Beijing Coma (86 page)

Tian Yi put down her camera and joined the applause. I grabbed her hand and squeezed it tightly.

Yu Jin pushed his way to the front of the crowd, waved his cap and shouted, ‘That’s enough, Mou Sen. Now let the bride say a few words!’ Everyone pulled out their cameras. Someone put a tape in the cassette player and told the newly-wed couple to dance.

‘I’d just like to thank Premier Li Peng,’ said Nuwa. ‘If it weren’t for him, Mou Sen and I would never have met! That’s all I’ve got to say . . .’ She wiped the sweat from her forehead and smiled at Mou Sen. Then she swirled around him, her red skirt and black hair twirling like a paintbrush across a page. Mou Sen couldn’t dance, so he just jigged about stiffly. Their hands would lock briefly, then separate as she twirled round again. The crowd of children and adults began to dance too. The air and sunlight seemed to move to the rhythm. As the crowd spread out, the paved terrace began to shake.

‘
This is the season of love. You can smell the love in the air. Everyone needs to fall in love
 . . .’ Soon everyone on the Square was dancing. Tens of thousands of people were singing, clapping and stamping their feet. The Goddess of Democracy’s upheld arms looked like a flock of white doves soaring into the blue sky.

My mother has woken up. The sun is rising. She walks into my room and turns on the light. Her footsteps sound aged and weary.

As soon as the light is switched on, flecks dart before my eyes. They look like splinters of electroplated metal.

She turns on the radio next to me, lowers the volume, then switches to a different station. ‘. . . The song-and-dance epic,
The Glorious History
, is one of the most . . .’ In the morning, every noise grates on my nerves.

My mother asked Xue Qin to leave last week, so that there would be room for my brother if he decides to stay here. Thank God he’s gone. What sort of society produces scum like that?

She goes into the kitchen, the toilet, then back to the kitchen again. It sounds as though she’s sleepwalking. She still hasn’t taken away my bedpan.

My brother arrived in Beijing last night. It’s the first time he’s brought his British girlfriend to China. They spoke to each other in English. I could only pick out a few words, such as:
we, room, this smell, horrible, tonight, tomorrow, eat, mother, want, good, yes, too tired, no, bank, cash, travel
.

I don’t know what he looks like now. But I envy him. I’d give anything to swap places with him for one day.

On his way out, he said to my mother, ‘Ask Master Yao to join us for lunch tomorrow at the Beijing duck restaurant. Helen said she’d like to try some traditional Chinese food.’

They only stayed for half an hour. They were probably driven away by the stench of my room and the smell of the disinfectant my mother had sprinkled on the floor.

If I were to die now, my mother would be able to relax and enjoy the remaining years of her life in peace. On our train journey to the hospital in Hebei where my kidney was removed, my mother said to the passenger sitting next to her, ‘My youngest son has an English girlfriend. They’re getting married soon. They want me to go and live with them. They’ve got a two-storey house with gardens at the front and back. Huh! If I didn’t have to look after this other son of mine, I’d be living there now.’

I know I’m a burden to my family. Before Dai Ru moved to England, he said to his old classmate, ‘As a child, I used to worship my brother. When the kids in our compound had competitions to see who could flick apricot stones the furthest, he always won. He was a skilled flicker. He’d put his index finger over his third finger, then snap it down onto the edge of the apricot stone with such force that it would fly right over the kerb. None of the other kids could beat him.’ I know I’ll never be able to make him proud of me again. Last night he asked my mother if she’d ever thought of sending me to a rest home.

I remember what a goofy little kid he was. When I went to collect him from nursery school, his bespectacled teacher would frown and say, ‘Your father is a rightist. You must teach your little brother not to smile so much. He always has a grin on his face, even when I make him stand in the corner.’

In the afternoon, Tian Yi and I sat on the east viewing stand of Tiananmen Gate, directly opposite the Goddess of Democracy, and watched a crowd of schoolgirls sing songs from the revolution. A soloist stepped forward and gazed up at the portrait of Mao that hung above us. Her white dress was as bright as the Goddess behind her. She opened her mouth and sang: ‘
Great Helmsman, Chairman Mao, lead us onwards like a guiding star
 . . .’

