Mrs. Pollifax on the China Station

by Dorothy Gilman

  Mr. Li interrupted her speculations with an announcement. Dinner, he said, would be served in twenty minutes, and he pointed to the building where it would be served, and for the evening, if they wished, they could stroll to the People’s Park together while he and Miss Bai worked out their schedule for Xian. Next he explained that there were no keys to the rooms at the People’s Hotel—there was no need for keys—and he read out their room numbers.

  “I don’t like there being no keys,” Jenny complained as they climbed the stairs to the floor above.

  “I think,” said Mrs. Pollifax, “one has to bear in mind that the hotel is run by the government, and there’s a soldier on duty at the entrance, and as you can see,” she added as they reached the second floor, “there’s a chap at a desk to check people.”

  “But there are so many workers here,” Jenny protested.

  Malcolm fielded that one. “Plum job, my dear. If it even occurred to one of them to steal something—doubtful—where would they sell it? Don’t be so suspicious,” he chided, adding dryly, “this isn’t America, you know. Who’s for that stroll after dinner, by the way?”

  After one look at her room Mrs. Pollifax decided very firmly to opt for the walk to People’s Park. She could not conceive of an evening spent in a room so small, so unbelievably dark and hot, with a tiny air-conditioner that made chuckling sounds when she turned it on. She therefore set out with the others following dinner, and falling into step beside Iris she asked how things were going.

  Iris did not fail her. “Oh isn’t it wonderful?” she cried, turning to face Mrs. Pollifax and very nearly falling over a stone in her path. “I asked Miss Bai what her first name is. I have it written down somewhere, but in English it means Elder Fragrance, isn’t that beautiful?”

  “Really lovely, yes,” agreed Mrs. Pollifax, “but I think you’d better watch out for the holes in this sidewalk, Iris.”

  “Okay. But what’s with this Peter Fox?” she asked. “I sat next to him at dinner and I don’t know when I’ve met anyone so grumpy—unless it was Stanley before he had his morning coffee. Is he going to be a real wet blanket?”

  “He may thaw, given time,” said Mrs. Pollifax generously. “It seems his grandmother gave him this trip as a present because she was born in China and can’t come herself. I daresay he’d much rather be off backpacking somewhere with a group of friends.”

  “If he has any friends,” said Iris. “Well, I can see how he feels, of course, but if somebody gave me a present—any kind of present—you wouldn’t catch me sulking like that. And a free trip to China—wow!”

  Mrs. Pollifax smiled faintly, noting the words if anyone gave me a present, any kind of present, and reflected that Iris would be too busy giving presents to receive any; the takers must flock to her like bees to a honey flower. A pity, she thought, and said mischievously, “George Westrum seems very nice.”

  Iris warmly agreed. “Oh, isn’t he? And I think”—she lowered her voice—“I think he used to be an FBI man, isn’t that intriguing?”

  “FBI?” repeated Mrs. Pollifax alertly. “How very exciting!”

  Iris nodded. “Now all we need is someone from the CIA.”

  “Yes indeed,” murmured Mrs. Pollifax, without so much as a blink of an eye. “Quite horrid people, I’m sure.”

  “Oh there must be some nice people among them,” Iris conceded with her radiant smile and then, glancing ahead, “Look—that must be the park. We’re here! Except why are the others huddling around the gate?”

  “Because it costs money,” shouted Malcolm, as Iris called out her query, crossing the avenue. “The real stuff. Either of you have any?”

  “I have,” Iris announced, joining them. “I bought those white jade cups at Canton airport, remember?” As the natives gathered to watch, she dug into her purse, brought out small wrinkled bills and then several coins and presented them to the man. He selected several fen, beamed at her, and issued them tickets.

  “Now this,” said Joe Forbes as they entered, “has to be the real China.”

  Mrs. Pollifax was inclined to believe him. There were paths to the right and to the left, but she was drawn instead toward a crowd straight ahead from which, even at a distance, she could hear roars of laughter. Joining it Mrs. Pollifax stood on tiptoe to peer over heads and found them gathered around a television set, a modest and perfectly normal television set plugged into some unseen outlet in the out-of-doors, with cartoons dancing across its screen. Amazing she thought, and looked instead into the faces of the people watching the cartoons, touched by their innocent excitement and joy.

