Andrea Barrett - The Middle Kingdom

‘All this I have told you,’ she said, ‘all this, is only to say that for me to be here in this building, as an honored guest, after all that has passed before … well. Only I wish Meng had come.’

‘You couldn’t bring him?’ I said.

‘I could — spouses were invited. But he swore he would never set foot inside these doors. And then I thought to bring Zaofan, but he laughed when I asked him. He asked me, should he come to this place where extraordinary incident occurred?’

‘Did you tell me about that?’ I asked. I struggled to fit the pieces I remembered into some larger shape. ‘I remember the trouble in the countryside, over the sweet potatoes. And the dazibao .’

‘This is something else,’ she said. ‘Zaofan was six when we were sent away, thirteen when we came back. He had almost no primary school, but somehow he had to pass the examinations for middle school, and somehow he did. But just when he started, Zhou Enlai died, and Zaofan participated with his classmates in the Qing Ming demonstrations. And — probably you know this, probably you read about this in your papers at home. It was just ten years ago.’

‘I know about Qing Ming,’ I said. ‘A little. When my Uncle Owen was here, he used to go with his friends to sweep the graves of their ancestors. Afterwards, they had big parties to celebrate the spring.’

She nodded. ‘This was the same celebration. You remember pictures from 1976, hundreds of thousands of people filling the square outside this building?’

‘Sort of,’ I said.

She smiled. ‘Sort of,’ she repeated. ‘A great sadness occurred when Zhou died, and then anger when the government made no official mourning for him. People my age, our lives had just been returned to us and we were too timid, still, to do anything. But young people, students especially, they made their own mourning. A bad article against Zhou appeared in the Shanghai newspapers, and this caused great demonstrations. People marched outside here, bringing wreaths and poems honoring Zhou, and some people pasted these poems to the Monument to the Revolutionary Heroes in the square. Also someone made a poem comparing Mao to the Emperor Qin Shihuang. The one Katherine visited the tomb for, in Xian.’

‘I thought he was a hero,’ I said.

She made a face. ‘Some hero. He made an empire, perhaps, united many peoples and guarded empire’s borders. But also he ordered all books burned and many scholars killed. So to say this, to say what Mao did during the blood years is like what the Qin Emperor did — well, this is a strong thing.’

‘What happened?’ I asked.

‘What you would expect. By the second night of the demonstrations, most people had left, but the wreaths stayed, rows and rows of them. Late in the night, trucks from the government came and stole all the wreaths away, against tradition. This was seen by some, and at dawn people poured back into the square. Many were students from the middle schools, among them Zaofan. They asked that the wreaths be replaced, and when no answer came they grew angry. Several cars were burned. One building was set on fire. Foreign journalists, their films were taken.’

‘A riot?’ I said.

‘A small one. That evening, the mayor of Beijing stood on the steps to this building and he called out, “Go home! All you boys and girls, you go home!” His voice came out of the loudspeakers on the lampposts in the square. Some boys and girls went home and some stayed, Zaofan included. Later they turned on all the floodlights and then the militia came with clubs and surrounded the students and beat them. They arrested many and hurt some, and a few were killed. Zaofan was arrested, and even though he was released the next day, this went in his file along with notes about how we, his parents, had undergone labor reform, and also the sweet potato incident when we were in the country. So of course when he applied to art institute, he could not get in.’

She brushed the tablecloth with the tips of her fingers. ‘Always, this will be with him,’ she said. ‘The rehabilitation committee excused him after Mao died and the Gang of Four fell, and also they restored my job and Meng’s and returned back salary for our lost years. But always the stain has remained for all of us. Always, these times repeat.’

As the meal wound down, we drank many toasts. We drank to the heroes of the revolution, to the victories of the anti-imperialist wars, to Sino-American cooperation and the continued friendship of our peoples. We drank to the increased joint production of high-technology goods, to the weather, to the various dignitaries, and to some of the prominent scientists. Once, even, we drank to Walter, and Walter trembled with pleasure when a department chairman from one of the universities praised him for organizing the conference so well. When Walter sat down after toasting his hosts in return, he bent toward Katherine and squeezed her hand.

His smile was as clear as a poster, the light in his eyes as strong and sharp as the mao-tai the waiters had poured for the toasts. I felt like I held Dr Yu’s life in my head, a small glowing ball buried deep in my brain, and I heard children singing in the streets and saw a ring of people with linked arms dancing. Two steps in place, one step forward; kick with the right leg, kick with the left. Music poured from the loudspeakers in the street. I saw myself in a concrete-walled classroom here, with a stack of sticky labels inscribed with the names of things. The language of things: chair, desk, window, wall, pencil, lamp, pen ; me sticking labels on objects and the students repeating the words. It seemed like a pleasant dream, maybe even a possible one. I had no idea that Dr Yu had something else in mind for me.

I rose unsteadily and walked over to Walter and tapped him on the shoulder. ‘Outside,’ I said. ‘Now.’ The hand I placed on his shoulder felt dead, or his shoulder was dead, or whatever should have flowed between hand and shoulder was dead. I felt a wish just then, as strong as a kick in my chest, for a man with Walter’s brains and Randy’s wild anarchy and Rocky’s sweetness and Hank’s kind heart, and there was nothing I could do with that wish except to hold my ribs with my hands and know I wouldn’t die from the wanting.

Walter followed me without any argument; maybe he knew from the look on my face that I was serious. He followed me through the endless rows of tables, along the red carpet, across the huge hall, out the massive doors to the dim broad steps overlooking the square. The square was empty except for a few people cutting the corners between one building and the next, and I saw it as it had been twenty years ago, filled with shouting Red Guards being blessed by Mao on the eve of the Cultural Revolution. I saw it ten years ago, filled with silent students laying wreaths at the base of the obelisk, and I saw Rocky there, still a teenager, risking himself while I burrowed deeper into all that hid me from my life. His mother had given me something precious, I saw, something I’d always lacked: a sense of context, a framework in which I could measure the choices I’d made.

Walter started to say something, but I stopped him before he could. ‘Look,’ I told him. ‘Here’s the deal.’

‘What?’ he said. He touched my forehead with his fingers. ‘Are you sick again?’

‘You’re in love with her,’ I said. ‘Anyone could see it.’

He managed to smile and look pained at the same time. He hugged himself, his hands cupping his elbows. ‘Grace,’ he said. ‘You don’t …’

‘Never mind,’ I said. ‘It’s true.’

‘She makes me feel young again,’ he said — the most honest words he’d said to me in ages. ‘Happy. She makes me feel alive , like I can start over. Do anything. Be anyone. Sometimes I get so tired of who I am and what I do, and I wish I could go back to when I was just getting started.’