Forbidden City (7 page)

I padded into the room and was practically blinded by the morning sun pouring through the windows. Squinting, I went to the windows and drew the drapes. The office was messier than usual, which
meant it could have won a prize from the
Guinness Book of World Records
and Dad’s equipment was missing. I scratched my head and wondered where everyone was.

Still not clued in to the world enough to figure out the obvious, I had a shower and returned to the bedroom. On my desk was a note.

The map was gone all right.

I went down to the dining room for breakfast. The place was like one of the Ming tombs. Waiters and waitresses stood around talking, paying no attention to the half-dozen customers. I finally had to go up to one of them to order some eggs and toast. He said the dining room was “No open”, so I talked to him in Chinese. It worked. He smiled and took my order for eggs and toast. When I got them they were half-cooked and cold.

Even though it was Saturday and school in China goes six days a week (ugh!) there was no way I was going to pass up the chance to check out the demonstration. I knew from the emptiness of the dining
room that something big was happening.

I took the elevator to the roof. I had to perform the laborious task of pushing the buttons myself because the elevator person was not there. When I got to the roof I joined some tourists who had already gathered there. From where I stood I could see the museum, the northwest corner of Tian An Men Square, and most of the Great Hall of the People. The square was crowded with people.

When I got back to the office I looked down into Chang An Avenue. The sidewalks were packed tight, buses inched along the road, taxis crept past honking angrily. Cyclists were so tightly jammed together that many people had given up and were walking.

I picked up the two-way.

“Dad? This is Alex. You there? Over.”

I could hear lots of crowd noise in the background when Eddie answered. “Alex? Eddie here. Yep, your dad and I and Lao Xu are right near the Monument to the People’s Heroes. What’s up? Over.”

“Nothing, Eddie. Just wondered what was happening. Over.”

“Lots, so far. The base of the monument is already piled high with flowers. The students have organized things pretty well, so that people who want to leave something on the monument in Hu’s memory line up.”

Eddie’s voice sounded like he was doing one of his news broadcasts. Cool and distant. “So far everything is orderly. Your dad is trying to climb up the
back of the monument’s base to get better angle for his pictures. Is he always this crazy? Over.”

I laughed. “Most of the time. Over.”

If you want to come down, walk. You’ll have trouble getting your bike through the crowds. Over.”

“Okay, Eddie. I think I will come down for a look. Maybe I’ll see you. Over.”

“Bring me a cold beer, will you? Over and out.”

I loaded up my backpack with my usual electronic goodies and took the elevator down to the lobby and left the hotel.

Well, I did go to the square, but it was pretty boring. There
were
a lot of people there, but hundreds of thousands of people just means lots of people. Most of them were about university age, and many of the people near the monument and the flowers were crying. There were also a lot of cops.

But I don’t know anything about Hu Yao-bang, and I’m not interested in politics anyway. I’m not a cynic like some kids I know. I don’t think all politicians are crooks or anything. I just think they’re boring. So I didn’t stay in the square too long.

Tonight after dinner Lao Xu turned up. After saying hello to Dad and Eddie, he said to me, “You doing anything special now, Shan Da?”

I put down my book. “No, not really.”

“Want to come with me to hear some live history? Military history? It’s nearby,” he added to my dad.

“Sure,” I answered. “Is it okay, Dad?”

Dad nodded.

“Bring your tape recorder, Shan Da.” Lao Xu said. “And better wear your Chinese disguise.”

A few minutes later we were cycling through a cool evening along the west side of Tian An Men Square, which was well lit up by the streetlights. There were lots of people in the square, most of them near the base of the Monument to the People’s Heroes. Lots of cyclists out, too.

Once past the square we continued south along Qian Men Street, the route the emperor used to take when he went to the Temple of Heaven to pray for good harvests. There’s a big park there. I read that Mao Ze-dong used the park as an execution ground to get rid of his political enemies, but I didn’t say anything to Lao Xu about that. He likes Mao.

Qian Men is a narrow street with lots of
hu tongs
leading off it. The buildings along the street are very old. We turned right onto one of the
hu tongs
and Lao Xu led the way as we rode slowly, dodging carts and pedestrians and mini-transports — those big three-wheeled bikes with the platform behind the driver.

Lao Xu stopped and we pushed our bikes through a gate and into a courtyard about twice the size of a tennis court. We locked our bikes under a tree and crossed the courtyard to an old building. Inside was a darkened room, full of small round tables. A couple of dozen men sat around the tables smoking, drinking tea or beer, and talking. Some were playing Chinese chess on the paper “boards”, picking up the
round pieces and slapping them down as they completed their moves.

Lao Xu and I found an empty table at the end of the room, right beside a small dais. I sat down while Lao Xu went to a sort of bar and bought a couple of bottles of orange pop and some beer.

Most of the men at the other tables kept their hats on, so I did, too. I hoped that in the dim lighting no one would see my blue eyes.

“This is a kind of teahouse, Shan Da,” Lao Xu said in a voice so low I could hardly hear him. I knew he was talking low so we couldn’t be heard. Once the men heard foreign talk there’d be no end to the staring.

“In old Beijing,” Lao Xu continued, “it was the custom for a lot of people to come to the neighbourhood teahouse and sit with their friends and talk. Not so much anymore, since most people have radio and TV. In this place they have storytellers, old men from the neighbourhood who tell tales from Chinese classical literature.”

We sat for a while and gradually the tables filled up. None of the patrons looked to be less than forty years old.

Three old guys came in and walked slowly up to the dais and stepped up. Each one carried a low stool and what I took to be some kind of musical instrument. One had a sort of guitar that Lao Xu told me was called a
pipa
. Every finger and the thumb of his left hand bore a white guitar pick. The second old
man set up a little percussion set — gongs, small cymbals, and some wooden blocks.

