'A Game of Chess', by Moira Laidlaw

Zhang Peidong heaved his cloth-bag onto his back and in the dusty gloom of his hut, took up the weathered, but shining axe by the door and lifted the latch. He caught sight of his weather-beaten face yet clear eyes in the stained mirror hanging by his wife's pretty face. Turning, he smiled at Guilin, her head wrapped in the dark binding of household chores. She closed her eyes in a gesture of warmth and he rattled the door shut behind him. Zhang Guilin heaved a soft sigh and set about clearing away the clutter of their breakfast. Just some noodles and pickled vegetables today. Perhaps their son would have some luck in the woods after market. Some juicy mushrooms, perhaps, or a rabbit or two. Rabbit cooked in a traditional way with sesame seeds, peppers and kumin, braised in mouth- watering juices, with rice, pickled cucumber and sometimes even broccoli if Zhang Hui went up to the big town on market-day and Zhang Peidong had made a profit with his spoils. She stood against the wooden table for a moment, savouring the memories of meals cooked and shared in their home. Zhang Peidong would always wipe his plate clean with a hunk of dark bread, fresh from the village bakery that morning, and the grease would dribble down his chin for all the times she told him that modern city- manners forbade such slovenliness. And he would smile, wave the dunked bread at her and stuff his mouth with it anyway, coating his chin in another liberal dose of fat. Zhang Guilin heaved the large bowl of porridge to the work-top, where she covered it with a damp cloth. Enough for tomorrow's breakfast if Zhang Hui didn't scoff the lot when he returned from market today. Before she carried on with the daily household tasks, she looked unseeing out of the window and frowned because her son was spending more and more time with his new city-friends. There were times these days when he didn't even come home after going to the city so wasn't able to provide the table with small animals and vegetables. But he always had a good reason, he said, always had some business that was just about to bear fruit, but you had to know what you were doing with these things and not rush anything or seem too desperate. Zhang Guilin wondered how long such a process took before bearing his promised fruit: she'd seen nothing so far. Whatever anyone said, though, her son was a good young man. Always kind to his mother. Always polite. Always trying to please her with small gifts and treats. And as for his roaming around and trying to be a man, well, boys would be boys she thought fondly, and reached down from the rails above to the dried flowers, which she was gathering into pretty bunches for sale at five jiao1 a time at the weekend market in the village.

Zhang Peidong nodded at neighbours and acquaintances as he made his daily way up Long Huo Shan2 where he gathered as much wood and bracken, or indeed anything of value as he could on his back, to sell at the market. Since boyhood he'd been walking and working on the mountain, his father striding ahead and him trotting to keep up as the man snared birds, trapped rabbits and on particularly lucky days, shot a deer with his bow and arrow. He smiled to himself at the memory of the few occasions when they'd dragged a deer down the mountainside and invited the whole village to share their luck. Meals with rough wine, drunkenness, his father lolling at the head of the table, drinking contests,

1 Jiao - a small monetary amount - about two pence. 2 Long Huo Shan = lit. dragon fire mountain.

1 mother and sisters laden with bounty, carving a routine between stove and open-air. But that was seldom. Usually their meals had been small affairs, huddled round the rickety table, the light of a single oil-lamp, slurping rice-gruel with pickled vegetables, sliced cucumbers and maize-bread. Exchanging the rumours of the day and watching dragons' wings flicker their heroism in the shadows. He leaned on the jagged stone carved with characters denoting different pathways up the mountain: 'southern route' - long for leisurely days; 'steep' for busier ones. He looked down at his dapper new shoes, soft leather and made by Wang up the road in his one-down, one-up store, a streak of gleaming gold silk adorning the top of each in a dragon motif. Comfortable soles too. Just right for long walks. He patted the cold stone affectionately and made for the steeper pathway.

Those were the days, he mused. Meals with the whole village. Not like that now. People were moving out to the cities. His son, who kept his ear to the ground, had told him that his new friends in the city told him a lot of people were moving to the cities nowadays. The government needed it for the country's growth. Conditions were much better there too. Taxis and hotels and electricity. Apparently, in the city, everyone had electricity all the time. All to do with Deng Xiaoping's Open Door Policy, whatever that was. Hardly believable, electricity available everywhere, but apparently it was the truth. Electricity brought dangerous new things into people's lives. Light twenty four hours a day from a ball in the ceiling. Telephones. Apparently, you could talk to someone living not only in Mingsha, but if you knew the number, you could reach someone in another part of China altogether. And if you had special permission from the government, you could even telephone someone in another country. And then there were those new things called computers. Zhang shook his head. Someone in Wenzhou had seen a television in someone's home, apparently. The whole family sitting around watching this magic machine. When a visitor called, they kept it on as it told a story, but everyone sat and still talked over it, he said. This box, according to Hui, had people moving inside it and talking, making up stories. And you could make them talk louder or softer, apparently. Zhang had seen pictures of televisions of course, but a television set in someone's own home? That was weird. People sitting in their own homes watching moving pictures all evening. He shook his head at the thought of such inexplicable behaviour. The government's way of watching families, he'd be bound. His son said that you watched them through a screen-thing, but someone said to him, what was to prevent them watching you too? Zhang bowed to his son's descriptions about the modern world: this strange new world was for the young. He shivered a moment, feeling suddenly old. A strange world where the young taught the old. Wouldn’t happen in Mingsha though, electricity. Too remote.

