In such a mental state, people, outraged and desperate, might do anything to confront the violent soldiers. The episode of Tank Man took place the next morning. By then the army seemed to have cooled down some, although people’s anger was still mounting. Clearly the restraint the tanks manifested in the footage indicated that the whole scene might have been staged to show how rational the army was and how it respected human lives, since this episode was broadcast that very evening by the Central China Television. If an official camera hadn’t been on the scene, there would have been no way the state media could have used the footage so quickly—they’d have had to get permission first from foreign media companies. Plainly the scene had been set up. But no sooner did the footage appear in Western media than it was removed from Chinese media—apparently the propaganda effort had backfired. Nevertheless, four days later Deng Xiaoping praised the soldiers in the front tank for not running over the civilian, saying that if the tank hadn’t shown restraint, “that could have caused more confusion.” Clearly, to the officials, the episode displayed how lenient the army had been. According to Professor Josephs, an anthropologist at UC Berkeley, the body language of the three men who dragged Tank Man away to safety indicated that the three were definitely not civilians—they were trained security personnel. I hazard a wild guess: the propaganda people might also have intended, though covertly, to display the civilians’ defiant spirit. In other words, the propaganda skit could have been a subversive gesture from within the regime.

  I continued to analyze other experiences of the massacre. My father’s came first. On the same afternoon that Tank Man performed his rebellious deed, my father got drunk, and picking up a hefty cleaver, shouted he’d go and “hack down some fascists,” who had killed so many civilians and whose tanks and armored personnel carriers had toppled the Goddess of Democracy. But there were no soldiers around, so he had just slashed the air with his cleaver. He was so enraged that he called himself a coward and chopped off his own pinkie. I was certain that if there had been a tank in sight, he’d have charged at it with his cleaver raised, shouting “Kill!” So in spirit, he was similar to Tank Man, mad enough to stare death in the eye.

  I then mentioned Liu Lan, the solitary protester from Hong Kong, who had over the decades never missed an opportunity to keep the memory of the massacre alive. In recent years her protest had taken such a heavy toll on her that every time she gave a speech, she’d have to lie down afterward to rest for half an hour before she could get back on her feet again. She had also kept publishing articles and books on the Tiananmen movement. Undoubtedly she, too, was similar to Tank Man in spirit, fixated on the idea of justice and truth, willing to sacrifice for it. It might even take more courage and stamina to keep doing what she had done for two and a half decades, confronting an overwhelming power that could destroy her.

  Finally I brought forth the exiled dissidents. In spite of defects in their characters, some of them still carried on the cause of the Tiananmen democracy movement. I used Meng Wentao as an example. He was so dedicated to the cause that he didn’t take care to put his own life in order. His life in America was still driven by a kind of madness and courage that had originated from the same source as Tank Man’s. Wentao sacrificed so much to the improvement of human rights back in China that he had lost everything, including his family and his life.

  I concluded by turning self-reflective, saying that I was antagonizing the Communist regime by taking up this project, and as a result I might jeopardize my future if I intended to go back to take care of my mother, but something deep within me compelled me to do this work regardless of my personal loss. The last paragraph of my dissertation was “Despite the ambiguity in the original creation of Tank Man, he embodies the indominable spirit of many people and serves as a blazing beacon that gathers the light of hope for freedom and human dignity. He symbolizes what we can do and who we might become. I venture to say that in essence he also bespeaks many others, including myself.”

  I pondered over the last sentence and wondered if I’d gone astray from the academic discourse and lapsed into a merely personal assertion. Then I decided to keep it, assuming that some subjectivity would give the writing an edge. If the three professors on my dissertation committee turned out against it, I could revise the last statement. At this point I shouldn’t feel diffident about rendering the national into the personal, or vice versa.

  37

  HOWEVER, I DID worry about the length of the dissertation—only 126 pages—but I didn’t know how to make it longer without inflating it with filler. So I didn’t show it to the committee members right away. Instead, I shared it with Loana and Rachel and wanted to get their feedback first.

  Loana’s response was enthusiastic. She urged me to translate it into Chinese and was sure that an overseas press would publish such a small book—A Terrible Beauty Is Born: In Search of Tank Man. But as a PhD dissertation, it might be too short. On the other hand, she had seen a doctoral dissertation at Harvard that was a lot shorter than 120 pages. The quality of the work should count more than the quantity. But it wouldn’t be too difficult to expand my dissertation to 150 pages. Loana told me to show it to the members of my committee, who should be able to help me figure out how to expand it. But these pages should remain the core of the dissertation and should also stand alone as a book for a general audience, specifically for Chinese readers. Of course, there could be consequences from publishing such a book, because the Communist authorities might consider me a troublemaker, even an enemy, and make my life difficult. I needed to take this liability into account when deciding what to do with the manuscript.

