Уолтер Тевис - The Steps of the Sun

When we were alone I said, “Some of those looks downstairs were mean.”

She lit a Lucky Strike with a stainless-steel Zippo and held the closed lighter in her frail hand for a moment. I saw with surprise that the hand was trembling. She put the lighter in the pocket of her gown and said, “The accident near Wu has affected my standing with the people.”

I remembered my agitation at being hanged in effigy on Madison Avenue. “Are you in any danger, Mourning Dove?”

“I have enemies.”

“I bet you have.” I thought of White Heron.

The play had been running for two months; it would close in a week. We had been driven into Peking that afternoon, had gone to the People’s Hall of Records for a brief ceremony and then, at Mourning Dove’s instructions, were driven here.

While we waited for the curtain, people kept looking up at us from time to time. Some seemed only curious to see a Party official and her blond escort, but some showed open hostility. I settled back into my Victorian opera chair, rested my elbow on one of its little antimacassars, and lit a cigar. It was like a box in a movie Western: the chairs were upholstered in dark-purple velvet; the oil painting of China’s first Party Chairwoman hung over velvet draperies behind us; there was a brass railing in front of us with yet more purple velvet hanging from the rail to the floor. But it was comfortable and spacious. And I knew that what you pay for in China is privacy and space. China may be down to half a billion souls, but it still teems. I chewed nervously on my cigar and left Mourning Dove to her thoughts, almost bursting with impatience for the curtain to rise. By the time it went up I had cleaned my glasses twice and my cigar was a mess. I ground it out in the ashtray and leaned forward toward the stage below.

The witches were adequate but no thrill. They were got up as Japanese Shinto priests and their English was more comical than scary. But their old faces did look like something to be reckoned with, and the blasted heath they stood on made me think of those vast acres of obsidian I had lived on so long:

Macbeth was a big Australian named Wellfleet Close, with an Aussie’s red face and a bellowing voice; he looked as if he had the required gift for murder. Duncan and Banquo were Southeast Asians. I know the play pretty well, having a certain spiritual familiarity with that dangerous couple; I knew when to expect her first appearance. But when the scene abruptly cut to Lady Macbeth with a big letter in her hands, I was startled. There she was, and yet not really. She wore a long russet gown and no wig; the bright lights made her gray hair shine and her eyes seem large and commanding. I knew it was Isabel, yet it was Lady Macbeth too.

She began reading the letter aloud,

Even while pouring tea Isabel could dazzle with her voice. Here in Peking, after all the uncertain accents that preceded her entrance, the sound of her own Scottish speech, the real English language, was electrifying. Even these Chinese became hushed at the authentic ring of it. The play went on through its blood and dreams, and Isabel took every scene she was in, dominating the stage. She was a first-rate actress. I’d had no idea. When it ended with Macbeth’s head on the pole, I glanced over at Mourning Dove. She seemed lost in thought. Applause filled the theater.

During the curtain calls I stood and shouted, “Isabel!” and she looked up to stare at me a moment. I could have climbed down to the stage, but something in her look made me keep my distance. Maybe Lady Macbeth was still in there, and I didn’t want any part of that.

When she looked away from me I sat and leaned back in my seat, trying to calm myself. Mourning Dove was lighting a cigarette. The sound of the applause became fragmentary. Voices began calling out. Men and women in the front rows were standing, not facing the stage now but facing our box, staring up in anger, shouting, “Comrade Soong. Comrade Soong.”

Mourning Dove rose, stepped to the front of the box and held the rail with both hands. She looked very old and frail, but her voice was steady. She spoke in Chinese. “I am Mourning Dove Soong. What is wanted of me?”

“An accounting,” someone shouted, “an accounting of the Death Tax for Electricity. An explanation of Wu.” More shouts repeated this. I came over beside her for moral support, but she seemed not to need any. I was in more need of help than she, with emotions flying around in my stomach like leaves in a monsoon.

“I will come to the stage,” Mourning Dove said. I stared at her, shocked. She put her hand on my arm and said, “One is accountable to the People.”

“Let me go down there with you, Mourning Dove,” I said.

“If you wish.” We left the box, went down a staircase and through a small door that led backstage. I looked around for Isabel. She was not in sight.

Then suddenly I was onstage with the curtain up, blinking out across bright lights at a bunch of angry Chinese, most of them standing. Beside me stood Mourning Dove, only as high as the middle of my chest, with a cigarette in her hand and her eyes straight ahead.

“Nine hundred seventy died at Wu,” Mourning Dove said. “Another thousand will die before this winter is a memory. It was I who ordered the reactor built.”

They were silent for a moment. Then someone shouted out, “Murderess.” And someone else shouted, “Lady Macbeth! Bloody hands!” I began to be afraid for her.

“This theater is well-lighted and warm,” Mourning Dove said. “China has power everywhere because of uranium. You do not labor on foot in rice paddies, nor do your mothers or fathers. You study at universities and attend the theater. Your homes are warm. A price is paid for this.”

“Too high,” someone shouted—a young woman with traditional bangs and an army jacket. “It is too high a price.”

“Have you considered the alternative?” Mourning Dove said.

There was silence for a moment, and then a lean young man in the third row shouted, “China has coal, and wind, and tides.”

Mourning Dove was lighting another cigarette. When she closed her Zippo she looked at the man who had spoken and said, “Coal blackens the skies and the lungs. It is dangerous to mine. The wind and tides are a perpetual delight, but they will not power the factories of Hangchow nor warm the hearths of Shanghai. That is a dream.”

The young man only looked more furious. “Coal may be burned with precision and the skies made safe from its breath. One must take pains.”

Before Mourning Dove could speak I said, in English, “Coal has its own tax of death, its own blight. I am a merchant of coal and speak from experience.”

A heavy man with a Charlie Chan mustache sat in the second row, wearing a business suit. “Who speaks?” he said loudly. “Who is this pale devil with the voice of a bear?”

“I’m Benjamin Belson,” I said. “I do not endorse Mourning Dove’s decision to build reactors. I cannot speak for the dead. But the decision was not a foolish one and Madame Soong has taken responsibility for it.”

Several voices cried out, “Foreign devil!” And then Charlie Chan stood and said, “Your English tongue is that of the killer Macbeth. Take your English and go home.”

I remembered those student rioters who had burned my effigy and told me to go home. I am proud of my Chinese; it was a thrill to use it. “ I am home ” I said in Chinese. “I am a citizen of the People’s Republic, and Mourning Dove Soong is my foster mother. I bring a new uranium, star-born, that will not destroy life.”