The Trouble in Beijing

By Charlson Ong

He has packed his Chinese version Lutheran Bible this time. Conversion to Protestantism during his old age seemed to be Father’s final affront against Mother’s Buddhism and the Catholic upbringing of us children. The old termite-ravaged Kuomintang flag could be unfurled in Tiananmen Square at the “crucial moment.” And, certainly, the vintage WW II issue .45 caliber pistol may come in handy if things really got ugly. A duffel bag and leather attaché case have been sitting in our living room since early morning. Father’s finally gotten his reluctant travel agent to book him on the next flight to Hongkong where he plans to sneak into the mainland since direct flights to China have been cancelled as political tension heightened. “Wait till things settle a bit, Ah Bien,” Mother pleaded. But save for the travel visa he hopes to secure from the Chinese embassy later this afternoon, my Father is again packed and set to “reconquer the mainland.”

With the rest of the world, Father had watched curiously the growing student-led popular movement in Beijing which the foreign press had dubbed as being “pro-democracy.” Curiosity turned into excitement as the masses of demonstrations occupying Tiananmen Square swelled. He was exhilarated, awaiting every bit of satellite-fed news from China. Hope became trepidation as the conservatives gained the upperhand in the government power struggle, and as enthusiasm waned and police crackdown began there was anger in Father’s eyes before he wept. He actually wept. Those were the first tears I saw him shed for anyone. Tears he’d certainly deny me should I, his daughter, drop dead here and now.

“He wept mother,” I bleated like a goat, then, quite unable to hold back my own tears. “He wouldn’t even show up at Roger’s funeral and now weeps for strangers across the Pacific Ocean.”

“White hair cannot bury black hair,” Mother replied for the umpteenth time, explaining how Chinese parents aren’t supposed to send their children to the grave.

Father came to Manila during the ’30s to help market his uncle’s silk, textile and foodstuff imports from China across the Philippine Islands. By the end of the Second World War Father had made enough of a fortune to return to Amoy and set up a trading post for coconut products from Manila. In fact, he’d begun refurbishing the ancestral home in preparation for our eventual return when Mao marched his armies into Beijing and short-circuited Father’s plans. Not that he loved the Kuomintang any better but Father simply hated the communists more. It was an absurd hatred seemingly beyond ideology and politics, a personal score that has yet to be settled. I remember Mother relating to us kids once how Father was arrested by some overzealous communist youth leaguer when he returned to Amoy in ’49 amidst civil war chaos to try and bring out Grandmother. But the old woman was too weak to travel and Father was detained by this band of militant youngsters demanding that he unload his “foreign gold hoard.” Father never talked about the incident, although years later I’d guessed that the calluses on his back had to do with those times. Even after travel restrictions to China were lifted back in the ’70s, Father wouldn’t hear of any of us visiting the place. He wouldn’t touch any merchandise from the mainland even as our dry goods competitors were bringing in abalone, mushrooms, preserves and other delicacies in demand in the local Chinese community.

“There are no communist mushrooms, Father,” I remember my brother Roger raising his voice once in desperation. We later shifted to textile and garments from Taiwan, although, lately, mainland merchandise are again gaining on the market. Father’s semi-retired, though, since suffering a mild stroke six years ago, my cousins and I mostly run the business.

Father frequents Taiwan and Hongkong which he calls “free Chinese” territories. He has an uncanny way of timing “business meetings” abroad to coincide with important family matters at home. Two years ago he missed Roger’s funeral for a property auction in Hongkong. Although he might have been holed up in some local five-star hotel for all we know.

Since the student movement began in Beijing a month ago Father’s entire existence has revolved around news from China. You didn’t try conversing with him unless it concerned the latest developments on the trouble in Beijing. He fired off letters to Chinese-language dailies denouncing the communist leadership in Beijing and supporting the “patriotic youth.” He even went around soliciting funds for the movement from kin and associates.

I don’t think Father will make it to China, at least not until the political situation normalizes. No one in his right mind will issue him a visa to that country at this hour and I’m sure Mother knows this too. But she chooses to play his game. Mother’s great at playing Father’s games.

