* * *
The next morning Noah gave his lecture and that afternoon I gave mine and at night the Fudan people gave us an elaborate farewell banquet in a large restaurant just off Nanking Road West. I drank a few too many mao-tais with far too many beers and when the others piled into the waiting taxis to go back to our hotel I insisted on walking. Ma must have decided to go with me because as the cars pulled away and I started off in the direction of the river he was at my side, gently touching my arm to get my attention.
“If you do not object I will walk with you to clear my head. I too am fond of banquets and this was a very fine one.”
He’d been keeping right up with our host, a man who played the gambei game as if he were quite used to outlasting whole legions of guests when he invited them to dinner, but Ma seemed none the worse for it; his speech didn’t sound slurred and he seemed to navigate the pavement without any difficulty – although I had to remind myself that I probably wasn’t in the best condition for judging such things.
“Glad to have you along. Tell me, Ma, do you like Shanghai? You seem more relaxed down here than you are in Peking, or is that just my imagination?” I knew no other Chinese with whom I could be so personal, but he’d spent a good deal of time with us ever since our arrival in China and I had the feeling that he would welcome the chance to get to know all of us a little better, so I gave my instincts – and the booze – free rein.
“It is true, here in the south the pressures are less severe on me. When I am in Beijing, close to the people and institutions which govern us, I do not very often allow myself the pleasures of tonight’s excess. I come from Tsingtao, a place closer to Beijing than this, but even there I often feel more at ease than I do in the capital. You are very wise to notice – maybe I will have to call you lao from now on.”
We walked on, the crowds on the sidewalks beginning to thin out, and Ma changed the subject.
“Do you have interest in mountain climbing?”
“I’ve done a little, but not very much technical work. I enjoy it, though.”
“We have five sacred mountains, you know, and when I am able to combine it with my official duties for Beida I try to climb them. I feel most at ease when I am climbing, alone, and the weather is misty, cool and misty, but not too cold. Perhaps one day the two of us will climb together.”
“I’d like that. Which mountains do you think we might do?”
“If we can arrange it, Huang Shan, Yellow Mountain, in Anhui Province would be a fine experience for you. If we are back in the south, in Sichuan, we must surely climb E-mei. There are many, many steps to walk up to get to the top of Tai Shan, if course, but many Chinese walk to the top every year because it is said that the gods on Tai Shan have the power to grant the wish for a baby boy. You should visit Tai Shan even if you have no desire for a son – it is very beautiful to watch the sunrise from the very top.”
We walked in silence for a while before he spoke again.
“Where else in China would you like to go?”
“I’d like to see Guilin, and Urumqi in the west, and if possible I’d like to get to Inner Mongolia and the city of Harbin up in the north. I’ve heard that in the late spring it’s very nice on the beach up in Beidaihe and I know Talya would like to see the excavations at Xian. Of course, we’d both like to visit Lhasa, but I know Tibet is still off-limits to most foreigners.”
He remained silent as we crossed the last major intersection before the Bund and then when he spoke I had to strain to hear him.
“The grasslands are wild and beautiful in good weather, but Mongolia can be dangerous when it is cold. Perhaps we can arrange for you to visit the capital, Huhehot, and a brigade from one of the areas to the north. It is very close to the border there so we will have to get some special permission for you. I will ask the responsible people.
“Guilin’s rock formations are quite unusual and I’m sure we can get you there, but Urumqi is not a very pleasant place; it is very isolated and only business men interested in heavy industry usually ask to go there, but if you like I will make inquiries. You and your wife may go to Beidaihe on the train – it is not very far from Beijing – just let me know when you would like to go and I will get your travel permits and tickets and see that reservations are made.
“Xian’s clay figures, especially the soldier’s faces, are worth the long trip and I will make inquiries about that as well, but it might be best for you to ask me about Tibet after your new year. Right now there is not much chance of my getting a travel permit for an American to visit Lhasa.”
As we reached the Bund he looked across the street at a small park by the river and then looked up for a moment at the overcast night sky, a wistful sort of look with just a hint of a smile at the corners of his mouth.
“It is very strange. When I first came south in 1948, as a young man, I fought with a man named Lin Piao. He became Mao’s Vice Chairman and some people say he betrayed the Chairman and died very mysteriously while trying to flee the country when his villainy was discovered, but his body was never found and I don’t have much confidence in rumors. The last time I saw Lin Piao we were drinking some tea together in that green space there by the river.”
We walked along the Bund without speaking until Ma touched my arm again and we halted.
“This, of course, is not the way back to the Jing Jiang.”
“I know,” I said, “I thought we could stop at the Huping Fandian for a few minutes and have a cup of coffee before we go back. Okay with you?”
He nodded but said nothing and I turned into the hotel lobby a step or two ahead of him and passed the elevators just as a grey-haired man and an older lady stepped into one of them. The elevator door closed before the couple had turned around to face the front of the car, but I was almost sure that I recognized them from the back of their heads. Ma wouldn’t have seen them this time so it was useless to ask him for corroboration that it was the older couple from the dining car on the train. As we sat down at a small formica-topped table in the bar the music stopped and the band took a break. I ordered coffee and Ma asked for tea and when they were brought we drank slowly, watching the other customers in the crowded room. Ma leaned toward me and spoke softly.
“A friend told me today that a woman committed suicide here yesterday. He said that she hung herself in the bathroom of her fifth floor room. She was an overseas Chinese – my friend thinks she was from Hong Kong – and she did not leave a final note. This is mainly a tourist hotel so the authorities will probably keep the affair out of the newspaper, but my friend said the staff were very upset today. He works as a fu-yuen on the fifth floor.
“Did your friend tell you her name, or why she might have taken her life?
“No, just that he thought she was a visitor from Hong Kong.”
We finished and I paid and we walked back to the Jing Jiang, talking of the attitudes toward suicide in our respective countries and speculating on the relationship between national goals and the taking of one’s own life. Ma said that there was no official record kept, as far as he knew, of the number of suicides in China, but he was sure that the rate had increased drastically during and even since the Cultural Revolution and Mao’s death. At the hotel’s front gate I asked him a final question before we went our separate ways for the night.
“Do Chinese people who commit suicide usually do it by hanging themselves?”
“No, in modern times it is almost never done that way. I am not certain why it is so but these days other methods are usually used. Not a very proper subject to conclude an evening with, is it? I will come by at ten in the morning with the taxi – that will allow us plenty of time to get to the station. I wish you a restful night.”