Beijing Coma (25 page)

The room fell silent after that, but I was still unable to sleep. In low spirits, I decided to call Mou Sen to ask how the students at Beijing Normal were taking the news of Hu Yaobang’s death.

He said the news had startled them. He was sure the death would spark a new round of student protests.

When I left the science lab later that day, I felt like a shower, so I walked back to my dorm block to fetch my towel and soap. The white blossom of the locust trees lining the path filled the air with a sickly perfume. For some reason, this scent, when combined with the various odours from the dorm blocks’ open windows, always made me want to masturbate.

‘Have you finished class?’ Ke Xi asked, walking up to me with a bundle of damp laundry in his arms. ‘The Triangle’s boards have been covered with eulogies. Go and have a look!’

‘I’ve seen them,’ I said. ‘Someone’s hung up a memorial couplet in the graduate hall already. It’s sad that he’s dead, but we really can’t start demonstrating again.’

‘You’re wrong – this is the perfect time to remobilise,’ Ke Xi said, placing his left hand on his waist. ‘We can’t let this opportunity slip.’

As we approached our dorm block I said, ‘I still feel guilty about the 1987 protests. We didn’t achieve anything, other than push liberals like Hu Yaobang out of their jobs . . .’

I long to speak, but the language centres of my cerebral cortex are damaged, and the words won’t come out. I believe the medical term for this is ‘expressive aphasia’ . . .

I can see that single red brick which jutted from the lawn outside the lecture hall. Every time I came out of class, I’d give it a sharp kick. It had never tripped me up, so my hatred for it was unjustified. Still, I always longed to find a spade and dig it out.

The telephone rang as I walked into the entrance of my dorm block. The caretaker handed me the receiver.

It was my brother calling from Sichuan Province. He said that students at Sichuan University of Science and Technology were pasting up eulogies to Hu Yaobang, and that even members of the student union had got involved.

I told him that eulogies had been going up at Beijing University as well, but that our activities hadn’t spread beyond the campus walls. Apparently, the students of Qinghua University and the Politics and Law University had already staged a memorial march through Beijing.

‘Do you think this is the beginning of a new student movement?’ he asked in the slight Sichuan accent he’d developed.

‘No, of course not. Don’t get overexcited. If you do anything that draws attention to yourself, you’ll be the first to suffer when the police clamp down.’ I glanced nervously around me. There were spies planted in every dorm block now. They’d report any subversive activity they noticed to the authorities and, in return, would be promised a job in Beijing after graduation. Everyone in our dorm suspected the quiet, reserved guy, Zhang Jie, of being an informer. Before he came to Beijing University, he’d been groomed for high office by the provincial government of Henan.

‘Most of the students who dared write posters are children of former rightists,’ my brother said. ‘Some of my classmates threw sheets of white paper from their windows as a sign of mourning, but they didn’t have the guts to write anything on them.’

‘The police won’t arrest you for writing eulogies,’ I told him. ‘Just don’t join any unofficial organisations.’

Through the open door of the dorm behind me, I could hear the voice of a rock singer growling from a cassette player: ‘
The world is a rubbish dump. We are rats that pilfer and steal. We gobble up all that’s good then spew out shit ideas . . .
’ The thudding noise irritated me. I quickly finished the conversation and put down the phone.

Wang Fei wasn’t around, so Old Fu and I went to the girls’ block to see if he was in Sister Gao’s dorm. Sure enough, there he was. He’d calmed down a little and was drinking and smoking with Chen Di. Bai Ling and Mimi were also there, preparing some snacks.

Sister Gao was the eldest woman in the girls’ dorm block and, just like Old Fu in our block, played the role of wise elder. She’d gone out to a street stall and bought a pig’s ear for Wang Fei to have with his beer. As we walked in, Mimi was slicing it up and dousing it with sesame oil and vinegar.

Although it was spring, the students in the dorm were still wearing jumpers and down jackets. I kept my jacket on but removed my gloves.

‘Have you heard about the eulogies going up in the Triangle, Sister Gao?’ Old Fu asked. ‘Some students in the Creative Writing Programme have even composed a memorial couplet.’ Then he turned to Shu Tong and said, ‘What does the Pantheon Society plan to do? Didn’t you say that 1989 would be a good time to launch another protest movement, it being the two hundredth anniversary of the French Revolution, and the seventieth of China’s May Fourth Movement? Last month Han Dan’s Democracy Salon put up some posters calling for the legalisation of independent student organisations. It looks like they have an action plan.’

