Mrs. Pollifax on the China Station Read online

  At Ban Po Village they were ushered into a briefing room and seated at a long table with a tea cup placed squarely in front of each chair, and while they sipped hot tea the resident guide delivered facts to them, translated into English by Miss Bai … the site discovered accidentally in 1953 … the foundations of forty-five houses with remarkably preserved pottery and tools … in existence from 6080 B.C. to 5600 B.C. … evidence of its being a matriarchal society …

  Released from the tyranny of the briefing, Mrs. Pollifax considered those facts. She decided that facts could not possibly describe the drama of workmen starting to build a factory here and discovering instead the remains of an eight-thousand-year-old village. Strolling along the walk-ways of the building that sheltered the excavation, she tried to come to grips with eight thousand years of time and failed. Eight thousand was only a number, there was simply no way to cope with such aeons, but what did come to her—like a lingering fragrance across the years—was the intelligence at work here: the intricately worked out trenches between the houses, the playful designs etched into pottery, the burial of dead children in huge egg-shaped pottery urns, as if to return them, she thought, to the embryo from which they’d entered life. It gave her a pleasant feeling of pride in the human race. She wondered what archaeologists in the year A.D. 10,000 would find when they uncovered the relics of the twentieth century; would there, she wondered, be any signs of intelligence remaining? or only vestiges of folly and violence?

  On the drive back to Xian she began to feel oppressively hungry. Miss Bai was explaining to Peter and Jenny the government’s current Five Stresses—civilization, morality, order, cleanliness, and manners, and the Four Beautifications—of thought, language, heart, and environment—and Mrs. Pollifax was ashamed of herself for yawning. “Why do I get hungry so early?” she complained to Joe Forbes, sitting next to her.

  “Peanuts for breakfast?” he quipped amiably.

  “But I also had a hard-boiled egg,” she protested.

  Malcolm called across the aisle, “I’d say it’s the chopsticks. You may think you eat a lot—”

  Iris turned around in the seat ahead and said, “But she’s the most expert of us all, haven’t you noticed?” She beamed at Mrs. Pollifax. “Wasn’t Ban Po Village tremendous? I hope I didn’t monopolize the guide, but honestly—eight thousand years! I mean the Qin Shi Huang Tombs we see tomorrow are only 210 B.C.”

  “Practically contemporary,” put in Malcolm mischievously. “Possibly it’s culture that’s giving us an appetite?”

  But Mrs. Pollifax’s eyes were on George Westrum who was seated next to Iris, and who had turned now to give Iris a glance that startled Mrs. Pollifax. She thought: George is on his way to adoring this woman … It was a peculiar word to choose but it was the word that had slid into her head: adoration, she mused. Devotion. Worship.

  The alliances that were beginning to form had already begun to interest her. The infants, for instance—as Malcolm continued to call Peter and Jenny—had at once formed a twosome. Iris talked to everyone, but Mrs. Pollifax noticed how often George Westrum managed to sit next to her, his face inscrutable, his eyes watching every play of expression across her vivid face. When Malcolm joined them George’s eyes shifted to Malcolm’s face, again without expression. Iris appeared to regard Malcolm with some caution and blushed a great deal, but Mrs. Pollifax wasn’t sure whether it was his charm or his book writing that dazzled her.

  As for Joe Forbes, Mrs. Pollifax admitted that she’d not yet fathomed him at all. He was always with them—smiling and amiable—and often contributing a brief comment or wisecrack, but he was oddly not there somehow. She wondered if anyone else had noticed this. Not consciously, she decided, but his personality had so little impact that once or twice she’d caught someone adding, “Oh yes, and Joe too.”

  She wondered if this meant that he was the agent who would eventually approach her after her attempt this afternoon at the Drum Tower. Her knowledge of professional agents was limited and theatrical, but she had heard that certain full-time agents took great pains to rub out their personalities and achieve anonymity; perhaps this became habitual, and the loss of personality irreversible. Except, of course, for John Sebastian Farrell, she thought with a smile, who only heaped new layers of personality on his own to gloriously and cheekily distract.

