Anthony Grey

by Peking- A Novel of China's Revolution- 1921-1978 (epub)

  “This will make fine pictures for all the world to see!”

  He yelled the words in Chinese and jerked his camera into view from inside his coat; holding it conspicuously in front of his face, he clicked the shutter repeatedly, taking snap after snap of Kao and the demonstrators holding him. Then, as though to get a closer shot, he raced along the top of the balustrade and focused again from a position directly beneath Kao. On seeing a white-haired European openly snatching photographs of them, the wild-eyed demonstrators on the steps abandoned their victim to turn and surge down in Jakob’s direction, screaming hysterical abuse at him. Within moments arms pinned him from behind and his camera was wrenched from his hands by a burly student; a roar went up as it was broken open and the film was plucked out and stretched in loops above the student’s head.

  Higher up the memorial, militiamen raced to the fallen figure of Kao and unfastened the wire from his neck. lie was coughing and retching, but Jakob saw them help him to his feet and begin carrying him away down the steps. The next moment a fist struck Jakob with sickening force on the left temple, spinning him around, and the Gate of Heavenly Peace, at the northern end of the square, became a somersaulting blur of red and gold as it plunged downward into the black earth. Yelling demonstrators closed around Jakob while he lay slumped on the ground, kicking him and lashing him with staves, and by the time the militia guards fought their way to him and drove off his attackers they found he had lost consciousness.

  6

  A tentative knock on the door of his hotel bedroom wakened Jakob from a light afternoon sleep but he made no immediate response, imagining that the resident nurse from the British embassy was paying him another visit. During the two days he had spent resting in bed, the nurse had made four or five calls to check that he was not suffering any concussive aftereffects of his beating, and he raised himself against his pillows in anticipation of seeing her enter the room. But the door did not open, and when the hesitant-sounding knock was repeated, he turned his head and called out politely, “Come in.”

  The sight of Abigail standing on the threshold made him start. She was wearing an elegantly tailored navy coat and high-heeled shoes, but when she stepped into the room he saw that her expression was anxious and concerned. After closing the door, she walked slowly toward the bed and stood looking down uncertainly at his bandaged right hand and the dressing that covered his left temple.

  “I heard about your accident,” she said stiffly. “It seemed silly not to come and see if you were all right.”

  Jakob was so overcome by the first sight of his daughter in ten years that he could find no reply. She was still strikingly attractive and wore her long blond hair in a fashionable chignon; maturity made her seem more poised and self-contained than ever, and perhaps because of this, words failed him.

  “They told me at the embassy that you’d been pretty badly beaten. But I couldn’t think what you might need, so I’m afraid I haven’t brought anything.”

  “Please sit down,” said Jakob, gesturing toward a chair. “I don’t think there’s anything I need. . . . The hotel staff bring me all I ask for.”

  Abigail sat on the edge of a straight-backed chair, looking uneasily at her father. “Are you really all right?” she asked, frowning. “After the stories I heard, I didn’t know what to expect.”

  “I think I’m going to be fine,” said Jakob, trying to smile. “My head still aches a little. But a doctor from the Swedish embassy has given me a thorough check, lie can’t find much wrong with me beyond this gash on my forehead and a couple of cuts on my right hand. My ribs are badly bruised and I suppose I was shaken up a bit — that’s why he insisted I rest for a day or two.”

  An uneasy silence lengthened between them but as Jakob’s feeling of surprise subsided, he realized that for the first time since her visit to Hong Kong nearly twenty years earlier, Abigail had sought him out, and his spirits began to rise.

  “You’re looking wonderfully well yourself, Abigail,” he said quietly. “Are you still enjoying your teaching here?”

  “Yes, very much.” Abigail’s voice was curt as though indicating that she had no wish for the conversation to become too personal. “I had a second English-language textbook published last year. Everything’s going well.”

  “I’m very glad.”

  They lapsed again into silence; then Abigail looked at her father with a quizzical expression. “How did the accident in Tien An Men Square come about? I heard the crowd attacked you for taking photographs — but that didn’t seem to ring true for someone with your experience of China.”

