Ma Jian - Beijing Coma

‘I didn’t see any foreign journalists there,’ Zhu Mei says. ‘So many people turned up, in the end they relented and let us in. But they’d only allow one family in at a time. They didn’t want us to have private talks with each other inside. After I was let in, I ignored the plain-clothes policemen wandering around, and went straight to my husband’s grave, laid out the wine and roast duck, then knelt down and wept.’

‘They let you cry?’

‘I tried not to make too much noise. But while I was burning the paper money, I remembered how he’d cut his hand one night when he was building a coal hut outside our flat, and I let out a wail of grief. Seconds later, two police appeared and dragged me away.’

‘You’re lucky to be able to cry. All my tears have run dry.’

‘But at least your son is still alive. Damn them! If they won’t let me cry through my eyes, I’ll cry through my nose and ears instead. See what they say about that!’

‘These last years have been so difficult…’

‘I know. The injustice we’ve had to endure. The injustice…’

The sitting room fills with the noise of Zhu Mei’s weeping and my mother’s attempts to comfort her. I feel my urine spread through my cotton sheet.

A smell of greasy meatballs lingers in the air long after Zhu Mei has left. It’s a smell many visitors who’ve walked past the food stalls outside bring up to the flat. Sometimes, they also bring a whiff of those deep-fried fish fritters that crackle when you bite into them. My stomach has grown accustomed to hunger, but this morning I suddenly started fantasising about wontons — that delicious combination of flavours: rice vinegar, coriander, shrimp and preserved cabbage. Whenever I had a bowl, I’d always start by wolfing down a few of the tiny dumplings along with the broth they float in. Then I’d spoon out an individual dumpling, take a bite from it, pop a clove of raw garlic into my mouth and chew slowly, letting the pork and shrimp filling and paper-thin skin blend with the raw garlic and fresh coriander leaves. I’d grind them into a fine pulp that would slip softly down my throat. After each mouthful, I’d pause to inhale the fragrant steam wafting from the bowl. A sudden pang of hunger makes my stomach dilate and yearn for a morsel of food to digest.

Another image flashes past the wound in my brain. I see a single wing flap through the air, stirring up a breeze, then swooping into a mountain cave that becomes my empty stomach… The smell of meatballs and sesame oil still infuses the air. During the hunger strike, I often experienced cravings like this.

The tubular cells of your stomach lining come to life again and secrete gastrin into your bloodstream.

As the air began to warm, Nuwa’s voice broke through the loudspeakers.

‘Good morning, fellow students! The sun is rising to the glorious strains of the Internationale. This is the only broadcast station in the country that dares speak the truth. Our hunger strike is now on its sixth day. Who knows how many more hunger strikers will pass out today as we continue to fight for democracy and the future of our nation…’

I sat up and saw that my backpack was now buried under a pile of clothes, blankets and quilts that Beijing residents had brought for the students. Nuwa sounded as though she’d just woken up as well. Her voice was frail and husky.

I must have nodded off for about an hour.

There were four thousand hunger strikers camping in the Square now, together with tens of thousands of other students. Sleeping bodies, blankets, red banners and flags stretched far into the distance. Newspapers and cardboard boxes drenched in the night’s rain lay sodden on the concrete paving stones. This must have been the largest mass hunger strike in history. The scene before me didn’t look real. The students resembled extras lying on a film set, waiting for the cameras to start rolling.

Tian Yi was still in hospital. Although she’d regained consciousness and her condition was stable, the doctors wanted her to stay another day. The nurse, Wen Niao, and I had been up all night escorting sick hunger strikers to hospital.

Wen Niao said the fasters were driven by revolutionary zeal, and that this was dangerous. She feared that, if the strike continued any longer, it would become hard to stop, and many students would die. I told her the Communist leaders were wolves and didn’t give a damn whether we lived or died.

I called over Zhang Jie, Mao Da, Big Chan and Little Chan, and set off with them for the morning inspection of our hunger strike camp. The Red Cross had advised us to check the fasters regularly. We discovered that seven students among the sleeping crowd had lost consciousness. Chen Di was delirious. His eyes kept rolling back. We put the sick students on stretchers and carried them to the ambulance parked next to the emergency tent.

‘A student from Southern University has fallen into a coma,’ said Mao Da, spreading his coat on the ground and lying down on it. ‘His satchel and glasses are still on my bunk back in our dorm. He left them there for me to look after.’

‘It can’t be my old friend Tang Guoxian,’ I said. ‘He only joined the strike a couple of days ago.’ I’d seen Tang Guoxian the day before. Wang Fei and I had tried to persuade him to give up his fast and help us with our work. We told him it was important that more students from the provinces became involved in the running of the Square.

‘The marshals have been on duty all night,’ Mao Da said, his eyes closed. ‘Someone should go and give them some food.’

Old Fu’s voice came over the loudspeakers. ‘Another hunger striker has fainted. Clear a path for the medics.’

Then Nuwa’s voice broke through again. ‘Han Dan is about to chair an emergency meeting beside the black hunger strike banner. Can every university send a representative… Now I’d like to read out a letter we’ve received from some men who signed themselves “young generals of the Republic”. “Dear students, your courageous actions have made the Chinese race proud. You’re the most admirable people in the history of modern China. We would like to wish you all…”’

‘Have you heard any news about Dong Rong and Liu Gang?’ I asked Zhang Jie. They’d both been taken to hospital the previous night.

‘No. Xiao Li is the only hunger striker from our dorm who’s still in the Square. He passed out once, but he’s carrying on with the fast.’ Zhang Jie had an army water bottle hanging from his neck. Back in our dorm, he always had his nose in a book and hardly exchanged a word with anyone. But since the hunger strike, he’d begun to show more concern for others.

‘Let’s go back to the camp,’ said Mao Da, standing up and patting the dust off his coat. ‘I expect hunger strikers will be fainting every five minutes today.’

Dr Li, a surgeon at Beijing University hospital, ran over and shouted, ‘Student marshals, go and protect the hunger strikers! They’re being dragged away!’

‘What’s going on?’ I said, standing up.

‘Those guys from the Red Cross — there, in the orange vests — are trying to drag the hunger strikers off the Square. It’s some kind of government ruse.’

I grabbed my megaphone and shouted, ‘Student marshals! Form a tight circle around the hunger strikers and don’t let any outsiders get to them!’ We then headed for the guys in orange vests.

One of them walked towards me. ‘Don’t move,’ I shouted. ‘I’m in charge of security here.’

‘We’re from the Red Cross,’ he said. He had a flat nose and spoke with a nasal twang.

‘The Red Cross don’t wear orange vests,’ Zhang Jie said.

‘We’ll take them off, if you want. Are you just going to watch your classmates die, and do nothing to help them?’