Remember (6 page)

The carnage had begun.

Appalled by what she was seeing, Nicky found herself unable to move.

She stood staring blankly, as chills shook her. A Chinese woman next to her roused her by grabbing her arm and saying in English, “The People’s Army are killing us—civilians. They are murderers!

Bastards!”

“Don’t stay here, go home!” Nicky said to the woman. “It’s dangerous here. Go home.” The woman simply shook her head, and remained standing where she was.

The drone of helicopters circling overhead made Nicky lift her head and gaze up into the night sky. She remembered what Yoyo had said about tear gas being dropped by the choppers. Opening her shoulder bag with a shaky hand, she pulled out one of the surgical masks and stuffed it into her pocket where it would be handy if she needed it.

Changan Avenue had become a battleground. Tanks and truckloads of soldiers armed with machine guns were rolling inexorably down the avenue, one after another.

God help the students, she thought, moving away from the road.

Fires were beginning to break out everywhere. Overturned buses, which had been used as barricades by the people, blazed at various intersections, and a number of military vehicles were burning on the avenue. They had been set on fire by the infuriated Beijing residents, and orange and red flames shot up into the dark sky, an inferno in the making.

Much to Nicky’s amazement, people were continuing to emerge from the apartment buildings and houses that lined Changan. They were on a rampage, intent on fighting back, using any makeshift weapons they could find—brooms and sticks and bricks. Some of them were armed with Molotov cocktails, which they hurled at the tanks and armored personnel carriers. Gunfire increased and the stench of cordite and blood hung heavy on the warm night air.

Nicky was suddenly overcome by nausea. Bullets were whizzing over her head and it was clear that she had better try to get back to her hotel.

A cart trundled through the crowd, carrying a wounded man

and woman.

When the people saw it they began to curse and shake their fists at the troops and, in response, the soldiers began to fire again. Nicky dropped to the ground to protect herself as tear-gas canisters exploded close to her. She pulled out the gauze mask, tied it around her face to cover her mouth and nose, but still she began to cough and splutter.

Pulling herself up, she inched her way over to the far side of the pavement, where she sought refuge under a clump of trees. Leaning against a tree trunk, coughing and gasping for breath, Nicky groped for tissues in her pocket and wiped her streaming eyes.

Some sixty or so soldiers were advancing with fixed bayonets down Changan. Pessimistic though she had been, she had not anticipated anything quite like this. Then, happily, she saw Arch a few yards away, and she knew that he was looking for her.

Running forward, she cried, “Arch! Arch! I’m here!”

As she reached him, he swung around and grabbed hold of her.

“Nicky! You’re all right!”

“And you, Arch,” she said.

“Have you ever seen anything like this?” he cried grimly. “The way they are killing innocent civilians, and the avenue is so jammed with tanks and trucks, the ambulances can’t get through!”

“It’s inhuman,” she said.

Crouching low, they ran down the pavement under the shelter of the trees and returned to Tiananmen Square.

When they reached the square, Nicky was struck by the curious calm pervading it. The atmosphere seemed peaceful but weirdly so.

They slackened their pace and continued up to the Martyrs’ Monument.

Some of the press corps had returned and were gathered there. From the expressions on their faces she could see they were as distressed as she and Arch were by what they had witnessed on Changan.

Yoyo and Mai were standing nearby talking with a small group of students. Nicky went over to them and drew them away from their friends.

“There’s so much bloodshed out there, I don’t know what to say, but I know what you must do,” Nicky said tersely. Fishing around in her bag, she found the envelope of money and thrust it into Yoyo’s hands. “You must take this, Yoyo.”

Yoyo stared at her. “But Clee say he buy tickets—” “Don’t argue, Yoyo, take it,” Nicky said. “Tomorrow’s going to be worse than tonight, and I’ll feel better, knowing you have the money on you. If anything happens and we get separated, or if we have to leave Beijing without you, get yourselves to Hong Kong.

We’ll be at the Mandarin Hotel. You’ll find us there.”

Yoyo nodded and put the envelope in his trouser pocket. “Thank you,” he said. “I understand. I have passport. Mai have passport.

