Dragon Bones Read online

  Hulan circulated until she spotted a woman with a little girl about four years old. They looked poor—perhaps the woman had come from the countryside to the capital to look for work. If so, her presence in the city was against the law, which may have accounted for the anxious way she kept looking around. But there was something else about her that was troubling. Her hair was unkempt, and not only were her clothes dirty but the buttons on her blouse were all off by one. Still, the daughter was impeccably clean and beautifully turned out given their circumstances. The woman squatted on the ground so that she was eye-level with her daughter. Her hands worried over every inch of the girl, tweaking the neckline of her T-shirt, pulling at the hems of her shorts, and retying her red tennis shoes. All the while the little girl—her cheeks shiny and pink— chattered nonstop about nothing important, just Mama this and Mama that. A bag lay next to them. Hulan imagined what was inside—perhaps an orange for the girl, maybe another change of clothes, a toy if they had enough money. An ache began in Hulan’s chest, and she looked away.

  At 6:15, a man jumped up on a small wooden platform and held up his hands for silence. He looked to be about thirty, but he could have been much older. He was ruggedly handsome, and his hair was a bit longer than the custom. As the crowd quieted, he dropped one hand and held himself in a posture reminiscent of Mao as a young revolutionary. “I am Tang Wenting, a lieutenant of the All-Patriotic Society.”

  Hulan could have arrested him right then, but she wanted to hear what he had to say. She’d use his speech against him later, during interrogations.

  “We meet in the light of Xiao Da’s grace,” Tang Wenting announced.

  “Xiao Da, Xiao Da, Xiao Da,” the followers murmured, and the sound echoed beautifully through the square.

  As the lieutenant let the name wash over him, Hulan wondered not for the first time about the mysterious Xiao Da, the self-proclaimed leader of the All-Patriotic Society, who’d pulled off a semi-miracle in keeping his true identity a secret in a nation where there were no secrets. The fact that Xiao Da had been able to move through the countryside holding underground meetings for the last three years not only increased his legend but also exasperated the government. Numerous arrests had been made and many people sentenced to labor camp. On several occasions Hulan had tried to negotiate lesser sentences in exchange for the identity of Xiao Da, knowing that once he was gone the group would collapse. But either no one knew Xiao Da’s identity or they weren’t yet ready to give him up. It was all very annoying. Even his name irritated Hulan. Xiao Da—Little Big—what was that supposed to mean anyway?

  Hulan’s eyes sought out the little girl she’d seen before. The mother was holding her daughter tightly by the waist, forcing her to watch the lieutenant. The woman had her lips to one of the girl’s ears and was whispering intensely. The child’s eyes were wide not with excitement but with fear, though Hulan couldn’t understand why. The girl stayed quiet, refusing to say a word against the whispered barrage and remaining still within her mother’s grip, which seemed to tighten as the All-Patriotic Society lieutenant droned on. It occurred to Hulan that maybe the woman wasn’t a country bumpkin or even a true Society follower at all, just a mother who had lost her connection to the real world.

  “Our political leaders tell us to give up the old ways,” Tang Wenting lectured. “They tell us, ‘To get rich is glorious!’ But Xiao Da says we must say no to these new ways. We must repudiate technology and social progress, and go back to honoring old traditions and old values.….”

  Fifteen minutes later, the sun broke across the square and Hulan could see its instantaneous effect on the religious adherents. Beijing languished in the midst of Fu Tian, that debilitating period of Give-Up Weather between July and August, when the heat and humidity were at their most ominous and oppressive. Unprotected as it was, Tiananmen was not a place to be during the heat of the day. It was time to head home or to work.

  The lieutenant caught the subtle change in the crowd. “Before you go, I have a few words from Xiao Da’s own lips that he asked me to impart to you. Soon Xiao Da will step out of the darkness and into the light. When he does, he will bring with him an object that will unite all of the Chinese people. With it in his hand, evil will be punished. Those who are reverent will triumph. Together we will follow Xiao Da.”

  This kind of rhetoric was exactly why the government perceived the All-Patriotic Society to be a threat.

