Beijing Coma (65 page)

In the tent area below, most of the students were still awake, listening to Simon and Garfunkel tapes, playing the harmonica or having games of poker. People wandered in and out of each other’s shelters. It looked as bustling as a night market. I could hear someone snoring nearby. The noise made me want to crawl into a soft bed.

Wang Fei joined us. He crouched down and took deep, nervous drags of his cigarette.

‘What’s the matter?’ I said. ‘Have you had a row with Nuwa? She was furious you ran away without telling her.’

‘No, no, I’ve just tallied the results of Sister Gao’s poll,’ he whispered. ‘The majority of the students want to leave the Square. If this information leaked out, we’d have to withdraw.’

‘Well, maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing.’

‘Keep your voice down,’ he said, rolling up the sheets of paper in his hand. ‘No one must find out about this.’

‘Look at this newspaper the Hong Kong Student Association gave us,’ said Xiao Li walking up excitedly. ‘It’s amazing! A million people marched through the streets of Hong Kong in solidarity with us.’

I grabbed the newspaper from him, eager to see the photographs. After A-Mei broke up with me, I gave my photographs of her to Shi Ye and asked her to post them to her. But A-Mei’s image was still carved in my mind. I knew I’d be able pick her out at once in a crowd, even if she had her back turned to me.

‘Are you looking for your lost love?’ Wang Fei said. He could be unexpectedly perceptive sometimes.

‘Shut up!’ I said, punching his arm. ‘She’s not living in Hong Kong now, anyway.’ I glanced at the photographs then handed the newspaper back to Xiao Li, my pulse racing.

A girl called Miss Li from the Hong Kong Student Association had told me her friend was studying at the same Canadian university as A-Mei. She’d smiled at me and said, ‘You’re the chief of security here. That’s very impressive. I’ll get my friend to tell A-Mei. I’m sure she’ll be proud of you.’

‘The provisions stall the Hong Kong Association set up over there is great,’ Xiao Li said, having supervised the stall’s security for the last hour. ‘They’re giving out food, drink, clothes, umbrellas. You should go and grab some of the stuff before it all runs out.’

‘You’re such a peasant!’ I said tetchily. Zhuzi was lying down now, about to drift off to sleep.

My thoughts turned to A-Mei. Although I was in love with Tian Yi, the wounds from my break-up with A-Mei still hadn’t fully healed. Now that the eyes of the world were focused on the Square, it was possible she might see my face on television or in the newspapers, and then try to get in touch. Unfortunately, I wasn’t one of the prominent leaders, so I knew the chances of her spotting me were remote.

‘Where’s Bai Ling?’ Mimi asked. ‘She was here just a minute ago, and now she’s vanished.’ Mimi and Tian Yi couldn’t sleep, so they were strolling around the terrace arm in arm to pass the time.

‘No one knows where she sleeps at night,’ Zhuzi chuckled. ‘That information is top secret!’

‘You must be exhausted,’ I said to Tian Yi, as she walked away. ‘If you want to go back to the campus to sleep, I could find a car for you.’ When she walked with her back straight, her loose hair would bounce around her shoulders.

‘Look at these mosquito bites,’ she said, turning round briefly to show me her arms. Then she walked off again, her hips swinging beneath her skirt.

Tian Yi’s voice sounds gravelly on the other end of the phone. ‘New York is much colder than Beijing. It must be the huge windows. The apartments are as cavernous as churches . . . I know you’ll wake up one day, Dai Wei. You mustn’t give up hope . . . You were always so wooden and remote. It used to drive me mad. We could never have a proper conversation . . . It’s noisy outside. I’ll close the window . . . Did you hear me? I said that fate brought us together but then tore us apart. We weren’t meant for each other . . . Do you remember the Land of the Black Thigh in
The Book of Mountains and Seas
? Its inhabitants wear fish-skin clothes and eat seagulls, and are accompanied by two birds that wait on them night and day. You used to say you wanted to go and live there one day . . . I must go now. Take care of yourself . . .’

Tian Yi can probably tell that my mother keeps taking the receiver away from my ear to listen to what she’s saying. Her voice sounds a little strained. It’s strange to think she’s been in America for almost a year now.

