Ma Jian - Beijing Coma

‘ Pull marshmallow between the sticks, and watch it turn from brown to white… ’ she sang, pulling the sugary thread once more. The thread stayed still for a moment, then drooped in the middle and snapped. I pounced on the needle-thin strand as it fell to the ground and tossed it into my mouth. As she slapped my head, I grabbed the bamboo stick she’d dropped and popped that in my mouth as well. Clutching the remaining stick firmly in her hand, she said, ‘You horrible boy!’ then walked off in a huff.

Before Lulu and I could exchange a word, the surge of the crowd carried me forward. Everyone shouted, ‘Long live the people of Beijing!’ I joined their cries, tired but elated.

In the distance, I heard Mou Sen cry through a megaphone, ‘We should make today Students’ Day!’ Everyone cheered in agreement. As I tried to push my way over to him, I spotted Yanyan. She was wearing round glasses and a white baseball cap. Her gentle, poised demeanour made her look out of place in the packed crowd of students. I called out to her.

‘What a great day it is today!’ she said, moving closer to me. ‘You students are wonderful!’

‘For the first time in Chinese history, the people have been victorious!’ I said. ‘So, will you write something about this march for the Workers’ Daily ?’

‘I’d like to, but I doubt it would get published. The chief editor is very conservative. Lots of the younger reporters and editors have joined the march, though.’ Then she smiled at me and asked, ‘And where’s Tian Yi?’

‘Back at the campus looking after the broadcast station. She doesn’t like marches. She gets stomach cramps when she’s trapped in a crowd… You must come and see us.’

I pushed forward and discovered that the People’s University students had joined the front of our procession. They sang, ‘ No Communist Party, no New China! ’ as they charged through the police cordons at the Liubukou intersection and Xinhua Gate.

As dusk was falling, we finally made it to Tiananmen Square and joined the vast crowd of Beijing students and citizens already gathered there. The noise and commotion were overwhelming.

Under one of the street lamps, a student waved a bloodstained shirt, and said he’d been beaten up by the police. Ke Xi climbed onto the Monument to address the crowd. As I sat down on the ground, crushed with exhaustion, Nuwa walked up and asked me whether I’d seen Wang Fei. She was wearing his blue windcheater. It seemed that I was always looking at my worst whenever she turned up. I tried to sit up straight.

‘You and your team organised things very well today,’ she said, looking down at me. ‘It was a great march.’

At the western edge of the Great Wastes lies Lake Utmost. It is the home of Bingyi, God of the Yellow River. Bingyi often roams across the land in a cart driven by two dragons.

When spring arrives, I imagine pale-green shoots poking out from the grey walls and roof tiles as I inhale the smell of earth on the carrots in the market stalls and the smoke from our neighbours’ charcoal stoves. Although this smoke is present throughout the year, in spring it smells different, because our neighbours open their doors and windows and let it warm in the sunlight along with all the other household smells.

I’m still lying on the iron bed. The lengthy conversation my mother is having with the policeman keeps disturbing my train of thought.

‘What is your position on the events of 4 June?’ Officer Liu asks my mother. He knocked twice on our door before he walked in. He’s now standing in the corner of the sitting room.

‘Do you want me to give you the truth, or the lies that you’ve asked for before?’ My mother has been hassled by the police so often these last two years that she’s lost all fear of them.

‘The truth, of course.’

‘The truth is, I still don’t understand why the army opened fire on the students, and why, after my son was shot, I’m expected to apologise on his behalf, and say he deserved it,’ my mother replies indignantly.

‘That’s all in the past now. Try to be pragmatic. If you apologise for his crimes, you will both be better off.’

‘Look at him lying there on the bed. That’s not the past! He’s alive, and I’ll have to look after him for the rest of my life. Take him away now if you want, and put another bullet in his head!’

‘I haven’t come here to listen to you moaning. Tell me what you plan to do on 4 June this year.’

‘What do I know? I’m not in a fit state to make plans. Stop asking me.’

‘It’s Grave Sweeping Festival tomorrow. Is there anyone’s death you plan to commemorate?’

‘Officer Liu, you’ve known me for some time now. My husband is under the bed — look, there, in that black box of ashes. The purple box next to it is for my son’s ashes, when he finally decides to die. My father killed himself shortly after Liberation and wasn’t even given a gravestone. So whose grave do you suppose I’d sweep tomorrow?’

‘You know I’m only following orders, Auntie. I just needed to remind you not to leave the flat tomorrow, or visit any public cemeteries. It’s no big deal. Write a statement saying that you’ll be staying indoors, and I’ll leave you in peace.’

‘If you hadn’t come round, I wouldn’t have known what day it was tomorrow. All right, you write the statement for me and I’ll sign it.’ My mother has become very strong-willed.

The clang of bicycle bells on the street outside rattles through your skull. In the room next door, you hear your mother twist open the cap of a plastic bottle.

I walked over to Tian Yi and tapped my spoon on her ear. I’d bought her a portion of stir-fried pork and celery. She was copying out a petition for the Dialogue Delegation, a group Shu Tong had founded to press for direct talks with the government.

‘Listen to this,’ she said to Shu Tong, taking the box of food from my hands without looking up at me. ‘“We request — One: official recognition that the student movement is a patriotic movement. Two: a speeding-up of political reform. Three: the promotion of democracy and rule of law…” Don’t you think these demands could be a little more specific?’

‘Yes, they are a bit vague…’ I muttered, as I sat on a bed and munched on a steamed roll.

‘There’s no need to wear those sunglasses indoors,’ Tian Yi whispered to me. She’d bought me the brown sunglasses I was wearing. When I’d tried them on in the shop, she’d said, ‘They make your wooden face look a little more animated.’

Shu Tong’s dorm was now the students’ broadcast station. My dorm next door was the editorial office of our new independent newspaper, the News Herald . Over the past three weeks of ‘turmoil’, our floor had become the nerve-centre of the student movement. The corridor was pasted with inky-smelling posters and was busier than a train station at rush hour.

‘Don’t worry,’ said Shu Tong. ‘These three points will open up the debate. Once the dialogue begins, we can make more concrete suggestions.’ He tried to sniff back the mucus that was dripping from his nose. He often suffered from congestion when he didn’t get enough sleep.

‘What’s the relationship between your Dialogue Delegation and the Beijing Students’ Federation?’ asked Xiao Li. ‘Will they come into conflict?’ During the past week, Xiao Li had managed to teach himself how to prepare mimeograph stencils. When he cut the characters, he’d lean right over the drum of the machine. When I tried my hand at it, I tore a large hole in the paper.

‘The Dialogue Delegation is a temporary organisation,’ Shu Tong said. ‘It will dissolve once the dialogue comes to an end. The Federation represents all the universities and colleges of Beijing, and will lead the student movement in the months to come.’ He was wearing a short-sleeved shirt. His arms looked as soft and smooth as Tian Yi’s.