  “What you heard was right. I did take some pictures when it wasn’t a very wise thing to do.” He hesitated, apprehensive that a full explanation might destroy the fragile truce between them; then he decided he had no choice. “I let others think I’d got a bit overexcited. In fact, I went out of my way to show that I was taking

  pictures — because of Kao.”

  “Because of Kao?” Abigail’s eyes widened in surprise. “What do you mean?”

  “Quite by chance Kao was sent out to try to calm things down. The mob turned on him and it looked very ugly. I saw an opportunity to distract their attention and pulled out my camera . .

  Abigail stared wonderingly at her father as the significance of what he had said became clear to her. “Did Kao know you were here in Peking?”

  Jakob nodded. “I talked with Marshal Lu Chiao on the day I arrived. He gave me Kao’s address. He lives now at 15 Nan Chihtze, and I went to see him that same night to try to apologize for what happened in Shanghai. He still wouldn’t listen and I suppose I don’t blame him for that.” Jakob paused, feeling again the force of the emotion that had led to his rash intervention. “He’s married now and has a small son, Ming I met the boy. When I saw Kao in the square all these things were very fresh in my mind. . .

  Abigail stood up suddenly like a spring uncoiling and walked over to the window. Keeping her back turned to Jakob, she leaned on the sill and stared down into Chang An. Jakob watched her, waiting for her to speak, but she said nothing.

  “Have you had any contact at all with Kao or Mei-ling since that night in Shanghai?” asked Jakob diffidently.

  “None whatsoever.” Abigail kept her back turned to her father and her voice sharpened again. “I thought it best to put all that behind me once and for all.”

  “Mei-ling was persecuted by Red Guards until she lost her mind.” said Jakob quietly. “She’s in an institution now. I visited her but she doesn’t recognize anybody

  Abigail neither moved nor spoke but continued to stare out of the window, and Jakob sat up straighter in the bed.

  “You may think, Abigail, that I’m only interested in what’s going on in China — but the truth is I came here this time hoping above all else to see you. . . . Although I’ve never known how to put things right between us, I haven’t given up hope. Perhaps you’ve thought I didn’t care about you because I haven’t been able to say it. But the opposite is true. I cared so much that when you came to Hong Kong it hurt even to look at you. In a way you reminded me of all the pain and the tragedy of the past, although it wasn’t your fault. . .

  Jakob hesitated, searching for words to express complex inner feelings. “But coming back here this time has made me think again of many things I’d lost track of. For some reason I can’t explain it’s given me new hope. .

  Abigail swung around suddenly and walked back toward the bed. She had a faint look of bewilderment in her eyes and her unsteady voice belied the force of what she said. “I didn’t come here to reopen old wounds, Daddy. They’re better left to heal on their own. I learned the hard way that you have to look inside yourself to find real solace. And I made peace with myself long ago. . . . I only came here to find out if you were all right— so l think I’d better go now.”

  Without waiting for his reply, Abigail walked to the door and opened it. She hesitated, looking back at him over her shoulder, preparing to say something further; bu
t then she changed her mind and went out, closing the door quietly behind her.

  7

  From the Pavilion of Eternal Spring on the crest of Ching Shan Hill early the next morning, the palaces of imperial Peking still looked like spectacular shoals of golden carp basking in a green jade lake. Nestling below, among cypress and acacia groves, the curved golden roofs glittered as brilliantly in the dawn sunlight as they had more than forty years before. It had been autumn then but now it was spring, and on the hill around the pavilion, magnolia, yulan, and sal trees were breaking into bud. Beside the pathways, peonies were beginning to unfold their showy flowers and the early sunlight shone everywhere on fresh pink and white blossom quivering in the morning breeze.

  Jakob could scarcely believe that forty-five years had passed since he first climbed excitedly to the highest central point of the Inner City with Felicity at his side. Apart from the season, nothing seemed to have changed in the old private garden of the Ming emperors.

