Mrs. Pollifax on the China Station (13 page)

China, she decided, looking down at it, was all terra-cotta and dusty jade. Everywhere. Only the shapes changed, and the shades of beige and brown, and the presence or absence of any green at all.

It was night when they landed in Urumchi, and well past ten o’clock. Having said good-bye to Miss Bai at the Xian air terminal there was now a Mr. Kan waiting for them here, and while still in the air terminal Mrs. Pollifax placed herself squarely in front of Mr. Li and reminded him that she was group leader. “When do we discuss plans for Urumchi?” she asked.

If Mr. Li was surprised by this sudden aggressiveness, he concealed it. “In the morning perhaps?” he suggested. “Mr. Kan will tell us what he’s arranged.”

“No,” said Mrs. Pollifax firmly. “Tell him tonight, please, that we all want to visit Turfan
before
we go to the Kazakh grasslands. I hear that Turfan is very hot, and we’d prefer the mountains later, to cool off.”

“Cool off!” he repeated, and laughed merrily at the phrase.

“Yes—do please insist on it before any plans are made final.”

“You wish Turfan soon,” he said, assimilating this.

“Yes. Oh yes—definitely.” From the blank look that came and went on Mr. Li’s face she received the distinct impression that while he spoke English well he did not understand it with equal ease. “Turfan first,” she repeated, and was made more comfortable by a confirming flash of comprehension in his gaze.
He saves face
, she thought as she climbed into the waiting minibus.
How much has he understood of our prattlings? How much would I understand if people spoke rapidly, injecting slang words, and in different accents?

Once again the hotel was nearly an hour’s drive out of town, but this time there were no complaints: there was an intimacy about the
Yannan
that had been missing in the Canton hotel’s oversized Art Deco vulgarity, and in the Xian hotel’s stark Russian frugality. For one thing there was only a very modest fishpond in the lobby, and through
an opened french door a smaller, brighter dining hall could be seen. The guest rooms were at ground level, elevated a few steps above the lobby; Mrs. Pollifax found her own room spacious and cool-looking. Its walls were white, and on one of them hung a very charming watercolor, an original, with a subtly Turkish flavor to it. Obviously new and interesting influences had entered Xinjiang Province.

But although it was nearly eleven o’clock Mrs. Pollifax felt restless, and while she waited for her suitcase to arrive at her door she gravitated toward the lobby, passing the small gift counter on the way. It had been opened for their arrival—a young woman presided over it—and Iris and George were leaning over the counter examining its treasures. In the lobby she found Malcolm sitting on the edge of the goldfish pond. “Real fish,” he told her, pointing. “How are you doing?”

“Surprisingly well so far,” she told him.

“Jenny has a touch of traveler’s tummy. I’ve given her two of my pills,” he said. “Anyone else, do you know?”

“Not to my knowledge,” she told him, “but doubtless there’ll be more. It’s my theory that somewhere along the line there’s usually one rebellious new employee in a kitchen who just can’t understand why the water has to be boiled for foreigners, and so they don’t. One has to count on that, it’s human nature.”

He looked amused. “Very experienced of you—about human nature, I mean. And since Jenny’s been drinking nothing but boiled water—”

“So-called.”

“—it’s a very rational explanation. If somewhat alarming,” he added, his glance moving to Iris, who was walking toward them looking excited, with George following behind her, smiling.

“Look,” she cried, holding out a hand, “just see what George insisted on buying for me!” In her palm lay a disc
of antique white jade, intricately carved by hand. She was radiant as she displayed it.

“How exquisite,” breathed Mrs. Pollifax, bending over it.

“Lovely,” said Malcolm, giving it a brief glance and then looking at Iris.

Iris turned pink. “It’s
very
old,” she said almost defiantly.

Jenny called from the hallway, “Any suitcases yet?”

“How are you feeling?” called Malcolm.

Jenny walked over to join them and he made room for her on the wall of the fishpond. “Better, thanks, but I should never have stashed those pills in my suitcase, we don’t see our luggage that often. Thanks for bailing me out, Malcolm. What’s that?” she asked Iris.

“White jade, isn’t it gorgeous?”

The wide glass doors swung open now, and Mr. Li, Mr. Kan, two hotel workers, and Joe Forbes appeared with their luggage.

Iris said, “That’s what I’ve been waiting for—good night everyone, see you in the morning! George, thanks so
very
much—see you!”