  The young man bent his head piously as voices throughout the square sang out, “Xiao Da, Xiao Da, Xiao Da.”

  He looked up and said, “Now is the time to remember our tributes. Nine Virtues, Nine Grades, Nine Tributes.”

  The All-Patriotic Society had grown quickly in three years. Although the group counted fewer members than the Falun Gong, the Ministry of Public Security had internal estimates of 20 million followers, nearly all of whom lived in the countryside. Once initiated, they donated their hard-earned salaries and sometimes their savings to the sect, based on a secret tithing scale involving nine grades. A lot of money was ending up in Xiao Da’s pocket, and Hulan didn’t want that custom to take hold in Beijing. She turned to signal to the policemen to round up anyone holding a collection basket.

  Suddenly she heard a woman’s voice scream, “For Xiao Da!”

  Hulan spun around. The mother who moments before had been whispering into her daughter’s ear now stood fully erect, her neck stretched so she could see above the crowd to the lieutenant. In one hand she held on to the back of her daughter’s T-shirt; in the other she held a cleaver, which she must have brought with her in her bag. The blade was a good ten centimeters wide.

  Everyone here was Chinese; all knew from experience when something bad was going to happen. People started to edge away and push each other to get out of there. For a moment Hulan lost sight of the mother and daughter altogether. She heard Tang Wenting’s voice shout out: “Be calm! Xiao Da would want you all to be calm!”

  Miraculously, the crowd responded to his words, slowing down, quieting.

  “We need to help our sister,” he went on. “Tell me, sister! What do you want to tell Xiao Da? Have you come to renounce alcohol, tobacco, and fornication? We are all with you!”

  “I have come to punish this girl,” the woman called back to him.

  Hulan pulled out her weapon and held it lowered in front of her. “Put the knife down!” she yelled.

  People scattered out of the way, then, like frightened animals, scrambled right back into her line of fire.

  “All children are innocent.” Tang Wenting maintained his facade of serenity. As much as Hulan distrusted the group and all it stood for, she was grateful that the lieutenant seemed to understand the gravity of the situation.

  “This one is bad,” the mother answered. “The evil needs to be cut out.”

  These words caught the interest of the crowd. Now they wanted to see what the ruckus was all about. Hulan shoved people aside, yet she still felt she was being pushed farther away.

  “Only Xiao Da can pass judgment,” the lieutenant countered. “And he believes in just punishments only.”

  A primal howl ripped out of the woman. “A mother can see evil too!”

  She sank to her knees and pushed her daughter to the ground. She grabbed the girl’s forearm and held it flat against the cement.

  “Move out of my way!” Hulan screamed. But in a country where people witnessed executions as entertainment, no one moved. To the woman, she shouted, “Put the knife down or I’ll shoot!”

  “Mama! No! Mama!” These were the first words anyone had heard from the child. They floated out sweet and crisp.

  Tang Wenting had come down off his box and managed to make his way to the mother. “You are suffering, sister,” he consoled her. “We suffer with you, but we are not extremists. The river is life….”

  These words did not offer solace. Instead the woman looked around wildly, searching the faces for understanding. Then her eyes dropped to her daughter’s hand. When she
raised the cleaver above her head, Hulan lifted her weapon and took careful aim at the woman’s shoulder. The cleaver began to fall. The little girl struggled to free her arm. Her screams were unlike anything Hulan had ever heard before. Hulan fired.

  Panic was instantaneous. People began running every which way. Hulan heard other shots being fired and hoped that bullets were only going over people’s heads. She took a last few steps and reached the sad little tableau. The mother lay splayed on the ground, thrashing from side to side, blood everywhere. The little girl knelt beside her mother, sobbing. Tang Wenting was on his knees, trying to staunch the bleeding with his palms. Hulan dropped down beside them. “Move!” she ordered the lieutenant. He pulled his hands away, and blood squirted up, spraying the little girl’s face.

