Love in the Time of Revolution

It was a Friday evening right before the Chinese New Year in San Francisco. When Ming stepped out of his office building in the financial district, he frowned at the rain and cursed the weather again. For the entire day Ming had been working in a windowless room lighted by pale fluorescent lights with constant low buzzing of the computer servers. Technical and repetitive. That was his job. The type of job usually held by Indians and Chinese with high IQs. After three years he had got so bored and so good at what he was doing that he felt trapped by the good paychecks. When he came to the States as a foreign student, everyone told him he had to study computer science. That was the easiest way to find a job and stay in the US.

    Ming noticed the Chinese New Year banners tied on the street lamp poles. Their color had already started to fade due to the heavy rain. Ming had not celebrated Chinese New Year since he came to the States, and the sight of the banners had made him feel a little sentimental. Ming had deliberately lost touch with all his old Chinese friends in fear that they might find out about him being gay, and for that same reason he estranged himself from most of his relatives. On the other hand, as an average looking Chinese gay man, he was not particularly popular in the scene. Although he was neither a loner nor a social butterfly, there were still these weekend nights when he would rather spend time with friends but somehow he could find no one around. 

    The Muni was crowded as usual. Ming was squeezed between an old Chinese woman and a punk boy with eyebrow rings. Ming stared blankly at the window and watched his own reflection among blurry images of the others. Time had flown by so fast. Ming sighed. He realized he was really not that young anymore and his face had started to show his age. Thirty years. From China to the US. He had lived through changes and disillusions and accumulated all these memories. But he was not feeling wiser and happier. The emptiness of life, like a chasm he did not notice in his earlier years, had been widening. And the older he got, the fewer options he saw, the more aimless he became.

    The Muni stopped at Powell Street station, an Asian woman of his age pushed through the crowd and managed to move herself next to Ming. Ming immediately noticed the hand-knitted white scarf around her neck from the window reflection. He turned his head and tried to have a better look at her. The woman detected Ming’s stare as she lifted her head and looked right into Ming’s eyes.

    “My God. You must be Zhang Ming!” She almost yelled out.

     Her voice was loud enough to cause curious looks from the passengers. Ming recognized the voice right away.

    “Chen Yin!” He whispered her name in a low tone, hoping not to attract too much attention.

    “Yes, yes. ” Chen Yin was so excited that her voice was trembling at a high pitch. She switched to Chinese. “It must be ten years since I last saw you in Guangzhou.”

   “You have not changed that much at all.” Ming tried to be polite. He noticed her wrinkles around the eyes, and compared to the last image he remembered she certainly gained some weight.

     “You are kidding. I have been married for almost five years! I bloated since I had my last kid. By the way, I work in downtown and live in the Sunset now. What about you?”

     Ming almost blurted out “Castro”. But it became “Noe Valley” when he said it. He was afraid that Chen Yin might make the connection and spread the word.

     Chen Yin seemed to be oblivious of Ming’s faltering words. She rambled on: “You simply disappeared that summer. For all these years we have been wondering where the hell you were.”

    “I was quite bad in keeping touch with the old friends.” Ming said.

    Chen Yin suddenly blinked her eyes as if something important just came into her mind: “I am not sure whether you should know or not, but Lin Hong also lives close to San Francisco.”

    The sheer mention of Lin Hong caused a strong reaction from Ming. He panted: “Really?”

    “She is doing very well.”  

    Chen Yin spoke out the last sentence as if it was some matter-of-fact yet elusive statement of a court witness. Before Ming know how to respond, Chen Yin had already started to elaborate.

    “You know, you were such a bastard to Lin Hong at the time.” Chen Yin now switched her role to that of  judge. But the Muni was already making a stop at the Castro station and Ming had to excuse himself. Chen Yin quickly pulled a name card from her purse and put it in Ming’s hands: “Give me a call at Office on Monday. Let’s do lunch!”

    “Sure.” Ming mumbled while he tried to squeeze out. Then he heard Chen Yin’s loud farewell: “Happy New Year, Ming.”

     Ming ran out of the Muni station as quickly as he could. When he got on the street level, he stopped at the intersection of Castro and Market. He opened his hand and took a quick glimpse on Chen Yin’s name card. It said “Financial Analyst”, and the name was actually spelled as “Salina Chen”.

    The early drizzle had mostly stopped and the intersection had already picked up the crowd. The neon lights of the bars flashed through the damp air and added a little hedonistic atmosphere, and people (mostly men) of all ages and shapes were rushing in all directions. As the gay ghetto, there was the usual tension on the streets as the passengers constantly checked each other out. Ming suddenly felt that everything in Castro had become so surreal. How would he have dreamed ten years ago that he would be standing at the gayest corner of the world and feeling that was where he belonged? How he used to have all these passions for new things, for things he could only imagine. Chen Yin triggered all these distant memories Ming had put behind so thoroughly. And among them there was Lin Hong, a woman so important in his final days in China, a girlfriend whom he tried so hard to forget but still came to life in his dreams, or at the most unexpected moments.

Ming met Lin Hong in an autumn night when the last heat wave in the southern China finally receded and the ubiquitous camphor trees on the campus just started turning colors. He was working late in the student broadcasting station to prepare his next day program “the evening club”, in which he would talk about the campus cultural events, give short reviews on films, and analyze this art trend or that literature movement. The office took the attic room of a small administration building, right above the Youth League office and the propaganda office. Lin Hong appeared suddenly as if she was blown in by a whiff of autumn wind. She was wearing a white long skirt with a ribbon knotted at the back. A necklace made out of wood beads dangled from her neck. Her dark hair, thick and straight, was falling on her shoulder like a mini waterfall. Ming noticed her light-colored and delicate skin and guessed that she must come from the North. There was also the intoxicating smell of grass, which probably came from the shampoo she used.

     LinHong dropped by to pick up her notebook. She had been the host for a lunch hour program that broadcast requested songs from the students. It had a catchy name -- “hearty chats with your favorite songs”. Although Ming never met her, he often heard her program on his way to the dinning hall and always wondered who would have such a beautiful voice. When he finally saw her he was pleasantly surprised that the voice matched the look very well.