‘My parents were denounced during the Anti-Rightist movement,’ said Sister Gao, ‘and I was branded the daughter of capitalist dogs. When Hu Yaobang rehabilitated millions of rightists ten years ago, we saw him as our saviour. So I’m not against mourning his death, far from it. But you shouldn’t use his death as an excuse to launch a new protest movement. You’d be falling into the government’s trap. The university authorities have been told to remain on guard.’

‘The memorial couplet was put up by the law students,’ Shu Tong said, waving someone’s tobacco smoke from his eyes. ‘It seems that Haizi’s suicide has stirred them into action.’ Haizi was a poet who’d studied law at Beijing University. Despairing of China’s future, he’d made his way to the railway line near the end of the Great Wall the previous month, and thrown himself in front of a train. ‘We’ll get some engineering students to take a memorial wreath for Hu Yaobang to Tiananmen Square tomorrow. We’ll keep it simple.’

‘Let’s turn our minds to happier things,’ Sister Gao said. ‘It’s Bai Ling’s birthday today. I’m going to boil up some birthday noodles for her. So no more talk about suicides and memorials, all right? Dai Wei, don’t think you can just turn up here and cadge a free meal from us. Go and get some beer from the corner shop, and some candles too while you’re about it.’

‘Yes, I’m very squeamish about death and blood,’ Bai Ling said quietly. ‘So please change the subject.’

‘How thoughtless of Hu Yaobang to choose to die on your birthday, of all days!’ Chen Di smiled.

‘In 1986, a Beijing University philosophy student called Zhang Xiaohui was arrested for writing
A Marxist Manifesto for the Youth of China
,’ Sister Gao said. ‘He was accused of spreading counterrevolutionary propaganda and sentenced to three years in prison. If you have any sense you’ll stop all this nonsense and concentrate on your studies.’

‘Is it true that Han Dan’s taking break-dancing lessons now? I thought he was supposed to be a serious intellectual. What a joke!’ Wang Fei narrowed his bloodshot eyes. I could tell he’d got through at least three bottles of beer already.

‘Was Hu Yaobang the President of China, or General Secretary of the Communist Party?’ asked Bai Ling. ‘I can never remember!’ Bai Ling was tiny but well proportioned. She had large eyes, high cheekbones, and a defiant, stubborn air.

‘General Secretary of course. Zhao Ziyang’s taken over his post now. He’s a reformer. He helped set up the special economic zones, and wants to make the Party more open and democratic. If you carry on with these protests, he’ll be forced to step down too.’ Mimi spoke in a measured tone. She was a Chinese literature student. She was even shorter than Bai Ling, and had to look up at people when she spoke. So often had her lower lip been pulled down by her neck muscles that her mouth was almost always half open. Her husky, masculine voice was very distinctive.

‘Didn’t you lot say that you wanted to establish a new government and ask Hu Yaobang to be the leader?’ Bai Ling said, turning to Shu Tong. ‘Well, it’s too late for that now.’

‘Your generation is supposed to be the great hope of our nation, and you don’t even know who the General Secretary is!’ Old Fu said, smiling at Bai Ling.

‘Hu Yaobang was a distinguished reformer,’ Shu Tong intoned, sticking his chin up. ‘The hardliners drove him to his grave. We’re to blame for his death as well. If we hadn’t demonstrated two years ago, he’d still be in his post now.’

‘If we want to mourn his death properly, we should lay memorial wreaths in Tiananmen Square tonight,’ Wang Fei said, waking up a little.

‘Where did that sudden burst of enthusiasm come from, Wang Fei?’ Chen Di chuckled.

‘Don’t put your lives at risk,’ Bai Ling said. ‘You think that if you get killed by the police, you’ll become glorious martyrs. But your deaths wouldn’t change anything. The government would still be in control.’

‘Other students went to the Square this afternoon to lay wreaths and recite eulogies.’ Shu Tong had become much more optimistic recently. He and Liu Gang had made up, and had even made a trip together to the Politics and Law University to plan the next stage of the student protests.