“And that’s an
erhu
,” Lao Xu said, pointing to the third man.

“Means, two strings.”

The third man had lowered himself carefully onto his stool. He held the
erhu
straight up and down, with the round part, about the size of a large pork-and-bean tin, on his thigh and the long neck, like a guitar’s, only much thinner, came up to his shoulder. In his right hand he held a bow, but this bow’s strings went between the
erhu
strings and the frame.

I heard some rumbling of voices near the door and I turned to see a
really
old man hobble in. He was dressed in what looked like black pajamas, with strips of cloth wrapped around his ankles to hold the cuffs tight and a wider strip of cloth around his waist for a belt. He was totally bald, bent over, and he walked as if he was afraid his bones would break from the strain.

He made it up to the little stage and sat down even more slowly and carefully than the
erhu
player. Someone put a tiny wooden table down beside the old man. Another person appeared with a white teacup with a lid on it and set it down on the table.

The storyteller sat quietly, a thin gnarled hand on each knee, and closed his eyes. After a moment he nodded once. Then the music — if you could call it that — started up. The
pipa
was sort of normal but the
erhu
sounded like a violin with stomach flu, and
the percussion went
boing, boing, boing, tick, tock, clunk
. It was the strangest collection of noises I’d ever heard.

The weird sounds coming from the instruments were nothing compared to what came out of the old man’s thin mouth. You’d have sworn he had put a clothespin on his nose and then tried to imitate an angry little girl with tonsilitis. His high, reedy voice soared and dipped and quavered as he slowly moved one hand through the air while the other rested on his knee. He’d change hands when his voice changed pitch.

“
Tian xia da shi, fen jiu bi he, he jiu bi fen,”
whined the old man, and from behind him came
boing, boing, crash, tick, tick, tick, tock, tock
.

I didn’t pay too much attention to the noises after the first few seconds because I was trying to follow Lao Xu’s quiet interpretation.

“The empire, long divided, must unite,” his soft voice floated from across the table, “long united, must divide. History teaches us this lesson.”

The story had begun.

“Day after day, week after week, the armies were encamped at the Red Cliffs of the mighty Yang-ze River. On the north bank, the endless ranks of the ambitious Cao Cao, whose greed sought to swallow down the house of Han. On the south, Sun Quan, ally of the noble Liu Bei, kinsman to the Han, who opposed Cao Cao as his oath in the peach tree garden demanded. Between them the wide swift Yang-ze River.

“Zhu Ge-liang was adviser to Liu Bei. He had come down from his retreat in a mountain monastery to help Liu Bei defeat Cao Cao. But resourceful Zhu Ge-liang had many enemies, among them one of Sun Quan’s military advisers, Zhou Yu. Zhou Yu hated Zhu Ge-liang so much that he decided to kill him.”

While the cymbals clashed dramatically and the fingers of the
pipa
player and the
erhu
player raced up and down the strings, Lao Xu took a long drink of beer.

“Zhou Yu wanted to trick Zhu Ge-liang so he could cut off his head without criticism, and he thought long and hard for a plan. Finally he came up with an idea. He called Zhu Ge-liang to his quarters, welcomed him, and gave him a feast. After they had eaten and drunk, Zhou Yu began to talk of the war and the upcoming battle that would decide the fate of all.

“Zhou Yu: I highly esteem your valuable counsel, Zhu Ge-liang. Most of my experience in warfare has been on land, in the mountains. What type of weapon do you think best for river fighting?

“Zhu Ge-liang: For naval warfare, the bow and arrow are best.

“Zhou Yu: Ah, what a pity. I had wanted to attack Cao Cao soon, but I do not have sufficient arrows to wage war against the superior numbers of Cao Cao. I am certain there is no one under heaven who could supply us with enough arrows in time.”

Zhou Yu waited in silence, certain that the pride of Zhu Ge-liang would speak.

“Zhu Ge-liang: I think I may be able to help, General.

“Zhou Yu: I have the highest admiration for your august self, sir, and for your prowess in war. But the Feng Shui man has advised that we must do battle within ten days, or we shall lose the war. I am certain that no one under heaven could make ten thousand arrows in ten days.

“Zhu Ge-liang: I can supply you with ten thousand arrows. He smiled, took a sip of rice wine, and spoke again: And I can do it in three days.

“Zhou Yu smiled inwardly at the rashness of Zhu Ge-liang. As he talked, he pretended to admire Zhu Ge-liang while casting doubt upon his promise. Finally Zhu Ge-liang signed an oath saying that if he didn’t supply Zhou Yu with ten thousand arrows in three days, he would give Zhou Yu his head.”

I took advantage of another burst of bongs and clashes to ask Lao Xu, “What’s
feng shui?
”

Lao Xu took another swallow of beer. Interpretation is thirsty work. “No one in those days would make any major decision, none, without first consulting a — what’s the word? — a sort of astrologer who would consult his charts and interpret signs and give you the luckiest date for what you were planning to do. He was called Feng Shui Xian Sheng — Mr. Wind and Water.”

The ancient storyteller’s right hand began to float in the air before his eyes as his reedy voice began again.

“On the first day, Zhu Ge-liang obtained twenty river ships, each with a crew of thirty men. Then he ordered one hundred and twenty wagon loads of straw and eighty bolts of black cloth. Zhu Ge-liang met with the crews and gave them instructions. Then he looked at the sky and shook his head and went away.

“Zhou Yu’s spies reported this activity to Zhou Yu, who demanded: How many arrows has he gathered?

“The spies answered: None. He has not even called for bamboo, varnish, feathers and glue.