     “So, you are the famous LinHong.” Ming could not help but used a provocative tone. He felt a bit intimidated by the attractiveness of Lin Hong.

     “So, you are the famous Ming.” LinHong smiled and kept her pose.

     “Well, all my roommates have been talking about what kind of beauty this LinHong must be. You have a fan club in my dorm.”

     “The girls in my dorm have imagined that you must wear glasses with lenses as thick as beer bottles. How can you know so much about art and literature?”

     Such a sharp tongue. Ming thought. She could be sarcastic and flattering at the same time. But her voice was pleasant and sweet, although there was certain haughtiness in her tone as if she was trying to affirm herself in front of Ming. Since Ming joined the broadcasting station and became an active member of the art scene in the University, he had met enough women to make his roommates jealous, but he tended to find defects with every one of them. (Too aggressive, too pretentious, etc.) Sometimes he wondered why he did not like any of them enough to fall in love with. He always thought he was a sensitive person with rich emotions, a person who would embrace passions and sentiments, but in his whole adolescence he never fell for anyone. The only explanation he came up with was that he just had not met the right girl yet.

     “Actually, I am vain enough to follow the latest fad. You must have heard about the magic of the contact lenses.” Ming said.

      His confession made Lin Hong laugh. Lin Hong told him she was from Changsha, the capital city of a central province North of GuangDong. She also told him about the letters she received that asked her to read aloud all the sentimental messages with the requested songs. “So many love-sick hearts on this campus.” She said. When the subject shifted to the literature scene on the campus, she showed her disappointment. “The student theater puts on only one show a year, and the enrollment of our literature club only has been dwindling so badly. Is that because people here in the south care nothing else but money?”

     “I don’t know whether it is the problem of south or not. Remember a few years ago when all the experimental poetry movements were launched in ShenZheng the special economic city? It was quite an exciting period.” Ming said. “The south is going through a major economic transformation. I guess when things change fast people are in a rush to catch up financially and they may be less reflective.”

     “But changes challenge the mind.” Lin Hong said. “And that should motivate people to think and put their thoughts in words.”

     Ming was impressed by Lin Hong’s arguments. There was nothing more than a woman’s intelligence that could captivate him. From the time when he became a fervent reader of literature, he was fascinated by a series of women writers. The female sensibility, the tragic nature of their struggles, moved and intrigued him, as he secretly identified himself in their whims and sensual descriptions of the world. To Lin Hong Ming felt such an ease when he talked about his thoughts and feelings that he rarely exposed to anyone else other than his own journal. No matter it was a poem or a movie, a summer smell or a sunset witnessed from the bank of the Pearl river, Lin Hong followed Ming and brought her own experience so vividly into their long conversation of the night. 

      They had to leave the office since the women’s dorm closed the gate at eleven. Ming had a bicycle and told Lin Hong that he could give her a ride. Lin Hong did not hesitate before she sat herself on the back of the bicycle. She managed to hold herself by gripping on Ming’s shoulder with one hand. On the way to her dorm, Ming could feel her breath and a particular smell. His heart was beating fast since he had never been so close to a girl. He wanted to pedal the bicycle really hard but he was afraid that Lin Hong could lose her balance. Lin Hong never put her second hand on him, and as soon as she could balance well on her own, she took her other hand off Ming’s shoulder. Somehow Ming was relieved once there was no more physical contact between them.

    In front of the dorm gate there were a few couples standing in the shade of the wall. Some of them were hugging and fondling each other in the darkness as if that was their last chance to make out. Lin Hong jumped off the bicycle and thanked Ming for taking her back. A few drunken boys were passing by. When they saw Ling Hong, they whistled and chanted with their exaggerated coarse voices:

    “Sister O Sister, you got to have your guts and step forward…”

    It was a famous line from a song in Zhang Yimou’s Red Sorghum. The movie came out a few months before and immediately became a sensation on campus. Lin Hong did not seem to be bothered at all and looked at Ming’s blushing face with her dark sparkling eyes: “It was great to meet you tonight.” 

    Ming felt he was in a movie. The camera was poised above and was zooming in towards them. What should the plot proceed when a girl meets a boy and has a very pleasant night? Ming decided he should say something, something romantic but ambiguous, something that showed he was a man full of love but still could hide his emotions. Finally, he said: “Do you want to see a movie with me in the Pearl River studio? They show foreign films in their studio that are not officially distributed.”

    Lin Hong smiled: “You always have access to good stuff. How could I miss that?” Then she turned back and hurried through the gate. “Find me in the office on Tuesday night.”

    After Ming got back to his dorm room, he tossed around in bed and could not go to sleep. Ling Hong fit in all the criteria he prescribed for an ideal woman. Whenever he opened his eyes, he could see her eyes blinking to him in the darkness. In his dream her white skirt wrapped her and she was a like longhaired female ghost floating in a warm lazy autumn breeze. He looked at her from a distance as if he was appreciating a beautiful vase, or smelling a bouquet of flowers. Ming did not feel a burning passion, or an immediate urgency towards Lin Hong. But if he could not stop thinking about her, maybe he was falling for her. Maybe the passionate love takes time. Maybe that lukewarm feeling will grow to real love. He started to imagine him with her, hand in hand, strolling around the East Lake or along the river, talking about poets such as Tigora or Bei Dao. He imagined the jealous eyes of his roommates and gossips of his female classmates. That night Ming decided there would be no girl more suitable than Lin Hong if he was to have a girlfriend. 

Ming did not remember much of the rest of the 1988 except for his progressing relationship with Lin Hong. It all happened at a normal and pleasant pace. After a few movies and several long walks on campus, they were already known as a couple. Ming enjoyed Lin Hong’s company and her challenges. Other than her intelligent side, Ming recognized a strange strength in Lin Hong that distinguished her from the others. But Lin Hong never talked much about her family or her past. Although she always appeared nicely dressed, Ming noticed that she did not have many clothes. She mixed and matched them tastefully, combining them wisely with accessories.   

