The Middle Kingdom (68 page)

"Are you
going to see the film tonight?" Josef sculled backward with his
hands, his head tilted back, his knees bent, experimenting with his
balance in the water.

Kim lifted his
head and looked back at his friend, letting his feet drift slowly
down. He was nine now but, like all of them here, much smaller,
lither, than normal boys his age. He combed his hair back with his
fingers, then gave his head a tiny shake. "What film is it?"

Anton laughed.
"What do you think?"

"Ah. . . ."
Kim understood at once. They had been joking about it only yesterday.
"Pan Chao. ..."

Pan Chao! It
sometimes seemed as if half the films ever made had been about Pan
Chao! He was the great hero of Chung Kuo—the soldier turned
diplomat turned conqueror. In A.D. 73 he had been sent, with
thirty-six followers, as ambassador to the king of Shen Shen in
Turkestan. Ruthlessly defeating his rival for influence, the
ambassador from the Hsiung Nu, he had succeeded in bringing Shen Shen
under Han control. But this, his first triumph, was eclipsed by what
followed. Over the next twenty-four years, by bluff and cunning and
sheer force of personality, Pan Chao had brought the whole of Asia
under Han domination. In A.D. 97 he had stood on the shore of the
Caspian Sea, an army of seventy thousand vassals gathered behind him,
facing the great Ta Ts'in, the Roman Empire. The rest was history,
known to every schoolboy.

For a moment the
three boys' laughter echoed from the walls.

In the silence
that followed, Kim asked. "Do you think he really existed?"

"What do
you mean?" It was Anton who answered him, but he spoke for both
the boys. How could Pan Chao not have existed? Would Chung Kuo
be
Chung Kuo were it not for Pan Chao? It would be Ta Ts'in instead.
A world ruled by the Hung Moo. And such a world was an impossibility.
The two boys laughed, taking Kim's comment for dry humor.

Kim, watching
them, saw at once how meaningless such questions were to them. None
of them shared his skepticism. They had been bewitched by the sheer
scale of the world into which they had entered—a world so big
and broad and rich—a world so deeply and thoroughly embedded in
time—that it could not, surely, have been invented? So grateful
were they to have escaped the darkness of the Clay, they were loath
to question the acts and statements of their benefactors.

No, it was more
than that: they had been
conditioned
not to question it.

"Forget
it," he said, and realized that even in that he differed from
them. They could forget. In fact, they found it easy to forget. But
he could not. Everything—even his mistakes—were engraved
indelibly in his memory, almost as if his memory had greater
substance—were more
real
—than their own.

"Well?"
Anton persisted. "Are you going to come? It's one we haven't
seen before. About the fall of Rome and the death of Kan Ying."

Kim smiled,
amused, then nodded. "Okay, I'll—" He stopped.

The three boys
turned in the water and looked.

The doors at the
far end had swung open. Momentarily they stayed open, held there by a
tall, spindly youth with long arms, a mop of unruly yellow hair, and
bright blue, staring eyes. It was Matyas.

"Shit!"
said Josef under his breath, and ducked beneath the water.

Matyas smiled
maliciously, then came through, followed by two other boys, smaller,
much younger than himself. "Greaser" and "Sucker,"
Anton called them, though not in Matyas's hearing: names which
captured not only the subservient nature of their relationship to
Matyas but also something of their physical appearance. Greaser—his
real name was Tom—had a slick, ratlike look to him, especially
in the water, while Sucker, a quiet boy named Carl, had a small,
puckered face dominated by thick, fleshy lips.

It was whispered
that the two of them "serviced" Matyas in a most original
manner; but how much of that was truth and how much it was influenced
by Anton's persuasively apt names was hard to gauge. All that was
certain was that the two younger boys accompanied Matyas everywhere;
were shadow and mirror to his twisted image.

Kim watched
Matyas lope arrogantly along the edge of the pool, his head lowered,
an unhealthy smile on his thin lips, until he stood across from him.
There Matyas turned and, his smile broadening momentarily, threw
himself forward into the water in an ungainly dive.

