Demon Box

There was no track practice because of tomorrow’s race, but three Chinese runners and the Australian girl were prowling the bleak cement gymnasium looking for someone with a key so they could get into the track room. Bling told them how to jimmy the lock and said he thought he’d skip the workout. The editor asked if they might take a look anyway, get some pictures. Reluctantly Bling led them down a dim concrete stairwell to a cracked wooden door in the cellar. The girl was gouging at the keyhole with a chopstick. Bling took over and finally dragged the door open and turned on a light. The room was a windowless cement box with a cot and a tiny desk. An iron rod stuck in the door frame was draped with a dozen tattered sweatsuits.

“Our locker room,” Bling said. “Ritzy digs, right? And here”—he pulled a cardboard box from beneath the cot—“our equipment room.”

The box was piled with shabby mismatched spike shoes, four bamboo batons, a shot, and a discus.

“The javelin is that thing stabbed yonder, airing them sweet-smellin’ sweatsuits,” the girl told the journalists.

Back outside, Bling put his blue glasses on and started walking back the way they had come.

“Gives you some idea why China doesn’t have such great track times, doesn’t it?”

When they got back to the campus gate their familiar bus was gone. In its place was one of the huge black Russian-made limos called Red Flags. It looked like a cross between a Packard and a Panzer. The driver stepped out and bowed and handed them a note and four embossed invitations.

“It’s from Mude. He says the bus was required for other tasks, that this diplomatic limousine will take us back to the hotel to dress, then bring us to the banquet at the Great Hall. The fourth invitation is for Mr. Wu, and Mude suggests we advise Mr. Wu that a place has been reserved for him.”

“Oh, shit,” said Bling. “Oh, shit.”

Thirty spokes gather around the hub to make a wheel,
But it is on the circle that the utility of the wheel depends.
Clay is molded to form a utensil,
But it is on its emptiness that the utility of the vessel depends.
Doors and windows are cut to make a room,
But it is on floor space that the utility of the room depends.
Therefore turn being into advantage, and turn nonbeing into utility.

It might be the most beautiful dining hall in the world, certainly the biggest. A Canadian football game could be played comfortably in one of its rooms, with space left a-plenty on all sides for bleachers and bathrooms.

During the day there is always a small crowd outside, gaping at the Great Hall’s grandiosity. Tonight, a very large crowd was gathered because two monumental events were occurring: the banquet for the Beijing Marathon, and the State Formal Dinner for President Gnassingbe Eyadema of Togoland. In a land without M.A.S.H. reruns or video games this was big potatoes.

The crowd waited on tiptoes behind the line, hoping to catch a glimpse of something exotic—a famous athlete; perhaps the glint of an African potentate’s eye. All the limos. Certainly they had to be disappointed by the first passenger exiting from the big black sedan they had allowed through—a spiny-headed Chinese in plain brown sports jacket was all. The next passenger was better, a big occidental stranger with beard, and the next was yet better and bigger. The last apparition rising out of the upholstered depths of the Russian limo—why, he was enough to stretch even the most curious rubberneck to its limits of awe. The man was beyond size or measure, and he carried an optical arsenal of the most convincing proportions crisscrossed across his girth, like bandoliers on one of the bandit giants of old. Many of the onlookers went home immediately after, sufficed.

The foursome was late. The feast had begun. The roar of it could be heard down the marble corridors, drawing them on like the seductive roar of a waterfall. When they at last reached the two ten-foot urns at the door and were passed by the armed guard, they were as dazzled as had been the crowd on the walk outside. A room big as a blimp hangar, with thousands of people at hundreds of round tables, each table manned by dozens of bustling attendants refilling glasses, removing platters, producing new dishes seemingly from the very air.