And then there was the Cultural Revolution. He stumbled into the present again. The future would take care of itself. There were few trees to speak of in some areas now apparently. He was lucky here, though. However, it was becoming harder and harder to gather the fuel his family needed. He was relying on different bounty these days; he had to go further and further afield everyday to collect anything worth selling. Zhang Hui said there were rules in some cities and towns now not to chop down trees and even to make it against the law. School-children were being drafted in to plant trees. Every term they'd be

2 sent out with shovels and spades in their hundreds for days at a time, planting trees, digging up the earth, changing the landscape. Where was it going to end? And what would his family do then, for heaven's sake, if he couldn't gather enough fuel? People had to live. Did the government consider that? Apparently, according to Zhang Hui's new friends, he would have to buy a license to chop wood, and that was going to be very expensive. Zhang shook his head. He didn't understand this modern world.

After several hours, he was kicking up a sheaf of dust as he descended the scenic pathway on his way home, bent a little with the weight of his bounty. Not a bad day today. He'd known worse. Every day he trod this route, and every day he marvelled at the landscape. This was all his. There were times when he knew what it meant to be at one with the world. Rocky peaks loomed on all sides. Scarce grass, but rich in pine and willow. Pine was a good, strong wood for stoves, but willow could be disappointing, yielding little heat and of short duration, but something was better than nothing. A few months and some of these would be worth felling, he thought to himself, and turned the corner, which led to a promontory where he usually rested and admired the view. He usually off-loaded his bag and enjoyed some tea from his flask Guilin always remembered to pack for him. Sometimes, he thought about what he would do in the evenings. Sometimes, his mind drifted back to his childhood. Sometimes he even wondered what the future held now that Mao was no longer there to lead them. Mao dead. It was still hard to believe. He'd been going to live forever. The times Zhang had plattooned the streets with his cronies after a night of drinking, hollering out the desire in unison: 'Mao, Mao, Our Great Helmsman, May You Live Forever!' Deng was a great man, though, he supposed. Of course he was! He knew what he was doing. At least he hoped he did. They were allowing foreigners in now. And we all know about foreigners. They aren't civilised like us. He hoped Deng would be careful and had trustworthy men around him to protect him from these infidels. It would only take one swift movement, and poison could be slipped into his tea. Deng loved jasmine tea apparently. Zhang preferred chrysanthemum himself, but you never knew with foreigners. They had special ways. Clever but deadly. And what would happen to Hui in the future? What kind of world was he growing up into? He shook his head. As he neared the corner, he heard muffled voices. Too late in the day for bandits, who sometimes tried their luck this far out with foolish itinerants. He turned the corner.

Two old men are playing chess, sitting on the large, round flat boulder that often serves as his resting-place on the way down. The board is cluttered with large ivory chess- pieces, glinting in the sunlight. The men's hair is white and their beards straggly. Their faces are carved with time and probably decades spent like this, he muses. He knows everyone around here, but he's never seen them before. They look imposing against the backdrop of mountains, coarse rocks and trees, despite their frailty. They remind him of a picture he saw as a child in the town-hall where his uncle dragged him for a drunken meeting with some officials after taking him to market one morning. The people in the picture were playing chess on a mountain too. And now, both of these players are similarly dressed in the old-fashioned Tang Dynasty garb of silk cap, padded-jacket and black trousers. The jackets are brown, shiny silk with gold embossed circles, the slacks are tapered at the ankles and folded neatly into soft, heel-less slippers. Beside each of

3 them stands a flask presumably with tea. Zhang Peidong feels a frisson of unease, but also excitement, a sense of stepping into a picture framed in another place and time. He shivers.

'Check!' exclaims one of the men, moving his white piece victoriously, the ivory glinting in the afternoon sun, then replacing his pipe in his mouth and puffing as he knocks a bishop aside in pursuit of a higher calling. 'Hey, watch it!' protests the other in protest, re-establishing his black ivory figure in its correct place. 'Check to you!' And he counters smoothly.

Zhang Peidong approaches, his heart beating. He places his axe against a tree and lowers the bag to the ground, straightening up, and holding his hands against his back, feeling the strain of his day's exertions 'Morning!' he says.

The two men play on. Each move is countered, slow and deliberate, and yet their witness detects no progress. He doesn't enjoy playing chess himself, although he can of course. You can't live in Mingsha and not play chess. Street corners are made of chess-players and have been ever since he can remember. After all, we invented chess, he thinks to himself. But he's never seen a game like this before. He finds himself watching with increasing fascination at the game, a mouse mesmerised by cats.

'Check!' says the first man again, pulling his beard as if deep in thought. 'Waste of time. Look at my knight.' The second man takes a date out of a large cloth-bag by his side, pops it in whole and then contorts his mouth around it, finally spitting the stone out in the direction of their guest. 'Morning!' says Zhang Peidong again, feeling that the spitting is a kind of permission to speak. His shadow merges with their tableau in the fierce brightness of a summer's day.

'You play chess?' asks the first man, stretching over into the date-bag and choosing a larger fruit with his gnarled fingers, and surprisingly delicately for such an aged man, he slits the shiny tube by carving his long nail down the side, and prising out the stone first. He pops the date into his mouth and closes his eyes in a moment of pleasure. 'No, I'll just watch!' Zhang Peidong answers.

