Peter May - The Runner

‘ We look strange?’ Mrs. Campbell said indignantly.

‘Yes,’ Margaret said. ‘We’re a curiosity. A couple of bizarre-looking, round-eyed foreign devils.’

‘Foreign devils!’

‘ Yangguizi . That’s the word they have for us when they’re not being too polite. Literally, foreign devils. And then there’s da bidze . Big noses. You see, you might think the Chinese have got flat faces and slanted eyes. They think we’ve got prominent brows and gross features, and have more in common with Neanderthal Man. That’s because they consider themselves to be a more highly evolved strain of the species.’

‘Ridiculous,’ Mrs. Campbell said, glaring at the Chinese faces turned in her direction.

‘No more ridiculous than those white, Anglo-Saxon Americans who think they’re somehow better than, say, the blacks or the Hispanics.’

‘ I don’t!’ her mother protested.

But Margaret was on a roll. ‘You see, Mom, the lowliest Chinese peasant will look down his nose at the richest American, because he can look back on a civilisation that is thousands of years old. Their name for China translates as the Middle Kingdom. That’s because to them, China is at the centre of everything on earth, and its inhabitants superior to those who live on the periphery. And that’s you and me. So while you might like to look down on some people back home, here you are the one who is looked down on.’

This was clearly a revelation to Mrs. Campbell. She shifted uncomfortably in her seat. ‘Ridiculous,’ she said under her breath. But now she avoided meeting any of the eyes that were turned in her direction.

Margaret smiled to herself.

The wind almost blew them over as they emerged from the escalators at Tiananmen West, like the earth exhaling its frozen winter breath in a great blustering sigh. Margaret took her mother’s arm and hurried her along the broad, paved sidewalk, past the white marble bridges that spanned the moat, to the Gate of Heavenly Peace, red flags whipping in the wind all around Mao’s portrait. Mrs. Campbell, clutching her coat to her neck, turned and followed Mao’s gaze south. She had seen pictures of the portrait and the gate many times on the news. It was the cliché TV reporters could never resist, delivering countless reports to camera with Mao and the gate behind them. ‘Where’s the square?’ she said.

‘You’re looking at it.’

Mrs. Campbell’s eyes widened. ‘ That’s the square?’ She soaked it up. ‘Margaret, it’s huge .’ In the dull haze of this windy, winter’s afternoon, she could not even see its southern end. The History Museum to the east, and the Great Hall of the People to the west were on the very periphery of their vision.

Margaret said, ‘We can walk across it afterwards.’ And she steered her mother through the arched tunnel that took them under the Gate of Heavenly Peace and into the long concourse that led to the towering roofs of the Meridian Gate and the entrance to the Forbidden City itself. Through lines of gnarled cypress trees a constant procession of people walked the concourse in either direction, well-wrapped for warmth, although here the grey-slated buildings that lined the enclosure afforded a measure of protection from the wind. Elaborate stalls in the style of the ancient city sold tourist trinkets and hot drinks. Young girls dressed in the clothes of royal concubines posed with visitors to have their photographs taken. Tinny voices barked constant announcements through megaphones mounted on poles, disembodied voices whose anonymous owners were tucked out of sight.

A scruffy looking man approached them obliquely. ‘You want seedy lom?’

Mrs. Campbell said, ‘Sadie Lom? What’s he talking about?’

‘CD Rom,’ Margaret elucidated, and turning to the tout said firmly, ‘No.’

‘How ‘bout DVD? Hally Potallah. I got Hally Potallah.’

‘Does my mother really look like someone who wants to watch a Harry Potter movie?’ Margaret said. The tout looked confused. ‘That’s a no,’ she added, and she whisked her mother quickly away. ‘If anyone tries to sell you anything, just walk away,’ she told her. ‘Don’t speak or meet their eye.’

She took her own advice several times as they then ran the gauntlet of touts trying to sell glossy guide books on the Forbidden City, only to arrive at the ticket office outside the Meridian Gate to find chains stretched between poles fencing it off, and a large sign in Chinese erected outside.

‘You want buy book?’ a voice at her elbow said.

She turned to the owner of the voice, an old peasant woman, and said, ‘What does the sign say?’

‘Close,’ the old lady said.

‘Closed?’ Margaret was incredulous. ‘It can’t be.’

‘Big work inside. They fix.’

‘Renovation?’

The old lady nodded vigorously. ‘Yeh, yeh, yeh. Renovation. You can still see. Buy book.’

‘I don’t believe it,’ Margaret’s mother said. ‘What do I tell the folks back home? I went to China, and it was shut?’

Tiananmen Square was busy, perhaps because the Forbidden City was closed. But there were more people than usual strolling its vastness, in spite of the bitter wind that raked across it. The air was filled with kites that dipped and swooped in the wind, red faces turned upwards, gloved hands tugging on taut lines. Groups of peasants up from the country posed for photographs with the Gate of Heavenly Peace in the background, and the queues at Mao’s mausoleum seemed longer than usual, pan-faced peasants standing patiently waiting to see the body of the man who had led their country through so many turbulent decades, lying preserved now in its glass case. Margaret’s mother declined to join the line. She had had enough.

‘I’m getting tired, Margaret. Perhaps we should go home.’ Words Margaret was relieved to hear.

They went through the pedestrian subway and up the stairs to the north side of Chang’an Avenue where they could get the underground train home. As they emerged again into the icy blast, Mrs. Campbell, still tottering on her unsuitable heels, stumbled and fell with a shriek of alarm. Margaret tried to catch her, but her mother’s arm somehow slipped through her fingers. She clattered on to the pavings and sprawled full length, all thoughts of trying to retain her dignity vanishing with the pain that shot through her leg from the knee which took the brunt of her weight.

Margaret crouched immediately beside her. ‘Mom, are you okay?’

‘I’m fine, I’m fine.’ But there were tears smearing her mother’s eyes, and as she turned to try to get up, Margaret saw the blood running down her shin from the gash on her knee. Her stocking was shredded.

‘Don’t try to move,’ Margaret said. ‘You’re bleeding. I’ll need to bandage it.’

As she fumbled in her purse searching for a clean handkerchief, Margaret became aware of a crowd gathering around them. The Chinese were inveterate busybodies. They always had to know what was going on, and to see for themselves. Once a crowd began to gather, like Topsy it just grew and grew. A woman picked up Mrs. Campbell’s purse and handed it to her. Another knelt down and held her hand, gabbling away to her incomprehensibly. Margaret found a packet of antiseptic wipes and started cleaning the wound. It wasn’t deep, a graze really, but her mother winced as the antiseptic stung. Someone offered her a piece of candy, but she waved it away. There were so many people around them now, they were cutting out most of the light. Margaret pulled out a hanky — she always kept a clean one for emergencies — and tied it around the knee to stop any further bleeding. ‘It’s okay, Mom, it’s just a graze. You can try and get up now.’ And she took her mother’s arm to help her up.