by Dion Leonard
Gobi didn’t agree.
From the moment we got out of Lu Xin’s car and walked into the vet’s office, Gobi was on edge. She tucked in behind me at first; then as we walked into the examination room, she planted herself on the floor and refused to move.
I laughed it off at first, but once the vet picked her up and started to check her over, I wondered whether she’d sensed something about the place—or the vet himself—that I’d not picked up. He was about as rough and uncaring as any vet I’d ever seen in my life. He pushed and pulled and didn’t show any sign of liking dogs in the least.
He told me her hip was displaced and he needed an X-ray to confirm how bad things were.
“Hold her down,” he said to his two assistants as he wheeled a portable machine over. They positioned themselves at either end of the table, then grabbed her front and rear paws and pulled back. Gobi squealed, the whites of her eyes showing, her ears pinned back flat against her head. She was terrified and in obvious pain. I tried to protest, but the vet ignored me and carried on with the X-ray.
Gobi was still shaking an hour later as I carried her back into the flat. I was angry with the vet, especially when he showed me the image he’d taken. It was obvious why she had been limping; while her left femur was snug into the hip, her right femur was angled away from the socket, as if it had been bent away with great force. The vet hadn’t bothered to explain what might have caused it but told me Gobi would need surgery to correct it. I didn’t bother to ask whether it was a procedure he could perform. There was no way he was touching Gobi again.
After a short sleep, Gobi was up and trotting around again. I wondered—as I had a hundred times already—what had happened to her while I was away. Had she been hit by a car, or was it human hands (or feet) that injured her? Only she knew the answer.
Her fear was now clearly gone, and she was ready for some fun. Watching her hop about, keeping her weight off her right leg, as she had ever since I got her back, I was amazed all over again. She must have been in serious discomfort, yet she chose not to complain or let it spoil her pursuit of fun.
I decided to reward her with a little trip outside.
It was a beautiful late afternoon, and she found some good bushes to sniff around in. I wanted to explore the area and see where I might be able to eat later, so I picked her up and carried her as we set off towards the shops.
Within a few feet a couple of twentysomething girls stopped me.
“Gobi?” they asked.
I told them yes and let them take a photo of all of us standing there together. Gobi stared right into the camera like a pro.
A few feet farther on, someone else asked for a photo. I didn’t mind, and if Gobi wasn’t stressed, I let people make as much of a fuss over her as they wanted. It was great to feel that we were free again.
But when we were twenty feet from the block of flats, I looked across the road and saw it—the grey saloon. It took a moment to sink in, but as soon as I saw the outline of two men in dark suits sitting in the front, I knew the men from the hotel had followed me.
I turned to walk back to the flat. I thought about walking past my block and trying to throw them off the scent, but that was pointless. They must have watched me walk out of the building a few minutes earlier. They had probably been watching me all day. Maybe they even followed me from the hotel.
As I stood in the lift, going up to the seventh floor, the flat didn’t feel quite as safe as it had before. I was a little suspicious when the lift stopped on the fifth floor and a man got in. And I didn’t think I could trust the woman who was struggling with the lock on her door at the other end of the corridor. Were they all in on it? Or was I just imagining things?
My phone rang as soon as I got back inside the flat, and I jumped at the noise. It was Wendy, an international freelance journalist living in Hong Kong, but it took me a few seconds to register who it was.
“Are you okay?” she asked. “You sound odd.”
I told her about the men and the car and how I was getting freaked out by it all.
“That’s actually why I’m calling,” Wendy said. “It’s not just the guys in the car. You’ve got some pretty big people watching this, Dion.”
“What do you mean?” I said.
“Just that—you’ve got to be careful what you say. I’ve spoken to some colleagues, and they’ve heard there are some local government advisers who are watching the story and listening to everything you say. They’re okay with what you’ve been doing so far, but if you criticize the state in any way, they’re going to shut this whole thing down. You’ve got to make sure that anything you say about China is said in a positive way.”
“You’ve talked to people about this? You mean someone’s told you this? How could that even happen?”
“Don’t worry about how, Dion. I just wanted to make sure you got the message”
“So you think these guys in the suits are from the state?”
“Well, they’re not there to steal Gobi, are they?”
I thought about it. Wendy was right. If their intention was to snatch Gobi, they could have done it anytime, and they probably would have done a better job of keeping themselves hidden from me.
“They’re here for my protection?”
“Kind of. As long as you do the right thing, you’ll be fine. Just don’t talk to CNN again.”
“CNN? How do you know about CNN?” I’d already had one interview with that news network and was in the process of setting up a second.
“There’s bad blood between CNN and the state. Just steer clear, okay?”
The call ended, and I sat on the floor stunned. I felt like I was in a bad spy movie. I didn’t know whether I ought to be barricading myself in and sweeping the flat for listening devices or packing Gobi into a bag and climbing down the fire escape. From the way Wendy spoke, it was no big deal, but I found it hard to relax knowing I was being watched so closely.