It’s not that I don’t care about Chinese students being roughed up by their police. For I too am routinely concerned with the plight of workers being teargassed in South Korea, blacks being lynched in South Africa and gorillas being hunted down in the Kenyan mist. But for the life of me I cannot fathom this sudden concern for freedom and “human rights” in someone who insists that there are “technically” no political killings in the Philippines.

When I was picked up by the military years ago on the campus where I was associate editor of the school organ, Father did nothing to help me get out of detention although I knew he had a couple of generals on his Christmas mailing list. It was Mother who visited me every day and finally pulled enough strings to set me free. The old man thought detention would teach me some lasting lesson.

“So you think washing latrines is the worst thing they can think of,” I remember yelling at him in exasperation a week after my release just to break that consuming silence that has since come between us. But he was deaf to my anger and has hardly been a presence in my life ever since.

So much has happened since then and Father certainly has had more than his fair share of pain. Still, why am I convinced that he is again running away? Because Father thinks I’m marrying Hilario Brill in less than three weeks and it would be quite convenient for my old man to be fighting for democracy in China just when he is supposed to be giving me away in church.

Father doesn’t seem to like Larry. He doesn’t seem to like anyone since Roger died nearly two years ago from a malignant brain tumor. Father insists that Roger would still be alive if Mother had consented to send him to China for acupuncture and Chi kung treatment which is supposed to work wonders. But Roger has gone into coma two weeks after experiencing those crippling headaches and the doctors assured us that nothing could be done for him anywhere — even in Texas where Uncle Soo, Father’s cousin, sits on the board of some expensive hospital.

Roger, four years my junior, was Father’s only son. This preference for male heirs among the Chinese used to bother me, too, and I tried desperately to find common cause with my bereaved parents. But Roger was Father’s progeny and his loss was something I’m not supposed to comprehend. That, I guess, is what father has been saying to me all this time through his silence and evasions.

Larry’s much older than me. But the fact didn’t matter to my parents as much as his being a pure-bred Pampango. Women in our clan have had to marry grandfathers back on the mainland when circumstances warranted. But this would be the first time in eight hundred years that a daughter of the Lims would be marrying a non-Chinese person, a huanna.

“It’s 1980, Mother,” I’d say as if such dates mattered to people for whom the fate of the universe is inexorably tied to family history; people who are wont to recall, for instance, “the year of the great flood, when our patriarch Lim Bao became Minister of Rites in the Court of Emperor Chien Lung…”

I’ve known Larry for over a year since meeting him in an introductory session on Transcendental Meditation and we’ve been dating for six months. He is the editor of a left-leaning weekly journal to which I contribute occasionally. Perhaps things would have been more difficult for us if Roger hadn’t died. Father would still be quite vigilant in protecting the purity and honor of his progeny — on all fronts — and my marrying a non-Chinese person would have constituted a major tragedy. Now, I guess he couldn’t care less if I eloped with a Martian. I think Mother saw this, too, and let go. What really bothers her is the fact that Larry has a sixteen-year old son by a former lover. But when Mother realized that I’d been sleeping with Larry, marriage suddenly loomed as the lesser of evils. Mother’s from an age where its virginity or death for single women no matter if they were raised to be concubines. I think she’d have gone bonkers if she knew that Larry wasn’t the first. But what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her.

Father thinks Larry is some kind of communist. He was among a group of students who entered China back in 1970 but left after a year. I warned Larry against telling Father this and he did avoid discussing the matter when I invited him home for dinner once. But Larry kept on about the Proletarian Cultural Revolution being the “best thing that ever happened to China,” despite my vain attempts to steer the conversation to safer ground. I could sense Father’s discomfort as he munched a bit too loudly on his roast beef. But Larry was irrepressible. Father’s a largely self-educated man, spending less than four years of his life in school. The apocalyptic bent of his new-found faith often cuts me in the wrong places, still, I don’t think he could have risen from the depths of depression were it not for the Chinatown evangelical group he joined eight months after Roger’s death. I even think it has vastly improved his English, all that Bible study.

