Beijing Coma (66 page)

‘It’s a government plot!’ Wang Fei said, raising his index finger. ‘No question about it! Come on, let’s check it out.’

We ran over to Tiananmen Gate and looked up at the portrait. Chairman Mao’s pale face was flecked with black ink and red paint. One large splat between his eyebrows had trickled down to his mouth. But the painting was so huge that the specks didn’t diminish the Chairman’s imposing air. Hordes of students and Beijing residents had gathered below the portrait to take a look. Some praised the vandals, others accused them of reckless stupidity, but most were too busy taking photographs to say anything.

Student marshals had detained two of the three culprits in a bus parked outside the Museum of Chinese History. When we squeezed inside it, we saw the two young men kneeling in the aisle.

‘These guys are called Yu Zhijian and Lu Decheng,’ said Zhuzi. ‘They’re not students. They’ve given us their ID cards. We have no legal right to interrogate them. All we can do is ask them questions.’

‘They have harmed the integrity and good discipline of our movement, and we must deal with them accordingly,’ Tang Guoxian barked, punching the wall of the bus. He was still as boisterous and loud as he’d been at Southern University, but since he’d joined the Provincial Students’ Federation, he’d lost his joviality. He’d become quite ruthless, too. Although Wang Fei had founded the Federation, he’d had him expelled on the grounds that he was studying in Beijing.

‘We should hold a press conference at once and make clear we have nothing to do with these men,’ Wu Bin said, flaring his triangular eyes. ‘Then we should hand them over to the police and let them deal with them.’

‘You came here to sabotage our movement and give the government an excuse to crack down on us,’ Wang Fei said, removing his glasses.

Yu Zhijian was the first to reply. He looked up and said, ‘Our action was no more radical than the slogans you’ve been shouting in the Square.’ His thick eyebrows buckled together in the middle of his unhappy, square face.

‘To be honest, I’ve often thought of doing something like that,’ Wang Fei said. ‘I’d love to assemble a big crowd and go and drag Mao’s body out of the Mausoleum. There are only two armed officers guarding the entrance. Tell us, who sent you here?’

‘It was our idea to do this,’ said Yu Zhijian. ‘No one put us up to it. We’re from Chairman Mao’s native province of Hunan. We wanted to express our anger at the crimes he committed against the Chinese people.’ He unzipped his beige blouson to let the sweat that had collected around the collar escape down his neck.

‘Would you like something to drink?’ Mou Sen said, squatting down. ‘I know your motives were good, but your actions might turn the people against us. Many of the citizens who’ve come out to support us have been holding up pictures of Chairman Mao. He’s still a hero to them.’

‘We wrote a statement expressing our views but you refused to broadcast it,’ Yu Zhijian said, passing a copy of it to Mou Sen. ‘That’s why we had to resort to direct action.’

‘Yes, I read it,’ said Mou Sen, handing the copy back to him. ‘We can’t broadcast any criticism of Mao now. We’re trying to keep the army back. The soldiers waiting to march into the city worship Chairman Mao. They’d go mad if they heard us criticise him.’

‘Do you know anyone here in Beijing who could verify your identities?’ Wang Fei asked, softening his tone a little. ‘How are we to know your ID cards aren’t forged?’

‘A Central Television reporter wants to do some interviews,’ Wu Bin said, stepping back into the bus.

‘Good,’ Tang Guoxian said, lighting a cigarette. ‘It will give us a chance to make clear we weren’t responsible for this act of vandalism.’ I’d never seen him smoke before. He seemed very anxious.

‘Go and speak to the Hunan students,’ Lu Decheng said. ‘Maybe one of them knows me.’ He was a short guy, with arched eyebrows and a thin goatee. The shirt under his black woollen slipover was grimy. He didn’t look like a government agent to me.

The Central Television reporter stepped onto the bus. Wu Bin checked his identity card and said officiously, ‘We can only spare you half an hour.’

Tang Guoxian walked over to Zhuzi and me and asked us to help organise a press conference.

‘We’re not a police force,’ Zhuzi said disapprovingly. ‘We have no right to arrest people. I think we should just let these guys go.’

‘Mao may have been a tyrant, but you shouldn’t have vandalised his portrait,’ Hai Feng shouted at the two men. ‘The government will treat us as enemies now. You’ve created a serious political incident here.’ His face was so contorted with anger he looked as though he was weeping.