  She was still smiling, still thinking of Farrell, when they drew up to the department store in Xian.

  “A real department store?” asked Jenny skeptically.

  Mr. Li assured her that yes this was a real one, where the Chinese people shopped. “But they will also take your tourist script here, and you have forty minutes to look.”

  “Forty minutes!” wailed Jenny. “To find a Mao cap and jacket? Peter wants to buy them, too. Oh yes, and Joe,” she added.

  “Miss Bai—?”

  Miss Bai nodded. “I’ll go with them.”

  “Anyone else?”

  No one else had any pressing needs. They entered the store together to immediately veer off in different directions. The first floor was high-ceilinged and large and struck Mrs. Pollifax as curiously empty, which was puzzling to her because throngs of people lined the counters. She realized she was associating it with American department stores, which were all color, movement, and glamorous displays, and at once felt penitent. Turning right she began a tour of the broad and dusty aisles, hungering for color to relieve the dull greens and grays and blues, and was suddenly brought to a standstill by a wall that blazed with color.

  “Books,” she whispered in delight: books placed side by side against the wall so that their jackets bloomed like flowers. She moved toward them, and the people crowding around the counter made room for her. “Xiexie,” she said quietly, taking her place.

  But she was a foreigner, after all, and the clerk hurried to her, smiling. Mrs. Pollifax thought, I’ll buy one, I’ll buy a book as my souvenir here. She pointed to a paper-back with a jacket design that stood out from the others because it did not have an illustration of a soldier, or a girl and a boy. “That one,” she said, drawn by its black and white lines splashed with abstract yellows and scarlets.

  The girl’s hands hovered, then dropped. She picked out a cream-colored book next to Mrs. Pollifax’s choice and placed it in her hands.

  “No,” said Mrs. Pollifax politely. “No, not this one,” She shook her head and then glanced down at the book and opened it to see what it was. She found maps inside: it was a purse-sized atlas of China, the cities and towns marked in Chinese with not a single English word to be seen, and therefore incomprehensible and useless to her. On the other hand, she mused, it could make a lovely souvenir for her grandson, who would be pleased and amused by it. “I’ll take it,” she said, nodding, “but I’d also like—” and she pointed again to the charming cover that had originally caught her eye. Several more books were picked up and put down before the one she wanted was achieved. It turned out to be a recipe book, also in Chinese, but with lavish color photos at the back.

  “I’ll take both,” she said, holding up two fingers and smiling. Reaching for her purse the crowd drew closer while she and the salesgirl sorted through her Chinese currency for the yuan that would purchase one recipe book and one book of maps.

  And then—suddenly jarred—she thought, “Maps?”

  Maps, she repeated, the word tugging at her mind, and she picked up the atlas and looked again at its competently waterproof cream jacket. This time she opened it more thoughtfully. On page one she found a map of the entire country, with each province in a different color. She could recognize the Xinjiang Autonomous Region because of its size—enormous—and its location in the northwest corner. After studying the shape of it she turned the pages until she found the identical shape on page thirty-eight.

  Which means, she thought in amazement, that I’m actually staring at a map of Xinjiang Province with all its roads laid out in front of me and marked, and all its towns and villages identified, even if their names are writte
n in Chinese, which I can’t read.

  But Guo Musu—if she found him—could read them.

  And standing there in the middle of China, in a department store in Shaanxi Province surrounded by eavesdroppers and interested spectators, Mrs. Pollifax began to laugh. Her laugh began as a chuckle that traveled up from her toes and emerged as a luxurious, Cheshire-cat smile that lighted up her face.

  Her miracle had just happened.

  “I’ll buy two of these,” she told the clerk, holding up the atlas, and reached into her purse for another yuan.

  To the others, back in the bus, she showed only her recipe book. Peter, Jenny, and Joe Forbes were happily wearing their new Mao caps and jackets (“show and tell time,” laughed Jenny); Iris had bought a bright enameled mug, Malcolm an ink stick, and George a handkerchief with Xian printed on it.