Kim glanced
briefly at the two boys at his side. Like him, they had tensed in the
water, expecting trouble. But it was always difficult to know with
Matyas. He was no ordinary bully. Nor would he have got here and
stayed here had he been. No, his deviousness was part of the fabric
of his clever mind. He was a tormentor, a torturer, a master of the
implicit threat. He used physical force only as a last resort,
knowing he could generally accomplish more by subtler means.

However, Matyas
had one weakness. He was vain. Not of his looks, which, even he would
admit, tended toward ugliness, but about his intelligence. In that
respect he had been cock of the roost until only a year ago, when Kim
had first come to the Center. But Kim's arrival had eclipsed him. Not
at once, for Kim had been careful to fit in, deferring to the older
boy whenever they came into contact, but as the months passed and
word spread that the new boy was something special, Kim saw how
Matyas changed toward him.

Matyas surfaced
directly in front of Kim, less than a forearm's length away, and
shook his head exaggeratedly, sending the spray into Kim's face. Then
he laughed and began to move around him in a leisurely but awkward
breaststroke. Kim turned, keeping the older boy in front of him at
all times.

"And how's
golden boy, then?" Matyas asked quietly, looking up and
sideways, one intensely blue eye fixing the nine-year-old.

Matyas himself
was fifteen, almost sixteen. On his birthday, in a month's time, he
would leave the Center and begin his service in the Above, but until
then he was in a kind of limbo. He had outgrown the Center, yet the
thought of losing his "position" as senior boy both
frightened and angered him.
Ning wei chi k'ou mo wei niu hou,
the
Han said—"Rather be the mouth of a chicken than the
hindquarters of a cow"—and so it was with Matyas. He did
not relish becoming a small fish once again—a "cow's ass."
As a result he had been restless these last few weeks—dangerous
and unpredictable, his sarcasm tending toward open cruelty. Several
times Kim had caught Matyas staring at him malevolently and knew the
older boy would never forgive him for robbing him—unjustly,
Matyas believed—of his intellectual crown.

It was why
Matyas was so dangerous just now. It was more than jealousy or
uncertainty or restlessness. He had lost face to Kim, and that loss
burned in him like a brand.

Kim looked past
him, noting how his followers, Tom and Carl, had positioned
themselves at the pool's edge, crouched forward, watching things
closely, ready to launch themselves into the water at any moment.
Then he looked back at Matyas and smiled.

"Ts'ai
neng t'ung shen,"
he said provocatively, and heard Anton,
behind him, splutter with surprise.

"Shit!"
Josef exhaled softly, off to his right. "That's done it!"

Kim kept the
smile on his face, trying to act as naturally as he could, but the
hair on his neck had risen and he could feel a tension in his stomach
that had not been there a moment earlier.
A golden
key
opens every door,
he had said, playing on Matyas's use of
golden.
It seemed simple enough, innocuous enough, but the jibe was clear
to them all. It was Kim to whom doors would open, not Matyas.

It seemed a
reckless thing to say—a deliberate rubbing of salt into the
open wound of Matyas's offended pride—but Kim hoped he knew
what he was doing. There was no avoiding this confrontation. He had
half expected it for days now. That admitted, it was still possible
to turn things to his advantage. A calm Matyas was a dangerous
Matyas. Infuriated, he might prove easier to beat. And beat him Kim
must, for the sake of face.

Matyas had
turned in the water, facing Kim, the leering smile gone, his cheeks
red, his eyes suddenly wide with anger. Kim had been right—the
words acted on him like a goad. Without warning he lashed out
viciously with one arm, but the weight and resistance of the water
slowed his movement and made the blow fall short of Kim, who had
pushed out backward, anticipating it.

There was a loud
splash as Tom and Carl hit the water behind Kim. Without a moment's
hesitation Anton and Josef launched themselves into Kim's defense,
striking out to intercept the two boys. As he backed away, Kim saw
Anton plow into Carl and, even as the boy surfaced, thrust his head
savagely down into the water again before he could take a proper
breath. But that was all he saw, for suddenly Matyas was on him,
struggling to push him down beneath the surface, his face blind with
fury.

Kim kicked out
sharply, catching Matyas painfully on the hip, then wriggled out
under him, twisting away and down. He kicked hard, thrusting himself
down through the water, then turned and pushed up from the floor of
the pool, away from the figure high above him.

