Forbidden City

by William Bell

  She turned to the others and talked fast in Chinese. They nodded their agreement to whatever she had said. I took a look over the hood of the car. The troops in the distance had stopped firing.

  Suddenly, around the corner of the bank, a squad of PLA appeared. An arrow of fear cut into my chest. I froze.

  But the students behind the car with me didn’t. They jumped up. Two of them, the woman and a guy with glasses on, hauled me to my feet. Their panic infected me immediately and before I knew it I was running down the dark street with them. We ran along the side of the road where the shadows were deepest.

  Behind me I heard a shout, then the hollow rattle of machine-gun fire. Something that felt like a baseball bat slammed into the back of my leg, knocking it out from under me. I fell heavily to the road, face first, cracking my skull against the curb and driving all the breath from my chest. I groaned and gasped, trying to get my breath back, in a daze. I got to my knees, and tried to crawl away from the guns.

  Hands pulled at my clothing, yanked my backpack off my body. Hands gripped my arms, my legs. I began to float, moaning and gasping, trying to breathe. I struggled to get free, but the iron hands held me.

  I was lying on my back, on something hard. I heard voices in another language murmuring in the air around me. I lay still, drifting down into sleep, then up again to the voices and the pounding ache that filled my head, then down again. I guess I stayed half awake for quite a while. My head ached so much that I was afraid to open my eyes and my body felt so heavy, as if I was lying under a lead blanket, that I didn’t want to move.

  Later — I had no idea how much later — I floated up to the ache and the voices to feel a burning pain in my right leg. Slowly I opened my eyes, letting them adjust to the light. I tried to turn my head and felt an avalanche of pain thundering through my skull. I heard myself groan as I shut my eyes and kept absolutely still, hoping I would go to sleep again to stop the terrible ache. I did.

  The next time I woke I felt alive at least. My head ached a bit. My leg hurt a lot. But at least my body didn’t seem made of cement.

  It was still light, and the first thing I thought was, what time is it? I dragged my arm from under the heavy quilt that covered me. My watch said June 4, 5:52 A.M. I thought for a second, trying to get my brain in gear. The last time I had checked my watch it was about 2:35 A.M. Add a half hour at most for what had happened in between, and I figured they got me about 3:00 A.M. So I had been out for almost three hours. It seemed more like three days.

  A bolt of fear shot through me as I remembered I had been captured by soldiers. The same kind of soldiers who had murdered Lao Xu and probably grabbed my dad, or worse. The same soldiers who had shot at me. And there was no one to help me. No one else in the whole country knew where I was — or that I existed, for that matter. I was totally alone.

  I heard machine-gun fire in the distance, a quick burst. The fear began to grow and spread through me, like a stain. What would they do with me? Then I remembered my backpack. When they went through it they’d find out I had been taking pictures of the PLA shooting students and citizens in Tian An Men Square. I doubted if they’d be thrilled about that.

  I lay there, terrified, listening for the voices again. Or more shooting.

  I found I was able to turn my head now without it pounding me with pain. Wherever I was, they had put me in a corner on a very large and very hard bed. Above me was a white plaster ceiling. The wall beside the bed was dark grey brick. On the right side of the bed there was a screen with a wood frame and green cloth panels.

  Gingerly, I worked my way up onto my elbows. The movement set off the fire in my right leg. Just past the foot of the bed, against the wall, was a small desk with a gooseneck lamp on it, and beyond that what looked like a tall wardrobe of dark wood. The wall opposite me was brick to a height of about one and a half metres. The rest was window, made of square panes set into wood frames. The window was only about six metres away. In front of the window stood a wooden wash stand with a white basin on it.

  I lay back down. Okay, I thought. I’m in a brick building which is six metres wide and who knows how long. I felt kind of relieved, because the furniture in the place seemed too domestic for a jail or an army barracks. I struggled up onto my right elbow and looked over the edge of the bed to the floor. It was cement, unpainted, swept very clean. I pulled the quilt back a bit. I was lying on a clean white and pink blanket. Under the blanket was a thin woven rush mattress. I peeled it back to find that I was lying on a bed made of bricks.