    They kissed for the first time on a Saturday night when they sat on the bench of the East Lake. The area was known as the “lover’s corner” since the tall and dense bamboo trees had created a safe haven. When Ming pressed his lips against Lin Hong’s mouth, his heart was pounding fast. The breath of Lin Hong was so pungent that it went straight through his body and sent a strange chill. Ming almost wanted to withdraw right away, but his body was already locked into the position and he did not know what to do but stay the way it was. Lin Hong had her eyes closed and slowly guided Ming with her lips. When she had her tongue out Ming mechanically touched it with his own. His mind went blur after that.

    Since then Ming did not feel like initiating anything more intimate than a quick peck on the face. He did not think there was anything wrong with him. All the years of reading great love stories and love poems convinced him that love was something spiritual. Sex was still such a mysterious monster he had so little ideas about. It was not until fourteen that he first heard about the intercourse, and he was quite shocked and decided that was something rather dirty. Even after he got to know about masturbation shortly after, he never felt any motivation to try it out. On those hot sleepless nights his roommates would talk about girls in the most vulgar way. But none of them ever slept with any girls and all the information was second-hand.

    He compensated the lack of physical intimacy with his gentle manner and thoughtful arrangements. He tried to get tickets for all kinds of concerts and performances, and if he could sneak out the classes earlier, he would get lunch for Lin Hong and waited for her at their fixed corner in the dining hall. Ming felt a sense of accomplishment whenever he did things for Lin Hong, as if pleasing a woman proved his capability of love, and sometimes he was moved by himself, by the love and care he could demonstrate. He even wrote Haiku-like poems to Lin Hong, using images of water and flower petals to craft a romance he could idealize. Whenever she was on the loudspeaker during the lunch hours, he felt that every song she put in the air was for him. The actual sex was out of question because the university had a strict rule against it. However, Lin Hong appeared thrilled by all of Ming’s efforts. She took such a trust in Ming as if he had already become an inseparable part of her life.

    At the end of that semester Ming’s father came back from a research conference in the States and told him that he had found someone to sponsor Ming to study there. But Ming still needed to take the TOEFL exam and apply for the schools. The sudden possibility of leaving China and going to US excited him. When Ming told Lin Hong about the news, Lin Hong became quiet for a moment and then asked Ming nervously: “What about us, then?”

    “It does not mean I will leave tomorrow. You know how hard it is to get the visa from the American embassy. I may get stuck here for the rest of college before they even grant me one.”

    Lin Hong did not ask more questions. The next day she brought Ming a thick TOEFL study book and told him that she found it in a downtown bookstore. “You should quit the broadcasting station and focused on the TOEFL exam.” She said. “You are so lucky to have this opportunity.”

    Ming was surprised about Lin Hong’s advice. Then he asked: “If I am to leave soon, will you wait for me?”

    “It is not up to me, isn’t it?” she lowered her head with half of her face covered by long hair. “I only heard the tales that people go to America and forget their lovers back here.”

    Looking at her melancholy eyes, Ming wished he could swear that he would never abandon her, and his love was as strong as Mount Tai. But he knew he could never promise anything like that. Instead he said: “We are so young. The future still holds a lot for us.”

    Lin Hong shrugged: “These days everyone looks up to the US. When you get all your American degrees the future of course will be good…but in China? I don’t know.”

    Ming did not know what else to say. He eventually quit the broadcasting station when he studied hard for the TOEFL exam. Lin Hong helped him to look for all the reference books. On the day he took the exam, she waited outside with a whole bag of nutrition beverages.

The first semester of the sophomore year passed quickly. In the mid-March of 1989, Hu YaoBang, the ex-premier who was fired from his office because of his pro-democracy stand, passed away in obscurity. The students in Beijing requested a national ceremony for his justice. By April they took their sentiments to the TianAnMeng Square. The government was nervous and put a ban on any student demonstration. Feeling that they did nothing wrong, the students requested dialogues between them and the government. But the request was refused and the situation was quickly escalated.

    In most of March and April, Ming was busy preparing his applications for the American Universities and stayed away from the politics. Being far away from Beijing, his campus remained relatively peaceful. However, he followed the news closely. Each morning he would go to the bulletin board in front of the dinning hall and read the latest posters that would carry the manifestos, poems, political comments and first-hand witnesses from the Beijing students. Lin Hong did not show much enthusiasm in the movement from the beginning. She warned Ming that he needed to keep a clean political record if he were to get the passport from the government. They still met for lunch every day, but Ming often appeared absent-minded. Lin Hong also stopped working in the broadcasting station after it was taken over by the radical students.

    By May, the students in Beijing started hunger strike and pushed the movement to a dramatic stage.  It had won widespread support from all sides of the society, and the media started to sympathize with the students. Although the government had not yet succumbed to the pressure, the atmosphere on campus had become euphoric. There was no more class, and demonstrations happened every day in front of the provincial capital building. The national railway system also offered students free trips. Feeling left out of the excitements, Ming suggested to Lin Hong that they should take advantage of the free railways and go to Beijing. Lin Hong hesitated. She did not mind going to Beijing but she was worried about Ming. But Ming could not possibly listen to any of her arguments and said he did not want to be a coward during such historical times. On the same night, without telling a single word to his parents, Ming jumped on the train with Lin Hong.

     They spent two happiest days on the train. So many more students were getting on the train from the cities along the railway and made the train very crowded. By the second day garbage was piled everywhere and all the water tanks were empty. But no one was complaining and everyone was in a high spirit. After heated debates on political reforms, they would sing songs, drink beers, share the food and sing more songs. Ming almost forgot about his possible move to US. He was incredibly chatty and energetic. For two days he barely slept. During the nights when most of the students had already dozed off, he would still stay up and read under the dim light. Lin Hong would put her head against his shoulder and slept through those hours.

     The train crossed the Yangtze River on the second evening after a stop at HanKou. Both Ming and Lin Hong were so eager to see this national river that they begged their seatmates to let them move to the window. As the train got on the bridge, they stared out at the unimaginably wide river surface and its glimmering reflections of the lights from the riverbanks.

