Forbidden City

by William Bell

  But my dad is a big suck when it comes to planes. What he does is, he gets what he calls “blasted”. He’s got it down to a science. He pops half a Gravol to calm his jittery stomach just after he checks his bags, then half a Valium when they call the flight, then as soon as the plane is up and cruising he flags down a flight attendant and orders a double whisky. All this is really strange because he doesn’t drink much at all and he’s absolutely death on drugs, legal and illegal. Once he’s blasted, he says, the panic leaves him, and although he never enjoys a flight, at least he can almost relax. But it means I have to handle the tickets and boarding passes and steer Dad around.

  Anyway, we made Vancouver in five hours and a bit, changed planes after an hour and a half lay-over, and took off again. We had a boring meal of some kind of chicken and then watched an equally boring movie about a rock star who loses her voice and starts up a cosmetics company. Right now we’re approximately ten hours out of Vancouver. I slept a bit, but I’m too keyed up and cramped and uncomfortable to sleep soundly.

  I’m six feet right on and I have to sort of fold myself into the seats they give you in the economy section. Dad is taller than me. He’s beside me in the window seat, sleeping all twisted up, like a pretzel. His head is thrown back and his mouth is open and he’s snoring away as if he was in his right mind. He looks pretty silly, actually. I know that a normal seventeen year old would be a little embarrassed to be sitting beside him. I’m just being honest.

  You know, we’re all mega-terrified that our parents will embarrass us by saying something dumb at the wrong time or answering the door in really goofy clothes or something. I used to be like that, years ago, but not anymore.

  I can’t sleep so I’m writing. Just letting thoughts come into my head.

  I take a lot of flak from kids because I’m interested in military history and weapons and restaging battles and stuff like that. I think I’m the only kid at my school who even knows what a blitzkrieg is. The other kids couldn’t care less about war and most history teachers like to babble on about governments and constitutions and the causes and effects of wars, as if the wars themselves were chapters in history that you could skip over without changing the story.

  I’m not saying I’m crazy about people getting killed and cities getting bombed, but it happens, so why ignore it? Pacifists are just simpletons as far as I’m concerned. There’s nothing I like better than a war movie with lots of battle scenes, noise and smoke, explosions that shake the ground, and the wicked chatter of machine-gun fire. Or a tank battle, the tanks moving like chess pieces, like in the movie Patton. That’s the thing. It isn’t the killing and ghoulish stuff that interests me. It’s the battle plans and the strategy and the weapons. It’s like chess or curling or bridge — those are all games I really like.

  Someone — probably Mr. Bronowski — once asked me when I started getting hot on military history, and until then I didn’t realize that it started around the time Mom left home and went to live on her own. My whole world fell apart. I was only twelve and I had a hard time understanding what was going on and why. At first I thought it was my fault, but Mom and Dad — especially Dad — worked hard on convincing me it wasn’t. Then I figured if it wasn’t my fault she left, Dad must be to blame. Maybe she got sick of him, the way he was a fanatic about his work, or the sloppy way he dressed. Mom always looked like she just stepped off the front page of a magazine. I didn’t know, but I was sure, for a couple of months at least, that I lost my mom because there was something wrong with my dad.

  Then one night I woke up from a bad dream. I had been having a lot of them around then. I padded down the upstairs hall on my way to the kitchen to get some milk. When I came opposite Dad’s bedroom door I heard something strange. The door was open a crack, and I looked in. Dad was sitting on the bed in a pool of soft light from the small lamp on the dresser, holding a framed photo in both hands, staring into it. I knew the picture. It was one of Mom and Dad and me at a cottage in Haliburton when I was about seven and it usually hung on the wall beside Mom’s dresser. Only her dresser wasn’t there anymore.

  The strange sound I had heard was Dad crying. His shoulders and head shook from the deep sobs that came from down inside him.

  I watched him carefully after that, because that night was when I realized how badly hurt he was, as badly as me, and I knew that no matter whose fault it was we had to face it together. We had both lost her. And the more I thought about it, the more I knew that she left us because she wanted to, and that, no matter what her reasons were, I would never forgive her.

