Peter May - The Firemaker

Margaret left her bike at the gates and followed the paths that the municipal authorities had carved through the parkland. Past a boating lake, where forlorn red-dragon pedaloes bobbed at the water’s edge. Past stalls where painted girls chatted idly behind high counters of cheap mementos. Battered loudspeakers hung from lampposts and wooden poles at every turn, scratching out sad Chinese dirges performed on plucked stringed instruments. The historic sites were crowded, and with the aid of the map on the back of her admission ticket, Margaret navigated herself away from the beaten tourist track along a narrow tree-lined lane that cut into the farmland heart of the park. Away, at last, from people, the sound of sad music drifting distantly on the breeze, she finally slowed and lingered in the shade of some spindly birches, squatting at the edge of a brackish pond that was alive with frogs. Paddy fields, shimmering in the haze, stretched into the distance on either side. Green shoots of rice pushed up through the still brown water. It made her think of McCord and his super-rice feeding the hungry millions. She snorted her derision. What did people like McCord really care about those hungry millions? Perhaps she was just cynical, but she couldn’t help believing that the diseased, the dying and the hungry were simply convenient meal tickets for scientists anxious to grab as big a slice of the research cake as they could get their hands on. She thought of Chao and his association with McCord going back to their time together at the Boyce Thompson Institute. How that chance meeting had brought McCord to China, leading to the development of the super-rice and Chao’s elevation to adviser to the Minister of Agriculture. And Chao’s death had led her here, to the Park of Perfection and Brightness, to gaze sadly upon their genetically modified rice pushing its green shoots up through the still brown water.

All these thoughts filled her mind, blotting out the one thing she didn’t want to think about. Li Yan. If she had been on the receiving end of a dressing-down for spending the night at his apartment, what kind of wrath had rained down upon him from on high? He must have known there would be consequences. Much more serious for him than for her. After all, she was just some stupid American who didn’t know the rules. He was Chinese and a keeper of the rules. So why had he taken her back to his apartment when he could easily have dropped her off at the Friendship Hotel? She was frightened to think why. Frightened to believe that he might feel the same way about her as she felt about him. But then, what did she feel about him? What could she feel about him so soon after Michael’s death? Wasn’t there a danger of her throwing herself at the first man who showed any interest, of simply trying to fill the empty space that Michael had left?

She didn’t know any more. She was tired of trying to analyse her feelings, of attempting to find a context for them. She only knew what she felt, and she felt sick at the thought that she would never see Li again. When she got back to the hotel she would have time to pack, eat and sleep. And tomorrow she would be gone. Back to Chicago and the sham of a life she had left there four days ago. Was it only four days? It seemed like four lifetimes. She felt as though she had known Li all her life. Had she really thought him ugly and brutish and unattractive that first day when their car had knocked him off his bicycle? He had been furious. Angry as she had not seen him since. She thought of all the hours she had spent in his company in that time, how often she had caught herself wanting to touch him or kiss him, lightly, affectionately. No big deal. It had seemed so natural she had had difficulty stopping herself. She remembered catching a glimpse of his face reflected in the mirror through the bathroom door in her hotel room, knowing that he could see her as she stepped out of the shower. It had sent a tiny thrill of sexual desire through her loins.

But they were all over now, those little mind games and fantasies. What possible future could there have been in any of it? A few stolen nights of passion, a release of sexual frustrations. And then goodbye. She had no future in China. He had no future outside it. So what was the point? All this angst over a relationship that neither existed now nor ever could.

She picked up a pebble and lobbed it into the centre of the pond, sending frogs diving from leafy platforms into stagnant water. All that had happened was that she had made a mess of things. She had come to China to escape. But she had been totally unprepared for the demands it would make of her and hadn’t had the will to bridge the gap. She had met a man she found attractive, but it was the wrong place and the wrong time. And, in any case, she wasn’t ready for another relationship. It was the advice she would have given her sister or her best friend. Don’t go rushing into another relationship. You’d only be compensating. Give yourself a break from men for a while. Get out and enjoy life again. She smiled ruefully. How often it was that the advice you gave to others was the advice you would find hardest to follow yourself. Easy to give. Hard to take. She stood up. Just don’t think about it, she told herself. Take a taxi to the airport in the morning and get on the plane. Once you’re in the air you can start thinking about the rest of your life. Just don’t look back. At least, not until you’re far enough away to get a perspective on it. Like the rice paddies she had seen as her plane came into land, reflecting sunlight, she remembered, in a fractured mosaic like the pieces of a shattered mirror. How different from the view she had of them from here — green shoots poking through muddy water. Everything in life, it seemed, was about perspective. And she wondered what kind of perspective she would ever have on Michael.

But she felt better already for the perspective Yuanmingyuan had given her of the events of the last few days. Slowly she got to her feet. The secret was simply not to think about it. The most daunting thing ahead of her, she assured herself, was the cycle ride back to the Friendship Hotel.

Thursday Afternoon

She concentrated on the pumping of her legs, on watching the cyclists who whizzed by her on either side with curious passing glances, on the motorists who seemed intent on tipping her on to the tarmac or bursting her eardrums with their horns. And she absorbed the sights and sounds of this strange city like scenes in a movie shot from a passing car. With a pang of regret, Margaret realised she would miss Beijing. It was a place, she felt, that would have got under her skin had she spent any length of time here. It was so alive. Don’t even think about it! The words came into her head like a reprimand from a higher authority. But it was, she knew, her own counsel. And she took it.

She approached the hotel from the north, passing the Friendship Palace and its shady gardens where birds sang in cages, and wheeled her bicycle into the carpark, hot and uncomfortable in the scorching afternoon. A car horn sounded, but she paid it no attention. Motorists used their horns incessantly. It sounded again. Two short, insistent blasts and a longer one. She turned as a dark blue Beijing Jeep pulled in behind her and drew alongside. Her stomach flipped over as she recognised Li behind the wheel. The driver’s window wound down and he switched off the engine. He looked at her apprehensively. His battered face didn’t seem as bruised as it had earlier. ‘I tried to get you at the university,’ he said. ‘They told me you’d quit.’

She nodded confirmation. ‘My flight’s at nine thirty tomorrow morning.’

He thought she seemed cold and distant. He wanted to ask why she had quit, why she was leaving, but he didn’t have the courage. ‘I just wanted to check with you,’ he said. ‘About the AIDS test.’