  “A taste of the consumer life,” commented Malcolm dryly, “to keep us from suffering withdrawal pangs.”

  They lunched. They visited a cloisonné factory where they had a long tea-and-briefing, due mainly to Iris asking far too many questions about workers’ hours and wages; they were led through dark and dusty halls to watch cloisonné jewelry intricately crafted, and then to a Friendship Store for purchases. They visited the Bell Tower, and the Wild Goose Pagoda, except that by midafternoon it was so hot that only Jenny and Peter climbed the eight stories to its peak.

  And then in late afternoon they came to the Drum Tower, and Mrs. Pollifax’s moment of truth had arrived.

  Mrs. Pollifax descended last of all from the minibus, trying not to remember that she’d flown halfway around the world for this moment. She found that her heart was beating much too quickly, and she forced herself to close her eyes and remind herself that que será será, and that, after all, a thousand years from now—Following these incantations she opened her eyes and looked around her. They were parked in a dusty narrow alley, surrounded by earthen walls. Off to her left she saw the high, lacquer-tiled roofs of what had to be the Drum Tower. Between this and the bus lay a maze of mud-and-straw walls, interrupted here and there by alleys leading into a mysterious interior. There was no barbershop; in fact, there were no shops to be seen at all, there were only walls.

  No panic please, she told herself, and smiled at a small roundfaced child who grinned back at her. She called to Mr. Li, “I’m going to take some pictures of children, I’ll catch up with you in a minute.” Having said this she knelt in the dust and began dramatically snapping pictures with a camera that was completely empty of film. As the others moved away down the dusty lane she slipped into the nearest alley and, with several of the children trailing her, began to look for a barbershop.

  She was soon completely lost and gave herself up to the luxurious feeling of being on her own again, free of the group but cherishing too the assumption that somewhere—somehow—there would be a way out of this maze of clay-colored walls. In the meantime it was fascinating to be inside them instead of looking at them from the outside: to glance into dark rooms and tiny courtyards, assess the herbs hung in doorways to dry, watch children squatting in the dust to draw figures with a stick or a stone. She passed two ancient men playing cards, one of them with a marvelous wisp of goatee on his chin, like a mandarin; she smiled and nodded to them and received courtly bows in return. Threading her way through one lane after another she turned left, then right, stopping now and then to take a pretend-picture of a flower, a doorway, a child, until at last she entered a much broader alley to find herself virtually under the roofs of the Drum Tower but still inside the compound’s walls.

  Here at least there were markets: stalls and shops carved into the clay wall behind them, and people, far too many people. She walked slowly down this wider road, nodding and smiling to passersby, trying not to notice the number who came to their doors to watch her, or that slight edginess she felt at being so conspicuous. She passed a bicycle repair shop; she passed a stall in which an ancient sewing machine had been installed, and then a vendor of steaming noodles.

  And then—quite suddenly—she found herself passing a barbershop.

  She tried not to stare. Her quick glance noted an exterior of crumbling adobe that matched the wall into which it was set, a large, very dusty glass window, an open door and a dim interior filled with men. Only the chair placed near the window identified it, and the man with clippers bent over his customer in the chair.

  Here is a barbershop, thought Mrs. Pollifax, but not where I thought it would be, or where Carstairs and Bishop thought it would be, either.

  She continued past it, glanced into a shop filled with women working at a long workbench, and finding neither an exit from this alley or another barbershop she stopped. She thought, “If it’s not Guo Musu in there—well, that’s why I was chosen, isn’t it? Because I stand up well under police interrogations?”

  But for a moment she thought indignantly of Carstairs and Bishop, neither of whom realized the quantities of people on the move in China in the daytime, and the total lack of privacy anywhere. People on the street, people crowded into a barbershop … they had certainly not considered the effect of an American tourist plunging in among the crowds to ask for information. It was outrageous and it might prove suicidal, but she was going to have to go into that shop.

  She turned and retraced her steps to its door.