  Lao Xu had told me about these big beds. They’re called kangs. They’re almost a metre off the floor, and they’re hollow underneath so that in cold weather a fire can be set under the bed to keep the family warm. In the winter, he had told me, a Chinese family might spend a lot of time up on the kang.

  I was starting to feel a little less terrified. I lay back and thought some more. It looked like I was in somebody’s home. Okay, then. Not a modern apartment in one of the high rises of Beijing. They don’t have kangs. I was in either one of the homes in the old hu tong neighbourhoods, or out in the country. The country idea seemed unlikely, so I decided I must be in a brick house in old Beijing. Either way, it looked less and less likely that I had been grabbed by soldiers.

  I lay back and closed my eyes, gathering my strength to get off the bed. I heard feet brushing along the cement floor and quickly struggled up to my elbows.

  Beside the bed stood an old woman. She was really short, under five feet, and very thin. She was wearing a black cotton padded jacket and trousers, like the old storyteller in the teahouse who had related the story about Zhu Ge-liang and the arrows. Her grey hair was pulled back and tied behind her neck.

  Her wrinkled face lit up in a smile when she saw me and she quickly shuffled to the head of the bed and helped me sit up so I could lean back against the wall. She tucked the quilt around me as if I were three years old, and disappeared behind the screen. In a moment she came back with a cup of tea and handed it to me.

  I drank it down greedily. It wasn’t too hot. The old woman stared at me while I drank, took the cup from my hands, and came back with another one. I drank all of it, too.

  She took the cup away and set it on the desk. She moved carefully, the way old people sometimes do, as if they’re afraid of falling down and hurting themselves. Her back was straight, though, and she looked pretty healthy to me.

  She came back to the bed, smiling, pointed to my right leg, and said something. Her voice was soft, almost a whisper. She spoke again.

  I nodded. My leg hurt like crazy. I pushed down the quilt and realized that I didn’t have my shirt or jeans on anymore, so I pulled it up again. The old woman pretended not to notice and pulled up the bedding from the bottom of the bed.

  My right calf was wrapped in strips of white cotton. Not bandages like you’d get in a hospital. Strips of cloth. I touched it carefully. At the back, above where the Achilles tendon joins the calf, a little blood had seeped through.

  The old woman pulled up the quilt again and tucked me in. She brought the white enamel basin over from the washstand and set it in my lap. Then, with a soft cloth, she began to wash my face. I noticed that the water was turning pink and I wondered what my face looked like. I remembered that last night I had fallen face first onto the pavement at least twice.

  When she took the basin away I closed my eyes and heaved a sigh. Well, she didn’t look like PLA to me. I had no idea who she was, but I was so relieved I didn’t care.

  Knowing I was safe — or at least hoping I was safe — allowed me to think about other things, and the first picture that came into my mind was Lao Xu, flinging his arms into the air as the first bullets slammed into his body, then crumpling to the pavement as the second burst hit him. Then I thought about Dad. Where was he? Did the PLA have him? Then another thought hit me like a bus. The PLA had shot at me. I had a wound in my leg to prove it. Maybe they had shot at Dad. Maybe …

  I felt overwhelmed, as i
f I had been swept away by a tidal wave. I felt like I was drowning. Tears coursed down my face, dripping off my chin onto the quilt. I brought my hands up to my face and let go, let the wracking sobs take me over. I cried harder than I ever had, even harder than when Mom left us.

  I heard the old woman’s soothing voice beside me. She pulled my hands away from my face and wiped it with the cloth again. Still talking in her soft, whispery voice, she helped me lie down and held my hand between hers as I slipped into sleep. In the distance, the machine guns started up again.

  The next time I woke up it was just after nine o’clock. Sunlight streamed in the window. My head felt almost normal, but my leg still felt like there was a fire where my calf should be.

