“Then out with it.”
Now the young president grew nervous. She quickly crossed herself, and with her eyes half closed, she said, “God bless America,” in a voice audible only to herself. Then she leapt up from the chair and began to pace energetically, before stopping short and clasping her hands to her chest. She said, “First I’d like to make a request. Would our Chinese friends share with us your impressions of our country?”
The Chinese children’s remarks came out in a jumble:
“America is skyscrapers covered in mirror glass glittering in the sun.”
“In America, a river of cars flows morning till night, unceasingly.”
“America has Disneyland and lots of other fun places.”
“Americans love football.”
“American farms use huge machines, so one family can till a huge area!”
“In American factories, it’s all robots and assembly lines, and a whole car can be assembled in a matter of seconds!”
“Americans have been to the moon, and they want to go to Mars. They fire tons of rockets off every year.”
“America has lots and lots of nuclear weapons, and huge aircraft carriers. No one messes with them.”
The impressions shared by the Chinese children sketched a rough outline of America that happened to match exactly with what Benes had been hoping for. All was going according to plan, so she determinedly took the next step.
“I have long been aware that China is a great and mysterious country, but as a newly arrived guest, I know far less about your country than you do of mine. So let me ask you: Does your country have anything that’s better than ours?”
It was a challenging question, to be sure.
“Our country is huge. It covers an area of nine-point-six million square kilometers,” Huahua exclaimed.
“Ours is pretty big too: nine-point-three-six million square kilometers. But we’ve got more arable land than you, and more forest cover. Those are important things for a country,” Benes said solemnly.
“We have lots and lots of oil underground, and lots and lots of coal. And lots and lots of iron,” Xiaomeng said.
“So do we. Oil in the Gulf of Mexico, Alaska, and California. And we’ve got lots of places with coal. Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Kentucky, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio all have tons of it. And there’s lots of iron under the southwestern part of Lake Superior, and copper in Arizona, Utah, Montana, Nevada, and New Mexico, and lead and zinc in Missouri. You haven’t got us beat in that area.”
“Well… we’ve got the Yangtze River. It’s the biggest, longest river in the world!”
“Not true in the slightest. The Mississippi is bigger. And one of its tributaries, the Ohio River, is over a thousand meters wide at its widest point. Have you ever seen a thousand-meter-wide river?”
“Does the Mississippi River have the Three Gorges?”
“No, but the Colorado does. We call it the Grand Canyon, and it’s magnificent!”
“You just memorized a geography textbook and came here to challenge us, is that it?” Huahua said angrily.
Now Benes squatted down beside the long roll of paper, untied the green ribbon holding it together, and gently unrolled it. It was a world map, one so big that when fully unrolled it occupied half of the floor space in the hall, but it was a peculiar one: the United States and China were the only two countries drawn, and the remainder of the map was water, giving them the look of two islands floating in a vast ocean. Benes jumped onto the map into the middle of the Pacific, and pointed a hand at each territory.
“Look at our two countries. We’re in opposition on either side of the globe, practically equal in area, more or less the same shape. It’s like we’re a pair of images reflected onto the Earth. And there really are so many things that are mirror images. For example, the two are the world’s oldest and the world’s youngest countries; one whose people have deep roots and ancient heritage, the other made up almost entirely of immigrants; one that stresses tradition, one that prizes innovation; one quiet and introverted, one outgoing and expansive. My Chinese friends, God put two such countries on the Earth. Don’t you think there’s a certain mystical connection between them?”
The words captivated her listeners, and they waited silently for her to show her final card.
The president walked across the map to the United States. From a pocket she pulled out a small, gleaming pair of scissors, and then, crawling on the map like a lizard on a wall, cut out first the United States, and then China. The map was so big that it took her quite a while to snip around the borders of the two countries under the astonished gaze of the Chinese children. Then she took the China cutout, crossed the map, and handed it to Huahua.
“This is your territory. Take care of it.”
Then she retrieved the cutout of the United States, and returned to the Chinese children. Holding it out in front of her, she said, “Look, this is our territory.”
Now the president passed the US cutout into one of Huahua’s hands, and with her other hand took hold of the China cutout. She said, “We exchange them.”
The Chinese interpreter stared at her in shock. “Sorry, I beg your pardon?”
Benes did not repeat her statement—words meant for the history books cannot be repeated. Besides, she knew that not only had the interpreter understood her, but that even Huahua, with only two semesters of English study, had also grasped that simple sentence. She simply nodded at the Chinese children, confirming the unbelievable proposition she had just made.
THE EXCHANGE
“What? An exchange?” they asked.
“All Chinese children will move to our territory, and all American children will move to yours,” Benes said.
“So that means our territory would belong to you?”
“That’s right. And our territory would be yours.”
“But… what about all the stuff on the territory? You can’t ship whole cities across the Pacific!”
“We’ll exchange everything in the two countries.”
“You mean, you come empty-handed, and we leave empty-handed?”
“Exactly! It’s the territorial-exchange game!”
Wide-eyed, the Chinese children looked at each other in total disbelief.
“But… that means all of your—” Huahua said.
“All of our factories,” Benes said quickly, cutting him off. “And all of our farms. All of our delicacies and entertainments. Everything in America will be yours! Of course, that means everything in China will be ours.”
The Chinese children stared at the president like she was a madwoman. Then the foreign minister cracked up laughing, and soon all of the Chinese children were laughing along with him.
“You’ve taken the joke a little too far,” Xiaomeng said.
“Your interpretation is understandable, but I can solemnly declare in my role as national leader that this suggestion is the task I have flown across the Pacific to accomplish. I do realize that it may be hard to prove it isn’t a joke, but we are willing to do whatever it takes,” Benes said with sincerity.
“How do you plan to do that?” Huahua asked.
“That will fall to Mr. Vaughn,” she said, gesturing to invite him over from behind the crowd, where he had been admiring one of the hall’s huge hanging carpets. Upon hearing the president mention his name, he slowly turned and came over and stood in the empty space on the map the United States had once occupied. He said, “To prove this ambition would be like proving the international politics equivalent of quantum mechanics or the theory of relativity. You’d need a superhuman mind and intelligence. There’s only one person here I can talk to.”