Ma Jian - Beijing Coma

My mother hasn’t shut the door. She’s probably planning to go out for walk.

This small town isn’t far from Wang Fei’s home. I’d love to see him, or rather, I’d love him to come and see me…

The sunlight is warming the room, softening my skin and causing my pores to dilate and secrete beads of sweat. The pores on my back are squashed flat against the sheet by the weight of my body, and very little blood is flowing through the capillaries there. I can feel ants crawling across my bug-infested bed, transporting the breadcrumbs my mother dropped onto my arm back to their nest.

You keep returning to that moment, searching for the forgotten sound of the single gunshot.

In the afternoon, the sky above this small town in Sichuan fills with sparrows. Their loud chirping and the swish of bicycle wheels outside spin through the strange-smelling air in the room.

I hear a key grate in a lock on the floor below. It sounds like a child coughing.

My mother stomps around the room, her footsteps growing heavier and heavier. Whenever she passes the doorway on my left, the plastic floor-tiles squeak.

She scratches my scalp. When her hand brushes against my ear, I hear waves crashing onto a beach.

She gobbles and sucks a tangerine, and mumbles, ‘Your dandruff is getting worse. Look, it’s all over your pillow. Your father used to have terrible dandruff too.’ This amounts to a show of tenderness. Half an hour ago she said, ‘The treatments they’ve lined up for you are so expensive. It would be better for both of us if you died in your sleep.’

She picks up the newspaper lying on the bedside table and tosses the tangerine peel out of the window. A strong citrus scent darts through the air.

‘Listen to this. Twenty-four Taiwanese tourists were killed in a pleasure boat on Qiandao Lake. Local bandits raided the boat, robbed the tourists of their money, locked them inside a cabin then set fire to the boat to destroy all evidence of their crime. How can people be so evil?…’ My mother peels another tangerine and mutters, ‘They’re much cheaper here than in Beijing. The skins are a bit thin, but they’re very sweet.’

My body is slowly contracting. My hair smells like rotting pondweed. The sweat between my toes has evaporated and my dry soles are beginning to crack.

You remember the pleasure of lifting your legs in the air, your tendons straining as you twirled your feet in circles. That sour twinge of pain, like a slice of raw lemon sliding up your bones.

Mosquitoes and moths flitted around the naked light bulb inside the Voice of Democracy broadcast station. Mou Sen and I were sitting outside having a cigarette.

‘Look at all these people,’ Mou Sen said, his eyes sweeping across the Square. ‘As soon as danger strikes, you won’t see them for dust.’

‘You said this Square is our home, and the more guests we have the greater our prestige.’ I glanced at the security office I’d just help set up on the lower terrace. I’d asked Xiao Li and Yu Jin to keep an eye on it. It was right next to Old Fu’s finance office and Mou Sen’s propaganda office. The Voice of Democracy broadcast station was directly below it on the south-east corner of the Monument. The Monument was the nerve centre of our movement. As long as it was securely guarded, we could keep the situation in the Square under control.

‘No, as far as I’m concerned, the moment we entered this Square, we all became homeless,’ Mou Sen said, rubbing his goatee. ‘We have nowhere to go now. Tang Guoxian wants to turn this place into a semi-militarised zone. He’s got guts, but he never takes the time to think things through. His recklessness is more dangerous than all of Wang Fei’s weak-kneed bluster.’

‘The government’s trying to split us up,’ I said, then remembered those nights at Southern University when Mou Sen and I would lie squashed on my bed reading the same book, our faces pressed together. Fortunately, he didn’t have a moustache and goatee back then.

‘Cao Ming’s latest intelligence report says that Li Peng moved into the Zhongnanhai compound yesterday,’ he said, scratching the red mosquito bite on his leg. ‘He’s in the villa Chairman Mao lived in before he died. I suppose he wanted to move closer to the action, so he can oversee the clearing of the Square.’

‘The Beijing Entrepreneurs’ Association has donated boxes of eggs and soap. They’re stacked up over there. The eggs will go off in a couple of days.’ We stubbed out our cigarettes and returned to the tent.

‘The crowds are dwindling and the journalists will want to know why,’ Nuwa said, glancing at Mou Sen as we walked in. ‘Can you come up with an explanation? Someone told me you were planning to leave the Square to go and write a book.’ As Bai Ling’s spokesperson, Nuwa had to deal with a constant stream of questions and requests from the foreign media.

‘So he’s finally going to write his novel, is he?’ I chuckled. ‘We Southern University graduates are such bullshitters!’ The tent reeked of garlic. Someone must have been chewing a raw clove.

‘Mou Sen is the most talented wordsmith in the Square,’ Nuwa said, turning her gaze to him. When she stepped forward, I noticed a small mosquito bite on her inner thigh, but otherwise her legs were smooth and unblemished all the way to her red-lacquered toenails.

‘He should wait until the book’s finished before he starts bragging about it,’ I said. Secretly, I knew that, being such an avid reader, Mou Sen was probably more than capable of writing a novel.

It was past midnight and the broadcasts had come to an end, so the mood in the tent was relatively relaxed.

Wang Fei was sitting next to Bai Ling, staring at his shoes. ‘The reason the crowds have dwindled is that many students have gone to help man the blockades,’ he said, responding to the question Nuwa had asked Mou Sen. ‘The battlefield has shifted to the perimeter of the city. If there are 200,000 soldiers surrounding the city, there must be at least 200,000 students blocking their advance. The Square is now the rear area of our operations.’

‘There must be a mosquito nest in here,’ Tian Yi said, numbering an audio tape and stacking it away. ‘Can someone fetch some more insect repellent incense?’

‘I’ve been bitten to death,’ Mimi mumbled. She was lying on the ground with her eyes closed. I wondered whether she was talking in her sleep.

‘There are a few coils left in that box,’ Mou Sen said. He stood up, casting a dark shadow on the tent’s canvas.

Tian Yi put a tape in the cassette player. The voice of the rock singer Cui Jian sang out: ‘ Let me cry, let me laugh. Let me go wild in the snow …’ The drumbeat was strong and insistent. In the shadows, Nuwa’s hips began to move back and forth. I stared at her bottom shaking beneath her tight denim skirt for a while, then quickly shifted my gaze to Tian Yi. Earlier that day she’d told me she didn’t approve of Nuwa painting her toenails red.

‘When the soldiers drag us away, I hope you boys will behave like gentlemen and come to our rescue,’ Nuwa said, still swaying her hips. Her lips were always shiny and red. Tian Yi’s lips only turned red after she’d had a shower.

‘We must muster a crowd of a million people and go on a…’ Lin Lu muttered as he lay fast asleep on the ground.

‘Go on a what?’ Nuwa sneered. ‘A night tour of Beijing?’ She didn’t like Lin Lu. She found him false and affected.

‘Hey, Dai Wei, your brother just called you on the phone outside the Museum of Chinese History,’ Liu Gang said, walking into the tent. ‘He said he’ll call back in an hour.’

‘How did he know the number?’

‘All the provincial universities call us on that phone when they need to get in touch with us.’ Liu Gang handed me the note he’d scribbled for me and left.