“I have a cousin who used to head the Physics Department in Beijing University,” Father had said to Larry’s enumeration of Madame Mao’s theatrical achievements. “Oh? That’s wonderful,” Larry, dense as always, had replied, stumbling into Father’s snare.

“I can’t see why anyone would want to eat yogurt, “ I’d quipped even as Mother excused herself from the table. “You either have ice cream or you don’t. Why stuff yourself with tasteless muck,” I’d muttered on. But Larry was deaf to me. “So, have you been in touch?” he’d asked Father.

“Not since they made him shovel manure in Mongolia to learn about revolution from the people,” Father had declared in his this-is-the-Word-of-the-Lord tone and Larry at once turned to me, having understood my sudden concern over yogurt.

“Please, this isn’t necessary,” I’d whispered to no one in particular. Then, Larry muttered his final undoing before Father: “Well, there were excesses, I must admit.”

“Excesses?” Father’s tremolo could’ve belonged to the Sea Dragon King silencing the waves. The silverware leapt as he pounded the table. Larry couldn’t have been more shocked if the Dragon King had in fact invaded our home.

“Let’s say grace,” I remember saying as Father looked away and Larry stared at his own hands.

I went home with Larry that night. I don’t know why, but it had suddenly seemed the only thing to do. Father had locked himself in his room after the dinner table incident. Mother strained to keep up conversation with us but the conclusion and pain in her eyes was too much to bear. I heard myself saying in Chinese: “It’s late, Mother, we’ll have to be on our way.” She looked at me and her eyes seemed to brighten for a moment before she quipped almost distractedly, “Yes… yes, you should be, it’s late.”

“How could I have done this?” I asked Larry in bed. “How could I do this to them?” I said, fighting back to tears. We both knew on the way to his place that we wouldn’t be making love that night. I couldn’t even bear to take off my clothes. It was terribly cold and I felt feverish. I hugged myself on the couch and Larry brewed coffee.

“I just killed them both, Larry,” I said.

“Come on, Simone, they know the situation. We’re getting married soon, anyway.”

“They’ve been waiting for someone to kill them off since Roger died, and I just did it,” I whispered in the dimness.

“”You’ll feel differently after we’re married. We’ll have kids, and they’ll have grandchildren to fuss over.”

I looked at him and saw him smile and the space between us suddenly loomed awesome. “No, Larry, I can never give them grandchildren.” Larry’s voice was sad and confused. “What?”

“They lost everything with Roger’s death. Can’t you see? That’s the only reason they’re letting this happen. They don’t care. They don’t give a shit what I do anymore.”

“I’m sorry,” Larry said to protect us from the silence. “I’m sorry about your dad. It was my fault.”

“No. He meant for it to be that way.”

“Those scars on his cheek,” he said. “How did he get them?”

“I don’t know.”

“Looks like someone cut him with a knife a long time ago. Was he ever tortured… back in China?”

“I don’t know,” I said, my throat parched and my eyes stinging. “He’s never told me much about himself. He’s never really talked to me.” I swallowed hard to fend off nausea. And felt Larry’s breath on my earlobes. “I love you, Simone. No matter what happens from now on.”

I raised my head on his arm and probed his chest for those familiar calluses around the nipples. “How about these, Larry? You’ve never told me about them, either.” I’d known that Larry was picked up by military agents shortly after he returned from China in ’71 and spent the next four years in detention. I’d heard the worst horror stories about detention during my own brief and relatively uneventful incarceration, and suspected Maoists like Larry were known to have been tortured during the early years of martial law. But Larry has always avoided the subject. This is something he has in common with father. This black hole in both their pasts from which no light escapes and yet sucking in so much of the lives presently about them. I’ve never known Larry as a Maoist. The TM-practicing health buff I met a year ago was anything but a political radical. He still maintains cordial ties with former colleagues on the Left but cleaning up the environment and saving forests are his priorities these days. I think all that gab about the Cultural Revolution was cheap nostalgia or his misguided attempt to impress Father with his knowledge of contemporary Chinese politics.

“What else could they be?” he said in the dark.

“What?”

“Love bites.”

