Forbidden City by William Bell

Author:William Bell [Bell, William]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-385-67412-6
Publisher: Doubleday Canada
Published: 1990-12-14T05:00:00+00:00

I was lying on my back, on something hard. I heard voices in another language murmuring in the air around me. I lay still, drifting down into sleep, then up again to the voices and the pounding ache that filled my head, then down again. I guess I stayed half awake for quite a while. My head ached so much that I was afraid to open my eyes and my body felt so heavy, as if I was lying under a lead blanket, that I didn’t want to move.

Later — I had no idea how much later — I floated up to the ache and the voices to feel a burning pain in my right leg. Slowly I opened my eyes, letting them adjust to the light. I tried to turn my head and felt an avalanche of pain thundering through my skull. I heard myself groan as I shut my eyes and kept absolutely still, hoping I would go to sleep again to stop the terrible ache. I did.

The next time I woke I felt alive at least. My head ached a bit. My leg hurt a lot. But at least my body didn’t seem made of cement.

It was still light, and the first thing I thought was, what time is it? I dragged my arm from under the heavy quilt that covered me. My watch said June 4, 5:52 A.M. I thought for a second, trying to get my brain in gear. The last time I had checked my watch it was about 2:35 A.M. Add a half hour at most for what had happened in between, and I figured they got me about 3:00 A.M. So I had been out for almost three hours. It seemed more like three days.

A bolt of fear shot through me as I remembered I had been captured by soldiers. The same kind of soldiers who had murdered Lao Xu and probably grabbed my dad, or worse. The same soldiers who had shot at me. And there was no one to help me. No one else in the whole country knew where I was — or that I existed, for that matter. I was totally alone.

I heard machine-gun fire in the distance, a quick burst. The fear began to grow and spread through me, like a stain. What would they do with me? Then I remembered my backpack. When they went through it they’d find out I had been taking pictures of the PLA shooting students and citizens in Tian An Men Square. I doubted if they’d be thrilled about that.

I lay there, terrified, listening for the voices again. Or more shooting.

I found I was able to turn my head now without it pounding me with pain. Wherever I was, they had put me in a corner on a very large and very hard bed. Above me was a white plaster ceiling. The wall beside the bed was dark grey brick. On the right side of the bed there was a screen with a wood frame and green cloth panels.

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