Everything be okay, Nicky.”

“I hope so.” Nicky glanced around her and then brought her gaze back to Yoyo. “What’s been happening in the square?”

“Not much. Very quiet. Wuer Kaixi speak. Say this government oppose the people. Say Chinese must sacrifice themselves. For beautiful tomorrow.”

Nicky shook her head. “The students must not show resistance to the soldiers. If you stay, you must be peaceful.”

He nodded. “I understand. Chai Ling say this.”

“Did she speak also?”

“Yes. She say this peaceful sit-in. Tell students stay seated. No resist army.”

Nicky stared hard at Yoyo, then said, “Listen to me, Yoyo, these troops are not young like the others yesterday. They are hardened veterans.”

“Maybe Twenty-seventh Army. They tough. Bad. We be okay, Nicky.

Don’t worry.”

“But I do worry,” she said under her breath.

“People from Workers’ Federation here. They come protect students,” Yoyo explained.

“I can’t help wishing you’d protect yourselves by leaving,” Nicky said, but she knew Yoyo and Mai would stay until the end, even though he fully understood they were in peril, if Mai didn’t.

They were naive in many ways, like most of the kids in the square.

Clee came hurrying up to them looking disheveled.

“It’s horrendous…. there are no words, really …” he said.

She touched the camera hanging round his neck. “Still undamaged, I see.”

“They’re too busy shooting unarmed people to be bothered about a camera!”

Arch walked over, and putting his arm around Nicky’s shoulders, he said, “Jimmy and Luke are going back to the hotel for a while.

Go with them, Nick. You’ve been out here for hours.”

“I think I will,” she answered. “I want to make some notes for my broadcast anyway, and prepare my opening. I’ll be back in an hour or so.”

“Take your time,” Arch replied. “I can guarantee you this little shindig is going to last all night.”

Nicky was in and out of Tiananmen for the next few hours, as were most of the foreign press corps.

The areas surrounding the square were a mess. Soldiers were everywhere and the crowds had not diminished. In fact, it seemed to Nicky that they had increased. Overturned vehicles and abandoned bicycles littered Changan Avenue, and an even bigger number of fires were flaring up as the grief-stricken and angry residents continued to torch tanks and armored personnel carriers.

In the immediate vicinity of the Beijing Hotel the scene was chaotic.

The wounded, dying and dead were piling up, and distraught and weeping Beijingers, many of them covered in blood, were desperately trying to move the victims so that they could get them to the hospitals and morgues as quickly as possible.

They were using all kinds of makeshift stretchers, Nicky even saw one

made out of a door ripped from a telephone booth and tied to two long pieces of iron pipe. Several buses had been pressed into service as ambulances, and so had pedicabs and carts. Most of the injured were being taken to Xiehe Hospital, which was fairly close to Changan, since it was located in one of the streets immediately behind the Beijing Hotel.

In contrast, the square appeared to be peaceful enough when Nicky went back there at three-forty-five on the morning of June 4. Yet after only a few minutes in the square she felt the tension in the air. It was a most palpable thing, and underlying the tension was the smell of fear.

The troops had moved in, and were positioned at the far end.

Near the Goddess of Democracy statue she saw lines of soldiers drawn up. They stood staring at the square, their faces cold, cruel, brutal, with rifles in their hands, ready to charge on their own people when the order was given.

As soon as she reached Clee, who was hovering near the monument, he told her there were machine guns positioned on the roof of the Museum of Chinese History on the eastern side of the square.

“They’re efficient, aren’t they?” she said sarcastically. And then she noticed that some of the students on the monument were busy writing, and she tugged at Clee’s sleeve. “What are they doing?” she asked.

Clee sighed and shook his head. “Yoyo told me they’re writing their wills.”

Nicky turned away, swallowing, and felt the prick of tears behind her eyes. She struggled for self-control, the more emotional the situation and the story, the cooler she must be.

Clee had noticed her reaction, and put an arm around her. “It’s a lousy world we live in, Nick, and you know that better than anybody. ” “Oh, Clee. Some things are really hard to take.”

