Ma Jian - Beijing Coma

A new voice crackled over the student loudspeakers: ‘Ke Xi has just fainted again. He’s been taken to hospital. Please ignore the order he issued just now. It didn’t have the backing of the student leadership. I am Lin Lu, the acting commander-in-chief.’

Then Han Dan took the microphone and said, ‘This is commander-in-chief Han Dan speaking. No one has decided to leave the Square yet — not the Headquarters, nor the Beijing Students’ Federation, nor the Provincial Students’ Federation. So everyone must stay where they are…’

Someone shouted through a megaphone: ‘It’s six o’clock! The army hasn’t come! Fellow students, we have triumphed! The people have triumphed! Quickly, play the national anthem!’ It was Chen Di. He hadn’t run away after all.

His announcement brought a smile to everyone’s faces. A feeling of relief and celebration swept through the Square. I glanced into the distance and saw pale rays of light peeping above the horizon.

Your spirit drifts towards the River of Blood which carried you into this world.

My mother is jabbering into her new telephone.

‘I got it installed two weeks ago, but I still jump every time it rings. In the past, only top government leaders had telephones in their homes… Americans? I know they’ve all got phones… What, they even have them out in the streets? Aren’t they afraid someone might steal them? If only you could come back to China, Tian Yi, we could sit down and have a proper chat. My wooden son here might not think about you, but I do… It’s your birthday next week, isn’t it? He wrote the date down in his journal… I’m sorry, I know his journal is private, but the doctor told me I should read it out to him. He said it might help him recover some memories…’

I hate my mother reading my journal, especially the passages about A-Mei and Tian Yi. There are lots of references to sex, but fortunately she can’t understand most of them. When she came across the line: ‘I want to die inside your beautiful, fleshy tomb,’ she said angrily, ‘Look at this! When you talk to a girl about love, all you’re thinking about is death.’

‘… Tell American journalists what happened to Dai Wei?’ my mother continues. ‘Imagine what trouble I’d get into! Well, I’ll discuss it with the relatives of other victims and see what they think… Was her son killed too? What’s her name? Fan Jing? Yes, I know her. She put her cat in the front basket of her bicycle and rode around the Square for hours searching for her son’s body. She never found it. The cat was heartbroken. It refused to eat and ended up dying of starvation… Can you hear me? I’m sorry, I’ll turn it down. I always keep the radio on for him…’

The telephone is in the sitting room. I can hear the murmur of Tian Yi’s voice, but can’t make out what she’s saying.

My mother finally ends the conversation then slams the receiver noisily back into its cradle. ‘Your girlfriend’s doing very well for herself in America,’ she mutters. ‘She’s passed her driving test, and has seen all the sights of New York. She’s even gone up into the head of the Statue of Liberty. She said it’s higher than Tiananmen Gate. See what a wonderful life she’s having now! If only you had come home with me that day like I begged you to, you wouldn’t have ended up with a bullet in your head. You’d be out there in New York with Tian Yi, studying at an American university. Why is it that all the bad things happen to me? Is anything ever going to change?’

I want to tell my mother that my heart has become numb since Tian Yi left, and that all that remains of me now is a pile of skin and bone waiting to crumble into dust.

When the telephone line was installed two weeks ago, my mother was so excited she spent all day on the phone. When she couldn’t think of any more friends to call, she rang all the local shops, then leafed through the telephone directory and dialled numbers at random. But since a friend told her that each call costs a minimum of two jiao, she’s hardly used it at all.

All memories are reconstructions. When my mother reads out the pages of my journal, memories that have crumbled into ruin are rebuilt in a different form. When she reads out my description of climbing the mountain in Yunnan, I see myself walking up with Tian Yi hand in hand, but from a vantage point that is above and behind. Although we did climb this mountain together, the scene I picture is a fabrication. How could I have seen myself from behind? And besides, the rainforest we were walking through was so dense, it would have been impossible to see us through the leaves. Who is that person who was looking down at me? Does a part of us leave our bodies and keep watch over our lives, transmitting images back to our brains like a satellite?

I picture a crowd, and search for my face. I’m probably wearing a white shirt, with a white vest underneath, and a grey jacket on top. Tian Yi was right. When I stand in a crowd of students, there’s nothing particular about me that marks me out, apart from my height. My face has no expression, no superfluous fat. It’s a face you could see a hundred times without it sticking in your mind. The only remarkable feature on it is the pair of sunglasses that Tian Yi gave me. They’re black, and a little too large, but at least they add some character to my face. I knew she liked them, so I wore them all the time in the Square. I can also see myself from behind, placing my hand on her shoulder and saying, ‘It’s your birthday on the 28th. Why don’t we pack a copy of The Book of Mountains and Seas , and go and climb Mount Tai?’

‘Don’t look so pleased with yourself,’ she said, frowning. Bai Ling had just called off the hunger strike.

‘Well, I did tell you the strike wouldn’t achieve anything. And I was right. We’re stuck in limbo now.’

‘What makes you so sure?’ I could smell that she hadn’t brushed her teeth yet.

If the waters of life were to run through my dry channels once more, would she creep out from the silt and drag me back to our old life? Oh, never mind. Perhaps I’m better off lying here with my memories. Time has lost all meaning for me. Even if I did regain my lost memories and wake up from this coma, the only real change would be that my horizontal body would become vertical again.

The smell of Tian Yi’s body slides past your bullet wound then mingles with the scent of leaves and rain in your frontal lobes.

It was almost dusk. Old Fu suddenly appeared from nowhere and shouted to Mou Sen, who’d returned to the Square a few hours before, ‘What are these foreigners doing here? They can’t attend the meeting. The government will accuse us of “colluding with overseas reactionary organisations”!’

‘They’re not journalists. They’re members of the Hong Kong Student Association and the American Overseas Chinese Student Solidarity Group.’

Mou Sen, as the Beijing Students’ Federation’s general secretary, had convened a meeting of one hundred university representatives to discuss whether we should leave the Square. He’d gone back to the campus and had some sleep, and was now full of energy.

‘I don’t care,’ said Old Fu. ‘They can’t stay.’

‘Where did you go off to, Old Fu?’ I whispered.

‘I went to a friend’s house and crashed out on his sofa.’ He didn’t ask where I went. He could probably tell I hadn’t left the Square.

Mou Sen’s girlfriend Yanyan was setting up the tape recorder. I’d bumped into her several times over the past couple of days. She’d become much more involved in the movement since the end of the hunger strike.

‘It’s too much, Old Fu,’ said Mou Sen. ‘I organised this meeting. The Hunger Strike Headquarters has disbanded now, so you have no right to tell me what to do.’ Old Fu fell silent and skulked off.