Oz Reimagined Part 14

"Hold it there!" the captain said. "Why are you out so late? Don't you know that's against curfew?"

"S-sorry," the young man said, slurring his speech. "Guess I had too-too much fun tonight."

The young man was supported on his left side by a young Chinese girla"likely his maid, judging by her prim dress and the timid way she behaveda"and on his right side by a middle-aged Chinese mana"likely his driver or manservant, who looked terrified at the sight of the uniforms of the Munic.i.p.al Police.

The police captain was very proud of his sharp observation and deduction skills. He straightened up and puffed out his chest. He liked feeling powerful in front of others.

But behind the boy: What was this? An automaton bodyguard! Its surface was polished to shine brightly, and it looked to be as strong as ten men. Someone who could afford such a machine was bound to be important.

The police captain had been told to watch for a ragtag band of Chinese vagrants up to no good, but surely headquarters didn't mean these people.

"It's all right, sir," said the police captain. "Just be careful. A lot of hooligans out at night. Do you live far from here?"

"No, not at all. Just a fewa"a few more steps, er, locks, er, blocks."

The officers stepped aside respectfully as the Lion, the Tin Woodman, and Dorothy half-carried Scarecrow across the checkpoint and disappeared around the next turn.

"I put on a pretty good show, don't I?" said Scarecrow, and everyone laughed.

The Wicked Warlord saw how the companions evaded capture, and he grew angrier.

"Useless," he cursed under his breath. "I have to do everything myself."

Now that Dorothy and her companions were outside Shanghai, they rode on the back of the Tin Woodman as he marched with giant steps through the fields and country roads, heading toward Peking. Dorothy felt as though she were riding a train.

On the second day of their journey, the Wicked Warlord sent a team of soldiers with steam-powered bicycles to come after them. These were among his best-trained men, known as the Wolf Brigade.

As the rumbling wheels surrounded the companions, Dorothy became very frightened. The riders wore thick armor and helmets painted with sharp teeth dripping with blood. They really did seem like a pack of wolves.

"Don't worry," said the Tin Woodman. "I'll take care of this."

He asked Dorothy and the others to hide behind a bale of hay while he took his axe off his belt and strode toward the soldiers on bicycles.

"Stop!" the captain of the Wolf Brigade shouted, but the Tin Woodman did not stop.

They began to shoot at him, but the bullets bounced off the metal carapace harmlessly like bees trying to sting an oak tree. The Tin Woodman strode purposefully around, and with each swing of his mighty axe, split apart a bicycle. He was careful not to harm any of the men, for he did not want to hurt anyone, just the way he imagined someone with a real heart would not.

The soldiers, having seen how their iron mounts were so easily destroyed by the Tin Woodman, shouted and scattered, terrified of this mechanical menace. Some dropped their armor and helmets as they ran.

The Tin Woodman tied the axe back on his belt and squatted down. "Get on," he said to his friends. "We still have a long way to go."

There was nothing to do now but for the Wicked Warlord to send out his army against the companions. They caught Dorothy and the others on the third day of their journey. These were not bad men, just boys forced to fight for the Wicked Warlord because they had no other way to feed themselves.

"Let me deal with them," said the Lion. And Dorothy and the others stepped back.

"I know you're afraid," said the Lion. His voice was somber and resonant; it carried very far in the empty fields. "I am afraid too.

"But this young woman taught me that just because you're afraid doesn't mean that you can't do the right thing. We're here to fight for you! You should be taking up arms against those who have invaded this country, as we Boxers once did, not against your own brothers and sisters. For that is the true old magic of this country: four hundred million hearts beating as one."

And the soldiers looked at the Lion and at each other, and none made a move against him or his friends.

The companions pa.s.sed the soldiers and went on toward Peking.

Finally, the Wicked Warlord summoned his Secret Police, the elite fighting men known as the Winged Monkeys. These were men who could walk on walls and leap onto roofs in a single bound. They were as practiced in the art of fighting as they were in the art of blending into shadows.

Wordlessly they snuck up behind the Tin Woodman and disabled him by shocking him with an electric prod. They threw a net over the Lion, who fought but could not break the silken threads. They held Scarecrow down and cuffed his thin arms. Finally, they arrested Dorothy and took her to see the Wicked Warlord.