George Westrum, looking somewhat startled, tugged at his baseball cap, lingered a minute, and then drifted away, too.

Jenny said, “Excuse me,” and followed the men and the luggage down the hall.

Mrs. Pollifax, leaning comfortably against the fishpond, said, “I’m so glad to see Iris given a present, wasn’t she excited? I have the impression that she’s not received many gifts in her life.”

Malcolm said calmly, “She’ll be receiving a good many of them in the future.”

Startled, Mrs. Pollifax said, “From George, do you mean?”

“No, not George,” he said, and then, aware of her
scrutiny he added, “or didn’t I mention that I’m psychic at times?”

“No, you didn’t,” she told him sternly. “You only said that you live with talking mice.”

“The two are not synonymous,” he said dryly, “but I can be quite psychic at times. It comes in flashes, and I frequently get very clear intuitions about people. How are you on the subject?”

“Oh, a believer of course,” she said. “How can one be otherwise? As a matter of fact I once spent several days with a Rumanian gypsy—a queen of the gypsies, actually—who had the gift of second sight, and who—” She stopped, aware that Innocent Tourists did not usually have their lives saved by gypsy queens when being pursued by the police through Turkey. She added lamely, “But we all have the gift, haven’t we, simply covered over by rationalism and disbelief?”

He had been smiling at her discomfiture. “You must tell me more sometime about your friend the gypsy but I think I’ll say good night now. Hi, Jenny,” he said, as Jenny reappeared.

Jenny gave him a bright but abstracted smile, and at his departure walked over to the fishpond to sit beside Mrs. Pollifax. She said in a strangled voice, “That white jade. Did George give it to Iris?”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Pollifax calmly. “Why?”

Jenny pushed out her legs and stared angrily at her blue and white sneakers. There was a long silence while she examined her shoes, scowled at them, pushed back a lock of hair, and picked a piece of lint from her skirt. “I hate that woman, I just hate her,” she said furiously.

“Iris?” said Mrs. Pollifax, startled. “Why?”

Jenny turned and glared at her. “She’s so bloody happy all the time, and everyone—oh, I should never
never
have come on this trip,” she cried, and burst into tears.

A hotel worker, passing through the lobby to the dining hall, glanced curiously at Jenny. Mrs. Pollifax said, “Come outside a moment until you feel better.” She led Jenny through the glass doors to the front of the
Yannan
, where the bus had been unloaded and was just driving away, leaving the velvety darkness bisected only by splash patterns from the lighted guest rooms. Mrs. Pollifax identified her own room by her purse standing on the windowsill. In the room next to hers she saw Peter walk over to the window and pull the curtains together. Except that if it was Peter there was something odd about his face, she noted absently.

“What did you expect from your trip?” she asked, handing Jenny a handkerchief.

“I thought—I wanted—it was supposed to—” She broke into a fresh spasm of tears. “And it—” She shoved the handkerchief back into Mrs. Pollifax’s hand, turned angrily and fled back into the lobby to disappear down the hall to her room. Following slowly, Mrs. Pollifax heard a door slam shut.

Peter might be able to comfort her, she thought. Peter knew Jenny best, and might be persuaded to talk to her. Since he’d not gone to bed yet—she had, after all, seen him at his window only moments ago—she went to his door and knocked. When there was no answer she knocked again, then leaned against the door and listened. She heard no sounds of running water; she heard no sounds at all. She called his name softly, so that he would know it was she, and when even this brought no answer she stood back and stared in exasperation at the door. He was simply not responding.

Or he wasn’t there.

The thought of Peter not being in his room sent a chill down her spine, which struck her as a completely irrational reaction. Moving to her own door she carried in the suitcase
waiting outside it, unlocked it and extracted toothbrush and pajamas. She thought,
He’s just strolling around the grounds, not sleepy yet
.

But there had been something strange about his appearance when she’d glimpsed him in the window, something off-key that troubled her. She tried to think what it was, concentrating hard on reconstructing that moment. She realized that he’d done something to his eyes. The light behind him had thrown his face into shadow, but very definitely it had been his eyes that were different: their outer corners had been subtly drawn upward, giving him a native look. It had been Peter’s shoulders and head that she’d seen in the window but the face of a Chinese.

