Ma Jian - Beijing Coma

‘Ke Xi is a general without an army,’ Wang Fei said, staring at him through Chen Di’s binoculars. ‘Look! He’s standing there all on his own, shouting to the heavens. No one’s paying any attention!’

I thought of the poet, Haizi, who despaired of China’s future. If he’d known the students would rise again, he might not have thrown himself in front of a train.

‘He doesn’t want Shu Tong to gain the upper hand,’ I said. ‘He won’t get much support from his classmates in the Education Department, though. Those girls are such conformists. Wang Fei, that girl Nuwa hasn’t been to visit you for a couple of days. Why’s that?’

‘Because I haven’t asked her to, that’s why,’ Wang Fei replied, sounding pleased with himself.

‘You’ve gone and got yourself the prettiest arts student,’ I said, my mind suddenly returning to Lulu, the girl I fell in love with in middle school.

‘Jealous, are you? And the general consensus is that she’s not just the prettiest arts student, she’s the prettiest girl in the university.’ Wang Fei had recently been spending more time in front of the mirror. He’d washed his hair twice and bought himself a new jacket at the farmers’ market. It was a cheap tailored jacket made of dark-blue nylon and lined with face-mask fabric.

Students who were on their way to the library wandered over to the two tables on which Ke Xi was standing. Shao Jian arranged the chairs he’d carried out from the dorm block. Liu Gang pulled out a megaphone and explained to the students how crucial it was to set up an independent student organisation and launch a new wave of protests.

When the students broke into applause, hundreds of people streamed over.

By the time it was Old Fu’s turn to speak, a crowd of about two thousand had gathered. Old Fu talked about the 1987 demonstrations, and said we should now set up an organising committee. He emphasised that it would only be a temporary body, and would be disbanded as soon as the student movement came to an end in order to prevent any opportunists from taking it over and using it for their own political purposes.

‘The movement hasn’t yet started and already you’re talking about what’s going to happen when it ends,’ Zhuzi muttered into his ear. ‘We managed to get a few rounds of applause a minute ago. Don’t spoil the mood. Dai Wei, it’s your turn to say something.’

I climbed onto the tables. I hadn’t prepared a speech, so I spouted the first thing that came to mind. ‘Fellow students!’ I shouted. ‘The government is very crafty, so we must organise ourselves if we want to put up a fight.’ Then my mind went blank, and I forgot what point I was trying to make. I could hear people sniggering at the back. ‘But of course, the government is very clever as well…’ I quickly added, but that only made people laugh louder.

‘Are they crafty or clever? Make up your mind!’ students shouted, waving their lunch boxes in the air.

Before I had a chance to reply, Ke Xi intervened and said, ‘The government is an unelected, illegal organisation. The official student bodies it has appointed are therefore illegal too. Who is in favour of forming a democratically elected student union?’

The crowd went silent. The question needed serious thought.

Fortunately, Tian Yi had left the campus to collect donations, so hadn’t witnessed my humiliation. I swore to myself that I would never speak in public again.

Zhuzi jumped onto the tables and shouted, ‘Fellow students! What we need most is rule of law. Only that is going to save China. When we say that we oppose dictatorship, that doesn’t mean we want to overturn the government.’ Before he had a chance to say more, the crowd broke into applause. As he stepped down, I shouted out, ‘Give us rule of law! Down with corruption! Down with bureaucracy!’

Wang Fei asked to speak, but Chen Di complained that only the students from Sichuan would be able to understand his accent. This annoyed him so much, he jumped straight onto the tables and launched into his speech. He started off in standard Mandarin, but soon slipped back into Sichuanese. Although few of the students could make out what he was saying, they listened courteously.

‘If you support these views, have the guts to raise your hands and volunteer to join our organising committee,’ Old Fu shouted.

Two or three minutes went by without anyone raising a hand. They were talking among themselves. They were afraid. Joining an unofficial organisation was held by the government to be a counter-revolutionary crime. When we were arrested in Tiananmen Square two years before, the first thing the police wanted to know was which organisation had coordinated the protest. Fortunately, there were no organisations back then. The protests had flared up spontaneously.

Old Fu heaved himself up onto the tables and said, ‘Let’s ask the chairmen of the student union to lead this initial stage of the movement. If any of these chairmen are present, please come forward and speak!’

There were now about four thousand people. It was the largest crowd I’d seen on the campus, but there was no way of knowing whether any of the student union chairmen were present. Although Old Fu and Cao Ming belonged to various official associations, they were now only low-ranking members. Mao Da, who was chancellor of the student union, hadn’t been seen for two days.

Ke Xi grabbed the megaphone and shouted, ‘If there’s anyone here from the student union, they should have the balls to stand up and take over the leadership! Students from People’s University and the Politics and Law University have gathered at the Xinhua Gate of the Zhongnanhai government compound demanding that the Party leaders come out and speak with them. We can’t delay any longer. The student movement is under way. It’s here now. Those who fail to join it will be condemned by history!’

Liu Gang climbed onto the tables and said, ‘Everyone shout after me: “Leaders of the student union, come up and give us your leadership!”’

The huge crowd shouted out in unison, but no one came up.

‘All right, shall we disband those official unions then?’ Liu Gang yelled.

‘Yes! Disband them!’ The crowd was growing larger and noisier all the time.

A group of students poured through the campus gates and walked towards us. Old Fu said they were from Qinghua University.

Zhuzi went to greet them. One of them was a dark, rugged guy called Zhou Suo. He said that no one at Qinghua University was prepared to lead them, so they’d decided to come and join forces with us.

‘So are we going to set up our own student body?’ Old Fu yelled impatiently to the crowd. The cheers became quieter.

Ke Xi shouted through his cupped hands, ‘If no one else wants to step forward, then those of us who’ve spoken during this meeting will become the founding members of the organising committee. Do you agree to this?’ The crowd cheered and clapped their hands.

‘I hope you will all attend our meetings and lend us your support!’ Old Fu shouted. ‘I hereby announce that for the next two weeks our committee will lead Beijing University’s democracy movement. After that, we must set up an independent student union and let it take charge.’

Although I hadn’t intended to join any organisation, I was standing by the tables with the other speakers, so I had no choice.

Shu Tong returned from Xinhua Gate just as the meeting was drawing to a close. Ke Xi told me to draw up a list of the people who’d spoken. Not wanting Shu Tong to be excluded from the committee, I dragged him over and told him to address the crowd. Old Fu handed him a megaphone and pushed him up onto the tables, saying, ‘Don’t lift your chin when you speak. Keep your head down.’ He was afraid the students might find Shu Tong’s manner arrogant.