Forbidden City, page 22
“You’re lying,” she repeated, but sounded less certain this time.
I listened for the click of Teacher Fan’s footsteps. She’d return at any moment. “Listen, everyone will be at National Day. You could slip out of the Lake Palaces and return before anyone finds out.”
She bit her lip. “Why didn’t anyone tell me?” she asked.
My chest ached. “No one tells us anything. Until it’s too late. Yesterday, I found out that one of my sisters died. That my mother’s half-dead from a fever. I can’t get to my family, but you can go to her,” I said. Saying it out loud made me want to scream all over again.
Her eyes turned glossy with tears. “I—they’ll never let me out.” She blinked. “I can’t even get past the inner ring of guards without a pass.”
Then I noticed the Chairman’s chop sat on top of the container of red ink paste. He used the chop for official documents and his paintings, a signature that could not be forged. If I wrote a pass and used the chop, it would carry an authority that could not be disobeyed. I reached for the chop, my hand hovering, and picked it up gingerly, expecting a jolt through my body.
“Don’t!” Busy Shan cried.
I tightened my fist around the seal, slid off the lid of the paste, and bore down to coat every crevice. The smell of the ink was heady, heedless, and it felt as if his hand went on mine: Go. His mark bloomed on the paper, bright red characters.
* * *
—
My first day in the capital, I’d passed by Tiananmen, the entrance to the Forbidden City. Located at the northern edge of the enormous square that shared its name, the massive red gate held five archways that led into the former imperial grounds. For generations, only emperors had been allowed to pass through the largest archway, in the center, and now the Chairman’s huge portrait hung above it.
The gate was so large and imposing that a long balcony and adjoining reception hall could perch on top of it. Just before we stepped onto the balcony, where scores of guests had gathered, I checked my costume. My family would no longer recognize me in my schoolgirl’s checkered jacket, white blouse, and dark blue pants; I hardly recognized myself. I pictured Ma, curled on the brick bed, shivering despite being heaped with blankets. Ba, turned inside out with helpless exhaustion. And my sisters: Mei Tian, fierce and first. Mei Ling, second in birth, but first in my heart.
Secretary Sun looked around the crowd, probably in search of the Chairman. “What have you heard about my family?” I quickly asked.
He turned toward me. “Everyone in the village is getting treated.” He would never apologize for not acting any sooner, for he believed he’d done nothing wrong.
“Which sister was it?” I asked.
He went still as stone. “The courier we sent didn’t tell me.”
“Then send another!” My pulse skittered.
“Passing the test today is the best way for you to help your family.”
And yet, in the look he gave me, I understood he would still help them if I no longer could.
If I found out anything more about my family, I might forget everything I’d learned. I stepped outside, where red blazed on the flags that rippled against deep blue skies, on the giant paper lanterns, bobbing and swaying, dangling from the double row of eaves, and on the pillars, thick as tree trunks, that held up the roof.
We moved toward the railing. When you faced south, looking at the square, you couldn’t see the Forbidden City or the Lake Palaces, since they were located behind us. I peeked down at the seven white bridges, dragons and guardian lions that served as ceremonial protections in front of the gate, outlasting the emperors they were supposed to defend.
Seeing such grandeur had once been like falling, as if I were a drop of rain overwhelmed in a storm. Now it felt like drowning. We spotted the Chairman: As he walked along the railing, taking off his cap to wave at the crowd, the shouting from the square grew so loud it could have been coming from inside my head.
The clapping and stomping turned to thunder. I clapped, too, until my hands ached with a thrilling pain—the ache of patriotism and purpose and passion. Of overwhelming want, of a lust that somewhere else might have led to kisses and caresses in a meadow on a moonless night or in a dark doorway, but consumed the crowd gathered here. The Chairman didn’t have a deep powerful voice, and he wasn’t handsome like the stars in the movie musicals. It didn’t matter. The people in the square would never have a chance to hear or see the Chairman up close, so they could find whatever they wanted in him: Father. Liberator. Helmsman.
Pausing by the podium, he spoke into a microphone. “How are you, young comrades? How are you?” When he spoke, the slogans didn’t sound like slogans, but words from his heart, a personal message for each of us. “Dare to think, dare to act!”
He would live forever and reign a thousand years.
* * *
—
Even now, I tell you, I miss it sometimes, the certainty—I’ll never be that certain of anything again.
CHAPTER 19
As we approached the Chairman, I tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. My hair, which used to fall to the middle of my back, had been chopped into a bob—its severe lines replacing the crown of braids my mother had sent me off in. My head felt lighter, but my neck was exposed and vulnerable, bare as bone.
I had anticipated and dreaded this moment for weeks: Perfection was still possible before I began, before being spoiled by a forgotten line or a stupid answer. I pushed back the heavy black frames of my new glasses, an irritating prop that kept slipping down my nose.
As the crowd jostled around us, I went over the plan in my head: After small talk, I’d get the President curious about university students. I had to convince him we needed his guidance and the strong hand of the Party. His attentions would inspire our loyalty, I’d say.
