Beijing Coma (73 page)

‘I can feel him absorb a small amount of my qi,’ Master Yao says quietly. But the truth is I haven’t felt anything yet.

Despite the nutrition I receive from the IV drips and the liquid formulas poured into my feeding tube, my weight never rises above seventy kilograms. I’m very weak. The nurse was right. If I contracted a bacterial infection, I wouldn’t have the strength to fight it.

Master Yao tells my mother to switch off the fan, then starts massaging my feet. He rotates them slowly then presses his hands into the arches. I feel a shot of electricity run up my legs. My body tingles and becomes warm. This is the second time this month that I’ve felt a connection to my body. His ten fingers send hot electrical waves to the motor cortex of my brain. Even my hair seems to be quivering in the current.

‘The problem isn’t only in his brain,’ Master Yao says, pausing for a break. ‘His blood isn’t circulating smoothly and he has excessive levels of negative qi.’

My mother lowers a fresh cup of tea onto the cabinet, trying not to make any noise, but the lid still clinks. Master Yao places his hands above my head then moves them down my body all the way to my feet. It feels as though a hot thermos flask is rolling over me.

‘Yesterday you performed the Grab of the Immortal Hand. What qigong set are you doing today?’

‘This is called the Rejuvenating Hand of Buddha. I’m trying to push his negative qi downwards. Just now I performed the Devil’s Palm exercise to locate the root of his sickness.’

A ball of heat trapped somewhere close to my navel is dispersing through my body. The nerves between my lumbar vertebrae and coccyx begin to shudder. I suddenly feel as though I’ve been plunged into a wok of hot oil, and that I will soon twist and contract like a deep-fried dough stick. But just as I sense I’m about to stretch out my legs, Master Yao pulls his hands away.

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.

‘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.

‘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.

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.’

‘Last night, I told Bai Ling we should leave, but she accused me of being a coward. If she doesn’t decide to vacate the Square today, I’ll resign.’

Just at that moment, Bai Ling walked up to us with Mimi.

‘I didn’t make myself clear last night,’ Mou Sen said to her. ‘The Square’s in chaos. If we don’t withdraw soon, it will fall into anarchy.’

‘So you still think we should leave, then?’ Bai Ling said, putting on her sunglasses.

‘Yes. It’s our only option. If you don’t agree, I must resign from my post.’ He reached into his jacket and pulled out a resignation letter he’d written earlier.

‘I can’t betray the students,’ Bai Ling said. ‘History would never forgive me.’ She skimmed through the letter he handed her, signed her name at the bottom and walked off.

‘I bet you didn’t think
that
would happen,’ I said, tapping his shoulder. ‘You’re out of a job now, Mr Broadcast Station Director.’

‘I didn’t really want to resign,’ Mou Sen moaned. ‘What a mess . . .’

We turned round and went back to the broadcast station. As soon as we walked in, Mou Sen announced he’d resigned and was planning to return to his campus.

‘Let’s all resign, then,’ Xiao Li said. ‘I wouldn’t mind going home for a few days.’

‘Here we are at the critical moment, and as soon as he says he’s leaving, you bolt out of the door,’ Old Fu said angrily. ‘All right, go then! Both of you! The rest of us will cope well enough without you. But the tapes and documents must stay here. No one must touch them.’

‘This will mean you’ll finally be able to take charge of the broadcast station, Old Fu,’ said Xiao Li, rubbing some dirt off his trousers.

‘And what do you mean by that?’ Old Fu snapped. Everyone knew he resented being logistics officer and that he thought that, since he’d set up the first broadcast station in the Square, he should have been appointed director of the Voice of Democracy.

‘You keep to your logistics work,’ I said to him, ‘and let Wang Fei run the station.’

‘I’m the one who’s been holding the fort here!’ he shouted. ‘Without me, this station would have collapsed ages ago.’

The mood became so hostile that I felt obliged to resign as well, which angered Old Fu so much he hurled a cardboard box to the ground.

Nuwa came in and tried to persuade Mou Sen to stay. I told her that Bai Ling had approved his resignation.

Mou Sen picked up his denim rucksack and said, ‘I’m off now. I’m going to visit the political scientist Yan Jia to discuss an idea of mine. I plan to set up a Democracy University, right here in the Square. It will be open to everyone. We’ll invite guest speakers to give classes on politics and culture. Students will be free to jump up and challenge them whenever they want. I hope you’ll all get involved.’ He raised his hand triumphantly and left. Nuwa clapped her hands in excitement and followed him out of the tent.

‘You can send letters to anywhere in the world with it, without having to go to the post office? No, I won’t bother buying one. I’d have to register it at the police station . . . Last week, Haidian Department Store promised that any customer who spent more than a hundred yuan would be given a lottery ticket. I bought a pair of trainers that cost 120 yuan, but when I went to collect a lottery ticket, the woman behind the counter said the shoes were on discount, so I didn’t qualify for one. Those sharks! They completely swindled me!’

My mother is chatting to An Qi, who has brought along a woman called Gui Lan whose son was sentenced to eighteen years in prison for setting fire to an army tank during the crackdown. She’s brought a copy of the written judgement that was issued to her son. She keeps repeating she’ll be dead and buried by the time he’s released.

‘I bought a thermos flask in the market last week,’ Gui Lan says. ‘I filled it with boiling water, and after just two hours the water was lukewarm. I tried to return it, but the stallholder said he only gave refunds within three days of purchase. But the sticker on the thermos says it’s guaranteed for three months.’ I can tell from her accent that she was born in Shandong.

‘I bought a packet of frozen dumplings from a chain store today. There were stubs of ungrated ginger in the filling. I couldn’t eat them, but my husband wolfed them down quite happily.’