EDITOR: Why was he invited?
FEMALE VOICE: His friend says because he; Yang, has very good wins in 5,000.
EDITOR: What was his time in 5,000?
FEMALE VOICE: He says he does not know his time. No times were taken.
WRITER: Ask him – ask him about his family.
FEMALE VOICE: He says he lives with his aunt and uncle near Qufu. And his mother. He says his father is dead.
WRITER: An orphan! Here's our story. The Cinderella orphan marathoner! A minority, unknown, shy, out of Outer Mongolia, sails past the pack and takes the gold. Just what I been wishing for…
EDITOR: Very nice. But he was the one that got the wish.
MALE CHINESE VOICE: (something in Chinese) Ganbei!
FEMALE VOICE: To the Long March!
ALL: Ganbei!
EDITOR: To the Long Run!
ALL: Ganbei!
BLING: To the MX missile system!
ALL: Ganbei!
WRITER: Now you've stepped in it, Bling. Here comes our dude Mude.
FEMALE VOICE: The gentleman of the press says that is Mr. Xu Liang coming with Mr. Mude. Our fastest runner. He has run in two hours thirteen something.
EDITOR: Two-thirteen! That isn't loafing.
MUDE: Good evening. I would like to introduce you to our Chinese champion, Mr. Xu Liang.
ALL: Ganbei!
WRITER: He tosses 'em, the champ does.
BLING: And this don't look like the champ's first stop. Hey, Xu Liang! To the Pittsburgh Pirates!
ALL: Ganbei!
MUDE: By the way, Mr. Wu; I have something for you. Be so kind.
BLING: What is it?
MUDE: Your official packet – your passes and name card and number. You have been invited to participate tomorrow, Mr. Wu. To run.
BLING: Oh, shit.
EDITOR: Bling? To run tomorrow?
MALE CHINESE VOICE: Ganbei!
ALL: Ganbei!
MUDE: Gentlemen and ladies, I must take Mr. Xu Liang to other tables.
EDITOR: Goodbye.
ALL: Ganbei!
BLING: Ohhh, shit…
WHISPER:… and now the desserts: almond noodles in mandarin orange sweet syrup, glazed caramel apples that are dropped hot in cold water to harden the glaze; no fortune cookies – never any Chinese fortune cookies in China…
Past midnight at the Beijing Airport, a rickety DC-3 fights its way down through a rising crosswind. It was coming in from North Korea with more than a ton of red ginseng and one passenger, on the last leg of a many-legged flight originating in Tanzania.
Magapius woke to find himself unloaded on a windy airstrip. The shadowy workers loading the bundles of ginseng on a truck didn't speak to him, and he felt it would be futile to try to speak to them. He stood beside his suitcase and watched, feeling more and more melancholy. When all the crates were on the truck he stepped forward to ask, "Beijing?"
The workers stared at him as if he had just appeared. "I run," he told them, demonstrating his stride. "Beijing." A worker grinned and jabbered, then they all grinned and jabbered. They loaded his bag in the back of the truck. Magapius was about to crawl in after it but the workers insisted otherwise. They made him sit in the cab with the driver. They rode in back.
In the Chinese compound Yang rolled from his cot and tiptoed around his snoring roommate and closed the window. The wind had not wakened him. He had not been asleep.
He looked down the street stretching dimly below his hotel window. The start at Tien An Men Square some ten kilometers to his right, the turnaround some twenty to his left. He did not think about the finish, only about the two cut-off points. He must stay close to Zhoa, who had accomplished this 20-K time before; then he must keep going that fast to the 35-K mark, even if he collapsed ten paces after. He could get up and walk then, if he chose, and return to the square hours behind the ten winners. If the million spectators had all gone home, all the better.
September 27, 1981. Tien An Men Square, Beijing, China. Race scheduled to begin at 11:05 a.m.
10:00. Sky clear, blue, bright. Air sweet and chilled. Crowds already packing the curbs, obedient, quiet. The P.L.A. and police everywhere nonetheless.
10:15. The motorcycle brigade is ranked and ready, resplendent in their white tunics and blue trousers, alabaster helmets and chalk-white Hondas.
10:25. Last of the traffic allowed past before closure, buses jammed with expectant spectators, honking taxis.
10:26. All stop. Quiet. Such a quietness from so many! What attention. What power! And what fidgeting uncertainty as well, in the face of its own power. Men coughing and spitting; women with towels pressed over their mouths…
10:28. The participants jog across the vast square toward the starting line, nervous and colorful in their various outfits, like so many kites rattling in the breeze before launch.
10:35. A regiment of P.L.A. double-times past (they no longer like being referred to as the Red Guard), resembling ill-fitted mannequins wound too tight.
10:54. Balloon-and-banner lifts off, falls back, waggles in the wind, tries again, flapping a long red tail of welcome.
11:00. A sound truck goes by advising everybody to remain calm, and stay behind the lines indicated, and stay quiet…
11:05. Right on the nose a gunshot they're off! No shout, no cheer. One of the blunt khaki jeeps stenciled PRCC precedes the runners along the curb, honking and actually 'dozing into the throng. The American writer jogs to a vantage point and unfolds his chair. Here they come, a Korean in the lead. In the middle of the square the balloon is at last aloft.
Behind all the other runners, the Chinese come by in a pack.
The young boy, Yang, is at the very rear. The writer lifts his crooked little finger, reminding the boy of the shared wishbone. Yang returns the salute.
The next turn around, Yang has worked his way up into the pack of Chinese, and it is little Bling who is bringing up the rear, looking as disheveled as ever in a U of Beijing track singlet, his number on upside down.
"How much farther?" he puffs.
"Only about twenty-four miles," they call back.
Twenty kilometers straight west out Fu Xing Avenue to the bamboo scaffold erected at Gu Cheng Hu, and twenty kilometers back, then once more around the square to finish. The course will take the runners past many sights of interest – the Forbidden City, the Military Museum of the Chinese People's Revolution, the People's Crematorium, with its sinister plume of yellow smoke… and millions and millions of people. This will be the predominant sight, multitudinous faces, yet each face transmitting its singular signal, like tape across a playback head, until the signals make a song and the faces flow into one. All the runners will forever be imprinted with a single billowing black-eyed image: the Face of China. No one else will see this sight.
This face falls when the public address truck informs them that their champion and favorite, Xu Liang, is not among the runners. He was taken ill after his evening at the Great Hall and has withdrawn from the competition. Xu's withdrawal has caused great disappointment among the Chinese runners and worked a great change on Yang's friend Zhoa. Zhoa holds the second-best Chinese time. He is expected to take over, now that the favorite has faltered. The responsibility weighs heavy on Zhoa, Yang can see, affecting his concentration and, in turn, his stride. Yang sees that his head is bobbing too much; this is not like Zhoa. Also there is lateral movement of the arms. Inefficient, inefficient.
When the runners are out of sight there is nothing left for the crowds to gawk at but the journalists, and vice versa. In spite of all their stroking of Mude, they have not been allowed to follow the race. They were informed they could watch the run quite adequately on television on the parked press bus, just like the rest of the world's journalists.