It was the first time Larry made that joke. He’d said that of sundry wounds and scars. Yet, hearing the words still pricks me like memories of some childhood sin. I’m reminded at once how little I know of Larry. Only twice have I met his son Frankie — who lives with his maternal grandmother — and neither occasion took over twenty minutes. I don’t know if Larry has told Frankie much about anything. Larry’s a sensitive lover but I could tell from the first that he hasn’t had many. There’s this old story that Larry’s good friend, Pol, likes to tell about the heiress to a sizable fortune who once offered to marry Larry on the eve of her betrothal to one of Manila’s most eligible bachelors. “I’m a communist,” Larry was supposed to have said. “I’m a marked man in this country. I can offer you no future.” Next day, the woman runs off to Sweden with an Ermita folk singer and eventually ends up marrying a Sweden lawyer — or so the story goes.

I’ve never asked Larry about the heiress just as he has never inquired about my earlier loves. It’s not indifference that has kept us from probing into each other’s past but a sense of the fragility of our present relationship that can easily be overwhelmed by a surfeit of history.

“I like your dad,” he whispered.

“Ya? So do I.”

“You can’t really forgive, you know,” he said, though, I wasn’t certain he was still addressing me. “I still have this dream some nights wherein I drag this poor bastard off the street and cut him into tiny bits.”

I’d never heard Larry like this and a chill ran down my back.

“Yes, it’s not a nightmare, you see, it’s a pleasant dream. Quite pleasant. Maybe, he’s had this dream, too.”

Maybe you should talk to him again, sometime. Maybe he needs you to talk to him,” I said, feeling sorry for the man beside me yet angry, inexplicably angry, though my voice remained calm. “Maybe he’s been waiting for you to talk to him about us.”

We were both silent for a while. Larry had dozed off but all at once it had seemed to me that I’ve said everything I ever wanted to say to him. Then the phone rang. It was Mother making sure we’d made it home safely. It was the first time she’d called up Larry’s place. It was the first time she’d looked for me anywhere in a long time.

Larry went back to sleep. In the dimness, the scars on his back seemed to glow purplish. For an instant they appeared to be exactly like Father’s. The same pockmarks defining similar welts. As if there was this giant branding iron that all torturers in every age and place use on their victims. Some other nights I would have found myself kissing those scars. Softening the calluses with my fingers. But my fever had passed and it was time to leave.

It’s nearly sunset and Father’s still sitting by the phone waiting for the call from the Chinese Embassy that everyone, including himself, knows will never come. He’s been reading his Bible for hours.

“Father,” I whisper. “Let’s talk, please,” I say in Chinese.

He peers at me for an instant and goes back to his Bible and I want to grab the book from him and tear it into shreds. “The Book of Job,” he says to no one in particular. “That’s the only thing anyone ever has to read. You figure it out, and you’ll have all the knowledge you need,” he says in Chinese.

“Father, you can’t leave,” I say. “Father, I’m getting married. You have to give me away,” I plead but he’s not there. “For Chrissake,” I blurt out in English.

“Don’t blaspheme,” he says, staring at me with those rock-hard eyes. And I see that he is old, truly and terribly old.

“I’m sorry. But why are you doing this?”

He closes his eyes for a while and thinks of something to say, “My life is over. I must now live for the Lord.”

“What do you plan to do? Preach the Gospel in Tiananmen Square?” I hear my voice thinning.

“China must convert. China must accept our Lord for the glory of our race,” he says, his voice trembling.

I might as well be attending one of those Bible powwows the way Father’s been carrying on but the anger is gone from me. “Father please….”

“You don’t need me anymore, Siao Mei,” he says, calling me by my Chinese name, my girlhood name. I don’t recall the last time he called me by that name. I don’t recall the last time he called me anything. “You are a big girl now. You know what’s right for you.”

“You haven’t invited any of your old friends to the wedding,” I say.

“What for?” he says with a blankness in his eyes that cuts me in so many places.

A long time ago, before Roger was born, a fortune-teller told Mother she could never bear children — she didn’t have the lines on her palm.

“But I’m here,” I protested. “I was born.”

“You don’t count,” Mother had said. “Girls don’t show up on palm lines.”

