Beijing Coma (49 page)

So the little chap’s a financier now, is he? I heard on the radio that the government has set up a Special Economic Zone in Pudong, similar to the one down in Shenzhen. Many graduates with a Master’s or PhD have gone there to look for jobs in foreign companies.

‘Mimi hasn’t visited for months,’ says my mother. ‘Tian Yi only comes twice a year. Everyone’s focusing on their careers. I suppose Dai Wei was lucky to escape with his life. But it’s so hard looking after him, sometimes I wish he was dead. If his American cousin didn’t send us money, we’d be out on the streets by now.’

Zhou Suo was jailed, but I don’t know what happened to any of the other Qinghua University students. I know that at least thirty-six Beijing University students were killed. I’m not sure who all of them were, but some were definitely from the last batch of marshals I sent out to defend the intersections.

‘I’ve brought a thousand yuan for you, to go towards Dai Wei’s medical costs,’ Yu Jin says. ‘I haven’t been in this job long, but it has good prospects. The Pudong Special Economic Zone has great growth potential. I’ve persuaded many of my old university friends to move down there.’

‘I can’t take that much money from you,’ my mother protests. ‘You haven’t been out of prison long. You need to look after yourself. Are your parents both well?’

‘Yes, they’re fine. They live in Wuxi. They were both sacked from their jobs when I was sent to prison, though.’

I hear a phone ring. The noise startles me.

‘Hello,’ Yu Jin says. ‘Yes. Fine. Seven o’clock, then. Get your brother to come too. Don’t worry, it’s my treat. We’ll meet outside McDonald’s on Wangfujing Street. Me? I’m at Dai Wei’s home. Ha! All right, all right. See you later, then.’ I hear Yu Jin press a button.

‘What’s that?’ my mother gasps. ‘It’s bigger than the ones the police carry.’

‘This isn’t a walkie-talkie, Auntie. It’s a cellphone. It’s like the telephones you have at home, but you can carry them around with you.’

‘Oh, I’ve read about them in the papers. They’re called Big Brothers. Apparently all the rich entrepreneurs have them now. When they go out for a meal, they only have to plonk their phones on the table and immediately the restaurant managers grovel at their feet.’

‘Pagers are old hat now. That’s the way things go. Information is a commodity. If you don’t have one of these, no one will respect you.’

‘How much do they cost?’

‘More than 10,000 yuan,’ Yu Jin says breezily.

‘I don’t believe it! That’s more than three times what it costs to get a landline connected. You’ve done really well for yourself. You’re the first person I’ve met who owns a Big Brother.’

‘It’s no big deal. Lots of people in Shenzhen and Shanghai are using them now. Tell me, how is Dai Wei’s treatment going?’

‘Sit down. I’ll get you a cup of tea. Here, you can sit on this chair.’

As I listen to my mother remove the bottles of pills from the chair and place them on top of the sideboard, I try to guess what the young financier Yu Jin looks like. I imagine him in a suit and tie, with clean socks and shiny leather shoes. His hair is short, or balding, perhaps. In the morning, he struts confidently into his office and nods a greeting to his colleagues, or shakes them firmly by the hand.

While my mother goes to pour the tea, I feel his eyes fix on me. After a while he says, ‘Dai Wei, they may have split us up, but we must struggle on. When they arrested me, I refused to plead guilty. I just told them what happened. I said that you were the ringleader, of course. I knew you were in a coma by then, so you wouldn’t get into trouble. Everyone with foreign connections has gone abroad. Those who’ve stayed have given up academia and gone into commerce. If you want to live your life with a bit of dignity these days you need to make money. Beijing University has lost its spirit. No one wants to study there any more. The students are forced to do a year’s military training before they start their courses now, so it takes four or five years to graduate.’

What was wrong with our generation? When the guns were pointing at our heads, we were still wasting time squabbling among ourselves. We were courageous but inexperienced, and had little understanding of Chinese history.

Shortly before dusk, an announcement came over some new loudspeakers that had just been attached to the other side of the Monument. Yu Jin ran off to see what was going on, and returned a few minutes later saying, ‘The Beijing Students’ Federation and the Qinghua University students have set up their own broadcast station at the south-east corner of the Monument. They’re calling it “Voice of Qinghua”.’