‘Let’s go to the Square then! Right now!’ Wang Fei said, gobbling another slice of pig’s ear. ‘We can march all the way there. I’ve got the banners ready.’

‘Calm down, Wang Fei,’ Sister Gao said, dropping the noodles into a pot of boiling water. ‘You received a disciplinary warning after the ’87 protests. Do you really want to go through that again?’

‘You’re right,’ I said. ‘The rest of us might have got off without a warning, but our names were blacklisted, so there’s no chance of our getting jobs in Beijing after we graduate.’

‘I hear that you’ve been sent an enrolment letter by the American university you wrote to,’ Bai Ling said to me. Tian Yi must have told her.

‘No, I sent off ten applications, but I haven’t had any answers yet.’

‘This country will grind to a halt soon,’ Mimi said, fixing her cold gaze on me. ‘Everyone’s making plans to go abroad.’

‘This time we must organise a massive demonstration!’ Wang Fei seemed to have got over the distress of being dumped by the pathologist.

I didn’t want to stay for the noodles, so when no one was looking, I slipped out and went to Tian Yi’s dorm.

The light in the cold corridor was flickering, as it always did when someone was secretly using an electric hob.

Tian Yi opened her bed curtain. All the other curtains in the dorm were drawn. I couldn’t tell if there was anyone behind them. I hadn’t taken Tian Yi back to our flat since Chinese New Year. My mother asked me why. I gave her an evasive answer. I hoped that, with time, Tian Yi would forget what happened in the woods and we could return to how we were before.

She was lying on her bed reading a book. When she looked up at me, I saw a sudden warmth in her eyes, and breathed a sigh of relief. ‘Bai Ling is having a small party,’ I said casually. ‘You should have come over and wished her happy birthday.’

‘I was waiting for you to turn up,’ she said calmly. ‘Dai Wei, don’t get involved in this round of protests. You don’t want to get arrested again, do you? It’s not worth it. I want to live a peaceful life. Promise me that you’ll remain a neutral onlooker this time.’ She was lying under her quilt, staring into my eyes.

I sat down by her side. ‘All right, I won’t get too involved,’ I said, then leaned down and kissed her. She didn’t turn away. She kept her eyes fixed on me and switched her lamp off.

My heart pounded. I lifted her quilt, and soon our bodies were pressed together. She let the book she was holding fall to the floor and whispered, ‘What if you disappeared one day, and I couldn’t love you any more? What would I do?’ She leaned over me and closed her bed curtain.

‘Nothing’s going to happen to me, I promise. And when I finish my PhD, I’ll take you to America – the safest country in the world – and buy you your own private garden.’

‘Don’t talk nonsense,’ she said, then whispered, ‘You must promise never to tell anyone about what happened in those woods.’ Then with her left hand, or perhaps her right hand, she slid a condom sachet onto my stomach.

We trembled silently on her single bed, inhaling each other’s breath. Her body became hotter and hotter, and seemed to slowly sink into her mattress. Each time I pushed into her, the bunk would groan, so I tried not to move too much. I could hear another couple making love on a bunk near the window. They’d put on a tape of American music to try and cover the noise. ‘
When evening falls so hard, I will comfort you. I’ll take your part. When darkness comes, and pain is all around, like a bridge over troubled water, I will lay me down . . .
’

After my penis softened, the condom slipped onto her leg.

‘The tape on my English for Beginners cassette has scrunched up,’ Tian Yi said breathlessly, loud enough for the other couple to hear. ‘Will you help fix it for me?’

‘Yes, I’ll flatten it with a jar of hot water,’ I answered, feeling a cold draught blow through my limp body.

‘He’s waking up!’ my mother cries. ‘Look, he’s trying to open his eyes . . . I must disinfect everything – his clothes, quilt and sheets - everything . . .’

A woman standing nearby says, ‘You should use Brightness washing powder. None of the other brands kill bacteria.’

‘It’s a pity I covered over the balcony,’ my mother says. ‘If I hadn’t, I could have given these quilts a good airing.’

‘Have any of his friends from university come to visit him?’

‘I don’t like them coming round. It upsets me to see other people of his age. If they knock on the door, I don’t let them in. See, I’ve installed an eyehole in the front door. It only cost two yuan. You can see who’s standing outside, but they can’t see you.’