'Oh!' says the second man, dipping into the bag again before moving his pawn away from him. 'Want a date?' 'Er, no, thank you. Who's winning?' At this both players looked up as if startled a moment, as if this is a question neither has ever heard before. The first man frowns in concentration, as if he's working up to an answer, but the second immediately commandeers his attention by announcing: 'check- mate!'

The first man sits back with a smile on his face, Zhang can’t tell whether of exasperation or pleasure.

4 'He's won then,' he offers in a friendly tone, nodding towards the victor, but eliciting no response, stepping back awkwardly to look at the view, to re-establish a possibility that he hadn't really meant to stop and was just on his way anyway.

Neither is paying attention to him. The second player knocks over the king in a gesture suggesting surrender and puffs on his pipe, sitting back and chuckling with glee.

Zhang Peidong picked up the bag and slung it over his shoulder, then stooped to retrieve his axe. He turned it this way and that in the weak sunlight. It seemed stained. It looked like rust. His heart bumped. Time to go home and see his wife. Perhaps Zhang Hui would be there early for once. He wondered what the time was. He wondered as well at the lack of people he'd seen that day - the other gatherers, the odd itinerant carrying his life on his back, or the usual gaggles of dirty children picking chestnuts to roast over the stove of an evening. The clouds were gathering now, and it was unusually chilly. He approached the corner where a glade of trees often dappled the evening-sun, but stopped and scratched his head at the empty scrub-land, leading to a set of buildings he knew couldn’t be there. He scratched his head. He must have caught the sun. He must have eaten some poisonous root or something. He must have taken a wrong turning, that was it - but he knew this mountain like the back of his hand. The feeling of dread he'd been seemed now to take shape in the unfamiliar landscape before him; it was taking shape into tall buildings, ugly monuments to capitalist countries, foreign sky-scapes. Was he somehow in a new country? Had he eaten some magic root and been transported here to this futuristic horror? A three-storey building glimmered in front of him, white with blue awnings, familiar yet unfamiliar in design. He blinked, trying to erase this lie from his vision. He brought up the axe towards his face and saw the unmistakable stain of rust. He ran his finger along the flat, feeling the cold difference in texture between the rusty and clean metal. He dropped it by his side and fell to his knees, looking out with a groan of fear and despair at a landscape he knew not to be his.

Suddenly, a square of light shot into life in the building ahead. And then another and another. As if the building were on fire, but no flames flickered outwards. What could cause such a sight? He didn't know how long he crouched there and watched as the building and its surroundings played in the shadows of his mind. He only knew that the place and the people in their strange clothes who started to come out of the door at the front, were not his people or place. Somehow he'd lost his memory, he realised. He'd gone somewhere new and hadn't realised. How long had it taken? He looked up at the shadowy clouds and felt the breezes of another season on his bare arms and head. How long had he been wandering around? He looked at his arms and couldn't help but notice the veiny sinews, the grime and slack flesh where there had been muscle and plumpness.

He heaved the sack onto his back again. How heavy it was! His back was aching and felt sluggish and stiff. He frowned at the effort of carrying it any further and stopped by a low brick wall with a large box strapped to it, which was overflowing with paper, tins and bottles. If he didn't look up, the vision would go away. That's it! Just don't look. He pushed his load against the wall, up fast against the box. He could always come back for it later. No one seemed to be noticing him much as he walked past, although one or two

5 looked a little concerned when he came too close. A young man and woman were walking past; they were holding hands, which shocked him so much, that no words came when he wanted to ask them the way. His mouth remained open and the young pair scurried away. He recognised no one. He looked back. Holding hands! What was the world coming to? And what world was it? No, look down. Don't look up. But the mountain was still there, yet only faintly in the dusk. He resumed a few steps, banging his leg on a stone column, reaching up to his waist. The light from the building illuminated characters: he could just make out: 'southern route', and he reeled back in horror. So this was his mountain. All right, then, it was his mountain, so he had to be able to go home and see his wife and son. He knew the way, of course he did! He stumbled into the gloom but only went a few steps. Could he really leave the bag there? It would be stolen and then he'd have nothing. No, he had to take it with him. It was all he had.

The street had lamps, but not the gas-lamps he recognised. Oh, thank heavens, Wang's shoe-store was still at the corner, but it was so clean and tidy. He heaved the bag across his shoulders and noticed an acrid smell as it swept past his nose. That shoe-shop was big. Regiments of dull leather shoes in black and brown he could see as he pressed his face against the window. Thousands of foot-soldiers with nowhere to go. He felt a sudden clenching in his stomach. He stood back. It's taller, the building. How could buildings grow in a day? He muttered to himself as he moved disconsolately to and fro, trying to suck every scrap of similarity out of the unfamiliar surroundings, to reassure himself that what he was beginning to know could not be true. A sign here, a building there, but the cumulative effects only serving to accentuate his alienation.

'Watch it, mate!' said a man, as Zhang bumped into him as he looked in a window. The man's face was smooth and well-shaven, his skin shining with wealth and health. He was dressed in expensive clothes, like those in the window they were next to. Western, capitalist clothes. Suit and tie, the epitome of western decadence and tradition. What's a man doing in Mingsha dressed like that? And that shop - selling clothes at prices he can't believe either - 100 yuan for a jumper? His mother could make one for three. Did people really wear these outlandish things? He excused himself to the stranger, who was dressed like the mannequin in the window. They held each other's sight for a moment. There was something vaguely familiar about the man, but as his retreating back seemed to communicate 'keep away from me', and Zhang was too fragile now to pursue anything new, he let it go. And his clothes, he thought as he moved away! He's one of those, evidently, one of those who like to dress up in fancy clothes and don't always get married. Since when did that kind visit Mingsha? There should be a law against it!