     “The river was so beautiful.”

     He fondled her hair and kissed her head while the train was clinking and clanking across the bridge and heading to the north. At that moment Ming felt he was so in love with his own country, and with the woman in his arms. He thought together they could win the world.  

   

When they got in Beijing, things were not like what they expected. As the government still had not given any answer to the students, the hunger strike had lost its momentum and many of the local students had already left the TianAnMen Square. The Square was taken over by the provincial students who spent most of the time fighting each other for the control of the Square. Even the hunger strike had become a joke when many of the participants were secretly eating in the tents. After spending a disappointing day in the Square, Ming and Lin Hong went to Beijing University and stayed with a friend. When it became clear that there was nothing much to do but to wait, they took tours around the city and visited all the historical monuments where the only tourists were bored provincial students. After another week, they boarded the train back to the south.

    On the way they heard about the military curfew and how the Beijing citizens successfully blocked the troops from entering the city. Although Ming was convinced that the support of the citizens would help the students to win this battle eventually, Lin Hong was pessimistic and feared that the students would not be able to hold the Square. Ming told Lin Hong that they should go back to Beijing since he wanted to be in the center of these dramatic events and fought with the students. But this time Lin Hong was so determined that she refused to go back to Beijing even if she had to continue the rest of trip on her own. In the end, they made a compromise. Instead of going back to Guangzhou, they would stop by Lin Hong’s hometown and wait for further developments.    

    When they got off at Changsha, Ming could sense Lin Hong’s reluctance to take him home. Ming happened to have an aunt who lived in the same city and his accommodation was not a problem.

    “Just tell your parents I am your classmate.” Ming was curious to meet her family, but Lin Hong insisted that he should not visit her house: “My parents are old-fashioned and very protective of me. I don’t want them to know about you.”

   “Don’t your parents work for a university just like my parents? I am sure they don’t mind you having a male classmate.” Ming argued. ,

    Ming left his aunt’s phone number for Lin Hong. Ming’s unexpected arrival surprised his aunt. She told him that his parents had been so worried about him that they contacted all the relatives and hoped to find out where he was. He talked to his angry parents on the phone. They reminded him that he could receive admission letters from US anytime now and he should come back to Guangzhou as soon as possible. Being aware of the fact that he did not know how to contact with Lin Hong, he said he would rest in Changsha for a week before returning home.

     Lin Hong called the next day. For the following week they would meet in the afternoon and went to swim in the Xiang River. The water was still cold in the early summer and they were among the few daring swimmers. In the evenings Lin Hong would bike to Ming’s aunt’s house and watch cable TV with them. But she often excused herself early and insisted on going home on her own. For a while they almost did not think much about the deadlocked situation in Beijing.

    On the morning of June 4^th, Ming was awakened by a phone call from his parents. They told him that the military finally fired their way into the TianAnMen Square. The HongKong radios had been reporting live every half an hour and everyone in Guangzhou was following the news nervously. They asked him to take the train home right away. Ming could not believe the news, but he could not find out more from the local radio stations other than a brief official version of the story. It used the harshest words to describe the students as the “counter-revolutionary riots” who burned and murdered the soldiers. In an impulse of anger and disbelief, Ming ran out of the house and walked on the streets aimlessly. The news had obviously already spread out in the city. People gathered in small crowds to exchange the information and then quickly dispersed if they spot a cop coming near. Ming overheard all kinds of numbers about how many people were killed in Beijing on the night before, which varied from a few hundreds to a few thousands. But there was no explosive anger on the streets. People talked about killings as if they were referring to something sensational that was not related to them. Ming still could not quite make sense of what he had heard.  He had an intense urge to see Lin Hong immediately.

    He took a bus to the university, which was far out at the edge of the city. After asking a number of people, he finally found her building. It was an old soviet-style dormitory that had been converted to a residence. The red brick wall was mostly stained with smoke or mud, and the broken windows had indicated that it had not been maintained properly for a long time. Inside the building the rooms opened at both sides of a dark lobby, which was heavily used as a storage space. Ming was a little surprised. Growing up on campus himself, he knew that these old buildings were usually assigned to young unmarried faculties or the lower-rank administration staff. He always thought Lin Hong came from a professor’s family just as his. It suddenly made sense to him why she was always being so evasive about her family.

    Lin Hong answered the door and was very surprised to see Ming standing in the lobby. She came out with a blushed face.

    “They opened the fire!” Ming said, still huffing and puffing.

    “Yes, I know.” Lin Hong said. “I listened to the Voice of America this morning.”

    “How could they do that? How could they?” Ming almost wanted to cry. But he did not want to show his weakness.

    “Do you think our government would give in and lose the face to a bunch of kids? When I thought it over this morning, I realized this would be the only ending.” 

    The bleak and forceful words of Lin Hong shocked Ming. She continued: “We have a billion people. Who care if just a few hundreds are killed? Think about all these revolutions in China. It was often sacrifices of millions.”
    Ming gasped. He could be so articulate about art and literature, but Lin Hong often had acute sense for politics and her comments often made him feel naive. She still stood at the doorway without any intent to let him in. So he asked: “May I come in?”

    Lin Hong was showing clear reluctance in her expression. “My parents are taking a nap.” Lin Hong said. “I know a better place. Can you wait a moment?”

    She went back into the room and came out with a white hat. Ming decided not to insist on going in. He peeked through door crack and saw the humble interior. They walked out of the building and headed to a hill about a kilometer away. Low green bushes covered most of the hill while some small pines dotted the lower part. On the south side there were abandoned cement tombs. Ming could still recognize carved calligraphy on the steppes. They showed that these tombs were mostly built at the turn of the century. Ming also noticed several rows of long ditches near the top of the hill.

    “I heard they were used to defend the attacks of the Japanese in the famous Changsha battle.” Lin Hong said, “They had such an intriguing layout. When I was a kid, my friends and I used to climb up here and play hide-and-seek.”