  The washstand had been pulled over to the foot of the bed and I saw clothes neatly folded on the desk. I listened for the old woman. Nothing. I threw back the quilt and got off the kang, relieved to see I still had my underwear on. When I lowered myself to the floor and put weight on my right leg, I felt a spear of pain jab all the way up to my hip. Using the kang for support, I hopped to the desk, got the clothes, and tossed them on the bed. Then I hopped back. I washed myself quickly, dried off with the little cotton towel, and pulled on the clothes the old woman had left for me — a long-sleeved white shirt with a frayed collar, dark blue baggy pants that had been mended at both knees, and a pair of socks. The clothes were clean and pressed — and a bit too small for me. On the floor was a pair of cotton shoes. They fit pretty well.

  I hopped out from behind the screen to find myself in a one-room house. It was small — you could walk across it in six or seven strides — clean and bright. The house was square, about six metres to the side. I looked around the sparsely furnished room. The old woman wasn’t there. The front wall had a full-length window, except for the door in the middle of the wall. Kitty-corner to the bed was a two-burner propane stove on metal legs with a gas tank underneath. A big black iron tie guo, or wok, sat on one burner of the stove. Next to it a small pot steamed on the other burner. Beside the stove there were shelves on the wall, the contents hidden by cloth curtains to keep out the dust. A string of garlic clumps hung from a nail driven into the end of one of the shelves. Under the shelves was a small wooden cupboard. Against the wall opposite the big window there were a small round table and four wooden chairs. Next to the edge of the screen, where I stood on one leg balancing myself, was a small black stove with a round pipe rising to the ceiling then travelling over to pass through the wall above the door.

  I hopped over to the window and looked out onto a small courtyard. There were houses just like the one I was in on either side and opposite me was a high brick wall with a wide wooden door set into it. I guessed the hu tong was on the other side of the wall. In the middle of the courtyard, rising from the ground, was a single water pipe with a tap on it. The old woman was at the tap, filling a kettle with water.

  She stood and came towards the house. I hopped to the table and lowered myself into one of the wooden chairs. When she came through the door she smiled and started to chatter away as she set down the kettle. She got out a rice bowl and filled it from the pot on the stove. She set it down in front of me, patted me on the shoulder and sat down across the table from me.

  I took a pair of chopsticks from the jar on the table and attacked the steaming rice, ashamed of how hungry I felt. The rice was sort of tasteless but I didn’t care. The old woman nodded encouragement as I ate, smiling and chattering away in her soft voice.

  When I was halfway through the rice I stopped, embarrassed.

  “Xie xie nin,” I said. Thank you.

  She lifted a wrinkled hand and waved, as if saying goodbye. I recognized this gesture. I meant something like “That’s nothing.”

  “Bu yong xie” she said. No need to thank. At least I think that’s what she said. I couldn’t pick much out of her conversation, so I figured she must be speaking some kind of dialect.

  She started talking again. She must have figured I could talk Chinese because I had thanked her. I pulled my earlobe and shook my head, to show that I didn’t understand.

  Just when I had finished my second bowl of rice the door opened, and I was startled to see a young woman come rushing in. She was about the same age as Lan, but not as tall. I didn’t recognize her at first, but it was the student I had talked to behind the car before we all ran from the PLA. She looked drawn and exhausted. Her pants and jacket were wrinkled and dirty and there was a bloodstain on her left arm.

  Then everything fell into place. The students must have brought me here.

  She pushed the door closed and came over to the table, saying hello to the old woman and talking quickly for a moment. The old woman shook her head sadly.

  The student switched to English. “How you are feeling?” She sat down. The old woman got up and brought her a cup of tea.

  “Fine, I guess. Where am I?”

  She talked English with a fairly thick accent, but I could understand everything she said. When she had to stop and think of a word she’d press her lips together and go Mmmm. Like this: “Mmmm, this is our home. I, mmm, live here with my grandmother. How your leg is?”

  “I don’t know. I mean, it hurts a lot but I can’t see how bad it is.”

  Her hair was thick, parted exactly down the centre of her head, and braided. The braids were tied with elastic bands. Her moon-shaped face was sort of pretty, with strong features.

  “My friend is medical student. He fixed your leg where you were shot. He says it’s okay, but will be very pain for few days. He said he saw you before, in Tian An Men Square.”