  The subtitles, however, were in Chinese, and presently—still smiling at the pleasure it was giving—she moved away to investigate a small growing crowd off to the left, and discovered Malcolm seated under a tree sketching. Not far away George Westrum was attempting sign language with a young woman, with Joe Forbes chuckling at his elbow. At once a young man spotted Mrs. Pollifax and hurried to her side. “You are American too,” he cried eagerly. “I may ask questions?”

  “Oh yes,” she told him warmly. “Ni hao! Good evening!”

  His boldness, his daring, immediately drew people from Malcolm’s circle into his, and Mrs. Pollifax found herself smiled at and approved as the audience waited with attention for their comrade to address this visitor from a country halfway across the world. Their pride in him was palpable, and Mrs. Pollifax waited too, her heart beating a trifle faster at the importance of this moment.

  “In America,” he said slowly, his brows knitted together by the seriousness with which he, too, regarded this moment, “you grow cotton?”

  Mrs. Pollifax, a little surprised, nodded her head. “Yes. Oh yes. In our southern states.”

  “Suzzen states?”

  “Warm places,” she explained. “Like Canton?”

  “Canton?” He looked bewildered, and she saw that they had suddenly lost their way; the eagerness still hung between them, tangible but severely threatened.

  “No,” she said, trying to retrieve direction, “in the United States, where I live. Where—” She was suddenly overwhelmed by the nouns, pronouns, verbs that separated them and with which she must frame a sentence, acutely aware too of the perplexities of for and about and from; the wall between them seemed opaque, the gulf immeasurable, and then with sudden inspiration she remembered the snapshots she had crammed into her purse at the last minute. She reached into her purse and drew them out: a photograph of her apartment house, with herself standing in front of it; several of her grandson opening packages at Christmas in her living room; one of Cyrus, and two of her geraniums. She offered them to this new friend. With great wonder her pictures were accepted, people crowded in to peer over his shoulder, they were then distributed by the young man, one by one, moving from hand to hand accompanied by murmurs of awe and surprise.

  “Snow?” asked her friend, pointing to the picture of her standing in front of her apartment house.

  “Yes,” she said, nodding happily. “Yes, snow. Too cold there for cotton.”

  “Ah—I see, I see,” he cried in relief, understanding, and addressed his friends rapidly and with authority.

  “Husband?” he asked, pointing to Cyrus.

  She smiled. “A very dear friend.”

  “Aha,” he cried joyously, and again addressed the crowd, but it was the photographs of her grandson that drew the most appreciative murmurs, and she was given glances of deep respect.

  A picture, she thought, was certainly worth a thousand words; hadn’t it been the Chinese who first said this?

  Her friend was thanking her now with pleasure. “Now we see, yes,” he said. He turned and spoke sharply to one of the men holding a picture and snatched it back, rubbing away a smudge of dirt before he returned it to her. One by one the snapshots arrived in her hands and she put them away. It seemed an auspicious moment to withdraw. “I go now,” she told them all, bowing. “Good night and thank you! Zai jian!”

  “Good day,” t
hey called, laughing with her, and as she left they surged again toward Malcolm and his sketchbook.

  Mrs. Pollifax wandered on along the path, ignoring a charming arched bridge over a pond and drawn toward a mysterious bright light in the distance. Iris, catching up with her, said, “I’m ready to go back, it’s growing dark.”

  “Hi there,” called Jenny, emerging from a side path. “Going back?”

  “Yes,” said Mrs. Pollifax, “but not until I’ve investigated that bright light ahead. I’m curious—I noticed it when we entered the park and it’s still there.”

  “Noises, too,” contributed Iris as they strolled toward it.

  “Of people?” asked Jenny doubtfully.

  “Weird sounds,” Iris decided. “People and engines. An adventure for us maybe?”

  “Definitely,” said Mrs. Pollifax happily. “Let’s look and find out.”