    The view at the top was splendid. The Xiang River, which originated from the southern border of Hunan province, was flowing through the central prairie a mile away. The area was renowned as the “home of rice and fish” due to its rich soil and abundant water supply. Around the bottom of the hill were fishponds and vegetable fields. From above they looked like pieces of mirrors woven together with patches of green. A much higher mountain, Yuelu Mountain, lay in the south as a magnificent backdrop. It was already noon and the sun was blazing. But on the horizon a shroud of dark clouds was already visible.

     They said quietly on a rock. Ming felt that his early rage and anxiety slowly subsided with Lin Hong next to him. He took her hand and held it in his own. Lin Hong closed her eyes and put her head on his shoulder.

     “How strange.” Ming murmured. “Remember what we were called when we were young? Flowers of the homeland, pioneer of the modern China…now we suddenly become counter-revolutionaries.”

      Lin Hong opened her eyes and looked at far.

      “And those soldiers.” Ming continued. “Aren’t they supposed to be the people’s army and the most trust-worthy “relatives”?  Remember the military training in LeiYang before the college started? We had such a good time at the military camp.”

      Lin Hong’s mind seemed to be wandering somewhere else.  “I always came here when I got upset.”  She suddenly said. “I would go into the bushes and collect the exotic-looking leaves. Someday I will show you my collection.” 

      Ming imagined a much younger Lin Hong, a mysterious childhood that seemed to be full of unhappiness as well as wonders. They must have sat for a long while. By the time they felt the wind had suddenly turned strong, the dark cloud had already grown to cover the sun and most of the sky.       

    “I think it is gonna rain.” Ming suggested.

    “I knew a shelter nearby.” Lin Hong said. She quickly led Ming back to the path that wound down the hill. But the thunderstorm came so fast and it had started to pour by the time they got halfway. On the bottom of the hill there was an entrance to an abandoned man-made cave that was dug during the early seventies when Chairman Mao was anticipating a nuclear war with the Americans. A rusty steel gate was guarding the cave but the lock was missing. Ming and Lin Hong rushed in. The ground was dry and littered with piles of dried grass. A few empty plastic bottles and snack packages gave away the evidence of the recent human presence. Ming even found a used condom tossed on the ground. He was embarrassed and quickly kicked it away.

    The cave echoed the water drippings in a low clamoring of the pouring rain. Occasionally a lightening flashed through the dim light, illuminating their faces and projecting instant shadows on the stone wall. A heavy roaring thunder usually followed and added tragic background sound to the somber setting. They sat down on the grass and against the wall. Ming put his arm around Lin Hong’s shoulder while his other hand rubbed her lap gently.

    “Even the heaven is mourning for us.” Lin Hong finally said. Her hair was soaked with rain. Her eyes were wet and drops of water were rolling down her cheek. Ming was not sure it was her tears or the raindrops. He tried to wipe them. Lin Hong took his left hand and slowly pressed it on her breast. Ming felt that he was touching something so soft and so warm. He thought about white cotton, about himself floating on the river in a summer breeze. 

    She put his hand away and slowly took off her wet shirt and bra. Her pale body, with smooth and silky skin, exposed in Ming’s full sight. She looked like the seductive and melancholy female ghost in Ming’s dream. 

     “Hold me, Ming.” She said.

     Ming held her from behind and kissed her neck gently. His hands fumbled and touched her all over. Her moaning triggered a strange and powerful sensation in Ming. Lin Hong turned back and unbuckled Ming’s belt. She stared at Ming with a burning gaze.

     “I am yours.” She said.

      Ming could not think anything more but an urge to perform what a man was supposed to do. He was no coward. He was the man. His early anger came back and became an incredible amount of energy. He quickly took off his pants and entered Lin Hong. He closed his eyes and felt blood dripping along his crotch. Her virgin blood. Ming thought. He did not slow down but thrust back and forth more forcefully. He could hear Lin Hong groaning more loudly and it made his heart beat and his veins throb. Right before he came, his body jerked and he subconsciously pulled out with his semen shooting all over his own hands.

     Ming did not remember how long they had laid on the grass before he opened his eyes and saw Lin Hong sobbing in his arms. His heart ached and his head felt heavy. Only until then did he start to process what he just had done and a whole mixed bag of feelings overwhelmed him. He was moved by such a gesture of devotion from Lin Hong, but it was almost too heavy for him to take in. Did this mean that from now on he would be forever attached to her? The question made him ashamed. He held her tight, tried to console her, while a strange fear was growing inside him. 

     Lin Hong twisted her body and turned her face towards Ming. She appeared both vulnerable and determined. 

    “You have to go to America. There is no hope for us here.” Her voice was low. But it made Ming shiver.  America, the land of promises, far away but so close, was suddenly dragged back into his mind, into this secret cave of central China. Lin Hong sat up, put on her clothes and continued. “We can’t even choose our own jobs here. God knows what they would do after this.”

     “They can’t punish everyone.” Ming said, hoping he could sound more optimistic.

     Lin Hong crawled back to his arms and pressed her head against his chest. She snuggled with Ming and spoke with a dreamy soft voice: “We will be a great couple. We will make it together in America.”

     Ming did not say anything. He lifted his head, looked through the gate and saw the pouring rain ruthlessly pounding at the universe outside. Someday, maybe someday somewhere, he would be in America and remember this rain, this first sex. 

     Ming got back to Guangzhou and found an admission letter from UCLA the very next day. A week later he showed up in front of the American embassy and noticed a long line. Rumors had it that the counselors were overwhelmed by the tragedy and thus unusually generous to the student visa applicants. The crowd was chatty as usual. People were still arguing about how many people were killed. But the discussion seemed to be irrelevant to the mood of the whole crowd. With good tales such as that who and who was rejected for six times but got the visa in that same morning, everyone was optimistic about a dream for which they had struggled with such tremendous efforts. As it turned out, the counselor who interviewed Ming only asked a few questions before she announced the good news. Years later, Ming still remembered that woman. He remembered an ordinary face that could belong to any middle-aged housewife in a grocery store or K-mart store. He remembered her gray hair casually tugged behind her ears and her soft and motherly voice. He wondered why these counselors were so demonized among his fellow TOEFLers as bloody executioner who had extinguished so many hopes and wrecked so many dreams. He also wondered if the woman had made a different decision, what a different life he would have lived.

