The cleanout had started yesterday, most of the protestors now gone, but the air still stank of their waste and death. Every day, since April, people had appeared until more than a million eventually occupied the pavement. Students had started the rebellion, but unemployed workers had eventually formed the bulk of the crowd, decrying double-digit inflation and public corruption. For the past week he’d been here, sent by his commander to watch the agitators, but he’d found himself doing far more listening.
“You must leave,” he said to her.
“My son was here. I have to find him.”
She was middle-aged, a good twenty years older than him. Her eyes cast a sadness that only a mother could know. His own mother would have risked everything for him. Both his parents had defied the one-child policy and birthed four children, which brought an enormous burden to their family. He’d been the third, something of a disappointment, hating school, performing poorly, staying in trouble. When he failed the national high school entrance exam, his future became clear.
The military.
There he had found a home and a purpose, defending Mao, serving the motherland.
He’d thought his life had finally defined itself.
Until the past two days.
He’d watched as the bulk of the crowd had been peacefully dispersed by the army’s 27th and 28th divisions, brought in from the outer provinces because Beijing had thought local divisions might be sympathetic. The soldiers, nearly all of them unarmed, had moved in on foot and dispersed the people with tear gas, and most of the demonstrators fled peacefully.
A core group of about 5,000 had remained.
They attacked the soldiers with rocks and bricks, using burned-out buses as barricades. Tanks were called in and the protestors attacked them, too, one of them catching fire, killing two occupants.
That’s when everything changed.
Last night the army had returned with rifles, bayonets, and more tanks. The shooting raged for several hours. Soldiers and demonstrators alike died. He’d been there, on the fringes, charged with protecting the outer boundaries while more of the 27th and 28th divisions exacted revenge.
All previous orders not to shoot had been rescinded.
Rickshaws and bicyclists had darted through the melee, rescuing the wounded, trying to transport them to hospitals. People had been beaten, stabbed, and shot. Tanks crushed both bodies and vehicles.
He’d seen too many die to count.
