Then when he wearied of Yankee gook wars abroad and left-wing American breastbeating at home and transferred from the University of Pittsburgh back to his birthplace at the University of Beijing, his teachers had called him Bee. Bee Ling Wu. Because he had used the letter B as his first initial on his application. This name had in turn become, to the members of his track team, Bee Wing Lou, thanks largely to the persistence of the only other English-speaking member of the ragtag squad, a girl from Sydney. "Bee Wing Louie, as yer such a dashing little black-eyed bug," she had explained with the typical Australian love of wordplay, "yer more the sprint from-flower-to-flower sort, it looks to me, than a long-runner."
Indeed, his position on the Pittsburgh team had been in the 100 and the 200 around-the-bend. No world-beater there, either. He had moved to the distances as age and embarrassment forced him out of the dashes. He found a whole new track career in China. Modern Yankee know-how in the form of vitamins, shoes, and training techniques had made him the top 1,500-meter man in all of the eastern provinces. Times that would have been barely mediocre in the States won him in China ribbons and respect. From all but the saucy Aussie.
"Go it!" she would shout at him around the last turn of the 1,500, waving her watch in the air. "Yer pressin' Mary Decker's time me little Bee Winger, go it!"
And now the American journalists, after he had been introduced to them as Mr. B. Ling, were calling him Bling.
Bling Clawsby.
"Have your droll yucks," he admonished the trio, "before I tip them you're all KGB agents."
The photographer shook his head. "Nobody'll go for it, Bling. Mr. Mude told us we have the unmistakable landlord look of American capitalists."
Mude was the interpreter appointed to the American press for the upcoming special. He was forty and fastidious, with an impeccable Western hairstyle and outfit. For the same reasons that the famous pictures of Marx and Engels were to be taken down for the day of the race, Mude had been advised that it would be acceptable to wear something less jarring to the American public than the gray garb of the Red Menace. Something Western. So Mr. Mude had tailored a powder-blue Western outfit, replete with pearl buttons and embroidered longhorns. Taiwan-made cowboy boots glittered from beneath the blue cuffs. A six-shooter tie slide held his neckerchief tight to his throat. He would not have looked out of place on Hee Haw.
In the customs terminal at the Beijing Airport, however, there had been nothing funny about his attire. If anything it made him somehow all the more ominous, especially when he waltzed them past the customs guard with one word: "Dipromatic."
It had been clear from the first that he did not like English. But he had been assigned the odious language, so some test must have indicated aptitude; therefore, he must be qualified; thus he had conquered it.
Hence he could translate - after a stiff fashion - but could not quite communicate. He couldn't chat. He couldn't joke. He could only smile and say "No," or "One cannot," or "Very sorry, I fear that is not possible."
So the journalists had been relieved indeed to come across Bling in the lounge of the hotel, reading a Spiderman comic and listening to a tiny tape machine play "Whip It" by Devo. The journalists had skidded to a gaping stop. Here was a young Chinese wearing a pair of skinny blue shades, short pants, a crewcut uncut so long it stuck up in random twisted quills. The journalists were impressed.
"Isn't this a splendid surprise?" they applauded. "A Pekingese punk."
"Far out," Bling responded. "A pack of Yankee Dogs, escaped from the pound. Do have a seat. I can see you are about to buy a poor student a drink."
After repeated rounds of gin rickeys and ideological argument they enlisted him as a go-between, with an offer of free running shoes and a promise not to reveal his true identity in their story. "Have no worry," they assured him. "No one will ever know that Bling Clawsby has defected to the Orient."
The deal was struck and Bling was with them from then on. Mude didn't care for this New Wave addition to the retinue, but he tried to make the most use he could of it. In a way, Bling afforded Mr. Mude the opportunity to be even more inscrutable. He found he could relegate random questions to Bling. When asked "How does the sports academy select students?" Or "Is there legal recourse in China if, say, this crazy bus driver runs over a bicycle?" Or "Why is China doing this event anyway?" Mude could pass these difficult questions on with a curt nod. "Mr. B. Ling will explain this you."
