Ma Jian - Beijing Coma

Just as we were walking out, Hai Feng ran up and told Liu Gang that a female journalist from abroad wanted to interview him. Liu Gang said there wasn’t time. A car was already waiting to take the Dialogue Delegation to the United Front Department.

‘Well, she can interview me , then,’ Hai Feng said curtly.

To my surprise, Liu Gang turned round and barked, ‘Members of the Organising Committee aren’t allowed to have private meetings with journalists. It’s against the rules!’

‘I have the right to express my views!’ Hai Feng retorted.

‘Do you know why Wei Jingsheng, the Democracy Wall activist, was arrested in 1979?’ Liu Gang said, stopping in his tracks. ‘The government accused him of having private meetings with foreigners and betraying the country. Every foreign journalist in Beijing is trailed by secret police. It’s dangerous to meet them in private.’ Liu Gang was five years older than Hai Feng, and tended to speak condescendingly to him.

‘I’ll be taking some quilts to the Square soon,’ I interjected. ‘When I get there, I’ll discuss all this with Han Dan. Perhaps when Gorbachev arrives, we can retreat into the underpasses below the Square.’

‘That’s a good idea!’ Liu Gang exclaimed. ‘If Han Dan agrees to that, send someone to the United Front Department to let us know. It will give us room to manoeuvre during our discussions.’ Then he ran off to find Shu Tong and Sister Gao.

‘What a wonderful idea,’ Hai Feng said sarcastically as we walked down the stairs together. ‘On the eve of Gorbachev’s visit, the Square will be packed with students and red banners, and the next morning it will be deserted. That will really make the government shake in their boots.’

Let your aspirations slip into silence. Sit in forgetfulness, like the philosopher Zhuangzi. Leave your body behind and vanish like mist into the air.

Dong Rong knows his way to our flat. When he arrives, my mother is in the middle of giving a singing lesson.

‘Sit down, I won’t be much longer,’ my mother says breathlessly. ‘You and Dai Wei were at university together, weren’t you?’

‘We were in the same dorm. We’ve met before, Auntie, you’ve forgotten. I’ve come up from Shenzhen on a business trip. I don’t think that old informer Granny Pang saw me this time.’

My mother puts him in my room then shuts the door. Now that there’s no draught blowing, the smell of the dirty rags my mother has hidden around the room grows more intense.

‘Dai Wei, it’s Dong Rong,’ he says, sitting down beside me. ‘It’s August 1992. I forget which day. I’ve come to see how you are. All our old dorm mates have gone their separate ways. Everyone’s lost touch. In Shenzhen I bumped into Ge You — you know, your friend from Southern University. He was arrested after the crackdown and sent to jail in Guangdong for a year. We both work in the Shekou Development Zone now…’

My pulse starts racing. I’d forgotten that Ge You was in the Square that night.

Trying to fill the silence, Dong Rong continues, ‘You’ve changed so much. You look like an Egyptian mummy. Can you hear what I’m saying?’

Of course I can, you fool. When people talk to me, they speak as though they’re leaving a message on an answerphone. After a couple of sentences, their voices become stilted as they slowly realise they’re talking to themselves.

My mother is playing a tape of a performance she gave of the drinking song from La Traviata . Her student is singing along with it. ‘ Let us drink from the goblets of joy, adorned with beauty… ’

‘I hope you can hear me… Compared to some of our friends, I got off quite lightly. As you know, I’ve always tried to stay out of politics, but I had to come and see you, and bring you good wishes from all your old classmates who are now living in Shenzhen. Hey, did you hear about those other two friends of yours from Southern University, Wu Bin and Sun Chunlin? Well, after the crackdown, Wu Bin came down to Shenzhen and smuggled himself across to Hong Kong with Sun Chunlin. Sun Chunlin’s uncle lost his job as head of Guangzhou’s Department of Communication over it.’

Why would Sun Chunlin give up his successful business career to help out Wu Bin? They were never that close. I want to know more, but unfortunately let out a fart which drives Dong Rong out to the covered balcony. The single bed there occupies all the space, so there’s nowhere for him to stand.

‘No one apart from your mother would have the patience to look after you. She should hire a maid. I’ve left a thousand yuan on the table to help her with the cost. I’m leaving now. It stinks in here.’

I know you’re very pernickety. You always insisted on wearing a clean shirt every day. But, damn it, can’t you just stay a bit longer and talk to me?

If he is going, I hope he shuts the door behind him, because I can’t stand it when my mother hits the high C at the end of the drinking song. The note pierces through my skin like a sharp knife.

Dong Rong didn’t participate in the student movement much during the early days. The first time I really noticed him take an active role was when the hunger strikers entered the Square, and I spotted him standing among their ranks. If he hadn’t come to see me today, he would have probably slipped from my memory entirely.

You imagine yourself standing by the window, your stomach pressed against the sill. You grasp the handle, push it down then swing the window open.

‘The Dialogue Delegation is betraying the hunger strikers!’ Wang Fei was shouting through his megaphone from the steps of the Monument to the People’s Heroes. Dong Rong was beside him, holding up the Science Department’s banner. ‘They’ve dared to propose that we withdraw from the Square. Go and protest outside the United Front Department!’ Wang Fei had been appointed the News Herald ’s Tiananmen Square liaison officer by Shu Tong, but he considered this position too lowly, and was planning to set up a Tiananmen Square propaganda office instead.

‘They’re not betraying anyone,’ said Sister Gao, rising to her feet. ‘The dialogue is still in progress, and anyway, there are representatives of the hunger strikers in the meeting as well.’ She’d just returned from the United Front Department with Shao Jian and Cao Ming to report on the progress of the meeting. They’d bought some crates of mineral water on their way back to hand out to the hunger strikers.

I sat on the steps of the Monument and looked out over the vast heaving crowd in the Square. Each university had its own protected circle of hunger strikers surrounded by flags and banners. The late morning sun turned the pale quilts and shirts a sepia yellow, giving the Square the appearance of a film set.

‘The hunger strikers should be talking directly to the government,’ Old Fu said, walking over to us. ‘The Dialogue Delegation has no right to speak on their behalf.’

‘You were against the hunger strike yesterday, Old Fu, and today you’re supporting it,’ Sister Gao said angrily. ‘What happened?’

Old Fu fell silent for a moment and then replied, ‘The hunger strikers are the true voice of the student movement now. You went back to the campus last night, but I stayed here in the Square, and I’ve seen the support they’re getting. The situation has evolved very rapidly out here.’ He was carrying a megaphone, an electric cable and a huge black poster with the words HUNGER STRIKE emblazoned across it in yellow paint. He was hoping to set up a broadcast station in the Square.

Shao Jian had just joined the hunger strike. He strolled over in his white bandanna and asked, ‘Why is the Square in such chaos? Last night, everyone was sitting in neat rows.’