Mrs. Pollifax on the China Station (15 page)

At once the rapids swept him away, the icy water knocking him as breathless as if he’d been given a blow to the solar plexus. The current tumbled him over and over, extracting what breath was left him while jagged rocks pummeled and bruised him. Only the rope saved him: considerably downstream it snapped him to a halt, threatening to cut him in half from the current bearing down on him, but it held and he was able to surface and breathe again. Now he began the fight to swim across the river, the rope holding him in place as he fought, struggled, dog-paddled, and at last fell across the opposite bank.

But the icy cold had invigorated him, and a moment later he was on his feet, slapping his arms and jogging-in-place to restore circulation. With the rope still around his waist he hiked back to the stand of trees opposite his starting point, and after untying wet knots with chilled fingers he secured the end of the rope around the base of the larger tree. Checking it he found just enough slack; the tree was well-rooted and the rope firmly engaged. When he finished it was still night but dawn was emerging almost imperceptibly from the darkness, the shapes in the clearing where he stood acquiring sharper edges: dawn was only an hour away. He was bone-chillingly cold and he was tired, but his reconnoitering was nearing an end, he would soon be on his run back to Urumchi with three days to complete his plans. He headed across the clearing for the shelter of standing trees where he suddenly stood very still, listening.

The rush of the water behind him was deadening to the ear but above it or below it he understood that he was sensing movement ahead of him. Human sounds: the murmur of voices, the shuffling of feet. Lowering himself to the ground he crept to the next stand of trees and came to a stop.

From his hiding place he looked out on a second clearing
into which a dozen or more men were marching in a bedraggled fashion, dull shapes in a twilit world. Once in the clearing they stood passively, a few wandering off to lean against piles of wood, or to sit on logs while their leader—or guard—gestured to men unseen as yet. Peter saw the flare of a match; from the vaguely discerned movements he deduced the men—prisoners—were smoking, eating, or idly talking … a free moment before the day’s work began, a precious moment.

One of the men left the others and strolled toward the cluster of trees behind which Peter hid. Quickly Peter dropped to the ground again as the man paused beside a low bush six feet away from him, fumbling at his trousers. He was so near to Peter that he could see the neatly mended patches in his drab shirt; from the ground he could peer up and into the man’s face and see him clearly.

And seeing him clearly he thought in a rush of shock,
But this man is Wang Shen!

He thought,
I haven’t even found the labor camp and here is X …

He was shaken and incredulous. He didn’t want it to be X, some part of his shocked head insisted that it couldn’t be X, searched wildly for discrepancies, demanding doubt, skepticism, second thoughts because this was not in his scenario … And yet it
was
X, he had memorized that face until he knew its very essence—the slant of the cheekbones, the shape of the pointed jaw and the blunt nose, the intelligent eyes, the rather sardonic mouth. This was Wang Shen all right, and he was standing only six feet away from him.

He thought,
Dear God, this is incredible—the cave and now this
.

He thought,
It can’t ever happen this way again. Not like this
.

But he had no plans made yet, X was to be rescued
later, after he had divested himself of the tour group, he couldn’t possibly do anything now, it was too soon, this was a mere reconnaissance. In only a few hours the tour group was to leave for Turfan, and it was already perilously close to the time when he must race back to the hotel. He couldn’t afford any rescue attempt now, it would make him late and then they would all be in the soup, including—and most of all—Wang Shen.

“There’s the cave,” an inner voice reminded him.

“The cave
now?
” he protested. “Leave X there for two days when everything could go hideously wrong and I never get back to him? Abandon him there with only a handful of dried fruit, a chocolate bar, and no ID papers should something happen and I never reach him again?”

He thought abruptly,
I wish Mrs. Pollifax were here
.

The devoutness of that longing staggered him. He had believed he could manage everything himself and originally he had thought her preposterous, and now he wished above all else that she was here to advise him. “What would she say?” he asked himself, and then, desperately, “What would
she
do?”

Words suddenly came to him that she had used describing her meeting with Guo Musu. “Oh, I had no plans,” she’d said to his amazement. “There comes a time when one has to trust oneself and whatever presents itself. It’s like that occasionally.”

Like that occasionally
 … of course. He was nearly exhausted, he was trembling with cold and he hadn’t planned this at all, but he had found a cave and now he had found X.
My God
, he thought,
Mrs. Pollifax is more flexible than I am, and I’m twenty-two
. And with the memory of her words a sense of her presence returned to him and he grinned: Mrs. Pollifax would simply get on with the job, matter-of-factly.

And so—matter-of-factly—Peter proceeded to get on with the job: he softly called out Wang’s name.

The man had just begun to turn away; he hesitated now, startled. Some distance away his companions were huddled over a tiny fire, their faces turned aside. Peter moved slightly away from the tree, just enough to expose his presence, and then quickly popped back. But Wang had seen him; his face had turned astonished and baffled. Peter extended one hand, thumb up. A moment later the man shuffled over to the tree and stood in front of it, curious but perplexed.

“You’re Wong Shen,” Peter said from behind the tree.

“Who—?”

“Also Wang Shen.”

“
Zhe shi shenme?
What is this? Who are you? Where did you come from?”

“
Wo jiang
Peter—American,
Meiguo ren
—sent with papers to take you out of the country. Can you decide quickly? Are you well enough? To go
now?
”

“You’re testing me,” the man growled. “Long live the great and correct Communist Party of China!”

“Ta ma de,”
swore Peter, “the time is
now
. I’ve a rope across the river, it can be done before there’s too much daylight, there’ll never be such a chance again.”

