Ma Jian - Beijing Coma

‘What do your family think of you getting involved in the movement?’ I asked. ‘Do they know what you’re up to?’

Nuwa always claimed she was from Hangzhou City, but Tian Yi said this wasn’t true, and that her family lived in a small town in Fuyang County, eighty kilometres away.

She laughed and said, ‘“The mountains are high and the emperor is far away,” as the saying goes. I can do what I like. I don’t care what they think.’ Her voice was as smooth as her skin. Apparently she had a younger sister who was going to start university in the autumn.

‘Listen to this,’ Mao Da said, walking over to me. ‘“Deng Xiaoping’s son, Pufang, is also guilty of official profiteering. His company, Kanghua, is one of the four most corrupt businesses in China.” I don’t think we should read out this pamphlet.’ Mao Da had told me that the authorities had asked him to continue spying on the students, but that he’d refused to cooperate.

‘I don’t decide what material is broadcast,’ I said, trying to get rid of him. ‘I just deal with the equipment.’ Then I turned back to Nuwa and said, ‘You’re very optimistic. I’m worried the government will refuse to compromise, and we’ll have backed ourselves into a corner.’

‘Don’t be so gloomy,’ she said. ‘It will bring us bad luck.’

Then Xiao Li ran over and said, ‘Hurry up, Dai Wei! Thousands of students are trying to storm the Great Hall, and a crowd of hunger strikers have gone to stand in their way. Come and help sort it out!’

It took me all evening to persuade the students to move away from the Great Hall, but when I got back to the broadcast station it was still swarming with people. Only at midnight did the crowds begin to thin a little.

The diesel generator donated by local factory workers was clattering away noisily. Sun Chunlin, who’d been chatting with me for an hour or so, handed me a five-hundred-yuan donation, then went back to his luxury hotel room.

I told Xiao Li to make sure that the broadcast station was well guarded. Pu Wenhua had come to the station hoping to broadcast an announcement that he’d taken over the Hunger Strike Headquarters and had appointed himself commander-in-chief, demoting Bai Ling to the post of propaganda officer, but Old Fu managed to push him away. I asked a volunteer to stay at the station to deal with any queries from the public, then went to find Tian Yi. She hadn’t eaten for three whole days.

She looked older. There were wrinkles etched on her dry face, and her hair was like straw. I hated to see her in such a state.

‘Listen, they’re broadcasting the tape of Bai Ling reading the hunger strike declaration,’ I said, pointing to the loudspeakers attached to the Monument.

‘Did you record it?’ Tian Yi said, leaning her head softly against my shoulder.

‘No, Old Fu did.’ I stared at the two empty bottles of glucose solution beside her feet, and decided not to tell her about all the wrangling that was going on at the Hunger Strike Headquarters.

‘If we’d known the government had decided to hold the welcoming ceremony for Gorbachev at the airport, we wouldn’t have had to move over to the east side of the Square. I feel nauseous. Even if I did eat anything now, I wouldn’t be able to keep it down.’

I wanted to tell her that the students’ dialogue with the government at the United Front Department the day before had ended in failure and that, according to Liu Gang, General Secretary Zhao Ziyang was about to suffer the same fate as Hu Yaobang, and that all that remained for us to do now was to wait for the authorities to launch a crackdown.

‘I’ve sworn an oath to persevere until the end. I won’t break my fast, even if the government flings me in jail.’ Tian Yi sounded like a heroine from the Communist Revolution. I was exhausted, and didn’t feel like talking. I took a swig of water and listened to Bai Ling’s voice: ‘As we hover between life and death, we want to look up at the Chinese people and see if we’ve stirred them out of their apathy…’

‘The sound’s not bad, is it? We’ve attached eight loudspeakers to the Monument and rented a high-power amplifier.’

‘Who’s looking after the broadcast station?’ Tian Yi wasn’t interested in electrical equipment. The only machines she liked were cameras.

‘Shu Tong’s still running the broadcast station back at the campus, and Old Fu and I are in charge of the one here. Mou Sen is chief editor tonight, but he’s still on hunger strike, so he’s having to chain-smoke to keep himself awake. Wang Fei’s helping out too, and Zheng He from the Creative Writing Programme. Nuwa is the announcer. Chen Di and Xiao Li have been working flat out, even though they’re still fasting. The broadcast station is the heart of the Square now.’

‘Men are always fighting for power,’ she said feebly. ‘The provincial students don’t like taking orders from the Beijing University crowd. They forced a revote and now a female student from Beijing Normal has been appointed co-commander of the Hunger Strike Headquarters along with Bai Ling.’

‘So the two new commanders-in-chief are both women. How can you say that only men are obsessed with power?’ I tried to speak softly, so as not to wake the hunger strikers who were asleep around us. Although Tian Yi was weak with hunger, she still knew everything that was going on in the Square.

She stared blankly into the distance. The bandanna she was wearing beneath her baseball cap was still drenched in the sweat that had poured from her head during the day.

‘This blanket is quite warm, isn’t it?’ I said, after a long silence. ‘I bought it in Guangzhou. It’s made out of space fabric. It’s very light.’

‘A private businessman donated a truckload of blankets,’ she said. ‘They have horrible patterns on them.’

I wanted to tell her that the government couldn’t care less that the students were starving themselves to death, but I didn’t want to upset her.

‘It gets so cold here at night,’ she said. ‘If there weren’t any other students around, I’d sneak back to the campus to sleep.’

‘Students aren’t the only people here. There are lots of spies too. It’s easy for them to slip through our cordons. We can’t keep a check on everyone. Look at those two.’ I pointed to a couple of men who were wandering about in front of us.

‘They’re not spies, they’re hunger strikers. They’ve just got up to go to the toilet.’ There was an empty barrel of water next to Tian Yi. I leaned against it and closed my eyes. My efforts to stop the mob of students and Beijing residents from storming the Great Hall had exhausted me. I felt my head was about to crack open.

‘The university authorities have agreed to lend us two hundred camp beds,’ I said. ‘Hai Feng talked them into it. When they arrive, we’ll give them to the girls first. And look at all those boxes of food stacked outside the broadcast station! A local shopkeeper donated them to us this afternoon.’

‘Don’t talk to me about food,’ she said, looking away.

‘Gorbachev was on television just now,’ I said, changing the subject. ‘He said that Zhao Ziyang told him that although Deng Xiaoping only holds a military post in the Party, he still makes all the key decisions in China. That information is supposed to be a state secret, even though it’s common knowledge. Zhao Ziyang may be General Secretary, but he has no real power.’

‘I just wish I could go and have a nice shower with my bar of foreign soap,’ Tian Yi said, closing her eyes. She rested her cold face on my leg. Under the blanket, her body felt hot. She’d been sucking a throat lozenge. When she spoke, I could smell the mint on her breath. It took me back to the time in Yunnan when we lay down on the mountain together.