I don’t think I ever forgave Mother that moment. I doubt she ever told Father the story. Still, I say to him, “You should have listened to the old people, Father. You should have given me away as an infant or drowned me in the river. It might have prevented Roger’s early death.”

Father hears me at last and he turns to me with a frightened, haunted look that I’ve never seen before. “I know what they say,” I go on, “My karma’s too strong. I can never have a brother. And I wouldn’t have had one if not for Mother’s offerings to the deities.”

Father’s fear has turned into anger. “I will not hear that again, Siao Mei. I will not have any of the Devil’s talk inside my house. The Lord has revealed to me his heart and I abide in him.”

“I’m sorry,” I say just to hear myself. “The Huanna is a good man,” he says. “Older men make better spouses. They are responsible, and caring.”

I’m tempted to let the conversation end there but I know we’ve gone far enough this time. “No, Father,” I say. “There isn’t going to be any wedding. I’m not marrying Larry.”

“What?”

“I’m not marrying him, Father. There’s really nothing between us.”

He is confused and truly haunted now. “What are you saying?”

“There just isn’t enough between us.” I mutter, swallowing hard. Despite the years of silence between us and the fact that he has never raised a finger against me or Roger, I must muster courage to confront him like this.

“Not enough?” he asks. “You sleep with him,” he says as if uttering a curse.

“It’s not what I mean,” I try to make sense knowing my words are stale and he no longer hears me.

“Why do you young people do this to yourselves? Why do you behave like animals? Why do you treat yourselves likes dirt?”

“That’s not how it is,” I scream but the spirit has flown from me and my bones are weary. “That’s not how it is,” I mutter.

Father turns away and waves me off. “Go,” he says. “Just go and live your own life.”

I think of doing just that but remember at once what I really came to say. “I loved Ah Di,” I say, calling out Roger’s Chinese pet name, his boyhood name — Piggy — for the first time in two years. “I bathed him as a boy. I defended him against bullies. I wrote for him his first love letter. He was my baby brother, Father. I would have died in his place if I could, damn it.”

The back of his hand feels like lead. It is the first time he has hit me. I know it would be the last.

We part over white wine and Japanese food. Larry agrees that we should take time off from seeing each other and his six-month lecture tour at Tokyo University is quite timely. “I feel guilty pigging out while my mainland compatriots are risking their lives for the future of the race,” I sigh over sushi. “It’s enough you’re with them in spirit,” Larry quips and unloads a couple of jokes about Deng Xiao-ping.

It’s easy to make light of events so far removed yet I’m really edgy about the latest developments. Chinese authorities have cut off satellite transmission from Beijing and the news black out could be a prelude to violence. Larry thinks violence is inevitable. “There’s no tradition of political restraint in the culture,” he says. “It’s always been winners take all. If push comes to shove, it could be bloody.”

I shiver at the thought. I fear for the people in Beijing but I fear more for Father. I don’t dare to imagine how he’d react if they started bashing heads in Tiananmen. He’s quite convinced that the “crucial moment” for China has come. That the conversion of the Chinese people to Christianity is at hand — despite the absence of any sign of Christian persuasion among the demonstrators.

It’s almost midnight and this guy having dinner with the German woman at the table beside ours is startled as voices emanate from his two-way radio. He’s an old friend of Larry now editing a major daily. The guy says something over his radio and scrambles to his feet. “Sorry,” he tells the woman. “I’ve got to go back to the office. We have to remat. They’re kicking ass in Beijing.” The woman doesn’t quite catch his drift and I hear Larry asking: “What’s up, Mark?”

“The army has moved in. They’ve begun shooting,” Mark says.

“Oh, no,” Larry says and I see his face folding in. Perhaps he wants to cry, and I’m thinking maybe I can love this man, after all. “I’m sorry,” he murmurs. “I’m sorry,” and he lays his hand over mine.

“I’ve got to go, Larry,” I manage to say. “It’s late.”

“Yes it is,” he says. “I really hope your Father will be all right.”

