Beijing Coma (45 page)

‘He claims to be an undergraduate at Nanjing University, but he hasn’t got a student card,’ Mou Sen said.

‘So many students have travelled up from the provinces, and once they get here they don’t want to leave. The Square is packed now. I sent my brother a telegram last night telling him to stay in Sichuan.’

‘Ke Xi asked the students to move to the east side of the Square just now, so that Gorbachev can at least lay flowers on the Monument when he arrives,’ Mou Sen continued. ‘He climbed onto the lamp post over there and shouted through his megaphone: “This is Ke Xi speaking. For the sake of our nation, I beg you to move to the east side. If you don’t, it will be an insult to democracy.” When Bai Ling heard his request, she burst into tears and threatened to set fire to herself. Then Lin Lu shouted he’d burn himself first.’

I looked back down to the hunger strike camps. Although a few of the strikers had passed out the previous night and had been rushed to hospital, hundreds more students had joined the fast. There now appeared to be about three thousand of them lying on the ground. Each camp was circled by protective rings of student marshals, who were themselves surrounded by crowds of onlookers. There were tens of thousands of people in the Square but no one was being crushed. Student volunteers walked among the strikers, checking for any signs of distress. Everything seemed to be in order.

‘Sister Gao shouldn’t have asked those intellectuals to talk to Bai Ling last night,’ Mou Sen said. ‘Bai Ling felt she was being patronised, which made her even more determined to continue the occupation.’

‘Nuwa asked me about Yanyan yesterday,’ I said. ‘She knows she’s your girlfriend.’

Mou Sen looked up. ‘Why would she be interested in me?’

‘Don’t start getting any ideas! She belongs to Wang Fei.’

‘You were the one who brought it up,’ he said, looking down again. ‘I’ve only met her a couple of times. We didn’t speak much. But funnily enough, Yanyan got suspicious and asked me what my relationship with her was.’

‘The Hunger Strike Group has really messed things up,’ I said, then corrected myself. ‘The Hunger Strike Headquarters, I mean. How long are you going to carry on with the fast?’ I spotted Old Fu sitting on a cardboard box at the base of the Monument, smoking a cigarette. Sister Gao was sitting next to him, sipping from a bottle of saline water.

‘Thirty hunger strikers from Southern University arrived last night,’ Mou Sen said, crushing out his cigarette at last. ‘They seem much more politicised than we were as undergraduates. Tang Guoxian brought them up here with a large group of students from Guangdong Province. Sun Chunlin’s here too, on a business trip. He’s staying in a luxury hotel. The bastard’s made a fortune for himself in Shenzhen.’

‘That’s strange. Tang Guoxian was never interested in politics when we were at Southern University. Come on, let’s go and speak to Liu Gang.’ I pulled Mou Sen up and led him to the base of the Monument.

Liu Gang and Shu Tong were talking to Old Fu. They’d borrowed a van and brought three barrels of water to the Square, and were about to take away some sacks of rubbish.

‘Our democracy movement has spread throughout the country,’ Wang Fei said to us. ‘It’s like the fable of the Eight Immortals crossing the sea, joining together to reach a common goal.’ He squatted down and stubbed out his cigarette on a polystyrene food box, creating a plume of acrid smoke. ‘In times of turmoil, everyone wants to show what they’re capable of.’

‘Don’t try and use the hunger strike to stir up trouble, Wang Fei, that would be too much,’ Mou Sen said. ‘You look exhausted, Old Fu. Why don’t you go back to the campus and get some rest?’

Old Fu’s eyes were red. He’d been up all night chain-smoking, unable to get to sleep. ‘Gorbachev won’t be coming here,’ he said, gazing at the west side of the Square that was now almost empty. ‘I’m sure the government has cancelled the welcoming ceremony.’

All the students and red banners had now shifted to the east side of the Square. A few students who’d refused to move sat in isolated groups between the Great Hall of the People and the Monument to the People’s Heroes.

‘Wang Fei, I sent you here to write articles for the
News Herald
, but now you’re acting like some kind of leader,’ Shu Tong said angrily. ‘Look, it’s nine thirty already. Do you really think the government would dream of holding a welcoming ceremony for a foreign statesman in front of a crowd of bedraggled hunger strikers? You lot thought you could hold the government to ransom, but they don’t need to listen to you. They can hold the ceremony somewhere else if they want. There’s no point in the students staying here any longer.’