  “There shouldn’t be so much blood,” Hulan said to no one. She tore the woman’s blouse. The entry wound was in the shoulder as it should have been, but the blood was not coming from there. Instead it gushed from a smaller wound at the neck, where a fragment of the bullet had embedded itself. It must have shattered when it hit the bone and either ricocheted or traveled internally to the neck, where it had shredded the carotid artery. Hulan turned the woman on her side and applied pressure to her neck. The little girl whimpered, “Mama, Mama,” over and over again.

  With all of the confusion in the square, no one came to help. The blood continued to pump out from beneath Hulan’s hands until finally the woman stopped writhing. Tang Wenting was the first to move. He got to his feet, took two steps back, then stretched out his arm and pointed at Hulan. “Mother killer,” he said in condemnation. Then he widened his arms as if to embrace those who still remained on the square. “Everyone! See this mother killer! She murdered one who was reverent!”

  All of Hulan’s senses were heightened. She could feel the blood already beginning to dry on her hands and face. She could hear commotion in the distance. She could see in her peripheral vision the television camera and could hear the excited tones of the female reporter, who certainly had the scoop of the day. Hulan was even aware of Tang Wenting as he pointed at her again and announced to the crowd, “This woman is our enemy! She has shown her true face! Xiao Da will make her pay!” But all Hulan really absorbed was the face of the little girl before her. Her eyes had a look that Hulan knew all too well. It was the empty stare of someone who had lost everything.

  David Stark woke up alone in the bed that he’d once shared with his wife. He took a shower and dressed. On his way out to the kitchen, he stopped as he did every day to visit the room that had once been his daughter’s. He lit incense, said a silent prayer, and touched her photograph. Then he left the room, put water on for tea, and turned on the television. He liked to catch the early-morning broadcasts because they helped him with his colloquial Mandarin. But when he glimpsed Hulan’s face on the screen, he sat down and for the next hour watched in horror as events in the square spiraled out of control. As soon as he saw the little girl, he felt a pang of loss and grief that he was sure Hulan must have felt. After the mother died and Hulan picked up the crying child, David flipped off the television and went outside. Hulan would deliver the girl to the proper authorities, then she would need to return to the compound for a shower and change of clothes. He’d be waiting for her.

  He made his way from the back pavilion—where he had lived alone these last months—past the other buildings that had once housed the acrobats, singers, and other performers who were Hulan’s celebrated ancestors, past the building where Hulan’s mother and her nurse resided, to the central courtyard. Hulan would have to come through here to get to her room.

  David sat on a porcelain garden stool under the ginkgo tree and waited. This was the place where five years ago he had promised Hulan that they would be happy. That day he’d said that in a way they were both orphans, because they’d both been alone much of their lives. Hulan had lost her father, and her mother was just a shadow of a person; David’s parents had been married just long enough for him to be born. Then his father, an international businessman, had gone back to his travels, while his mother, a concert pianist, had gone back to her recitals. If David and Hulan had each other, he’d said, they would not be alone. Once their daughter was born, they could create the kind of family that neither of them had ever had. David had promised Hulan that they would never be separated again, that they would be together forever, and that their child would be carefree, happy, and healthy too. He’d assured Hulan that all of her fears about loss were unfounded. He’d said he’d never leave. He’d been wrong about almost everything, and the guilt he felt about that every day was almost unbearable.

  But David had made his promises, and she’d believed him. Vice Minister Zai had taken Hulan off murder cases, and she’d never returned to them. David and Hulan had married in a small ceremony. Hulan’s belly had swelled, and the doctor had repeatedly assured them that the pregnancy was normal. During periodic ultrasounds, David and Hulan could see that the baby—a girl—looked good, healthy and strong. To their eyes, she already had personality in the way she sucked her thumb and somersaulted in Hulan’s womb. David and Hulan began to think like a family. They bought a crib and painted the alcove off the bedroom. Hulan searched through trunks and brought out embroidered baby hats decorated with gold good-luck charms.

