by Peter May
Margaret said, ‘I don’t mean to be a killjoy, but pretty pictures aren’t going to sustain a whole series, surely? And, well, to be honest I can’t say I’d be riveted by the prospect of looking at a lot of tombs.’
Michael smiled indulgently at her ignorance. ‘That’s not what the series is about,’ he said. ‘History is about people, Margaret. And this series is about an amazing person called Hu Bo.’ He stopped himself. ‘But you don’t really want to know about this.’
She laughed. ‘No, I’m sorry. I do. Honestly. Go on.’
He shrugged, a little embarrassed. ‘Hu was a pioneer of archaeology in twentieth-century China.’
‘On second thoughts …’
Michael grinned. ‘OK, I know. That might not sound very interesting in itself. But when you look at his life and what he achieved — in the face of incredible odds, against a backdrop of war and revolution, and political madness — it’s an incredible story. A story that started when he was just ten years old, and his father sold him to an entourage of foreign explorers. A story that ended with a final act of will — the publication of the true story of the excavation at Ding Ling, which he and a handful of colleagues had kept safe from the destructive forces of the Cultural Revolution at considerable cost to themselves.’
Margaret said, ‘Sounds to me like the voice-over for the start of a TV series about a Chinese archaeologist.’
He chuckled. ‘Not far off it. I haven’t actually written it yet. It’ll be better when I do.’ His eyes smiled and twinkled at her. ‘Would it make you watch?’
She sucked in a breath through her teeth. ‘Well … I’m hard to please, Michael. It might make me give it a minute or two.’
He leaned forward. His enthusiasm was infectious. ‘If you give me a minute, I’ll give you an hour. And if you give me an hour, you’ll watch the whole series. I promise you.’
In spite of an in-built resistance to the idea that anything about archaeology or archaeologists might be of the slightest interest to her, Margaret was intrigued. Although she wasn’t sure whether it was the story, or the storyteller, that aroused her interest.
He took her hand in his, quite unselfconsciously. ‘Come out to location tomorrow. Please. We’re staging a recreation of the moment when Hu Bo and his ragtag team of archaeologists and amateur enthusiasts open the emperor’s tomb, almost exactly four hundred years after it was first sealed. They don’t know what to expect. There are stories of poisonous gases, of mechanical crossbows primed to release poison-tipped arrows if the gates of the underground chamber are opened. As they pull away the first few bricks they are literally terrified …’ He paused and waited.
‘So what happened?’ she asked impatiently.
He grinned and sat back. ‘You see. Got you already.’ She laughed. ‘If you want to know, come out tomorrow. I’ll have a production car pick you up.’
‘Well …’ she said, almost coyly. ‘I’ll think about it.’
The jazz band began assembling again at the far end of the tearoom, to Margaret’s disappointment. Once the music began, conversation would become impossible, and she had been enjoying the conversation. She liked Michael. He was easy company, and he was entertaining. Then she clouded as thoughts of Li again forced their way into her consciousness. And she wondered if she would ever get over him.
Michael turned his chair towards the band and said to Margaret, ‘These guys are a bit special. They’re only in town for a couple of nights, that’s why they’re on tonight instead of the weekend. The sax player is up there with the best anywhere in the world.’
Margaret cast her eyes over the band. The keyboard player was an American — he was speaking Chinese but she could still hear the American accent. The drummer, sax player and double-bassist, were Chinese. The keyboard player reintroduced the band in Chinese and English, and then counted them into a medium-paced piece, dominated by an endlessly repeating cycle on the keyboard, with diversions and interjections by the sax. They were undoubtedly good, but Margaret’s emotions were not really engaged. She saw that Michael was listening intently. Clearly this was an area where their interests diverged.