  I didn’t really give a damn about how the Chinese government would respond, I told Loana. I guessed I carried my father’s genes, somewhat touched and impulsive. If I hadn’t meant to tell the truth and share it with others, why did I write such a thing in the first place?

  Rachel also liked what I’d written, but she couldn’t judge its academic value. She only praised the fluidity and clarity of the prose and the insights I brought to the topic. She also shared it with her father, who could read English. He was touched by my writing and urged Rachel to do something as meaningful. She confessed to me that she had decided to apply for graduate school, since her job as an editorial assistant bored her. She said she had just taken the GRE and scored decently. Ideally she’d wanted to go to SUNY at Buffalo, which was excellent in poetry studies. I teased her, saying “Didn’t you used to say you’d get bored if you sat at a desk day in and day out?”

  “Well,” she admitted, “the business world is a lot more depressing.”

  I was glad to see her figure out a way for herself, or in her own words, “I’ve found my bearings at long last.”

  “Academia can be hard and boring too, if you don’t do it for the love of it,” I told her.

  “At least I’ll have a flexible schedule,” she said. “I can’t keep a nine-to-five job anymore.”

  Following Loana’s suggestion, I spent two weeks rendering my dissertation into Chinese. The translation process was rewarding and helped me catch some slips in the wording of the original and a few inaccurate facts. When the translation was done and I’d made all the edits and corrections, the dissertation was a lot more polished. I sent it to Bailey, Sundar, and Davidson, and hoped they would accept it.

  Loana suggested I send the translation to Niu Jian at the Sunbeam Press; she said she would put in a word for my manuscript. She didn’t know I was still in touch with Niu Jian. Nevertheless, I needed her endorsement. I received the publication catalogs from the Sunbeam Press regularly and had noticed they just published a book on the Tiananmen Square Massacre by Liu Lan. I was amazed to see that Niu Jian was brave enough to bring out so many politically sensitive titles.

  I phoned Niu Jian, who sounded cheerful and friendly. He invited me to send him my manuscript, and he promised to read it the moment he got it. I mailed it out the same day.

  Sundar and Davidson both gave me their feedback. They liked the dissertation but said it might be too short, since it seemed more like a big master’s thesis. But Davison said it shouldn’t be hard to expand it some. My angst proved right, and I was eager to hear from Bailey. But for two weeks he remained silent; this agitated me. I was afraid he might not accept the dissertation.

  Fortunately, Niu Jian responded quickly, as he had promised. He was willing to publish the book, but he also warned me about the party officials, who might get furious at me. I told him that I wouldn’t mind that, as long as my work was valuable and could be appreciated by readers. Of that he assured me. He said, “Truth to tell, Lulu, I was glued to your manuscript while I was reading it. At times, it touched me and made me tearful. When I finished it, I was in awe.”

  “Please, Mr. Niu, I’m just a regular graduate student. We met, and you know how ordinary I am.”

  “I mean I was in awe of the brave spirit and the intelligence in the writing, especially the last chapter. We will be happy and honored to bring it out.”

  “I can’t thank you enough.”

  “I must thank you. You make me feel that my publishing business is worthwhile.”

  “I’m so lucky to know you.” I was blown away, unable to speak appropriately.

  “Please send me the electronic version.”

  I agreed to email it along that same day. Niu Jian promised to send me a standard contract through snail mail. After I signed the two copies, I was to save one for myself and mail the other one back to him.

  Then I heard from Bailey. He wanted me to come to his office on the third Wednesday of March. I went as agreed. He appeared warm and friendly and motioned me to sit down opposite him. He said, “I like what you wrote, but at moments you lapsed into ‘personalia,’ and the writing became less academic. Also, the dissertation is too short. For a PhD, you need to write at least two hundred pages. I mean substantial pages, nothing padded. Ultimately it should be a book manuscript for an academic press.”

  “Can you suggest how I can expand it?” I asked in earnest.

  He gave a suave smile, then said, “I’m going to print out a hard copy and mark the problematic spots. We will discuss how to enlarge the whole thing. Can you come with me to my house in Newburgh this weekend? We’ll need many hours to work on this together.”

  “Will Hilda and Soya come with us?” I asked in alarm, but managed to feign calm.

  “No, they have left for Norway to see Hilda’s parents.”

  “I’m not sure of my weekend schedule, but I will check and let you know.”

  “Of course, take your time,” he said emotionlessly.

  I rose to leave. I was so flustered that I almost rushed out of his office. My mind was in a whirl, knowing he had devious plans. Once we were up in Newburgh, alone in the woods, anything could happen. He might do everything he could to make me join him in bed. By no means would I go with him if his family was not there. So that evening I emailed him, saying I was obligated to serve as an interpreter at a public event in Brooklyn, so I couldn’t join him on the weekend. “Can we make another appointment for next week?” I asked.

