Mrs. Pollifax on the China Station (2 page)

“Cyrus,” she said, neatly fielding both comment and question, “is in Africa until June sixth. He left last week to visit his daughter. The daughter,” she reminded them, “who was on safari with us last summer and met and married a doctor there.”

Both of them nodded. In any case, thought Bishop, the question had been a mere courtesy; both he and Carstairs knew very well that Cyrus was safely out of the country and could make no objections.

“But what is it,” asked Mrs. Pollifax, “that you do have in mind?”

“We’ll get to it, shall we?” said Carstairs, and left his desk, moving to the opposite wall where he pulled down a large map of the People’s Republic of China. “Our particular problem, as I said,” he began pleasantly, “is that it’s almost as impossible to get an agent into the country as it is to get someone out. Especially since the man we want to rescue—let’s call him X for the moment, shall we?—is in a rather inaccessible area. Actually,” he added casually, “in a labor camp.”

“Labor camp!” exclaimed Mrs. Pollifax.

“Labor
reform
camp, and roughly in this area.” Picking up a pencil he described a circle that enclosed a startling number of miles in the northwest corner, a region colored yellow-brown on the map, denoting desert and other inhospitable possibilities, with only the names of a few cities or towns interrupting the space.

“But that’s a great deal of country,” pointed out
Mrs. Pollifax, taken aback. “And you don’t know exactly where?”

“Not precisely, no,” said Carstairs. “That’s what we hope you’ll find out from the man you contact in Xian, who spent several years in that same labor reform camp. His name, by the way, is Guo Musu. He’s a Buddhist, and they suffered rather extravagantly during the Cultural Revolution. Many of their temples and monasteries were taken over or destroyed, and the monks sent off to communes or labor camps, where in either case they were given massive doses of Mao’s thinking … gems such as book learning can never be considered genuine knowledge, and how heroic it is to give oneself totally to one’s Motherland—and of course to Mao. Because of this we hope he’ll prove sympathetic enough to pinpoint the location of that camp for you.”

“He’s a barber now,” put in Bishop.

Carstairs nodded. “Yes, in Xian. He also speaks enough English to communicate,” he added parenthetically. “We gleaned this information from his brother, who fled China for Hong Kong, where refugees from the mainland are habitually questioned. It’s the right camp—Ching Ho Forestry Camp—which means Clean Stream in English. They have a penchant for giving camps and prisons delightful names,” he said dryly. “And contacting Guo Musu will be your job.”

“I see,” said Mrs. Pollifax, looking dazed. “But if Mr. Guo chooses not to pinpoint the location, or can’t be found in Xian?”

“We’re not entertaining thoughts of failure,” Carstairs told her firmly. “This Mr. X has got to be found and brought out before the Russians get to him.”

“Russians!” exclaimed Mrs. Pollifax.

“Yes.” Leaning against the corner of his desk he said, “One of our agents who works for the Soviets—a double-agent,
needless to say—has brought us information of X’s existence and of the Soviets’ interest in him. Before summer’s end the Russians will be mounting a major undercover operation to get this chap out of China, too.”

“But—one may ask why?”

“Because our friend X knows a great deal about China’s fortifications along the Russian border,” Carstairs said. “In fact, he designed a good share of them—the below-ground sections added in the late sixties and early seventies, at least. By our good fortune no one in the government has remembered him yet. Apparently somewhere along the way, through some error in the records or through being mistaken for a prisoner who died, our Mr. X has acquired the name and identity of another man. I don’t want to confuse you with names, but if I tell you that X’s true and proper name is Wang Shen, and that his current name is Wong Shen, then you can share speculations on what happened.”

Mrs. Pollifax nodded. “I see … He’s an engineer, then. But how did he end up in a labor camp?”

“That we don’t know,” Carstairs said. “Some indiscretion or other, a confidence shared with the wrong person, a banned book seen in his possession—it scarcely matters; it happened to so many people during Mao’s time.” He nodded toward the map. “What matters is this seven hundred miles of shared border between the two countries, between Russia—her former mentor and big brother, now an uneasy and threatening neighbor—and China, struggling to assert her rightful position in the world. It’s worth a great deal to the Soviets to learn in precise detail what booby traps face them along that frontier—and no one in China realizes that Wang Shen, with all that information in his head, is still alive.”