‘If we withdraw from the Square now, it will be an admission of failure,’ Wang Fei said. He was very worked up. He kept raising his megaphone and shouting random slogans through it.

‘Why don’t you go to the Headquarters and sign up to burn yourself to death, then?’ Sister Gao said.

‘The Headquarters have just held their first meeting and decided to scrap that idea,’ said Liu Gang. ‘Their latest plan is to get the hunger strikers to lie down on Changan Avenue after the intellectuals’ march this afternoon.’ He seemed to have lost the enthusiasm he’d shown during the early days of the movement.

‘Then they’ll start calling for class boycotts, teachers’ strikes, shopkeepers’ strikes, and before long, we’ll have a revolution on our hands,’ Mou Sen said, running his fingers through his hair.

‘The hunger strike has ruined everything,’ Shu Tong groaned.

‘The reformist wing of the government wants our movement to progress peacefully,’ Sister Gao said to Mou Sen. ‘The hardliners want it to end in violence, so they can oust Zhao Ziyang from power. By continuing this hunger strike, we’re playing into their hands.’

‘Who’s to say Zhao Ziyang and his lot are any better than the hardliners?’ Chen Di said. ‘I’ve heard rumours that Zhao Ziyang’s son has been using his power to buy colour televisions at low state prices then sell them for huge profits on the black market.’ He’d written the words HUNGER STRIKE across his vest in black felt-tip pen.

‘There’s no hope of a peaceful settlement now,’ Shu Tong said. ‘The dialogue was going well, Old Fu. Why did you have to insist that it be broadcast live?’

‘The hunger strikers didn’t trust the Dialogue Delegation,’ Old Fu said. ‘They wanted to hear for themselves what was being said during the meeting.’

‘Look, the west side of the Square is completely empty now!’ Wang Fei said. ‘The Dialogue Delegation made the same mistake as Ke Xi: they retreated first, then set out their demands, instead of only retreating once their demands were met.’ The megaphone in his hand screeched as he fiddled with the switch.

‘The hunger strike will test the government’s resolve,’ Mou Sen said abruptly. ‘We’ll see if they dare play with the lives of three thousand students. They’ll have to respond to us by tonight. The fasters won’t be able to continue much longer. Many of them are already in a critical state.’

Nearby, we could hear Nuwa’s voice coming over the PA system: ‘Some hunger strikers who passed out are being treated in the emergency care tent. They will only drink plain water. The nurses have tried to give them glucose solution, but as soon as they taste it, they spit it out and refuse to drink any more . . .’ When she finished reading the statement, she repeated it in English. Her voice sounded beautiful. Mou Sen’s gaze shifted to the loudspeaker she was standing behind.

‘I heard that when the intellectuals came here last night, you grabbed the microphone from them, then shouted for everyone to leave the Square,’ Mou Sen said angrily to Wang Fei. ‘What were you thinking of, trying to steal the limelight like that?’

‘We Beijing University students started this movement,’ Wang Fei growled. ‘We formulated all the demands. If you think you’re so clever, go and start your own movement and see how far you get.’ Wang Fei was convinced that he was the prime instigator of the student movement.

‘We can’t expect a corrupt government like ours to agree to our demands,’ said Sister Gao. ‘But if the leaders were to just come out and meet with us, we’d withdraw from the Square at once.’

‘We’re trapped between irrational politicians and irrational students,’ Shu Tong said.

‘Everyone’s focused on the hunger strike now,’ Old Fu said. ‘We have no choice but to go along with it and lend it our full support.’ He took a couple of liver tablets from his pocket and swallowed them without water.

‘This is supposed to be a democracy movement, not a revolution,’ said Shu Tong. ‘If you take things too far, you’ll be crushed in the end.’

‘Our problem now is that no one person or group is capable of taking control of the Square,’ Old Fu said.

Sister Gao wiped the sweat from her face with a paper handkerchief, then fanned her neck with her straw hat. ‘Ke Xi has fainted again and been rushed to hospital,’ she said. ‘Even if he comes back, he won’t stand much chance of regaining power. Han Dan has been sidelined. Your only option now is to negotiate with Bai Ling and Lin Lu.’