  Out of the darkness, the light emerging from its interior, appeared a circular wooden structure with steps leading to the top and the silhouette of heads lining a platform that encircled the structure. “Yes, yes,” said the solitary attendant leaning against a step, and untied a rope to allow them free entry. They mounted narrow precipitous wooden stairs—up, up, toward the suffused brilliant light—to find themselves peering down into an arena with gently sloping sides.

  “Good heavens,” breathed Iris, “it’s like looking into a barrel, it’s so small. Look—two motorcycles!”

  As they watched, two splendidly dressed young men emerged from a small door and mounted the cycles, the crowd murmured appreciatively, the young men bowed, grinned, rev’d up the engines to a roar, rode once around the floor, and then as they gained speed they sent their cycles upward and into the curve of the wall. Mrs. Pollifax braced herself as the cyclists circled higher and higher, engines roaring, the platform creaking and trembling and shuddering under her feet. The cyclists became perpendicular now, and for one moment she thought they might shoot out over the top, taking people and platform with them (headline: Xian, People’s Republic: In China today dozens were killed when two performing cyclists went out of control and careened into the audience. Among the dead, three American tourists, as yet unidentified.), and then the engines slackened, the momentum was aborted and—perhaps most difficult of all—the two shining young gods guided their vehicles down, still spinning off the walls, reached bottom, and came to an earth-trembling stop. Off came the helmets; the cheers were thunderous and joyful.

  Mrs. Pollifax joined the applause; it was over, they had arrived at the end. Slowly they descended the steps with the crowd, to the hard-packed earth where a single light now illuminated the path. “Now that,” she said, “was slightly incredible.”

  “So was that platform,” commented Jenny. “It felt like an upside-down bushel basket and just as frail. I was scared to death.”

  “Never mind, it was fun,” breathed Iris, her eyes shining.

  Already the lights were being extinguished all over the park; nothing was wasted, it was nine o’clock, the television screen was dark, the park emptying. They walked out onto the avenue where the small garish lamps of the vendors shone like fireflies in the darkness. People lingered, chatting, under the dim light of the occasional streetlamp, some strolling in pairs, some hurrying home, a few on bicycles.

  “Now which way did we come?” asked Iris.

  “Oh—down that road,” Mrs. Pollifax said, pointing.

  Jenny shook her head. “Uh-huh, that’s where we saw George taking pictures, don’t you remember? So we take the other street.”

  Mrs. Pollifax expressed her doubt. “I really don’t think so.”

  “But I’m known for my bump of direction,” Jenny insisted. “Really I am … trust me!”

  “We’ll trust you,” Iris told her gravely.

  They reached, eventually, the broad avenue on which they had expected to find the People’s Hotel, but there was no hotel. Instead they met with a sea of people strolling down the center of a road in a silence broken only by the shuffling sounds of their feet. There were no cars. As they continued walking there was no hotel, either. They were looked at with curiosity; a few turned to stare.

  “Still confident?” Mrs. Pollifax asked Jenny.

  “Oh yes,” said Jenny, and then spoiled such assertiveness by pausing to say to a young man, “Do you speak English?”

  He smiled, shook his head, and hurried on. So did they, but after three more blocks Mrs. Pollifax’s skepticism had turned into alarm; she decided the time had come to try that universal language of the hands. She stopped two men, and laid her head on her hands in a manner that she hoped denoted sleep. “Ho-tel?” she asked. “Hotel?”

  The two men nodded happily and turned to point in the direction ahead of them.

  “Xiexie,” she said, bowing.

  But another block still produced no hotel, and Mrs. Pollifax began to picture them sleeping in a doorway for the night, began to look down narrow alleys and into mysterious entrances that led to wooden doors, speculating on how long a tourist might be lost in Xian, and longing passionately for a real bed.

  It was Iris who next said, “I don’t see a damn thing ahead resembling a hotel. Let me try.”

  “But I’m supposed to have such a good bump of direction,” wailed Jenny.

  “Well, coming to China has dislocated it, I think,” said Mrs. Pollifax.

  “Ho-tel?” asked Iris, stopping three men and repeating Mrs. Pollifax’s symbol for sleep.