  But I got no answer from him. His silence unnerved me. He probably didn’t want to leave any trace in writing for fear of accusations I might bring against him. Thus far, I didn’t have any concrete evidence at all. But I knew that to some extent, he held me in his clutches now. If I didn’t cooperate, he wouldn’t approve my dissertation. Both Sundar and Davidson were very junior to him in the department and would have to defer to his authority. To date, they hadn’t given me any practical advice as to how to expand the dissertation and both seemed to leave the matter to Bailey. I felt cornered and had no clue how to deal with my mentor appropriately.

  * * *

  —

  In early April, there was a conference on contemporary Chinese culture at NYU. In the poster of the event I saw that Mark Stone was a speaker. He was going to talk about the global dissemination of Jin Yong’s fiction. He seemed to be thriving in academia now. His topic intrigued me, so I went to the conference for his talk. In the back of my mind lingered the vague desire to find out what he was like now and whether he was still the same playboy.

  He was good at presenting his discoveries and talked with ease in a large classroom. Now and then a titter of approval rang out in the audience of more than sixty people. Aside from his mastery of his material, the fact that he spoke at his home school might have contributed to his ease and seeming casualness. He claimed that Jin Yong’s greatest achievement was that he had invented a kind of universal fiction language, accessible to all Chinese readers no matter what dialects they spoke. That explained why his fiction was so widely read and embraced by the multitudes as well as the elite. Mark made a valid point, and I was amazed to see that he had become an authority on kung fu fiction. I used to think of him as a bit of a joke, his graduate project too lightweight, maybe even frivolous. He had seemed to have been just wasting his time while reading those novels in the library, and his dissertation hadn’t been going anywhere. Who could have seen that he could blaze a trail for himself? I had heard that he had been invited to speak at many international conferences, especially in East Asia. It can be so hard to tell willfulness from perseverance.

  After Mark’s talk, I went over and greeted him. He must have noticed me in the audience, but his eyes still lit up at my greetings. He said, “Lulu, I’m so happy to see you here. Thanks for coming.”

  I congratulated him on his talk, which had made me see Jin Yong in a different light. “It’s truly enlightening,” I said in earnest.

  He asked, “How’s your work going? Still struggling with Tank Man?” He gave a fruity laugh.

  “Yes, I just wrote a draft of my dissertation. Believe it or not, I have found him.”

  “Really, that’s such great news. You know, I still hold him as my hero. That poster you disliked is hanging in my office now. Tell me where or how you found him.”

  “I’ve found him in me.”

  He looked astonished. “You mean you’re a tank girl or tank woman now?”

  I giggled and said, “You might say that. By the way, would you mind taking a look at my dissertation? Your opinion would mean a lot to me, since both of us have been emotionally involved with the topic. Trust me, it might be worth your time. I just translated it into Chinese and the Sunbeam Press is going to bring it out as a book.”

  “That’s admirable. Please email it. I will read it and let you know what I think.”

  I was delighted he would look at it and thanked him with an exaggerated curtsy, lifting the side of my dress a little, which made him laugh again.

  38

  I HEARD FROM Mark a week later. He had read my dissertation and asked me if we could meet so that he could talk to me about it in detail. I was eager to hear his opinion and agreed to come and see him the next afternoon.

  His office was easy to find. It was on the fifth floor of a brownstone on University Place. At the sight of me, he stood and held out his hand. He was in a navy tracksuit with white stripes along his legs and arms, as if he had just left the gym. He said, “Let’s go out for coffee.”

  “Sure.” I shook his hand, then saw the same Tank Man poster on the wall. “I know him,” I said.

  He laughed. His honest face, though a little heavier now, still had boyish features and bright, intelligent eyes. His simple manner reminded me of the same insouciant Mark at Harvard. “You must know her too,” he said and pointed at a framed photo propped on a bookshelf. “She’s my wife.”

  I recognized the woman’s round face and smiling eyes and the little mole on her chin. “Of course, that’s Yuko!” I said, amazed to be seeing the Japanese woman who used to be a master’s student in East Asian studies at Harvard. It had been whispered that Yuko was easy with dates and would go out with anyone who offered to take her out. Who could have imagined she would become Mark’s wife? I couldn’t help but feel a twinge of envy. That woman must be good at keeping hold of a man.

  “Yes, Yuko and I got married last year,” Mark said with some pride.

  “Really, I heard you were engaged to a Polish woman.”

  “Oh, Zofia didn’t want to live in the States. She loves Paris, so we split.”

  “Are these your kids?” I pointed at two babies, whose gender I couldn’t tell.

  “Yes, Sean and Naomi, twins. They’re the center of my life now.”

  “I can see you’re a happy man.”

  “Yep, a happy family man. Let’s go.”

  We went to the Dunkin’ Donuts on the street in front for coffee. After we had sat down at a table deep in the back, he said, “I have to say I was impressed by your dissertation. The prose is so limpid and passionate and honest. It was a pleasure to read. You should continue to write like that.”