Ma Jian - Beijing Coma

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Dai Wei lies in his bedroom, a prisoner in his body, after he was shot in the head at the Tiananmen Square protest ten years earlier and left in a coma. As his mother tends to him, and his friends bring news of their lives in an almost unrecognisable China, Dai Wei escapes into his memories, weaving together the events that took him from his harsh childhood in the last years of the Cultural Revolution to his time as a microbiology student at Beijing University.
As the minute-by-minute chronicling of the lead-up to his shooting becomes ever more intense, the reader is caught in a gripping, emotional journey where the boundaries between life and death are increasingly blurred.

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A neighbour bangs on the door. ‘Auntie, let me in…’

The sparrow is startled. It snuggles into the nape of my neck. It has rubbed itself against my skin so often over the last days that many of its feathers have fallen off, and it now has difficulty flying.

There are three people yelling on the landing. Their cries echo through the stairwell. Still sobbing and shaking, my mother slowly opens the door.

‘… You must face up to reality, Auntie. Stop burying your head in the sand. Ask your younger son to come back and look after you. It’s not his money you need now, it’s his help.’ This is the neighbour who sells exercise equipment. My mother takes her into her bedroom. The two other neighbours who followed her in are standing in the sitting room.

‘Why not pay someone to look after him? Or send him to a care home?’

‘I employed a girl to help out, but she left after two days. She said he looked like a corpse and was afraid to touch him.’

‘This is a two-bedroom flat, isn’t it? Why is it in such a state? It looks like a junk shop.’

Police officers used to raid this flat all the time. But it’s so squalid now, they refuse to come, even if they’re bribed with large bonuses. They say the flat smells so bad that for days after they visit, they can’t wash the stench of it from their skin.

‘I’m fine,’ my mother says quietly. ‘Just a little fed up, that’s all.’

‘You must take care of yourself. That younger son of yours is so selfish. How could he move abroad and leave you to cope with all this?’

‘I haven’t told him about the demolition yet.’

‘You should have. It won’t be easy, buying a new flat and moving house on your own.’

‘I’m not moving. If the government doesn’t give me proper compensation, I won’t budge. I’ve given fifty years of my life to the Party. They can’t turn me out onto the streets.’

‘Listen, Auntie. You and I are just ordinary citizens. You can’t refuse to move. Government officials will turn up here and squash you like a fly. And anyway, this demolition is important for our Olympic bid. If the old buildings aren’t torn down, the new ones can’t go up.’

‘What have the bloody Olympics got to do with me?… I’m getting old now. There’s nothing left for me to live for…’

‘You’ve been through worse than this, Auntie… Once that plank of wood has died, you can apply for a passport and go abroad.’

The two other neighbours walk into my room and look at me. ‘It’s incredible to think that this vegetable’s urine was able to cure so many sick people…’

‘He looks dead! He’s lost all his hair.’

‘It’s a crime to keep him alive. She should send him to the crematorium and be done with it.’

‘Don’t say that. It will bring you bad luck. And besides, who knows, if the government rehabilitates him one day, he might become some kind of hero.’

‘When are you moving out? Did you end up buying that flat in the Fragrant Garden compound?’

‘No, it was too expensive. I’ve heard the government is planning to build some cheap flats for low-income families not far from here, so I’ll wait and buy one of those.’

‘Well, you won’t be able to afford even them. Property prices between the second and third ring roads have risen to six thousand yuan a square metre. This compound is inside the second ring road, but the Hong Kong developer is only giving us five thousand yuan a square metre. He’s very crafty. He’s put his Chinese wife in charge of the project. She grew up in this district, apparently, and has connections with top officials. A lot of the money that should have gone to us has been spent on bribes. They cut off the electricity and water in the west side of the compound yesterday, and have started pulling down the buildings over there. The provisions store has already been demolished.’

‘I’ve seen the plans. They’re going to raze the compound to the ground and build a huge shopping centre. There’ll be an open square, right where this building is, with trees around the perimeter and a tall fountain in the middle. It will be the most luxurious shopping centre in Beijing. They’re such crooks, fobbing us off with just five thousand yuan a square metre.’

‘You should pop up for a chat some time. My husband often goes away on business. I’ve got a Mahjong set. We could ask two other neighbours to join us and have a game…’

‘… I’m fine, really, there’s no need to worry…’ my mother says, walking into the sitting room. She sounds much calmer now.

They leave the flat and close the door behind them, cutting out some of the loud chugging noise from the diesel generator that’s powering the machines outside. My mother sits down. In the distance, I hear bulldozers thud into the brick apartment blocks.

The black sky drags me out of the window… So this building will become a public square. Ten years ago, I escaped from the nation’s political centre and retreated into my home. But soon my home will become a shopping centre. Where can I retreat to then?

You wade towards the middle of a lake. The water is getting deeper and deeper.

‘Where are you thinking of taking me?’ Tian Yi asked. ‘I’m not leaving the Square.’ Her face was pale.

I took some string from my pocket. ‘If there’s a stampede, we could lose our shoes. Let’s tie them on with this.’

‘No, don’t bother. That string won’t keep them on.’ She looked down at her black court shoes. She was probably afraid that the string would make her look foolish. She tightened her ponytail and pulled it through the hole at the back of her baseball cap.

There was a distant sound of gunfire in the east and west. Mou Sen asked some Beijing Normal students to take most of our electrical equipment back to their campus. Then he and Nuwa sat on the stage and stared at the scattered crowds.

Two foreign journalists began to interview Nuwa in English. While answering their questions, she looked into the distance and fiddled with a lock of her hair.

‘You must burn the Democracy University’s enrolment list,’ I said to Mou Sen. ‘The troops moving in from the east and west will converge here soon. You should take Nuwa and Tian Yi back to Beijing Normal. The roads to Beijing University have probably been sealed by now.’ Then I asked Tian Yi to give me my sunglasses, but she said she didn’t have them.

Mou Sen pulled his cigarette pack from his coat pocket, found it was empty and flung it on the ground. ‘I can’t leave the Square while the Beijing Normal flag is still flying. But I’ll get someone to take our minutes and scripts back to my dorm. I’ll need them when I’m writing my novel.’

When the interview was over, Nuwa turned to Mou Sen and said, ‘You shouldn’t throw your rubbish on the ground like that.’ Then she leaned against him and whispered, ‘I can see you’re anxious. Don’t worry. I’ll stay with you. If they put you in jail, I’ll sit outside the prison gates and go on hunger strike… What were you doing with that pack of cigarettes, anyway? I thought you’d given up smoking.’

‘I’m not anxious. I’m disappointed. The Democracy University has only just got off the ground and now I have to close it down.’

Nuwa ran her fingers through his hair and said in English, ‘ Your speech was wonderful, my darling. You are a hero. I love you. ’ When Nuwa smiled, my eyes were always drawn to the red curve of her mouth.

‘We’ve had it,’ he said, his shoulders hunched forward in despair. ‘The soldiers are firing bullets. Real bullets.’

‘Don’t worry, this is the darkness before dawn,’ Nuwa said. ‘Good always prevails over evil.’

Mou Sen swept back his sweaty fringe and said, ‘You and Tian Yi should leave now and go back to my campus.’

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