Ma Jian - Beijing Coma

‘That’s barbaric!’ I said. ‘Everyone’s coming up with more and more radical strategies in an effort to win the leadership of the Square. Who thought of the self-immolation idea? It couldn’t have been Bai Ling.’

‘It was Lin Lu’s idea. He asked me to head their propaganda office. He knows I’m going out with a journalist, so he thought I could use her media contacts.’

‘Does anyone know much about this Lin Lu guy?’ I said, staring at the beams of morning light. Crowds of supporters were continuing to flood into the Square.

‘He claims to be an undergraduate at Nanjing University, but he hasn’t got a student card,’ Mou Sen said.

‘So many students have travelled up from the provinces, and once they get here they don’t want to leave. The Square is packed now. I sent my brother a telegram last night telling him to stay in Sichuan.’

‘Ke Xi asked the students to move to the east side of the Square just now, so that Gorbachev can at least lay flowers on the Monument when he arrives,’ Mou Sen continued. ‘He climbed onto the lamp post over there and shouted through his megaphone: “This is Ke Xi speaking. For the sake of our nation, I beg you to move to the east side. If you don’t, it will be an insult to democracy.” When Bai Ling heard his request, she burst into tears and threatened to set fire to herself. Then Lin Lu shouted he’d burn himself first.’

I looked back down to the hunger strike camps. Although a few of the strikers had passed out the previous night and had been rushed to hospital, hundreds more students had joined the fast. There now appeared to be about three thousand of them lying on the ground. Each camp was circled by protective rings of student marshals, who were themselves surrounded by crowds of onlookers. There were tens of thousands of people in the Square but no one was being crushed. Student volunteers walked among the strikers, checking for any signs of distress. Everything seemed to be in order.

‘Sister Gao shouldn’t have asked those intellectuals to talk to Bai Ling last night,’ Mou Sen said. ‘Bai Ling felt she was being patronised, which made her even more determined to continue the occupation.’

‘Nuwa asked me about Yanyan yesterday,’ I said. ‘She knows she’s your girlfriend.’

Mou Sen looked up. ‘Why would she be interested in me?’

‘Don’t start getting any ideas! She belongs to Wang Fei.’

‘You were the one who brought it up,’ he said, looking down again. ‘I’ve only met her a couple of times. We didn’t speak much. But funnily enough, Yanyan got suspicious and asked me what my relationship with her was.’

‘The Hunger Strike Group has really messed things up,’ I said, then corrected myself. ‘The Hunger Strike Headquarters, I mean. How long are you going to carry on with the fast?’ I spotted Old Fu sitting on a cardboard box at the base of the Monument, smoking a cigarette. Sister Gao was sitting next to him, sipping from a bottle of saline water.

‘Thirty hunger strikers from Southern University arrived last night,’ Mou Sen said, crushing out his cigarette at last. ‘They seem much more politicised than we were as undergraduates. Tang Guoxian brought them up here with a large group of students from Guangdong Province. Sun Chunlin’s here too, on a business trip. He’s staying in a luxury hotel. The bastard’s made a fortune for himself in Shenzhen.’

‘That’s strange. Tang Guoxian was never interested in politics when we were at Southern University. Come on, let’s go and speak to Liu Gang.’ I pulled Mou Sen up and led him to the base of the Monument.

Liu Gang and Shu Tong were talking to Old Fu. They’d borrowed a van and brought three barrels of water to the Square, and were about to take away some sacks of rubbish.

‘Our democracy movement has spread throughout the country,’ Wang Fei said to us. ‘It’s like the fable of the Eight Immortals crossing the sea, joining together to reach a common goal.’ He squatted down and stubbed out his cigarette on a polystyrene food box, creating a plume of acrid smoke. ‘In times of turmoil, everyone wants to show what they’re capable of.’

‘Don’t try and use the hunger strike to stir up trouble, Wang Fei, that would be too much,’ Mou Sen said. ‘You look exhausted, Old Fu. Why don’t you go back to the campus and get some rest?’

Old Fu’s eyes were red. He’d been up all night chain-smoking, unable to get to sleep. ‘Gorbachev won’t be coming here,’ he said, gazing at the west side of the Square that was now almost empty. ‘I’m sure the government has cancelled the welcoming ceremony.’

All the students and red banners had now shifted to the east side of the Square. A few students who’d refused to move sat in isolated groups between the Great Hall of the People and the Monument to the People’s Heroes.

‘Wang Fei, I sent you here to write articles for the News Herald , but now you’re acting like some kind of leader,’ Shu Tong said angrily. ‘Look, it’s nine thirty already. Do you really think the government would dream of holding a welcoming ceremony for a foreign statesman in front of a crowd of bedraggled hunger strikers? You lot thought you could hold the government to ransom, but they don’t need to listen to you. They can hold the ceremony somewhere else if they want. There’s no point in the students staying here any longer.’

‘If we withdraw from the Square now, it will be an admission of failure,’ Wang Fei said. He was very worked up. He kept raising his megaphone and shouting random slogans through it.

‘Why don’t you go to the Headquarters and sign up to burn yourself to death, then?’ Sister Gao said.

‘The Headquarters have just held their first meeting and decided to scrap that idea,’ said Liu Gang. ‘Their latest plan is to get the hunger strikers to lie down on Changan Avenue after the intellectuals’ march this afternoon.’ He seemed to have lost the enthusiasm he’d shown during the early days of the movement.

‘Then they’ll start calling for class boycotts, teachers’ strikes, shopkeepers’ strikes, and before long, we’ll have a revolution on our hands,’ Mou Sen said, running his fingers through his hair.

‘The hunger strike has ruined everything,’ Shu Tong groaned.

‘The reformist wing of the government wants our movement to progress peacefully,’ Sister Gao said to Mou Sen. ‘The hardliners want it to end in violence, so they can oust Zhao Ziyang from power. By continuing this hunger strike, we’re playing into their hands.’

‘Who’s to say Zhao Ziyang and his lot are any better than the hardliners?’ Chen Di said. ‘I’ve heard rumours that Zhao Ziyang’s son has been using his power to buy colour televisions at low state prices then sell them for huge profits on the black market.’ He’d written the words HUNGER STRIKE across his vest in black felt-tip pen.

‘There’s no hope of a peaceful settlement now,’ Shu Tong said. ‘The dialogue was going well, Old Fu. Why did you have to insist that it be broadcast live?’

‘The hunger strikers didn’t trust the Dialogue Delegation,’ Old Fu said. ‘They wanted to hear for themselves what was being said during the meeting.’

‘Look, the west side of the Square is completely empty now!’ Wang Fei said. ‘The Dialogue Delegation made the same mistake as Ke Xi: they retreated first, then set out their demands, instead of only retreating once their demands were met.’ The megaphone in his hand screeched as he fiddled with the switch.

‘The hunger strike will test the government’s resolve,’ Mou Sen said abruptly. ‘We’ll see if they dare play with the lives of three thousand students. They’ll have to respond to us by tonight. The fasters won’t be able to continue much longer. Many of them are already in a critical state.’