Beautiful Country by J.R. Thornton Page A

number seven.”
    â€œWhy number seven?”
    Victoria looked at me quizzically and laughed. “I don’t know! That’s just the number they choose.”
    We followed Victoria’s husband to the studio that he shared with three other artists. He walked over to where some futon mattresses surrounded a low table. He unplugged a kettle from the wall, refilled it, and plugged it back into the wall. While the water was getting hot, he walked around his studio with me. It was much larger than I had expected and had high ceilings with large skylights that filled the studio with sunlight. Z stopped in front of a large canvas with eight Wizard of Oz –sized munchkins dressed in military outfits standing in a row. Behind them was a large airplane parked on a runway. He stood waiting for my reaction. “Cool,” I said. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
    After our tour, we walked to the corner of the studio and sat on the mattresses and drank green tea. Victoria asked me what I thought of her husband’s paintings. Did I think Americans would like them? I could tell that Victoria was hoping I would buy one. I told her that I liked them, and the next time my father was in Beijing we should show them to him because he knew a lot more about art than I did. Victoria seemed satisfied with my response. She asked Z to show me other artists’ studios.
    We walked to a second studio in a nearby building. The walls were covered with large canvases bearing images and slogans taken from old Communist propaganda but painted in a style that was more reminiscent of Andy Warhol’s. I assumed the artist was mocking the embrace of the Communist Party in China, but when I asked Z and Victoria if the artist really believed the slogans, they nodded and both said yes. Victoria said they would take me to the studio of the most successful artist in China, Zhang Xiao. She explained that one of his paintings had just sold for over $500,000 in an auction in Hong Kong. Zhang Xiao’s studio was at the end of a long row. As we were coming to the door, I suddenly heard the surreal sound of American accents echoing inside the gallery. I was hit by that sense of surprise you feel when you run into a close friend in a place you’re not expecting them to be and you have to double-check it’s them. It had been four or five days since I had seen another American and a week since I last spoke to my father and had heard American-accented English. Just as we walked in, I saw an American couple, accompanied by a scruffy-looking woman with peroxided blond hair, heading for the exit. The blond woman was an art guide of some sort. She spoke in loud nasal tones and punctuated her speech with wild arm movements. When she saw me, she stopped talking abruptly and all three of them gave me puzzled looks. I realized they were obviously very confused by what an American boy was doing wandering around the outskirts of Beijing with a Chinese couple. It struck me as a funny situation and I decided to mess with them. I nodded at them and with a straight face said, “ Nimen hao ,” in my best Beijing accent. They looked about as bewildered as I’ve ever seen anybody in my life and it took every ounce of effort to contain my laughter until they had made it through the door.
    Zhang Xiao’s studio was twice as large as Z’s. On every wall were these massive portraits of ordinary Chinese people all painted in shades of pale grays and greens. The way they had been painted made them look almost like cartoon characters. Their heads bulged at the top and then narrowed to a point at thechin. They had huge, balloon eyes with enormous dark pupils and tiny mouths with thin, pursed lips. The faces were stoic, their lips closed and silent. But underneath that stoicism I could sense a terrible sadness that came through in their eyes. It made me feel as if all these people held stories that had never been told to anyone.