Ma Jian - Beijing Coma

Students from the Beijing Aeronautics University came up behind us singing, ‘ March on! March on! Our troops march towards the sun, treading the soil of our motherland… ’ The banner they were holding said IF THE OLD GUARD DOESN’T STEP DOWN, THE NEW GUARD CAN’T STEP UP!

I shouted for the girls to move to the back. Then I gave my bag to Xiao Li and my megaphone to Wang Fei, and together with some tall guys from the Physical Education Department, I pushed to the front to take charge of the assault. ‘Marshals at the front link arms,’ I shouted. ‘Everyone behind us start pushing — now!’ I squeezed my face into the ranks of armed police. My legs became trapped. If the students behind hadn’t pushed me forward, I couldn’t have budged.

We rammed into the police a few more times, and although we didn’t break through, we managed to push them back a few metres. Everyone was sweating now.

I squeezed over onto the pavement and climbed a tree to gain a clearer view of the scene. The first wall of armed police was now only eight rows deep. I was surprised to see some female officers among them. A few sergeants were standing beside the police vans parked on the side. They had handguns fastened to their belts and were speaking nervously into walkietalkies.

By midday, the students were exhausted from the pushing and shoving, and sat down to rest.

Zhuzi came and said to me that he wanted to organise another attack. Ke Xi said we should put the flag-bearer at the front, but Zhuzi said that in a crush, the pole might stab someone. He also said that the four guys holding the long blackboard should move to the back. They’d taken the board from the university’s lecture theatre, and had written across it Deng Xiaoping’s famous quote: A REVOLUTIONARY GOVERNMENT SHOULD LISTEN TO THE VOICE OF THE PEOPLE. NOTHING SHOULD FRIGHTEN IT MORE THAN SILENCE.

Then Yang Tao suggested we ask the girls to stand at the front and chant slogans until the police surrendered. We thought it was worth a try. Yang Tao called Bai Ling over to decide on the slogans. I handed her my megaphone. She grabbed it and told the girls to shout out after her: ‘Raise the social standing of the police force! Raise police incomes! The people’s police protect the people!’

As soon as Bai Ling began to shout, the armed police relaxed. Even the sergeants broke into smiles. I suspected that if Nuwa had come out to shout, the blockade would have crumbled at once.

‘You must be tired, comrades! The people will remember your kindness…’ The chanting chipped away at the police’s resolve and put them on the defensive. The crowd of onlookers was larger than ever.

‘Let’s charge again,’ Ke Xi said. ‘I think we can push through this time. I’ll go to the front and hold the university flag. Dai Wei, you get the marshals to stand behind me and shove me forward.’

I took the megaphone back from Bai Ling and shouted, ‘All you girls move back a hundred metres and let the boys attempt a final push. Anyone with a banner or a bike should also move to the back. The first police wall is only eight rows deep. Our wall is ten times bigger!’

There was so much noise now, hardly anyone could hear me.

‘Oppose the People’s Daily ’s slanderous attack on the student movement!’ cried a group of students at the back.

I yelled as loudly as I could, ‘You in the white shirt — put that placard down, or go to the back! Anyone holding hard objects should move back now!’

‘I’ve got something very hard, but I’d better not pull it out!’ one guy shouted. Some armed police officers heard him and sniggered.

‘Anyone with glass cups, bottles or backpacks must also move to the back!’ Han Dan shouted.

Liu Gang grabbed a megaphone and yelled, ‘You must be exhausted, comrade policemen. We’ve come onto the streets today to ask for justice and truth. We’d appreciate your support! The Communist Party is very powerful, but it’s riddled from top to bottom with corrupt, money-grubbing officials who abuse their power for personal financial gain. We’re not motivated by selfish interests. We’ve come out here today for the sake of our country’s future, and to support your noble profession!’

I moved forward and shouted, ‘Everyone behind the flag, pack together and when I give you the signal, push! Lift Ke Xi up, you two. Yes, you, and you in the red shirt. Everyone in the front row, keep your arms tightly linked. One, two, three — push! One, two, three — push! Let the students through!’ Everyone began pushing towards the flag Ke Xi was waving.

In less than a minute, Ke Xi had been pushed through the first wall, which began to disintegrate in the middle. Shu Tong seized my megaphone and shouted, ‘Quickly, let’s widen the chink in their wall. Everyone hold hands!’

The students rammed forward in regular bursts, then charged at the chink, making it wider and wider until the whole police wall collapsed. With deafening cheers, the procession surged straight through and began attacking the second wall. Onlookers standing on the pavements and pedestrian flyover roared in support. The students merged into the morass of police caps which once more scattered to the sides.

The jubilant students cried out to the officers, ‘Thank you, comrades! Thank you for your help!’

The onlookers applauded our victory and handed out bottles of Coca-Cola and lemonade.

The police stood impassively at the sides of the road. A few officers and students searched the ground for lost shoes, then flung them to one another.

I was drenched in sweat. My legs were shaking. An armed policeman standing beside me removed his steaming cap and said, ‘Will you calm down a little now, my friend? We’ve had just about as much as we can take.’

‘I can’t make any promises, I’m afraid,’ I said, panting for breath. ‘It’s all up to Premier Li Peng. We’ll have to see what he does next.’ I flapped my shirt, trying to cool myself down. The three top buttons and the surrounding patches of cloth had been ripped off in the scrum.

I saw a pretty young woman standing on the back of a flatbed tricycle that was crammed with bottles of lemonade, Coke, yogurt and beer, which she was handing out to the students free of charge. A large crowd had gathered round her, smiling and laughing. She said, ‘There’s no more food or drink in the shops around here. The local residents have bought it all to give to the students.’

As I tried to squeeze my way through the crowd to grab a drink, I looked up at the young woman again, and realised that it was Lulu. I felt the same panic that had gripped me when my bicycle was stolen in the Triangle. She looked at me and gave me the victory sign. I couldn’t tell whether she recognised me or not. My heart started pounding and everything became blurred. I saw myself as a boy of fifteen being kicked onto the cement floor by a policeman, and the dark shadows inside the cold concrete pipe in which Lulu and I had hidden. Lulu lifted a bottle of Coke in the air and opened it for me. I glanced up and caught sight of her armpits. In the bright sunlight, they looked dark and mysterious and seemed still to be sheltering secrets from my past.

It was seven years since my confession to the police had got her into trouble. Our families hadn’t spoken since then, but I’d found out a few things about her. I knew that she hadn’t gone to university, her brother had joined the army, and her deaf grandmother had died. My mother had also heard a rumour that she’d made some money in Shenzhen, and had returned to Beijing to open a small restaurant.

I remembered going with her to buy one fen’s worth of marshmallow. The stallholder usually charged two fen, so he gave us half the amount, and shorter bamboo sticks too. We handed him the money and went to stand under a tree. Lulu held one of her sticks in each hand and moved them in and out, stretching her brown lump of marshmallow so that it hung in a thin thread between them, then pushing it back into a ball again. I sensed her observing me through the corner of her eye, so I tried to stretch my marshmallow into a longer string than hers. But as I glanced back at her, my string broke in half and a strand became stuck to my sleeve. She laughed out loud. The string left on my stick was too dry to push into a ball again, so I popped it into my mouth and sucked it. Lulu continued to stretch her marshmallow until the fine thread turned white and twinkled in the sunlight. I knew that if she’d touched it with her tongue at that moment, it would have pricked like a needle. But she was sure she could do better, so she pushed the thread back into a ball and stretched it out again, and this time it was longer than ever. ‘You can never pull it into such a thin strand when you buy two fen’s worth,’ I said.