Beijing Coma (80 page)

‘Be careful . . .’ she whispered, trying to push my hand away, but I moved it down into her knickers and touched the dampness between her legs. Her knees buckled a little, allowing my fingers to move inside her. I glanced around. There was no one about. All I could hear was the wind in the trees and a few car horns beeping at the foot of the mountain. I held her closer to me, lowered her onto the ground, then entered her from behind. After six or seven thrusts I ejaculated. Her hand and cheek were still pressed against the tree trunk. I looked down at her pale buttocks and immediately wanted to make love to her again. I thought how wonderful it was to have a woman by my side.

But when I drew her close to me again, she shouted, ‘Get your hands off me,’ then pulled up her trousers and walked away.

I lay on my back and stared into the blue sky, struck by the feeling of emptiness that always follows physical bliss.

She came back, kneeled down beside me and stared into my eyes. ‘I’m in the middle of my cycle now. What would we do if I got pregnant?’

‘We’d get married, of course. It would be fun to have a child of our own, don’t you think? You and me combined in one person.’

‘I thought you said you were going to leave the country.’

‘Well, if you decided not to come with me, I’d marry you before I left. Anyway, I’m not even sure I’m going. I’m not a deserter like Shu Tong.’

‘What do you mean?’

I hadn’t wanted to tell her, but it had slipped out. ‘He flew off to America this morning.’

‘What? I don’t believe it. He wouldn’t desert us at a time like this!’ The serious expression she always wore in the Square suddenly returned to her face.

‘Would I lie to you about such a thing?’ I glanced at my watch. We’d been away for almost an hour. I took her hand and said, ‘Let’s go back. They’ve probably returned to the car park by now.’ There was a small piece of bark stuck to her palm.

‘I don’t believe Shu Tong has left. How could you lie to me? You’re horrible.’ She pulled her hand away and strode out ahead.

I stared at her back as I followed behind her. It’s always difficult speaking to a woman after you’ve just pulled your shrivelled penis from her body.

‘Have you gone home to see your father lately?’ I said, searching for something to say.

‘Shut up!’ she snapped, staring at the ground as she marched on.

My mother hasn’t come back yet. She’s probably gone to the market to return some unwanted goods.

There are lots of people walking down the street outside. Their footsteps shake the walls so much that the light bulb above me flickers. Children whose voices I don’t recognise shout out to each other in the stairwell. Although there have been rumours that the buildings along this side of the street are going to be demolished soon, shops and restaurants are still springing up every day. Many migrant workers who’ve found jobs in them have moved into the compound with their families. My mother is always reading out notes that are stuffed under our door by workers looking for rooms or flats to rent.

I wait for Wen Niao’s footsteps. Last time she came, she wore a pair of soft, rubber-soled shoes, so I only heard her footsteps when she reached the second-floor landing. She brought a smell of snow into the flat that day. I smelt it on the woollen scarf she dropped on my shoulder. When I inhaled, I also caught the urban smell of residential compounds and bustling crowds. The outside world seemed so close at hand that for a second I experienced a glimmer of the joy one feels when one walks down a busy street.

My mother has run out of money. She’s planning to sell one of my kidneys to pay for the medication I need. For some reason, my brother has stopped sending her cash every month.

Wen Niao still works at the Beijing Pharmaceutical Research Institute. When I met her in the Square after Tian Yi fainted, I couldn’t have guessed that all these years later she’d turn up at my flat to attend to my comatose body. She comes here twice a week to give me injections. Sometimes she brings new drugs the institute has developed and administers them to me free of charge.

How annoying that my mother isn’t here to let her in. She knocks on the door, pauses, then knocks again. She continues to knock for several minutes, then turns round and leaves.

Damn! I wish she’d come back. I always seem to breathe more easily when she’s in the flat. After living in the dark for so long, I yearn for people to visit and bring me news from the world outside.

A few minutes later, I hear Wen Niao return with my mother.

‘I’ll give you my spare set of keys,’ my mother says, opening the front door. ‘I wouldn’t want this to happen again. You must be freezing.’

‘No, I’m fine. I’m used to the cold. Back in Changsha, the winters are much colder than this.’