  Anyway, I’m only saying that I think that’s when I started getting interested in all this military stuff. What I liked most about reading battle plans was the feeling that there were rules and strategies and traditions and everything was clear. And when I got into building model soldiers and reconstructing battles I liked the feeling of control. I’d draw plans and try to picture the troop movements, attacks, feints, retreats, traps, all that, and I’d lose myself for hours in a world that made sense.

  I kept going farther and farther back into history. That’s what got me into the Chinese stuff. And now, here I am, rocketing towards China, miles up in the thin air.

  When the voice announcing our descent crackled over the PA, Dad woke up and tried to stretch.

  “What’s up?” he mumbled.

  “Buckle up, Dad, we’re landing in Beijing!”

  The plane floated and circled for a while and I looked out the window at a curious sight. If you fly over Toronto at night, you see millions of bright white lights, like another sky full of stars, but when I looked down at a city that was almost three times as populated, I saw only bits of weak yellowish light here and there. You’d never have guessed that a huge city was below you.

  The plane bumped down hard and taxied along a rough runway towards the terminal. We hauled ourselves out of our seats and I lifted the aluminum Betacam case from the overhead storage bin.

  We wandered, bleary eyed and exhausted, to the baggage room. Dad was wide awake by the time we got our bags and went through the passport and customs check. We were slowed down a bit because of the Betacam and the other electronic equipment we had with us — the camcorder, a small tape recorder you could dictate into, a portable CD player, a portable shortwave AM/FM, and a Walkman. Dad had to list them all on a piece of official-looking paper. The customs guys wore brown uniforms and looked as bored and sleepy as I felt. As we left the passport check we passed by glass doors leading outside. Lots of people — mostly men — stood on the other side of the glass holding up signs with names on them.

  “There’s supposed to be someone here to meet us,” Dad said as we inched along with the crowd.

  “There, Dad, look.” I pointed to a tall thin Chinese man in a grey sports jacket. He held up a piece of cardboard with JACKSON printed on it. Dad and I struggled through the crowd and out the door into a cool, dry evening and walked over to our sign man.

  “I’m Jackson,” Dad said, holding out his hand, “Ted Jackson.”

  The man gripped my dad’s hand and pumped it as if he was trying to get an engine started.

  “How do you do? Welcome you to Beijing, Mr. Jackson. I am Xu Bing-long.”

  Mr. Xu gave us a big friendly smile that was jammed with crooked teeth. He was only a couple of inches shorter than me and had a long face, not like the Chinese Canadians in Toronto. Most of them are fairly short, with round faces and broad flat noses. Mr. Xu had quite a honker on him, a sharp, hooked nose that looked almost Arabic. His voice was high, like a little kid’s, but there was a bit of grey in his brush cut, so he was probably older than Dad.

  “This is my son, Mr. Xu. Alexander.”

  Mr. Xu did his pumping routine on me. He held on to my hand and said, “Welcome you to China, Ah-rek Shan Dah” — Mr. Xu had a lot of trouble getting his tongue around my name — “hope your stay is a happy one.” He talked English with an accent, and he said words that ended in “r” a bit like a Briti
sher. Like, cah, for car. And Ah-rek Shan Dah.

  “Thanks,” I mumbled, wishing he’d let go of my hand.

  “We have a car,” he said, and finally released me.

  We got our stuff packed into the trunk of a Nissan and climbed in, Dad and I in the back and Mr. Xu in front with the driver. We pulled out of the airport parking area onto the straightest road I’ve ever seen in my life. It stretched away ahead of us until the yellow lamps that lined it on either side disappeared in the distance.

  Dad and Mr. Xu made small talk about the flight while I settled back in the seat. I looked at my watch. It was past one in the morning, China time, and that meant we had been travelling almost twenty-four hours. I hadn’t slept more than an hour or two of that.

  Dad was talking excitedly. Now that he was back on earth and not threatened with another take-off he was his old self, asking questions and barely letting Mr. Xu get an answer out before hitting him with another one.

  I gathered from the conversation that Mr. Xu was assigned by the government to the CBC news team, which was made up of two people, Dad and Eddie Nowlan, and his job was to help arrange interviews, visits to factories and other places the reporters wanted to visit, interpret for them, get tickets for them if they wanted to travel, etc., etc. I wondered why Eddie Nowlan couldn’t do that for himself, but I was too tired to butt in with questions the way I usually would.

