Ma Jian - Beijing Coma

‘I don’t have any leaflets, just this university banner,’ I said. ‘I think it’s best if you watch from the sides. You can be witnesses to history. Some students will hand out leaflets once the demonstration gets going.’

Wang Fei came over and said, ‘The university security officers have a list of all the activists in our department. I was followed by a plain-clothes guy all day yesterday.’

‘Half the students here aren’t from our university,’ Old Fu said anxiously. ‘I don’t recognise any of them. What should we do?’

‘Don’t worry,’ Zhuzi said confidently. ‘I recognise them. They’re from Beijing Normal and People’s University. As far as I’m concerned, the more people we have the better. The law is powerless against a crowd. And it’s good that the public want to join in. We’re demonstrating on their behalf, after all. There’s a group of holidaymakers over there waiting to take souvenir photos in the Square. I’m sure that as soon as we start chanting slogans, they’ll rush over and take some shots of us.’

‘Wang Fei, go and find out what slogans the other universities have come up with,’ Shu Tong whispered.

Someone came over and said that the police had cordoned off the underpass that runs under Changan Avenue, connecting the Square to Tiananmen Gate. As we discussed what to do next, a crowd of arts students suddenly unfurled horizontal banners, breached the cordon and strode into the Square shouting, ‘Down with dictatorship! We demand freedom of speech!’

We rushed over and followed behind them. While I was walking, I pulled out my red banner, but there were so many people around me, I couldn’t display it properly, so I just held it up with one hand and shook it about a little. Wang Fei reached into his blue windcheater and pulled out a three-metre-long banner that read DOWN WITH DICTATORSHIP! LONG LIVE FREEDOM!

Before we’d gone very far, hundreds of policemen charged over and encircled us. Undaunted, we pushed our way through them and ran towards the Monument to the People’s Heroes, yelling, ‘Down with corruption! Long live freedom!’ A horde of armed police then emerged from a bus and started beating students back with batons. Wang Fei dropped his banner and ran away in fright. The two workers who’d been standing next to me shouted, ‘Hey, you’ve dropped your banner!’ I scooped it up and kept walking. As I shouted something to Old Fu, a policeman struck me on the head with a baton. My skull seemed to explode and silver stars flashed before my eyes. There were so many people squeezed around me that I had no room to collapse. The peasant from Shandong flung his bag of peanuts at the policeman who’d struck me and yelled, ‘Fucking bastard! How dare you hit a student?’ Then he pounced on the officer, bringing both him and me to the ground. I crawled to my feet, but before I’d regained my balance, someone kicked me down again. Soon, everyone around me was being kicked to the ground or dragged off to the police vans, their arms twisted behind their backs. While my head was still throbbing, two officers grabbed me by the arms and dragged me to the Workers’ Cultural Palace behind Tiananmen Gate.

In less than five minutes, our demonstration had been crushed.

Inside the Workers’ Palace, the policemen pushed my head down and made me squat against the wall. There were seventy or eighty of us in there. The officers kicked and swore at anyone who wasn’t squatting properly. A teenage boy who screamed, ‘I didn’t shout any slogans!’ was punched to the ground. After that, he leaned back against the wall, rigid with terror, and didn’t utter another word.

One of the older policemen yelled, ‘Anyone who opposes the government is an enemy of the people, a counter-revolutionary! You’d better own up to your crimes. If you confess, we might be lenient. If you don’t, we’ll fling you in jail.’

I had a gash on my face, a bump on my head, and aching shoulders, but I wasn’t seriously wounded.

I glanced around me and didn’t spot anyone I knew, apart from Old Fu. The peasant from Shandong was squatting by the door. His padded Mao suit was ripped. He was so big that, even when squatting down, he was a head and shoulders taller than everyone else.

The charcoal burner in the middle of the hall was blazing. I was sweating in my down jacket.

A plain-clothes officer walked in and demanded to see our documents. All non-students were made to stand on the other side of the hall.

The Shandong peasant looked up and said, ‘I came to Beijing to do a little business. I didn’t intend to create any trouble. I’m supposed to be taking the train home tonight.’

‘Don’t act so innocent! Didn’t you say you wanted to complain about the injustices you peasants suffer? That’s why we arrested you. Keep your head down!’

It was only then that I recognised him as one of the two men in workers’ clothes who’d told me I’d dropped my banner.

The non-students were dragged outside and shoved onto a bus. I could hear someone screaming, ‘You’ve got the wrong person! I was just passing by!’ and a woman shouting, ‘Let me go home!’ It sounded like she was trying to force herself off the bus. I could hear her punching and kicking the metal sides.

The rest of us had to stay in the hall. In the evening they brought us some bread. I volunteered to hand it out. A young officer told me to step forward.

He looked about the same age as me. I presumed he was a new recruit. Having heard me speak in a proper Beijing accent, he said in a friendly tone, ‘This isn’t a very good way to be spending New Year’s Day, is it?’

‘You’re right,’ I said. ‘I had no idea it would be so cold today. In weather like this, the best thing to do is go to Donglaishun restaurant and have a nice lamb hotpot.’

‘If you lot hadn’t caused all this trouble, I’d be at home now, enjoying a hotpot with my family.’

I wanted to speak to Old Fu. So after I handed out the bread, I went to squat down next to him. ‘How come we’re the only Beijing University students here?’ I whispered. ‘Do you think the others have been taken somewhere else?’

‘I think those two girls over there are from our university.’

‘Wang Fei ran away at the first sign of violence,’ I said. ‘He likes to play the great revolutionary, but it’s all an empty show.’

‘I wanted to run away too,’ Old Fu said, staring blankly at the wall. ‘It was my first instinct. But my legs wouldn’t do what I told them. How come they can still charge you for “counterrevolutionary activities”? I thought the 1978 constitution reform got rid of that crime.’

‘They won’t execute us. The worst we’ll get is a few months in prison.’ This being my second arrest, I felt like an old hand.

Then the interrogation officers turned up.

Old Fu and I asked if we could go to the toilet. The young policeman escorted us outside, and the three of us pissed against the wall below Tiananmen Gate’s eastern viewing stand. As the policeman unzipped his trousers, he said, ‘I wanted to change things too when I was at the Politics and Law University, but I’m an officer now, so I’ve had to put all that behind me.’

My lips trembling with cold, I asked him if he thought we’d get released. ‘There were so many of you,’ he said. ‘It’s difficult to punish a crowd. The authorities suspect that more students might come to the Square tonight, to protest against the arrests. We’ve been ordered to work through the night. Let’s just wait and see what happens.’

‘Do you think they’ll send us to prison?’ Old Fu asked nervously. ‘I wouldn’t survive there. I’ve got hepatitis.’

‘I don’t know. But they won’t let those civilians off. They’re the chickens, you are the monkeys. The authorities will kill the chickens to frighten the monkeys.’