Ma Jian - Beijing Coma

A stone smashes through the window of the covered balcony. A kid in the yard probably threw it in an attempt to kill the sparrow. A gust of hot, dry air rushes into the room.

The Arrogant Father chases after the sun. Just as he’s about to catch it, he collapses, faint from lack of water. He drinks the Yellow River, then drinks the Wei River, but still dies of thirst.

As well as the sparrow, there is now a mouse in the room. A couple of nights ago, when everything was quiet, I heard it nibbling a bag of flour in the kitchen. Now, it skips and leaps around the flat all day. When the sparrow leaves my room, the mouse climbs onto my bed and nibbles at my cheek.

I haven’t had any food poured into me for four days. If my mother doesn’t return soon, I’ll rot to death. If I was buried under rubble after an earthquake, I could command my body to dig me out. But since I’m buried inside my flesh, all I can do is wait patiently until the bacteria consume me from within.

A light so bright that it’s almost black hovers above my bed. I’ve been lying here for ten years. I have retrieved every detail of my life. There is nothing left for me to remember. If I’m to die now, I won’t feel many regrets, only grief and guilt about the students who died before me.

I don’t want to see Tian Yi again. She is now no more than a bundle of memories I will take with me to my grave. At this moment, she’s probably lying next to her fiancé, about to crawl out of bed.

What torments me is that I have no way of finding out what happened to A-Mei, even though her bloodstained letter is lying under my bed, inside the box my mother bought for my ashes. I’ve never heard any mention of a foreign student being injured or killed during the crackdown. I remember standing at the window of our room at Southern University, watching her walk down a paved path. She kept stopping in her tracks. I didn’t know why at the time, but now I understand. She could never do two things at once. When a thought came to her mind, her feet would forget to move. I watched her walk under the large banyan tree. Her beautiful image flitted in and out of view behind the branches and green leaves. When she emerged from the other side I had a clear view of her again. I watched her bare knees move like two shiny pebbles under her smooth skin, then looked at her thighs and thought about the warm, damp space hidden between them…

Only now do I understand that, while I watched A-Mei being embraced by the arms of the banyan tree, I felt an irrational jealousy, and worried about who else or what else might want to wrap their arms around her. So when she walked through the door, I shot her an angry frown. ‘You walk as slowly as a cow.’

‘It’s such a lovely day,’ she said breezily. ‘I was just taking my time. It’s not as if I had a lecture to run to.’

‘Well, I’ve been waiting here for twenty minutes,’ I barked.

If I’d realised that my anger was fuelled by self-doubt, I would have made an effort to control myself.

Another image comes to mind. I see her open mouth and the green pak-choi leaf I’d just placed inside it with my chopsticks glinting between her red-painted lips.

That’s enough. Everyone feels nostalgia for things they have lost. Memories are no more than regurgitations of the past. They can’t lead you anywhere new. I can tell the sunlight is about to leave the far corner of the window. When it has gone, the room will fall dark.

The heavy rainstorm two nights ago soaked the covered balcony’s windowsill and the cotton sheets lying on the ground below it. The air smells dank and mouldy. I myself am soaking in my own urine and excrement. My skin is beginning to decay. Swarms of mosquitoes are sucking at my blood. Flies are crawling into my mouth and nostrils. The moment my heart stops beating, my internal bacteria will multiply and begin to ingest me from within. A few days later, I will be no more than a heap of maggots and bones.

Chemical changes are beginning to take place. I see A-Mei reflected in a distorted mirror. Her face grows longer, splits into two, then disperses like paint in a pool of water. Then I see Tian Yi, Nuwa, Mou Sen and Sister Gao standing close together with big grins on their faces, waiting for me to take a group photograph. Chen Di and Yu Jin are standing behind them. The scarlet Tiananmen Gate in the background becomes a black silhouette which slowly melts like a scorched negative. That shot was on a roll of film I never got developed. Before the negative completely melts away, the image flashes before me one last time. Those memories that seem so sacred will all vanish in the end…

I’d like to go to a hotel bathroom, fill a clean bath with hot water and soak in it until I die… As my mind begins to empty, the mouse suddenly jumps off the chest of drawers that’s crammed with medicine bottles and lands noisily on the ground. It leaps onto my bed, darts up my thigh and stomach and settles on my shoulder. As it flicks its head from side to side in trepidation, its skin rubs against the base of my neck. The sparrow hops off my chest, perches on the bedstead and chirps angrily. The mouse isn’t frightened away, though. It nibbles at my sheet for a while then sinks its teeth into my right earlobe. How wonderful. If it bites through a few blood vessels, I will be dead within a matter of hours. When the police took us to Mount Wutai last year during the 4 June anniversary, a mouse bit my finger and the wound didn’t heal for two months.

Your brain cells course through your dead flesh like streams of lava spewing down a volcano.

A cool draught blows into the room. It feels as though the front door has been opened, but I didn’t hear any noise.

A kid in the yard outside shouts, ‘It’s snowing, Mum. It’s snowing!’ He’s the son of the migrant labourer who’s renting the flat below. I often hear him in the early evening. But it’s morning now. He should be at school.

‘Snow in July! It must be a show of anger from the gods. How can the police lock people in jail for days without notifying their families?’ The man speaking now is the kid’s father. He has a southern accent.

‘I thought someone was blowing soap bubbles,’ another voice says. ‘The flakes are tiny. They melt as soon as they touch the ground. But look, the sky over there is still blue.’

‘The heavens are showing their anger!’ the man says.

‘I’ve heard of snows in August in ancient history. They were seen as signs of the gods’ anger at cases of injustice. But I’ve never heard of it snowing in July before.’

‘It’s uncanny though, that it should snow now, just a few days after the mass arrest of Falun Gong practitioners.’

‘When I went into my kitchen a minute ago, I saw the spring-onion cake I bought this morning was covered in ants. There’s definitely something strange going on.’

‘The government has outlawed Falun Gong. They’ve declared it an evil cult and a threat to social stability. So be careful what you say… The air really does feel unnaturally cool now.’

‘Think about it. In May, the Americans bombed the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade. In June — well we all know what 4 June is the anniversary of. And now in July, Falun Gong has been suppressed. All these events are connected with injustice and death.’

‘I wonder what’s happened to that vegetable upstairs since his mother got arrested. Has anyone been looking after him?’

‘That’s the government’s business, not ours. It’s best if you keep your mouth shut and don’t ask any questions. Look, the snowflakes vanish as soon as they touch the ground.’

‘But he’s been alone for a week now. If he’s dead, we’ll have to report it to the authorities.’

‘Go and tell the public security bureau, then, if you’re feeling so brave.’