Ma Jian - Beijing Coma

‘You sort it out,’ I said. ‘I’m looking after the broadcast station. And anyway, all my marshals have gone to the intersections.’

‘Ke Xi mentioned they were coming yesterday, but I forgot all about it,’ said Lin Lu. ‘We should erect a hunger strike tent for them up on the Monument.’ He then began gabbling into his walkie-talkie, trying to muster more reinforcements.

‘You’re supposed to be in charge of crowd control, Dai Wei,’ Old Fu said, popping a stomach pill into his mouth. ‘I can’t set up the security line. I’m in the middle of moving my finance office into another tent. This couldn’t be worse timing.’

‘The only marshals still here are a small group from Lanzhou University. I’ll see if Tang Guoxian will let us borrow them. He’s asked them to man the security cordons during the Democracy University’s opening ceremony.’

The four intellectuals walked into the Square. Lin Lu shook hands with one of them and said, ‘Welcome! We’re just getting someone to put up a tent for you. Come and wait inside our broadcast station.’ It was Shan Bo, the Beijing Normal teacher and literary critic who’d been active in the Capital Joint Liaison Group. Behind him was Gao Xin, another lecturer from Beijing Normal, the economist Zi Duo and the rock star Hou Dejian, who was dressed in faded jeans and a white T-shirt.

All the students in the Square were desperate to catch a glimpse of Hou Dejian, so after the four men entered our tent, I quickly blocked the entrance. The only marshals guarding us now were twelve social science students Hai Feng had sent from the campus. Five of them were girls.

A huge crowd surrounded the broadcast station. A pack of journalists appeared from nowhere, waving their reporters’ cards and requesting to interview Hou Dejian.

When we received word that the hunger strike tent had been erected, Shao Jian, a student marshal and I linked hands around the four men and pushed them through the excited crowds to the Monument’s upper terrace. Lin Lu hurried them into the tent then told the student officials to sit in a protective circle around it.

‘My ribs feel as though they’ve been crushed to pieces,’ Shao Jian moaned as we leaned against the balustrades, trying to catch our breath. My shirt was soaking wet. It was a designer one that I’d borrowed from Dong Rong. I noticed that the top button had been ripped off in the scrum.

The arrival of the hunger strikers had sent a wave of excitement through the Square. The students below stood about expectantly, like a crowd outside a cinema the night a new film is released. Books, T-shirts and hats were passed up continually for the men to sign. The crowd was now larger than it had been the day the Beijing rock star Cui Jian came to sing in the Square. Hundreds of people tried to squeeze their way onto the Monument shouting, ‘Come out of your tent, Hou Dejian! Sing us a song!’

The terrace below was now packed. A student in a T-shirt that said I LOVE TIANANMEN! climbed up and swung himself over the balustrades, almost kicking me in the face. A stream of people followed behind him. The student officials around the tent jumped up and were immediately shoved back by the invading hordes. The tent wobbled. Fearing it was about to collapse, I squeezed through and said to the intellectuals, ‘I think you’d better come out. We can’t hold the crowds back any longer.’

Zi Duo sat up, readjusted his glasses and said, ‘It’s you they want to see, Hou Dejian, not us. You go outside. We’ll stay here.’

Shan Bo took an anxious drag from his cigarette and stuttered, ‘Wh-what’s the point of coming here if we’re just going to s-s-stay in the tent?’

‘Well, come out too, if you want,’ I said. Then I stepped outside and shouted through the megaphone: ‘Fellow students, please stop pushing. Step back a few metres. Our guests are coming out to greet you.’ The crowd fell silent.

As soon as Hou Dejian stepped out, everyone applauded. Someone shouted, ‘Hou Dejian! You’re great! Sing us a song!’

I looked down at the crowds that were scrambling towards the Monument, knocking down banners and flags on their way. Hou Dejian held hands with Shan Bo and Gao Xin and began singing his most famous anthem, ‘Children of the Dragon’.

I passed my megaphone to Shao Jian, and seized my chance to sneak off to the toilets. I wasn’t in the mood to listen to the song.

The song seemed to bring the Square back to life. The banners, flags and students swayed in time to the music.

As I was pushing my way across the Square, I bumped into Mou Sen and Nuwa. ‘Look what a reaction your two lecturers up there are getting!’ I said grumpily. ‘When twenty Beijing University professors joined our hunger strike, no one paid them any attention. They forgot to bring a rock star with them, that’s why!’

‘ Hurry up, my darling! ’ Nuwa said to Mou Sen in English. ‘I want to see Hou Dejian!’ Mou Sen was hoping to push Nuwa to the front so that she could get a better view, but I knew he wouldn’t be strong enough to propel her through that crowd.

As I moved away, I could hear Shan Bo in the distance, shouting through my megaphone: ‘We’ll get you in the end, Li Peng! You bastard! We’ll get you!…’

I continued north towards Tiananmen Gate. The dirty paper and fruit-peel trampled onto the paving stones smelt only of dust. All odours of rot and decay had dissipated in the hot air. Chairman Mao was smiling wryly at the Goddess of Democracy, whose eyes were at the same level and were staring straight back at him.

Like an old-fashioned radar receiver, your wound picks up electromagnetic waves reflected by the bird as it flutters past.

The sparrow’s arrival has given me a clearer sense of where I am. Perhaps the bird is A-Mei’s soul come to visit me. It reminds me of the sacred bird in The Book of Mountains and Seas which lays square eggs and resembles a flame of fire when it flies through the sky. Ever since it first landed on my head, I have felt the warmth of its glow.

For days, it has hopped up and down my body. Sometimes it flies around the room. I’ve dreamed about flying all my life, but with just a flap of its wings and a jump, this creature can make the dream a reality. I can tell from its chirp that it’s a sparrow. I imagine that it has tawny grey feathers and yellow claws. It’s waiting for me to wake up, so that we can fly away together. A-Mei once said that she wanted to come back as a bird in the next life.

The slightest noise — even the sound of a mung bean rolling onto the floor — will cause its claws to tremble.

My mother has tried many times to flick it out of the room with a feather duster, but it always manages to flap its wings just in time and fly through the duster’s feathers. After every narrow escape, I catch a whiff of fresh bird shit.

‘All right, stay in the flat if you want!’ my mother grumbles. ‘This building’s going to be pulled down soon, so enjoy it while you can.’ A few moments ago, she pinched some of the acupuncture points on my feet that Master Yao told her about, but I didn’t feel a thing.

On the phone, Master Yao explained to my mother that the bird was perhaps a reincarnated soul sent by the Buddha to watch over me, and that she shouldn’t harm it. He’s been very busy recently. A few days ago, forty-five practitioners were arrested during a protest staged outside the offices of a Tianjin magazine which published an article critical of Falun Gong. Master Yao is now helping to organise a demonstration, demanding the release of those detained in Tianjin and official recognition of their movement.

The noises the sparrow makes as it moves through my room allow me to form a picture of my surroundings. When it hops along the windowsill of the covered balcony, I feel I’m touching everything it treads on. I discover there’s a row of empty beer bottles on the sill, as well as my old chess set and a shoebox that contains a hammer and screwdriver. The sparrow is under my bed now, trying to peck out the herbs from the medicinal waist belt Yu Jin gave me for my thirtieth birthday. I hear it trip on some pills that have fallen down the side of the bed. When its wings brush over the table in the sitting room, I can hear there’s a pile of newspapers on top of it, as well as a telephone directory. It knocks over a teacup, which smashes to the ground. I touch whatever the bird hits. My memories are scratched awake by its claws.