Old Fu shrugged. ‘I’m only the Hunger Strike Headquarters’ logistics officer, so don’t look at me. You go and negotiate with them.’ He leaned down and picked up a briefcase. ‘I want to set up a proper broadcast station, Dai Wei,’ he said, turning to me. ‘The PA system is too primitive. Come and help me buy some equipment. This briefcase is full of cash. We put out four donation boxes on the Square and they were all filled within a few hours.’

I didn’t feel like going shopping for electrical equipment, but I was desperate to find something to eat, so I picked up my bag and followed Old Fu out of the Square.

There is a river between the mountains, but no grass or trees. The cliffs are too steep to climb. A wild animal that looks like a fox but has human hair lives in the valley. It has both male and female genitals, and can reproduce by itself. If you eat its meat, you will be cured of jealousy . . . This passage is probably from the chapter entitled ‘Great Wilderness: West’. I’d hoped to explore those lands one day, but instead I’ve been forced to wander through the interior landscape of my blood vessels and organs.

My mother must have removed the empty bottle from my drip stand. I can hear her stick the tube into a new bottle of glucose solution. A few seconds later, a stream of antibiotics and vitamins flows through my veins and is absorbed into the hepatic lobules. The colon bacteria left on the needle by my mother’s dirty hands also enters my bloodstream. The red blood cells it kills upon impact are pushed deeper into the hepatic sinus . . .

By sunset, Old Fu and I, with some help from Big Chan and Little Chan, had set up a broadcast station on the north side of the Monument. We installed the new batteries, amplifiers and microphones, and attached eight loudspeakers to the Monument’s granite obelisk. When we broadcast the tape of the Internationale, everyone turned towards us, and the Monument became the focal point of the Square. Hai Feng brought over some plastic sheeting and constructed a shelter to protect our equipment from the rain.

Ke Xi hobbled over to us, a drip still attached to his arm, and said, ‘I’ve appointed myself temporary commander-in-chief of the Hunger Strike Headquarters. Lin Lu and Bai Ling weren’t elected to their posts. They have no legitimate authority.’

‘You’re all starving to death,’ Old Fu whispered, trying not to disturb the discussion Mao Da was chairing. ‘Where do you find the energy to engage in these power struggles?’

‘The Headquarters is in charge of the movement now,’ Ke Xi said. ‘The Organising Committee and the Beijing Students’ Federation must play subsidiary roles.’ His pale face was covered in sweat. Two nurses were standing behind him, holding his bottle of IV fluid.

I wasn’t in a mood to listen to them argue, so I went to test the new equipment.

A large crowd gathered round our new broadcast station and handed us ice lollies, bread rolls, telegrams, letters of support and pamphlets. In less than an hour, I received ten donations of cash. Some people pressed the notes into my hands then walked away without saying a word.

We taped up an empty cardboard box to make a new donation box. As soon as we put it down on our table, a middle-aged man who’d travelled up from the provinces took 10,000 yuan from his bag and said he’d give it to us if we let him broadcast a few words to the students.

We were dumbstruck. None of us had seen 10,000 yuan in cash before. We immediately put a microphone in his hands, then, since there were no chairs around, placed a sheet of paper over a large brick and invited him to sit down.

He spoke for almost five minutes, with tears streaming down his face, but his Fujian accent was too strong for most people to understand. In the end Old Fu whispered to me, ‘We’d better cut him off. Everyone’s wondering what’s going on.’

I unplugged the microphone and politely asked him to leave.

A middle-school student from Guangdong Province walked up saying he’d come to Beijing to deliver seventy yuan his classmates had raised for us, but had lost his bag, and all the money, on the train. I gave him a hundred yuan and told him to catch the next train home.

Within the space of three hours, we were given a hundred telegrams from around the country. Nuwa, Mao Da and Chen Di almost lost their voices as they took turns to read them out to the Square.

I handed Nuwa a carton of orange juice. She wiped the sweat from her face and sucked the straw until it made a whistling noise.

‘How do you think this will all end?’ I said. ‘Are you prepared for what might happen?’ I’d wanted to ask her how things were going between her and Wang Fei, but felt that we weren’t close enough.

The previous week, Tian Yi and I had gone out for a meal with her and Wang Fei at Kentucky Fried Chicken. She’d put her arm around Wang Fei during the meal, carried away perhaps by the restaurant’s modern and relaxed atmosphere, but over the past few days, I’d detected a growing coldness between them.