So many people. Crowds emerged from lighted doorways, business buildings, and further along, even from a church. He knew what a church was. He had seen one once on a poster with words denouncing such dangers from the West. Foreigners ate children. They worshiped strange gods and used all sorts of new machines to change everything. They were dangerous, everyone knew that. The cross on the roof and on the vaulted door was a dead give-away. He stood aside to watch people approach and retreat, standing in the flow like a boulder in water. No one seemed to try and avoid him, but the line of people bisected smoothly and he was left watching both sides, taking no part, being seen by no

6 one, being greeted by none. Now, though, he shrank back against the wall and people had to move quickly to merge in a single movement away from him: there was a foreigner amongst them! Two, no three. And no one noticed. Were they all mad? Why weren't they protecting themselves? No one was dressed in familiar garb either. Their costumes were the kind of capitalist-roader clothes Mao had been warning everyone against. Zhang closed his eyes and tried to block out everything around him. Where were the Mao suits and the flat caps? Men were walking around in western-style jackets. Women were wearing skirts. Short ones too. How disgraceful! Where was the respect? He'd heard about women like this. Bright colours fumbled with his vision on all sides. Bright greens, oranges, blues, reds, purples, yellows and even white. No brown. No black. No Mao- blue. He swayed on his feet. He allowed the bag to fall to the ground. He heard a clattering and metallic sound approaching quickly and opened his eyes in fear. Two tall boys suddenly whizzed past him, standing on something on wheels, balancing with their arms outstretched. It was too quick for him to see quite how their machines worked, but they were dangerous machines, he knew that. And what were their parents doing allowing them out with dangerous vehicles like that on the street? And cars too. He could see several cars. Shiny red ones. Taxis? Not the three-wheeler variety he'd seen in Guyuan that time last year; these were shiny. Red. Large. 4 yuan emblazoned on the windscreens. Four yuan - to where? Yinchuan? He stood and watched as a pedestrian hailed one of the vehicles. As he opened the door, he shouted, 'Long Jie3' at the driver and got in. 4 yuan to Long Jie. Surely he'd misheard. Dragon Street. Where Old Ma lives. Lived? He started to tremble.

Words of death and despair began to form in his mind, and all at once he covered his face with his hands again and began to cry, sobs bubbling up from deep inside, blubbering, shaking. In his blind state he heard the noise of this terrible place - taxis touting for trade, music from doorways and buildings, children running past wearing music over their ears in tinny screams, insistent beats punctuating his despair. People speaking in different accents, some of them completely strange to him. He smelt unfamiliar smells, of machines and cars and fragrancies from shop-windows, draped in modernism. He didn't care who saw him standing there: after all, no one knew him and he knew no one anymore. He didn't like them anyway, and didn't care what they thought of him. He didn't care who stared at his tattered clothes, and he lifted up an arm to look at it, the cloth withered and ragged. Can't look at that. Can't think about that now. He looked down at his feet, at the holes in his torn leather shoes, the flap of gold-dragon hanging off at an angle, scruffy and vague. He'd woken up this morning in his bed, with his warm wife by his side, and now he stood in this alien desert, this den of iniquity, and he wanted to die.

'You all right, mate?' asked a voice. Zhang looked at the voice. It was that man in the poncy suit. He'd come back. Was he going to rob him? What of? His eyes were uncannily familiar, though. Kind eyes. Strong eyes. You wouldn't expect eyes like that to be wearing those kind of clothes, surely. 'Who are you?' he said, and felt his voice as grating and rasping in his throat. The stranger's face, lit by a neighbouring lamp, twitched in sudden doubt and wonder. 'Who are you, more like? I haven't seen you round these parts before.'

3 Long Jie - Dragon Street

7 'Weren't you here this morning?' Zhang whispered bitterly.

Mad, thought the stranger. Mad. Too many people like that around these days. The government does its best, but there are too many people like that without family to look after them nowadays. 'Where are you going?' 'Old Zhang's', he replied. Why did he say 'Old Zhang's'? He should have just said Zhang's. The tears began to squeeze again out of his eyes and caught the light like crystals. 'I mean Zhang the Woodcutter!' he explained. 'It's just along here somewhere, isn't it?'

The stranger glared at him. 'What do you know about Zhang the Woodcutter?' he demanded, gripping Zhang's arms. The old man shrank back against the wall and averted his eyes. Perhaps he was going to die here. He just wanted to talk to Guilin again, that was all. Ask her what was going on. She'd know what to do. She'd have an explanation, she always did. He opened his eyes, trembling with fear, but instead of seeing death in the stranger's eyes, he saw something just beyond his reach - a feeling of familiarity, complicity. A feeling of confusion and recognition. 'Who are you?' whispered the man, releasing his arms, blinking rapidly. Was he afraid too, wondered Zhang? Why would he be afraid? 'Zhang Peidong,' he answered brokenly and saw the man flinch as if struck. Again he felt his arms gripped in a vice. 'You're lying!' thundered the stranger in disgust, pushing him back against the wall. 'Zhang's dead!

Zhang stared over the man's shoulder to an unknown world of bustle, lights and indecipherable noise, and not caring now whether he lived or indeed died, went slack and cried: 'I'm Zhang Peidong, I'm Zhang Peidong, I am Zhang Peidong. You can't take that away from me as well!'

