Last Kiss in Tiananmen Square Read Online Free PDF

Dagong sat on the cement steps leading to the corridor by his door, and Lao Liu squatted next to him, smoking. Lao Liu was a slender man. He wore a white T-shirt and a pair of police navy-blue polyester pants. A pair of black frame glasses sat on his pale high cheek-boned face.
     
    “I have spotted you in Tiananmen Square today.” Lao Liu said.
     
    “You were there too?” Dagong did not worry about Lao Liu because he was harmless. But Lao Liu’s simple presence at the Square made him alert. Why did he need to go if there was no trouble? “What were you doing there?”
     
    “We dressed up in civilian clothes and walked around.”
     
    “Do you have any dangerous news for the students?”
     
    “Not really. We are not ordered to do anything yet. I have the feeling it’s up to...” He pointed his cigarette to the sky. He smoked continuously. His eyes were half open and he rested his chin on his knees. He looked comfortable enough to fall asleep. “The top is fighting. The two sides couldn’t agree with each other.” He paused. “The situation is shaky.”
     
    “Obviously, the security has tightened up,” said Dagong.
     
    “That is true.” Lao Liu suddenly looked around and leaned toward Dagong. “They have just installed a new video surveillance system around the square.”
     
    Dagong nodded. They both sank into silence.
     
    Lao Liu had a clear mind. During his more than twenty years in the security profession, he had been through many ups and downs. The anti-rightist movement and the Cultural Revolution were labeled political movements. Actually, they were people-against-people movements. He had seen many honest people get hurt. They were sent to jail or labor camps for crimes they had not committed. He tried to do his best to protect these people, but sometimes he just had to close his eyes to let things go by. He had a wife, a daughter and a family to support. He was not in a position to make a real difference anyway. He still remembered vividly a case he was assigned twelve years ago.
     
    The case was an extra-marital love affair involving a middle aged woman and the head of Beijing Automobile Parts Factory. They were both married. The woman, whose name he remembered as Meiling, the wife of a college professor, was notorious in the western district as a playgirl. The head of the factory was a political enemy of the judge. The case had obvious political motives. The judge, a fat woman with dark wicked eyes wanted to use it against the head of the factory. In order to do so, they had to make Meiling to confess to the relationship. But Meiling denied the charge. The judge was enraged. She gave Meiling a five year jail sentence with no appeals.
     
    On the day of the announcement, he still remembered Meiling’s daughter, a ten year old girl and her father, an old intellectual. They were not allowed to be present in the court room. They waited outside until the verdict was announced. The girl cried and her father lowered his head. He was too ashamed to react.
     
    Lao Liu, then a young investigator, tried to persuade the girl. “Stop, stop crying. Your mother is a bad woman. Don’t you understand?”
     
    “I don’t believe Mother is a bad woman. I don’t believe it. I don’t believe it.”
     
    “Let’s go. You’re going to cause me trouble.”
     
    Her father tried to pull the girl out of there and said to Lao Liu and the judge, “Judge, we obey your order, we... ob...ey your or...der. She de... serves it.”
     
    The girl kept turning her head back, staring as she walked away. Lao Liu remembered the girl’s red, earnest eyes. She was looking for some kind of message, sympathy maybe. He tried his best to communicate his compassion to her with his eyes. He wanted to tell her that her mother was innocent, and her mother was a brave woman.
     
    After that case, Lao Liu saw a lot worse. He dreamed he might be able to change the situation. Then he found out that the judge was one knot in a huge