worse, it’s been said that he was an organizer. He’s in confinement. He’s being questioned.”
Sara’s stomach twisted again. She had a vision from old movies of a windowless room, one bright light, dark menacing forms.
“Questioned? What does that mean? What will happen?”
“Questioning: it’s a polite term. The police will question him until he gives the answer that they want. If he’s lucky and if he isn’t stubborn, he will know and give the desired answer. If not, he will undergo struggle.”
“What do you mean, ‘struggle’? I’m sorry. Again I don’t understand this.”
Storm was pacing back and forth.
“This is another polite term. He’ll be pressured to change his thinking. You may have read of these struggles during the Ten Years Turmoil. Some people threw themselves from windows to escape their tormentors. Others were thrown. How could Liu have been so foolish?” He pounded his fist into his palm. After a few moments he went on.
“If Liu is stubborn, if he doesn’t recant his belief in Falun Gong, if he doesn’t name others who were involved in organizing the demonstration, he may be sent to a labor camp for re-education. We hear this is happening to many of the Falun Gong demonstrators.”
“A labor camp? Like your parents in Two Ox Village?”
Storm nodded. “This would be very serious. He would become a non-person; he would be divided from his home, his family, his friends. Already his work is probably gone. The government would never allow a tour guide tainted by Falun Gong belief.”
“But Liu said Falun Gong is a religious practice, not political,” Sara protested. “In America we aren’t allowed to ask about someone’s religious beliefs, unless they get in the way of his work, or if he has to take a special religious holiday or wear a special kind of clothing. But religions and the government are separate.”
“Really?” Storm stopped his pacing. “It’s not so in China. In China everything, including religion, has to be under the control of the government. Religion often causes conflict, doesn’t it? I have heard this is true in India, in Arabia, even in some parts of America, right? So it’s better that the government should have control.”
“But,” Sara hesitated. “You can’t believe that it’s right for the government to arrest someone like Liu! Someone with a gentle heart who has done no harm!”
“No, Liu couldn’t harm the government. But I can see the government side. The leader of Falun Gong refused to allow a Communist Party group within Falun Gong. He said that Falun Gong has no party, no politics. But in China there’s nothing that can be without or outside of the Party. How could Liu have been so naïve, to think this protest would go without reprisal? How could he?” Storm was pacing again, the fist pounding again into his palm.
Sara couldn’t tell whether Storm’s anger was directed at Liu or at the omnipresent State. She could feel his frustration mounting as his pace quickened, as his turns at each wall became sharper. Before, he had reminded her of a panther, because of his grace and economy of movement. Now the panther was caged, pacing, furious and ready to throw itself at the surrounding bars, even knowing they were razor sharp. She knew that if he left her in this mood, he would do something reckless. He wouldn’t protest peacefully and quietly as Liu had done.
Chinese Puzzle Box 