'Zhang Peidong was my father,' said the stranger slowly, searching the other man's face for fragments of credibility. 'He walked out of our lives twenty-five years ago and hasn't been seen since. At first we thought he'd been in an accident. We spent months looking for him. Tried to find anyone who'd seen him that day. We put posters up on every street- end, even travelled to Yinchuan to ask questions, went down to Guyuan as well and stuck some up there. We offered a reward. All the money we had. And people answered. Said they'd seen him, demanded money for the information. After a while, we stopped paying, though, because nothing ever came of what we were told. He'd left us. Just like that. Mother said he seemed all right that morning.'

The town-dweller stepped back from the old man, lost in his own memories.

'Just the same as usual, she said. He left home just as he always did. We asked people everywhere, but no one had seen him. Which was unusual in itself. I mean, he'd never gone up the mountain at all that day, and he always went up the mountain. I'd told him he

8 wouldn't be able to do that for long, because of the new regulations. You see, in his day, you could chop down anything anywhere, but the government soon put a stop to that. And then we wondered whether he'd done something criminal and had just been taken away. It happened. A lot. And then we thought he'd just run away. Turned his back on his responsibilities. Left his wife and son. Left my mother and me.'

In the gathering gloom, the two men looked long at each other, retracing familiar and unfamiliar territory in the landscapes of the other. People jostled past them, anonymising them in their haste.

'I really am Zhang Peidong,' Zhang said again softly. 'Hui, I'm your father!' A sob broke out of the younger man, and he fell against him; Zhang wrapped his arms around his son and pulled him close. He held him. The two were soldered together in their weeping. 'Where have you been?' Hui asked, pulling away and wiping his sleeve across his brimming eyes, his voice strident with accusation. 'Why didn't you get in touch? Why did you leave us? How could you leave us? What's going on? How could you do this to us?' and in a smaller voice: 'How could you do this to me?'

Suddenly a rage swept over the younger man and he began to beat and kick Zhang, clobbering him to the ground, showering blows on his body with his fists and feet. Isolated strangers around them cohered as an excited mob, gathering round, craning to see.

'Don't, Hui! Please don't!' begged Zhang, covering his face and gasping out his pleas for mercy. 'I'm sorry. Please stop!' Just as suddenly, Hui realised it was his own father he was beating. He stooped down to the crumpled man at his feet. 'Get away, all of you!' he shouted to the people staring and muttering around them, so angry with his father he knew that a single word from him now would provoke him into a murderous rage. 'Get lost. It's none of your bloody business! Fuck off!' He snarled at a man leaning in too close, who leapt back in dismay at the man's ferocity.

The son helped his father to his feet, and slowly Zhang hobbled a few steps, reaching out for support. He kept his head bowed and didn't make eye-contact. If he didn't, he might not be attacked again. Then he remembered his bag. He had to have his bag. He stumbled back the few steps to retrieve it. He heaved the dirty cloth-satchel onto his back amidst mutterings from a crowd that refused to disperse.

'Leave it, Old Man,' Hui snapped, frowning at the spectacle of this tattered relic cleaving the bag to himself like a lover. 'It's a filthy old bag. What do you want it for anyway?' 'It's mine!' Zhang replied. 'It's mine! Please leave it alone. It's mine. Let me take it.'

Hui breathed carefully despising himself for the temptation to beat his father when he spoke so pleadingly: his father had always been a proud man, a strong man, a hero to copy, not this battered, senile, old travesty of a human being. Instead he offered his arm

9 to hold up his father's shaking frame and then slowly, like a parody of conquering heroes, they staggered together up the brightly-lit street towards home.

Zhang saw and heard little more as he stumbled along the street. He felt safer now under his son's protective arm, and believed the less he looked, the less he'd hear and the more everything would be all right again. And if he didn't speak he couldn't do anything to provoke another attack. And in a while he'd lift his head, he'd raise his eyes, he'd open them wide and see everything fresh and young and full of hope again. He'd look over his shoulder as he had before, his hand on the latch, and see Guilin smiling at him from the table, preparing to clear away the breakfast things.

He didn't recognise the street but he wasn't expecting to anymore. This 'place' he was in was his street, but it wasn't either. That was all there was to it. He shuffled up the pavement and stopped as he felt his son stop. No point in looking. No point in being there, really. Why didn't he just go off somewhere and die? Dogs did that when they were ill. Cats too. And he was no better than that anymore. And he must be ill, because as he looked up, he recognised and didn't recognise his own house. Fresh lick of paint. And bigger of course, because buildings grew here. But it was his own house. The bird awnings were still there. He sobbed a moment. 'Hui, I can't go in. Don't make me. Let me go. I'll go away and never come back!' This was the excuse Hui needed, and roughly, he grabbed his father's arm and pushed him forward. 'You think you're running away again? You've got another think coming. Let's go inside. Everyone's looking.' 'That's what I mean. I can't go in.' 'Someone's waiting inside. Come on,' and then softening, 'it'll be all right, you'll see.' Zhang felt a surge of hope. He was going to see Guilin at last. She'd make everything right. He noticed the trembling in his son's voice, though, heard the hesitation, noticed the attempt to reassure himself as much as his father. He swallowed painfully as his son part- assisted, part-dragged him through the front door.