     By the second week after the massacre, the government seemed to have a control over the situation in Beijing. The possibility of the civil war was ruled out, but the arresting and persecution of the student leaders was in the high time. Although Ming’s involvement in the whole movement was minimal, his parents urged him to leave China right away. Lin Hong was still staying home and waiting for the school opening. He thought about calling her but then realized that her family had no telephone, and in the end, he only wrote her a short letter. The last ten days passed in the blink of an eye. Shopping, packing, buying the flight ticket and organizing farewell dinners with relatives and friends, the whole family was in a frenzy state of preparing him for the big trip. On the day when he took the express train from Guangzhou to Kowlong, both his parents and his sister came to the station and saw him off. His mother managed to pack his entire belongings into two suitcases, each of which was filled with clothes enough for several years. They had to stop beyond the customs line. Before Ming turned back, he saw his mother weeping quietly next to his father.

    The Los Angeles years were not particularly the pleasant period of Ming’s life. The initial excitement quickly faded as he was constantly under the financial pressure and had to work multiple jobs to support himself. He felt like an alien on the UCLA campus and resented all the happy and wholesome-looking American students. In the first few months, he wrote to Lin Hong and told her all the new things he experienced. As he started to work more and felt frequently exhausted and depressed, he had less and less motivation to write back and his letters had become few and far between. One Sunday evening, he was delivering Chinese takeout to a place in West Hollywood that turned out to be gay blue movie theater. He accidentally walked into the backstage and stole a quick glimpse of the go-go boys who were dressing for the show. Their skimpy thongs and buffed bodies made Ming’s heart beat so hard. That night he could not go to sleep at all and masturbated for the first time while his mind replayed that scene over and over. Suddenly everything became clear to him: why he was never motivated for or even repulsed by the sex with women; why he was often feeling excited whenever he met a handsome man; why he had such hard time to continue the relationship with Lin. He was sad and panic, and went to the library to read everything he could find about homosexuality. In the end, after much agony and struggling, he realized there was no way he could get out of this. It was God’s joke, and he had to live with it. 

     Ming quickly decided that he should not continue with his relationship with Lin Hong. He could not come up with a good reason and felt terribly guilty. When he moved again, he never told Lin Hong about his new address, neither did he give an explanation about his disappearance. Ming did not officially come out until he came up to Berkeley for the graduate school. Before he moved away from LA, he threw away all the letters from Lin Hong. He thought he could forever bury this piece of history. He would be reborn in the new city, would make new friends who knew who he really was, would fall in true love, would assimilate into the new exciting environment and become a real American. 

That Friday night, Ming searched obsessively all over his apartment and tried to find any letter or photo of Lin Hong in his storage room. But he found nothing. He had wiped her out, destroyed all the evidences of her. Finally he found an old music tape he brought back to the US and put it on. The sound quality was bad but the melodramatic songs still brought Ming to tears. He remembered that train trip to Beijing when they had sung the same songs. He remembered them being played in the air by Lin Hong and the sound from the loudspeakers reverberated on their semi-tropical campus. Those ordinary or dramatic college days in China came back to him and stirred him. Lin Hong, with a sad and beautiful face, stood prominently in this nostalgia as if she still held a key to all these homesickness, that eternal quest for meaning, identity, and a place to belong to. 

    Ming called ChenYin the next Monday and arranged to meet for lunch in the Chinatown. After they sat down in the Dim Sum restaurant, Chen Yin scrutinized Ming across the greasy table and sighed: “Ten years already. Isn’t that weird that we all left China and ended up here?”

    “Brain drain. That’s what it is called.” Ming said.

    “Oh, well. China has enough smart people anyway.” Chen Yin shrugged.       

    She went on to tell her story. After college she worked for a research institute in Guangzhou for a year, where she met her physicist husband. After the marriage he came to States on a scholarship and brought her over. She was initially enrolled in a Ph.D program in finance. When her husband found a job in California, she dropped out of the school and moved over with him.

    “My husband now heads the engineering division of a startup company.” Chen Yin seemed quite proud whenever she mentioned her husband. “Most of his engineers are based in China and he has to fly back a lot.”

    “Cheap labor.” Ming sneered.

    “But it is beneficial for both sides.” Chen Yin defended. “China changed so much since you left. It is such a big market. People like us have great opportunities.”

     Ming felt like saying something sarcastic and stinging. Those words almost slipped out before he realized that he could sound like the jealous fox who claimed the grapes were sour. Not everyone was such a go-getter. He wanted to say. Instead he said: “Tell me about Lin Hong.” 

    “So you are still curious about her.” Chen Yin took a sip of the tea and picked up a shrimp dumpling with her chopsticks. “How should I start? When we all came back to the school in the end of that sad summer we found out you were already gone. Lin Hong told us you went to States. She even showed off your first few letters whenever she received them. Then your letters stopped coming and her letters started to bounce back. She waited and waited but your letter never came anymore. She called your parents and asked for your address. But they did not want to tell her.”

     “I guess my parents did not like the idea of me leaving behind a girlfriend in GuangZhou.” Ming wished he could tell her how he had to work two jobs in the Chinese restaurants and how he finally came to terms with his sexuality, but instead he said: “I moved after the first semester. At the time things were not easy for me in LA. Plus, there are other reasons…”

     “Excuses.” Chen Yin interrupted. However, she did not sound too condescending. “Well. Maybe you did the right thing for yourself. I have seen enough Chinese couples splitting up after they came here.”

    “I heard that women usually adapt to the new environment much more easily. And so many white men want to marry Asian women.”

    “That is totally stereotyping. It was quite hard for me too when I first came to Buffalo. But my husband and I stuck with each other.” Chen Yin got a little defensive. Ming took the teapot and filled her cup. Chen Yin continued her story: “Anyway, I told Lin Hong. She just needed to face it. It was over. Don’t have hopes over you. But she was so stubborn. She did not believe you would just run away as such a coward. She even wrote a letter to your parents and asked them to send it for her, but she still heard nothing from you. Finally, one evening, she came back drunk and took out all your letters and photos and burned them in our lobby. She was screaming and cursing you. Bastard. Asshole. Heartless. The ashes were flying everywhere. She made such a scene that the security guard had to come to stop her.”