She and my mother take off their coats and sit on the sofa.

‘Look at this jumper I bought the other day,’ my mother says. ‘The stallholder told me it was 100 per cent lambswool. But when I brought it home, I saw the label says: lambswool, angora and nylon. I hate angora. The whole flat’s covered in rabbit hairs now. I just went to ask him for a refund, but he refused to give me one.’ My mother pushes the box of sunflower seeds across the table and says, ‘Help yourself. These jumpers they sell now, they may look nice, but the quality is terrible.’

I hope Wen Niao doesn’t eat any of those five-spiced sunflower seeds. They smell disgusting.

‘Does your mother still work?’ asks my mother, forgetting she already asked her this last week.

‘She died a long time ago. She was publicly denounced during the Cultural Revolution. They shaved her hair on one side, in the yin-yang style. She felt so humiliated, she swallowed a bottle of pesticide the next day.’ Wen Niao speaks very casually about her mother’s death. It’s strange to think that Tian Yi’s mother committed suicide for the same reason.

‘We survivors of the Cultural Revolution were lucky to escape with our lives.’

‘I see you’ve made a little altar there. Are you a Buddhist?’

‘Well, I’ve taken up Falun Gong. It’s a form of qigong which combines some of the philosophies of Buddhism and Taoism. I had this book,
Falun Practice
, lying around for ages, but I only started reading it properly last month. It’s very interesting. I bought an instruction tape and have been practising the meditation exercises with some other women in the compound. It’s had a miraculous effect. I hadn’t realised how many little ailments I’ve developed over the years: headaches, chest pain, backache, arthritis. They all seem to have disappeared since I’ve been doing the exercises.’

‘It looks as if Falun Gong might put us pharmacists out of a job!’

‘Why not give it a go? It’s very simple. There are only five sets of exercises, four standing, one sitting. You can start with the first exercise. It will help open up your channels.’

‘I’m in good health – I don’t need to do qigong. But I often visit Buddhist temples and read the Buddhist scriptures.’

‘Look, I’ll show you the pose. Make a circle with your index and thumb, and let your arms relax . . .’

My mother is probably feeling the qi flow through her channels by now. A few days ago, she practised the exercises for half an hour then slept for a whole day and night. When she woke up, she got straight on the phone to Master Yao.

‘I was very downcast a few months ago, Nurse Wen. I’d decided that if my son died, I’d jump into the grave with him. I’d reached the end. But when I started reading the Falun Gong texts, I suddenly understood why my life has been so difficult. All hardships you encounter result from bad deeds committed in past lives . . . We’ve now entered the era of chaos that precedes the end of the world. The Buddha won’t be able to save everyone. When the earth is destroyed, only the souls of Falun Gong practitioners will be admitted into Heaven . . .’ My mother is repeating what Master Yao told her, but has strayed a little from his version.

Wen Niao taps my knee. I can sense that her body temperature is higher than mine. She slips a thermometer into my mouth. When her fingers brush against my nose I see a momentary vision of her face.

‘You should try it. You won’t have to bother taking medicine again.’

‘But I’m a Buddhist, Auntie . . .’

‘Huh. The Buddha only looks after the next world, but Falun Gong takes care of the present world as well. Anyway, the more gods you believe in the better. Who knows which one might turn up to help you next time you find yourself in trouble?’

‘You must look out for signs of him wanting to swallow,’ Wen Niao says, eager to change the subject. ‘It would indicate nerve cell repair or regeneration.’

‘You really seem to care about my son. I must admit, I’m afraid of him waking up, because if he did, the police would storm in and start asking questions. Sometimes I just wish he’d hurry up and die.’

‘Don’t say that, Auntie. A company in Guangzhou is developing a drug from cows’ brains that will help stimulate brain-cell regeneration. Once it’s in production, I’ll try to get hold of some for you.’

‘Huh! Those drug companies send salesmen to every hospital to bully doctors into prescribing their drugs. They work on commission. If you go to hospital these days, the doctors won’t let you leave until you’ve bought several hundred yuan’s worth of medicine.’