Old Fu was talking to Mou Sen about establishing a new editorial system. They’d both been appointed vice commanders of the Hunger Strike Headquarters by Bai Ling. When Old Fu heard the news, he got up and said, ‘Come on, let’s go round and take a look.’

‘Sounds like their equipment is at least three times stronger than ours,’ Little Chan said. ‘And they’ve got many more loudspeakers as well. Look, they’re all stacked up there on the lower terrace.’

‘It will be chaotic if we’re both broadcasting at the same time,’ Big Chan said, catching up with us. Since Big Chan and Little Chan had joined my student marshal team three days before, they hadn’t left the Square. They took their jobs very seriously, and were now responsible for overseeing the security of the Monument area.

‘I’m sure we can reach some kind of understanding,’ Old Fu said calmly.

The Qinghua camp on the other side looked much better organised than ours. They’d erected a large white tent to shield their hunger strikers from the heat, and had cooled the stone ground in front of it with water and big blocks of ice.

Their broadcast station was a square lean-to shelter erected against the base of the Monument, just like ours. The door faced south. There were so many student marshals protecting it, I couldn’t see inside. We tried to enter, but they blocked our way. Old Fu said, ‘Please ask the station chief to come out. We’ve brought a tape for him to broadcast.’

Zhou Suo stepped out of the tent. He was the chairman of Qinghua University’s Organising Committee. From his dark, weathered skin and rugged features, you could tell he’d grown up in the windy wastes of Shanxi Province’s Yellow Plateau.

Yu Jin walked up to him. ‘We’re from the Beijing University broadcast station. I think we’ve met.’

‘We’ve brought a tape for you,’ Old Fu said, in a friendly but slightly condescending tone. ‘It’s very moving. You can use it if you like. We only broadcast to the Beijing University students. The people on this side can’t hear us.’

‘The Beijing Students’ Federation decides what we broadcast, and you’re not the chairman of it any more, Old Fu,’ Zhou Suo said frostily.

A trace of embarrassment passed over Old Fu’s face as he realised he’d lost his authority. ‘Well, I’m still a member of its leadership committee,’ he protested. ‘Who else from the Beijing Students’ Federation is here?’

‘Fan Yuan and Sister Gao. You can ask them if they want to play the tape, if you like.’ Zhou Suo clearly didn’t want to have to take responsibility for anything.

We walked into their tent. It was very dark inside. I took off my sunglasses.

Old Fu spotted Sister Gao. ‘You borrowed money off us,’ he said, walking up to her. ‘I didn’t realise it was to set up a rival broadcast station!’

‘The money I borrowed was to buy chocolate and biscuits for the hunger strikers who were taken to hospital. Cao Ming came with me when I handed the food out. If you don’t believe me, ask him.’ Sister Gao was kneeling on the ground, sorting through a pile of scripts.

‘You only broadcast to the Beijing University students,’ Fan Yuan said coolly. ‘But the Federation has a duty to disseminate information to the broad mass of students and civilians in the Square. We didn’t spend any of your money on this equipment. That generator was donated to us by the workers of Beijing.’

‘We don’t need the Federation in the Square,’ Old Fu said, his expression hardening. ‘You should go back to the campuses.’

‘You’re not chairman or commander-in-chief any longer,’ Sister Gao said. ‘You can’t tell us what to do. The majority of the universities’ organising committees supported this plan. They all supported us.’ She often repeated herself when she was angry.

‘If you carry on like this, no one will be able to hear our broadcasts back there,’ I chipped in, seeing that Old Fu was now speechless with rage.

‘Well, stop broadcasting then!’ Fan Yuan said. ‘All you do is get famous intellectuals to repeat that this is the gravest moment in our nation’s history and it’s our duty to take a stand. You’re more of a celebrity show than a students’ broadcast station.’ Fan Yuan was wearing metal-rimmed glasses. From the side, he looked as thin as a plank of wood.

‘We were here first,’ Big Chan said. ‘You’re destroying student solidarity by setting up this rival operation.’

Their pretty announcer came over and said, ‘Everyone’s sick of your broadcasts. In the morning, they’re sombre and depressing, but when the supporters turn up in the afternoon, they become light-hearted and optimistic. All those ups and downs are driving us mad.’ She smiled as she spoke. The sound of her clear voice was as refreshing as eating an ice cream on a hot day. But she wasn’t as beautiful as Nuwa.