But if he meddled—if he gave instructions on how to behave or clamped down on their meetings at the university—the Chairman knew it would backfire. The students would resent the President and his allies, and turn against them.
The Chairman’s chuckle roiled through the noise. I’d almost forgotten what his laughter sounded like; he hadn’t been that loud and boisterous in a long time. When an official stepped in front of me, I elbowed past him to get to the Chairman, who stood under the shade of the eaves, surrounded by four officials.
“That’s him,” Secretary Sun murmured, even though I recognized the President at once—the man with the bushy eyebrows, slicked-back hair, and an efficient, watchful air. I hated him on sight, a hate primal and essential. Before my training, I’d rarely thought of him, but for weeks, the Chairman had built him up as his enemy, as the gravest threat to our people. He stood in the way of everything I wanted. Now I hated the President for how ordinary he seemed. This man had afflicted the Chairman? The most fearsome demons never have fangs and red eyes, I knew that, but the fact of him before me made no sense. I’d prepared to deceive a man who looked as harmless as Secretary Sun’s stooped neighbor.
The Chairman caught sight of me. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but said nothing. Everything went intense as the noonday sun. Had I shocked him—dazzled him? Impossible.
My teachers had trained me well and dressed me for the part. Like steam blowing the lid off a boiling pot, I had risen up to meet the contours of this disguise.
“Happy National Day!” Secretary Sun said, his tone serious and purposeful, with a ceremonial flourish I wasn’t used to from him.
The men nodded in greeting. “Welcome!” the Chairman said.
“This is Dong Feng, a first-year agricultural student.” Secretary Sun touched my shoulder, nudging me toward them.
Dong Feng, the East Wind, bold and blatant as the deep red in our country’s flag. I might as well have been named Daughter of the Revolution. Not my family’s name, and not the generational name I shared with my sisters, not something out of a sentimental country folktale.
My skin went clammy. I tried to hide my apprehension, but didn’t know where to put my hands; they were ridiculous, useless at my sides. Clasping them behind me felt strange, too.
“She won a university essay contest, making a case for continuous revolution. A visit here was her prize,” Secretary Sun said.
The sun in my eyes, I squinted up at the Chairman.
“I had to cross China on foot and defeat army after army before I climbed Tiananmen,” he said with a grin.
The pause that followed went on for too long, a sticky gear caught, and then everything slid into motion for me. As if I were in a play, once I started, I had to go on. “I’m lucky, then,” I said, surprised at the sound of my own voice. I hoped that my accent wasn’t creeping in.
“Lucky and bright,” the Chairman said.
I stepped back to escape the glare of sunshine.
“Not like those students so busy with their gossip,” the President said. The quip seemed for the Chairman’s amusement, not mine.
The Chairman smirked.
“So busy talking, they wouldn’t look up if a bomb went off,” the President added.
“Not students that I know,” I said. “We pay more attention than you might think.”
I couldn’t tell if he was always this dismissive of students, but when the President glanced at me, his interest leapt, suddenly visible.
The Chairman laughed. “You’re a spirited one!”
“Some students,” the President conceded. “Nothing gets past my daughter. But some of her friends…”
We’d decided I’d portray myself as confident, outspoken, and modern, but I’d never been so bold when we practiced.
“Sounds like she needs new friends,” I said.
The men laughed again and the Chairman nodded appreciatively.
The sudden entrance of soldiers—rows and rows of them marching in formation—interrupted our conversation. Just when I’d gotten their attention! Soon, though, my annoyance gave way to awe. As bands played revolutionary music that pulsed in my veins, I lost myself in everything before me. I felt as mighty as the tanks rolling down the broad boulevard, as the warplanes now soaring overhead. The imperialist threats against us were relentless but so, too, was our defense: A couple weeks ago, we’d shot down an American spy plane over Hainan Island, off our southern coast. If we betrayed any weakness, the Americans would invade us, like they’d invaded Vietnam.
The Chairman believed that the President was just as much of a threat, but coming from within.
On the western side of our view, the Great Hall of the People loomed, and to the east, a museum of revolutionary history—both hulking, with long lines and broad surfaces, and yet still not even half the length of Tiananmen Square, the biggest in the world. And the crowds! Since dawn, people had been roaring with pride, “Long live the People’s Republic of China” and “Long live the Party!” I’d never seen so many at once, waving red banners, twirling paper streamers in green and pink and purple, and knocking together bamboo clappers in a clacking cacophony.
They pressed against the stage, where performers sang and danced, kicked and spun and swung their swords. Was Busy Shan pushing through the crowds streaming in the opposite direction? Marchers poured in from the horizon: a group lifting hoops adorned with paper flowers, another waving red kerchiefs, men beating small drums tied to their waists, and dancers prancing in pink silks.
Turning away from the spectacle, the Chairman drew out a pack of cigarettes and offered me one. I shook my head. I didn’t want to make a fool of myself coughing.
“Aren’t young women smoking these days?” he asked, addressing his question to the others as much as to me.
“I don’t—I don’t have time,” I said. The Chairman and the officials laughed, but not the President and Secretary Sun. I hunched my shoulders, suddenly doubting if I could convince the President of anything.