Zhang Mei stood in a hall-way. That was new. She was new. 'She' was a woman in her early thirties, dressed in a tailored suit in shot silk, her hair drawn back into a French- knot, her slim figure lithe and slender like a reed in the breeze. She stood, cocking her head slightly on one side. At any other time, Zhang Hui would register the gesture with pleasure. His wife was feeling romantic tonight. 'Guilin?' Zhang asked, looking from this stranger to his son. 'Where's Guilin?' 'Zhang Hui, where have you been?' the stranger talked over the stranger, but then she noticed the frail and dirty old man standing behind her husband. 'And who's this? Zhang Hui, who's that?' All semblance of calm left her, and she scowled at the unwelcome visitor. 'What's he doing here? Who is he? He's filthy and he smells. Get him out of here!' 'Who…?' Zhang Peidong began, looking up in anguished appeal at his son. Who was this woman masquerading as family in his house, telling Hui what to do? Zhang Hui bit his lip. 'Father, come and sit down,' he muttered. 'Mei, this is my father. Father, this is my wife.'

10 'Wife?' Zhang Peidong blinked rapidly, and groaned, slumping against the doorway. 'No, no, this can't be.' He gathered his bag closer to his chest where he had taken to carrying it now. 'Where's Zhang Guilin? Where's my wife? Where's your mother?'

'Come in here,' Hui offered, leading his father by the hand into a room illuminated by hall-lights mounted on the walls, a room with skylights and flowers. A cane table stood majestically on the white-tiled, gleaming floors, a pot-plant in its centre. The cane sofa and two easy chairs framed the table, cushioned in bright upholstery. Flowers hung on baskets on the white walls around the room. A large lamp hung a few inches from the ceiling, and suddenly Zhang heard a clicking sound, and at once, the room was flooded with light. Zhang cried out in terror and shielded his face. His bag dropped to the floor, and with a sweep of impatience, Zhang Mei stooped at once to retrieve it, but screamed as bones of small creatures fell out in the midst of the bracken. Zhang Hui swept the contents back into the bag, and tried not to notice what he was shovelling with his hands. In disgust he wiped his hands instinctively on his trousers but then looked down to see if they'd left stains. He stood up, not knowing where to put the bag. Zhang Peidong snatched it from him. 'That's mine!' he snapped angrily. 'It belongs to me!' 'Father, it's got dead animals in it.' 'I caught two rabbits this morning,' Zhang explained, rocking the bag like a baby. 'I wanted to have a big meal with them. We could all have a meal, you and your mother and me and perhaps Liu and his wife too if they wanted to come. We could ask them, couldn't we? We could cook them. She could cook them. Who's she anyway?' 'Zhang Hui, I asked you, who is this?' Zhang Mei demanded, as the old tattered visitor was led to a chair and flopped into it. He sat slumped like a discarded puppet in a shop- window, his head hanging down on his chest, his arms encircling his bounty, the only sound in the room his staggered breathing. Hui could smell his father's fear and his heart lurched in unwelcome pity, but it was a pity that made him furious and made him want to beat the old man again. He blushed with shame.

He pushed his wife back out of the room, as she craned her neck to get a better look at their guest.

'Who is he?' Zhang heard her ask, and then a door shut them away from his hearing. He felt them dissolve from his presence like the echoes of a nightmare only partially recalled the next day. He tried to measure his breathing. Just one breath at a time, that was the way. This was a nightmare and he was going to wake up soon. He would wake up soon. Just keep breathing. One breath at a time. Where was Guilin? Another breath. Keep it steady. As he breathed, his mind drifted to a lesson in qi gong when he was a child at the local school before instruction from teachers had been banned and schools had been closed. Sweeping arm-movements gracefully sliding into a crouching position, ready with all muscles fluid for fight. Another breath. Teacher Tao in his black garments, weaving patterns as intricate as any silk-painting, resolving the distances between light and dark, between life and death, between hope and despair. Another breath. Another breath. Another breath.

11 The door opened and the others returned. 'Zhang Mei, this is your father-in-law. Father, this is Zhang Mei.' Zhang Peidong looked up at the graceful beauty standing next to him in her western-style dress, her face of calm certainty, her set mouth and polished tones, and his heart sank. He nodded in greeting, but he couldn't get up. If he got up he might fall down and never get up again. She was beautiful, that much was true, but she was cold. Not like his Guilin. His Guilin. Where was his Guilin? 'You can stay here for one night,' she interrupted his thoughts in clipped tones. 'I don't want to be any trouble.' He stared straight ahead. 'How long have you been married?' 'Zhang Mei is my second wife, father. We've been married ten years. We have a daughter.' Zhang Peidong looked up at the couple again. His handsome son, a weathered face now, as his had once been, but so clearly his son's face. He reached out as if for the past he knew, but this was a stranger beside him. The woman was avoiding looking at him. She was staring fixedly at her husband, expecting something. Demanding something. But what? 'I don't want to be any trouble,' he repeated weakly and made to stand up, but finding his feet unsteady, his legs trembling and his throat constricting with despair, he sat back again and heaved a sigh of despair. 'Where's my wife?' he suddenly shouted, making his companions jump. 'Where is she?' 'He comes in here shouting off his filthy mouth about her, as if he's not been away for twenty-five bloody years. The bloody cheek!' Zhang Mei flounced out of the room, banging the door. Zhang stared ahead again. If no one spoke the next sentence, everything would be all right. Guilin would come through the door and she'd put it all to rights. That's what she always did. Why hadn't he ever told her that before? Well, he could tell her now.