  A dozen men seated along the wall gaped at her as she walked inside. She called out, “Does anyone here speak English?” The barber was intent on guiding clippers around the ears of his customer; he had scarcely glanced up at her arrival and her heart sank at the lack of response. She began again. “Does anyone here—”

  The barber lifted his head and looked at her. “I speak a little.” He was a nondescript, sallow man, his face devoid of expression.

  “I’m so glad,” she said with an enthusiasm she didn’t feel. “I’m lost. I wonder if you could come to the door—” here she pointed, “and show me the way to the Drum Tower?”

  The man spoke to his companions in his own language; heads nodded and the smiles blossomed so ardently that for a minute she feared they might all jump up to help her. But the barber had put down his clippers and he joined her alone in the doorway.

  “Please—come outside,” she said in a low voice. “Are you Guo Musu?”

  He stiffened. “How is this, please,” he whispered, “that you know my name?”

  They were being watched with interest by a circle of bystanders in the alley, and by the men behind them in the barbershop. In spite of their being out of earshot she knew that she must be careful and protect this man, whether he helped her or not. She asked, “Which way to the Drum Tower?”

  Automatically he pointed in the direction she’d been heading; she hoped this gesture established authenticity, but it was going to be difficult to remember appropriate gestures while she talked. “There isn’t much time,” she said quickly. “Your brother Chang, who reached Hong Kong safely, said you could tell me where the camp is located that you lived in for three years. The labor camp somewhere in Xinjiang Province.”

  “Chang!” he exclaimed. “Labor camp?”

  Damn, she thought, and deplored this lack of time and privacy, he’s going to need time to adjust to this, the shock couldn’t have been greater if I announced that I came from the moon. “I’m visiting your country,” she told him politely. “We’re enjoying Xian very much. We saw Ban Po Village this morning, and tomorrow we visit the tomb of—”

  Amusement flickered in his eyes; she had underestimated him. He said, “And you have somehow found me to ask—”

  “I know what you think,” she told him frankly. “You could be arrested for giving me this information but I can also be arrested for asking you.”

  An ironic smile crossed his face.

  “I’m American,” she told him. “It’s Americans who would like to know.”

  “Americans,” he repeated, turning the word over on his tongue. “And just what do you expect of me?” There was a very real irony in his
voice now.

  She said earnestly, “What I thought—what I hoped—I bought an atlas this morning in Xian, with Xinjiang Province on page thirty-eight. Let me show you.” She turned to page thirty-eight and handed it to him. “If you decide to trust me I thought we might walk a little—away from your shop and your neighbors—and I could hand you a pen.”

  He looked at her, studying her with curiosity and interest. The irony slowly receded; he said at last, quietly, “I will walk with you to the end of the road and show you the way to the Drum Tower.”

  “Oh thank you,” she gasped, adding quickly, “You’re very kind.”

  He said politely, “Not at all.”

  As they walked he glanced down at the map of Xinjiang Province, whereas Mrs. Pollifax glanced back, relieved to see that only a few of the smaller children followed, but at a distance. Nearing the end of the alley he looked up from the atlas and met her gaze. Wordlessly she offered him the pen, leaning closer to him so that no one would see. He gravely accepted it.

  “I’ll keep talking,” she told him as he made a mark on the map, and without watching him she began a pantomime of gestures and smiles. After a moment he slipped the atlas back into her hand, and she slid it into her purse.

  Bringing out her identical copy she said, “In case any one saw us—”

  His eyes widened in astonishment.

  “No, this is a duplicate,” she said, presenting it to him with a bow. “Look at page thirty-eight and you’ll see.”

  He turned to that page, and she saw his relief. “Please take it,” she told him. “As a gift. For showing me the way to the Drum Tower.”

  “For showing you the way to the Drum Tower,” he repeated, and suddenly smiled, showing a number of teeth capped in steel. “And Chang?” he asked, his irony exquisite now. “He is well?”

  “I am told he is very well,” she said, smiling back at him, and suddenly she was aware of the immensity of what he had dared to do for her, and she seized the book he held and wrote her name in it. “Now each of us knows,” she told him. “It’s only fair. We’re hostages now to each other.”