So it’s begun
, she thought.
This is Xinjiang Autonomous Region, we’ve reached Urumchi and it’s begun … he’s gone out into the night to reconnoiter, to look for the labor camp
.

She wondered how far he would go and when he’d be back. She wondered if he’d be seen and—if he were stopped—whether his papers would pass examination, and she felt a clutch of fear for him. But it was going to be like this for the next few days, she reminded herself, culminating in his eventual death, and somehow she must remain calm.

I’d better begin doing my Yoga every morning
, she thought.
Resolutely!

I
n the morning Mr. Li knocked at her door at seven o’clock, itinerary in hand. He said, “It has been difficult, Turfan first, Mr. Kan has had to change many plans, he was up very late.” He didn’t laugh merrily this time but he wasn’t reproachful or accusing, either, and Mrs. Pollifax felt that she was meeting the real Mr. Li for the first time. “The plan,” he added, “is now as you wish.”

“Come in,” she told him. “You can explain it to me and then I’ll make a copy and hang it in the hall for everyone to see, the way Miss Bai did in Xian.”

“Excellent,” he said, businesslike and efficient, and walked over to her desk to spread out the papers. “As you see, we visit many places today in Urumchi—jade-cutting factory, carpet factory, museum, free market, department
store, a hospital. Tomorrow morning we leave for Turfan and stay overnight. After that the Kazakhs and the grasslands—with picnic and horsemanship—and the following day Heavenly Lake, very beautiful, before leaving to begin trip to Inner Mongolia.”

“Oh
very
good,” she told Mr. Li warmly. “Very good indeed, I’m so grateful to you, Mr. Li. I’ll want to thank Mr. Kan, too.”

“Yes,” said Mr. Li, looking down at the plans with satisfaction.

When he had gone she looked at the crowded schedule and wondered how and where Peter was ever going to find the space to make his own complicated plans and arrangements. She would have preferred to knock on his door at once to make sure that he was back in the Guesthouse, and to tell him that Turfan would come first, but instead she conscientiously found a Magic Marker and made a poster of Mr. Li’s schedule. Carrying it out to hang in the lobby, the first thing she saw was Peter, sound asleep in a chair. She felt so infinitely relieved at seeing him that she could have kissed him but she only tiptoed past and taped the sheet to the wall.

When she turned, his eyes were open and no longer slanted. “Busy night?” she asked with a smile.

He grinned sleepily. “You don’t miss much. You guessed?”

She nodded. “Jenny was upset. I thought you could talk to her so I knocked on your door.” Pointing to the itinerary she said, “Turfan tomorrow, the grasslands later.”

That woke him in a hurry. “Thank God,” he said fervently, and sprang out of his chair to look. “Now we’re really in business,” he told her, removing a memo pad from his pocket and beginning to copy it. “Look, I’ve got to talk to you—”

He stopped as Malcolm and then George strolled into
the lobby, followed a moment later by Joe Forbes. The doors to the dining room opened; Iris rushed in after them, upsetting a chair before she could sit down, and as Mrs. Pollifax began to attack roasted peanuts again with chopsticks Jenny walked in, her eyes still pink-rimmed, and across the table Peter winked at her. Another day had begun.

It was a crowded day. Although Peter remained upright and interested during the tours, Mrs. Pollifax was amused to notice how he dozed off during the tea-and-briefings. There were a number of these today because they preceded each inspection of a factory, and the scene was always the same: a bare utilitarian room with a photograph of Mao on the wall, a long table lined with tea cups in which lay dubious brittle twigs over which a young woman would pour boiling water from a thermos. Following an interval of five or ten minutes the tea would sink to the bottom of the cup so that the brew could be sipped without acquiring a mouth full of twigs, and the foreman or cadre would begin his talk about the factory or the workshop, halting frequently for Mr. Kan or Mr. Li to translate his words into English. When this had been done, questions were eagerly awaited. George usually wanted to know about machinery and methods, Joe Forbes asked for production figures and annoyingly checked them out on paper looking for flaws, and then Iris would begin. Mrs. Pollifax found it hilarious to watch the change in Iris when her turn came: her face lost all of its liveliness and every vestige of humor, as if knowledge was a matter too sacred for lightness. She turned deeply serious, the Conscientious Student personified in her pursuit of how women lived, what they ate and earned; her questions had a rooted intelligence behind them but they came out absurdly muddled.