Beijing Coma (39 page)

Then Yang Tao suggested we ask the girls to stand at the front and chant slogans until the police surrendered. We thought it was worth a try. Yang Tao called Bai Ling over to decide on the slogans. I handed her my megaphone. She grabbed it and told the girls to shout out after her: ‘Raise the social standing of the police force! Raise police incomes! The people’s police protect the people!’

As soon as Bai Ling began to shout, the armed police relaxed. Even the sergeants broke into smiles. I suspected that if Nuwa had come out to shout, the blockade would have crumbled at once.

‘You must be tired, comrades! The people will remember your kindness . . .’ The chanting chipped away at the police’s resolve and put them on the defensive. The crowd of onlookers was larger than ever.

‘Let’s charge again,’ Ke Xi said. ‘I think we can push through this time. I’ll go to the front and hold the university flag. Dai Wei, you get the marshals to stand behind me and shove me forward.’

I took the megaphone back from Bai Ling and shouted, ‘All you girls move back a hundred metres and let the boys attempt a final push. Anyone with a banner or a bike should also move to the back. The first police wall is only eight rows deep. Our wall is ten times bigger!’

There was so much noise now, hardly anyone could hear me.

‘Oppose the
People’s Daily
’s slanderous attack on the student movement!’ cried a group of students at the back.

I yelled as loudly as I could, ‘You in the white shirt – put that placard down, or go to the back! Anyone holding hard objects should move back now!’

‘I’ve got something very hard, but I’d better not pull it out!’ one guy shouted. Some armed police officers heard him and sniggered.

‘Anyone with glass cups, bottles or backpacks must also move to the back!’ Han Dan shouted.

Liu Gang grabbed a megaphone and yelled, ‘You must be exhausted, comrade policemen. We’ve come onto the streets today to ask for justice and truth. We’d appreciate your support! The Communist Party is very powerful, but it’s riddled from top to bottom with corrupt, money-grubbing officials who abuse their power for personal financial gain. We’re not motivated by selfish interests. We’ve come out here today for the sake of our country’s future, and to support your noble profession!’

I moved forward and shouted, ‘Everyone behind the flag, pack together and when I give you the signal, push! Lift Ke Xi up, you two. Yes, you, and you in the red shirt. Everyone in the front row, keep your arms tightly linked. One, two, three – push! One, two, three – push! Let the students through!’ Everyone began pushing towards the flag Ke Xi was waving.

In less than a minute, Ke Xi had been pushed through the first wall, which began to disintegrate in the middle. Shu Tong seized my megaphone and shouted, ‘Quickly, let’s widen the chink in their wall. Everyone hold hands!’

The students rammed forward in regular bursts, then charged at the chink, making it wider and wider until the whole police wall collapsed. With deafening cheers, the procession surged straight through and began attacking the second wall. Onlookers standing on the pavements and pedestrian flyover roared in support. The students merged into the morass of police caps which once more scattered to the sides.

The jubilant students cried out to the officers, ‘Thank you, comrades! Thank you for your help!’

The onlookers applauded our victory and handed out bottles of Coca-Cola and lemonade.

The police stood impassively at the sides of the road. A few officers and students searched the ground for lost shoes, then flung them to one another.

I was drenched in sweat. My legs were shaking. An armed policeman standing beside me removed his steaming cap and said, ‘Will you calm down a little now, my friend? We’ve had just about as much as we can take.’

‘I can’t make any promises, I’m afraid,’ I said, panting for breath. ‘It’s all up to Premier Li Peng. We’ll have to see what he does next.’ I flapped my shirt, trying to cool myself down. The three top buttons and the surrounding patches of cloth had been ripped off in the scrum.

I saw a pretty young woman standing on the back of a flatbed tricycle that was crammed with bottles of lemonade, Coke, yogurt and beer, which she was handing out to the students free of charge. A large crowd had gathered round her, smiling and laughing. She said, ‘There’s no more food or drink in the shops around here. The local residents have bought it all to give to the students.’

