Ma Jian - Beijing Coma

‘I must write the announcement first. Surely you’ll let me do that?’

‘Let him write it,’ Mou Sen said, stamping out a cigarette butt he’d tossed on the ground.

Zhang Rui dashed off a statement in English, and said, ‘Here, check it, if you want.’ Wang Fei’s English was poor. He took the sheet of paper and pretended to read it, then pointed to a word and said, ‘What’s that word mean, Dai Wei? Can you translate it for me?’

I took the statement and began to translate it for him. ‘The student organisations in the Square have splintered into conflicting groups. We have been forced to…’

‘There’s no way we’ll let you broadcast that,’ Wang Fei interrupted.

Zhang Rui grabbed a megaphone and began shouting the statement to the students outside. Wang Fei pounced on him and tried to snatch the megaphone from him, but the rest of us swiftly pulled them apart.

‘Quickly! Drag him out of the tent!’ Wang Fei cried, panting for breath.

Fuming with rage, but knowing that his situation was hopeless, Zhang Rui broke free and maliciously pulled all the plugs out of the sockets. The two female announcers were alarmed and scurried out of the tent hand in hand.

‘We know about electronics, so there’s no point trying to break anything,’ I said, grabbing hold of another student who was sneakily pulling out another lead.

Once we’d taken control, I sent half of my squad back up to the Monument’s lower terrace, and kept the other half with me, in case the Qinghua student marshals attempted to storm in again. Then I asked someone to fetch Bai Ling so that she could assume command.

Two hours later, Zhang Rui and the others returned to collect their clothes and documents, then Mou Sen and his propaganda team moved in with backpacks and cardboard boxes.

‘Look, there’s a telephone!’ Nuwa said. She picked up the receiver to check the line was working. ‘We can make calls with it, but we won’t be able to receive any, because we don’t know the number.’ Everyone was buoyed up by the excitement of moving into a new place.

But before we had time to unpack, a large mob of Beijing residents rushed over and surrounded the tent. A few of them marched in and announced they were taking over the station. They said we must be feeling very tired by now, and that perhaps it was time we returned to our campuses.

I said that if we handed over control to them, there were tens of thousands of students in the Square who would be ready to take it back again.

‘Who do you represent?’ Wang Fei shouted as one of the guys tried to push him onto the camp bed. ‘Who’s your leader? Tell him to come forward and speak to us!’

Mou Sen said the broadcast station represented every student organisation in the Square, and announced that its name was going to be changed from the Voice of the Student Movement to the Voice of Democracy.

The residents pushed Nuwa and Mao Da out of the tent. Outside, Xiao Li and Chen Di were speaking to the mob through megaphones, urging them to leave. I broke out in an anxious sweat. I wished I hadn’t sent half my team back up to the lower terrace.

We continued to argue, each side refusing to budge. As two young men twisted my arm back and were about to fling me outside, Nuwa returned to the tent with three foreign journalists. The journalists took out their tape recorders and pointed them at the guys who were arguing with Mou Sen. ‘Take their pictures!’ Wang Fei shouted. ‘Photograph them, so that the whole world will see their faces!’

The residents stepped back in fright. Tang Guoxian then turned up with a group of marshals who, when combined with the thirty guards I’d kept with me, allowed us to gain the upper hand. Wang Fei and I spoke through our megaphones, encouraging our side to remain firm. Realising they were outnumbered, the residents gave up their fight and shuffled out of the tent.

‘This is ridiculous!’ said Mou Sen. ‘Who’s going to try to seize power next? Hurry up and call Bai Ling over. We’ll ask her to tell everyone to calm down. All she has to do is say, “Hello, this is Bai Ling speaking” and everyone in the Square will fall silent.’ Mou Sen’s sweat-drenched fringe clung to his forehead.

‘We need more marshals around this tent,’ I said. ‘But where are we going to get them from?’ I didn’t recognise any of the marshals who were standing outside, apart from a small group of Beijing University chemistry students from Block 48.

‘Yes, we’ll need at least a hundred marshals guarding this station from now on,’ Wang Fei said.

‘Thanks for helping us out, Tang Guoxian,’ I said.

‘Well don’t expect me to rescue you next time,’ he muttered as he walked away, rubbing his sore fist.

‘I told the foreign journalists we only needed them to help us defend the station,’ Nuwa explained to Mou Sen. ‘They won’t mention the incident in their reports.’ Then she turned to me and laughed, ‘You didn’t do a very good job of defending our station, Mr Head of Security!’

‘The Zhongnanhai compound isn’t guarded by a hundred soldiers, and it’s the home of the government leaders!’ I said. Wang Fei and I then stepped out and saw that the Beijing residents were now sitting in orderly rows. There were hundreds of them, all of them young men.

‘Fuck! It’s an army of secret police!’ I spluttered. ‘They’ll probably wait here until it gets dark, then attack us again when there are fewer people around.’

‘Call Zhuzi over and see what he thinks,’ Wang Fei said, holding the frames of his glasses as he looked up.

‘There must be a reason they didn’t try to arrest us just now,’ I said, as we hurried back into the tent.

‘If they take control of the station, it will be easier for them to clear the Square,’ Mou Sen said nervously.

‘God, it stinks in here!’ Mimi cried as she walked inside with Tian Yi. She’d become much more vocal over the past few days.

‘Yes, it smells of urine,’ Tian Yi said, wrinkling her nose.

‘Who would have guessed that there was such an evil-smelling little den as this hidden in the Square?’ Mimi laughed.

‘Still, we can’t let this place slip into enemy hands,’ Wang Fei said. ‘Dai Wei, make sure the marshals are standing firm.’ He then went to speak to Bai Ling and Lin Lu who’d just walked in. There were so many people inside the tent now, I could hardly move.

‘It’s too noisy in here!’ Nuwa shouted. She was speaking to someone in English on the telephone. ‘This is an important call. Can you all step outside for a while?’

‘Stop arguing, you two!’ Bai Ling said, glaring at Wang Fei and Lin Lu. ‘The Defend Tiananmen Square Headquarters has only been up and running for a day, and you’re already quarrelling. If you carry on like this, I’ll sack you both.’ Then she pulled Wang Fei and me aside and whispered, ‘I heard a rumour that the Provincial Students’ Federation was planning to kidnap me. You Southern University graduates are a bunch of bandits!’ Her forehead was covered in red mosquito bites. The insect bites on her neck looked like love bites.

‘That can’t be true,’ I said, searching for a large piece of paper on which to write a VOICE OF DEMOCRACY STATION sign. ‘Tang Guoxian and Wu Bin wouldn’t have the guts to plan something like that.’

Everyone shuffled outside to let Nuwa continue her conversation in peace. The air was less suffocating than it had been in the tent. I felt too tense to sit down, so instead I walked around the security cordon, reminding the marshals that they had to ask my permission before they went off to the toilets.

As dusk began to fall, the army of secret police stood up and filed out of the Square. The red paper sign I’d attached to the tent flapped in the cool wind. The crowd in the Square was as noisy and bustling as those that gather outside temples during Spring Festival. As I gazed across it, I was startled to catch sight of Lulu. She was with a group of girls, listening to a Beijing resident’s speech. I pushed my way through the crowd and shouted out to her. She raised her eyebrows and smiled.