Beijing Coma Read Online Free PDF Page B

bad behaviour. Next to the box, two women were gazing into a mirror, combing their wet hair. Some of the water dripped onto the ground, the rest ran down the backs of the yellow-and-white jumpers they were wearing. Women were queuing up behind them to comb their hair in front of the mirror. The men didn’t bother to check their appearance. When they walked out into the lobby, they’d just shake their heads, run their fingers through their damp hair then stride outside into the cold.
    After I bought myself a ticket, I took off my clothes and headed for the hot pool. White steam rose from its surface. I spotted a space close to the door, gritted my teeth and lowered myself in. I splashed the scorching water onto my face and shoulders in a calm and confident manner, trying to look as though I’d done this many times before. As expected, the other men in the pool shifted their gaze to me, eyeing me with curiosity as I edged myself deeper into the water. They stared at my legs, the strands of hair that had only recently sprouted from my testicles, then glanced at my small, pale nipples.
    I had made it. I was an adult now, no longer a child who was afraid of hot water.
    Two boys a year or so younger than me were sitting on my left. One of them splashed the water with his feet and said to the other, ‘We call our teacher “Miss Donkey”. When she gets angry, she swears her head off and stamps her feet like this . . .’
    I ignored them. I was a grown-up now, and grown-ups always bathe in silence. I grabbed my bar of soap and rubbed it slowly over my chest.
    When people are naked they say very little to each other. They are stripped of their identities. Usually one can guess a person’s status from their hairstyle, but in the bathhouse everyone’s hair is slicked back. The only props they have are the identical white flannels in their hands and their variously sized bars of soap.
    Smells of urine and dirty feet rose into the steam above the pool. Occasionally a cold draught blew in from the skylight, allowing my lungs to open up a little.
    The man sitting next to me stood up, his bottom wobbling, and climbed out of the water. His flannel had left red streaks across his body that was already scarlet from the heat.
    The scrawny old man sitting opposite me was rubbing his hands up and down his thighs. His skin was the same colour as the legs of ham on the butcher’s counter in the local market. When he squeezed his flannel, his expression relaxed slightly. In the typical manner of a regular visitor, he rarely looked anyone in the eye. He moved about with such confidence and lack of inhibition that the rest of us felt as though we were guests in his home. Soon he lifted himself out of the pool and went over to the large tub where the water was heated to an even higher temperature. He slipped inside it without flinching and soaked in the scalding water for several minutes, letting out a soft sigh occasionally to express his pleasure.
    I looked down into the water below me and noticed that my penis had swollen. My whole body seemed larger. My feet appeared to have moved further away from my head. My skin stretched tightly over my joints. I knew that, just like my father, I had a large black mole on the small of my back. I was the replica he had made of himself to leave behind in the world after he died.
    A crack opens in the darkness, allowing more noises to reach you. These sounds are clearer than the ones you heard before. Although your ears tell you that you’ve returned to the world, you’re still wandering through the intersecting lanes of your memories.
    ‘It’s not that cold.’ I turned up the collar of my woollen jumper. The air wasn’t too cold, but the ground was freezing. The hard soles of my shoes made a lot of noise as we walked along the pavement. The evening wind blasted down the side of the road which had just been planted with trees.
    Lulu whispered, ‘Get off. Don’t touch me. Your hands are freezing.