‘I hope those girls don’t grow up feeling like orphans too,’ Tian Yi said morosely.

It did feel unsettling, watching these schoolgirls stand below the Goddess of Democracy singing songs in praise of Mao. Their voices blared from the loudspeakers their teachers had attached to the scaffolding at the base of the statue. The ground below was piled with electric cables, crates of apples, barrels of disinfectant, metal rods and rope. I knew we’d have to clear all that junk away, because that was where we’d planned to build the stage for the Democracy University’s opening ceremony.

We were alone on the viewing stand. I stared at the hundreds of thousands of people in the Square below, standing among the red banners and flags or sitting inside the blue nylon tents. Everything suddenly looked orderly and disciplined. For a second, I thought I was daydreaming. The strongly contrasted blues and reds made the scene look like a colourised version of an old black-and-white documentary.

‘It doesn’t look real, does it?’ Tian Yi said, putting her arm around me. ‘How did this movement get so vast? . . . I’m exhausted. I’m tired of living like a tramp. I wish I had a safe home to curl up in.’

‘No home is safe. I remember when I was a kid, an old neighbour of ours called Granny Li was dragged out of her room by the Red Guards and made to kneel in the yard outside. They tied her up and poured ten thermoses of boiling water over her head. She gripped the branches of the grapevine in front of her and howled in pain.’

‘How do you manage to remember all those horrible details?’ she muttered. ‘I was at home when my mother committed suicide. All I remember is being woken up by a loud thud. It was her body falling to the ground.’

‘Even if you did have a home to go to, the Party would always have a key to the door.’

I sat further back in my seat so that she could rest her head on my lap. I too longed to lie down.

‘The air up here smells of leaves,’ she said. ‘It makes me think of fields and forests.’

‘Perhaps we should introduce your father to my mother. They’re both widowed.’

‘No, I doubt they’d get on.’

A column of marchers entered the Square. They looked like government functionaries. Some of them had red headbands, a few were pushing bicycles. I inhaled a deep breath of air and thought about mountains and trees, the forests of Yunnan, and the rivers of
The Book of Mountains and Seas
. ‘Still, everyone needs a home,’ I said. ‘It’s where we store all our emotions.’

‘My dad doesn’t have many friends, apart from the old guys he plays chess with in the yard outside our block,’ she said.

‘My mother is quite easy-going. Her politics are a little too rigid, that’s all.’ Then I stroked her hair and said, ‘Let’s go back to the campus tonight.’

‘Our dorms are full. All the beds have been taken by the provincial students. I’ve no idea where they’ve put my stuff.’

‘We’ll snuggle up in a quiet corner. It will be just like Yunnan.’ Her body softened after I said this, and she nestled closer to me like a little bird.

‘I’d like to go home and have a shower,’ she said. Before Mabel and Kenneth left Beijing, Tian Yi had gone to visit them again in their hotel, and had used their en suite bathroom. It was the first time in her life that she’d taken a bath. When she came back, she said, ‘The bathroom had a huge mirror, and big white towels folded neatly on a shelf. It was so luxurious.’

With her head still nestled in my lap, she closed her eyes and sang softly, ‘
In years from now, will you still think of me? Will our paths ever cross again?
. . .’

‘We can go to Beixin Bridge public bathhouse on our way back to the campus. It doesn’t shut until ten.’

‘It’s already seven now. Let’s go to the bathhouse tomorrow. It’s so nice up here. I want to stay a little longer.’

In the three weeks we’d been camping in the Square, this was almost the first time we’d been able to have a quiet moment alone together.

‘Mou Sen made a bit of a fool of himself at that fake wedding this morning,’ she said, tugging down her skirt to cover her knees. ‘He’s a student leader. He should behave with more dignity.’

‘That was true love, though,’ I said, stroking her leg.

‘You wouldn’t dump me, would you, like he dumped Yanyan?’ She gazed over at the Square again. ‘That old girlfriend of yours A-Mei will be turning up in Beijing any day now, won’t she? Are you hoping to rekindle the flame with her?’

‘Don’t be silly,’ I said, my heart starting to beat faster. ‘I can’t even remember what she looks like. When she gets here, I’ll introduce you to her.’

