Ma Jian - Beijing Coma

‘If you want to start a revolution, you should shave it all off,’ I laughed. Then I remembered he’d told me that his father had been forced to shave his hair off before he left for the reform-through-labour camp. Only political convicts from the high echelons of society were allowed to keep a little hair at the top of their heads.

‘We must call for the right to publish independent newspapers, and an end to press censorship,’ Shu Tong said, scribbling into his notebook. ‘Our demands must be concrete.’

‘Yes, and autonomous, democratically elected student unions,’ Ke Xi said.

‘Mou Sen, you have a good way with words, and Dai Wei, you have nice handwriting, so the two of you should write a petition setting out the Pantheon Society’s demands.’ Old Fu was in high spirits. His face, usually the yellow colour symptomatic of hepatitis sufferers, was now slightly flushed.

‘Yes, and we must put up a notice in the Triangle urging students to join our demonstration,’ Shao Jian said.

There was a guy playing the guitar and singing a love song on the lawn outside Block 31. He kept shouting out to someone in the girls’ block opposite, then shrieking with laughter.

‘Dai Wei, you’ve got the loudest voice,’ Shu Tong said. ‘Tell that wanker that cocks aren’t allowed to crow at night.’

I poked my head out of the window and yelled, ‘Fuck your grandad!’

Other windows immediately flew open, and people shouted, ‘Fuck your grandmother! Fuck you!’

After I shut the window, I heard the guitarist shout, ‘Come down here if you’ve got any balls! I’ll beat you to a pulp!’

So I opened the window again and shouted back, ‘If you’ve got any balls, come up here!’

The news of Hu Yaobang’s death had left the students in an anxious state. A few guys saw this squabble as an opportunity to let off steam. Some ran out onto the lawn, others threw tables and chairs out of their windows.

I didn’t want to get involved, so I returned to my dorm and had a drink of water. When I looked out of the window, I saw Wang Fei fling off his jacket, set fire to it with a cigarette lighter and toss it onto a heap of wooden stools and brooms.

Everyone became excited when they saw the blaze. They opened their windows and flung rubbish and newspapers onto the flames. I grabbed Dong Rong’s smelliest pair of trainers and tossed them down too. The fire roared and crackled. I fastened my shoes and ran downstairs.

The guitarist had long since gone. A large crowd had gathered around the fire. The girls were shouting from the windows of their dorm block. They couldn’t get out because their front door had been locked at eleven.

Wang Fei yelled, ‘Let’s go and rescue the girls!’

About ten guys ran over to the girls’ block and kicked wildly at the two front doors until they crashed to the ground. Immediately, a stream of girls rushed out, screeching with excitement. I tossed a stone at the window of Tian Yi’s dorm. She and Mimi turned on their light and peered out.

Shu Tong suddenly yelled, ‘Come on everyone, let’s march to the Square!’ A huge commotion swept through the dorm blocks.

‘The man who shouldn’t have died has died!’ Wang Fei cried, throwing his shoes onto the flames.

Another student threw a bicycle onto the fire. Scraps of burning paper swirled in the breeze. Mou Sen rushed outside to make sure that the bicycle smouldering in the flames wasn’t his.

Helped by some guys, the girls lugged the two front doors that had been cramping their lives over to the bonfire.

By now, Wang Fei had thrown most of his clothes onto the fire, and was wearing only a vest and long johns. ‘Down with corruption!’ he shouted. ‘Oppose official profiteering!’

Every light in the dorm blocks was now switched on. Mao Da and the recipient of my free haircuts, Xiao Li, leaned out of our window and I yelled at them to come down and bring my jacket with them. They joined me a minute later, and we rushed off to the Triangle.

A ten-metre strip of white cloth was being unfurled from the window of the creative writing students’ dorm on the fourth floor of Block 28. The words CHINA’S SOUL had been painted on it in black. Shu Tong told someone to pull it down. He said that we should hold it aloft as we marched to the Square, then drape it over the steps of the Monument to the People’s Heroes.

We ran over and tugged the cloth. The creative writing students hauled it back up, but after some more tussling we finally managed to yank it down. Then we proudly held it up and circled the dorm blocks shouting slogans. Outside the Social Science dorm block we yelled, ‘Practice is the criterion by which truth must be tested!’ Reaching the PhD block, we shouted, ‘Doctoral students, the time has come for you to use your talents!’

By the end of our tour, our numbers had doubled. Liu Gang and Old Fu were ready to muster the troops and set forth. Because of my height, I was put in charge of security. Before we left, I went to find Tian Yi to check how she felt about this. As I approached her dorm block, I saw Wang Fei standing in the entrance, chatting up a pretty girl with short hair. I tried to drag him away, but he grabbed the door frame and refused to budge, saying he’d catch up with me in a minute. He and the girl then retreated into the dark hallway. I recognised the girl. She was Nuwa, the English major who was a member of the university’s dance troupe. I’d seen her perform the Peacock Dance of the Dai national minority.

I shouted up to Tian Yi’s window. She stuck her head out and said, ‘Don’t shout. I’m coming down…’

Han Dan walked up, followed by a large crowd of arts students. He was wearing a beige jacket. Someone had clipped his hair, leaving a long strand at the front that reached the frame of his heavy glasses. He had the lanky gait of a high school student but the expression of a wise professor.

He and Yang Tao had just returned from the Square. He suggested that we circle the campus again, with each department marching as a block, and that we position the tallest students at the sides to act as security marshals. Once we’d amassed enough people, we could set off for the Square. He’d already managed to gather a crowd of two or three hundred.

‘Let’s get moving!’ Zhuzi the tall law student said, walking into the Triangle with a large wreath over his shoulders. ‘The students from the Politics and Law University have been on the Square all afternoon.’

‘How many Beijing University law students do you think you can muster?’ Old Fu asked him.

‘At least two hundred, I should think. We’ve already got about eighty from our Law and Democracy Research Society.’

Two hours later, just as the blocks of marchers from the various departments finally linked up and set off for the campus gates, Shu Tong asked us about the petition. Mou Sen said that he’d only written the first line, and that he wouldn’t have time to finish it now.

About twenty university security guards had lined up outside the main entrance. They’d padlocked the gates to prevent the students from leaving the campus and were refusing to unlock them. Zhuzi and I walked over and asked them to pass us the key. One of them, probably a cadre, said that the university rules stated that the campus gates should remain locked all night.

The students began pushing against the gates.

I shouted to the guards, ‘If you don’t open them, you’ll have to take responsibility for any injuries that occur.’

Then I heard Ke Xi shouting, ‘Beijing University is paid for by the people! For the sake of the people we will lay down our lives!’ Then he yelled ‘Charge!’ and we rammed into the gates again. The gates and the lamps beside them shook. The girls crushed at the front of the crowd screamed in pain.