"Explain me this, then, Mr. Bling," the writer pressed on. "If China wants to put her best foot forward, as you say, then why a marathon? The Chinese entries are going to get creamed."
Bling leaned across the aisle of the rocking bus to answer out of Mude's earshot.
"Contradiction, you have to understand, means something different to the Marxist mind than it means to you peabrains. Lenin claimed that 'Dialectics is the study of contradiction in the essence of objects.' Engels said, 'Motion itself is a contradiction.' And Mao maintained that revolution and development arise out of contradiction. He saw the traditional philosophy, 'Heaven changeth not, likewise the Tao changeth not,' as a prop the feudal ruling classes supported because it supported them. The so-called 'way' was therefore a form of what he termed Mechanical Materialism, or Vulgar Evolutionism, which he considered to constitute a contradiction within the very fabric of the transcendent metaphysical Taoism of the past. Dig? This was the real genius of his early years. Mao did not judge the old ways, he merely stoked the contradictions existing within them."
"Covered himself fore and aft, did he?"
"In a way. In another way, he set up the sequence that was bound to be his undoing. Contradiction may create revolution, but when the revolutionary takes control he tries to eliminate the very thing that brought him to power - dissent, dissatisfaction, distrust of big government. Revolution is a dragon that rises to the top of the pile by eating his daddy. So the revolutionary dragon has a natural mistrust of his own issue - see? - as well as any other fire breathers roaming the rice paddies."
"Sounds to me like it was this dragon's old lady what swallowed him," the photog remarked. He had been following the latest denouncements in the little English-translation newspapers.
"You mean the Widow Mao and her Quartet? Naw, she's just a foolish old broad happened to inherit the reins. Not enough class or courage or just plain smarts to pull off a conspiracy against old Mao, even on his most senile doddering day. No, what it was was Mao did some bad shit to stay on top of the dragon pile, to some heavy people. Imagine the ghosts of his private hell: all those people he had to liquidate to grease the works of the fucking Cultural Revolution, all those comrades, colleagues, professors, and poets."
"I thought this guy Mao was what you left Pittsburgh for, Bling. You talk now like he was your typical totalitarian."
"Contradiction," Bling answered, turning to look out the window at the endless parade of black bicycles, "has become the New Way for a lot of us."
"Is that why you like Devo?" the writer asked. He thought Bling with his funny crewcut and ragged T-shirt had said New Wave. Bling gave him a curious glance.
"I don't like Devo. I listen to Devo for the same reason I run - to get an endorphin rush." He patted his pockets, looking for his comb. "I run because it hurts."
The original intention of the meeting was to let the doctors and the press examine the seventy-some participants who would be running tomorrow's race. But what can a doctor know about a marathon man that the athlete doesn't already know about himself? What can a heart specialist say about a thirty-five-year-old phys ed fanatic with a 35-beats-per-minute heartbeat and heels calloused thick as hardballs?
So the physical examination was waived and worried warnings submitted in its place. Of greatest concern was the water.
"Do not suck the sponges. Drinks from race organizers will be on white tables. Private drinks on red tables. Take when you want. Private drinks must be handed in tonight for analysis."
Chuck Hattersly leaned over to whisper, "I get it! They
're trying to steal our formula for Gatorade."
"Please don't injure yourself with strain. Take it easy. However, to avoid delaying the traffic and spectators, there will be cut-off points for the slow -"
The shuffling murmur of the room stilled. Cut-off points? No one had ever heard of cut-off points in a marathon. As long as you could put one foot in front of the other, you could run.
"Those who have not reached 25 kilometers by the time of 1:40 will be removed from the race."
Sitting amidst 60 other Chinese runners, Yang felt knots start in his stomach. He had no idea of his time for 25 kilometers. No notion, even, how far that was. From the village to the school? Half that? Twice?
"If you have not reached the 35-kilometer point by 2:20 you will be removed."
For a moment Yang was cramped with panic. He remembered the cheering crowd at the cemetery. If he were removed he could never return home; better not to start than not to finish! Then it occurred to him that all he had to do was expend his total force to reach that 35-km mark in 2:20; he could crawl the remaining distance.