    Ming lowered his head.       

    “She seemed not to be depressed any more when the second semester of the junior year started. But we saw less and less of her during the weekends. She often disappeared for the Sundays without telling us what she was doing. One Sunday afternoon I ran into her at the West Gate and asked her where she came back from. She mumbled and then told me that she had been going to the bible study sessions in a house of some American English teachers. They turned out to be these clandestine missionaries. She asked me whether I had interest in joining them. And I thought, why not. It was a good opportunity to make friends with the Americans and practice English. So I went. It was all interesting and new for me in the beginning: the bible tales, the afterlife, song-singing, and the love stuff. But somehow I still had hard time believing in what they wanted me to believe.”

    “I know exactly what you are talking about.” Ming said: “I tried Bible study myself and I just could not get it.”   

    “But Lin Hong devoted herself so wholeheartedly. Maybe she got hurt so much that she needed to find new spiritual support.” ChenYin was obviously protecting Lin Hong: “Eventually there was a ceremony for her to get baptized. One Sunday morning we all got up early and biked to this lake outside the city. One of the teachers acted as the pastor and walked with her to the water. When the water got to the waist level, Lin Hong soaked her body in the lake while the pastor gave a short sermon. We all stood at the shore and witnessed the ceremony. It was beautiful and moving…the sunlight, the lake, the devotion everyone was showing, and the songs we were singing. But suddenly, instead of finding the connection with the God, I just felt the whole thing was like a secret cult, and I got a little freaked out.”   

    ChenYin was enjoying telling the story. She continued: “After that I stopped going. But Lin Hong had become a total Christian. It was a secret between two of us. She seemed happy. The senior year was pretty crazy. Everyone was worried about the job assignment. You got to use whatever connections and backdoors. But Lin Hong was so calm. One day, I think it was June, she came back to the dorm and announced that she just got the student visa to study in US. We were all surprised. Obviously she had been working on it for a while but she had not told any of us, not even me. We were all curious about how she got it. But she did not want to tell us.”

     Ming was thinking how capable Lin Hong was. He realized that was probably one of the main reasons why he adored her so much.

    “She had to go back to Chang Sha for a week and pack up. I saw her off in the train station. She finally told me that one of those missionaries helped her to get a scholarship in a tiny Christian college somewhere in California. I was thinking. Wow. It was really the God who was guiding her and sending her out to all these journeys.”

     “Wow.” Ming sighed. He was a little amazed and also a little relieved. At least, she did not use marriage to as a gamble to come to States. She stayed faithful to him.

      “But Lin Hong never wrote me back.” Chen Yin grimaced to Ming. “I was not surprised since many of you just disappeared like she did. After I came to the States I thought about reconnecting with her but no one knew where she was. I almost had forgotten her. But last summer, my husband came back from China and showed me a name card of a woman who happened to sit next to him on the plane. It said Lin Hong, and her title was something like business development manager of the Asian division for a technology firm in the Bay area. I had a sixth sense that this might be the same Lin Hong. On the plane my husband mostly talked about business with Lin Hong. He vaguely remembered she was from Hunan, which was enough for me to make the phone call a couple of days later. As it turned out, I was right.”

     “We chatted on the phone for a long time. She actually went to Bethany college in the Santa Cruz Mountains. After that she got married with someone she met in the local church, a nice white guy whose family has been in Santa Cruz for generations. Then she went to study in the Berkeley business school and got an MBA. These days she flew back to China a lot. Her company has a branch in Beijing and she is in charge of it.”
     Chen Yin finally took a break from her long narrative and ordered another plate of dumplings. During the whole time neither her nor Ming touched any of the food on the table.

     “So do you see her often?” Ming asked.

     “She invited us once or twice for Barbecues. We don’t really hang around much at all. You know. I have two kids. They take all my time. Also, it is a long drive to go down to Santa Cruz.”

     “Is she happy?”

     “I guess so.” Chen Yin said. “She is in a much better physical shape. Plus, a big house near the ocean, a nice husband who adores her, a successful career, and frequent trips back to China. What else does she want?”

     “And, a God gives her eternal happiness.” Ming did not know why he became a little sarcastic. A happy successful Lin Hong did not fit in what he had always imagined.

     “That’s right. But she does not preach to us, at least. Gees. You sound a bit jealous.”

     “No. I should be happy for her. All these years I have been living under this guilt. But I did not have enough guts to look for her.” Ming felt he was reading script lines.    

     “Do you want to meet her?”

     “Are you sure she is willing to meet me? After all, I hurt her so badly.”

     “It was so long ago.” Chen Yin blinked her eyes as if she did not care about the underlined drama in Ming’s question. “Well, anyway, why don’t you give her a call yourself? I won’t say anything.” 

Ming waited until the weekend before he made the phone call. He was not sure why he was so anxious. Curiosity? A final closure to a hanging case? A revisit to the old wounds and the old feelings? Or a tribute to his moral debt? Ming was compelled by an urge to tell Lin Hong his stories. Could she forgive him? Could she understand his coming out even after she had become so religious? He remembered one incident when they were invited to a salon meeting organized by a friend who got a videotaped version for the movie “Kiss of the Spider Women”. The theme of the salon was to watch the movie and talk about it. He remembered that Lin Hong made rather generous comments on homosexuality.    

    When his call finally went through, he heard the familiar voice and he almost forgot the lines he had rehearsed. After Ming told her who he was, there was a moment of pause on the other side. Ming feared that Lin would be angry and hang up. But Lin Hong’s soft voice started to speak calmly. She said she was expecting the call since Chen Yin had already told her about him. And she was glad to hear back from him. She sounded polite and precise, and Ming could not tell any raw feeling behind. He should have guessed Chen Yin’s big mouth. Ming gave her a rather short version of his ten years, and Lin Hong summarized hers in a few sentences. In the end, Ming mentioned that he was driving down to Santa Cruz to visit a friend and he would not mind stopping by. It was a lie he came up with since he did not want to sound too eager. Lin Hong answered that their house had a view on the ocean and she would love to be the hostess.