She let her attention wander around the rest of the tearoom. The old guy with the baseball cap still wasn’t getting past first base with the young Chinese girl. Near the front an intense-looking young man sat with eyes fixed on the band, his head moving rhythmically up and down in time with the music. He was transfixed. His pretty girlfriend, ignored by her lover, was keeping herself awake by idly creating the most wonderful origami creatures from a single square of handkerchief. Margaret watched, intrigued, as the girl conjured up a peacock with fan tail and cocked head, an intricate and elaborate arrangement of folds in the handkerchief. When she had finished she nudged her boyfriend in search of his approval. He glanced briefly at her creation, nodded and half-smiled, then refocused his attention on the music. The girl shrugged and with a single flick undid all her work and started again on something else.
The band finished their number to enthusiastic applause. The keyboard player spoke for a moment or two in Chinese, and Margaret became aware of heads starting to turn in their direction. Michael was blushing. Then the keyboard player switched to English. ‘And for those of you who don’t speak Chinese,’ he said, ‘we have with us tonight a certain Mr Michael Zimmerman.’ He waved a hand in Michael’s direction and more heads turned and there was a scattering of applause. ‘Now, if you know him at all, most of you have probably seen him on TV fronting those popular historical documentaries. But not many of you will know that Michael’s real talent is the alto sax.’
Michael half-turned towards her. ‘This is embarrassing.’
‘I didn’t know you played,’ Margaret said, suddenly intrigued by this new and unexpected dimension. And then she realised that, in truth, she didn’t know anything about him at all.
‘So, Michael, how about you come up and play a number with us? Big hand for Michael Zimmerman, everyone.’
The eyes of the entire tearoom were on their table. ‘Jesus,’ Michael whispered under his breath, but made no move to get up.
‘Go on,’ Margaret said, nudging him. And she stood up and started clapping. ‘I want to hear you play.’
He was trapped. He shook his head, got up reluctantly and made his way forward to join the band. Margaret watched, glowing with a strange and unaccountable pride. She was with him, and she was aware of people looking at her and wondering who she was. Michael fixed his own mouthpiece to an alto sax that the Chinese sax player took out of a case on the floor behind them.
They had a brief discussion, then the drummer counted them into a slow, dreamy piece, just made for a treacly sax solo. The electric piano reverberated around a simple circular melody, the bass player slipping fingers up and down his fretless board, bending and pulling the strings through the cycle. Michael stood with eyes closed, swaying slightly, letting the music wash over him, before lifting the sax to his mouth and breathing velvet and silk into a creamy solo that swooped and fell and growled around the room.
Margaret felt the hairs stand up on the back of her neck, and across her scalp, and goosebumps raised themselves on her thighs. She had never had much time for music, but occasionally something would move her. And she was moved now. There was a deep, penetrating sexuality in this music, in part spawned by the fact that this was the man she was with, but also because this was talent, raw and real and just a touch away. She watched his intensity, fingers sliding over the keys of his sax in a blur, as his solo soared towards it climax, like a woman towards orgasm. And as he finished, and stepped back, sweat running in rivulets down his face, everyone in the room burst into spontaneous applause. Even the origami girl had abandoned her handkerchief and was clapping her hands with unanticipated enthusiasm.
Margaret’s hands were stinging as Michael made his way back to their table to join her. He sat down, mopping the perspiration from his face with the handkerchief the origami girl had offered him on the way past. To the inte
nse annoyance of her boyfriend she was still watching him, a sexual, predatory look in her eyes. Margaret was aware of it, too.
‘Sorry about that,’ Michael said, and he seemed genuinely embarrassed.
‘And I suppose you always carry your mouthpiece with you,’ she said. ‘Just in case.’
He grinned. ‘Always.’
And Margaret decided there and then that she would, after all, take up his offer to go out on location tomorrow.
V
Mei Yuan was sitting on the settee, her arm around Xinxin, a big picture book open in front of them. Xinxin was so engrossed she could hardly tear her eyes away to glance at her mother and uncle coming in.
Mei Yuan did not possess a telephone, but during her illness Li had got to know a neighbour who was willing to pass on phone messages. And so Mei Yuan had come straight away when he called, arriving by bicycle twenty-five breathless minutes later, her face glowing. She had brought a large bundle of colourful picture books for young children, prompting Li to wonder where on earth she had managed to find them. But he did not ask. She was delighted to babysit. She loved children, she said. Her only remaining close family were a cousin and her husband, and their ‘baby’ was nearly thirty. So it was very rare for her to have the opportunity to be with young children.