"We also suggest if you begin to feel uncomfortable that you volunteer to drop out."
"Uncomfortable?" a gnarly veteran from New Zealand muttered. "Take it easy? The bleeding hell does he think we run for?"
"One important thing further. The water in the sponges is for wiping the face. Do not drink it. There will be plenty of drink at the tables. Our deepest suggestion is that you ingest no water from the sponges. Now. I wish you all once again good luck. And look forward to seeing you this evening for the banquet at the Great Hall. Thank you for your attention."
It had been a peculiar event, lengthy and uncomfortable. And if its thrust and purpose had been somewhat vague, to say the least, no one wanted to prolong it by asking questions. As the runners were queueing up for their buses, the writer, notebook and pen in hand, corraled Chuck Hattersly and inquired reporter-fashion what in his opinion was the upshot, the kernel of the long conference.
"Don't," was Hattersly's immediate summary, "suck the sponges."
When the way of the way declined
Doctrines of righteousness arose.
When knowledge and wisdom occurred
There emerged great hypocrisy.
When the six family relationships are not in harmony
There follows filial piety and deep love of children.
When a country is in disorder,
There will be praise of loyal ministers.
After lunch there awaited, according to Mr. Mude, a plethora of palace and pagodas all deemed mandatory for a first-time visitor to Beijing. The journalists wanted to know if they might go instead to the compound assigned to the Chinese runners. Mude said this afternoon was prescribed rest for the Chinese entries. Then they asked to see Democracy Wall. Mude explained that Democracy Wall no longer existed. Quill-headed free-lunched Bee Wing Bling, feeling looser by the minute among his second-countrymen, explained that the wall in fact still existed but was covered now with billboards bragging about refrigerators with egg trays. No more homemade posters of dissent and protest. Mude felt obliged to further explain that those foolish posters had only caused confusion among the people.
"If one has comment, one can write the government bureaus direct."
"Right," Bling agreed. "It's better to cause confusion among the bureaucrats. They're trained."
"Ah." Mude swiveled his smile back to the journalists. "Perhaps you will like to stop at the Friendship Store before continuing to Forbidden City? They have Coca-Cola."
The journalists would have preferred to scout off on their own but since they were stroking Mude to try to get permission to follow tomorrow's race in a taxi, instead of sitting on their thumbs for two hours at the start/finish with the rest of the press, they had decided to try and keep on his good side.
And if he did not have a good one, to at least stay off his bad.
One sensed that beneath that Western suit and patient Eastern smile an irritability was beginning to bubble. Though Mr. Mude never said so, it was obvious to all that whatever affection he had ever held for Mr. Bling was now in rapid decline. Whenever he acquired tickets for a tourist attraction he no longer included the scraggly little student. Bling had to fork over his own fen to get in the Forbidden Cities and Summer Palaces. When Bling was finally fenless the journalists forked over for him. This made Mr. Mude twitch and fidget in his unfamiliar cowboy clothes.
The tour had taken a turn not to Mr. Mude's liking: too many Yankee guffaws at Bling's sardonic commentary on the Beijing scene; too much talk from which he felt excluded, especially track talk.
"You are also a runner, Mr. Wu?"
They were coming out of Beihai Park, with its white dome and holiday throngs of colorfully clothed school kids scampering about like escaped flowers. Mude had been mentioning the park's renowned reputation for centuries of quiet beauty; Bling had been filling in with notes of more recent interest that Mr. Mude had neglected to mention. Until two years ago, Bling had told them, the park had been closed completely to the general public, the lovely quiet of the lake undisturbed by rented rowboats, the massive gates barred and guarded. No one was allowed in except Mao's wife and her personal guests.
Bling had been explaining what a turn-on it had been, after years of jogging past the prohibited paradise, to one day, out of the blue, have the doors swung wide and be allowed to jog inside -- when Mr. Mude interrupted with that question about running.
"Damn straight I'm a runner," Bling answered. "One of your hometown heroes. Three years varsity, Beijing U. Come to a meet sometime, Mude; be my guest."
