Zhang Peidong Heaved His Rucksack Onto His Back and in the Dusty Gloom of His Hut, Took

'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 jiao[1] 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 Shan[2] 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, 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 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 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.

'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.