Ma Jian - Beijing Coma

I peeled her hand away from my arm and said coldly, ‘This is Tiananmen Square. There are hundreds of thousands of students and residents here, fighting for democracy. It’s reckless of you to speak like this. Not even Premier Li Peng would dare turn up here and say what you just said.’

In the distance I could hear a huge crowd bellow, ‘Sell the imperial crown, and the people will have food to eat. Get rid of official corruption, and the people will have beds to sleep on!’ It was so dark now that it was hard to tell which part of the Square the noise was coming from.

‘We’ll come here every day until Deng Xiaoping resigns!’ a group of factory workers shouted as they marched towards us. Behind them followed two buses, each one equipped with two loudspeakers. The crowd roared. It seemed as though everyone in the Square was crying out in unison. I’d become so accustomed to the noise and commotion that I often forgot what a vast multitude of people I was standing among.

Zhuzi pulled me away. My mother looked frightened. She muttered under her breath, ‘You’re not my son any more. If you’re killed, don’t expect me to come and collect your corpse.’ Then she turned and left.

Her visit put me in a bad mood. It reminded me of all the times she’d scolded and hectored me when I was a child.

In the south-western corner of the Land Between the Seas lies Mount Shu. The Lord of Heaven has captured a murderer on this mountain. He has tied the man’s hair and hands to a tree trunk, and put his left foot in chains.

I sent my student marshals back to the campus to rest and replaced them with a new batch of volunteers. Then I returned to the broadcast tent, drenched in sweat, hoping to crash out for a few hours. I’d been on my feet all night guarding the lifeline and felt I couldn’t stand up a moment longer. I lay down and shut my eyes, but the bright light bulb hanging from the tent’s ceiling and the constant screaming of ambulance sirens made it impossible for me to sleep.

‘So you’ve been to the emergency tent again?’ Mou Sen said to Old Fu, noticing the needle prick on his arm. Mou Sen had just woken up. His head was resting on my folded coat. He turned to me and whispered, ‘I can’t carry on any longer, Dai Wei. I’m going to have to concede defeat. I’m not as brave as your father was.’

‘I don’t think you’ve reached your limit yet,’ I whispered back. I remembered the night he read my father’s journal at Southern University. The stories had disgusted him so much, he was unable to touch his supper. He’d sworn that, from then on, he’d give up student politics and do whatever the Party asked. What horrified him the most was that, in order to stay alive, the starving prisoners had had to resort to eating the flesh of people they’d known.

‘I went for a quick transfusion,’ Old Fu said. He was very pale. Although it was four in the morning and the broadcasts had stopped, the tent was still busy. People were streaming in and out all the time, delivering news reports and passing on information.

‘Go and see what’s happening on the Monument,’ I said. ‘There was a coup in the Beijing Students’ Federation a couple of hours ago. They tried to sack Fan Yuan, but he refused to step down. He has re-appointed himself chairman and is going to give a speech setting out his plan of action.’

Shu Tong hadn’t returned to the Monument since he’d cleared it up. Various student groups had moved back onto it, and the place was a mess again.

‘They’ll all power-crazy,’ Old Fu said, sitting down.

Wang Fei charged into the tent and yelled, ‘General Secretary Zhao Ziyang is in the Square!’

‘I don’t believe it!’ everyone cried. ‘Where is he?’

‘He’s just about to leave. He’s in that coach over there. Premier Li Peng is with him too.’ Wang Fei hadn’t had time to put his shoes on. He’d been sleeping on a camp bed in the propaganda office.

‘Shut up, there’s no time to waste,’ Old Fu said in a panic. ‘Quickly, go and see if anyone took notes or made a tape recording.’

‘Apparently a student jotted down his speech, but someone grabbed his notebook and passed it around, and now no one can find it,’ Wang Fei said.

‘So what did he say?’ Mou Sen asked, his eyebrows puckering as he hurriedly lit a cigarette.

‘He said that he’d come too late and had let the students down. And he said: “We are old men, but you are still young. You must think of your futures.”’

Xiao Li, who had just walked in, said, ‘I was standing beside the coach just now. Someone shone a torch onto Zhao Ziyang’s face, and I saw tears in his eyes. Apparently he pleaded with us to end the hunger strike.’

‘Tears?’ said Mou Sen, sweeping his hair back. ‘I don’t believe it. He’s a war-hardened revolutionary. He wouldn’t be crying over this!’

‘It’s very brave of him to come to the Square,’ I said. ‘We must end the strike at once. If we do as he asks, it will give him more clout.’

‘How long did he stay?’ Old Fu asked.

‘About ten minutes,’ Xiao Li said, sitting down. It was his sixth day on hunger strike. He’d passed out once, but looked as though he could carry on a little longer. He was in better shape than Mou Sen. I rose to my feet and felt a jabbing pain in the small of my back. Earlier that day, I’d pulled a muscle while unloading boxes of mineral water from a van.

‘Get Han Dan, Bai Ling and Cheng Bing over here at once,’ Old Fu said.

‘It’s a bit late in the night to make an announcement, Old Fu,’ said Mou Sen, noticing him switching on the broadcasting equipment.

‘I don’t care,’ he said. ‘The students must be told about Zhao Ziyang’s visit. It changes everything. Xiao Li, you’d better stop your hunger strike. I’ll need you to help look after the equipment. We can’t afford for anything to go wrong now.’

When Bai Ling, Han Dan and Cheng Bing arrived, we all went to the broadcast minibus to speak to Lin Lu. Xiao Li then turned up with a transcript of Zhao Ziyang’s speech he’d managed to copy from someone’s notebook.

Mou Sen began to read aloud with a cigarette dangling from his mouth. Han Dan coughed loudly and said, ‘Put that fag out!’ Mou Sen reluctantly crushed it out, then continued: ‘“If you don’t end the hunger strike, the hardliners will win the Party’s internal struggle and it will be the end of all of us…”’

Cheng Bing looked at Lin Lu and muttered despondently, ‘When you saw Zhao Ziyang on television a couple of days ago, you said he was brimming with confidence.’

‘It’s clear that the reformers have lost the fight,’ Lin Lu said gloomily. ‘I suggest that all members of the Hunger Strike Headquarters stop their fast.’

‘Well, I’m not giving up,’ Han Dan said sullenly.

Bai Ling had developed a high fever. She arched her neck, letting her head rest on her shoulder.

‘Fan Yuan was about to give his inaugural speech as chairman of the Beijing Students’ Federation just now,’ Han Dan said listlessly, ‘but when he heard that Zhao Ziyang had come to the Square, he resigned and ran away in terror. He’s so spineless.’

‘We must adopt a new form of struggle,’ Yang Tao said. I hadn’t seen him for a couple of days. I presumed he’d been in hospital.

‘If anyone from the Headquarters ends their hunger strike they must resign from their post,’ Cheng Bing said adamantly.

‘We are fasting for the sake of the Chinese people,’ Bai Ling said. ‘We can’t let them down.’

‘Hu Yaobang lost his job for sympathising with us in 1987, and if we don’t do as Zhao Ziyang asks, he’s going to be sacked as well,’ I said.

‘Three police trucks joined a student march yesterday,’ Han Dan said. ‘I’m worried that if we surrender now, before we’ve achieved our goals, many people who’ve come out to support us will get into trouble.’