Beijing Coma (2 page)

The frog must have become a skeleton years ago. While its bones lie trapped in the jar, I lie buried inside my body, waiting to die.

I stare into my mind and glimpse a faint sketch of a scene. It’s the summer night in 1980 when my father arrived back home with a shaven head after he was finally released from the ‘reform-through-labour’ system in which he’d been confined for the previous twenty-two years. He walked into our single room in the opera company’s dormitory block and flung his dusty suitcase into the corner as though it were a bag of rubbish.

My mother hadn’t gone to meet him at the station, although she was almost certain that he’d be arriving on that train.

She gathered up the clothes, hat, belt and rubber-soled shoes that my father removed before he went to sleep that night, and threw them in the bin, together with his metal mug, face towel and toothbrush. She tried to throw away the journal he’d wrapped in sheets of newspapers, but my father snatched it back from her. He said he would need it for the memoirs he was planning to write.

My mother made him promise that the journal didn’t contain the slightest criticism of the Communist Party or the socialist system. After my father assured her that it didn’t, she agreed to hide it in the wooden chest under their bed.

My mother spent the whole of the next day scrubbing the room clean, trying to remove the smell of mould that my father had brought with him.

The celebratory supper we had that night was a happy occasion. My brother and I had glasses set before us, both filled with rice wine. My mother climbed onto a stool to change the low-wattage bulb to a 40-watt one. It was so bright that you could see the spider’s web in the corner of the room.

My mother had curled her hair with heated tongs. She told my brother to clear away his homework. Once he’d done this, the table looked much larger. The four of us sat down together in front of a steaming dish of braised pigs’ trotters. There was also a plate of fried peanuts on the table, and a bowl of cucumber and vermicelli salad that I’d bought from the market.

I used to hate my father for the misery that his political status had inflicted on us. Because of him, I was ostracised and bullied at school. When my brother and I were walking through the school cafeteria at lunchtime one day, two older kids flicked onto the ground the plate of fried chicken I’d just bought, and shouted, ‘You’re the dog son of a member of the Five Black Categories. What makes you think you have the right to eat meat?’ Then they clipped me around the ears, right in front of my friend Lulu, who lived on the ground floor of our dormitory block.

My father raised his glass to my mother and said, ‘May you stay young and beautiful for ever!’

‘Haven’t you learned your lesson yet, you rightist?’ my mother snapped. ‘What are you thinking of, coming out with bourgeois clap-trap like that?’

He was sitting on a pillow at the edge of the bed. When he took off his glasses his eyes looked much larger. His face, which resembled a crumpled paper bag, glimmered with happiness.

His imprisonment in the reform-through-labour camps had caused us much hardship. He’d cast a shadow over our family, connecting us with the dark, negative aspects of life: the countryside, fleas and counter-revolutionary criminals. But on that summer night, it seemed as though all our misery was about to come to an end. I no longer felt shamed by his rough and dishevelled appearance. I knew that, very soon, I would once more have a father with a full head of hair.

He took a sip of rice wine, gazed up at me with a look of curiosity that I’d never seen in his eyes before, and said, ‘How come you’ve grown up all of a sudden?’

He seemed to have forgotten that, when he’d visited us in 1976 just after the earthquake, I’d already reached his shoulders.

He asked me what I wanted to do with my life. In his letters he’d told me I should join the People’s Liberation Army, so that’s what I told him I wanted to do.

He shook his head and said, ‘No. I only wrote that so that my letter would get approved by the camp leaders. You must learn English and do a science degree at university. Keep yourself to yourself. Then, if you get a chance, go abroad and become a citizen of the world. Did you know that British people can fly to America whenever they want, and that Germans can walk freely through the streets of Paris? Once you’re an international citizen, you’ll be able to travel the world.’

‘Don’t corrupt your sons with your liberal thoughts, Dai Changjie,’ my mother said. ‘All the activists involved in that Democracy Wall Movement last year are in jail now.’ Then she glanced at my brother and said: ‘You don’t hold chopsticks like that, Dai Ru! Look: wrap your fingers over the top, like this.’ She picked up a peanut with her chopsticks and placed it in her mouth.

