Grandfather rubbed his chin with his hand, a stern frown fixed in his bushy brows. “You are off to see the circus.”
Zhiqiang nodded, the serious look on his face mirroring the old man’s. They sat on the terrace. The morning light, filtered through the softly fluttering leaves of a tallow tree, was without order or pattern, wildly chaotic, organic and gorgeous. The boy had struggled to wake wanting to be with the old man before Nainai’s alarm clock chimed. This was their time, when the city was quiet, and they could listen to the birds and talk as men talked.
They sat at a small round “news” table, the surface of which was a flatscreen. Grandfather had found the table discarded beside the road. “We won’t plug it in,” he’d said. So, the screen never projected the esteemed leader’s face, and the boy and his grandfather never listened to the government sanctioned news.
“And what have I taught you?” Grandfather asked.
“My duty is first to my elders, to you and Nainai, and then to Aalee.”
“I am stuck in this chair.” He hit the arm of it with the heel of his palm, “But we are men, are we not?”
In response, the boy rose and went into the house returning with a beer and a large glass of orange juice. Solemnly, he placed Grandfather’s beer on the blank flatscreen, and taking his seat raised his glass of juice. The old man responded with a twitch of a grin and poured a splash of the beer into Zhiqiang’s juice. Then he clinked his bottle against Zhiqiang’s glass. When the man drank, the boy drank.
“You will be going into the old city, no factories, no military targets, still you must be careful.” He looked into his beer as if the reason for men’s need to murder each other was contained in the golden liquid. Across from him, Zhiqiang studied the pulp in his orange juice. “This circus is important to Nainai. She remembers her sister when she sees people walking on stilts.” Grandfather’s eyes momentarily looked confused. “Your great aunt was a crazy woman.”
Zhiqiang nodded.
The alarm clock pinged out a melody. Creaking bed sounds and padding feet sounds drifted out to the where the two sat. Soon Nainai, in her way, which was always to be darting about like a firefly, hustled onto the terrace. “Only seven in the morning and you are drinking beer?”
Grandfather, glancing sideways, winked at Zhiqiang.
Zhiqiang winked back.
Simultaneously, they drank.
As if some unseen balloon had sprung a leak, a long sigh meandered out of Nainai’s mouth. She raised her eyes to the sky never happy with her ancestors. “You could have warned me.”
Aalee rushed out twirling in a circle Nainai’s bright red lipstick on her lips. Zhigiang put his hand over his mouth to stifle his giggle.
“Come, come we will be late,” Nainai was busy picking up things: wrist phone, hearing aid, “where is my earring?” Finding her purse and the earring, she rummaged through her bag mumbling, “Where is the other tag?” then “oh, they were stuck together.”
With her right hand Nainai took one of Zhiqiang’s hands, with her left, Aalee’s.
“No,” said Zhiqiang in a firm voice, a frown in his brow.
“What?” asked Nainai.
Zhiqiang rearranged their hands so that he was in the middle, instead of Nainai, keeping a firm hold on them both.
Silently, Grandfather raised his bottle to the boy.
As the transport tube slid to a stop, Zhiqiang whispered to Aalee, “There will be animals.”
“Really?” Aalee’s eyes were wide. “Maybe marmosets?”
“Maybe tigers.”
“No, you’re only trying to fool me,” but her feet dangling above the floor, swung back and forth faster, and her grin widened.
“Hurry, hurry,” Nainai said, standing. “You don’t want to miss the parade.” She picked up Aalee. Though they were twins, Aalee was much smaller. Zhiqiang smiled up at his sister and took Nainai’s hand to help her exit the tube and climb the steep steps to the street.
They wove through the marketplace filled with people and vendors. In a booth skewered chickens roasted over a small fire; the boy’s stomach gurgled with longing. Next door, a young woman in a white apron topped hot rice cakes with dollops of gooey mango jam, while under a wide awning dumplings floated in a salty broth. Snuggled beneath the branches of an old bent tree sat a drink vender’s table. On top, obedient paper cups stood in neat rows each filled to the brim with sweetened goji berry juice and cold crushed ice, the cups never moving, not an inch, until whisked away by some thirsty customer to be consumed, and the cup crushed and discarded.