For the moment
Kim had the advantage. He spent far more time in the pool than Matyas
and was the better swimmer. But the pool was only so big, and he
could not avoid Matyas indefinitely. Matyas had only to get a firm
grip on him and he was done for.

He broke surface
two body lengths from the older boy and kicked out for the steps. He
had to get out of the water or Matyas would hurt him badly.

Kim grabbed the
metal rungs and hauled himself up, but he had not been quick enough.
Desperation and anger had made Matyas throw himself through the water
to get at Kim, and as Kim's back foot lifted up out of the water,
Matyas lunged at it and caught the ankle. He was ill balanced in the
water and could not hold it, but it was enough. Tripped, Kim sprawled
forward, slamming his forearm painfully against the wet floor and
skidding across to the wall.

Kim lay there a
moment, stunned, then rolled over and sat up. Matyas was standing
over him, his teeth bared, his eyes blazing, water running from him.
In the water the others had stopped fighting and were watching. Carl
coughed, then fell silent.

"You little
cockroach," Matyas said, in a low, barely controlled voice. He
jerked forward and pulled Kim to his feet, one hand gripping Kim's
neck tightly, as if to snap it. "I should kill you for what
you've done. But I'll not give you that satisfaction. You deserve
less than that."

A huge shudder
passed through Matyas. He pushed Kim down, onto his knees. Then, his
eyes never leaving Kim's face, his other hand undid the cord to his
trunks and drew out his penis. As they watched, it unfolded slowly,
growing huge, engorged.

"Kiss it,"
he said, his face cruel, his voice low but uncompromising.

Kim winced.
Matyas's fingers bit into his neck, forcing Kim's face down into his
groin. For a brief moment he considered not resisting. Did it matter?
Was it worth fighting over such a thing as face? Why not kiss
Matyas's prick and satisfy his sense of face? But the thought was
fleeting. Face mattered here. He could not bow to such as Matyas and
retain the respect of those he lived with. It would be the rod the
other boys would use to beat him. And beat him they
would—mercilessly—if he capitulated now. He had not made
these callous, stupid rules of behavior, but he must live by them or
be cast out.

"I'd as
soon bite it," he said hoarsely, forcing the words out past
Matyas's fingers.

There was
laughter from the water. Matyas glared around, furious, then turned
back to Kim, yanking him up onto his feet. Anger made his hand shake
as he lifted Kim off the floor and turned, holding him out over the
water.

Kim saw in his
eyes what Matyas intended. He would let him fall, then jump on him,
forcing him down, keeping him down, until he drowned.

It would be an
accident. Even Anton and Josef would swear to the fact. That, too,
was how things were.

Kim tried to
swallow, suddenly, unexpectedly afraid, but Matyas's fingers pressed
relentlessly against his windpipe, making him choke.

"Don't,
Matyas. Please don't. . . ." It was Josef's voice. But none of
the boys made to intercede. Things were out of their hands now. It
was a matter of face.

Kim began to
struggle, but Matyas tightened his grip at once, almost suffocating
him. For a moment Kim thought he had died—a great tide of
blackness swept through his head—then he was falling.

He hit the water
gasping for breath and went under. His chest was suddenly on fire.
His eyes seemed to pop. Pain lanced through his head like lightning.
Then he surfaced, coughing, choking, flailing about in the water, and
felt someone grab hold of him tightly. He began to struggle, then
convulsed, spears of heated iron ripping his chest apart. For a
moment the air seemed burnished a dull gold, flecked with tiny beads
of red and black. Lights danced momentarily on the surface of his
eyes, fizzling and popping like firecrackers, then the blackness
surged back—a great sphere of blackness, closing in on him with
the sound of great wings pulsing, beating in his head. . . . And then
there was nothing.

"Have you
heard about the boy?"

T'ai Cho looked
up from his meal, then stood, giving the Director a small bow. "I'm
sorry, Shift Andersen. The boy?"

Andersen huffed
impatiently, then glared at the other tutors so that they looked back
down at their meals. "The boy! Kim! Have you heard what happened
to him?"

T'ai Cho felt
himself go cold. He shook his head. He had been away all day on a
training course and had only just arrived back. There had been no
time for anyone to tell him anything.