‘This Square is a public forum,’ Yu Zhijian said. ‘Everyone should be free to come here and express their views. We were protesting against autocracy, like everyone else here.’

‘I’d like to start the interview,’ the reporter said, switching on his tape recorder. ‘Would you mind leaving us alone for a while?’

As we moved out of the bus, we heard the young man called Yu Zhijian explain in a thick Hunan accent what he and his two friends had done. ‘We arrived in Beijing the day before martial law was declared. We were excited to join the student movement, but soon became frustrated at the direction it was taking. The hunger strike didn’t achieve anything. We knew we’d have to use more radical tactics if we wanted to continue pushing for political reform. Our original plan was to take the portrait down, but it’s nailed very securely to the wall . . .’

‘That guy’s too pompous to be a government agent,’ I said, listening in from outside.

‘Can you call the journalists over, Mou Sen?’ Tang Guoxian asked as he stepped off the bus.

‘There’s no need for a press conference,’ Mou Sen said grouchily. ‘We should just issue a statement saying the students had nothing to do with this act of vandalism.’

‘Yes, we mustn’t blow this out of proportion,’ said Wang Fei, stamping his feet nervously, aware that he’d overreacted. ‘They did go a bit far, but they were right to attack Mao. He symbolises all that’s wrong with our country.’

Two men in their thirties walked up and said, ‘Hand those guys over to us. We’ll deal with them.’

I could tell at a glance that these were genuine government agents, but Tang Guoxian didn’t catch on. ‘Who are you?’ he said loudly.

‘We’re from the security office,’ one of them answered. ‘We should be handling this matter.’ He looked very much like the policemen who’d interrogated me in 1987.

‘Before we hand them over to you, we must make sure they have no connections with the student movement,’ Tang Guoxian replied.

‘You’re from the Tiananmen Police Station, aren’t you?’ I said. ‘I’ve had a lot of dealings with Inspector Zhang.’ Over the previous couple of weeks, I’d visited the local police station twice to discuss matters of security.

‘What’s your job?’ the government agent asked me brusquely.

‘I’m the Square’s deputy commander of security. I must ask you to be patient. We can’t afford to do anything that might jeopardise the safety of the students in the Square.’ I could tell my authoritative tone had successfully bridled them.

‘Well, you understand that this matter needs be sorted out, then,’ they said. Not wanting to continue the conversation any longer, they turned and left.

‘Now
those
are government agents,’ I said.

‘Maybe they’re all in it together,’ Tang Guoxian said, still misreading the situation.

‘We must ask the Headquarters what they think,’ Wang Fei said, running his hand through his hair.

‘You mean the Hunger Strike Headquarters? That disbanded ages ago!’ Tang Guoxian said, stepping back onto the bus.

Zhuzi and I went to the tent of the Beijing Workers’ Federation to see what they thought should be done.

It was sweltering hot. It must have been at least thirty-six degrees. The Square had no shelter and was paved in concrete, so on a hot day the heat became overwhelming. Most of the students had drifted off to the sides of the Square to cool down in the shade of the trees. Beijing residents who’d turned up to offer support or merely observe the passing scene wandered through the almost empty Square shielding themselves from the scorching rays with sunglasses, sun hats and umbrellas.

‘I don’t think it was a government plot,’ Zhuzi said, wiping the sweat from his forehead as we entered the Workers’ Federation’s tent.

As we’d suspected, Yu Dongyue, the third of the three Hunanese demonstrators, was there. He was sitting on a stool, his dirty shirt stained with flecks of black ink. Fan Yuan was asking him if he’d like a bowl of noodles. Zhuzi went over and said, ‘Don’t worry. Your two friends are with the Provincial Students’ Federation. They’re being interviewed by a television reporter.’

‘You’re in pretty deep shit!’ I said. ‘The students want to hand you over to the authorities and the secret police are onto you as well.’ It was unbearably hot inside the tent. I pulled off my T-shirt and immediately felt much better.

‘We’ll take responsibility for our actions,’ Yu Dongyue said. ‘We won’t shift the blame onto anyone else.’

‘Well, you’re free to leave now, if you want to,’ Fan Yuan said. ‘Here’s your watch and your documents.’ Fan Yuan had been helping out at the Workers’ Federation since he’d been sacked from the Beijing Students’ Federation for fleeing the Square during Zhao Ziyang’s visit.