  At once Iris drew a crowd; they became surrounded by faces made dim and unearthly in the near-darkness, faces marveling at Iris’ height, a few women tittering behind their hands; it turned into a party, and a few minutes later a dozen of the young men escorted them half a block farther, smiling and murmuring “ho-tel” and pointing, and there—at last—was the hotel, with its sentry and its gate.

  Bows, thank yous, and smiles were exchanged, they passed through a deserted lobby, mounted stairs, and Mrs. Pollifax entered her small hot room with its chuckling air-conditioner. The temperature had dropped only a few degrees and she found the twenty-five-watt light in the lamp depressing. Kneeling beside her suitcase she unlocked and opened it to return the camera she’d extracted from it before walking to the park, and suddenly became very still, the movement of camera to suitcase arrested.

  Her suitcase had been opened and searched while she was gone.

  A long time ago she had worked out a formula for packing, and although efficiency had been only a minor reason for this she had automatically continued to pack in a certain way even when there was no necessity for caution. She had felt there was no need for caution on this trip, but apparently she had been wrong. Her suitcase had been unlocked very expertly, and very professionally and discreetly searched, but whoever had done the job couldn’t possibly have known of her packing formula. When she had snatched the camera from her suitcase after dinner her bright red pajamas had as usual been folded up with the pajama bottoms underneath the pajama tops—that was the important detail—and her toothbrush and comb tucked into their folds. Now the pajama bottoms were on top, and both toothbrush and comb had vanished somewhere into her suitcase.

  Now this, thought Mrs. Pollifax, abruptly sitting down on the floor, is a pretty kettle of fish, and completely unexpected.

  Who, she wondered, could have done this? She could not believe it had been a worker in the hotel; opening a locked suitcase without leaving behind so much as a scratch was an art denied to the average person.

  The police? But Mr. Li had handled Customs, and at the border no one had felt any need to question her about her remarkable supply of vitamins and dried fruit.

  Her mysterious coagent? But whoever he was there seemed no need for him to investigate her; he had the advantage of knowing who she was, as well as what she’d brought with her.

  What a bewildering finish to a delightful evening, she thought, and realized that she felt thoroughly jarred by this. I don’t understand it, she reflected, and I don’t like it,
It’s almost as if— But she did not allow herself to complete that thought, and hastily drew out her pajamas.

  “May we see the sketches you did last evening in the park?” Mrs. Pollifax asked Malcolm at breakfast.

  He said ruefully, “I ended up giving them all away to my audience. We certainly attract crowds, don’t we?”

  He smiled across the table at Iris, who flushed as usual but managed one of her radiant smiles in return.

  “Quite a schedule today,” commented Joe Forbes, spearing a peanut between his chopsticks.

  “Yes indeed,” she said. Miss Bai had pinned to the dining room wall a calendar of events for their stay in Xian, presented in flawless calligraphy, but to Mrs. Pollifax the most important news was that after trips to the Bell Tower and to the Wild Goose Pagoda, they were going to visit the Drum Tower.

  For the Drum Tower Mrs. Pollifax still had no plans. How very easy and natural the assignment had seemed to her when she was sitting in Carstairs’ office in Langley Field, Virginia, and how very different it looked now that she was in Xian! She had absolutely no idea what obstacles were going to greet her, or even whether she would be able to find Guo Musu’s barbershop. She dared not ask about a barbershop near the Drum Tower or she would be shown it—if it existed—in the company of Mr. Li or Miss Bai. She had finally accepted the fact that she could assemble no strategy whatever in advance, which was not the happiest way to approach such an important moment, or the Drum Tower either, or Guo Musu if he could be found, but Mrs. Pollifax had a great deal of faith: something would occur to her. A miracle would take place.

  Yes, definitely a miracle, she told herself firmly.

  In the meantime they were going to visit Ban Po Village this morning, which would please Iris, and a department store, which would please Jenny’s desire for Mao cap and jacket, and Mrs. Pollifax tried to pretend that it pleased her too, that this was a perfectly normal day with the afternoon of no particular significance, and that her suitcase had not been searched the night before.