I don’t really know where I’m going. I wouldn’t want to be the one to break the news to Father and in case he knows, which is likelier, I’d hate to be at the firing end of his displaced anger. I cruise down the highway and suddenly feel that there are far too many cars on the road for the hour. I wonder whether it’s the eve of some festival and am suddenly reminded of the nights at EDSA with Roger and his girlfriend, Anna. Linking arms with the multitude, facing down tanks, awaiting the downfall of a regime. I’d never seen Roger so animated. He’d always been this apolitical whiz kid who was convinced that somewhere in all this mess would be found that unformulated mathematical paradigm that would solve every human concern. Yet he was the most reckless among us. Running from one barricade to another. Haranguing the crowd, teaching anyone who would listen how to prepare molotov cocktails. And when it was finally over, when they confirmed Marcos’s departure, he hugged me and wept like a kid. Like the first time he was in a fight with this kindergarten bully. I’d never felt closer to Roger than that night at EDSA.

But that was over three years ago. Three long and unforgiving years. The advent of a new political dispensation has not brought forth peace and prosperity to our home, but death and silence. I couldn’t weep for Roger back then. The short season of his sickness and death left me groping for meaning and scapegoats. But now I can sense the tears welling inside me. There is a sourness on my tongue and my lips are dry. I step on the gas and run a red light. Perhaps I’ll drive all the way to Beijing. But before long I realize where I’m headed.

It’s two in the morning and the guards are quite fidgety as I alight at the cemetery gate. They flash lights and appear genuinely disturbed. “Here’s another one, “ one of them says. “What’s going on?”

“Good morning, ma’am,” the other one says. “What are you doing here at this hour?”

“I’m visiting my brother’s grave. He’s on Matahimik Street.”

“The cemetery’s open only from eight in the morning till six in the evening, ma’am. I’m sorry, but we can’t let you in.”

“Please,” I say. “Just this once, please. It’s very important. It’s a family matter.”

The shorter guard scratches his head. “Are you Chinese, ma’am?” he asks.

“Yes.”

“Are you going to do some kind of ritual?”

“Sort of,” I quip, sensing their confusion.

“Is the old man a relative?”

“Old man? Yes,” I almost shout. “Yes, he’s my father.”

“He’s been inside almost an hour,” the taller guard says, looking quite weary.

“It’s okay,” I assure them. “This won’t take too long. We have to do this tonight or else his soul won’t ever find peace.”

The guards look at each other and open the gates reluctantly. “All right, just this once,” the shorter one says. “But don’t do anything crazy. Our jobs are at stake.”

“Don’t worry,” I say. “Thanks a lot. You’re doing the dead a great favor. You’ll be blessed for life.”

Approaching Roger’s grave, my headlights define the outline of a figure kneeling by my brother’s tombstones. Father’s never been here before, as far as I know. Chinese parents aren’t supposed to light joss sticks or kneel before their children’s tombstones. And Father’s chosen to stay away altogether, although both his and Mother’s tombs have already been built beside Roger’s.

I see smoke rising from the urn as I walk towards the tomb. The smell of incense arrests the thin air. I think I see Father looking over his shoulder as I approach. I’ve left the headlights on and I’m sure he sees me. I squat beside him and listen to him mumbling some ancient warrior’s dirge. We’re like that for a long while until I say: “You’re not supposed to light joss sticks before sunup.” But Father’s deaf to me again.

Finally, I lean over and kiss him on the temple. “We can all go visit China, once all this trouble is over,” I say. “You, Mother, and I.” His singing stops and I hear crickets taking up the slack. He is silent for a while and his head drops to his chest. The cold air nips me and I have to get up. I rest my hands on his shoulders. “I’m going ahead, Father,” I whisper. “Don’t take too long. It’s cold.”

As I approach the car his voice rends the silence. “I’m sorry, Siao Mei. Forgive me. Please forgive me,” he says, not looking at me. I drive away in the dark and turn on the radio and listen to an excitable Britisher on the shortwave band say that scores have been killed as tanks crashed human barricades and all hell’s broken loose at Tiananmen, the Gate of Heavenly Peace. I turn the dial to catch Nat King Cole crooning: “Smile, though your heart is aching…” I park just outside the cemetery gates and turn off the headlights. I shut my mind and listen to Cole and forget for a brief moment the trouble in Beijing.