The President took a cigarette and drew down hard. “She’s reminding us of our own bad habits.” He spoke with a kindness that confused me, that I rejected as condescension. He had a quiet intensity about him; he was the sort who was early to bed, early to rise, in a way that the Chairman would have considered a drudgery but also a threat.
The Chairman stubbed out his cigarette under his shoe. Butts littered the floor. He never smoked to the end, preferring the flare of pleasure inherent in the first drag.
“Where are you from?” the President asked me. “I can’t quite place your accent.”
Sweat pooled in my armpits. Teacher Fan had told me to speak slowly and clearly. “I…” In the story that the Chairman had invented for me, I lived at home, near Peking University, and I had a brother in the army, and a married older sister. The details escaped me now. I tugged at the sleeves of my new jacket—a little too short, I suddenly realized, exposing my wrists.
He must know that I was a fraud. Blinking up at him, I pushed on my glasses, whose heavy frames gave me a headache. “From here,” I said finally.
The Chairman pressed his lips into a thin line, and Secretary Sun frowned. You could sink a coin in the groove between his eyebrows.
“Where?” the President said.
“Not far,” I said. I felt like kindling, brittle and flammable. “Near the university.”
The President looked toward the balcony. “Are your parents in the square? They must be proud of you.”
When I gaped, Secretary Sun stepped in. “We grew up down the street from each other. Her older brother and I went to school together.”
It was the sort of background that would impress the President, the Chairman had pronounced—what the President wanted for himself and his children. “Just look at his wife!” the Chairman had said. His fifth wife, who’d been born into wealth, spoke French, Russian, and English, and held a science degree. They’d met in Yan’an, where she’d served as an interpreter, when the President had been nearly twice her age. The President cocked his head at me, with what might be new respect. As another official pulled him away, I shot a grateful look at Secretary Sun. When the Chairman shook his head, I inched toward the President, wondering how I might get his attention again.
A great cheer interrupted. On the wooden stage below, schoolchildren with red neckerchiefs danced, fists to their chests, twirling and leaping with a military precision all the more impressive because of how young they looked. After they finished, they bowed so deeply, the tops of their heads nearly brushed against the floorboards. The smallest girl stepped forward, carrying a huge bouquet of flowers almost as big as she was. She shyly took a step and then halted.
A woman—their teacher?—urged her forward and the girl raised the bouquet high in a tribute for the Chairman. He saluted them and the children jumped up and down in excitement until the woman ushered them down the stairs of the stage. When the woman turned back for a final look up at the Chairman, I gasped. Even from many meters above, I recognized her taut bearing and elegant profile: Midnight Chang.
So poised, she could have balanced a cup of tea on her head at the height of a storm. The Chairman whistled, piercing as an air-raid alarm, a sound that drilled deep into my skull.
Secretary Sun ducked his head toward me. “They’re all from the Shanghai dance studio.” The one led by a former recruit, the one where Midnight Chang had trained. “The Madame has plans for Midnight Chang.”
An empress couldn’t quarrel with every concubine, I knew. It would be to the Madame’s advantage to take a recruit under her protection, if only to keep watch on the man they might someday share.
“What kind of plans?” I asked, afraid to hear his answer.
“Don’t let it rattle you,” he said gently. “The Madame prefers a devotee to a student, but even they never last for long.”
The sky filled with red balloons, blotting out the sunshine for a few seconds. A group of marchers had released them in unison when they reached Tiananmen Gate. Higher and higher the balloons rose, carried on the smoky autumn wind. I wanted to watch them sail away until they were only pinpricks in the blue.
The Chairman gestured at us to follow him into the gate’s reception hall, big enough to host a village wedding or two. In one of several seating areas, we sank into carved wooden chairs with cushions thick and soft enough to protect an egg dropped from high above. The Chairman sat at one end of a low table that came up to his knees. I flanked him on one side, and the President and Secretary Sun on the other.
“You’re still here?” the President asked me.
“We can’t send her off without refreshments,” the Chairman said with a laugh.
“I’d like to hear more from our young comrade,” the President said. He smiled.
I didn’t smile back.
“Tell me more about the essay,” he said. “It was on continuous revolution? What about it?”
I took a deep breath. “We can’t let the revolutionary spirit die. People my age, we only know about it through stories. Stories about you, about the Chairman. But we want a part, too.”
“Be glad for what you have,” the President said. “Revolution takes many forms. You can’t follow in our footsteps. We didn’t follow in anyone else’s, either. You have to break your own path.”
The Chairman flagged down a hovering attendant, who pushed over a tinkling cart loaded with teapots, stubby porcelain bottles and glass snifters, and dishes of snacks. She placed three glasses on the table—one for each man.
“For her, too,” the Chairman said.
She fetched me a glass, poured, and left the bottle on the table—the Chairman’s favorite brand, with the red-and-white label.
The President raised his eyebrows. “You’ll have a drink, but not a smoke?”
“Young women having a drink is the new fashion at the university,” the Chairman said. “We have to get accustomed to the new ways.” He sounded jovial, though I heard the edge in his voice.