  Once Chaowen was born, their joy was complete. She was a beautiful child. In many ways she’d looked like a typical Chinese girl. Her face was round and perfectly pink. Her eyes were two lovely almonds. But Chaowen’s hair was not a pure silky black, so anyone on the street could see that she was not one hundred percent Chinese. She enjoyed Christmas as much as Chinese New Year. (What child wouldn’t?) In winter, she wore practical padded Chinese clothes; in summer, T-shirts and shorts. She spoke English to her father even on those occasions when he spoke to her in Chinese; she spoke Chinese to her mother even when she spoke to her daughter in English. In other words, Chaowen was headstrong and smart like both of her parents, which had often caused the neighbors to comment on the appropriateness of her name. Chao meant “to exceed.” Wen meant “literary” or “cultural.” Together they meant someone who was a scholar of culture.

  Of course they’d disagreed about how to raise Chaowen. David had wanted her to be born in the States. He’d lost that one. He’d wanted to move back to Los Angeles so that his daughter would grow up exempt from political indoctrination. He’d wanted her to have access to great schools and good medical care. He’d wanted her to grow up knowing that she was absolutely free to make whatever decisions and choices she wanted. But Hulan was adamant that they stay in Beijing. Her reasons were legitimate: she wanted Chaowen to know Chinese culture, Hulan’s mother was too frail to leave, and they should all be a part of the New China. Because Hulan and Chaowen were happy, David reluctantly let his wishes be left behind.

  For the three and a half years of Chaowen’s life, Hulan had taken great joy in the simple things. To David’s eyes, she seemed to relish the whack of the cleaver hitting the chopping block, the silly sounds Chaowen made when she tried to cajole something from her parents, the giggles and murmurs as the three of them cuddled together on the big bed, then the quiet period after Chaowen went to sleep. They had cocooned themselves in a wonderful life. They were young, they had money, and he, at least, had great faith that all of their troubles were behind them. But the Chinese have a saying that is all too true: Things always change to the opposite.

  A year had passed since Chaowen’s death, and David still could hardly bring himself to think about those last days. They’d started casually with a fever. Hulan had given Chaowen Tylenol and homemade popsicles to keep up her fluids. David had amused her with coloring books, fairy tales, and paper dolls. But when Chaowen’s fever refused to drop and she became too listless to be entertained, they’d taken her to the emergency room. Bacterial meningitis—those two words changed his life forever. At first the doctors said she would be fine. Then she didn’t respond to antibiotics. Her fever increased, and her bur
ning body reacted with violent seizures. When her brain began to swell, the doctors started talking about long-term brain damage. David and Hulan would have accepted any challenge so long as Chaowen lived, but that wasn’t to be. Her organs gradually shut down. When the medical team tried to resuscitate her that last time, David inwardly prayed for one more chance. Then it was over. The nurses removed all of the tubes, wrapped Chaowen in a blanket, and let Hulan hold her. Even with the ravages of her illness and death, Chaowen was beautiful—delicate hands, the softest skin, and silky hair that was a physical manifestation of the love between her Chinese mother and Caucasian father.

  David’s grief was deep and profound, but strangely enough he found comfort in Asian traditions of death and the afterlife. Hulan, however, was inconsolable. David had seen her overcome tragedy before. She’d vanquished the remorse she felt for the pain she’d inflicted on her parents during the Cultural Revolution, come back from that frightening night when her father had sought revenge against her, doggedly recovered from the physical and psychological harm stemming from the inferno at the Knight factory. He’d told himself that time—and one day another child—would heal her sorrow, but Hulan’s last resources of resiliency had been sucked out of her in their daughter’s final breath.

  For the past year, Hulan had managed her emotions by covering them in the way she had since she was a child and by focusing her mind on something outside herself. When she began going out to the countryside on short trips to investigate the All-Patriotic Society, David didn’t object, in the blind belief that she needed to work things through in her own way. But whereas once she had been flexible and empathetic in her job, she was now tenacious and unforgiving. The more obsessed she became with the All-Patriotic Society, the more he saw her pulling away from him. The more she became involved in her crusade, the more he distanced himself from her too. She couldn’t talk to him about what she did in her work because he didn’t condone it, and he couldn’t talk to her about it because she didn’t want to hear another explanation of his principles of freedom of speech and religion. She couldn’t look at him because he brought back too many memories, and he couldn’t look at her because he’d failed her.