Xinxin was still uncertain of her big, strange uncle. She eyed him cautiously with dark, wary eyes. She had not seen him since she was two years old and had no recollection of him at all. But she had taken a shine to Mei Yuan immediately. Li and Xiao Ling had been shooed out the door and told not to worry. Xinxin was in good hands, and they were not to feel they had to hurry back. Mei Yuan understood their need to talk, and if they were late back, then she would just sleep over on the settee. So she was surprised when they returned so early, gone little more than an hour, and sensed a chill in the air they brought in with them.
Xinxin was unhappy about her leaving so soon, and was close to tears before Mei Yuan assured her she would come to see her again, and that in the meantime she would leave the books for Xinxin to look at.
As she left she said quietly to Li, ‘Anytime you need me.’ He squeezed her hand and nodded his silent gratitude. And when she was gone he sat gloomily in the sitting room listening to Xiao Ling in Yifu’s old room trying to persuade Xinxin that it was time for her to go to sleep. At first he heard Xinxin complain that she wasn’t sleepy, and then Xiao Ling talked for a long time in low, hypnotic tones, and then there was silence. But it was, perhaps, another ten minutes before Xiao Ling came through. She had removed her cardigan, and he noticed for the first time how much the swelling in her womb was already showing. She looked tired and strained, and Li saw that his little sister was beginning to age.
She was no longer the fresh-faced young girl he remembered from trips home to Sichuan when he was still at university. It brought back a recollection of the time he had returned to discover that she was engaged to a young man he had not even met, a young man who, he was dismayed to discover, he could not bring himself to like. Xiao Xu owned a small farm near the town of Zigong in Sichuan Province, where he and Xiao Ling and Xinxin lived with his parents. In the new China, his privately owned farm had flourished and he was, comparatively speaking, well off. They had just built themselves a new house. Li had never been there. He had never been asked. But neither had he any inclination to go. As far as he was concerned, Xiao Xu was a brutish peasant and not good enough for his sister. Not that he had ever treated her badly — Li would have beaten him to a pulp if he had — but Li had never sensed in him any real affection or respect for his sister. She had been a pretty girl, and come with a respectable dowry, but Li believed that Xiao Xu had simply been in the market for a wife to bear his child, and that his sister had been in the wrong place at the right time. She had deserved so much better. And now this.
‘Do you want tea?’ she asked. And he nodded. He would have preferred beer, but needed to keep his head clear. She went into the kitchen to boil some water. All that she had told him was that she had not yet decided if she was going to have the baby or not. She was only sixteen weeks pregnant and could still decide up to twenty-eight weeks if she wanted an abortion. Under China’s One-Child Policy, the penalties, both psychological and financial, of going ahead with the birth when she already had a perfectly healthy little girl, could be severe. Loss of free education for Xinxin and her unborn brother or sister, loss of free medical care for the whole family, loss of housing benefit and other tax breaks, even a hefty fine. The psychological pressures that could be brought to bear by the village committee and Party cadres had, in some cases, driven mothers to take their own lives. But at the same time Li abhorred the idea of abortion, of taking the life of her unborn child. It was a dreadful dichotomy, a dark place into which it would have been better she had never ventured.
It was almost the first question he had asked her. ‘Why?’ And she had been dismissive. It had happened, she said, and that was that. But he knew she had wanted this baby. He knew that she had been dissatisfied with her little girl. She wanted a boy, like every other mother in China.
His decision to take her to the Sanwei tearoom, somewhere quiet where they could talk uninterrupted, had been a disaster. Jazz nights were normally a weekend phenomenon. He thought of Margaret, and his surprise at meeting her there, of his anger and jealousy at finding her in the company of a good-looking American. He had no right, he knew, to be jealous, but he touched his cheek where it tingled still from her slap, and he wondered if her righteous indignation of that afternoon had owed more to guilt than to anger.
