Forbidden City

by William Bell

  “No. Nothing.” I stared at the needles. Okay, I thought, now my wrist looks like I had an argument with a porcupine, but what’s my wrist got to do with a bullet wound in my calf?

  “Xiao Nie, why are you putting the needles in there?”

  “Send your qi over to your hurt spot, Shan Da.”

  “Oh.” I didn’t have the faintest idea what he was talking about. I watched as he put three more needles into the back of my hand. Then he knelt in front of me.

  “Those needles for healing. Now I put some to make the swell go away.”

  Xiao Nie inserted a couple of needles below the wound and a couple above it, twirling each one before letting it go. He stood up and screwed the cap back onto the bottle.

  While I sat there, punctured, Xin-hua’s friends passed on the news and rumours they’d picked up. Xiao Nie was helping out when he could at the Union Hospital. Xiao Yang had been touring on his bike, secretly taking pictures. He put two rolls of exposed film on the table. I wondered why, but didn’t say anything. Xiao Liu, a big solid guy who made Xin-hua and Xiao Yang look like kindergarten kids beside him, had been checking out the university campuses because most students thought that it was only a matter of time before the PLA raided the campuses. They were afraid of another blood bath.

  They talked in Chinese — Xiao Liu had no English because his foreign language was Japanese and Xin-hua would stop every few minutes and translate for me as best she could with her limited vocabulary. Probably she didn’t have words like murder, blood, bullet, tank, and armoured personnel carrier in her English textbooks. While she talked to me I made notes, then when she switched to Chinese with her friends, I put a summary on the tape recorder. I had to do it that way because I was starting to run low on tapes.

  This is what they found out.

  The Chinese Red Cross estimated 2,600 civilians and students dead so far.

  Police were patrolling the city in groups with iron truncheons. The PLA were at most of the intersections and doing spot checks, demanding to see people’s identity papers. PLA in plain clothes with heavy canvas shoulder bags were patrolling the city. There were machine guns in the bags. Were the PLA using the civilians for cover for some reason?

  In many neighbourhoods, life goes on as usual. People are shopping, sitting in the shade of the plane trees, playing with their kids.

  On a side street out near the Friendship Hotel a truck full of soldiers was moving slowly along because the street was narrow. A street sweeper threw down his broom and lay on the pavement in front of the truck to prevent it going forward. He was arrested.

  PLA forced their way into the Capital Hospital and arrested a camera crew who were taking pictures of the wounded. Doctors had let them in against strict orders. Two doctors were shot.

  Outside the Citi building soldiers pulled a man off a bicycle and beat him with the butts of their AK 47s. “I have a wife! I have a wife!” he yelled as they struck him. At the same place soldiers rounded up civilians from the street and forced them to kneel with guns at the back of their necks for forty minutes, then let them go.

  There are rumours that the soldiers of the Twenty-seventh Army have been fired upon by other troops because of what had happened at the square. Also that, on the night of the massacre, soldiers from the Twenty-seventh Army stood behind other troops and shot them if they refused to fire on the students.

  In the east part of the city, near the Workers’ Gymnasium, a truckload of soldiers rumbled down a residential street. An old lady standing on her fourth-storey balcony shouted at them, waving her fist, “Fa xi shi! Fa xi shi!” Fascists! Fascists! She was shot from the moving truck and she toppled over the balcony railing into the street.

  Tanks are massed ten across and eight deep at the north end of Tian An Men Square. There are three hundred thousand PLA in and around Beijing. Tanks are deployed at strategic spots, like major intersections of the Second Ring Road. The big diplomatic residence compound on the Second Ring Road has been ordered evacuated. I looked up when Xin-hua told me that, remembering the map of Beijing in my head, remembering when I showed Eddie and Dad where I thought the PLA would enter the city. The tanks set up in that way meant only one thing — whoever deployed the tanks was expecting an attack. It seemed Beijing was on the verge of civil war.

  Today was What To Do With Alex Day. Or, I should say, With Shan Da.

  It was pretty much like yesterday — sunny and hot, with no breeze to stir the poplars in the courtyard. I couldn’t move around too much. I guess I had overdone things yesterday, tried to hurry the wound along. Today I paid for it. The wound raged and complained and every move I made sent a fiery bolt right up to my knee.