“Astonishing,” said Mrs. Pollifax, blinking at this.

“It’s especially important to prevent Wang from falling
into the Russians’ hands,” went on Carstairs. “We could, of course, notify the Chinese of the Russians’ interest in the man, but frankly we’re not sure what the government would do about it. He is presumably listed as a counter-revolutionary, a revisionist, a capitalist-roader, or some such, or he wouldn’t be in a labor reform camp. He’s also thousands of miles from Peking, in a country still heavily weighted with Mao bureaucrats. Someone just might decide that killing him would be the simplest solution.”

Mrs. Pollifax, considering this, could see his point.

“And,” he continued, with a faint smile, “lest you think we’re being altruistic here, we’d be delighted to have a chat with Mr. Wang ourselves in the interest of preserving the balance of power on this fragile planet.” He sighed. “Very touchy thing, that border. Our satellite photos can’t tell us very much because so many of China’s defenses are underground. The Chinese military can be charmingly frank about being years behind in defense, but they can also be charmingly vague about what they have over there to hold Russia back—other than a billion people, underground shelters, and anti-aircraft on every hill, of course.”

“I begin to understand,” said Mrs. Pollifax dryly.

“Yes. A great deal depends on China’s being strong enough to keep the Russians in check. Since
we’d
never attack through Russia, it’s obviously a matter of reassurance for us, but there’s also the fact that if Wang is valuable enough for the Russians to want we’d like to take a whack at getting him ourselves.”

“But with difficulty,” she pointed out.

“Good Lord, yes. Travel in China is very circumscribed. China watchers we have, and compilers of statistics, and news from any Chinese who leave by way of Canton for Hong Kong,” he explained, “but our Embassy people in Beijing—the new name for Peking—are still pretty much
confined there, except for carefully arranged inspections of communes and factories. The country is
extremely
security conscious. The Chinese themselves can’t travel at all unless they’re given special permission by their units—which, when you come to think of it,” he said thoughtfully, “is a damn clever way of keeping track of a billion people.”

Mrs. Pollifax, frowning, said, “Then how—?”

He nodded. “Exactly. What we’re up against here is China’s hinterland—Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, thousands of miles from any official points of entry. High mountains. Desert land that’s being reclaimed by irrigation. A region of minority peoples, and X—Mr. Wang—hidden somewhere in the middle of it. Remote, to say the least.”

“To say the least,” murmured Mrs. Pollifax, startled.

“However, the area
is
being visited by occasional tourists now, looking for the unusual and the offbeat—always, of course, led by a China Travel Service guide, but nevertheless a pleasant way to reach the area.”

“Ah,” murmured Mrs. Pollifax, leaning forward now attentively.

“It’s too risky, sending you and another agent together, just the two of you, with a guide. What we’re putting together for June first is a small group of what are known in the tourist-agency trade as ‘wait list’ people. Markham Tours here is cooperating without knowing the real reason. ‘Wait list’ people are those who signed up too late with Markham Tours, and have been placed on a waiting list, and would be willing to forego an American tour guide with the group in order to go there. Bishop, the brochure.”

Bishop stoically handed Mrs. Pollifax the glossy colorful booklet whose words he already knew by heart … an extraordinary tour of Marco Polo’s Silk Road presented only by Markham Tours … archaeological sites, among them the Yunkang Caves of Datong, the Imperial Tomb in Xian of Qin Shi Huang …

“The Imperial Tomb of Qin Shi Huang?” gasped Mrs. Pollifax, scanning the first page. “But I’ve read about that—all those lifesized terra-cotta warriors and horses they found! How thrilling—and the Silk Road, too?”

“Yes,” said Carstairs. “Miss Markham was one of the first to visit China when it opened up, and to arrange for visitors. This won’t be one their regular tours, but they’ll make the arrangements and use their considerable connections to make sure it’s a bona fide sight-seeing experience for you all. What they
can’t
provide at such short notice, however, is one of their own American guides to accompany you, so you’ll be in the hands of a native guide, which may or may not be limiting, depending on his or her command of English.”

And which
, added Bishop silently,
is not at all accidental, my dear Mrs. Pollifax, no matter how contrite and apologetic Carstairs may sound
.

