Mabel took off her sunglasses and wiped the sweat from her forehead. There was a look of astonishment on her face. Her gold earrings swung back and forth.
Throngs of tourists swarmed through the vast, stone-paved courtyard, buying trinkets from souvenir stalls and taking photographs. Kenneth gave Tian Yi his camera and asked her to take a photo of him and Mabel.
We headed north through the Gate of Heavenly Purity. Tian Yi was now happily babbling away in English to Mabel. I stood beside her, and caught the gist of what she was saying. ‘We’ve now entered the Inner Court, which was the emperors’ private quarters. In the Hall of Earthly Tranquillity over there is the red bridal room where the emperor and empress would retire for three days after their wedding. The concubines lived in these chambers on the west and east. And those halls are the Treasure Houses. They house thousands of imperial relics and artefacts. All the foreign tourists like to visit them. We should take a look. The tickets aren’t too expensive…’
‘It’s so uncouth, carrying your jar of tea around like that, Mum,’ Dai Ru whispered. ‘Look how grubby the plastic holder is.’ My brother had picked up some foreign affectations since I’d last seen him. He was continually running his fingers through his hair or rubbing his sideburns pensively. My mother had always clipped his hair when he was younger, but he wouldn’t have dreamed of letting her touch it now.
‘What do you mean, uncouth? These plastic covers are all the rage. Didn’t you see that stall at the entrance? It was selling them in four different colours.’
‘Those emperors really knew how to live,’ Kenneth said with a smile. ‘Imagine lying in these sumptuous halls, surrounded by thousands of beautiful concubines…’
‘Emperor Shizong kept the largest harem,’ said Tian Yi. ‘He had nine thousand concubines, some were as young as ten years old. Hardly any of them ever got a chance to meet him. Many ended up starving to death in their chambers. When Emperor Chengzu suspected a few of his concubines of disloyalty, he had all 2,800 members of his harem executed.’
‘What? Right here?’ Mabel’s eyes widened in disbelief.
‘All the women who lived in these chambers were killed.’
‘That’s a huge massacre!’ Kenneth no longer had that carefree air of a tourist.
‘What a gruesome history China has.’ Mabel was grimacing too.
‘That’s why we’ve occupied the Square. We want to put an end to millennia of autocratic rule.’ The pitch of Tian Yi’s voice always seemed to rise when she spoke in English.
When we reached the rockery outside the Hall of Mental Cultivation, we asked someone to take a group photograph of us. I then suggested that we leave the Forbidden City from the north exit and take a bus to the Great Wall. Mabel and Kenneth only had three days in Beijing, so I told them they’d have to speed up a little if they were going to see all the sights.
It was already three in the afternoon by the time we made it to the Great Wall’s ticket office. My brother said he’d stay with my mother in the car park. Since Tian Yi and I had been up the Great Wall once before, I was reluctant to go a second time and pay for another expensive entrance ticket. But Tian Yi persuaded me to go up with her. She said she wanted to take some photographs. By the time we’d walked through the entrance gate, the happy newly-weds had already climbed halfway up the mountain. Mabel was trotting beside Kenneth, the camera that hung from her shoulder swinging from side to side.
‘Come on, take out your camera, then,’ I said to Tian Yi.
‘Mabel’s camera is very sophisticated. She has three different lenses in that bag. My one’s got a fixed lens. I’m too embarrassed to bring it out.’
‘But yours was made by China’s first joint-venture camera company,’ I said, trying to reassure her. I gazed at her hair blowing in the wind, and promised that when I had some money, I’d buy her a professional kit.
She hadn’t let me touch her in the two weeks since the hunger strike had ended, so as soon as I squeezed her hand, I could feel myself getting an erection. It became uncomfortable walking up the steep path. I leaned against her and whispered, ‘Do you want to sneak off behind those trees with me?’ Without answering, she shot me a sideways glance then allowed me to lead her away from the path towards the wooded hill to the east.
‘Let’s not go too far,’ she said, her hand sweating in mine. ‘There might be plain-clothes policemen about.’
‘Those guys who caught us in the grounds of the Old Summer Palace weren’t police officers. They were a band of thugs. They paid off the local public security bureau so they could prowl the grounds and exhort fines from couples they found having sex. They were bicycle menders, apparently. I’m sure I saw one of them in the Flying Tigers brigade.’
Tian Yi stood still, her nostrils flaring with rage. ‘Why are there so many corrupt people in this world? How could anyone be so evil?’
‘They aren’t evil, they’re just products of an evil system,’ I said, wrapping my arms around her. ‘Corruption breeds corruption. That’s why I want to go abroad after this movement is over. You will come with me, won’t you? Kenneth said he’d be happy to be your financial guarantor as well, and give you all the documents you need.’ I glanced up at the top of the mountain ridge and saw streams of heads moving behind the crenellated ramparts of the Great Wall.
We continued walking hand in hand towards the wooded hill. Soon the Great Wall faded from view and we found ourselves in a sunny glade.
‘What a wonderful view!’ Tian Yi said, pulling her camera out from her bag. ‘Look at those blue layers of mountains unfolding into the distance.’
‘The ridges at the horizon are even paler than the sky.’ I stood behind her and put my arms around her waist. She lowered her head. I kissed her neck and her chin. She closed her eyes and opened her mouth.
‘Be careful…’ she whispered, trying to push my hand away, but I moved it down into her knickers and touched the dampness between her legs. Her knees buckled a little, allowing my fingers to move inside her. I glanced around. There was no one about. All I could hear was the wind in the trees and a few car horns beeping at the foot of the mountain. I held her closer to me, lowered her onto the ground, then entered her from behind. After six or seven thrusts I ejaculated. Her hand and cheek were still pressed against the tree trunk. I looked down at her pale buttocks and immediately wanted to make love to her again. I thought how wonderful it was to have a woman by my side.
But when I drew her close to me again, she shouted, ‘Get your hands off me,’ then pulled up her trousers and walked away.
I lay on my back and stared into the blue sky, struck by the feeling of emptiness that always follows physical bliss.
She came back, kneeled down beside me and stared into my eyes. ‘I’m in the middle of my cycle now. What would we do if I got pregnant?’
‘We’d get married, of course. It would be fun to have a child of our own, don’t you think? You and me combined in one person.’
‘I thought you said you were going to leave the country.’
‘Well, if you decided not to come with me, I’d marry you before I left. Anyway, I’m not even sure I’m going. I’m not a deserter like Shu Tong.’