As I tried to squeeze my way through the crowd to grab a drink, I looked up at the young woman again, and realised that it was Lulu. I felt the same panic that had gripped me when my bicycle was stolen in the Triangle. She looked at me and gave me the victory sign. I couldn’t tell whether she recognised me or not. My heart started pounding and everything became blurred. I saw myself as a boy of fifteen being kicked onto the cement floor by a policeman, and the dark shadows inside the cold concrete pipe in which Lulu and I had hidden. Lulu lifted a bottle of Coke in the air and opened it for me. I glanced up and caught sight of her armpits. In the bright sunlight, they looked dark and mysterious and seemed still to be sheltering secrets from my past.

It was seven years since my confession to the police had got her into trouble. Our families hadn’t spoken since then, but I’d found out a few things about her. I knew that she hadn’t gone to university, her brother had joined the army, and her deaf grandmother had died. My mother had also heard a rumour that she’d made some money in Shenzhen, and had returned to Beijing to open a small restaurant.

I remembered going with her to buy one fen’s worth of marshmallow. The stallholder usually charged two fen, so he gave us half the amount, and shorter bamboo sticks too. We handed him the money and went to stand under a tree. Lulu held one of her sticks in each hand and moved them in and out, stretching her brown lump of marshmallow so that it hung in a thin thread between them, then pushing it back into a ball again. I sensed her observing me through the corner of her eye, so I tried to stretch my marshmallow into a longer string than hers. But as I glanced back at her, my string broke in half and a strand became stuck to my sleeve. She laughed out loud. The string left on my stick was too dry to push into a ball again, so I popped it into my mouth and sucked it. Lulu continued to stretch her marshmallow until the fine thread turned white and twinkled in the sunlight. I knew that if she’d touched it with her tongue at that moment, it would have pricked like a needle. But she was sure she could do better, so she pushed the thread back into a ball and stretched it out again, and this time it was longer than ever. ‘You can never pull it into such a thin strand when you buy two fen’s worth,’ I said.

‘
Pull marshmallow between the sticks, and watch it turn from brown to white . . .
’ she sang, pulling the sugary thread once more. The thread stayed still for a moment, then drooped in the middle and snapped. I pounced on the needle-thin strand as it fell to the ground and tossed it into my mouth. As she slapped my head, I grabbed the bamboo stick she’d dropped and popped that in my mouth as well. Clutching the remaining stick firmly in her hand, she said, ‘You horrible boy!’ then walked off in a huff.

Before Lulu and I could exchange a word, the surge of the crowd carried me forward. Everyone shouted, ‘Long live the people of Beijing!’ I joined their cries, tired but elated.

In the distance, I heard Mou Sen cry through a megaphone, ‘We should make today Students’ Day!’ Everyone cheered in agreement. As I tried to push my way over to him, I spotted Yanyan. She was wearing round glasses and a white baseball cap. Her gentle, poised demeanour made her look out of place in the packed crowd of students. I called out to her.

‘What a great day it is today!’ she said, moving closer to me. ‘You students are wonderful!’

‘For the first time in Chinese history, the people have been victorious!’ I said. ‘So, will you write something about this march for the
Workers’ Daily
?’

‘I’d like to, but I doubt it would get published. The chief editor is very conservative. Lots of the younger reporters and editors have joined the march, though.’ Then she smiled at me and asked, ‘And where’s Tian Yi?’

‘Back at the campus looking after the broadcast station. She doesn’t like marches. She gets stomach cramps when she’s trapped in a crowd . . . You must come and see us.’

I pushed forward and discovered that the People’s University students had joined the front of our procession. They sang, ‘
No Communist Party, no New China!
’ as they charged through the police cordons at the Liubukou intersection and Xinhua Gate.

As dusk was falling, we finally made it to Tiananmen Square and joined the vast crowd of Beijing students and citizens already gathered there. The noise and commotion were overwhelming.

Under one of the street lamps, a student waved a bloodstained shirt, and said he’d been beaten up by the police. Ke Xi climbed onto the Monument to address the crowd. As I sat down on the ground, crushed with exhaustion, Nuwa walked up and asked me whether I’d seen Wang Fei. She was wearing his blue windcheater. It seemed that I was always looking at my worst whenever she turned up. I tried to sit up straight.