“Yes.” She gave him a halflhearted smile and then said briskly, “Well, our job is to see that the world knows about this. Where is Yoyo?”

“I saw him talking to Arch a little while ago. That singer, Hou Dejian, and a couple of other leaders have been on the loudspeakers, asking the kids to leave in an orderly fashion.”

Clee stopped short as the lights in Tiananmen Square went out.

“Now what?” Nicky said.

“The worst, I suspect,” Clee answered grimly. “Those lights didn’t fail, they’ve been turned off.”

In a moment the loudspeakers on the monument began to crackle, a disembodied voice said something, and then the volume increased and music began to play.

“It’s the Internationale’!” Clee exclaimed. “Christ, I wonder what the kids will do now?”

“Leave, I hope,” Nicky said.

But as the words of the famous revolutionary workers’ anthem rang out across the square, Nicky knew the students would not do so.

She could see, even in the dim light, that they simply sat there, listening to the music, motionless, unshakable, proud in their resoluteness. As soon as the record ended it was played again, and it was repeated several more times during the course of the next twenty minutes.

Nicky and Clee conferred quietly from time to time and talked with other journalists, everyone expected the military attack to begin at any moment, and they steeled themselves for the confrontation between the students and the troops. Another half hour passed, nothing occurred—and then, suddenly, the lights in front of the Great Hall of the People were turned on dramatically, flooding that side of the square with the most powerful and brilliant illumination.

Almost simultaneously the loudspeakers came alive once again and several people spoke, but neither Nicky nor Clee could understand what was being said. Then a British journalist standing nearby told them, “The leaders are urging the students to quit the square. They’re all saying the same thing—get out before you’re killed.”

Clee said, “Nicky, I’m going to go get some shots of those guys on the loudspeakers, and of Chai Ling.”

Nicky spent the next ten minutes or so strolling in the area of the monument, her eyes scanning the crowds and the ledges hopefully. There was no sign of Yoyo, Mai or the other students she’d come to recognize, and she began to wonder if they had finally left the square.

There was another announcement over the loudspeakers, another short silence, and then a second voice was heard, echoing out.

Nicky walked on, circling the monument one last time. Much to her surprise, a number of the kids were beginning to stand up, climb down off the ledges and walk away. Many had tears streaming down their faces, they had lost their peaceful fight for freedom and democracy, military power had prevailed, and many innocent people had been slaughtered. But at least some lives will be saved now, she thought.

Dawn was breaking, streaking the sky with light, filling it with an eerie, incandescent glow. She peered at her watch. It was after five, she could not stay in the square much longer. Sighing under her breath, she left the monument and started to walk to Changan. She would return to the hotel to prepare her newscast and the film segment, shower, put on her makeup and change her clothes. She and Arch had decided that first she would do the filmed piece on the balcony of the hotel, to be sent out by courier later that morning. At eight-fifteen she would do her live phone narration for the seven o’clock nightly news.

Nicky had not walked far when she remembered the small canvas travel bag Yoyo kept in his tent. He had once told her his most important possessions were in it. Was his passport in the bag?

Had he gone back for it?

She turned around, dodged through the students who were now leaving, and hurried toward the tent encampment. As she ran she saw to her dismay that an increasing number of soldiers were coming into the square. Suddenly it seemed to her that they were everywhere, and in the distance she heard the clatter and rumble of tanks and armored personnel carriers moving forward across that vast rectangle of stone.

War correspondents were not supposed to be heroic. They had to get the story and get out alive. Her father had drilled that into her. But now she had to go back to look for Yoyo and Mai, and so she plunged ahead through the deserted encampment, shouting, “Yoyo ! Mai ! ” One or two faces peered out of tents, and she cried, “Leave!

Tanks are coming!” Realizing that they did not understand English, she made urgent gestures with her arms, and cried, “Go!

Go ! ” hoping they would somehow get the message . And then she ran on, making for the center of the encampment.

They saw each other at exactly the same moment—Yoyo and Mai, rounding the side of one tent as Nicky came out from behind another. They had both put on jackets, and Yoyo was carrying the small canvas bag.