Forbidden City by William Bell Read Free Book Online

Chang An Avenue, to the chicken place. It was too crowded.
    Lately when I get back to the hotel the first thing Eddie and Dad ask is, “Get any good footage?” After dinner I hook the camcorder up to the TV and show them what I have. Once, they liked some footage of traffic flowing past the Drum Tower in the pouring rain so much that Dad transferred it to superVHS tape to use as a lead-in to one of Eddie’s reports. He sent it back to Toronto. We don’t know yet whether it got on the news but Dad paid me anyway.
    “A newsman ought to be paid for his work,” he said. I felt pretty good about that.

Everybody — Dad, Eddie, Lao Xu — has been busy tonight. I can hear them working in the office.
    There were rumours that a Party bigwig named Hu Yao-bang is really sick and may die any time. Also that when he does there will be a big student demonstration in Tian An Men Square. Apparently Hu had lost his position in the government a couple of years ago because he had been too lenient withstudent demonstrators at that time. The big boss, Deng Xiao-ping dumped him. Eddie was pretty excited, puffing away like an old steam engine, and Lao Xu looked a little bit nervous.
    Dad asked me to go out after dinner and do a recon of the square and draw a map that he can use to get around with his camera to photograph the demonstration. I told him I had already checked out the square and could do a map from memory. Here it is:

    Dad is getting his equipment ready. He’s humming away like an old lady almost in her right mind. He’s driving me nuts. The whole apartment is alive with wires snaking along the floor, leading to ourbattery pack rechargers — for Dad’s Betacam, the two-way radios, my camcorder, my tape recorder, and Walkman. I think we’re drawing more power than the nearest factory.
    Whatever happens, Terrible Teddy will be ready.

This morning I got out of bed and wobbled towards the bathroom in my usual morning fog. Something wasn’t right, though. Then I realized what was different. There were no noises coming from the office.
    I padded into the room and was practically blinded by the morning sun pouring through the windows. Squinting, I went to the windows and drew the drapes. The office was messier than usual, whichmeant it could have won a prize from the
Guinness Book of World Records
and Dad’s equipment was missing. I scratched my head and wondered where everyone was.
    Still not clued in to the world enough to figure out the obvious, I had a shower and returned to the bedroom. On my desk was a note.
    Alex
,
    Hu Yao-bang has died. We’re going to the square to cover the student demonstration (if it happens)
.
    P.S. Thanks for the map
.
P.P.S. Use the two-way radio if you want to contact us
.
    Dad
                              
    The map was gone all right.
    I went down to the dining room for breakfast. The place was like one of the Ming tombs. Waiters and waitresses stood around talking, paying no attention to the half-dozen customers. I finally had to go up to one of them to order some eggs and toast. He said the dining room was “No open”, so I talked to him in Chinese. It worked. He smiled and took my order for eggs and toast. When I got them they were half-cooked and cold.
    Even though it was Saturday and school in China goes six days a week (ugh!) there was no way I was going to pass up the chance to check out the demonstration. I knew from the emptiness of the diningroom that something big was happening.
    I took the elevator to the roof. I had to perform the laborious task of pushing the buttons myself because the elevator person was not there. When I got to the roof I joined some tourists who had already gathered there. From where I stood I could see the museum, the northwest corner of Tian An Men Square, and most of the Great Hall of the People. The square was crowded with people.
    When I got back to the office I looked down into Chang An Avenue. The sidewalks were packed