Hui knelt down by his father's chair, and reached over for his grimy hand. He struggled to control his feelings, but this person, this pile of old, smelly clothes sitting in his brand- new living room, was undoubtedly his father. The same profile. The same glittery eyes, the same weather-beaten face. Only the hair was so different, white and wispy. He shook his head. 'Where have you been all this time?' He reached out and gently, stroked a strand of white hair back from falling over his face. In that single gesture he found his humanity. His poor old father. Where had he been? How had he suffered? What had happened to him? Zhang seemed not to notice his son's touch. 'Where's your mother?' 'If you'd only written. Was it another woman? Was that it?' Hui stroked his father's scabby and matted hair. What had he been doing with himself? 'Where's Guilin?' 'After a while, you know,' Hui said, staring unseeing into the past, 'when you didn't come back, we got to thinking about all sorts of possibilities.' He sat back on his haunches. 'Tian down the road, he was convinced you'd got another family in Guyuan. He said he'd seen someone just like you with a wife and baby. That was a couple of years after you'd

12 left us. Gao thought he saw you in Yinchuan one time, but that seemed unlikely. We didn't go that way in those days. Dad, where did you go?' 'Where's my wife?' Zhang's voice was becoming querulous now. 'And then we wondered about you losing your mind and getting lost and wandering somewhere else and then settling there. I mean, we didn't know. We even thought you might have been murdered and your body buried on the mountain, but no one saw you that day…' 'WHERE'S MY WIFE?' he thundered now. 'Tell me! Why won't you tell me?' 'Dad, she's dead. She died three years ago. She died talking about you. She never stopped loving you. She lay in that room there, that one, when she was dying…' he pointed towards the room where Zhang Mei had slammed the door, which, with a wince, Zhang now realised his son shared with his new wife. 'She always believed you would come back. She said on the last day when she was so ill in the new hospital up in Yinchuan, she said you'd come back one day. She said you would and we had to be nice to you. She said…' He broke off, tears obscuring his words. 'Oh, Dad!' 'Dead?' Zhang whispered. He had no hope of anything now. It was all over. 'Dad, just tell me, where did you go? What happened? If you'll just tell me…'

'Hui!' Zhang Mei said. Both the men started. Zhang Hui jumped to his feet, shaking his head at his wife, but she didn't react. 'I'm going to collect Guilin!' 'What?' Zhang shouted, trying at once to rise from his seat. 'She means our daughter, Guilin. Called her after my mother. She's eight years old' 'Daughter?' Zhang shook his head and sat back again, closing his eyes. 'You have a daughter too. Of course. Just one?' He smiled sardonically, but the attempt at humour felt like a small death and he blinked with shame. Zhang Mei looked at her husband, raising her eyebrows in enquiry. He shook his head at her. 'One-child policy, Dad. We can only have one nowadays. There were so many kids born in the eighties and nineties…' 'No!' Zhang called out in anguish. 'Please, no more!' He wept.

Zhang Guilin was helping her mother arrange some flowers. She wore her hair in two short bunches stuck up on the top of her head with bright elastic bands. Her eyes twinkled with mischief and her cheeks delighted in perfect dimples. She had a heart-shaped earnest little face, despite its sweet prettiness. A sombre child in a frivolous casting. Sweet-peas, carnations and roses were the flowers today. The yellows, reds, purples, greens, oranges and whites made a powerful centre-piece on the low glass-topped coffee-table. Guilin moved around her grandfather carefully. With a young child's instinctive grasp of the essentials, she knew her grandfather was fragile and she treated him as one might treat a favourite pet that has been very ill. She brought him snacks during the day when she wasn't at school, and changed channels for him on the television. No one knew whether he was watching or not. He seemed to be sometimes. Sometimes he smiled. But often, he looked vacant. He hadn't really spoken now for weeks. Just the odd word here and there. Perhaps 'yes' or 'no', sometimes 'thank you'. But generally, he sat in silence and the world swirled around him. Guilin would sit next to him on the flowery-upholstered sofa (when

13 Zhang Mei didn't scold her for wearing her outside shoes inside like some ignorant country-child) and she would hold her grandfather's hand in both of hers and chafe its gnarled surface in her smooth ones. Sometimes, she thought she saw him smile and that lifted her heart. Her grandfather was all right. He wasn't the mad man her mother talked about, or the cruel one who deserted his family like a criminal that neighbours had said in her hearing. He was kind with a kind face. Such a kind face couldn't be unkind, surely.

'That looks very nice, dear,' Zhang Mei complimented her daughter, as the child pushed the last flower into the arrangement. 'Well done! Now, let's clear up all the clippings.' And then we're going to clear out that box in the attic. Are you going to help?' Guilin grinned in delicious anticipation. Zhang heard them a few moments later clattering a box down wooden steps. They must be up in the attic. They used to hide all their best stuff up there. When the Red Guards came, they had to preserve something. There was that time when the troops arrived and the family had put things of secondary value out, or at least in easy-to-find places and they'd been in a hurry and so they didn't search the attic. 'Where does this go?' Guilin asked, lifting something onto the table in front of her grandfather with lip-biting concentration, lowering it down to rest in the centre of the table. 'It needs polishing', Zhang Mei nodded at her daughter with a smile. 'You want to this time?' 'Yes, Mummy. You know I do.' 'And you know how to set them up, so make sure they're right, O.K.? Perhaps your grandfather can help you.' The child glowed with pleasure. At last, her mother was trusting her with this chess-set. It was beautiful. Knights and kings and queens waging war so quietly and elegantly. Her father had taught her the rules and she could play quite well now. There was a chess- group at school and last term, she was number two. Wang's grandson didn't like it. Yeah, well, he wouldn't! Chess was a game for men and boys not girls he said. Maybe that was true in the olden days, in grandfather's time - she looked at him affectionately and smiled - but she was number two in the school now for chess and she was a girl, so they must be wrong. And theirs was the best chess-set in Mingsha. The oldest. The most valuable. Her father said the board itself was rare wood. Very expensive. Ebberny or something. Anyway, expensive. Other people had lost theirs to the Old Times, but not her father. Not her grandfather. She squeezed his arm in glee, and then rushed out of the room to fetch a cloth and some ivory polish.

