Beijing Coma (48 page)

Shu Tong walked into the tent, followed by Zhuzi. ‘It took us ages to persuade the marshals to allow us back into the Square,’ he said. ‘Luckily, I had my student card with me. Where have all these new marshals come from? They don’t seem to have any idea who I am.’

‘The broadcast station back at the campus is better organised than this place,’ Zhuzi grumbled. He was too tall to stand up in the tent, even with his head bowed, so he had to sink into a squat.

‘We’ve brought some more cash with us,’ said Shu Tong. ‘Put it in a safe place, Old Fu. Hey, Dai Wei, I’ve heard your brother has joined the hunger strike in Sichuan.’ He sat on a cardboard box. Sweat was pouring down the back of his neck.

‘I haven’t had a chance to phone him yet,’ I said. ‘My mother has been calling him every day, begging him to give up, but he won’t listen.’

‘So you’ve got a brother, then? Is he as tall as you?’ Nuwa took a swig of Coke. Her hair was a little longer now. I could see the ends peeping out from under her baseball cap.

‘Don’t waste your time asking about him,’ I said. ‘I’m the tall, handsome one in my family!’

After this feeble attempt at humour, Nuwa looked away and didn’t address another word to me.

‘Apparently the Dialogue Delegation and Beijing Students’ Federation set up offices in the Square this morning,’ Shu Tong said. ‘We’ve decided to shift the Organising Committee’s focus to the Square too, and we’ll be using this station as our base.’

‘This station was set up to serve the hunger strikers,’ Old Fu said, his eyes darting about nervously. ‘You can’t take it over.’

‘But the Organising Committee paid for all this equipment,’ Zhuzi said. ‘We only sent you here to take care of logistics, Old Fu. Of course we should retain control of this place.’ Since the police had left the city centre, Zhuzi had positioned teams of student marshals at various key intersections to supervise traffic, and had given them walkie-talkies so that everyone could stay in touch.

Wanting to defuse the situation, I said, ‘The authorities have cut off our water again today. What shall we do?’

‘You can get water in the men’s toilets of the Workers’ Cultural Palace,’ Shao Jian said. ‘I went there just now.’

‘I’ve heard the student marshals haven’t had anything to eat for hours,’ Zhuzi said.

‘I’ve just sent a group of them off to eat something by the Museum,’ I said. ‘The hunger strikers won’t be able to see them there.’

‘I stood with the marshals yesterday, protecting the lifeline,’ Big Chan said. He was lying on a cotton sheet on the ground. ‘Local residents came over and gave us food and drink. Some of them put cigarettes in our mouths and lit them for us. One old woman wiped the sweat from my face with a clean flannel. Then she took a fresh one from her bag to wipe someone else’s face. It was very moving.’

‘We printed 300,000 copies of the
News Herald
today, which is far more copies than any student newspaper printed during the May Fourth Movement,’ Shu Tong said proudly, raising his chin.

‘The
News Herald
has become the students’ spiritual food,’ Chen Di said. ‘They go to sleep with copies draped over their faces.’ He’d just run back to the Square after buying himself a pair of shorts in Qianmen market. His lips were dark purple and he was gasping for breath. Old Fu had told him to take a break from reading out announcements, and to go and lie down in the hunger strike camp. His girlfriend had passed out and was receiving emergency care in hospital.

‘I have some good news,’ Shu Tong said. ‘Beijing University’s chancellor has agreed to supply you with free food and transport while you’re in the Square. Over a thousand students from the provinces have turned up at our campus since the hunger strike began. We’ve had to give them food and accommodation. They’re sleeping in your bunks. There are two students in your bed, Dai Wei.’

‘But I took the mattress off,’ I said.

Realising that I hadn’t seen Tian Yi for some time, I grabbed a bottle of glucose solution and went outside. In the hot sunlight, the Square looked like a sandy beach. It made me long for a sea breeze. As I stood in the centre of that vast arid space, I had an unsettling feeling that a heavy rain was about to fall.

I found Tian Yi lying next to Mimi. ‘Look at that,’ she said, pointing to a cut rose she’d placed in a plastic bottle of water. ‘A local resident gave it to me. It will die in a couple of days. What a shame . . . Professor Xing visited us this morning.’

‘What department is he from?’ I sat down behind her and looked at her pale, thin face, and wondered how my brother was doing in Sichuan.

‘He’s from the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Very influential.’ Tian Yi’s forehead was covered in sweat.