  So I sat around and got in Nai-nai’s way all day.

  I was really on edge. Nothing on the two-way, nothing to do except sit or lie around feeling sore in the head and leg, wondering when and how I was going to get out of this place, thinking about Lao Xu, worrying about Dad, wondering what had happened to Eddie the night of the massacre — in other words I was going nuts with frustration.

  On top of that, I was homesick. I missed my friends. I wanted to be in my own room in my own house. And I wanted Dad there with me.

  Tears ran from the corners of my eyes, hot and ticklish. I took a deep breath to stop the crying and let it out slow.

  I decided that no matter how badly my leg hurt and no matter what Nai-nai or Xin-hua thought, I was going to leave tomorrow morning. I would thank them for taking care of me and I would ask to borrow the cane. I would make my way along the hu tong until I got to a major street. Then I would try to get back to the hotel. I knew I was south of the square, and as long as it was still sunny, I’d be able to figure out where north was.

  If I met soldiers, well, I’d have to try my luck.

  I felt a little better after I had made my decision, and I dozed off and slept till suppertime.

  Our meal was boiled rice and stir-fried celery with soya bean sauce and sugar in it. That’s it. A typical meal, Xin-hua told me. Not much like the Beijing Hotel. I realized that the meals there and in the Chinese restaurants in Toronto don’t have much to do with what people actually eat in China.

  After supper, Xiao Nie and Xiao Yang came by. They looked tired and scared and sad at the same time. But I had never known them when they didn’t look that way

  Right away I asked them if they had heard anything about my father. Xiao Nie didn’t say anything. He dropped his canvas bag on the table, then knelt and began to unwrap my bandage, keeping his head down as he worked. Xin-hua and Xiao Yang rattled away in Chinese and every few seconds Xin-hua looked across the table at me, her face anxious.

  “What?” I interrupted. “What?”

  They kept talking fast. I couldn’t follow even one word.

  “Is it about my father? Did they hear anything?”

  Xiao Yang fell silent. Xin-hua said, “No, nothing your father. But Xiao Liu has been back to Harbin. He heard that some students are being arrested.”

  “Will he be okay?”

  “We don’t know. Hope he will. This afternoon a BBC reporter was found on streets by PLA. They beat him and made him to kneel down on street with the gun on his neck.”

  “Did they let him go?”

  “They arrested him. Xiao Yang thinks those arrested are driven out.”

  “Out of the country?”

  “Perhaps.”

  That didn’t sound so bad to me, if it was true. It would have suited me just fine to let them take me to the airport and put me on a plane to anywhere else.

  Then I thought about Dad. Had he been driven out? What if I spent days looking for him and he was out of the country all along? But Dad would never let them evacuate him unless he knew where I was.

  I had to get to the Beijing Hotel. He or Eddie might be there. And if they weren’t, the suite would still be the place to start looking. I needed my passport and some money. And, I thought to myself, there might still be some foreign correspondents who hadn’t le
ft yet. They might know something. And even if they didn’t, they could help me.

  Xiao Yang and Xin-hua were talking again. “Foreigners are fleeing Beijing,” she said. “Embassies are telling their people to leave. Everyone is afraid of the civil war.”

  “Xin-hua, I want to leave. Now. Right away.”

  “Yes,” she answered, then ignored me and started talking to Xiao Yang again. Xiao Nie got up from his knees. I had paid no attention while he was redressing my leg. He sat down, drew two of the tiny envelopes out of his pocket, and gave them to me. He joined in on the conversation.

  The talk was rapid, but I caught on after a few minutes that I was the topic. It was really frustrating, sitting there listening to them, looking from face to face. I interrupted a couple of times, but Xiao Nie and Xin-hua said to wait a bit. I didn’t want to wait a bit. And I didn’t want to sit there being talked about like a bundle of celery. I knew what I wanted to do.

  Nai-nai joined in, too. She prepared some tea, tossing her own opinions over her shoulder as she stood at the stove.

