Hong Kong Young Writers Anthologies Fiction 4567 | Page 46

Reimagining History
German Swiss International School, Lai, Arista – 15
“I
’m an artist, not a miracle worker,” I pointed out sharply.
My companion only chuckled to himself. “I’m not expecting that from you. I just need you to imagine
what you see; bring it to life.”
“Why?” I asked. It hadn’t been in the job description. All I had known was that a historian had offered me money
to commission a few pencil sketches—as of now, I was still in the dark about his intentions. The young man beside me let
out a melancholy sigh, more nostalgic than a man of thirty years could sound.
“This building we’ll visit… it’s over a hundred years old. Can you believe it? All that history just bulldozed away.
Gone forever. It took a century for it to become what it is now, and after one signature from the authorities a small stitch
in the fabric of humanity’s history is going to be lost.”
He spoke as if the building were an ancestor and he the last man of the bloodline—an infertile one at that. I
couldn’t sympathise. There was a reason I had gone into fine art instead of architecture. Buildings just didn’t hold much
appeal, they were all bricks and mortar, really—their only difference being the way in which these were married.
The man seemed to be in no hurry to speak again, and we lapsed into silence. He glanced around as he walked,
soaking in the surroundings, more like a tourist than a native of this quiet cultural quarter of Shanghai. I adjusted my stack
of drawing paper and my backpack full of supplies.
“Here we are,” my temporary employer halted, gesturing enthusiastically at a fading pagoda, something straight
out of a movie. The external walls, once white, were now a rather grim shade of dun. I fumbled for the pencils in my bag,
and sketched a rough outline of the structure—the graceful curves of the roofs separating each floor; the rectangular
windows with their now barely discernible engravings; the wooden tiles that had long lost their red coating. I didn’t,
however, include the bright banner that wrapped the top two floors of the pagoda with its garish text announcing the
realty developer, the jackhammer of fate.
“Shall we?”
***
The ground floor of the building had high ceilings and a massive entrance hall. I immediately felt small in contrast
to the grandeur of its design. Each footfall echoed throughout the expanse of the opened area, resounding eerily within the
maze of corridors. Sound travelled quickly here: most of the doors between rooms were carved geometrically such that
there were more holes than wood.
“I’m a historian,” my companion suddenly spoke up, restating what I already knew. “But I have no idea what this
building was used for. That’s why I need you.” He absentmindedly swiped a hand over a mahogany chest that stood on the
side. Dust billowed in the air, forming a smokescreen. There was a stool beside, perching on a moth-eaten rug, once red, I
think—I imagined that a family would have once sat there to put on and take off their shoes. The children would have
bounded back home, yelling out to parents and lining up their little slippers neatly under the chest. The parents would
have used the drawers to store trinkets or keys.
“Capture this home in its former glory. Help me protest the felling of these pieces of our culture before it ebbs
away with each passing day. Show me the significance of each room over the years. We can’t save this building, but we can
try to raise awareness for this cause.”
I roughed out a sketch of the entrance hall, adding vibrant colours and new shine to long-faded, worn furniture.
I drew the peeling yellow wallpaper as bright and white, with calligraphy serving as a pattern. In my mind’s eye, the place
became a warm home instead of a shell of a once-majestic pagoda.
Following my train of thought and the comforting scratch of pencil on paper, I made my way to the other side of
the hall. A divider separated the two rooms, which fascinated me. It looked relatively new: a delicate piece of silk
embroidered with flowers and birds, encased in glass. Pushing it away, I discovered the dining room.