‘I’ve told many pharmaceutical research institutes about Dai Wei’s condition, but unfortunately, as soon as they find out he was involved in the Tiananmen Square protests, they refuse to help.’

Wen Niao opens her case and prepares a syringe of the drug she’s brought today.

‘You’re so kind, Nurse Wen,’ my mother says, walking in from the kitchen. ‘The nurses who came before weren’t nearly as diligent as you. Here, have a cup of tea. It’s freshly brewed. Whatever happens, I insist you have some lunch before you leave. I’ve bought some garlic shoots and pork ribs especially.’

‘Thank you,’ she says, sliding the needle into my vein. ‘It still seems so strange that I met your son in the Square, and here I am seven years later, looking after him. It must have been fate. I even saw him in the early hours of 4 June. He helped me lift dead bodies into the ambulance. Why did he have to end up with a bullet in the head? It’s so unfair . . .’

‘So you were in the Square that night?’ my mother asks, taken aback.

‘I was in the emergency tent, near the Goddess of Democracy. I saw students being killed right in front of me. There were corpses under Mao’s portrait, near the flagpole on the north side of the Square, and in front of the Museum of Chinese History. I managed to get a lift on an ambulance that was taking casualties to the Children’s Hospital. I was relieved to leave the Square. But when I walked into the hospital’s emergency room, I saw pools of blood everywhere. I had blood up to my ankles . . . The colleagues of mine who remained in the Square were herded into an enclosure in front of the Museum of Chinese History, and were only released at seven in the morning. They were all sent to work in other cities after that, to ensure they didn’t speak to any foreign journalists.’

‘Did the police interrogate you afterwards?’ They’re sitting on the sofa now.

‘They wanted me to give them the emergency tent’s registration book. They came to my flat many times. One of the officers even became my boyfriend for a while.’

‘A boy called Wang Nan was shot during the crackdown. The soldiers hid his body in a flower bed just east of the Zhongnanhai government compound. But the grave was so shallow that his body started poking up from the soil a few days later. Fortunately he was wearing an army uniform, so the authorities assumed he was an injured soldier. Otherwise, they would have sent his body to a secret crematorium, and his mother would never have found out what happened to him.’

They both fall silent. Wen Niao takes a sip of tea. I can smell jasmine in the steam rising from her teacup and in the air she exhales. I inhale, and feel her breath enter my lungs.

‘You forgot your watch here last time.’ My mother goes into the kitchen. ‘I’ll just fry this up. It won’t take long.’

‘I’m always mislaying that watch,’ Wen Niao says, walking into my room. ‘I’m so scatterbrained.’

I hear her swallow. I know she’s looking at me, scrutinising me as she would a caged rabbit in her research lab.

She takes my blood pressure, inspects the skin on my legs then carefully removes a few flakes of skin from behind my ears and places them in a screw-top jar to analyse later.

I hear her breathe in and out as she flicks through some sheets of paper. The air is as smooth as silk.

Her fingers move over my chest. They are warm, as warm as the breath she exhales. Her nails press into my skin for moment, then she pulls her hand away. My penis immediately stiffens. I want her to touch me again. She’s the first girl since Tian Yi to show any concern for me.

She notices my erection, lifts the sheet and observes it for some time. ‘It seems this vegetable has quite a healthy sexual appetite,’ she whispers.

I wish it would go down.

Then she says into my ear, ‘Don’t worry. I’m sure you’ll wake up one day. The drugs I’m giving you are imported. Do you hear me, wooden man? And I’ve told your mother lots of things she can do to speed up your recovery. I looked after many coma patients during my internship.’

This is the sixth time you’ve visited me, Wen Niao. One time you came on a Saturday. You said you hadn’t anything else to do that weekend.

‘You were very handsome seven years ago. There was always a crowd of people milling around you. I never dared look you straight in the eye.’

And I remember that your face was similar to Tian Yi’s: oval, and lightly freckled, but with thicker eyebrows and a higher-bridged nose.

‘At least you’re better off than those students who were sent to the Martial Law Headquarters and tortured so badly they went insane. They’re the ones I feel sorry for.’