‘Did he say, “I’m sorry, I’ve come too late,” like all the others?’

‘He’s eighty-seven years old. He said that the government was wrong to denounce our protests as “counter-revolutionary turmoil”.’

‘He only dared come here once he knew the government wasn’t going to launch a crackdown.’

‘They’ve just given me a 1000cc glucose transfusion,’ Tian Yi said, stretching out her arm. ‘If I’d refused to have it, they would have taken me to hospital. I feel as feeble as a piece of straw.’

I stared at her brown, hairless arm and the red bloodstain around her injection wound. Then I looked at her stomach and watched the folds of her shirt rise and fall as she breathed in and out.

The marshals guarding the lifeline began passing on a rumour that the director of the United Front Department had arrived in the Square. A few hunger strikers stood up in excitement. A voice cried, ‘Sit down everyone! Stay calm!’

Other students yelled, ‘Tell him to get lost. Chase him off the Square!’

Just as I’d managed to help Tian Yi onto her feet, everyone sat down again.

I suddenly remembered that Han Dan had asked me to ensure the broadcast station was cordoned off in time for the visit. It had completely slipped my mind.

Once the crowd had calmed down, I could hear Ke Xi’s voice blaring through the loudspeakers. ‘I’d like to start off by saying that Director Yan Mingfu of the United Front Department is an upstanding, reform-minded Party member . . .’ Then I heard Han Dan give an update on the number of hunger strikers who’d passed out.

Buses rumbled past in the distance. The voices broadcast through the loudspeakers quietened the crowds, but from where I was sitting, I could only catch fragments of Director Yan’s speech.

‘. . . You must give up now, not for your sakes, or even your families’ sakes, but for the sake of the country . . . Leave now, and I assure you there will be no political backlash . . . If you don’t believe me, take me hostage . . . You shouldn’t harm yourselves like this. The future belongs to you . . . The reformers in the Party are working hard to . . .’

Everyone seemed moved by the sincerity in his faltering voice.

‘But we can’t give up now!’ Tian Yi yelled out. I was amazed. I’d never heard her shout like that before.

The Square fell silent. Tian Yi’s eyes filled with tears. I watched her grubby fingers rub the leaves of her rose. The other hunger strikers around her began to cry too. A humid breeze moved through the Square.

‘All we’re asking for is an open dialogue, but the government leaders are too terrified to speak to us,’ Chen Di shouted through a megaphone. ‘They just send their lackeys from the United Front Department.’

‘Don’t tell us what to do, Director Yan!’ Wang Fei shouted through his megaphone. ‘We’re not children!’

‘Look at this!’ Dong Rong called out to me, lifting his left arm. ‘I was put on a drip for half an hour and it’s swollen to double its size!’

The crowd became restless. Someone nearby shouted, ‘What’s the point of a United Front Department? We’re all Chinese, aren’t we? Who are we supposed to be uniting against?’

‘Fuck it!’ another voice shouted. ‘I’m going to refuse all fluids from now on!’

Mimi was distraught. ‘We’re putting our lives on the line here, but the so-called people’s government won’t even bother to talk to us. They’re a band of criminals!’ She too had had an allergic reaction to the transfusion, and her arm was as red and swollen as Dong Rong’s.

The atmosphere was tense. Finally, Lin Lu announced over the loudspeakers that Ke Xi had fainted again, and that Director Yan’s speech would have to be cut short. He asked the university representatives to gather at the Monument for an emergency meeting.

Tian Yi’s face was dripping with sweat. ‘I’m not feeling good,’ she moaned. I pressed her wrist. Her pulse was racing. She was trembling all over.

By the time Director Yan had left the Square, she’d calmed down a little, but she still looked very weak. I felt powerless. There was nothing I could do to help her. Zhang Jie and I cleared a space in front of the Monument for the meeting. After a long debate over whether to withdraw from the Square, Lin Lu announced that the Headquarters had conducted a survey and found that 2,699 hunger strikers were in favour of continuing the occupation, while only 54 were against.

The Dialogue Delegation and the Beijing Students’ Federation had no choice but to follow the wishes of the hunger strikers, so the motion to leave the Square was rejected.

Sister Gao said despairingly, ‘Of course the hunger strikers want to persevere until the end. But what about the other students? Who’s representing them? They are the majority, after all.’

