Beijing Coma (34 page)

When the funeral music came through the loudspeakers above us, the students finally stood still. The mood calmed down and we all began singing the Internationale. The students who were wearing baseball caps removed them out of respect, and suddenly a swathe of black hair stretched out before me.

Some of the students started to weep. Although I was sad, I didn’t cry. I couldn’t shed tears for a man I’d never met. I wondered whether my break-up with A-Mei four years previously had numbed my capacity to feel distress.

By the time the voice of President Yang Shangkun came through the loudspeakers announcing a minute’s silence, I still hadn’t had a chance to look for Tian Yi. This was a historic event. I knew she’d want to witness it. The day before, she’d donated three hundred yuan to the student movement, which was the equivalent of her annual living expenses.

The tens of thousands of people in the Square, the government leaders inside the Great Hall, and the dense lines of armed police in between, respected the silence together. For a moment, everyone seemed united in grief.

The funeral dirge gradually petered out. Some of the students looked indignant, others stared blankly. My mind flashed back to A-Mei. I remembered her saying to me, ‘Think about it, just think about it for a while . . .’ as we came out from a lecture one day.

The state funeral had come to an end. I looked over to the Great Hall of the People and saw delegates of the National People’s Congress and government leaders walking down the steps and being whisked away in chauffeur-driven cars. Most of them chose to ignore the massive crowd of students sitting before them.

We stared at the two exits of the Great Hall and tried to guess which one the hearse might emerge from. After half an hour there was still no sign of it.

Yet more armed police trooped out of the Great Hall in khaki uniforms, leather belts and white gloves. They sat down on the steps in four orderly rows. From a distance, they looked like a neatly trimmed bamboo fence.

‘Do you think the hearse has left through a back gate?’ Shu Tong asked.

‘It probably left through an underground passage,’ Wang Fei said.

Old Fu jumped up, full of energy. He had spent the night asleep in his dorm, only returning to the Square just before the dawn curfew, so he wasn’t as tired as we were. ‘God knows what those Party leaders have been up to!’ he said. ‘Let’s hurry up and submit our petition!’

‘Come on, let’s storm the Great Hall!’ Wang Fei said, sticking his thumbs up. ‘They must have taken the coffin away by now. If we don’t take action now, the government will ignore us.’ He’d put on a clean pair of jeans today, and looked very smart.

‘We can’t do that. The Great Hall of the People is China’s parliament. America is a democratic country, but it still doesn’t allow its citizens to storm the House of Representatives.’ Old Fu was holding our rolled-up petition. He was wearing a clean white shirt under his jumper.

‘It would be dangerous to storm the Great Hall,’ Shu Tong said. ‘We’ve just had a funeral, and emotions are running high.’ He always ground his teeth when he was nervous, although you couldn’t hear him do it.

‘I don’t think we should storm the building, but we can’t let things end like this,’ Shao Jian said, readjusting his collar and tie.

The students at the back of the crowd began chanting: ‘Dialogue, dialogue, we demand dialogue!’ Another column of armed police marched out and positioned themselves behind the wall of armed police in front of us.

Everyone had left the Great Hall. The only people remaining were the supervisors in white shirts standing on the steps.

‘The guests who left from these gates were lowly officials,’ Shu Tong said. ‘Not one of their cars had a red flag. All the important dignitaries will have left secretly through underground tunnels.’

The police began removing the cordons from Changan Avenue. Beijing residents flooded into the Square and surrounded us, trying to see what was going on. The student marshals held hands and formed a protective ring around us, trying to push back the encroaching hordes. Soon the marshals on the western side of the ring were almost touching noses with the armed police.

‘Ke Xi, didn’t you say that Premier Li Peng has agreed to talk to us?’ Han Dan said, pushing his way through the crowd.

‘I never said that,’ Ke Xi said, pouting his thick lips. ‘It’s a false rumour that’s going around.’

‘But everyone thinks that Li Peng has agreed to meet us,’ Old Fu said. ‘They think we’ve got an audience with him at one o’clock. They’re very excited about it. What are we going to do?’