Like an invisible thread, her fragile breath travels across the oceans and enters my brain’s auditory cortex. Images assemble in my parietal lobes. I see rain streaming down the panes of a huge window . . .

‘There aren’t many of us instigators left in the Square,’ Old Fu said to me the next morning as we returned from the lavatories of the Museum of Chinese History. ‘We must keep strong. It’s very simple: all we have to do is stay here patiently until the army arrives.’

‘The government sent the police to arrest us in the 1987 demonstration, but this time they’re sending the army,’ I said. ‘It’s war.’ I glanced around the Square. There were now far fewer of the impassioned speeches and heated debates that had characterised the early days of our movement. Some students were sitting up, singing along to tapes of Taiwanese pop music, but most of the others were lying down chatting to each other.

‘If the army turns up, we’ll just sit still. They might use tear gas, but that won’t be enough to drive us away. Would they dare use bayonets? I doubt it. Electric batons, perhaps, but not bayonets.’ It seemed as though Old Fu had forgotten that just twenty-four hours before, he’d distributed the funds to the student leaders and fled the Square in a terrified panic.

‘Old Fu, you change your mind three times a day. You keep coming up with plans, but never have the courage to carry them out. If it weren’t for the fact that you’re a few years older than the rest of us, no one would listen to you.’ I had a sudden longing to brush my teeth.

The crowd was so much sparser now, I could see from one side of the Square to the other. A few groups of students were helping street cleaners sweep rubbish into plastic bags. Although the subway was up and running again, not many residents had turned up to offer support. Fewer students were arriving from the provinces, and many of those who were already in the Square were beginning to return home.

‘The government is using the Taoist idea of controlling chaos with quietness,’ said Old Fu. ‘It was clever of them not to concede to our demands.’

‘These constant discussions about whether to stay or leave are meaningless. The fact is, we’re trapped here, like chickens in a cage. All we can do is wait until the army comes and slaughters us.’

‘I thought you were one of the brave ones, Dai Wei.’

‘I don’t want to argue with you. Shu Tong and Liu Gang talked to you last night, and they weren’t able to change your mind. Hey, someone from the bus company came to ask if we could get the students off the buses. They need them back now.’

‘Tell them they can take them away. We must get rid of them before the army turns up, or they’ll get smashed. Ask someone to broadcast an announcement telling everyone to vacate the buses immediately.’

Wang Fei walked up holding a megaphone. His black leather shoes sparkled in the sunlight. He wasn’t wearing socks. His bare ankles looked very pale, even through the dark lenses of my sunglasses.

‘I’ve just spoken to a journalist,’ he said. ‘Guess who he bumped into in the Workers’ Stadium? Deng Xiaoping’s son, Deng Pufang – you know, the one in the wheelchair. The journalist asked him what he thought of the student demonstrations, and he said, “The sky must remain above and the earth below. Whoever tries to change the natural order will perish.”’

‘Do you understand now?’ I said, turning to Old Fu. ‘The government thinks we’re trying to topple the state, and they’re determined to crush us. Let’s pack up and go back to our campuses.’

‘Don’t surrender so soon,’ said Wang Fei. ‘This is the moment we finally force the Communist Party to hand over power to the people. Only the brave are victorious.’

‘Apparently another of the students who went on hunger strike has fallen into a coma,’ said Old Fu. ‘Can you ask Tian Yi to find out who it is?’

‘I’ve almost sunk into a coma myself!’ I said. ‘I’m so exhausted, I can’t think straight.’

‘I must find Bai Ling,’ said Old Fu. ‘We’re supposed to be going to another meeting of the Capital Joint Liaison Group.’

‘Han Dan went to the last one, claiming he was the representative of the Beijing students,’ Wang Fei said, fiddling with the switch of his megaphone. ‘He’s as bad as the Communist Party. None of us asked him to represent us.’

‘Will you look after logistics while I’m away, Dai Wei?’ said Old Fu. ‘A factory manager has donated more towels and torches. Get some volunteers to distribute them. Wang Fei, you need to print out more leaflets informing the students how to protect themselves against tear gas. Chen Di has got hold of a special antidote. If there’s a gas attack, you just dip your towel in it and hold it to your face. Hurry up now, there’s no time to waste.’ Old Fu glanced at his watch then went to look for Bai Ling.