Dorothy faced the Wicked Warlord, a bald and rotund man with a face full of glee and cruelty. He wore a military uniform decorated with so many medals and ribbons that he looked a bit like a gaudy Christmas tree.

Dorothy recognized him from his portrait on all the dayang. She was afraid at first, but then she remembered that she was standing on two coins in her shoes, and so she was, in a way, standing on him. She calmed down.

"You young people," the Wicked Warlord said, tsk-tsking, "always think you know everything. You do not know how the world works."

"I know that you should free the students you've imprisoned," said Dorothy. "You should give the Republic back to the people."

"And why is that? The people would not know what to do with themselves without someone like me in charge. I think I'm happy just the way things are."

Dorothy thought back to the girls standing on street corners singing patriotic songs, to the students fearlessly marching through the streets, to the workers standing and listening to speeches while they lost their wages. She thought about the Tin Woodman's bravery, Scarecrow's compa.s.sion, the Lion's wisdom.

"You can't win," said Dorothy. "There are many of us, and only one of you."

And she turned around and picked up the pot of tea on the table and threw it at the Wicked Warlord.

She had meant only to humiliate him, but to her surprise, as the hot water drenched the Wicked Warlord, the Wicked Warlord screamed.

"What have you done?"

And color began to drain from hima"literally. The green of his uniform, the gold in his medals, the flushed red cheeksa"the colors ran down his body in streaks, leaving behind blurry lines.

The Wicked Warlord was made of paper, and he was falling apart like an ink-brush painting in the rain.

And as the water pooled around his feet, the Palace began to melt, too.

The Wicked Warlord's power had always been but a mirage and only as strong as the paper tigers and dragons that children played with at the Lantern Festival.

Soon the Wicked Warlord and the Palace were gone, leaving Dorothy in the middle of a square with a lot of other dazed-looking people, prisoners who were now free.

The celebration in Tiananmen Square was like nothing Dorothy had ever seen. So many firecrackers! So much dancing and singing!

Now that the Wicked Warlord was no more, the Winged Monkeys were quick to shift their stance. They brought back the Lion, the Tin Woodman, and Scarecrow, and their reunion with Dorothy added even more joy.

And who should arrive in the middle of the celebration? It was the Great Oz, carried here on the shoulders of the Wolf Brigadea"whose legs pumped hard at their bicyclesa"and the soldiers who had deserted the Wicked Warlord of the West.

"Thank you," said the Great Oz. "You have proven to me that faith does matter, that as long as the young people are willing to go to prison for what they believe is right, this country will always have hope."

"And now, can I go home?" asked Dorothy.

"And now, can I have some brains?" asked Scarecrow.

"And now, can I have a heart?" asked the Tin Woodman.

"And now, can I have courage?" asked the Lion.

The Great Oz smiled and spoke to each of them.

Dorothy was very sleepy and tired by the time the train pulled into Shanghai North Railway Station.

She yawned as she got off the train.

She wondered if the Tin Woodman liked his new job.

"You'll be the new Head of the Peking Police," said the Great Oz. "You have the gentlest heart of all, and the people should no longer be afraid of those entrusted to keep them safe."

She looked around at her. Something felt different about the air, familiar and fresh at the same time. Did the sun seem brighter? The sound of the crowd happier?

She thought about the Lion and whether he was now content.

"You'll be my General of the Army," said the Great Oz. "There is none braver, for you have always been afraid, and yet you always knew that the right thing must be done."

"Going somewhere, Miss?" asked a rickshaw runner, who pulled up to the curb outside the station.

"Yes," Dorothy said. "But isn't there a strike going on?"

"You haven't heard? The government in Peking caved! They had to let the students go and fired the ministers responsible for the unequal treaties. Who'd ever thought that the government would be afraid of the people! We won! They're celebrating all over Shanghai."

Dorothy smiled, thinking about Scarecrowa"no, Freddie.

"You have a lot of ideas that others think of as foolish," said the Great Oz. "But sometimes those are the only ideas that will work."