  I gave up waiting for Xin-hua to tell me what the big discussion was producing. I got my pack and took out my map of Beijing. I spread it out on the table, intending to plan my route to the hotel.

  I tapped Xin-hua on the arm and interrupted. “Xin-hua, where are we exactly?”

  “Ah, ta you di tu,” exclaimed Xiao Yang. “He has a map!” And he snatched the map, turned it around and started talking again. Xiao Nie rose from his chair and leaned over the map. Xin-hua got up on both knees and leaned one elbow on the table. Their fingers darted all over the place, and every few seconds one would turn the map and stab it a few times with a fingertip.

  I gave up completely. Let them talk, I thought. I knew what I was going to do.

  Nai-nai put a cup of tea down in front of me. I said thanks and added, “Wo de yi fu zai nar?” That was as close as I could get to Where are my clothes?

  She went to the tall wardrobe and lifted down my neatly folded clothes. She brought them over and put them on the table.

  Xin-hua saw them and said something to Nai-nai that began with Bu, No, picking up the clothes and handing them back to her. Nai-nai returned the clothes to the wardrobe and shut the door.

  “Hey!” I yelled. “Wait just a minute!”

  The three university students fell silent. “I want my clothes,” I said, taking advantage of the lull. “I’m leaving tomorrow. For sure.”

  “Wait a bit, Shan Da,” Xin-hua said. “We are discussing your case.”

  “Yeah, well, how about letting me in on the discussion of my case.”

  “Please wait. We are trying to decide what to do.” And off they went again.

  I sat back and let them go at it. Forget it, I thought for the tenth time, let them talk. Tomorrow I would do what I wanted.

  While I watched them, detached now, it soon became clear that Xin-hua was the leader of the group. Funny how I had never noticed it before. She dominated the discussion. She’d say something, stabbing the map or shaking her open hand to make a point, then one or both of the other guys would respond, as if testing their own ideas against what she had said. Then she’d talk again and they’d nod. Then all three would talk at once.

  I busied myself putting all my stuff into my pack — all except the two-way, which I left on, as usual. All that day I had been monitoring every channel, leaving it on one channel for ten minutes or so, then switching to the next. That way I covered all channels at least once an hour. But all I got all day was a low hiss.

  I was zipping up the pack when I noticed that the talk had stopped.

  “Shan Da,” Xin-hua began, “we want to ask you something.”

  “What?”

  “We want you try take all your materials — tapes and notes — outside.”

  “Outside?” What was she talking about? Then it dawned on me. She meant outside the country.

  “Sure,” I said. “I would have done that anyway.”

  She said something to the others. They nodded. Xiao Nie talked to Xin-hua for a second.

  She nodded and said, “We want you know that’s very dangerous. If PLA or Public Security Bureau finds that stuffs, you will get very big trouble. Maybe arrested.” She cleared her throat. “Maybe shot.”

  When she said that, it was like someone had bashed me on the back of the head with a board. I hadn’t really considered not taking the videos with me. I had assumed I would, because, before and during the night of the fourth, I had a blind urge to make sure I kept a record of everything. I wanted to do it for Dad. And for Lao Xu.

  But what about now? Things had changed. And maybe my attitude had changed. Getting shot will change anybody’s attitude. What I wanted most was to get out of China, to leave the horror behind me. I didn’t care anymore. I just wanted to go home. China wasn’t my country. I wasn’t responsible for what happened. I didn’t even understand it. So why should I risk my neck? What was in it for me, except maybe a bullet in the back of the head?

  “We have a plan,” Xin-hua went on. “I will take you to Canada Embassy. Xiao Nie says the foreigners are going to their embassies, then outside.”

  She turned the map so I could read it and put her finger on a spot far on the eastern side of the city. “Here on San Li Tun Street is Canada Embassy. It’s far from here — this is here — but we can make it in one day.”

  “I can’t walk that far,” I said. I was stalling for time so I could think about things more.

  “I will take you on back of ping ban che.”

  “But I think I should go back to the Beijing Hotel first. My father might be there. I can talk to the other reporters and ask them if they know anything.”

  A burst of talk. I guessed both Xiao Nie and Xiao Yang picked up on the words Beijing Hotel.