I sent a message to CNN explaining as vaguely as possible that I had to pull out from the interview. Then I rejected every other interview request from overseas media in my inbox, and I told Lu Xin that I didn’t want to speak to any of the Chinese media either. If there was a chance I could say the wrong thing and get myself thrown out of the country—and presumably lose Gobi forever—I wanted to eliminate that risk altogether.
I asked Wendy if she could help find out exactly who the guys in the suits were. I knew it was ridiculous to ask, but I had to know, not for my own safety but for Gobi’s. If there was a chance I’d end up being whisked onto the next flight home, I needed to have somewhere to take her.
I spent the rest of the day in the flat. The sun dropped and the room filled with shadows and street lights, but I didn’t turn on any of the lights. It felt safer that way.
I ran through possible scenarios, and none of them made me feel any calmer. If someone broke in and tried to take Gobi, I didn’t have a clue how to call the police. And if the guys in suits decided to take me, then I would have no choice but to give in and hope that Lu Xin would take good care of Gobi.
I was powerless. Even though the only thing that had changed about the team was Richard’s departure, I suddenly felt alone again. I was back to being the one on whose shoulders everything rested, and, for once in my life, I didn’t like it. It seemed too much for me to carry.
20
At some point in almost every race, I question why I’m running in it. Sometimes it’s during those early miles when I’m cold, tired, and just plain grouchy because someone in the tent kept me awake with his snoring. Sometimes it’s when my mind drifts to the finish line that’s seven or eight hours away. Sometimes it’s when I need to take on more water or knock back another salt tablet.
But for every time I ask myself whether running a race is worth all that discomfort, stress, or fear, a moment comes when I know the answer is yes. Sometimes all it takes is to crack out a few more miles and let my body settle into the run. Other times I need to block out tho
ughts that aren’t helpful. And sometimes I need to swallow a salt tablet. In every situation the solution is far simpler than the problem.
On the night before Gobi and I finally left Urumqi, I looked about me and smiled. Even though I had not known any of them two days earlier, I was surrounded by friends. As the laughter got louder and the evening wore on, I knew how grateful I was for the simple way in which their friendships came along at just the right time.
These friendships had started after my second night in the flat. I had spent most of the morning sitting around with Gobi, hoping the door wouldn’t burst open and someone rush in to grab either one of us. Eventually Gobi had to get down to ground level and do her business, and we left the flat. As I waited by her favourite bush near the entrance, I watched people going in and out of a restaurant nearby. A guy was manning a barbecue out front, and the smells coming off it were incredible. So, because I’d had enough of eating instant noodles out of a plastic pot in the flat, I decided to take Gobi back up, make sure she was settled, and then come back down and get a quick meal.
That was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. I’d eaten Xinjiang barbecue on the last day of the race, but this was even better. The waiter brought over great chunks of perfectly spiced mutton on foot-long metal skewers. I licked the grease from my fingers, sat back, and sighed.
I looked up and noticed a couple of people out on the street staring in at me, grinning from ear to ear. I smiled and waved, then mimed how full I was, and they laughed. It was a fun moment, and soon they came in, bringing a dozen others with them. They all were about my age or a little younger, and they introduced themselves to me, said something about Gobi, and invited me to have a drink and more food with them.
They knew the restaurant staff, and as we tried to communicate in broken English and with translation apps on our phones, they fed me some wickedly spicy noodles, put a shot glass of clear liquid in my hand, and invited me to knock it back with them. Whatever it was, I lost my voice for a few seconds after it went down. A lot more laughter followed, and the night ended with me tripping over the doorstep on the way out, full of great food, a little too much booze, and the sound of new friends’ laughter in my ears.
The next night was my last in Urumqi. Kiki had worked wonders and arranged for me and Gobi to fly to Beijing the following day. She’d even flown to Urumqi herself to make sure that everything went smoothly. She knew what a big deal it was, as well as the risks we were facing. Once Gobi was settled and I’d packed what little I’d brought with me, I walked back to the restaurant, hoping to meet my new friends again.
We had another great evening. A couple of shots kicked things off; then before I knew it, the table was filled with skewers and noodles and, eventually, the most amazing cast-iron structure—like the frame of a lampshade but with inch-long spikes sticking out—covered with wonderful-tasting lamb. We laughed about things I can’t even remember, talked about nothing much, and when it came time to pay the bill, they insisted I put my cash away.
“Drink tea?” said the one guy who had a few words of English.
I’m more of a coffee guy, but almost two decades of living among the English has taught me to say yes anytime anyone offers tea. Not because I have grown to love the drink but because I know that the offer is actually an invitation to hang out.
So I said yes and followed them all as they walked up the road and walked through a low wooden door set back from the street. I’d assumed we were going to one of their homes, but once inside, it was obvious that this was no home. It looked more like a high-end jewellery store; only instead of display cases filled with rings and necklaces, there were glass-fronted cabinets containing metal tins as big as a pizza and four times as deep.
“I sell tea!” my new friend said. Then, guiding me to a mahogany table that ran almost the entire length of the room, he said, “Sit!”