‘If you hadn’t set your alarm clock to the wrong time, you’d be living in America now,’ my father retorted. Glancing at me, he explained: ‘Your mother’s father bought her a ticket to New York, but she missed the boat by half an hour. If she’d managed to catch it, she’d be an Overseas Chinese now.’

‘You made it to America, but you still came back in the end, didn’t you?’ A piece of peanut had stuck to my mother’s lower lip. With her chopsticks she divided the two pig trotters into four unequal parts. She gave the largest chunk to my father, and pulled off the nail from my chunk to chew on herself.

‘It was 1949. The Communists had just liberated China. Everyone was coming back then. Besides, in America I was only a rank-and-file member of an orchestra, but back here I could be principal violinist of the National Opera Company . . .’

‘It’s your arrogance that’s been your downfall. After twenty years in the labour camps, you’re still reminiscing about your past. You should have transformed yourself into a simple labourer by now – learned to make do with your lot, and live up to your responsibilities as a father.’

While my parents were busy talking, Dai Ru and I finished all the peanuts left on the plate.

My father spat out some bits of bone and gave them to me and my brother to chew on. I discovered one of his teeth among the shards. He’d lost most of the others already.

He grabbed the tooth from my hand and looked at it, rubbed his gums, then placed it on the table. ‘I’ve waited all these years to return home, and by the time I get here, I’ve got no teeth left.’ He turned his eyes to my brother and asked, ‘What year are you in at school now?’

‘Year Three. My teacher said that you’re a bourgeois rightist. I said that you’re a labour-camp prisoner. What is your job exactly, Dad?’

My father raised his eyebrows and said, ‘The Party put that rightist label on me. I had no choice but to accept it. But don’t worry, I will make sure you get into Harvard, my son. In winter, the campus is covered in a metre of snow. Squirrels scurry back and forth across it. The chairs in the classrooms have spring upholstery. Once you sit down on one, you never want to stand up again . . . Is it true that people are allowed to have sofas in their homes again?’

‘Huh! I hate the snow,’ I said. ‘My feet get so cold.’

‘Don’t huff like that, Dai Wei, or you’ll be miserable for the rest of your life.’ My mother would always say that to me and my brother whenever we let out long sighs. Turning back to my father, she said, ‘If you have back-door connections with factory bosses you can get hold of some springs and steel rods, then you can buy some man-made leather in the market and knock up two armchairs for under fifty yuan. Most of the soloists in the opera company have got sofas and armchairs now . . . Fetch the soy sauce from the corridor, Dai Wei.’ My mother picked up a fan from the table and flicked it open.

‘Sofa! I want an American sofa!’ my brother shouted.

‘We need a sitting room first,’ I said. ‘My classmates have sitting rooms, with televisions, washing machines and fridges.’

‘All we inherited was this iron bed,’ my mother said. ‘I didn’t even get a copper bracelet. When the compensation money comes through, we’ll buy a television. If your dad gets in touch with his uncle in America, we’ll be able to convert the cash into foreign-exchange certificates and buy a Japanese TV at the Friendship Store. Sit up straight when you’re eating, Dai Wei!’

‘See, the world has changed now,’ my father said, smiling. ‘Even you are prepared to admit that foreign goods are better.’

I too had realised that having a relation abroad was no longer something to be ashamed of. In fact, by now it had become almost a badge of honour.

‘I support Deng Xiaoping’s reform policy,’ said my mother. ‘I’m not one of those stubborn people who cling to the past. The Party has pledged to raise the country’s living standards to a moderately prosperous level by 2000. It is giving us all the chance to live better lives.’ My mother was speaking to my father in a warmer tone than she’d used the night before.

‘I saw two foreigners in the street today, Dad,’ my brother said. ‘Their eyes were yellow.’

‘I hope you weren’t following them,’ my mother said sternly. ‘The neighbourhood committee called us in the other day and told us that if we see foreigners in the street, we shouldn’t crowd around them and stare.’

‘They were walking along the pavement as I was coming out from school. Their footprints were huge.’