When a black crow cawed as it flew out from under the eaves of the Great Hall, someone shouted, ‘Look, Li Peng’s come out to see us!’ and the crowd roared with laughter.

‘If they refuse to discuss our demands, we’ll have to charge through the police lines and storm the Great Hall,’ Hai Feng said, pushing his way through to us. The black shirt he was wearing under his sleeveless pullover looked too small for him.

It was midday already.

‘We mustn’t be too heavy-handed,’ Han Dan said, pushing his glasses further up his nose.

‘Why not choose a wreath and take it up to the Great Hall,’ said Liu Gang, surveying the crowd. He’d just arrived in the Square after being trapped behind the police cordons for two hours.

‘That’s a good idea,’ Han Dan said, then he shouted to the students holding the wreaths to bring them over to us. His megaphone was very loud.

But the students holding the wreaths ignored his command and began charging into the lines of armed police. The wreath from the Politics and Law University was so large that the four people holding it had to ask the student marshals to help them pass it over the policemen’s heads.

Liu Gang snatched the megaphone from Han Dan and shouted, ‘We’re in a face-off with armed police, so it’s important not to raise the tension any further. Our plan is to take just one wreath up to the Great Hall of the People, and present it to the officials to convey, on behalf of all the students of Beijing, our deep sadness at the death of Comrade Hu Yaobang.’ At last, everyone stood still.

Han Dan and Hai Feng took the petition and, after a brief discussion with the armed police, were allowed to pass through the first few lines. Wang Fei, Ke Xi and Mou Sen chose a medium-sized wreath and were also allowed to squeeze their way through.

The people who’d climbed onto the bases of the lamp posts cheered excitedly.

‘We need another representative,’ Ke Xi shouted to the students from Beijing Normal, the Politics and Law University and the Beijing Institute of Technology. ‘Do any of you want to join us?’

‘And who are you?’ they cried, many of them never having seen him before.

‘My name is Ke Xi,’ he shouted through his megaphone from behind the lines of armed police. ‘I’m the head of a coordinating group that represents students from nineteen Beijing universities.’

Wang Fei and Mou Sen passed through the second block of police, walked up the steps and carried the wreath and petition inside the Great Hall of the People, emerging with only the petition a few seconds later.

‘Look, the officials have taken the wreath but refused to receive the petition,’ Old Fu said, watching them walk down the steps.

Wang Fei and Mou Sen exchanged a few words with Han Dan, Hai Feng and Ke Xi, then all five of them climbed up the steps again. Ten plain-clothes officers rushed out of the Great Hall and stood in their way. Hai Feng suddenly dropped to his knees and lifted the white petition above his head. Wang Fei and Mou Sen stood beside him and hesitated for a moment, then they too decided to kneel down. Ke Xi looked a little awkward and stepped to the side. Han Dan swung his shoulder bag over his back and tried desperately to pull the three of them up. Hai Feng refused to budge. He lifted the petition higher in the air and began shouting something we couldn’t hear.

The students yelled, ‘Don’t kneel down! Stand up! Stand up!’

Old Fu was furious. ‘They’re kneeling down like submissive subjects petitioning an emperor. It’s an unhealthy legacy of feudal China!’

‘What the hell are they thinking of, kneeling down like that?’ Liu Gang said, squeezing himself in front of us. ‘The Organising Committee didn’t tell them to kneel. It’s going to stir up a lot of conflict.’

I too thought it was unwise of them to be kneeling down, but I kept quiet. The students at the front became agitated, and jumped to their feet once more. The armed police stood up as well and both sides began ramming into each other. I soon found myself squashed between the police and the students. I lifted my megaphone and shouted, ‘Sit down! Sit down! Student marshals – link hands and contain the crowd!’

Under the dense, oppressive sunlight, the Great Hall looked like an immense coffin. The national emblem fixed to the roof appeared to waver in the haze. As the police lines shifted back and forth, the crowds surged and retreated.

‘Why won’t the government leaders come out and take the petition?’ the onlookers said.

‘They’re terrified, that’s why! They don’t have the guts to show their faces in public!’ others shouted out.

Both sides continued to push and jostle. The students rushed to wherever the police pushed hardest and shoved them back with all their might.

