Ma Jian - Beijing Coma

‘We’ve no more wreaths,’ I croaked. Mimi picked up Tian Yi’s camera and pointed it at us. I grabbed Tian Yi’s hand. She squeezed it briefly then pushed it away. But when the shot was taken, I was still holding her with one hand and waving the university flag with the other.

She turned to me and smiled. ‘Why is your expression always so wooden? Take off that mask!’ She looked happy and relaxed. I felt proud to be standing next to her.

I could usually walk to the Square in two hours, but it had taken us double that time. After standing in the Square for another hour, we were so tired that we all sat down on the wet paving stones.

Liu Gang wandered through the seated crowd, asking the students if they were happy with the wording of the draft petition that Old Fu and Mou Sen had brought back. Hai Feng and Zhuzi encouraged everyone to chant slogans, afraid that they might lose interest and start drifting back to the campus. After a calm discussion, we settled on seven demands, which included an affirmation of Hu Yaobang’s liberal views on democracy and freedom, a renunciation of past campaigns against spiritual pollution and bourgeois liberalism, pay rises for teachers and professors, an increase in press freedom and freedom of speech and the end of restrictions on demonstrations in Beijing.

Shu Tong placed his handkerchief on the ground, then sat on it and said, ‘Good! At last we know what we’re doing.’

‘I saw you having a nap on the steps of the Monument just now,’ Shao Jian said, lying flat down on the ground, too exhausted to sit up any longer.

‘I hate going a night without sleep,’ Shu Tong answered. ‘Liu Gang, tell Old Fu to come over. We need to revise the petition and get more students to come to the Square. Tell him we’re going to submit the petition to the government on the steps of the Great Hall of the People.’

Fortunately, a few tourists and local residents began trickling into the Square, making our crowd appear a little larger. Zhuzi and Chen Di said that everyone sitting on the ground should be in neat rows. I asked Yu Jin to help shout out the orders.

More and more onlookers gathered around us. Wang Fei suggested that we inform them of our goals. Having an audience cheered us up. They applauded us. Some even tossed us the dough sticks and buns they’d bought themselves for breakfast; others handed us cigarettes and money. Shu Tong told the students not to snatch the food, but everyone was so hungry they ignored him. Bai Ling caught a bread roll that was tossed in her direction and shared it with the rest of our gang.

A man who looked like a worker sat down next to us. He claimed to be volunteer teacher, and said that we were behaving irrationally.

Wang Fei lost his temper, and said, ‘Do you know what the average teacher’s salary is?’

‘Do you imagine we’re doing this for the fun of it?’ said Nuwa. ‘Last week the papers reported that China’s investment in education is the second lowest in the world!’

‘But things are changing now. Investment in education is going up, not down. And, look — you were able to march all the way from your campuses to the Square without getting arrested.’ The man looked as though he’d just finished his morning jog. His hair was damp with sweat.

Wang Fei flung his half-eaten bun at the man and said, ‘Whose bloody mouthpiece are you? I’ve had enough of hearing people say that things are getting better. It’s bullshit!’

Ke Xi and Hai Feng persuaded the man to leave. Nuwa criticised Wang Fei for being too hot-headed.

When the rays of the morning sun reached the Monument’s obelisk, we decided that Han Dan and Hai Feng should visit the reception office of the Great Hall of the People to discuss submitting our petition to Premier Li Peng.

Ten minutes later, they came out of the office and announced that the petition would be received by the deputy head of the State Bureau of Letters and Visits.

Wang Fei and Shu Tong said that this wasn’t good enough. Cao Ming agreed that we shouldn’t deliver the petition to such a petty official.

‘It must be received by a member of the National People’s Congress Standing Committee, at the very least,’ Shao Jian said.

But Liu Gang and Yang Tao argued that the official’s rank was unimportant. They said that if we managed to submit the petition publicly, in front of all the students gathered in the Square, we would have achieved our goal and could return to our campus in triumph.

I was handed a fountain pen and a poster-sized sheet of paper and told to start writing the seven demands we’d agreed on.

I glanced at Tian Yi’s face. Her lips were pursed, but her eyes were calm. She didn’t appear to object to what I was doing.

A universe circulates through your body. Noises pierce it like bolts of lightning. Sparks of light join, then disperse, like the head and eyes of a foetus on a sonogram.

I turned off my alarm clock and went back to sleep. I’d been up very late the night before, keeping watch over the posters in the Triangle. When I woke up again it was already six thirty in the evening.

On the table in the middle of the dorm were the strips of cloth Wang Fei had ripped from his bed sheet and daubed with the words DOWN WITH OFFICIAL PROFITEERING. His zeal seemed a little excessive. Tian Yi thought so too. She said that he was a narcissist and lacked the dignified air of a scholar.

I jumped out of bed and went to brush my teeth. Although the canteen would have already finished serving supper, I knew that Tian Yi would still be waiting for me there.

The entrance to our dorm block was splattered with muddy footprints. I guessed that it had been raining outside.

I took the short cut along a dirt track that passed through a patch of thick undergrowth. Overlapping male footprints marked the way. Girls instinctively avoided this patch of male territory, preferring the cement path that turned at a right angle. I was annoyed to see how tattered my shoes were. But at least I knew I could afford to buy a new pair, unlike Xiao Li who was so poor he had to play football in his bare feet.

The voice of the rock star He Yong blared out from a cassette player in one of the dorms: ‘ God bless the people who’ve eaten their fill. God bless the workers, the peasants, and the people’s militia. Let those who want a promotion be promoted, and those who want a divorce get divorced… ’

Tian Yi was sitting alone in the canteen. ‘I wish you wouldn’t take the short cut,’ she said as I walked up to her. ‘Your shoes always get covered in mud.’

‘I can’t help it. I hate walking the long way round.’

‘Hey, let’s go and have a look at the posters in the Triangle.’ Her white woollen scarf reflected a pale light onto her chin as she spoke. ‘The politics students have put up lots of new ones today.’

‘I don’t like being a bystander,’ I said, yawning. ‘And anyway, I’ve only just got up and I haven’t had a thing to eat yet.’

‘I only want to read them. I won’t write them down.’ Although her tone was quite casual, I could sense that she’d had a change of heart and was now eager to get involved in the student movement. She leaned over and pressed a peanut sweet into my hand and asked, ‘So which poster did you put up?’ A draught blew in through the open door. The evening air felt clean and cold.

‘I haven’t put any up. You told me not to get involved, didn’t you?’ Remembering Tian Yi’s dislike of sarcasm, I added softly, ‘Let’s go and take a look then, if you want. Just keep an eye out for any undercover agents.’

She glanced at me disdainfully and strode outside. I followed her out and looked beyond her at the large crowd of students in the Triangle. They were shining torches and candles onto the red-and-white handwritten posters pasted to the noticeboards.