‘If there are foreigners walking down the streets of Beijing, it won’t be long before Chinese people are allowed to travel abroad again. I’ll write to my uncle in America tomorrow. He has two apple trees in his garden. In autumn, so many apples fall onto the grass, he has to leave most of them to rot.’ My father picked up a slice of cucumber that my brother had dropped onto the table and popped it into his mouth.

‘Dad, I still haven’t seen a squirrel yet.’ My brother always dropped food onto the table when he ate. My mother would smack him whenever it happened, but it never had any effect.

‘Don’t eat with your mouths open,’ my mother said. ‘You sound like dogs.’ My brother and I quickly shut our mouths and continued chewing.

‘Mum, Dai Ru threw stones at the pigeons again today,’ I said, suddenly recalling the incident. ‘The old lady downstairs got very angry. She had to come out and drag him away in the end.’ I was always having to apologise to others for my brother’s bad behaviour.

‘You’ll smash someone’s window if you keep doing that, then you’ll have to pay to get it repaired.’ My mother glanced back to my father and said, ‘Before people go abroad now, the government allows them to buy three domestically produced items tax-free. If you sell just two of them on the black market you can make enough money to last you a year.’

‘We should all go abroad. I’ll teach the violin, you can give singing classes, the children can both go to university.’

‘Do you think you’ll still be able to play your violin with hands like that? And anyway, I’m just a chorus singer now. How could I teach a foreigner? I’ve been singing revolutionary operas for the last twenty years. I’ve forgotten all my Western training.’

‘You were the most talented soloist in the company when we first met. You had a beautiful voice. I’m sure that if you had a chance to sing Western operas again, all your training would come back to you. In America, the government leaves people alone. The rich are rich, and the poor are poor. Everyone just gets on with their lives. I’ve spent every day of the last twenty years regretting my decision to return to China. The only thing that kept me alive in the camps was the hope that one day I might go back to America. Without that hope, I would have committed suicide years ago.’ My father was staring at his left hand. The little finger had been broken when he was beaten up in the camp. Although he was wearing a clean white shirt that night, when I looked at his shaven head and weathered features, it was hard to imagine that he’d once been a professional violinist.

‘Don’t praise foreign countries in front of the children. Now that you’re back, you’ll have to read the papers every day and make sure you keep up with the changing political climate. We can’t let our family be torn apart again.’

‘Mum, will you sing me that Li Gu ballad “Longing for Home”?’ I said. The tune had been in my head all day.

‘Li Gu’s voice is weak and breathy. It has no revolutionary spirit. Our company received a statement from the Ministry of Culture today warning that her ballad has had a corrupting influence on young people and could lead to the ruination of the country. The radio stations aren’t broadcasting it any more, so don’t you start humming it like a fool.’

‘You’re behind the times, Mum. Li Gu’s ballad is old hat. You can buy
The Best
200 Foreign Love Songs
in the shops now.’

‘Stop making things up! Why am I the only one in this family to have a political consciousness? From now on the four of us must study the newspaper every night and bring our thoughts in line with the Party. Dai Changjie, tomorrow you must adjust our radio so that it receives only Chinese stations. Don’t let that son of ours drag our family back down again. And from now on, Dai Wei, you’re only allowed to play your harmonica inside this room.’

‘When my compensation money comes through we can buy a television, then we won’t have to listen to the radio again.’ My father took another gulp of rice wine. Beads of sweat dripped down his face.

‘Last year, the three popular things to own were a watch, a bicycle and a sewing machine, but we only managed to buy a watch. This year, there are three new things everyone wants to own. I can’t keep up! We might not be able to afford a shelf unit, but I’m determined that we get a sofa . . . You shouldn’t be drinking so much wine, Dai Changjie – you’ve got a weak stomach.’ My mother pulled the bottle of rice wine over to her side of the table.

‘I’m so happy it’s all over. I can hold my head up now.’ My father gazed at my mother with a look of contentment in his eyes.

My mother walked out and put another charcoal briquette on our stove in the communal corridor. A thick cloud of charcoal smoke wafted back into the room.