Yu Dongyue looked up and said, ‘We won’t run away. We’ll see this thing through to the end.’

‘They didn’t break the law,’ Zhuzi said. ‘Why did you take his watch? You’re not police officers.’

‘The Dare-to-Die Squad confiscated it when they brought him over from Tiananmen Gate.’ I’d often seen Dare-to-Die members running around the Square in their red armbands. The Workers’ Federation had created this squad to deal quickly with any trouble that broke out in the Square.

‘How old are you?’ I asked Yu Dongyue. He looked very young.

‘Twenty-two,’ he said, taking a gulp of water.

‘We’re a couple of years older than you,’ Zhuzi said. ‘We’re more experienced, too. I’m a law student. I know that if you burn the national flag, which is a symbol of the nation, you’ll get three years in prison. So if you deface Mao’s portrait, you’ll probably end up with a similar sentence.’

‘There’s nothing in the constitution that says a person’s portrait can be regarded as a symbol of the nation,’ Yu Dongyue replied.

‘What subject are you studying?’ Zhuzi said.

‘I studied Fine Art at university. I work for Changde Press now, in Hunan.’

Wu Bin marched into the tent, accompanied by four student marshals. He said he wanted to hand Yu Dongyue and his two friends to the national security police. His tone was very gruff. I advised him to phone up Changde Press to check Yu Dongyue’s identity. But Wu Bin replied sternly, ‘It’s obvious they’re working for the government. We can’t let this event become another Reichstag Fire.’ He’d never behaved so imperiously before. The vastness of the Square seemed to have inflated everyone’s egos.

‘Dai Wei’s in charge of security in the Square,’ Zhuzi said, sitting down. ‘Let him deal with this.’

‘He doesn’t have any authority. The Hunger Strike Headquarters has been dissolved and the Beijing Students’ Federation has broken up as well. The Provincial Students’ Federation is the only student organisation left in the Square, so we should be controlling matters of security here.’ Wu Bin delivered his lines like an actor on the stage. He’d recently been appointed the Provincial Students’ Federation’s vice chairman.

‘You’ve no right to take the law into your hands!’ Zhuzi countered.

‘If you don’t let these men go, you’ll be no different from the thousands of plain-clothes officers already swarming through the Square,’ I said to Wu Bin. ‘If the Dare-to-Die Squad had flung ink on the portrait, would you have arrested them too?’

The leader of the Workers’ Federation walked into the tent and said, ‘The troops have surrounded Beijing. We can’t give the government any excuse to launch a crackdown. If they were to take a hardline approach now, you students would get three-year sentences, but we workers would get locked up in jail for the rest of our lives.’

Wu Bin grabbed Yu Dongyue’s arm and dragged him out of the tent.

‘I’m a law student,’ Zhuzi shouted angrily. ‘I’m telling you, this is the most idiotic and dangerous decision you could ever make, Wu Bin.’

‘There are so many different security teams now,’ I said as we watched Wu Bin drag Yu Dongyue and his two friends off to the police station. ‘Yesterday, the Lanzhou University students set up a squad called the Wolves of the North-West.’

‘Most of the students in the Square now are from the provinces, so as chairman of the Provincial Students’ Federation, Tang Guoxian has a lot of power,’ Zhuzi said.

We wandered back to the broadcast minibus. Girls stared at us as we passed, whispering to each other, ‘Look at those two tall guys. I bet they play basketball.’

When we were halfway across the Square, a strong wind whipped up, lifting plastic bags and scraps of paper into the air. The sky overhead filled with black clouds. There was thunder and lightning, then torrential rain drummed down. By the time we finally reached the minibus it was packed with people and we couldn’t squeeze in.

The fifty buses that had been parked in the Square had gone now, so there was nowhere for us to shelter. The only objects surrounding us were the flags, posters and dirty mosquito nets that were being battered by the downpour.

A voice shouted, ‘This storm is Chairman Mao taking his revenge!’

A chill ran down my spine. I turned back to look at Mao’s portrait, but saw that it was now covered by a large sheet of cloth.

‘He’s right!’ someone else shouted. ‘Those three vandals will get struck by lightning.’

‘Don’t say that! It will bring us bad luck!’

A few students ran frantically across the Square, searching for an umbrella to hide under. In the distance, I could hear girls screaming in terror.