I watched as he sat in a chair opposite me and arranged an assortment of earth-coloured teapots and delicate bowls, a wooden-handled knife, and a set of mats in front of him. The room fell silent, and everybody watched as his hands glided across his tools, first opening one of the metal tins and then prying a nugget of tea away from the disk inside. He poured water into bowls and swirled it around with all the precision and grace of a magician at a card table. And when, after a few minutes, he poured me a cup of pale amber tea and invited me to drink, I thought I’d never tasted anything quite as wonderful.
More cups of tea followed, all prepared and drunk in almost total silence. The experience wasn’t awkward or weird; it was special. I’d never known anything quite like it.
Gradually the chatting and laughter returned. They passed their mobile phones and showed me clips of them dancing around a flat celebrating one of their birthdays. They showed me pictures of them hanging out in a park and of getting dressed up for some big night out. They were fun, and being with them reminded me of the way the search team knew how to laugh with one another. Nobody was trying to be cool, and nobody was trying to exclude other people from the group.
This kind of atmosphere was the exact opposite of what I’d experienced as a teenager in Warwick. Whether it was the tea or the company or the fact that finally, after so long, I was about to get Gobi one giant step closer to home, I started to feel a profound sense of peace about everything.
Eventually it was time to say goodbye. We hugged one another out in front of the shop, and I walked back to my flat holding two beautifully presented bags of tea they had given me. Going up in the lift, I realized they’d paid the bill at the restaurant yet again. They’d never asked me to show them Gobi, even though when I showed them the WeChat group and some of the news coverage about her, their eyes lit up. They didn’t want anything from me. They were just offering friendship with no strings attached.
I was nervous about saying goodbye to Gobi at the airport check-in desk, but Kiki had made it clear that there was no way for her to fly with me in the cabin. “Take care down there,” I said through the bars of the crate we’d bought. Gobi had an old T-shirt of mine in there with her, and a cushion that was pure luxury. Even so, she knew something odd was happening, I could tell.
For almost all of the three-hour flight, I sat in the cabin fretting about Gobi. Could I trust that she’d made it onto the plane? Enough things had gone wrong already to make me nervous about that possibility. Then there was the experience of being in the hold. I knew she’d cope with the cold—her performance in the Tian Shan mountains proved that she was a rugged little pooch—but how would she manage with all those strange noises? The last time she was locked up was when she was with Nurali, and she had run away from there. I couldn’t imagine how stressful she might be finding the experience of being locked up again.
I’d hoped that Gobi was going to take the flight in her stride and waited nervously near the baggage carousel. When her crate was finally wheeled out to me, the sense of relief I felt was so much greater than I imagined it would be. It didn’t last. One look and I knew that Gobi had struggled on the flight: she had chewed through her leash, smashed the water bottle, and looked like she had gone ten rounds with a boxer. She had obviously spent the journey feeling petrified, and seeing her in this state made me realize getting all the way to the UK was going to be really stressful for this pup.
Kiki took us straight to her kennels and outlined the plan on the way. Once Gobi had spent thirty days in Kiki’s facility, she would be allowed to fly back to England, where she’d spend four months in quarantine. I didn’t like the idea of Gobi spending so much time away from me, but it was by far the best option. I had some work commitments that I needed to get back to, and Kiki promised to send lots of photos and videos of our little girl, keeping me constantly updated about everything. Kiki clearly loved animals, and she seemed to forge an instant bond with Gobi. The feeling was mutual, and I knew they’d both get plenty of cuddles and kisses from each other in the month they would be together.
Even so, saying goodbye to Gobi the ne
xt morning was far harder than I anticipated. After all we’d been through, especially in the hotel, I knew she trusted me completely. I’d left her in the hotel or the flat but never for more than an hour or two. She had always greeted me with a massive shower of affection and excitement when I returned. But what would she think when it dawned on her that I wasn’t coming back in a few minutes? What would it be like when I finally saw her again, a month down the line, and yet again I’d leave her in an unfamiliar place full of other animals? I feared it might wound her far more deeply than whatever had scarred her head or damaged her hip.
I’d stopped talking to journalists and TV producers almost as soon as I got to the flat, but that didn’t mean that I had stopped talking with other people about how Gobi’s story could help raise awareness of the importance of looking after abandoned dogs. As well as helping us find a great publisher to work with, Paul de Souza had also introduced us to Jay Kramer, a lawyer who represented some of the biggest writers in the world. Jay knew exactly what he was doing and was helping us think through some of the other ways to share Gobi’s story.
Jay and I had been talking for about a week. When he called later that evening, I assumed he wanted to fill me in on his latest conversations with partners. Instead, he had some unexpected—and unwelcome—news.
“Are you making plans for some kind of website?”
“No,” I said. I had thought about it vaguely but had done nothing about it. “Why?”
“Someone’s just registered at least two domain names that relate to Gobi. They’ve registered the trademark too.”
I was stunned as Jay told me who it was, and I realized I knew the people who were responsible for this. I felt instantly sick and queasy, like I did after I helped Tommy that day. I was struggling to process this new information, and all I could think to say was, “Why?”