  The same ancient pines still brushed the triple-tiered roof of the Wan Chun Ting pavilion, where, during one magical dawn, he and Felicity had practiced Chinese calligraphy with a silk-robed scholar; the glazed roofs of four smaller pavilions standing on grassy mounds of earth excavated from the Forbidden City’s moat were still visible among the pines; a locust tree from which the last Ming emperor hanged himself as a peasant army broke into the city still jutted from the eastern slopes of the hill; and despite the tidal waves of destruction that had swept China in the intervening years, the panorama of halls and palaces with their ornamental gardens and courtyards was as unchanged and timeless as it had been in 1931. The mystical heart of ancient China still seemed to Jakob to be beating powerfully in the spectacular imperial enclosures, and the breathtaking sight revived the memory of that distant dawn with astonishing vividness.

  He remembered suddenly the numinous, awestruck feeling that had seized him, the sense that in the lovely, antique pavilions spread out below the hill the immortal souls of China’s great emperors might have been gathering in the hush of that early day to re-celebrate their solemn rituals on behalf of the nation’s teeming millions. A vague, elusive conviction that somehow the sublime beauty of that dawn would live on in him in some influential way had followed, and on closing his eyes the memory of that feeling intensified. He imagined that Felicity was again sitting beside him in her peach gingham dress, her hair neatly parted, her gentle, serious face radiating its simple piety. The faint fragrance of new blossom sweetened the air and the illusion became so strong that he felt Felicity’s earthly image might easily appear before him again as it had seemed to do in the blackness of the night on the rock stairway in the Taloushan Mountains.

  Although Jakob’s head still throbbed faintly from the beating he had received in the Square of Heavenly Peace and his body ached in a dozen different places, a curious feeling of refreshment and renewal began to steal over him as he sat quietly in the old Ming pavilion with his eyes closed. After two days in bed he had risen very early to wander aimlessly through the almost empty dawn streets in the heart of the capital. The sight of shadowy groups of Chinese men practicing graceful T’ai Chi Ch’uan movements beneath the misty willows fringing the Forbidden City moat had transported him backward in time to that first magical Peking dawn he had shared with Felicity, and on hearing the plaintive wail of panpipes from the direction of Gorgeous Prospect Hill, he had deliberately turned his footsteps in that direction.

  As he reached the summit, the rising sun had suddenly fired its first shafts of yellow light low across the city from the east and he had been immediately moved by the deep sense of tranquility which pervaded the old imperial vantage point. Tien An Men Square, which was partially visible from the hilltop, was almost deserted at that early hour, and it was hard to imagine that only days before it had been the scene of so much violence and ugliness. Jakob had heard rumors that several demonstrators had been killed in the fighting and hundreds injured, although there had been no official confirmation. The unrest had also been followed quickly by a dramatic announcement in the press that Vice Premier Teng Hsiao-ping had been removed from all his government and Party posts. The acting premier, Hua Kuo-feng, had been formally appointed premier of the State Council and, more important, deputy chairman of the Communist Party, which marked him clearly as the approved successor to Mao Tse-tung. Well-marshaled parades supporting these announcements had immediately appeared in the streets, but these demonstrations, unlike the emotional riots, had obviously been mounted in compliance with Party orders. Although wary-looking militia units had continued to guard the empty Tien An Men Square and its approaches, an uneasy atmosphere had persisted in the streets as though everybody knew that some danger was still simmering not far below the surface. Consequently it had been an added relief for Jakob to stumble again upon the haven of peace on Ching Shan Hill, and because the park was deserted at that hour, he continued to sit quietly in the Pavilion of Eternal Spring with his eyes closed.