  Probably lots of people had, I thought. I had spent enough time there.

  “Thanks,” I said, “for helping me.”

  She made the same gesture her grandmother did. Her grandmother said something.

  “My grandmother asked what is your name and how old you are?”

  I looked at the old woman. “Alex. I’m seventeen.”

  “Ahhh-rek-us,” said the old woman after the student had translated. Then she reached over and touched my hair.

  “A friend of mine named me Shan Da,” I added, “because my full name is Alexander.”

  While the student translated, a wave of grief rolled though me. Mentioning my Chinese name made me think of Lao Xu.

  “Ah, Shan Da!” The old woman nodded, pleased.

  “I am Wang Xin-hua,” said the young woman. “Wang means King or Emperor. That’s the most common of the hundred Chinese surnames. Xinhua means New China. But my grandmother calls me Xiao Mei. That means Little Younger Sister. You can call me by my given name, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “And please call my grandmother Nai-nai. That one means —”

  “Paternal Grandmother,” I cut in, remembering Teacher Huang drilling into our heads the many Chinese words for different family positions.

  Xin-hua’s face brightened. “Nin hui shuo Zhong Guo hua!”

  “No, I only understand a little. I went to the school at Ri Tan Park for a couple of weeks.”

  Xin-hua talked to Nai-nai for a second.

  “Um, do you know what happened to my backpack?” I asked.

  “Oh, yes. I get it for you.”

  Xin-hua went behind the screen and brought my pack to me.

  “Thanks.”

  I unzipped the pack and took out all the stuff — the camcorder, tape recorder, two-way radio, and all the battery packs. I also had my map and copy of Beijing, Old and New. It was all there — even a couple of chocolate bars.

  Nai-nai stared at the stuff as if it had just fallen off a space ship.

  “You are reporter?” asked Xin-hua. I remembered that’s what she had asked me last night.

  I told her who I was and what I was doing in China. I told her about Dad and Lao Xu and Eddie, about Lao Xu getting killed, that I didn’t know where Dad was, or Eddie either, for that matter. While I talked my throat thickened and a couple of times, as Xin-hua was translating for her grandmoth
er, I had to work hard to keep from crying again.

  Twice while I was talking we heard gunfire and we stopped and listened. Every time the machine guns sounded Xin-hua’s eyes flashed angrily and Nai-nai shook her head sadly. When I had told her everything, I changed the battery in the two-way and tried to raise Eddie. No one answered.

  “I will ask my friends try to find what happened to your father,” Xin-hua said.

  “Thanks.”

  Nai-nai got up from the table. She left the house with the washbasin and my dirty clothes while Xinhua told me what happened after the students brought me to the house at about three o’clock that morning. She seemed really pleased when I asked her if I could tape what she said. I put fresh batteries and a new tape in the recorder and turned it on.

  When Xin-hua and her friends had met up with me they were returning to the square after taking some wounded people on the back of a pedicab to a nearby hospital. Ambulances had a tough time getting near the square because the PLA wouldn’t let them by. The corridors of the hospital were already jammed with wounded, dying, and dead when they got there.

  Once they had taken me to the house — they didn’t want to take me to the hospital because the PLA had already begun to hunt foreign journalists — they went back to the square. Xin-hua’s house was south of the square, off Qian Men Street.

  Even though the PLA was vicious in its attacks on the citizens in and around the square, people just wouldn’t give up. And they wouldn’t go away. They pushed buses across streets and torched them. They threw bottles and stones and molotov cocktails at the soldiers, ran like the wind when the shooting started up, then returned when the shooting died away. In the square, the soldiers mowed down hundreds and hundreds of unarmed people. Every five or ten minutes the loudspeakers on the streetlight poles blared messages urging people to “stop chaos” and go home. At four o’clock the lights in the square went out, plunging the thousands of citizens and students into complete darkness except for the hellish glow of the burning vehicles. Everyone got ready for an all-out attack. But not much changed. Forty minutes later the lights came back on. By then the PLA had completely surrounded the square.