Ma Jian - Beijing Coma

‘As long as we’re still in the Square, we must continue to fight and to love!’ Mou Sen exclaimed, his sun-scorched face dripping with sweat. ‘Why did you call me over?’

‘Here’s your great masterpiece, on the front page!’ Tian Yi said. As soon as she showed him the newspaper, Nuwa snatched it from her hands.

‘Hey, let me see it!… “Here is the blue sky of May, the white dress of spring…”’ Nuwa read out the first line of the poem then smiled at Mou Sen adoringly.

Sister Gao cleared her throat and laughed. ‘You two should hurry up and get married! You can’t go on smooching around like this.’

‘That’s a great idea!’ Mou Sen said excitedly. ‘Dai Wei can be our best man, Tian Yi can be the bridesmaid, Sister Gao can be the maid of honour and Chen Di — you can be the witness. Everything’s set, then. Let’s have the wedding right away!’ Mou Sen turned round and kissed Nuwa on the lips, right in front of me. The light shining from Nuwa’s lipstick contorted the shape of her mouth. I began to feel dizzy.

Chen Di shouted through his megaphone: ‘Everyone gather round. We’re about to have a wedding!’

A crowd of students and residents rushed up to the lower terrace and formed a circle around us. The children shouted, ‘When are the bride and groom going to hand out the sweets?’ The bright sunlight shone down on us benevolently. It felt as though we were attending a wedding ceremony on the green lawn of some beautiful estate. The people at the front of the crowd pushed back the people behind. I pushed them back too, then shouted for everyone to stay still. Chen Di announced that it was time for the groom to put a ring onto his bride’s finger. With a blush rising to his cheeks, Mou Sen pulled out a ballpoint pen from his pocket, got down on his knees, then took Nuwa’s finger and carefully drew a ring around it. Tian Yi quickly adjusted the aperture and shutter speed of her camera and began snapping away. I gripped her hot shoulders. Sister Gao hadn’t had time to squeeze her way out of the crowd, so she had to stand beside them, smiling awkwardly.

‘Wonderful! Now, let’s ask the groom to tell us the story of this beautiful love affair! A round of applause, please, everyone!’

Mou Sen stood up again, his face now completely red. ‘I… I think I’ll just recite a poem, if that’s all right.’ He picked up the newspaper Tian Yi had given him. He’d removed his glasses, so I knew he wouldn’t be able to see properly. Undeterred, he peered at the page and began to recite: ‘“Our souls belong to the sun. / The sky is our eternal cradle…”’

Seeing him begin to struggle, Nuwa edged closer to him, lifted Chen Di’s megaphone to her red lips and continued: ‘“We the people stand in the People’s Square, while a thousand rifles point at our heads. / We will never abandon the Monument to the People’s Heroes. / We will guard it for ever, as solemnly as a terracotta army…”’

I could see her pale finger, marked with the black-ink ring, resting inside Mou Sen’s palm. A golden light shone from the megaphone as she waved it in the air.

‘“. . Let the bullets fly. / We are the suns that can never be shot down…”’

When she came to the end, the crowd applauded rapturously. She and Mou Sen clasped hands and said, ‘Thank you! Thank you!’

Chen Di took the megaphone from them and said, ‘Great! I now pronounce Mou Sen and Nuwa man and wife. Let’s wish them a lifetime of happiness. Please kiss the bride!’

Nuwa kept having to wipe away the tears that clung to her lashes. Mou Sen’s shirt was drenched in sweat. He grabbed my megaphone and said, ‘Thank you for your applause. I never imagined that I’d get married in Tiananmen Square. I’m so happy! When we’re all free, I’ll invite you to come and share some Maotai wine with us!’

Tian Yi put down her camera and joined the applause. I grabbed her hand and squeezed it tightly.

Yu Jin pushed his way to the front of the crowd, waved his cap and shouted, ‘That’s enough, Mou Sen. Now let the bride say a few words!’ Everyone pulled out their cameras. Someone put a tape in the cassette player and told the newly-wed couple to dance.

‘I’d just like to thank Premier Li Peng,’ said Nuwa. ‘If it weren’t for him, Mou Sen and I would never have met! That’s all I’ve got to say…’ She wiped the sweat from her forehead and smiled at Mou Sen. Then she swirled around him, her red skirt and black hair twirling like a paintbrush across a page. Mou Sen couldn’t dance, so he just jigged about stiffly. Their hands would lock briefly, then separate as she twirled round again. The crowd of children and adults began to dance too. The air and sunlight seemed to move to the rhythm. As the crowd spread out, the paved terrace began to shake.

‘ This is the season of love. You can smell the love in the air. Everyone needs to fall in love …’ Soon everyone on the Square was dancing. Tens of thousands of people were singing, clapping and stamping their feet. The Goddess of Democracy’s upheld arms looked like a flock of white doves soaring into the blue sky.

In the Land of Hidden Thoughts, men and women are able to conceive a child merely by yearning for one another.

My mother has woken up. The sun is rising. She walks into my room and turns on the light. Her footsteps sound aged and weary.

As soon as the light is switched on, flecks dart before my eyes. They look like splinters of electroplated metal.

She turns on the radio next to me, lowers the volume, then switches to a different station. ‘… The song-and-dance epic, The Glorious History , is one of the most…’ In the morning, every noise grates on my nerves.

My mother asked Xue Qin to leave last week, so that there would be room for my brother if he decides to stay here. Thank God he’s gone. What sort of society produces scum like that?

She goes into the kitchen, the toilet, then back to the kitchen again. It sounds as though she’s sleepwalking. She still hasn’t taken away my bedpan.

My brother arrived in Beijing last night. It’s the first time he’s brought his British girlfriend to China. They spoke to each other in English. I could only pick out a few words, such as: we, room, this smell, horrible, tonight, tomorrow, eat, mother, want, good, yes, too tired, no, bank, cash, travel .

I don’t know what he looks like now. But I envy him. I’d give anything to swap places with him for one day.

On his way out, he said to my mother, ‘Ask Master Yao to join us for lunch tomorrow at the Beijing duck restaurant. Helen said she’d like to try some traditional Chinese food.’

They only stayed for half an hour. They were probably driven away by the stench of my room and the smell of the disinfectant my mother had sprinkled on the floor.

If I were to die now, my mother would be able to relax and enjoy the remaining years of her life in peace. On our train journey to the hospital in Hebei where my kidney was removed, my mother said to the passenger sitting next to her, ‘My youngest son has an English girlfriend. They’re getting married soon. They want me to go and live with them. They’ve got a two-storey house with gardens at the front and back. Huh! If I didn’t have to look after this other son of mine, I’d be living there now.’

I know I’m a burden to my family. Before Dai Ru moved to England, he said to his old classmate, ‘As a child, I used to worship my brother. When the kids in our compound had competitions to see who could flick apricot stones the furthest, he always won. He was a skilled flicker. He’d put his index finger over his third finger, then snap it down onto the edge of the apricot stone with such force that it would fly right over the kerb. None of the other kids could beat him.’ I know I’ll never be able to make him proud of me again. Last night he asked my mother if she’d ever thought of sending me to a rest home.