Ma Jian - Beijing Coma

‘I wondered whether I might see you here!’ I said, moving closer to her.

‘Well, here I am!’ Her newly cut hair blew softly in the breeze.

‘You handed me a bottle of Coke during a march a few weeks ago. I didn’t know whether you recognised me or not. Why didn’t you say anything to me?’

‘There were too many people about.’

‘I heard you’ve opened a restaurant.’ I felt as though I was looking into my past. Her face was a slightly enlarged version of the one she’d had at fifteen.

‘I’m not as clever as you. I wouldn’t have got into university.’ She was wearing a purple dress and a gold necklace.

‘Don’t be so curt. It’s not every day you meet up with an old school friend. And we weren’t just school friends…’ I was suddenly back in the present again. The awkwardness I’d always felt in her presence seemed to have vanished.

‘I suppose you’re right.’ She raised her eyebrows again. Because I was so much taller than her, she was speaking to my university badge instead of my face.

‘Do you still hate me?’ I asked calmly.

‘I never hated you. I just didn’t like the way you let me take the punishment for something you did.’ The corner of her mouth twitched for a second. It reminded me of how nervous she’d get when we used to sneak off alone together.

‘It’s a good thing we’ve joined this movement,’ I said. ‘These protests will help us get rid of all our pent-up anger.’

‘This movement belongs to the people! You shouldn’t be using it for your own selfish purposes. We’re here to fight corruption, not to take revenge on people who’ve hurt us in the past.’ She laughed, clearly pleased with herself.

I’d lost interest in the conversation and didn’t know what to say next. I felt as confused as someone who enters a noodle restaurant full of excitement only to be told that there are no more noodles left. Fortunately, she quickly filled the silence. ‘I’d better be off now, comrade student,’ she said. ‘We can have a proper talk next time. I come to the Square every day now to hand out steamed buns. I really hope you students succeed in changing this country. We’re sick of the government bullying us all the time.’ When she lifted her hand to flick back her fringe, I glimpsed the black hairs under her arm — those fine strands of my past.

‘Where’s your restaurant?’ I asked. ‘I might pop in for a meal one day.’

‘Yes, do! I’ll give you a 20 per cent discount. It’s right opposite Fuxing Hospital. It’s called Lulu’s Café.’ Then she waved goodbye and walked back to her friends.

I watched her legs and black leather court shoes disappear into the crowd, and breathed a sigh of relief. I remembered the first time she was allowed to buy herself an ice lolly. When the ice-cream seller lifted the quilt he’d draped over the ice box, pulled out the frost-covered lolly and handed it to her, her face glowed with pride. As she stood in the sunlight, waiting to put the lolly into her mouth, she looked like an angel. I was standing beside her, sweaty and sunburnt, poking my stick into the hot road then smearing the lumps of molten asphalt onto the trunk of the locust tree.

Neither Bai Ling nor Wang Fei dared leave the broadcast station that night in case there was another attempted coup. They seemed to have completely forgotten about the martial law troops standing in wait on the outskirts of the city.

Your organs try to halt the passing of time, whimpering and lashing out like dogs that have lost their owners.

‘Shall I close the windows, Director?’

‘Yes, close them all.’

The man sitting beside me presses my Greater Yang point. ‘There’s a piece of skull missing here,’ he says.

My mother takes a deep breath. ‘I know. It’s in the refrigerator of the hospital where he was first operated on. He’s as numb as a plank of wood. Do you think he’ll be able to absorb your qi?’

‘Wood can catch fire, don’t forget. But even if he doesn’t absorb my qi, I’ll still be able to enter the root of his disease and examine his soul.’

‘Here are his medical records, Director,’ a young nurse standing next to me says.

‘Please can everyone leave the room now, and close the door behind you.’ The director speaks with the same Sichuan accent as Wang Fei.

Last night, my mother whispered into my ear that we’d arrived at Qingcheng Mountain in Sichuan Province. Although this is a small, private hospital in the middle of nowhere, the director is a member of the Chinese Qigong Association, and has even studied abroad.

He presses my soft wound again, transmitting a warm glow into my brain. As his fingers dig down, I can feel that one of them is longer than the other. He then prods the Eye of Heaven point between my eyebrows, and I see a bright flash of light. As his energy waves continue to pulsate through my skull, the neurons of my cerebral cortex begin to twitch, and light flashes through the tubules of my endoplasmic reticulum. Brain cells that have lain dormant for years jolt to attention, as though they’d just heard a school bell ring. Then, through a ball of white light, I see a man approach. He looks at me and says, ‘You must imagine yourself as me. Only then will I be able to stimulate the subtle channels of your body and let my energy resonate at the same frequency as yours. Can you hear me?’

I remember reading a research article on thought-transmission a few years ago, but I’ve never experienced the phenomenon before.

My memories begin to swirl. His electromagnetic waves seep through my brain like wine. ‘Relax, relax, as though you’re drifting into sleep…’ the director murmurs as his image flickers before my eyes. I can hear a patient, or a nurse, walking down a hospital corridor, but I’m not sure which hospital it is. Because I was born in a hospital corridor, I’m very sensitive to the sounds that echo through them. Perhaps the director has dredged up a long-forgotten memory of my first moment in this world.

‘His skin used to be fine, but since the transfusions he’s been having here, it’s become blotchy and dry,’ my mother says. I presume the director is staring at my chapped arm.

‘What does he enjoy doing?’ he asks my mother. At the same time, he enters my brain and asks me, ‘What do you enjoy doing?’

‘As a child, he liked making model warships,’ my mother says. ‘When he was older, he liked to read biographies of famous people, especially memoirs from the Second World War. One year, he spent the whole summer reading The Book of Mountains and Seas .’

I answer, ‘I like to travel, and play football, and…’ I rack my brain, trying to come up with another hobby, but can’t think of one.

‘Imagine you’re sitting on a boat, the sea all around you,’ he murmurs to me in my brain. ‘You are eight years old…’

‘No, I get seasick,’ I reply to him. ‘I like to climb mountains, though…’ Although I don’t recognise his face, there’s something familiar about him.

‘Try it, it’s easy. It’s like having a dream. You must return to your childhood, and start all over again.’ His voice repeats through my brain: ‘Think about your school textbooks, your stamp collections, the model warship you made…’

‘No, it was a model aeroplane. What I liked most was making kites. I remember a huge sunbird kite I made…’ My brain becomes warmer and begins to sweat. For a moment, the director disappears. All that remains is the echo of his voice, and the memory of his gaze, which was as intense as Mou Sen’s.

Then I hear a loud crash and the sound of breaking glass.

‘That was a wall exploding in your mind. It was blocking your memories. Everything’s fine now. You can walk straight through. Think of a loud noise you heard as a child, then follow it and see where it takes you…’