‘You and your team organised things very well today,’ she said, looking down at me. ‘It was a great march.’

When spring arrives, I imagine pale-green shoots poking out from the grey walls and roof tiles as I inhale the smell of earth on the carrots in the market stalls and the smoke from our neighbours’ charcoal stoves. Although this smoke is present throughout the year, in spring it smells different, because our neighbours open their doors and windows and let it warm in the sunlight along with all the other household smells.

I’m still lying on the iron bed. The lengthy conversation my mother is having with the policeman keeps disturbing my train of thought.

‘What is your position on the events of 4 June?’ Officer Liu asks my mother. He knocked twice on our door before he walked in. He’s now standing in the corner of the sitting room.

‘Do you want me to give you the truth, or the lies that you’ve asked for before?’ My mother has been hassled by the police so often these last two years that she’s lost all fear of them.

‘The truth, of course.’

‘The truth is, I still don’t understand why the army opened fire on the students, and why, after my son was shot, I’m expected to apologise on his behalf, and say he deserved it,’ my mother replies indignantly.

‘That’s all in the past now. Try to be pragmatic. If you apologise for his crimes, you will both be better off.’

‘Look at him lying there on the bed. That’s not the past! He’s alive, and I’ll have to look after him for the rest of my life. Take him away now if you want, and put another bullet in his head!’

‘I haven’t come here to listen to you moaning. Tell me what you plan to do on 4 June this year.’

‘What do I know? I’m not in a fit state to make plans. Stop asking me.’

‘It’s Grave Sweeping Festival tomorrow. Is there anyone’s death you plan to commemorate?’

‘Officer Liu, you’ve known me for some time now. My husband is under the bed – look, there, in that black box of ashes. The purple box next to it is for my son’s ashes, when he finally decides to die. My father killed himself shortly after Liberation and wasn’t even given a gravestone. So whose grave do you suppose I’d sweep tomorrow?’

‘You know I’m only following orders, Auntie. I just needed to remind you not to leave the flat tomorrow, or visit any public cemeteries. It’s no big deal. Write a statement saying that you’ll be staying indoors, and I’ll leave you in peace.’

‘If you hadn’t come round, I wouldn’t have known what day it was tomorrow. All right, you write the statement for me and I’ll sign it.’ My mother has become very strong-willed.

I walked over to Tian Yi and tapped my spoon on her ear. I’d bought her a portion of stir-fried pork and celery. She was copying out a petition for the Dialogue Delegation, a group Shu Tong had founded to press for direct talks with the government.

‘Listen to this,’ she said to Shu Tong, taking the box of food from my hands without looking up at me. ‘“We request – One: official recognition that the student movement is a patriotic movement. Two: a speeding-up of political reform. Three: the promotion of democracy and rule of law . . .” Don’t you think these demands could be a little more specific?’

‘Yes, they are a bit vague . . .’ I muttered, as I sat on a bed and munched on a steamed roll.

‘There’s no need to wear those sunglasses indoors,’ Tian Yi whispered to me. She’d bought me the brown sunglasses I was wearing. When I’d tried them on in the shop, she’d said, ‘They make your wooden face look a little more animated.’

Shu Tong’s dorm was now the students’ broadcast station. My dorm next door was the editorial office of our new independent newspaper, the
News Herald
. Over the past three weeks of ‘turmoil’, our floor had become the nerve-centre of the student movement. The corridor was pasted with inky-smelling posters and was busier than a train station at rush hour.

‘Don’t worry,’ said Shu Tong. ‘These three points will open up the debate. Once the dialogue begins, we can make more concrete suggestions.’ He tried to sniff back the mucus that was dripping from his nose. He often suffered from congestion when he didn’t get enough sleep.

‘What’s the relationship between your Dialogue Delegation and the Beijing Students’ Federation?’ asked Xiao Li. ‘Will they come into conflict?’ During the past week, Xiao Li had managed to teach himself how to prepare mimeograph stencils. When he cut the characters, he’d lean right over the drum of the machine. When I tried my hand at it, I tore a large hole in the paper.