    Such an easy conversation. Ming was surprised. He put down the phone and tried to make sense what he had just heard. They did not talk about why Ming stopped writing to Lin Hong. Not a single word as if it was a forbidden topic. Ming felt unsatisfied. He wanted to find out more, find out how she was from his own eyes.

     He left rather early on the next Saturday although their appointment was in the afternoon. On the highway his car stereo blasted those old college songs as if they could help him to overcome his nervousness. When he got in the town, he checked a few bookstores and killed the rest of the time in a coffeehouse. The town appeared homogeneously white and affluent. It made Ming feel a bit uncomfortable.

    He showed up on time. The house was near a bike path along the coast. The façade facing the ocean was painted creamy white while the garage doors were in the contrast sky blue. It looked quaint and cozy. Ming buzzed the door and for a split second he remembered the time when he knocked at her door in that dark dormitory building. Ming held his breath and waited. The door clicked and Lin Hong appeared right in front of him.

     She no longer had long hair. She had it cut to the neck length and straightened neatly. It made her look sharp and professional. Her face was still smooth, but it was not pale white anymore. It was a healthy color that was usually found on Californians who do Yoga, eat only vegetables and play plenty of volleyball. The baby blue casual blouse she was wearing reminded Ming of the sleek Banana Republic models. The only thing that Ming could trace from the old Lin Hong was the necklace. But this time it looked like some small pendant of Virgin Mary.

    Lin Hong also checked Ming but she beamed friendly right away: “Welcome to our house.”

   After a polite hug, Ming was led into the living room. Lin Hong carried herself elegantly. She asked Ming whether he needed tea or not. “Someone just gave me the best Chinese tea during my last trip. Dragon Well.” She said.

    Ming nodded and she went back to the kitchen. Ming finally had a chance to look at the well-decorated living room in details. It reminded him of the cover pictures in the Pottery Barn catalogue with a few exotic oriental twists. On the display shelf there were several framed wedding pictures. Ming tried to look closely at Lin Hong’s husband, who had an amicable and forgettable face. There were pictures of them with groomsmen, bridesmaids, and her husband’s family members. But there was hardly a Chinese face among them, and Lin Hong’s family was basically missing. Ming also noticed the thick bible with gold rims on the stylish coffee table. But he could not see any crucifix on the wall.

    Lin Hong brought in a whole tray of teacups and teapot and small snacks. Ming noticed the refined patterns on those porcelains. He picked up his cup carefully. Lin Hong mentioned her husband was visiting his parents and would be back in an hour. For a while Ming did not know what to talk about. All the dramatic words he conjured up earlier became so inappropriate in this friendly yet plastic atmosphere. He finally commented rather absent-mindedly about how nice the house was. Lin Hong stood up and told him she could show him the rest of it. Ming followed dutifully. 

     There was a nice garden with plenty of white lilies and purple irises in the backyard. The little Zen-style pond was making pleasant sound of flowing waters. Lin Hong told Ming that her husband designed and built the whole garden. When they came to the garage, Ming noticed the silver mini van and a new white Infinity.

     Lin Hong showed the whole house with unspoken pride and spoken modesty. Ming tried to show his appreciation but his mind was talking the other way. Complacency. He thought. Why was she doing this? Was she trying to show him what a good life she was living? Or her Christian value had merited her to forgive and forget what Ming had done to her? Ming could not tell from Lin Hong’s flawless manner. If she was acting she was a damn good actress. If she really had changed and become this confident, contentious and tasteful suburb homeowner, he should be grateful to the power of the elite American consumer culture.

    They went back to the living room and started to chat. Ming mentioned his running into Chen Yin. Lin Hong suddenly said: “You know how she came to States? I heard she dumped her old boyfriend and got married to her current husband in a month after she found out he was coming here.”

    The sentence came so obtrusive that it almost sounded odd in the golden afternoon lighting. She had not forgotten anything. Ming stared at the teacup and thought. “I heard you became a Christian.” Ming said. He hoped it would open the conversation.

    “I have been very thankful for what God has given to me.” Lin Hong switched back to the same peaceful tone. “I was lucky to find him.”

     Lin Hong did not seem to want to further the discussion on God. Ming was trying to figure out what else he could say to bring out her true voice, if there was still a one. He put out his final bid and said: "Lin Hong, I came down here with only one purpose. I want to tell you I am not a heartless person. When I disappeared, there were reasons I may not be able to tell you yet. But believe me. I had to stop our relationship at that moment.”   

    Lin Hong’s face stiffened and she stayed quiet. She looked at the carpet without any response. Ming could hear the wave breaking the rocks in the distance. He was waiting.

    Finally, Lin Hong lifted her head and regained her pose. She said: “You disappointed me. I was really mad and upset. But the past has already been past. Why bother thinking about it? Just like the TianAnMeng Square. People were killed but nobody even remembered them. We have to move on.”   

    But one could never totally cut oneself from the past. Ming wanted to argue. He could not cut himself from his homeland, his family, his people, and everything he once loved. He had tried but had not succeeded. He wish he could tell Lin Hong how he struggled through these years and tried to reinvent himself, but in the end he only found himself more lost than ever. He wished he could tell her he still remembered that hill in her hometown, that stormy afternoon in her secret cave. He had wanted to forget them but they only came back so much more powerful. These words were boiling in Ming’s mind, but he could not speak out a single of them.    

As soon as Ming left Lin Hong’s house, he took a deep breath of the ocean air and felt strangely relieved. The sun was setting on the horizon and painted the whole sky with amazing blobs of reds and purples. Ming stood at the cliff and looked at the wide ocean. He almost felt like crying. He did not want to just go back to San Francisco right away. He thought about driving further. Maybe he could go all the way to Big Sur. Maybe even to LA. But right now, the sun was still setting and he decided to watch it until the last ray disappeared.