‘That broadcast you made just now wasn’t very impressive,’ Little Chan said. ‘You were just reading out telegrams and petitions. Couldn’t you come up with any better ideas?’

‘Before you set up this place, it would have been sensible to discuss your plans with us,’ Old Fu said meekly, aware now of his lack of clout.

‘Without a broadcast station, we wouldn’t be able to do any propaganda work,’ Fan Yuan said. Then he paused and added, ‘I think it would be best if you closed your station and let us get on with our job.’

‘In that joint meeting we had a couple of hours ago, you didn’t say a word about setting up this station,’ Old Fu said.

‘That meeting was about whether to withdraw from the Square or not,’ said Sister Gao. She and Old Fu had been good friends in the past.

Realising that the argument wasn’t getting anywhere, we turned and left.

‘Our only option now is to buy a bigger amplifier and put up more loudspeakers,’ I said on our way back to our station.

Nearby, someone had hung a small bottle over a placard that said
THE PEOPLE OF SICHUAN INVITE YOU TO RETURN HOME
,
COMRADE DENG
. This was clearly a pun on Deng Xiaoping’s given name, which although means ‘Little Peace’ sounds identical to ‘Little Bottle’. The people who gathered round it laughed as they read the message.

‘When the Federation moved to the Square today, the Qinghua University marshals gave them access to the Monument’s upper terrace,’ Big Chan said.

‘The Federation must have collected a lot of donations,’ Little Chan added. ‘Look, they’ve arranged a communication office and a finance office up there, and they’re all wearing red neck-scarves. They look like a proper little army.’ He and Big Chan were wearing the same brand of denim shorts.

Old Fu seemed suddenly to recover his authority. ‘We must call a meeting of the university representatives straight away, and decide who is responsible for what. Let’s get started. I’ll clear a space in front of our broadcast station, and you go and notify the representatives, Dai Wei.’

I wandered through the crowds with the two Chans. We went to each university camp and asked them to send a representative to our meeting. Before long, we’d assembled more than a hundred people. When we returned to our broadcast station, I saw Sister Gao and Fan Yuan standing in front of it, with Lin Lu and Cheng Bing, the girl from Normal University who was now co-commander of the Hunger Strike Headquarters. Bai Ling, who’d just been discharged from hospital, was there too. Liu Gang, who’d trekked down from the campus to have a word with Old Fu, was sitting next to them.

The meeting kicked off with a discussion on how to manage the Square.

I scanned the assembled crowd. Ke Xi and Han Dan weren’t there. They’d both passed out and were still recovering in hospital. Lin Lu and Liu Gang were the only people who looked composed. Wang Fei’s face was bright red, as was Nuwa’s, who was sitting next to him. He’d taken a table onto the Monument’s lower terrace and fixed a sign to it that said
TIANANMEN SQUARE PROPAGANDA OFFICE
. As I looked at him, he stood up and shouted, ‘If anyone wants to join the Propaganda Suicide Squad, please sign up here. We’ll set off tonight and reach Shougang Steel Plant before the first shift starts tomorrow morning. We’ll give speeches outside the plant’s entrance, informing the workers that our occupation won’t end until our demands are met . . .’ There were so many students from the provinces on the Square now that Wang Fei’s regional accent no longer seemed out of place. Liu Gang stood up and proposed that the students return to their campuses, but was immediately shouted down.

A Beijing resident laughed and said, ‘This movement’s a farce! What can a bunch of amateurs like you hope to achieve?’

Shao Jian looked very frail. He stood up slowly and, wrinkling his brow, proposed that the students who weren’t fasting take over the management of the Square.

But Bai Ling didn’t agree. She was sitting on a wooden box, sweat trickling down her neck. Her face was gaunt and sallow. Two nurses in white coats were standing behind her, their hands resting on her shoulders.

‘There are hundreds of thousands of people in the Square,’ I said loudly. ‘The government has pulled the police out of the city, so we are responsible for maintaining public order now. Hunger strikers are passing out every minute. We need to ensure the lifeline is well guarded so that the ambulances can reach them and take them to hospital. If everything is to run smoothly, we’ll need a strong management team. How can you hunger strikers expect to supervise all this while you’re in such a weak state?’