‘There are only bread rolls for lunch today,’ I said as I followed Wang Fei onto the upper terrace. The three students running his propaganda office were printing leaflets on the mimeograph machine.

Tian Yi was sitting in the broadcast minibus chatting with the Hong Kong students. Miss Li was there, her hair slicked back into a neat ponytail that was so shiny it looked wet. You could tell at once she was staying in a hotel. I remembered that A-Mei’s hair was sleek and smooth like that. She used to wash it every day. Tian Yi and Mimi looked scruffy in comparison.

‘Of course we won’t be able to fend off 200,000 soldiers, but if we go back to the campuses now, we’ll become scattered, and it will be easier for the government to arrest us,’ Mimi said, repeating a view she’d heard Bai Ling express.

‘Why do we have to use such boring methods?’ said a Hong Kong girl called Jenny. ‘There are more exciting ways of resisting violence than sitting on the ground!’ She was chair of the Hong Kong Student Association, and spoke in a thick Cantonese accent. She was wearing baggy trousers that tapered at the ankle. It was a style that hadn’t reached Beijing yet.

‘Yes, we should organise a massive student carnival,’ Mou Sen said, looking up from the stack of accounts he was checking through. Earlier that morning, the Hong Kong Student Association had handed over tens of thousands of Hong Kong dollars to him, or rather to the Beijing Students’ Federation. He should have had bodyguards protecting him.

‘You’re right, you can’t learn about democracy from books,’ I muttered. ‘We should be imaginative and think up strategies of our own.’

‘Our only reference point is the Cultural Revolution, so there’s always a danger this democracy movement will degenerate into a communist-style rebellion,’ Mou Sen said earnestly to the two Hong Kongese girls, raising his head once more from his papers.

‘I was only seven years old when the Cultural Revolution ended,’ Mimi said. ‘What influence could it have had on me?’ Then she opened the window and yelled out, ‘Hey, Old Fu! Come here! We’ve been given a pile of student ID cards that were found lying around in the Square. We couldn’t broadcast the students’ names in case there were government spies listening, so we just asked anyone who’d lost their ID card to check these ones, but no one’s come over yet.’

‘Well, just keep hold of them for the time being,’ Old Fu shouted back, irritated by Mimi’s lack of common sense.

Five military helicopters suddenly came crawling through the sky, so low that they almost scraped the tip of the Monument’s obelisk. Everyone became agitated. The ground rumbled as the air overhead pressed down on us. Tian Yi stuck her head out of the window, gazed up at the helicopters and excitedly reached for her camera, but her hands were shaking so much she couldn’t unzip the case. Earlier that morning, Chen Di had broadcast an announcement calling for students to fly kites or release balloons to prevent army helicopters airlifting soldiers into the Square. A shopkeeper had donated a box of large silvery balloons, but they weren’t any use to us as we didn’t have any helium.

The helicopters completed another circle of the Square, dropped a cloud of leaflets into the air then flew away.

‘That’s too much!’ Mou Sen muttered. ‘How dare the government drop leaflets when their own martial law edict strictly forbids such actions?’ Then he jumped out of the minibus and, like all the other students in the Square, dashed around frantically, grabbing as many leaflets as he could.

The sky was so blue and clear after the helicopters left that when anyone walked across the Square that morning, their gaze was inevitably drawn upwards.

In the afternoon, Hai Feng rushed over to the minibus looking for Old Fu. He said a large crowd had gathered below Tiananmen Gate because three men had just thrown ink-filled eggs at Chairman Mao’s portrait. The crowd by the Gate had become very rowdy, and he was worried a brawl might break out.

Everyone was shocked by this news, and suspected that the culprits were agents provocateurs, deliberately vandalising the portrait to give the government an excuse to launch a crackdown.

‘Old Fu and Bai Ling haven’t come back from the Capital Joint Liaison Group’s meeting yet,’ said Mou Sen. ‘Go and find out whether those three men are working for the government.’