The Middle Kingdom

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Dr Zhang placed his hand on the driver’s elbow and spoke softly but firmly to him. ‘He doesn’t know the hotel,’ Dr Zhang said a minute later. ‘But he knows the Fragrant Hills – can you find the hotel once you’re in the park?’

My room, calling me again; my room, which was almost as big as their apartment. ‘I think so,’ I said. I smiled at the driver, trying to look competent and undemanding. Trying not to show my discomfort – it was past midnight already and I knew that the Exhibition Hall had long since closed, that Walter and Katherine Olmand and the other scientists who’d gone in a group to watch dancers in fake folk costumes and acrobats with flaming hoops must be back at the hotel already, sound asleep. Except that Walter wouldn’t be asleep, because of me. Walter would be pacing the carpeted floor and tapping his index finger against the crystal of his watch. I looked at Dr Yu and Dr Yu looked at me. ‘I kept you too late,’ she murmured.

Rocky stepped forward. He’d said little all evening, but now he looked at his mother and announced his plan. ‘I’ll go with her,’ he said. ‘It isn’t safe otherwise.’

The family held a whispered conversation I couldn’t understand, and Rocky shifted a flat cardboard package under one arm. He’d picked this up as we’d left his parents’ apartment, and I had seen his mother give him a puzzled glance. ‘Wo qu,’ Rocky said, and then he repeated himself in English. ‘I’ll go.’

There was more conversation I didn’t understand, and then Dr Zhang, glaring at Rocky, said, ‘I accept. You take the bus back.’

I slipped Dr Yu my phone number at the hotel and she promised to call me. Then Rocky and I settled into the cab’s back seat, which was slipcovered in brown fabric and dotted with crocheted antimacassars. Lucky you, Zillah said. This boy … I jumped and Rocky’s knee touched my thigh.

‘Go to the clinic tomorrow!’ Dr Zhang shouted as we drove away. ‘To clinic!’

As soon as we left them we were lost, but Rocky and I were so caught up with each other that we didn’t notice at first. ‘So,’ he said to me. ‘Did you have a nice evening?’ And then he laughed as if he’d said the funniest thing in the world. ‘Be more like bamboo, less like tree,’ he added in his father’s voice. ‘Unbelievable. Did he drive you crazy?’

‘Not at all,’ I said. ‘He made me sad. All the things that have happened to him …’

Rocky smiled and touched my hand. ‘You’re so nice,’ he said. ‘So beautiful.’ He had less of a Beijing accent than either of his parents, but he had something else I didn’t recognize at first. I had to fight off an urge to seize his fingers before he moved his hand away.

I laughed nervously. ‘I’m glad you think so,’ I said. ‘Mostly everyone thinks I’m too fat. Especially my husband.’

‘You are kidding,’ Rocky said. ‘You look like a Rubens. Or a Rembrandt.’

He edged closer to me on the seat and I edged away. My palms were drenched again. ‘How do you know so much about Western art?’ I asked.

‘That is my dream,’ he said. ‘I have loved it since I was little. In the country, where we were sent, was a farmer from Manitoba who came here to help the peasants farm better. He made friends with me when I was small – he was who taught me English.’

His voice, now that I listened again, had a faint Canadian ring to it.

‘Wilkins,’ Rocky said dreamily. ‘That was his name. He was an amateur painter, and he used to put his easel in the fields and paint when he wasn’t working. He taught me drawing, and also let me look at his books from home. All kinds of art books, that I could look at as long as I wanted. I thought I could be like him when I grew up. I knew nothing about politics then – nothing. If anyone had ever told me that I’d be selling clothes on the street, and that there would be no good job for me ever …’

He reached into his cardboard package, which he’d laid on the seat between us, and he drew out a Rapidograph and a magnifying glass. ‘He gave me these,’ Rocky said. ‘My two best things in the world.’