To Margaret’s surprise, Lili’s brother dismounted under the high red walls of the Donghua Gate. ‘You leave bike here,’ he said. And they leaned their bikes against the wall and she followed him into the shadowed arch of the great central doorway. The gold studded maroon doors were twenty feet high. Lili’s brother leaned against the right-hand door and pushed hard. With a creak deadened by falling snow, it opened just enough to let them slip through. The boy quickly glanced around before he ushered Margaret in and heaved the door closed behind them. They were in a long, cream-painted tunnel that led under the gate and out into a winter garden, stark trees traced in snow. They could see buildings ahead, cast into shadow by the reflected light of the city beyond the walls. Within its walls the Forbidden City lay brooding silently in the dark, six hundred years of history witness to the virgin footsteps Margaret and Lili’s brother made in the snow as they followed a path east, through another gate, and out into the huge cobbled square where once prisoners of war were paraded before the emperor who watched from his commanding position high up on the Meridian Gate. The Golden Water River, which curled through the square, was frozen, its ice covered by a flawless layer of snow. The marble pillars of the five bridges which spanned it stood up like dozens of frozen sentinels guarding this deserted place where the last emperor had once lived in final, splendid isolation, learning about life outside from his Scottish tutor, Reginald Johnston.
Margaret was breathless already. She grabbed the boy’s arm to stop him. ‘What in God’s name are we doing here?’ she demanded.
‘I work for…’ he searched for the words, ‘…building firm. We do renovation work, Forbidden City. But work no possible with snow.’ He struggled again with the language. ‘I hide Lili here. No one come. You follow with me.’ And he set off across the vast open space of this ancient square towards the twin-roofed Taihe Hall. Margaret breathed a sigh of despair and set off after him, leaving shadowed tracks in luminous snow.
Slippery steps took them up to the ancient gathering place. Through an open gate, between stout crimson pillars, Margaret could see the next in a series of halls standing up on its marble terrace at the far side of another square, flanked by what had once been the gardens and homes of imperial courtiers. By the time they reached it, Margaret was exhausted, and alarmed by cramps in her stomach. She stopped, gasping for air, and supported herself on a rail surrounding a huge copper pot more than a meter in diameter. ‘Stop,’ she called, and Dai Lili’s brother hurried back to see what was wrong. ‘For God’s sake,’ she said. ‘I’m pregnant. I can’t keep up with you.’
The boy appeared embarrassed. ‘You take rest. Not far now.’
Suddenly, and quite unexpectedly, a tear in the clouds released a flood of silver light from a full moon, and the Forbidden City lit up all around them, eerie in its deserted silence, a bizarre, secret and empty place at the heart of one of the world’s most populous capitals. The falling snow was swept away on an equally sudden breath of wind, leaving the air clear and still for just a moment before it resumed its steady descent. Their footprints in the square below were an alarming betrayal of their passing there. An engraved notice on a stand beside the copper pot where Margaret leaned revealed that there were three hundred and eight of them in the palace grounds. They had been used to hold water in case of fire. During the winter, fires had been lit under them to keep the water from freezing. No doubt increasing the risk of fire, was the absurd thought that flitted through Margaret’s mind.
She looked ahead, through the next gate, and saw yet another hall, on yet another terrace, and regretted her decision to go with the boy. But she had come too far to turn back now.
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Let’s go. But not so fast.’
The boy nodded, and they set off again, at a more sedate pace. From the terrace of the Qianqing Palace, Margaret could see beyond the walls of the Forbidden City to the lights of Beijing. People were going about their normal lives out there. People in shops and homes and restaurants, people in cars and buses and on bikes. Normal people who saw only the high grey walls of the Forbidden City as they passed and had no idea that there were people in there. People in hiding, people in distress. People in danger.
A sign with an arrow pointed beyond a tall bronze bird and a giant tortoise to the Hall of Ceramics, and Lili’s brother took Margaret’s arm as they carefully negotiated the steps down into an ancient alleyway, and through a gate into a courtyard. They passed the red shuttered windows of a tourist shop advertising souvenirs, and the carving of names on chopsticks. Ceramic roofs dipped and soared above the high walls of narrow streets, rows of pillars cast shadows in covered galleries.
Chu Xiu, the Palace of Gathering Excellence, was built around a quiet courtyard with tall conifers in each corner casting shadows in the moonlight across the snow-covered pavings. Margaret’s legs were turning to jelly as she dragged herself into the enclosure. She had suffered several cramps now, and her apprehension was starting to turn to fear. ‘I can’t go any further,’ she gasped.
‘Lili here,’ her brother said. ‘No go any further.’ And he took her gently by the arm and guided her across the courtyard, past statues of dragons and peacocks, and up steps to the terrace of the long, low pavilion where the concubine and Empress Dowager Cixi had once lived, and given birth to an emperor.
He whispered loudly in the darkness, and after a moment, Margaret heard a whispered response from inside the pavilion. There were several more exchanges before the door creaked open a crack, and Margaret saw Lili’s frightened face caught in the moonlight, her birthmark like a shadow across her left cheek. She motioned quickly for Margaret to come in. ‘I wait out here,’ her brother said. And Margaret brushed past him, still out of breath, and squeezed into the ancient imperial dwelling.
Inside, pillars and painted beams, ceramic tiles, an ornamental throne, were brushed in shadow. The only light came from a tiny oil lamp which cast flickering illumination upon a very small circle of Lili’s things. A sleeping bag, a pillow, a sports hold all spilling clothes from its gaping top. There were some books, a cardboard box with cans of fruit and empty noodle cartons, a canvas chair, and a small paraffin heater which made no impression on the bone-jarring cold of this utterly inhospitable place.
Margaret took Lili’s hands in hers. They were colder than the corpses that passed through her autopsy room. Margaret said, ‘You’ve been living here?’
Lili nodded. ‘Hiding.’
‘In God’s name why? What from?’
‘They kill me if they find me,’ she babbled. ‘I know when I hear about Sui that I am next. I’ve been so scared for weeks. Everyone dying. And they did it to me, too. I know I am going to die.’ Sobs were breaking her voice into almost indecipherable pieces.
‘Woah,’ Margaret said. ‘Slow down. If I’m going to understand, you must start at the beginning.’ She steered her towards the seat and drew the paraffin heater close, and then draped the sleeping bag around the girl’s shoulders to try to stop her shivering.