Ma Jian - Beijing Coma

I wanted to do the same, and take Tian Yi back to my mother’s flat to recuperate properly, so I said, ‘Let’s all go into hiding, then.’

‘Well, I’m staying here,’ Cheng Bing said.

‘Me too,’ Pu Wenhua squeaked.

‘All right, but the rest of us will leave,’ Bai Ling said, standing up. ‘When it’s time to make the next decision, we can liaise with Lin Lu.’

‘We should disguise ourselves a bit before we leave,’ Wu Bin suggested, narrowing his eyes conspiratorially.

‘I’ll be staying in Beijing,’ I said, taking the wad of cash that Old Fu handed me, ‘so I can check on the situation back at the campus before I go underground.’

By the time Old Fu got to Pu Wenhua, there was only two hundred yuan left, which made Pu Wenhua very cross. Wu Bin reminded him that he wasn’t a member of the standing committee, so he was lucky to get any money at all.

‘We should leave the minibus one by one, and go in separate directions,’ Wang Fei said in a hushed tone.

‘What about Nuwa?’ I asked, peering out of the window. ‘I haven’t seen her for ages.’

‘Neither have I,’ Wang Fei said, looking away. ‘Maybe she’s popped back to the campus.’

‘All right everyone,’ Old Fu said. ‘Remember, this is top secret. None of you must tell anyone what we’re doing. I’ll go first. Goodbye!’ He grabbed his empty briefcase, opened the door and jumped out.

Mimi switched on her torch and said, ‘I don’t know where to go.’

‘Why not come with me?’ Bai Ling said to her.

Wu Bin said he’d stay in a hotel for a couple of days to see how events unfolded, and that once the army had cleared the Square, he’d return to Wuhan.

We stuffed our cash into our bags and began filing out of the minibus.

‘Wang Fei, you — you — deserter!’ Pu Wenhua spluttered, waving his plastic binoculars in the air as Wang Fei and Bai Ling stepped off the minibus.

I followed them out, but as I walked away, something felt wrong. I knew it would have been impossible to get all the students to evacuate the Square, but it didn’t seem right that the leaders were skulking away like this, especially since they’d been urging everyone else to stay.

Tian Yi was asleep in a tent with three other girls. I woke her up, led her outside and asked her to come home with me. I didn’t dare tell her that the leaders had absconded. She said she wouldn’t leave the Square until the army came and dragged her away. I told her the government was going to launch a crackdown, and the soldiers would shoot to kill, and that if she died, she’d only have herself to blame. ‘Why not come home with me and wait to see what happens?’ I pleaded. ‘You can always come back here later if you want.’

‘You go home,’ she said. ‘If the army takes us away, you must return and continue the struggle.’ Then she crawled back under the sheet printed with a double happiness emblem that served as the tent’s entrance curtain.

‘There are too many mosquitoes in here,’ she said. I could tell from her voice that she was lying down again. ‘Can you find me some insect repellent? Or tiger balm would do too.’

I knew it would be impossible to change her mind. I saw a few lights glimmering inside the Great Hall of the People, and wondered whether there were indeed 10,000 soldiers waiting inside, ready to strike. I left the tent and climbed up onto the Monument’s upper terrace. Fan Yuan and Hai Feng were there with hundreds of foreign and Chinese reporters.

I wondered how the army would be able to clear the sleeping students from the Square while the world was watching their every move. Two students stuffed a leaflet in my hand. I read it under the lamplight. It was a copy of a petition signed by over three hundred Beijing intellectuals and academics calling for the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress to impeach Li Peng. It said, ‘In the current situation, only the sacking of Premier Li Peng will be sufficient to assuage the anger of the people…’

What a waste of time! I muttered to myself. Do they really think that the delegates of the so-called ‘People’s’ Congress give a damn about the people’s anger? They’re all Party members, for God’s sake.

I decided to stay in the Square. I knew I’d have to get rid of the money, though. I didn’t want to be caught with it. I wandered off to the Science Department’s shelter, hoping to get some sleep.

Xiao Li and Mao Da had put up a sign outside that said BEIJING UNIVERSITY SCIENCE STUDENTS and had hung a sheet over the entrance. A few of the bamboo poles holding up the canvas roof had split and been tied together again with chiffon scarves. There was a sheet of plastic on the ground. My quilt was still damp from the previous night’s rain. I didn’t want to lie down on it.

Liu Gang and Dong Rong were at the back of the shelter fast asleep. Yu Jin and Zhang Jie were sitting up drinking beer.

‘You looking for volunteers again, Dai Wei?’ Zhang Jie said, staring at his bottle of beer. ‘I warn you, I’m so drunk I can’t stand upright. When’s the army coming to clear the Square?’ He swallowed another gulp of beer. The shelter was pitch black and stank of dirty trainers.

‘Stop drinking!’ I said. ‘You must sober up. When the soldiers charge in here with electric batons, you’ll have to be fast on your feet.’ There wasn’t enough room for me in the shelter, so I rested my head on a satchel in the corner and lay down with my legs outside the entrance. I thought about the thousand yuan stuffed inside my pocket. If the army found it on me, they’d assume I was a ringleader. I pulled it out, wrapped it inside a sheet of paper that was lying about and slipped it under my back. Then I closed my eyes and started counting. One, two, three, four… Just as I’d begun to doze off, I heard Ke Xi’s voice screaming out from the Voice of the Student Movement’s loudspeakers: ‘Fellow students on the Square, don’t panic. This is Ke Xi speaking! Ke Xi! Stay calm. We are in an extremely dangerous situation. I’m therefore asking all of you to vacate the Square immediately and move to the embassy district.’

‘What’s he shouting about now?’ Xiao Li said, waking up. ‘We’re trying to get some sleep here.’

‘He sounds delirious,’ said Mao Da, sitting up.

‘When the army arrives, we’ll just sit here in silence,’ Dong Rong said. ‘Why’s he getting so worked up?’

‘Is the army here?’ a student behind me asked. ‘Quickly, play that army song, “Three Rules of Discipline and Eight Points of Attention”. It might stop the soldiers resorting to violence.’

I sat up too, my mind numb with tiredness.

The students sleeping outside began to stir like blades of grass in a wind. They stood up, beat the dust off their clothes and stamped their feet. Flagpoles fell to the ground. I could hear the reassuring sound of girls chatting and laughing.

Everyone inside the shelter was sitting up now, asking anxious questions. A few students went outside to fetch face masks and towels.

‘Why does he want us to move to the embassy district?’ Xiao Li said. ‘Where’s Chen Di?’

‘Let’s go to the Voice of the Student Movement broadcast tent,’ I said, glancing down at my watch, not wanting to divulge that Chen Di had run away. It was already 5 a.m. I quickly slipped the wad of cash back into my pocket and got up.

Xiao Li and I weren’t allowed inside the Voice of the Student Movement broadcast tent. I didn’t recognise any of the student marshals guarding it.

‘Must we really move to the embassy district?’ the students cried. A huge crowd had surrounded the broadcast tent to ask for more information. A student pulled down a parasol from a police watchtower and detached the wooden pole to use as a weapon when the army arrived.