“Can we stop? Please.”
“Later, little one,” Nainai said, pulling on his hand.
“But I’m thirsty.”
“Come along, quickly.” Nainai was a tornado blowing through the crowd. Zhiqiang held tight to her hand and ran to keep up with her scurrying feet.
They hustled past a man with a painted face and two laughing girls with tall feathers on their heads, then pushed through the stiff turnstile and into the arena stairwell—so many steps— the noise of the people echoing like they were in a tall concrete cave.
They sat high above the stage where there were still a few empty seats, and the air was blissfully cool. At first, Nainai sat between them. But Zhiqiang wiggled between Nainai and Aalee. Aalee rewarded her protector with a kiss on his cheek.
First came the parade—and tigers. “I didn’t believe you,” Aalee gasped. Once again, her dangling feet swung.
“Whoa…” Zhiqiang pointed as elephants appeared. Behind them men walked on stilts, and others danced throwing their partners into the air. Magicians made people disappear and brought them back in a puff of purple smoke. Next, right in the middle of the show, interrupting everything, a government man in a dull green jumpsuit and brown boots, came on stage.
Boos rumbled through the stadium.
“As a precaution,” the government man raised his hands, “we would like to remind every citizen that you must go to your designated underground location if the sirens sound. I will review these locations now.”
A collective moan filled the arena.
“Red badges should enter the underground tube tunnels at 6th street…”
When the government official finally said, “that concludes my remarks for the evening, enjoy the festival,” the arena reverberated with cheers.
Dancers flitted across the stage on feet that barely touched the ground. Zhiqiang stared, transfixed, his attention unwavering. All was sound and sight, and the feel of Aalee’s hand in his. Six women, clad in tangerine silk, waved like chrysanthemums in the wind, gracefully throwing ribbons of yellow cloth into the air as if these were unfurling stamens or butterflies taking flight. Other dancers appeared, fiery red dragons, stomping their feet and tossing their horned dragon heads to the beat of drums.
The loud piercing cry of a siren shattered the illusion.
Aalee and Zhiqiang covered their ears.
Nainai picked up Aalee, rushing for the stairwell. Zhiqiang, running on the long stadium bench seat, was inches behind her.
BOOM!
The first shell hit the stage. In the stairwell, squeezed against the wall, twice Zhiqiang was almost crushed. Grandfather’s frown appeared in his brow. Below him on the wall of the landing over the heads of the people the number “4” was painted in bright fluorescent orange.
Three more flights.
Another shell, the stairs shook; the lights went out; people stampeded. As Nainai stumbled, Zhiqiang grabbed her arm, pulling her hard toward the corner of the landing where there was room for her to gain her feet. The hands that clutched Aalee, trembled.
“Three more flights. Now!” he shouted, dragging Nainai into a break in the crowd.
In the street their feet trampled dumplings and splashed through spilled soup.
Men with microphones shouted, “Blue tags enter at 4th street! Green tags enter at 12th!”
As they passed the cups of goji juice, the table, pushed by a maddened crowd, skidded toward them. “Watch out!” Zhiqiang ducked. The table hit Nainai’s thighs knocking her down. She scrambled to her feet, picking up a screaming Aalee.
“Zhiqiang!”
“Nainai!” he shouted from under the table.
The crowd divided them. Like the current of a river at flood it carried Nainai along.
“Zhi Zhi,” Aalee called. “Zhi Zhi!” Twice he tried to go after them, and twice he was knocked to the ground. He crawled back under the table to escape the hysterical feet.
A green tag hung from a safety pin pinned to his shirt.
Green tags enter at 12th street.
He reached up and took a cup of juice, miraculously still upright, off the table. So sweet, so cool, so wet.
The crowd thinned . . . quickly he downed the last drop.
There, an opening, behind the man carrying a boy in a leg cast.
Rat . . . tat . . . tat . . .
The deafening sound of thousands of screams filled the air. People fell. A woman on the ground, clutching her leg, looked at him. With a barely perceptible movement, she shook her head, ‘no.’ More shots. She fell backwards, her eyes staring unseeing into his as the line of black boots marched forward. Under the table, the empty cup slipped from Zhiqiang’s hand.