Tian Yi twisted her head round and stared up at me. ‘Haven’t you ever thought about what’s going to happen to us, Dai Wei?’ She seldom used the word ‘us’ in our conversations.

‘I’ll ask you to marry me, we’ll have a big wedding, then we’ll travel around America together and live happily ever after. You can be a journalist, or a writer, or a teacher – whatever you want – and I will be a biologist and write a scientific tome on
The Book of Mountains and Seas
.’

‘If you want to marry me you’ll have to give me a bathroom with a huge mirror.’

‘And I’ll give you a big wardrobe to hang your clothes in too, and a garden with a reclining chair . . .’ I said, remembering a photograph I’d seen in a foreign magazine.

‘Don’t get carried away! As long as our salaries can buy us a colour television and a fridge, I’ll be satisfied. In fact, all I really want is to own a clean bath. I’ll fill it with hot water every night and soak in it for hours.’ She closed her eyes. I remembered that A-Mei insisted on showering every day. I guessed that women must have a natural affinity for water. ‘You’re not one of those unfaithful types, are you?’ she said, her eyes still closed.

‘Don’t be silly. You’re everything I could want. Why would I look elsewhere?’ I stroked her hair and her ear. She was wearing the necklace with the silver heart pendant that Mabel had given her. I didn’t dare tell her that A-Mei used to have one exactly like it. I looked up again and gazed out at the colourful banners and crowds swaying in the slanting light of the evening sun. I fell into a daze again, and for a moment I forgot the Square and the situation we were in. Then my stomach rumbled loudly. ‘Hmm, I’d love a bowl of instant noodle soup.’

Tian Yi sat up and smoothed her hair back. ‘It’s so hot today. Why don’t we go and have some cold Korean noodles?’

‘I’ve been eating cold bread and cold dumplings for days. I’d like to have something hot for a change . . .’

‘You’re so contrary. You always want something different from everyone else . . .’

‘How does massaging his feet have any effect on his brain, Master Yao?’ my brother asks, rubbing more oil into my freshly washed feet.

Since Master Yao took up Falun Gong, he’s spent a lot of time giving public displays of the exercise routines. He used to come here twice a week, but he now only visits twice a month.

‘Each acupuncture point on the foot is connected to a specific body part or internal organ. If any part of the body is unwell, the pressure point that corresponds to it will feel sore when pressed, or will change colour. This area below the big toe corresponds to his head. This point here corresponds specifically to the cerebellum. Look, this is the point connected to his injury. Do you see? It’s darker than the surrounding skin.’

‘Yes, it is a bit darker.’ The day before yesterday, my brother took Master Yao and my mother out for lunch at the Beijing duck restaurant. He’s probably accepted that this qigong master might one day become our stepfather.

‘If he develops a temperature in the next twenty-four hours, it will prove his body is trying to fight his disease and bring down the inflammation.’ Master Yao is sitting on the ground below my feet, breathing loudly.

‘Have a rest, Old Yao,’ my mother says. ‘Master Li Hongzhi said that the purpose of cultivation is not to heal people. I wouldn’t want him to remove your powers.’

‘I’m only trying to help. I often used to heal people when I practised qigong. Anyway, if I do lose my wheel of law, I’ll just ask Master Li to install another one in me.’

My blood seems to be circulating more smoothly. A stream of energy flows through my body. Master Yao’s thumb is pressing into the arch of my foot. ‘This is his kidney point. I will release the pressure in a second, then press down again three more times.’

‘But his left kidney has been removed,’ my mother says.

‘I’m pressing the point on the left foot which is connected to the right kidney.’

‘I wish you hadn’t sold Dai Wei’s kidney, Mum. I told you on the phone that you should let me know if you were short of money.’

‘Well at least he’s helped save someone’s life. Dai Wei lies in bed all day. He doesn’t need more than one kidney. When I spoke to you on the phone, I asked you to track down some specialists who were researching conditions like his, but you never did.’

‘I didn’t approve of your mother’s decision either,’ Master Yao says. ‘You shouldn’t remove organs from living people. It upsets the body’s primordial qi. Can you pass me that towel, please?’ He takes the towel and wraps it around my shrivelled feet. After the half-hour foot massage, my head feels warmer and lighter.