Ma Jian - Beijing Coma

‘Not again! You promised you wouldn’t cry again,’ Wang Fei whispered, patting Bai Ling’s back. Her small delicate ears trembled as her head juddered.

We put down our chopsticks. There were few customers in the restaurant, but many flies. Whenever they settled on the table or a plate of food, Tian Yi would whisk them away with her sandalwood fan. The screeches and roars of the trolleybuses, cars and bicycles outside merged into one large clamour.

‘I’m on the government’s blacklist,’ Bai Ling muttered. ‘I want to run away. I don’t care if people think I’m selfish. I want to live. Oh, I’m so confused…’ She dissolved into tears again, her jet-black hair dangling over the fried tomatoes in her bowl.

Wang Fei shifted his stool closer to her and propped her up with his shoulder. Tian Yi pressed another paper napkin into Bai Ling’s hand.

This young woman who was so resolute and determined in public was now sobbing like a child. Since the launch of the hunger strike, she’d been pushed to the front line, and to stay there for so long required nerves of steel. Before she started crying, I’d thought of telling her that it was unfortunate she’d approved Mou Sen’s resignation, but seeing her distress, I decided not to.

‘Hey, it’s Tian Yi’s birthday,’ said Wang Fei. ‘Let’s not talk about the Square. Tian Yi, I wish you all the happiness and success in the world!’ He pulled his hand away from Bai Ling’s back and raised his glass of beer.

‘I’ve developed a bad case of war fatigue!’ Bai Ling rubbed the tears from her eyes and lifted her glass. ‘Tell us what your birthday wish is,’ she said, not daring to lift her gaze from Tian Yi’s hands.

‘My wish is to have freedom of thought and to see an end to this political dictatorship,’ Tian Yi said. ‘I don’t want to have to live in fear.’

‘That’s easy. All you need to do is go abroad with Dai Wei.’ Wang Fei stuffed a paper napkin under his armpit to mop up the sweat then tossed it onto the ground.

‘I’m a Chinese citizen,’ she replied. ‘I don’t want to devote my youth to a foreign country.’ She turned to Wang Fei and Bai Ling. ‘Come on, you two. I’d like to toast to your happiness as well. May all your wishes come true!’

Tian Yi put down her sandalwood fan and poured some more Coke into Bai Ling’s glass. I was struck by how self-assured and resolute she’d become over the last few weeks. My mother had sent me a message saying my cousin Kenneth and his wife had arrived in Beijing. I wanted to ask Tian Yi to accompany us on a trip to the Great Wall the next day, but was afraid she’d accuse me of deserting my duties.

‘Thank you, thank you,’ Bai Ling said, smiling. ‘In fact, my only wish is to have an ordinary life. I’d like to have children and watch them grow up. Come on, cheers!’ She glanced at Wang Fei and clinked her glass against his. He put his arm around her and downed the beer in one gulp.

The restaurant manager walked over with a cigarette dangling from his mouth and said, ‘There’s a rumour going round that those new canvas tents you’ve put up in the Square are part of an empty-fort strategy, a ploy to scare off the government, giving you time to make a quick retreat.’

‘We won’t retreat,’ Wang Fei said. ‘We’ll stay in the Square until the bitter end. Look, the commander-in-chief is sitting right here.’ He patted Bai Ling’s shoulder proudly.

‘Oh, it’s Bai Ling! I’ve seen your photograph in the newspapers!’ The manager was taken aback.

As Bai Ling gave a reluctant smile, the insect bites on her forehead turned redder. ‘Well, you can call the police now, if you want, and tell them to come and arrest us,’ she said.

‘No, no, I’d never do that. I wouldn’t want any plain-clothes cops coming round here again. A couple of days ago, two foreigners came in for a meal. As soon as they left, a secret-police officer walked in and asked me what they’d said. There are only four tables in this restaurant, so I can hear everything. But the foreigners were speaking English. How was I to know what they were saying? So I’m not cut out to be a government spy, you see. Come on, have a cigarette!’

You want to stop the glucose solution entering your vein and slowly die of starvation.

My ears are like air vents. I can’t choose which noises enter them. What is more frustrating is that my urine has now become a focus of media interest. For the last five days, reporters have been streaming into our flat to interview my mother and take photographs of me.

Yesterday, a man with a squawking voice said, ‘Look how translucent his skin is! It’s a sign that his years of fasting have transported him to a higher plane.’

‘You can tell from his facial features that he’s destined to live a long life,’ his colleague said.

‘He looks just like that qigong master, Kong Hai, who has the most miraculous urine of all the Taoist masters.’

‘Master Kong Hai hasn’t eaten or slept for thirteen years,’ someone else concurred.

‘Yes, Kong Hai’s urine has been declared a national treasure. Only the Premier’s wife is allowed to drink it.’

How could these strange men imagine that my urine has magical properties? What sort of tonic could a corpse like mine produce?

My mother is playing Mahjong with four other women. When they shuffle the plastic pieces it sounds as though they’re scattering pebbles onto the table.

‘We’ve uncovered another two fatalities,’ Fan Jing says quietly. ‘That brings the number of dead to 155.’

The women are skimming through the latest list of casualties of the crackdown and their relatives.

‘I know this woman Zhang Li. Her husband was beaten to death on Fuxingmen Street on 6 June. She was sacked from her government job afterwards. She’s destitute. All she owns is a bed and a chair. Her mental state is very unstable. She doesn’t like staying in her flat when it gets dark, so she spends all night wandering through the lanes.’

‘There were still people being killed on 6 June?’ my mother asks.

‘Yes, the massacre that took place in Fuxingmen has been dubbed a “mini 4 June”. Tanks rolled through the street and fired at the crowd indiscriminately. Look, Professor Ding has got details of three people who were killed there. See here — “a boy, just thirteen years old, lay on the street, his guts splayed over his stomach, and the soldiers refused to let anyone go to his rescue.”’

‘Look at this. I was the one who found out about this guy,’ Fan Jing says. ‘His wife lives in a tiny shack in the suburbs. She farms twenty mu of land all by herself. No one ever visits her, except the police, who come every anniversary of the crackdown to warn her not to speak to journalists.’

‘We should invite her over one day,’ my mother says. ‘She must get tired of being alone all the time.’

‘She wouldn’t be able to afford the bus trip. She doesn’t even have money to buy herself clothes. She wears a man’s army uniform she picked up on the street.’

‘See these photographs,’ Gui Lan says. ‘This girl was called Zhang Chu. She was only nineteen. She’s the one in the red shirt leaning against the foreigner. Such a pretty smile. When the bullet struck her head, blood spurted from her ears… Someone gave me her parents’ address. I went to the flat, but discovered they’d moved out ages ago.’

‘Where did she die?’

‘In Qianmen, on the main road, in her boyfriend’s arms…’

These women sound like a band of underground activists as they chat away, playing Mahjong.

‘It’s amazing to think your son’s piss can be used as medicine,’ An Qi says, grabbing the copy of the Beijing Evening Star that Fan Jing brought with her. ‘Look at this headline: “Urine of comatose man cures terminal cancer patient”.’