  After a while we entered the city and drove along wide, nearly deserted avenues. Then the Nissan made a sharp turn into a parking lot in front of a big building. The car swept through the crowded lot, turned onto a ramp that curved up to the front door, and came to a stop.

  “Beijing Hotel,” announced Mr. Xu in his high voice.

  I was stiff and sore and half asleep. After he had loaded himself up with our bags, Mr. Xu led me through the big glass doors, across a wide lobby, and into an elevator. Mr. Xu said something in Chinese to a sleepy woman in a hotel uniform who yawned and pushed a button which was crazy, because it was a self-serve elevator.

  The elevator stopped, and we stepped into a long, dimly lit corridor.

  “This way,” said Mr. Xu, and we followed him down the hall. He stopped and knocked at a door.

  It was opened by a heavy middle-aged white man. A thick-stemmed pipe jutted out from under his walrus moustache. He looked different than he did on TV, where I’d seen him a million times giving news and analyses from all over the world, and lately from China. Eddie Nowlan was one of the CBC’s top news correspondents. On TV he was always Edward, but now he looked more like an Eddie in wrinkled shirt, baggy pants, and slippers.

  “Hello, Lao Xu,” he boomed. “And you must be Ted. Welcome to the middle of the Middle Kingdom.”

  They shook hands as Dad said, “Glad to meet you, Eddie. I’ve been looking forward to working with you.”

  Eddie looked curiously at me, eyebrows raised. “And who’s this?”

  Oh god, I thought, realizing that Eddie hadn’t been expecting me. Dad had probably forgotten — or neglected — to mention that I was coming.

  “My son, Alex,” Dad said. “I, ah, brought him along for the experience. I thought he’d get a lot out of it.”

  Eddie didn’t look too pleased as he held out his hand, which felt cold as it gripped mine. “Hi,” I managed. “Glad to meet you.” I would have been, too, if I hadn’t felt so stupid and humiliated turning up unannounced. This guy was a big name all over Canada. I had never met a celebrity before. Leave it to Dad to screw it up for me.

  “Well,” Eddie growled, “we’ll try and find a spot for you.”

  The suite of rooms consisted of a small vestibule with four doorways. One led to a bathroom, one to a brightly lit office, and the other two opened on to good-sized bedrooms. Eddie Nowlan led us into the office. A picture window filled the far wall and reflected the office lights back to us like a dark mirror. On the sill was a row of flower pots of different shapes and sizes with all kinds of green plants in them. In front of the window two big desks faced each other. One had a word processor and a couple of telephones. On the other was an ancient typewriter, a fax machine, a tape recorder, and piles of tapes. Both desks were stacked high with wire in- and out-baskets, paper, and newspapers.

  “Take a load off,” Eddie ordered, waving towards a couch.

  Dad put the Betacam on the floor. He and I sat down on the couch while Mr. Xu helped Eddie stow the suitcases somewhere. I thought I could hear Eddie grumbling to him from the other room. Eddie came back and got some bottles out of a small fridge. He snapped them open, plunked them down on the coffee table, and collected some glasses from one of the desks.

  “Have to rinse these out. Be back in a minute,” he said.

  “Well,” Dad said, looking around with sparkling eyes, “I guess this is the newsroom.”

  “Dad, didn’t you tell him I was coming?”

  “I guess it slipped my mind. Don’t worry, it’ll be okay. You look like you could sleep for a week,” he added, changing the subject like he always does when I’m mad at him.

  Mr. Xu came in and took one of the armchairs. He crossed his legs at the ankles and settled back.

  “Do you live here in the hotel, Mr. Xu?” Dad asked him.

  “Oh, no. I live about twenty minutes of bicycle from here. Please call me Lao Xu,” he added. “Lao means ‘old.’ Xu is my surname. In China we put the surname first. My given name, Bing-long, means ‘Bright Dragon’.”

  “And I hope you’ll call me Ted.”

  “Would you like I give you a Chinese name?” Lao Xu said, looking at me.

  “Yeah! That would be great.”

  “Okay, I call you Shan Da. Sounds like your name, Ah-rek Shan Dah, which is hard for Chinese to say.”

