Ma Jian - Beijing Coma

‘Last night, I told Bai Ling we should leave, but she accused me of being a coward. If she doesn’t decide to vacate the Square today, I’ll resign.’

Just at that moment, Bai Ling walked up to us with Mimi.

‘I didn’t make myself clear last night,’ Mou Sen said to her. ‘The Square’s in chaos. If we don’t withdraw soon, it will fall into anarchy.’

‘So you still think we should leave, then?’ Bai Ling said, putting on her sunglasses.

‘Yes. It’s our only option. If you don’t agree, I must resign from my post.’ He reached into his jacket and pulled out a resignation letter he’d written earlier.

‘I can’t betray the students,’ Bai Ling said. ‘History would never forgive me.’ She skimmed through the letter he handed her, signed her name at the bottom and walked off.

‘I bet you didn’t think that would happen,’ I said, tapping his shoulder. ‘You’re out of a job now, Mr Broadcast Station Director.’

‘I didn’t really want to resign,’ Mou Sen moaned. ‘What a mess…’

We turned round and went back to the broadcast station. As soon as we walked in, Mou Sen announced he’d resigned and was planning to return to his campus.

‘Let’s all resign, then,’ Xiao Li said. ‘I wouldn’t mind going home for a few days.’

‘Here we are at the critical moment, and as soon as he says he’s leaving, you bolt out of the door,’ Old Fu said angrily. ‘All right, go then! Both of you! The rest of us will cope well enough without you. But the tapes and documents must stay here. No one must touch them.’

‘This will mean you’ll finally be able to take charge of the broadcast station, Old Fu,’ said Xiao Li, rubbing some dirt off his trousers.

‘And what do you mean by that?’ Old Fu snapped. Everyone knew he resented being logistics officer and that he thought that, since he’d set up the first broadcast station in the Square, he should have been appointed director of the Voice of Democracy.

‘You keep to your logistics work,’ I said to him, ‘and let Wang Fei run the station.’

‘I’m the one who’s been holding the fort here!’ he shouted. ‘Without me, this station would have collapsed ages ago.’

The mood became so hostile that I felt obliged to resign as well, which angered Old Fu so much he hurled a cardboard box to the ground.

Nuwa came in and tried to persuade Mou Sen to stay. I told her that Bai Ling had approved his resignation.

Mou Sen picked up his denim rucksack and said, ‘I’m off now. I’m going to visit the political scientist Yan Jia to discuss an idea of mine. I plan to set up a Democracy University, right here in the Square. It will be open to everyone. We’ll invite guest speakers to give classes on politics and culture. Students will be free to jump up and challenge them whenever they want. I hope you’ll all get involved.’ He raised his hand triumphantly and left. Nuwa clapped her hands in excitement and followed him out of the tent.

In the western region of the Great Wastes, the headless corpse, Xia Geng, stands upright, holding an axe and a shield. It was the warrior Shang Tang who cut off his head.

‘You can send letters to anywhere in the world with it, without having to go to the post office? No, I won’t bother buying one. I’d have to register it at the police station… Last week, Haidian Department Store promised that any customer who spent more than a hundred yuan would be given a lottery ticket. I bought a pair of trainers that cost 120 yuan, but when I went to collect a lottery ticket, the woman behind the counter said the shoes were on discount, so I didn’t qualify for one. Those sharks! They completely swindled me!’

My mother is chatting to An Qi, who has brought along a woman called Gui Lan whose son was sentenced to eighteen years in prison for setting fire to an army tank during the crackdown. She’s brought a copy of the written judgement that was issued to her son. She keeps repeating she’ll be dead and buried by the time he’s released.

‘I bought a thermos flask in the market last week,’ Gui Lan says. ‘I filled it with boiling water, and after just two hours the water was lukewarm. I tried to return it, but the stallholder said he only gave refunds within three days of purchase. But the sticker on the thermos says it’s guaranteed for three months.’ I can tell from her accent that she was born in Shandong.

‘I bought a packet of frozen dumplings from a chain store today. There were stubs of ungrated ginger in the filling. I couldn’t eat them, but my husband wolfed them down quite happily.’

‘Have you seen all those new food stalls in the street outside? One of them sells deep-fried locusts.’

‘The district office doesn’t bother to send anyone to collect the rubbish. At night, there are so many rats in that street, I don’t dare walk down it.’

‘Sesame cakes cost two yuan each in the market now, and rice dumplings are three yuan a jin.’

‘It’s silly to waste money on expensive food. Whether you eat mung beans or lobster, it all looks the same when it comes out the other end!’

‘On the last anniversary of 4 June, the police bought me a train ticket to my parents’ village. They didn’t want me to be in Beijing in case I did something to commemorate the victims of the crackdown. They followed me all the way there and all the way back, so it was impossible to relax. Whatever they say this year, I’m not leaving my flat.’

‘The police took us to a guest house out in the countryside. They wouldn’t even tell us the name of the village. We spent the whole week in our room, watching television all day.’

‘Maybe they took us to the same guest house! They bought me a tomato and egg stir-fry one day. It was so salty, I spat it out.’

My mother takes a sip of tea, puts the cup back down on the radiator and says, ‘This flat is guarded like a prison. Sometimes I long to run away.’

‘What would happen to your son if you left?’ says Gui Lan. ‘You’re lucky to have him by your side… I’ll have to move home soon. Construction workers walked down our lane yesterday and painted the word “demolish” on every house. The government is planning to pull down the whole district.’

‘How much compensation are they offering you?’ my mother asks.

‘3,000 yuan a square metre. So all I’ll get is 18,000 yuan, which isn’t nearly enough to buy a new flat around here.’

‘Why don’t you move to Tongxian?’ An Qi says. ‘It’s only an hour away by bus. Our block is dilapidated. I keep asking the neighbourhood committee if it’s going to be pulled down, but they tell me there are still no plans.’

‘Don’t worry. You live inside the second ring road. The government said that everything inside the third ring road will be demolished, so they’ll get to you eventually.’ My mother comes over to check whether the enamel basin my urine tube empties into is full. Although her constant jabbering is infuriating, I know that no one else would have had the patience to look after me like this for all these years.

‘I hope I can move into a flat like this, with central heating and running water,’ Gui Lan says. ‘My room in the courtyard house gets so cold in winter. And I hate having to use the dirty communal toilets at the end of the lane.’

‘We used to live in a traditional courtyard house,’ An Qi says. ‘We had to share it with eight other families. It was so cramped.’

‘At least in those single-storey houses you don’t have neighbours above you or below you,’ my mother says. ‘And there are no stairs to climb. When I get older and my joints seize up, I don’t know how I’ll make it up these six flights of stairs.’

‘I’d like to live in one of those modern apartments with floor-to-ceiling windows, like the ones you see in the television adverts.’