'Are you all right, Father?' Zhang Mei said, pulling off her rubber gloves and dropping them for the moment beside the chess-board. She sighed when he didn't reply and shook her head at him, but it wasn't any longer the anger and frustration of previous weeks. What a poor old wreck he was! Dressed in his new clothes, beige, pure cotton shirt and loose silk tie, trousers to match in blue, leather shoes, his hair cut and washed and brushed. He must have been handsome at one time, but now, well, he was an old man with nothing in his life. Neighbours had been inquisitive at first, suggested all sorts of solutions to his absence. One of the most ridiculous was that he had been captured by sorcerers and only released after twenty-five years. Stories abounded about Long Huo

14 Shan in the Old Times, but all that was tittle-tattle. No, he'd simply gone somewhere, lost his memory and somehow wandered around from place to place until he landed up here again. Lucky for him he did. He wouldn't have lasted long in the condition they'd found him in. Well, he was all right now. A big house, son and daughter-in-law earning, a grandchild who was very bright and promised to go far in the future. The new train link to Yinchuan, buses running every hour, and perhaps, just perhaps next year, Zhang Hui would be flying to the United States of America on business. Making lots of money. A bright, new world to come into. Better than her father-in-law's world, that was for certain.

Zhang Mei repeated her question, 'Are you all right, Father?' He nodded, a tiny gesture, his eyes fixed on something in front of him. It was ridiculous how happy she felt at that first response in weeks. Hui would be pleased with her too. Guilin broke the moment by running back into the room, brandishing her cloth and polish. Zhang Mei smiled at her eager daughter, and left the room. Those two really got on well. For the first time she didn't worry about leaving her daughter in his charge.

'This one's the knight!' Guilin said, picking up a black, shiny figure from the pile in front of her and showing it to her grandfather, who seemed to be watching her. At least his eyes were switched on. Guilin tweaked the snorting horse's head between her thumb and index finger and carefully wiped the cloth over it, feeling round its smoothed contours, exaggerating her movements as if she were miming to a deaf audience. Every now and again she looked up to find her grandfather's eyes following her movements. She felt the moments stretching taut, and all around the air seemed to prickle with something just out of her reach. She knew if she said or did the wrong thing, he'd retreat again. Go back to that somewhere else he'd lived in for so long. She wanted him to stay with her. She polished the horse's head and stretched it at arm's length, so that the two of them might consider its new stature together. 'Nice!' she exclaimed with a bouncy smile, and placed it lightly on a white square. 'And this one's the king,' she explained, holding it in front of the quiet old man's face. 'You hold it Grandfather while I polish his wife!' She pushed it into his passive hand, and with her instinctive empathy, talked over the awkward moment. He reached out and grasped it. 'The Queen's my favourite, you know,' she prattled on. She's so powerful. Daddy says she's the one to have! I like white best. What about you? I think white is pure and good. Black is like shadows, isn't it? I don't like shadows. Here, here's the Queen. You hold it now and I'll take the King.' Her grandfather traded the King for the Queen, tears silently flowing down his cheeks.

A few moments later, Zhang Mei put her head round the door. 'Guilin, just popping down the road to see about the computer-order. Your father expected it this afternoon and it hasn't been left at the depot yet. Look after your grandfather. He'll need his medicine in a few minutes. Give him a drink of water and two tablets. Bottle on the windowsill. I'll be back in two ticks. Or your father will be back from the city. You can always run next door to the Wangs if you need anything. And there are some snacks in the fridge if either of you get hungry, O.K.?'

15 'All right, Mummy,' Guilin said dutifully, looking over at her grandfather who was studying the chess-figure in his hands, turning it that way and this.

Guilin sits next to Zhang, playing with a white pawn, turning it this way and that in her fingers. 'Grandfather, why did you stay away from us for so long?' She takes his hand and strokes it. 'To me it was just a day,' he replies. 'A day?' Guilin looks at him candidly. 'Mother says it was twenty-five years.' She picks up a chess-piece from the table, and places it on the board before again taking his hand. 'There. All set. Ready for battle!' She grins with glee. Then, suddenly serious again, she asks, 'didn't you miss us?' 'Every moment,' he replies, tears rolling down his cheeks. 'I still do.' 'Oh, don't be sad, Grandfather. I love you! I do love you. Honestly.' And she squeezes herself close up to his side so that she can hug him. 'Promise you won't go away again,' she implores him. 'No, I won't,' he says. 'I'm staying now,' and he holds her back. He hears the back door opening and Guilin squeezes him quickly, before jumping up and shouting: 'Mum, Dad, grandfather's staying! He's not going away anymore.'

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