  “What does it mean?”

  Lao Xu got up from his chair and went to one of the desks. He wrote two characters on a piece of paper and handed it to me. The paper showed:

  “Shan Da means Tall Mountain in Chinese. Good name for you, as you are a tall boy.”

  I folded the paper and put it in my pocket. “Thanks,” I said. Then, “Dad, can we go and see the Great Wall tomorrow? And the Forbidden City?”

  Dad laughed. “We’ll see, we’ll see. Give me a break, will you?”

  Eddie came back with the clean glasses and poured beer into three of them. He dumped some orange pop into the other and handed it to me.

  He raised his glass. “Welcome to China, Jacksons, and here’s to successful news gathering.” I tried a sip of the pop. It was tasty, but very sweet.

  Dad took a long swallow from his glass, then another. “Ah,” he said. “That tastes good. I was thirsty.”

  “Yep, Beijing beer is excellent,” Eddie said, wiping foam from his moustache. “And I ought to know, right Lao Xu?”

  Lao Xu had hardly touched his beer. He laughed politely at Eddie’s joke.

  After a few more minutes of small talk Dad took a look at me and said, “Alex, you’d better hit the sack.”

  “I’m okay, Dad,” I said, not convincing anyone. Including myself.

  “Come on. Off you go. Beijing will still be here when you get up tomorrow. Or is it already tomorrow? China is twelve hours ahead of us, right? And we crossed the international date line.”

  “Right.”

  Eddie led me into a large bedroom with two single beds in it. He said good night and left the room. Almost before he had shut the door I had taken off my clothes, dropped them on the floor at my feet, and crawled into the bed nearest the window. I fell asleep right away.

  When I woke up, the bedroom was dim, but I could see light around the edges of the curtains. In the other bed Dad was sprawled in a tangle of twisted blankets, snoring away, one foot hanging over the edge of the bed.

  I lay there, groggy and dazed, until my excitement came back with a rush, the way you feel right after a thunderclap. I was actually in China!

  I pulled on my wrinkled cords and went to the bathroom and splashed water on my face. Back in the bedroom, I
pulled on a T-shirt, slipped into my deck shoes, then rummaged around in my suitcase until I found my China guidebook. I left the apartment, heading for the elevators.

  I went up to the roof, got off the elevator, and ran down a hallway and pushed open the door. It was chilly out, and clear. The air smelled dry, dusty, and a little smoky. I looked over the wall to the noise and bustle of Chang An Avenue seven floors below. Wow, what a sight. I have never seen a street like it. There are ten lanes, three each way for cars and buses, and two each way for the rivers of bicycles that flowed past. The riders weaved in and out, acting just like car drivers in a jam in Toronto — impatient, ringing their bells, pushing each other on as soon as the light changed. A few had passengers — they sat on the rat-trap carrier behind the driver, legs dangling inches from the pavement.

  I took a walk along the roof to the west until I got to the corner. Below me, on the other side of a narrow side street, was more than six hundred years of history — the Forbidden City, where the emperors had lived from 1368 until the early 1900s when the monarchy was overthrown. It’s a city in its own right, sitting quietly in the middle of modern, busy Beijing, surrounded by a high wall and a moat. Inside the thick walls are courtyards and wide, low buildings with gracefully sweeping roofs covered with orange tiles. There are even pine trees and gardens, alleys and parks.

  The wall of the Forbidden City’s southern border faces Chang An Avenue across a moat that’s spanned by three marble bridges. In the centre of the wall is the Tian An Men, The Gate of Heavenly Peace, looking out on Tian An Men Square.

  I made a promise to myself to visit the Forbidden City as soon as I could, and then I went back down to our rooms to see if Dad was awake. He wasn’t. I wrote this stuff and now that I’m finished I’m tired again. So I’m going back to bed.

  Tonight Eddie gave us a Chinese banquet here at the hotel to welcome us to Beijing. On the expense account, he said. Dad had on his usual scruffy outfit and Eddie looked very unglamorous in a brown tweed jacket and grey pants. Lao Xu was there, too. He’s a great guy. As soon as he came to the hotel tonight I asked him to teach me everything about China, especially customs. And history.