Clarence had been at Tiananmen. His photographs were a sliver of history. Two years later he succumbed to AIDS, in the last months of his life setting up a medical research fund with his own money and what he had received from his famous novelist mother’s estate. Clarence reconnected with Autumn’s sister in Beijing—she had a small son—and looked after the family. Through his intervention, though they did not meet again, Autumn now lives in England, a chubby middle-aged man, pleased with his vintage-clothing business. He is intending to visit his family in Beijing this August for the Games.
Mother Lin’s promised new flat did not come through by the time of Tiananmen. Her old brick home was not far from the square, which made it easy for Eagle to come and go in those fervent weeks. After she lost her son, her home became part of her curse. If she had been moved to decent accommodation—her right as a long-time resident—her son would have had no base from which to join the protests. To be relocated afterwards was little solace. By then she had become one of the Tiananmen Mothers, campaigning for recognition for their sacrificed children. ‘Getting on for a hundred years I’ve lived in the capital,’ Mother Lin told Wally with bitter humour, ‘and I’ve learned one thing. The government always makes the wrong decision.’
Wally, Jin Juan and Jojo laughed with the old woman. Jojo delighted in her Beijing grandmother. As long as she could remember they’d always been laughing together, picking up where they left off each time she came back. When Mother Lin looked at Jojo, she saw not only her missing beloved son, but also, through her tears, a girl full of her own sunny energy, full of a new enthusiasm for life, and she loved her with pure sweetness.
Earlier that day, Wally and Jin Juan had strolled around the construction site where the landmark edifices of the Olympic Games were growing to completion. With the other sightseers they gawped at the stadium, as conceived by Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, a gigantic bird’s nest bound in shining steel, beside it the bubbly blue box of the translucent water cube for the swimming, designed by German-Australian Chris Bosse. Landscapers—work teams from out of town—were in their own race against the clock, planting the root balls of severely pruned trees in the orange earth, their spring growth already bursting in a jade blush on the topmost fronds. The wind overnight had cleared the air of pollution, and the distant hills were outlined like glass against a blue sky.
For Wally’s benefit, Jin Juan quoted some lines from Du Fu, great poet of the Tang dynasty. He had almost used the same words in his address at the College.
Even if the country collapses,
mountains and rivers remain.
Spring in the city:
grass shoots and new leaves grow.
But the irony of renewing life was not quite the right note. The mood he detected all around was a starker optimism. He had let the quote go.
Their taxi flew above the old hutong on a clean, new overpass as they took the Fourth Ring Road back to Mother Lin’s new flat. Wally and Jin Juan looked down at the low brick walls of yesterday with passive, passing attention, clasping hands. Their driver turned to them with one of those pasted-on, tip-me-big grins and quipped, ‘Things just keep on getting better and better.’
Acknowledgements
The lines from Lao Tzu are translated by Witter Bynner; from Yang Lian by John Minford; from the Book of Odes by Yang Xianyi, Gladys Yang and Hu Shiguang; from Lu Hsun by Simon Leys (Pierre Ryckmans). Clarence’s guidebook is Peking by Juliet Bredon. The line quoted on p. 159 is from ‘A Poem for October’ by Mang Ke, translated by Susette Cooke and David Goodman; the lines quoted on p. 164 are from ‘The Old Summer Palace Drunk’ by Hei Dachun, translated by myself; the line quoted on p. 231 is from ‘The Answer’ by Bei Dao, translated by Bonnie S. McDougall; the lines quoted on p. 251 are from ‘The Fifth Modernization: Democracy’ by Wei Jingsheng, translated by Simon Leys. The passage from The Castle by Franz Kafka, translated by Edwin and Willa Muir, is quoted by kind permission of Penguin Books.
Official Hanyu pinyin is used for the romanisation of Chinese words except when an alternative form is already established, such as Lu Hsun, or for names, as in Retta’s diary, that predate 1949.
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