"I am an American, after all," said Freddie, and grinned.

"You'll be my Advisor. The Revolution is still a long way from success, and all of us comrades must continue to strive. Just as only America did not approve of the unequal treaty, you're the only one who stood with us in our struggle. You have more sense than all the Western powers put togethera"they who only want to keep things as they are."

"Kansu Road, please," Dorothy said as she got into the rickshaw.

She took off her shoes and found the two dayang coins, engraved with Yuan Shikai's head. Beini had been right. There was indeed some charm a.s.sociated with these: they were enough for the fare home.

Author's Note: By the time of the May Fourth Movement, Yuan Shikai had already died. But his successors in the Beiyang Government in Peking were not very different from the Wicked Warlord himself. For more on the historical events fictionalized here, Joseph T. Chen's The May Fourth Movement in Shanghai is a good introduction in English.

BEYOND THE NAKED EYE.

BY RACHEL SWIRSKY.

WISH.

The letters are chipped from emerald. Serifs sparkle. They hover in midair like insects with faceted carapaces. Their shadows fall, rich and dark, over a haze of yellow, which as the view widens becomes distinguishable as part of a brick and then as part of a road, which itself becomes a winding yellow ribbon that crosses verdant farmland.

Ten contestants. One boon from the Wizard.

Whose wish will come true?

We all watch in our crystal globes. Blue-tinted ones sit on rough tables in Munchkin Country. Red-tinted ones float beside Quadlings. Green-tinted ones are held aloft in the lacquered fingernails of Emerald Citizens.

Convex gla.s.s distorts our view. We see wide, but we do not see deep.

After revealing the rich lands of Oz, the view soars upward until it shows nothing but sky. A silver swing drops down. It's shaped like a crescent moon. Glinda, the Good Witch of the South, perches on it. She wears a drop-waisted, sleeveless gown. Sparkling white fabric falls in loose folds to just above her ankles.

Her voice is as sweet as honeydew.

"We're down to our four finalists. They've worked together to make it down the road of yellow brick. They've almost made it to the Emerald City. What will happen next? Only one can win. Will it be Lion, Tin Man, Scarecrow, or Dorothy?"

She raises her finger to her lips, telling a secret to everyone watching.

"Remember, in Oz, wishes really do come true."

Those of us who fancy ourselves members of the City's intellectual elite gather in fashionable bathhouses to watch the show. This season, it is unthinkable not to wear hats during social gatherings, even when otherwise nude. This makes for awkward bathhouse situations. We hold ourselves stiffly, craning our necks to keep silk and felt dry.

Despite our collective ridiculousness, we still feel ent.i.tled to laugh at Glinda's dramatic p.r.o.nouncements, and at the overblown challenges she puts to the contestants.

"Bread and circuses," we call it.

Some are of the opinion that it's all propaganda. "The Wizard wants to rub everyone's noses in how powerful he is," they remark.

"Not possible," others argue. "He's not that stupid. He could grant all of those people's wishes if he wanted to. He's losing public sympathy by the day." Smugly they tap the sides of their noses. "Someone's making this to show him up."

The two camps argue back and forth. Periodically, wild pa.s.sion overcomes someone's good sense, and they gesticulate wildly, splashing everyone with emerald-hued water.

In the end we all agree on one thing: bread and circuses.

Effective bread and circuses, though. Everyone watches. Even us.

I keep quiet during the evenings at the bathhouse. I prefer to watch and listen. Few people know the name Kristol Kristoff, and I prefer it that way.

I'm a jeweler.

I have a loupe that I inherited from my great-grandfather. It magnifies everything by ten times.

Sometimes I find it frustrating to look at the mundane, unmagnified world. There are so many blemishes that one can't see with the naked eye. It's impractical to evaluate everything by what's superficially visible. If I had my preference, the ubiquitous Emerald City gla.s.ses would come with jeweler's loupes attached.

Working in the Emerald City, I perform most of my work on emeralds, which are actually a form of beryl green due to the intrusion of other minerals, usually chromium. Most emeralds are includeda"which means that they contain a relatively high proportion of other mineralsa"and also fragile. This makes them both motley and transitory.