Shu Tong and Yu Jin set off to canvass opinion among the rest of the students in the Square. Then Yang Tao stood up, wiped the lenses of his glasses and declared loudly: ‘Our only option now is to adopt the last of Sun Tzu’s Thirty-Six Strategies: retreat. The situation in the Square is out of control. If we stay, our movement will be doomed. The only way to avoid defeat is to withdraw our troops immediately.’ Yang Tao was an expert on Sun Tzu’s
Art of War
. Since working in the Organising Committee’s political theory office, he’d acquired a reputation as a modern-day Zhu Geliang, the brilliant military strategist of the Han Dynasty.

Tiananmen Square was the heart of our nation, a vast open space where millions of tiny cells could gather together and forget themselves and, more importantly, forget the thick, oppressive walls that enclosed them . . .

‘Is this young comrade a friend of yours?’ asks Granny Pang from the doorway. She must be seventy by now, but she’s followed our visitor all the way up from the ground floor.

‘Hello, Auntie, I’m Yu Jin,’ a voice says to my mother. ‘I was at Beijing University with Dai Wei. I work in Shanghai now, for a financial company.’

I imagine him ignoring Granny Pang and walking straight into our flat.

‘Yes, we’ve met,’ my mother says. ‘I just couldn’t put a name to you. Please come in.’

‘How long will you be?’ Granny Pang asks. I’m sure she’s put her foot on the threshold. Perhaps she’s even stepped inside.

‘Not long,’ Yu Jin says. ‘Have you hobbled all the way up here on your weak legs just to spy on me? Don’t worry, I’ll make sure I’ve left before you have time to report my visit to the police.’

‘Who says I’ve got weak legs? I made it up six flights of stairs, didn’t I? All right, you can have a quick word, but don’t stay too long.’ I hear her turn on her heel and prepare to leave.

‘Careful you don’t slip on your way down, Granny Pang,’ my mother says sarcastically. ‘Who would pay for your medical treatment?’

‘All right, enough of your jibes,’ she says. ‘Just take care. I’m only doing this for you, you know. If the police were to come round, who knows what might happen . . .’

‘Nothing’s going to happen as long as you keep your nose out of my business. I warn you, I’m short of money. From now on, if you dare set one foot inside my flat, I’ll charge you ten yuan.’ My mother slams the door shut. ‘That old bat’s lost her mind,’ she grumbles. ‘As soon as anyone visits, she phones the police, then asks them to reimburse her for the cost of the call. Even
they’re
fed up with her now.’

‘Let me have a look at Dai Wei, Auntie.’

‘Yes, yes. Come in. You were in the same dorm together. Mao Da mentioned you when he came round.’

I can feel Yu Jin looking at me.

A scent of tobacco and women’s perfume drifts from his down jacket.

I used to tower over him, but now I’m lying shrivelled beneath him on this iron bed. I can’t ask him any questions. I’ll just have to wait patiently, hoping he’ll tell me something I don’t know, just as I did when Mao Da and Zhang Jie visited, and I learned that Old Fu and Ke Xi have set up a China Democracy Front in Paris and that Shu Tong and Lin Lu have been featured in a foreign television documentary and have had their memoirs published in America.

‘Dai Wei! My God! How could you get like this? Back in ’89, you were our great general. You kept us all in line. Huh! I can’t believe it.’

‘Sit down,’ says my mother. ‘I remember Tian Yi talking about you . . .’

‘Don’t mention her name to me! The photos she took in the Square got hundreds of us into trouble. The printers sent the negatives to Beijing University’s Party committee. I know it was an innocent mistake, but many students suspected her of working for the government because of it.’

What a disaster! I remember taking those rolls of film to the printers for Tian Yi. I didn’t tell them which university I was from. How did they know where to send them? They could have destroyed the negatives. They didn’t have to pass them on.

‘He looks dreadful now, I know,’ says my mother. ‘But for a couple of weeks in the autumn, he suddenly looked like a young boy again. His skin became smooth and soft. His whole face glowed. It was very strange.’

‘He must have just had a visit from Tian Yi.’ Yu Jin’s voice hasn’t changed. Voices always stay the same. When I first heard him speak a minute ago, I knew straight away that it was him. ‘I’m sorry I haven’t visited before,’ he continues. ‘I must be the last of his classmates to come and see you. But this is the first chance I’ve had. I was in prison for two years, with Zhuzi and Fan Yuan. After my release, I wasn’t allowed to continue my PhD, so I moved down to Shanghai and got a job in a securities company in the Pudong District. I’ve just about managed to get myself together again. I never talk about politics any more. I’ve come up to Beijing on business. I arrived yesterday, and got your address from Mimi.’