stay in the hotel!
“We need you here,” Eddie explained. And he went on to say that he and Dad would go down with their two-way radios. I would stay in the office as a sort of base co-ordinator and, when I got something interesting from one of them, make an oral memo into my little tape recorder. Eddie said this would be a great way to record details for his book while at the same time letting him get on with his immediate job — E.N.G., Electronic News Gathering.
Dad nodded all the way through this line of nonsense but I could see from the look in his eye that he knew I wasn’t buying it.
“This is just an excuse to keep me here, right? Because you think it will be too dangerous, right?”
Dad didn’t say anything.
Eddie said, “No, really, Alex, you’d be more useful to us up here.”
“Come on, Eddie, you could take the tape recorder with you and make the memos yourself down there. You don’t need me to do that.”
“Yeah, I could, Alex, but you’re forgetting something.”
“I’ll bet. What?”
“Point of view. If I do it, all we’ll have is what
I
see. From up here you can record your dad’s observations, mine, and anything Lao Xu gets over the telephone.”
I thought hard but I couldn’t argue my way out of that one.
Eddie hammered his point home. “Your dad and I will take our Polaroids with us and try to get pics we can fax home. And we’ll send you oral reports of what’s going on. Not having to stop and write leaves us free to move fast. I’ve got a feeling we’re going to see a lot of action today.”
I couldn’t think of anyway out of it. I wanted to go with them and be in the middle of things, right where it was happening — if anything
did
happen — not stuck in a hotel room yapping into a tape recorder.
Dad was talking. “Alex, I
would
rather have you up here in case anything happens, but we also need you to do this. Okay?”
“Okay, Dad.” What else could I say?
They left about ten o’clock, dressed in Chinese hats and blue Mao coats. Eddie wasn’t fooling anybody, though. For one thing you have to walk a lot of miles before you’ll find a chubby Chinese man, and even Eddie’s coat couldn’t hide his thick body and potbelly. For another, his florid complexion would belike a flashing red light. Dad didn’t look convincing, either. He was much too tall and gangly.
I set up shop on Eddie’s desk. I had a pad to take notes so I wouldn’t miss details when I got the reports. I had the two-way radio on receive mode and my little tape recorder with fresh batteries and a new tape. I had batteries cooking on the recharger right on the desk, and a couple of spare tapes.
And nothing happened.
What a letdown. Well, Eddie called in to report that he was going to hang around the Great Hall of the People, and on the way there he radioed that the Goddess was still standing there, staring Mao in the face, and thousands of people were milling around her, including dozens of foreign correspondents. Dad called in to say he was going to hang around the south end of the square. I called back to tell him he probably picked that spot because that is where the chicken restaurant is.
Lao Xu came in about noon and did a little paperwork. Then he got a chess set out of his bag. He unfolded the paper board on the desk beside my stuff and laid out the round pieces with the characters carved into the tops. He has been patiently teaching me Chinese chess lately. We started to play.
I wasn’t too interested, though. While I waited for him to move I was fiddling with the channel selector on the two-way when suddenly I heard this:
… just in front of the Yan Jing Hotel and I can see troops in the distance moving towards the centre of
Beijing. They must have broken through the barricade at the moat at Mu Xi Di. A crowd has already begun to gather. Yes, people are pouring into the streets, moving east, towards the troops. I’m going to try to get to the roof of the hotel. Over
.
Lao
“We need you here,” Eddie explained. And he went on to say that he and Dad would go down with their two-way radios. I would stay in the office as a sort of base co-ordinator and, when I got something interesting from one of them, make an oral memo into my little tape recorder. Eddie said this would be a great way to record details for his book while at the same time letting him get on with his immediate job — E.N.G., Electronic News Gathering.
Dad nodded all the way through this line of nonsense but I could see from the look in his eye that he knew I wasn’t buying it.
“This is just an excuse to keep me here, right? Because you think it will be too dangerous, right?”
Dad didn’t say anything.
Eddie said, “No, really, Alex, you’d be more useful to us up here.”
“Come on, Eddie, you could take the tape recorder with you and make the memos yourself down there. You don’t need me to do that.”
“Yeah, I could, Alex, but you’re forgetting something.”
“I’ll bet. What?”
“Point of view. If I do it, all we’ll have is what
I
see. From up here you can record your dad’s observations, mine, and anything Lao Xu gets over the telephone.”
I thought hard but I couldn’t argue my way out of that one.
Eddie hammered his point home. “Your dad and I will take our Polaroids with us and try to get pics we can fax home. And we’ll send you oral reports of what’s going on. Not having to stop and write leaves us free to move fast. I’ve got a feeling we’re going to see a lot of action today.”
I couldn’t think of anyway out of it. I wanted to go with them and be in the middle of things, right where it was happening — if anything
did
happen — not stuck in a hotel room yapping into a tape recorder.
Dad was talking. “Alex, I
would
rather have you up here in case anything happens, but we also need you to do this. Okay?”
“Okay, Dad.” What else could I say?
They left about ten o’clock, dressed in Chinese hats and blue Mao coats. Eddie wasn’t fooling anybody, though. For one thing you have to walk a lot of miles before you’ll find a chubby Chinese man, and even Eddie’s coat couldn’t hide his thick body and potbelly. For another, his florid complexion would belike a flashing red light. Dad didn’t look convincing, either. He was much too tall and gangly.
I set up shop on Eddie’s desk. I had a pad to take notes so I wouldn’t miss details when I got the reports. I had the two-way radio on receive mode and my little tape recorder with fresh batteries and a new tape. I had batteries cooking on the recharger right on the desk, and a couple of spare tapes.
And nothing happened.
What a letdown. Well, Eddie called in to report that he was going to hang around the Great Hall of the People, and on the way there he radioed that the Goddess was still standing there, staring Mao in the face, and thousands of people were milling around her, including dozens of foreign correspondents. Dad called in to say he was going to hang around the south end of the square. I called back to tell him he probably picked that spot because that is where the chicken restaurant is.
Lao Xu came in about noon and did a little paperwork. Then he got a chess set out of his bag. He unfolded the paper board on the desk beside my stuff and laid out the round pieces with the characters carved into the tops. He has been patiently teaching me Chinese chess lately. We started to play.
I wasn’t too interested, though. While I waited for him to move I was fiddling with the channel selector on the two-way when suddenly I heard this:
… just in front of the Yan Jing Hotel and I can see troops in the distance moving towards the centre of
Beijing. They must have broken through the barricade at the moat at Mu Xi Di. A crowd has already begun to gather. Yes, people are pouring into the streets, moving east, towards the troops. I’m going to try to get to the roof of the hotel. Over
.
Lao
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