Ma Jian - Beijing Coma

A fly buzzes through the room and lands on my sweaty forehead. I hear someone outside drag a gas canister off the back of a flatbed truck. My body seems to rise from the bed. I hear a bang, then someone shouting, ‘Let us through! Let us through! A student’s been shot! Those fucking bastards, how could they do this? Check if there’s an ID card in his pocket. Take off your shirt and wrap it around his head.’ There’s a stream of muffled yells. All I can see before me is a faint light and a floating ribbon of cloth. The image is so transfixing, I forget to breathe.

‘Open the door too,’ Master Yao says.

I take a deep breath and feel the summer heat stream down my trachea.

‘Have a rest, Master Yao. You’ve been healing him for three hours now. Why not wipe away your sweat?’ I’ve never heard my mother speak so gently before.

Master Yao removes his hands from my Greater Yang point.

My mother taps the drip bottle, picks up the electric fan and goes to join Master Yao in the sitting room. Cool intravenous fluid flows into my warm vein. It’s a pleasant feeling. My mother comes back to fetch her cup of tea then returns to the sofa.

‘Your son’s qi has been too severely damaged,’ Master Yao says. ‘I don’t think I can help him.’

‘What am I going to do? I’m getting frail. I won’t be able to look after him much longer. He’s been having problems passing urine. If they put him on a urine drainage bag, how will I cope? I have a life too, you know. I’ve been looking after him every day for the last five years. If only he could just open his eyes…’

I gradually revert to the state I was in before the qigong session. Since Master Yao thinks he’s failed, I doubt he’ll bother treating me again.

If only he’d persevered a little longer, something might have happened. I felt the capillaries in my brain wriggle with anticipation and my eyeballs rotate in a semicircle. But just as my eyelids were about to part, he pulled his hands away.

On Buzhou Mountain grows the jia tree. It has oval leaves, and flowers with yellow petals and red sepals. If you eat its fruit, you will forget all your worries.

‘Someone told me that you were once a school teacher, Master Yao,’ my mother says, enunciating her words clearly.

‘I worked in a district education department. But I was in the finance office. I was never a teacher.’

‘You’ve been practising qigong for many years, I assume.’

‘More than ten. I took it up after I was demoted and sent to Henan Province.’

‘You’ve been a victim of the campaigns too, then.’ My mother pauses to take a sip of tea. ‘Is your child working yet?’

‘I’ve got two. A boy and a girl. They’re both married.’

‘And your wife, does she still work?’

‘She passed away two years ago.’

‘Oh.’ My mother doesn’t question him further, showing some discretion at last.

‘She contracted an incurable disease,’ Master Yao says quietly.

My mother is now thinking of him as an unattached widower, rather than a qigong master. She falls silent for a moment, no doubt mulling over this new information.

‘Let me give you something to eat before you go,’ she says.

‘It’s too early for me. I usually don’t have supper until seven o’clock.’

‘But it’s so nice for me to have company. I can never be bothered to cook when I’m on my own.’

‘All right, let’s cook ourselves a meal then. I’m no great chef, but I can guarantee you won’t be disappointed with my stir-fried kidneys and pig’s liver.’

‘That sounds delicious. I’ve got some hairtail fish and prawns in the freezer as well…’

For the first time in years, I hear my mother laughing. The new kettle she bought whistles loudly as it comes to the boil. While I listen to the irritating noise, it occurs to me that if I weren’t lying in this coma, I might be exploring the Tianshan Mountains in the far-western province of Xinjiang. Those mountains are freezing, even in summer. Snow lotuses bloom on the ice-capped peaks. Tian Yi asked me many times to take her to Xinjiang. When I think about her now, I feel I’m staring out at a vast, silent desert.

My muscles have been softened by Master Yao’s qi. The summer heat is stupefying. Usually, when my thoughts turn to The Book of Mountains and Seas , I can wander through the imaginary landscapes for hours, but today’s sweltering heat has blocked all those mountain paths.

Your head is submerged in cold, fetid water, but you’re still breathing.

‘Get out! This is the girls’ dorm!’ Mimi cried as I lifted the curtain she and Tian Yi had hung across a corner of the broadcast station, blocking off a small area for their own private use. It had that sweet, damp smell typical of girls’ bedrooms.

‘We’re preparing for the final battle, but we’re not optimistic about the outcome…’ Bai Ling said into the telephone. It didn’t sound as though she was talking to a journalist.

I tapped her shoulder and said, ‘The journalists outside want to know what you think of the demonstrations taking place around the world today.’ I’d returned to the campus the previous night to get some sleep. The dorm was crammed with boxes and backpacks, and the corridor was littered with leaflets, discarded tea dregs and leftover food.

‘I can’t speak to them now, I need to go and have a word with Lin Lu,’ she said, donning the baseball cap and sunglasses she always wore when she wanted to walk through the Square unnoticed.

‘I don’t know how you put up with Lin Lu,’ Mimi said to Bai Ling. ‘He’s so cold and ambitious.’

‘We need to bring him onto our side,’ Bai Ling answered. She’d smeared tiger balm over her legs. Her skin was very susceptible to mosquito bites.

‘If you were drowning in the sea, and there was only room for two people in the lifeboat, who would you chose to go with you — Wang Fei or Lin Lu?’ Mimi asked.

The question seemed a little absurd but, without hesitating, Bai Ling answered, ‘Wang Fei, of course.’

‘Ha! So you really have fallen for him!’ Mimi laughed. ‘Hmm, this student movement is getting very interesting…’ Bai Ling’s face turned deep red.

‘I spoke to a construction manager today, and he suggested that during our next campaign, we erect a vast tent covering the entire Square,’ Tian Yi said, emerging from behind the curtain.

‘You think there’ll be a next time?’ I said. ‘If the government launches a crackdown, we’ll all be spending the next twenty years in jail.’

‘Can you get us something to eat, Dai Wei?’ Mimi said, furrowing her brow. ‘The bread rolls in that box are mouldy.’

‘They look fine to me,’ I said, picking one up. Mimi was standing in front of the equipment. The borrowed aertex shirt she’d changed into was far too long for her.

When you’ve stared at the past for so long that time dissolves, you’ll be able to wake from your slumber.

Mou Sen was sitting with Nuwa beneath the English Department banner. He got up and strolled with me to the south side of the Square.

It was still early in the morning, and not many supporters had turned up yet. Professors from the Beijing Institute of Science and Technology were marching up from Qianmen brandishing brooms and holding banners that said SWEEP AWAY CORRUPTION! A student cycled past them waving a straw effigy of Li Peng.

‘There are only three thousand students left in the Square now,’ Mou Sen said despondently. ‘We must withdraw.’

‘I’m sure more people will turn up in the afternoon,’ I said.

‘The army has encircled the city. If we stay here any longer, we’ll be doomed.’

‘I’d like to leave too. I’m only staying because of Tian Yi.’