Ma Jian - Beijing Coma

‘We are standing on the front line now, and we’re not afraid to die!’ Wang Fei shouted into the air.

‘Mou Sen is over by the Goddess of Democracy with Nuwa, Zhang Jie and Xiao Li,’ Qiu Fa said walking over to me, his curly hair falling over his face. ‘He refuses to abandon it. I begged him to come to the Monument, but he says he’s only two hundred metres away, and can still see us from over there.’

Zhuzi and I went to the balustrades and surveyed the scene. In the west, a small group had set light to some canvas sheets, quilts and wooden sticks. We could hear the rumble of army tanks now, as well as gunfire. We knew that, very soon, troops would appear on all four sides of the Square.

I hurried to the north side of the Monument. I didn’t have a megaphone, so I shouted at the top of my voice for the boys to move to the outer edge of the crowd. Within ten minutes, most of them did as they were asked and linked hands, forming a protective cordon around the girls, apart from a few boys who remained seated on the steps with their arms around their girlfriends. Someone began singing along to the Internationale that was playing over the loudspeakers, then everyone joined in, crying out in unison: ‘ The hot blood that fills our chests is seething. We will struggle for the truth …’

‘We will defend Tiananmen Square to the death! We will defend the People’s Republic of China!’ Mimi shouted into the microphone.

‘They can cut off our heads and let us bleed to death, but we will never let them take the People’s Square!’ Chen Di cried theatrically.

I asked a couple of the guys in red armbands to take over from me, then I wove a path through the crowd of seated students and returned to the hunger strike tent.

‘Everyone must cover their mouths with a face mask or wet towel,’ Bai Ling said into the microphone, making final preparations for the battle ahead. There was black ink on her shirt. In the darkness it looked like blood.

Old Fu was guarding the microphone. When Bai Ling had finished speaking, he saw that Chen Di hadn’t got the next tape ready yet, so he added a few comments of his own. ‘When the army arrives, we will show patience, firmness and self-control. We will stay here, hand in hand, shoulder to shoulder. Let the army come and crush us, if they want. We will not move.’

Ke Xi was standing between two Hong Kong students who’d asked to have a photograph taken with him. After the flash went off, he shouted, ‘When I’m dead, you must carry my coffin through the streets, then bring it here so that I can have one last look at the Square!’ Then he walked over to Bai Ling and said, ‘I want to take over as commander-in-chief for the rest of the night.’

Bai Ling cast him a disdainful look. ‘The enemy is already at our gates. What would you do as commander-in-chief?’

‘I know what needs to be done,’ Ke Xi said.

‘I will only hand over control to you if you have a workable plan,’ Bai Ling said, looking away.

‘Don’t be so arrogant. Remember: you started out as my secretary!’ As soon as Ke Xi said this, Wang Fei jumped up and grabbed him by the collar. He was about to punch him in the face, but Ke Xi’s bodyguards pushed him away just in time. Yu Jin grabbed a wooden stick and ran over, waving it at Ke Xi’s head. Zhuzi came in and said angrily, ‘The students manning the barricades are sacrificing their lives for us. If you don’t stop these stupid power struggles, I’ll beat you up.’

Chen Di led an injured student to the table and pressed the microphone to his lips. ‘My classmate Zhang Han has been shot dead!’ the student sobbed. ‘I’ve got his blood all over my body. It’s fresh blood. All over me…’ Zhang Han was another of the student marshals who’d been issued with walkie-talkies.

I told Zhuzi to tell anyone who had a walkie-talkie to discard it immediately.

Ke Xi snatched the microphone from the student’s hands and said, ‘We will defend Tiananmen Square to the death! We will stay on the Monument to the People’s Heroes until the bitter end…’ He worked himself up into such a frenzy that he fainted into the arms of his bodyguard.

Chen Di took the microphone. ‘We need an ambulance and an oxygen canister. Ke Xi has fainted again.’

‘Fellow students, you must stay awake and make sure you all have wet towels to hand,’ Old Fu announced. ‘Don’t leave the Monument. Everyone must stay in the centre of the Square.’ His calm, mature voice eased the mood.

‘We must concentrate our forces in the north side of the Square,’ I said to Lin Lu, taking more red armbands from his bag. ‘That’s where the troops from the east and west will converge. Go and position some more guys over there.’

‘Let’s do a last circuit of the Square, Dai Wei, and make sure everyone is gathered round the Monument,’ Old Fu said.

‘Has anyone got a bicycle I can use?’ I shouted, but no one could hear me. I wanted to go to the Goddess of Democracy and persuade Mou Sen and Nuwa to come back to the Monument, then I wanted to find Tian Yi a hiding place in the Museum of Chinese History. It was an important national monument. I was sure the army wouldn’t dare fire bullets at it.

A small group of students were smashing up weapons on the stone steps at the edge of the terrace. Shan Bo and Fan Yuan, who was still wearing a red armband, were taking it in turns to bash the machine gun. Others were dismantling crude Molotov cocktails. A strong smell of petrol wafted through the air.

Malignant cells gnaw at the lining of your stomach. The tissue looks as ravaged as the walls of a ruined city.

‘Where is it, where is it?’ my mother groans, rifling through sheets of paper.

She has begun to lose her memory. When Master Yao’s son knocked on the door and called out to her, she didn’t let him in. I presumed she didn’t recognise his voice. But maybe she did, and she didn’t want to have to talk about the upsetting matter of Master Yao’s arrest. Or perhaps she thought it was the relocation officer come to persuade her to move out.

I suddenly remember an argument my parents once had.

‘… Where have you hidden my photographs?’ my father said angrily.

I was ten years old at the time, and had just come home from school. My elasticated trousers were too big for me. My classmates had pulled them down twice to embarrass me. I was very upset.

‘I want a belt!’ I said, interrupting their argument.

‘If your trousers are loose, it’s easier to pull them down when you need to pee,’ my mother said, then turned back to my father. ‘I burnt the photographs years ago.’

‘They ran up behind me and pulled my trousers down. Dad, I want a belt!’

‘You haven’t got a belly. What do you need a belt for?’ My father looked down at me and puffed on his cigarette. His face was as mottled as the old mirror hanging on our wall.

‘Go and play in the yard with your brother,’ my mother said, walking out of the kitchen in her green slippers.

‘I’m sick of wearing elasticated trousers. Can’t you buy me some proper ones?’

My mother grabbed me by the collar and spanked me hard, then pushed me out onto the landing.

That father of mine, who entered the crematorium’s furnace holding a wall calendar of foreign landscapes, never once applied to join the Party after he returned from America. That showed what a courageous man he was.

Three hundred li south across the shifting sands lie the Ge Mountains. Their bare slopes are scattered with stones that can be used to sharpen knives. With just one of these stones you can sharpen all the knives in the land.

It was about one in the morning already. Most of the girls had gone off to Qinghua University in the vans, but about a hundred had chosen to remain in the Square. I returned to the upper terrace. I wanted to fetch Tian Yi and take her to a safe place. I knew she wouldn’t come with me if I told her my plan, so I said, ‘My old Southern University classmate, Shi Ye, wants to speak to me. Will you help me find her?’