Xiao Ling brought the tea through on a tray, and laid out teapot and cups on the coffee table in front of the settee. She poured hot water on to the green leaves in the cups and put their lids on to let the leaves rehydrate and infuse the water with their leafy bitter flavour. Then she perched on the edge of the settee next to Li and waited in tense silence.
‘So what did Uncle Yifu say to you?’ Li asked, finally, and she immediately tensed further.
Yifu, at the request of their father, had travelled to Zigong by train to talk to Xiao Ling about her pregnancy and had been killed on the night of his return to Beijing.
She clasped her hands together, wringing her fingers as she spoke. ‘After all the pressure everyone had been putting me under,’ she said, ‘old Yifu sat me down and took my hand and told me my destiny was my own to decide.’ Her eyes filled with tears. ‘He made no judgements or accusations. He took me through all the options and all the consequences. He asked me to tell him why I wanted a boy. He made no comment upon my reply, but he made me think about it and give expression to my feelings. Nobody else cared what I thought, not Xiao Xu, not his parents nor our father, nor anyone. They just wanted me to do what I was told. Uncle Yifu wanted me to do what I thought was right.’ She turned to Li as the tears spilled over and ran down her cheeks. ‘He was such a lovely old man, Li Yan. Such a good man. We talked for hours and I wanted him to stay for a few days. But he said he had to go.’ She bit her lip. ‘If only I’d insisted, if I’d made him stay, he’d still be alive today.’ And the guilt that she had been holding in for who knew how long, rose in great sobs that tore at her chest, and she wept unreservedly. ‘I feel so responsible.’
Li put an arm around her and pulled her to him. She felt so small and fragile, he was afraid to squeeze her too hard in case she broke. ‘You share no blame for his death,’ he almost whispered. His voice was hoarse with emotion. ‘If there is someone to blame then it is me. He would not have been killed if it were not for me.’
But this seemed only to distress Xiao Ling even further. ‘I don’t know why you ever wanted to be a policeman anyway,’ she sobbed, and he felt her accusation in it.
‘Because I wanted to be like him,’ he said, desperate for her understanding. ‘Because I believed in the same things he did — in fairness and justice, and the right of people to live in security without fear for their lives or possessions.’
And she turned
her tear-stained face to his. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I know you loved him, too.’
They sat for a long time then, just holding each other, until their tears had all been spilled. Finally Xiao Ling wiped her face dry with a handkerchief and sat forward to sip her tea. It was only lukewarm by now. Li no longer felt like drinking his, and he went to the refrigerator and opened a bottle of beer. He stood in the doorway watching her, then took a long pull from the neck of his bottle. The ice-cold beer took the heat out of the burning in his throat. Then he asked the question he had been putting off all night. ‘Why are you here, Xiao Ling?’
She avoided his eye. ‘There is a clinic in Beijing where I can go to have what they call an ultra-sound scan.’ Her voice was husky.
He frowned. ‘What’s that?’ Such things were beyond his experience, and he was apprehensive.
‘It’s where they can get a picture on a television screen of your baby in the womb. They do it with sound, somehow … high frequency sound waves. I’ve been reading up about it.’
‘What is the point of that?’
She hesitated. ‘Sometimes they can tell the sex of the baby.’ And he knew immediately what was in her head, and he felt sick to his stomach. ‘And if they can’t,’ she said, ‘then they can take fluid from the womb and know for sure.’
He stood, motionless, looking at her for a long time. He felt a vein pulsing in his temple. ‘And if it’s another girl?’ He waited for her reply, but she said nothing, and steadfastly refused to meet his eye. So he said it for her. ‘You’re going to have her aborted, aren’t you?’ Somehow it seemed even worse when the ‘it’ had become ‘her’.
Xiao Ling seemed to be examining her fingernails with great interest. ‘If they have to do the fluid test it’ll take about four weeks for the results. I would still only be twenty weeks gone.’