"A runner of distance?"
"I've done fives and tens. I hold the school record in the 1,500."
"Then you must be entered in tomorrow's heroic event?"
"Sorry. Tomorrow's heroes will have to run without Bee Wing Lou's company."
"Surely you must have applied? A running enthusiast residing in Beijing as you do?"
"It's an invitational, Mr. Mude... remember?"
"Ah, true," Mude recalled. "I had forgotten. Too bad for you, Mr. Wu."
Bling pulled down his blue shades to study Mude's face; it was impossible to tell if the mind behind that guarded smile were conniving, condescending, or what.
"Talk them into a 1,500 around the Tien An Men - like the Fifth Avenue mile in New York - then you'll see me out there busting my little yellow balls."
"That would be very enjoyable."
To get Bling off the hook, the editor asked if it might be possible to take a drive out to the Beijing campus to look over the sports scene, maybe catch a track practice. This time it was Bling who was reluctant and Mude who was suddenly permissive. True, he admitted, he did have preparations to make for the banquet, but saw no reason why they could not drop him off and continue on with Mr. Wu to his track practice. Everyone was left stunned by the sudden turnabout, and a trifle uneasy. When they dropped Mude off at the stark brick building he had directed the driver to, Bling became downright unnerved.
"That was the Bureau of Immigration Records!"
"Wonder whose name he's looking up?" the photographer wondered.
"I couldn't say for certain, but I'll bet you all a buck," Bling said unhappily, "it turns out to be Mud."
Nobody would cover the bet. The bus ride the rest of the way to the campus was somber and quiet.
In spite of the bright bustle of students, the campus was as grim as the pot-lid sky sitting heavy over it. One expects lawns on a campus, but most of the grounds were the same packed dirt that surrounded the rest of the city's dwellings, only not as well swept. The rows of gray-green gum trees made the walks and ways dim, like light undersea. The sullen looks of the workers did not help. Bling told them that there had been a lot of strife between students and laborers, who also lived on the sprawling campus. Bicycle tires slashed. Rapes. Gang fights between workers who considered the students arrogant and lazy and students who saw the workers as the same, only less
educated. Without police protection the students would have been in sorry straits. "Out of a live-in population of about forty thousand, less than eight thousand are students."
"Sounds like the clods have the scholars unfairly outnumbered."
"In China," Bling moped, "t'was ever thus."
There was no track practice because of tomorrow's race, but three Chinese runners and the Australian girl were prowling the bleak cement gymnasium looking for someone with a key so they could get into the track room. Bling told them how to jimmy the lock and said he thought he'd skip the workout. The editor asked if they might take a look anyway, get some pictures. Reluctantly Bling led them down a dim concrete stairwell to a cracked wooden door in the cellar. The girl was gouging at the keyhole with a chopstick. Bling took over and finally dragged the door open and turned on a light. The room was a windowless cement box with a cot and a tiny desk. An iron rod stuck in the door frame was draped with a dozen tattered sweatsuits.
"Our locker room," Bling said. "Ritzy digs, right? And here" - he pulled a cardboard box from beneath the cot - "our equipment room."
The box was piled with shabby mismatched spike shoes, four bamboo batons, a shot, and a discus.
"The javelin is that thing stabbed yonder, airing them sweet-smellin' sweatsuits," the girl told the journalists.
Back outside, Bling put his blue glasses on and started walking back the way they had come.
"Gives you some idea why China doesn't have such great track times, doesn't it?"
When they got back to the campus gate their familiar bus was gone. In its place was one of the huge black Russian-made limos called Red Flags. It looked like a cross between a Packard and a Panzer. The driver stepped out and bowed and handed them a note and four embossed invitations.
"It's from Mude. He says the bus was required for other tasks, that this diplomatic limousine will take us back to the hotel to dress, then bring us to the banquet at the Great Hall. The fourth invitation is for Mr. Wu, and Mude suggests we advise Mr. Wu that a place has been reserved for him."
"Oh, shit," said Bling. "Oh, shit."
Thirty spokes gather around the hub to make a wheel,