“I see,” she said, and was silent, thinking about all that he’d said. “What occurs to me—”

“Yes?”

“What I don’t understand—seeing that you’re sending in an agent to find Mr. X, or Wang—is how that person will be able to smuggle Mr. X out of China and—”

“That,” intervened Carstairs smoothly, “will be
our
problem.”

“—and also,” she added relentlessly, “how that agent will have any freedom of movement to even contact Mr. X, or Wang, especially traveling in a group and under the eyes of a government guide.”

Good for you, Emily
, thought Bishop,
you’re getting close to the heart of the matter which is exactly why I’m having chills
. He waited patiently for Carstairs to field this with his usual tact.

“That will also be our problem,” Carstairs said silkily.
“It’s much safer if you know nothing about it, not even which member of your party will be the agent.”

Caught off balance by this, Mrs. Pollifax gasped. “Not even who—!”

“Not until you’ve contacted our Buddhist chap Guo Musu in Xian,” he told her firmly. “Believe me, it will be best for both of you. After all, it will be a very small tour group,” he said, “and we want you to treat everyone openly and equally. After you’ve visited the Drum Tower in Xian—Guo’s barbershop is in its shadow—your coagent will contact
you
.”

Bishop watched her struggle with this, and then he turned his head and glanced at Carstairs and saw that his face had suddenly tightened. Bishop guessed what he was thinking; a moment later Carstairs proved it by saying in a surprisingly harsh voice, “There’s one other instruction for you, Mrs. Pollifax. If anything unusual happens on this trip—
no matter what
—I expect you to get that tour group the hell out of the country, you understand?”

Mrs. Pollifax smiled. “Which means, of course, that you’re expecting something unusual to take place?”

Carstairs gave her an unforgiving glance that was totally unlike him, and when he spoke again his voice was cool. “On the contrary, we trust it will be happily uneventful, and I believe that will be all for now, Mrs. Pollifax. Bishop can fill you in on the missing details and give you a visa application to fill out, and for this perhaps you wouldn’t mind waiting out in his office for him? In the meantime we’re delighted, of course, that you’re taking this on.”

He didn’t look at all delighted; he looked rather like a man who had just swallowed a fish bone and was going to choke on it, and deep inside of him Bishop chuckled: it had finally happened, he had simply underestimated the time it would take for Carstairs to realize all the things that
could go wrong, and how devilishly fond he was of Mrs. Pollifax.
Ah well
, thought Bishop cheerfully,
I’ve already passed through it and been inoculated, I’ll just have to shore him up
.

Watching Mrs. Pollifax leave the office he waited for the door to close behind her and then he moved to a panel on the right wall with a mirror set into it. “You can come out now,” he told the man who had been listening and observing from the other side.

The man who walked out to join them looked furious. “Good God,” he said, “you’re sending
her?
I’ve nothing against the woman personally, but if that’s who you’re sending with me into China—”

“The perfect reaction,” Bishop told him imperturbably. “Do sit down and let us tell you about Mrs. Pollifax—bearing in mind, I hope, that your reactions are exactly the same that we trust China’s security people will experience, too.” …

Mrs. Pollifax, returning to New Jersey, felt that her cup was running over. It had been startling enough to fly off that morning from Teterboro in a small private plane—how surprised her neighbors would be to know of that!—but this adventure paled now beside the fact that she was actually going to visit China. She was remembering the loving report on China that she’d written in fifth grade, and the triumph of the jacket she’d given it: gold chopstick letters on dark green construction paper. Land of Pearl Buck, too, she thought dreamily—how many times had she seen the film
The Good Earth?
—and of Judge Dee mystery novels, emperors and empresses and palaces and Marco Polo and silk. They all swam together happily in her mind.

But what felt the most amazing coincidence of all was the class in Chinese art that she’d taken during the past
winter; it was true that she still had a tendency to confuse the Shang, Zhou, Han, Tang, and Sung dynasties, but the professor had so frequently referred to treasures destroyed during Mao’s Cultural Revolution that she had looked up a great many things about modern China as well, accumulating names like The Long March, The Great Leap Forward, the Hundred Flowers, the Cultural Revolution—which certainly appeared to be anything but kind to culture—and the Lin-Confucius Campaign. Now she was going to see China for herself, which only proved how astonishing life could be.