  The remembered images of Felicity which first filled his mind faded gradually to be replaced by the dazzling smile of Mei-ling as he had seen it only days before. Her eerie beauty and his enchanted surroundings seemed suddenly part of one strange, indefinable harmony, and Mei-ling’s fresh, young face merged in his memory with the dizzying feelings of love that had long ago consumed him. Other visions of the past also tumbled gently one upon another through his mind as if summoned by invisible command. He saw the Red Army’s standard bobbing again above the heads of Long March soldiers, furled inside the looted oil canvas, that showed him only the star of Bethlehem; he smelled the wholesome, earthy odors of the grain store where he slept beside Abigail and Liang during their escape; he saw the enigmatic, gray-robed Taoist priest standing outside his mountainside temple; and he heard Laurence Franklin describing how Matthew Barlow had died smiling up at the soaring eagle while his Bible translations were scattered on the wind. The fragrance of winter plum blossom, sharp in the cold January air, teased his senses again; he heard his parents describing the crowded prayer meetings held for him in their local church hail; and in quick succession he saw the shocked faces of Abigail and Kao in Shanghai, saw Kao ordering him angrily from his Peking home, then struggling to free himself from the screaming mob around the Monument to the People’s Heroes. The day-old image of Abigail’s lovely face peering anxiously at him in the hotel bedroom lingered longest, and despite the feeling of strain that had persisted throughout their brief meeting, a promise of contentment seemed now to enhance the memory, and when Jakob finally opened his eyes again, he felt lightened and calmed.

  His aching head had cleared and although he was still aware of the soreness in his limbs, a feeling of ease flowed through his body for the first time since he was dragged down from the balustrade of the monument in the riot. A strong breeze was blowing and all around him the newly opened pink and white tree blossom was shivering and dancing in the early sunlight. The scene before his eyes possessed an ethereal loveliness and in that moment past and present fused suddenly, releasing in him a gentle feeling of joy. As he gazed down through the blossom at the palaces and lake-spangled gardens flanking the Forbidden City, he was gripped by a powerful sense of having arrived at an important destination — at the selfsame spot where his journey had begun. Despite the tragedies of the past, a feeling of goodness and beauty seemed to vibrate softly in the dawn air and a new certainty about the existence of a supreme divinity swelled within him.

  When he had sat in that imperial pavilion on Ching Shan Hill for the first time, his youthful mind had been guided by an untested and unknowing certainty, an unquestioning faith. In the wilderness of China, doubts had undermined that certainty, and he had eventually drifted into a vague and unsatisfactory ambiguity of belief. But even after he had encountered his crisis of faith, that first enchanted autumn dawn, he saw now, had continued to exert its invisible influence. It had surely played a part in his deciding to spend the rest of his working life untangling the threads o
f China’s politics from Hong Kong. Every man’s life, he realized suddenly, was to some degree a journey into the unknown, undertaken to understand himself. As he gazed at the new blossom trembling on the branches around him, he knew without any doubt that he had found journey’s end where it had begun, that by means of a long, tortuous trail he had traveled from autumn into spring.

  With these conflicting feelings of exhilaration and sadness mingling in his mind, Jakob rose and stepped out of the pavilion, letting his gaze range over the golden rooftops to the west of the hill. Somewhere below in one of those lakeside pavilions, a modern, despotic emperor who had misused his mandate to cause terrible suffering to his people lay slowly dying; his greatest and most loyal general was also sinking toward death in another anonymous old palace nearby. With the passing of the Communist “emperor” it seemed likely that much agony would pass too and perhaps hope would be reborn. Meantime, the hush of the early day enveloping the ancient capital seemed to convey that all of China was distracted with the waiting.

  Turning toward the east, Jakob noticed for the first time the forests of factory chimneys in the industrial suburbs; wispy plumes of smoke spiraled weakly into the lightening sky as though even the nation’s engines of production were misfiring in the uncertainty. Nearer at hand, among the gray-roofed hut’ungs to the northeast, he tried to pick out the building which had once been the Joint Missionary Language School and wondered sadly whether beneath its roofs Mei-ling was already awake and seated on her lonely chair. With her reason gone and all her love generously given as gifts to others, was the beauty of her soul, he wondered, still shining out of her with that same brilliance that was too dazzling to behold? The questioning thought pained him deeply and in an effort to put it from his mind, he turned to search among the trees and courtyard walls on the eastern bank of the Forbidden City’s moat. He was trying to locate the old single-storied courtier’s house where a four-year-old boy named Ming might soon be waking and searching for a toy. Unknowingly, Ming was carrying Mei-ling’s inexpressible hopes into the future, and the boy’s existence was all that made the thought of her misfortune bearable for Jakob.