“It’s illegal.”
“It’s not illegal, it’s just closed for repairs. Besides, we’re not going inside, we’re just going to climb up to see the view.”
My brother-in-law wasn’t convinced. He sat on the steps with his arms crisscrossed against his knees in protest.
“Fine,” replied my husband. “We’ll go by ourselves. We’ll catch up with you later at the hotel.”
I got up and followed him across the street. Up ahead, perched high on top of Prospect Hill the latticework of scaffolding was clearly visible around the Pavilion of Everlasting Spring. The pavilion was built on a man-made hill just north of the Forbidden City, and from its peak you could see clear across the half mile of Palace rooftops.
We passed through an ornate wooden archway that opened up into a paved courtyard surrounded by trees. Groups of people sat picnicking on the strips of grass between the gardens, while others hurried by, cutting across the park to other parts of the city. In the square, a mixed group of men and women practiced tai chi, their arms and legs moving slowly in unison.
On the eastern side of the hill I could just make out the exposed path leading up to the summit, but when we reached the first set of steps we were stopped by a red plastic sign hanging off of a chain telling us not to go any further.
David stepped over the low chain and climbed up a few steps.
“It’s all clear.”
I clambered up after him and we took the steps hurriedly, two at a time, until we were past the open ridge and safely hidden under the trees that surrounded the pavilion. The web of scaffolding enclosed the building tightly, and I looked closely for the spiders of workers. It was empty.
When we reached the summit I ran up and quickly snapped a picture. “I’ve got it, let’s go.”
“We just got here,” David replied, “Let’s take a minute.”
He hoisted himself onto the lowest rail of the scaffolding, and with a bit of effort I joined him so that we sat like two birds perched on the edge of Beijing. In front of us the green foliage of the trees gave way to the great moat and red wall surrounding the Forbidden City, and then rising above them in royal yellow, the expanse of tiled roofs of the imperial palace spread out across the horizon.
In the quiet of the abandoned construction site the living city of Beijing with its noise and its skyscrapers seemed lost to the smog beyond the rooftops, and we were left to the world of the ancient palace whose borders ended at the line of trees.
The silence was broken by the sound of voices coming up the path. I jumped down from the scaffolding, but just as I was about to turn behind the building, I locked eyes with the person who had emerged at the top of the stairs: it was a little girl.
She stopped when she saw us there, so her father, two steps behind with a camera swinging around his neck, moved up behind her and urged her to keep going. She stood transfixed, so he followed her gaze and stopped where she had, at my face.
“They’re tourists too,” David murmured as he began to smile, the girl hanging her head shyly and skirting behind her father. The man smiled back at us, nodded his head, and then moved off to see the view.
“Do you want to go sit back down?” David asked me, thumbing back towards the scaffolding.
“No, that’s OK,” I told him, the moment passed.
As I moved towards the stairs, I turned over my shoulder to catch one last glimpse of the city. The man had lifted his daughter onto the scaffolding and they stood together, backlit against the sky, quietly staring out across the rooftops.