Chen Di got the students to chant after him: ‘Oppose police violence! The police have no right to attack the students!’

‘Calm down!’ Shu Tong shouted. ‘Stay disciplined! Quickly Dai Wei, get everyone to sit down again!’

‘Those three guys have been kneeling on the steps for twenty minutes,’ Liu Gang said anxiously. ‘If they don’t get up soon, a riot’s going to break out.’ I yelled at the crowd to sit down, but there was so much noise, no one could hear me.

The Beijing residents who’d gathered behind us pushed forward again, pounding into the southern end of the police lines. Some of them swiped the officers’ caps off and threw them into the air. The outer police line crumbled. As the officers scattered to the sides, the line of armed police behind them stepped forward aggressively, and the crowd of residents retreated in fright.

The students who were sitting on the ground shouted, ‘Come out, Premier Li Peng! We want dialogue with the government!’

The armed police focused on the Beijing University students and charged towards us. I presumed they were coming to arrest us.

‘Hold hands everyone,’ I shouted. ‘Make sure the girls keep in the middle!’ A white-gloved hand landed on my cheek and twisted my head back. I grabbed it and tried to tug it off. I was surrounded by police caps. The officer I was wrestling with had lost his epaulettes. He stared at me with his mouth wide open. He looked just like my brother. His lips and ears were bleeding. The buttons of his green shirt had been pulled off too. When it became clear that the police merely wanted to push us back and had no intention of arresting us, I removed my hand from the officer, and he let me go.

I shouted at my marshals to get the Beijing University students back in line. Shu Tong said through his megaphone, ‘Fellow students, we must remain calm and rational.’

The armed police returned to their original positions and cordoned off the forecourt of the Great Hall with rope. A paper banner that had said
THE STUDENTS OF BEIJING UNIVERSITY GRIEVE THE DEATH OF HU YAOBANG
lay on the ground, torn and trodden to pieces.

‘They’re supposed to be servants of the people,’ Xiao Li cried. ‘Why are they ignoring us like this?’

‘Zhuzi, some of the students at the back have got down on their knees too!’ a law student shouted out. ‘What shall we do?’

Zhuzi undid the top button of his khaki jacket and shouted, ‘We can’t ask for democracy on bent knees! Tell the bastards to stand up!’ Fuming with rage, he pushed his way to the front of the crowd and yelled, ‘Stand up! Stand up!’ to the three students still kneeling on the steps.

The students behind us shouted, ‘Stand up! Democracy shouldn’t be begged for!’ and moved forward, propelling the students in front against the swaying lines of armed police.

Through the shouting, I could hear people weeping.

‘Stop kneeling, stop kneeling!’ the students cried. The waves of noise rolled over the heads of the armed police and bounced off the glass windows of the Great Hall.

Then Bai Ling squeezed between the police and the students, held up the megaphone that Han Dan had handed to her, and cried out with tears welling in her eyes, ‘Government officials in the Great Hall of the People, the students have been waiting in the Square for eighteen hours, please come down and receive our petition.’ She was so short that all I could see was her forehead.

‘Quick, Dai Wei,’ she said, catching sight of me, ‘tell the student marshals to form a chain.’

I was terrified she’d get crushed. I quickly yelled for the marshals to hold hands and told the students behind me to stay still.

Bai Ling was now stranded inside the ranks of armed police, sweat pouring down her face. She cried out, ‘The armed police are the sons and brothers of the people! We mustn’t let this end in a bloodbath . . .’

An officer standing behind the police lines passed a water bottle to another officer nearby, who twisted the lid off and handed it to Bai Ling. The students who witnessed this clapped their hands in appreciation. Bai Ling swallowed a few sips, then shouted, ‘Thank you, brothers and sons of the people! The students are tired and hungry, and our tempers are frazzled. But we don’t want any of you to get hurt. You are our compatriots, after all!’ The students around her broke into applause.

The mood of the officers, who were sweating in the confused scrum, began to soften. Some of them even had tears in their eyes.

A middle-aged man rushed out from the Great Hall of the People and walked down to where the three students were still kneeling. He flung his arms around them and sobbed. We couldn’t hear what he was saying.