“Why?” he asked harshly. “How is anyone interested in me?”

Peter said impatiently, “Because the Russians have learned who you are and they’ll be after you next.
Lai bulai
—are you coming or aren’t you?”

There was silence. Peter waited in suspense for the man’s friends to call to him, or for Wang to call out to the group and betray him, and then abruptly, calmly, the man moved around the tree to peer at him and his glance was searching. He said, “You look very young, with good food in you.”

“I hope I also look American—my eyelids are taped.”

Studying Peter’s face the man’s gaze seemed to come from far away, as if he drew on a part of him buried very deep, and then his eyes sharpened, he returned to this cold misty dawn and to the moment. He said with infinite dryness, “If you have found me—if you have managed to cross that river—what have I to lose? Let’s go!”

Thank God
, thought Peter. Wang glanced back once at the clearing, bent over to look at a root, dropped to his knees and crept behind the tree, his movements without haste, measured, as if he had long ago learned the art of blending into backgrounds to avoid attention. Peter dropped to the ground with him and they crawled together to the next copse of trees; reaching it they stood up and raced to the stream.

“You can do this?” Peter asked X, pointing to the rope which the dawn was illuminating now.

Wang’s thin frame shivered in the cold.
“Shi,”
he said, and stepped forward. Testing the rope first—he seemed incredulous at its lightness—he lowered himself into the icy river. Hand over hand, at times almost submerged by the current, he propelled his body to the other side, climbed out, shook himself, and stood up. Quickly Peter untied the rope from the tree on his side—there must be no signs of their departure—and once again knotted it around his waist. This time he leaped far out into the water and was better able to control his entry into the rapids so that when the rope pulled him up short he was within a maneuverable distance of the opposite shore. A moment later he was out, and joining Wang upstream.

“We can talk later,” he said, pulling on socks, buckling on his sandals and stowing flashlight, shoes, and compass into his Mao jacket. “And the faster we go the warmer we’ll be,” he added, trying to still the chattering of his
teeth, “Although I’ll say right now that your escape was planned for next week, not today. We must be resourceful!”

The man gave him a sharp glance but said only, “Let’s go then.”

They reached the cave within the hour, losing only a few minutes searching for it. Pulling aside the branches concealing it Peter said, “This is the first miracle, Wang, the second was coming practically face to face with you when I was only reconnoitering.”

Wang crept into the cave, amazed. “Truly this
is
a miracle.”

“You’re not so strong as you seemed at first,” Peter said. “You couldn’t run.”

Wang’s smile was kind. “We’re given very little food.”

Peter nodded. “And I’ve little to offer you—look.”

Wang only shook his head. “What you have here—just to see fruit and chocolate—looks a feast to me. I am also expert by now”—his tone was humorous—“in foraging in the woods. What exactly is the situation?”

Briefly Peter explained it. By now he had begun doing rapid calculations for his own preservation, and he was worried and tried not to show it to Wang. It had taken him four hours to reach the cave, for instance, and it would take him at least another four hours to return to Urumchi … Already it was past four in the morning and breakfast for the tour group was to be served at 8
A
.
M
., with a departure for Turfan at nine. He would be too late for breakfast and even his return by nine was now problematic: how he was to explain his absence was beyond his capabilities at the moment. He concluded his story to Wang by saying, “And so you must rest and grow stronger here, for the mountains. When the tour group returns from Turfan late tomorrow I’ll bring you more food, but as you can see—”

Wang had sat down on the cave’s floor and now he smiled for the first time. “Don’t worry please, I will enjoy extremely this release from
jian ku lao dong
,” he said, using the word for hard physical labor. “It is enough to be free.
Wo lei le
—I’m tired.”

“Okay, but watch any tracks you leave in the woods when you go out,” Peter counseled. “Remember, they’ll be searching for you soon. When I return I’ll whistle like this.” He gave a soft bird call and repeated it twice. “Got it?”

Wang was looking happily around him. “Yes, yes,” he said absently. “Some apricots first, I think, and then I will sleep. I may even sleep for days!”

Peter said, “Good. Only wish I could … 
ziajian!
”

“Ziajian,”
responded Wang, but by this time Peter was already outside and beginning the long hike back to Urumchi, a trip made all the more conspicuous and hazardous by the growing light of day.

B
y seven o’clock that morning Mrs. Pollifax had already guessed that Peter wasn’t back—she had knocked early at his door, feeling obscurely troubled about him—and when they assembled in the lobby at eight for breakfast and Peter still didn’t appear her worry sharpened and she prepared for the worst. They were to leave for Turfan in an hour, their luggage had already been collected and Peter’s absence had become obvious and serious. The list of horrors that might have happened to him seemed endless to her: he could have been picked up by police as a local native for questioning; he could have been picked up as an American with fake ID papers; he could have met with an accident and be lying alone and helpless somewhere; he might have found the labor camp only to be discovered
himself. Whatever had gone wrong he was not here, and he ought to be here.

The door to the dining hall opened, they walked in to breakfast and Mrs. Pollifax—feeling embarked on a roller-coaster ride whose end she couldn’t foresee—sat down and without enthusiasm attacked a hard-boiled egg.

Mr. Kan, hurrying in, said, “I have knocked and he doesn’t hear, the manager is to open the door with a key, he may be ill.”

“Are
you
feeling okay?” Malcolm asked Mrs. Pollifax from across the table.

Jenny, seated next to her, turned and stared.

“Fine,” said Mrs. Pollifax and gave them each a forced bright smile.

“Oh he’ll turn up,” said Iris cheerfully, earning a bland smile from Joe Forbes and an admiring one from George.