  “That’s very too dangerous, Shan Da. Too many PLA around there.”

  “But they wouldn’t stop me. I’m a foreigner. I’m staying there.”

  “They would stop you and search you, Shan Da, before getting there. You have no passport with you. And you have the camera and the films.”

  “What if I didn’t have the camera and films?”

  A flicker of disappointment crossed her face. “We still think that’s too dangerous. Much better to go right to embassy. They will know the news about your father.”

  “I’d still like to go to the hotel first. My dad might be waiting there for me.”

  Xin-hua talked to the others for a minute. Xiao Nie and Xiao Yang shook their heads. Xin-hua turned to me, about to speak, when Xiao Yang grabbed her arm and said something angrily and hit the table with the flat of his hand. That set the three of them off on another long round of talking.

  I couldn’t stand it anymore. I struggled to my feet, grabbed my cane, and went outside. It was dark in the courtyard. Dark and quiet. Someone had left a low stool by the water tap, and I hobbled over and carefully lowered myself onto it.

  I heard machine-gun fire a long way off in the night, a short burst that sent a pang of fear through me. I tried to get my spinning thoughts into some kind of order.

  Probably Xin-hua was right about not going back to the hotel. If the embassies were pulling their nationals out of the country, and if Dad was not in jail, they had probably got in touch with him. But I couldn’t see him going anywhere without me. He certainly wouldn’t leave China. So the question was, would he leave the hotel and go to the embassy or the airport? I tried to think the way he would. Maybe he’d think the best place to find me was at the embassy. He knew how familiar I was with the city.

  I shook my head, trying to clear it, and pounded the hard earth of the courtyard in frustration. What would he do?

  Okay, the embassy, I decided. If Dad wasn’t there, then the staff could help me find him better than I could on my own. If the phones were still working, they could call him. Yes, that made sense. I’d go to the embassy.

  A single gunshot sounded, closer this time. I flinched again, and the sudden movement
sent a jolt of pain through my leg.

  Next decision. What about Xin-hua’s request? I figured I’d tell her no. I’d leave the stuff with her and if she wanted to try to get it smuggled out of the country she was welcome. I had already been shot once, and I wasn’t sure how I’d act when I saw another PLA and his AK 47 with a bayonet sticking up from the barrel. What I did know was that the thought of being shot at again terrified me. So did the idea of rotting in a Chinese prison.

  I heaved a big sigh and looked up at the piece of moon shining through the poplar leaves overhead. The night was still and warm and peaceful. Except for the gunfire.

  I was trying to decide how I’d tell Xin-hua I’d made up my mind to leave the tapes and stuff with her, when I caught sight of a bicycle leaning against the house on the right of the courtyard. Faint light from the big front window played along the bike’s name and illuminated the spokes with a soft glow. I shuddered. I remembered seeing three or four bikes near one of the barricades in Tian An Men Square. An armoured personnel carrier had run up and over the barricade and was stopped, burning, on the other side. It had run over and crushed the bikes. I hadn’t been able to see them at the time, but I knew that for each mangled bike there was a dead body lying on the pavement of the square in the dark, and that the big tires of the personnel carrier were wet with blood. What kind of monster would run over unarmed civilians with one of those huge powerful machines and grind their bodies into the pavement? Or shoot into the backs of fleeing men and women?

  Lao Xu’s body had lain on the pavement of Chang An Avenue, torn open by machine-gun bullets. Was it still there? Had the PLA taken his body and thrown it onto a pile of other bodies and set fire to it? The horrible image of human beings burning like fallen branches pushed all the fear out of my mind and replaced it with searing anger.

  Just as quickly, I felt shame. So much shame that a hot blush swelled up my body and neck and into my face.

  I looked back into the house. Xin-hua and Xiao Nie and Xiao Yang were still talking, still gesticulating. They had saved my life. Xin-hua had brought me to her home. Xiao Nie had taken care of my injuries. Xiao Yang had scoured the city for news of my father. Nai-nai had allowed me to stay in her home, and for the first time it struck me that if the PLA discovered me there, all four of them would be shot as traitors.