Mrs. Pollifax on the China Station

visitors to Canton , bearing gifts to
relatives.
    ”This must be first class,” murmured George Westrum, standing just behind
her.
    ”In a classless society?” said Mrs. Pollifax in amazement.
    Again she surprised that twinkle. ”It’s a matter of semantics,” he said.
”They call them soft seats, as against the hard seats for the masses out
there.”
    ”You’ve visited China before, then?”
    ”I read a lot,” he said simply.
    She smiled at him. ”And what do you think of our newly met China guide?”
    ”Mr. Li? Young and very organized,” he said. ”Put him in Western clothes
and he’d be a junior executive anywhere. IBM, probably.”
    She laughed. In spite of Mr. Li’s modest attire it was exactly that
executive quality, with its sense of coiled energy, that had first struck her
on meeting him, too. Or perhaps his attire wasn’t modest at all, she thought,
as she glanced around and compared him with the other Chinese waiting in line,
for his sandals were of leather, not plastic; she had already glimpsed black
silk socks with tiny clocks on them, and he wore a digital watch on his wrist.
She only wished that she could be more confident about his English, which was
spoken with enthusiasm at a reckless speed and with an explosive laugh at the
end of each statement.
    The crowd suddenly began to move and they achieved the train at last,
said good-bye to Miss Chu, and climbed aboard the appointed car that would take
them across the Lo Wu bridge into Mainland China . Mrs. Pollifax, entering the
car last of all, chose to sit next to Peter Fox, from whom she received a
swift, bored glance. Paying this no attention she gazed around in awe at the
starched lace curtains at each window of the railway car, and the pale blue
decor. Everything was immaculate; in fact no sooner were they all seated than a
young woman hurried out from some inner sanctum to run a damp floor mop up and
down the aisle and erase every hint of traffic. Music began; a small TV screen
over the door sprang to life and as the train began to move, so did figures on
the screen: a happy smiling young woman sang a Chinese song in a strident
singsong voice; a handsome young man joined her and with large gestures and an
even happier smile reinforced the suggestion of total bliss in Mainland China.
Mrs. Pollifax watched in fascination, and then her attention moved past Peter
Fox’s impassive profile to the lush green countryside sliding past the window.
    Eventually the stoniness of that profile challenged her. ”Excited?” she
asked Peter Fox, not without irony.
    He turned and gave her a measuring glance. ”Half and half,” he said with
a shrug.
    Being direct by nature she refused such tiresome ambiguousness. ”What
made you come, then?” she asked. ”What made you choose China ?”
    ”I didn’t,” he said.
    Mrs. Pollifax began to feel amused by this conversation. ”I thought you
seemed a little martyred,” she said, warming to the game. ”Of course my next
question—naturally—is just why and what—”
    But apparently he was not playing games. ”I didn’t mean to seem
martyred,” he said, with deadly seriousness and a scowl. ”It’s just I’m still
making up my mind whether I’ll like it. It’s a college graduation present from
my grandmother.”
    ”Ah,” said Mrs. Pollifax. ”It was her idea then, China ?”
    He nodded. ”She was born here—spent the first thirteen years of her life
in China, so China it had to be.”
    ”For you but not for her?”
    He said with a shrug, ”Well, she’s been in a wheelchair the last eight
years.”
    ”Oh, I see. I’m sorry. So you had no choice,” she said, nodding, and
noticed how white his skin was at close quarters. A pair of too-heavy dark
eyebrows emphasized this pallor, and when they drew together in a frown—as they
were doing now —they dominated his face, with its high cheekbones and stubborn
jaw.
    ”Well—since I’ve never traveled before,” he said with another shrug, ” China just
seems a freaky place to start. I mean, I’ve never traveled even in the United States , let alone Europe where everyone seems to begin. I suppose you’ve been to Europe ?”
he asked suspiciously.
    ”Oh, here and there,” she said vaguely, and watching that impassive face
she asked on impulse, ”Don’t you ever smile?”
    He turned and gave her such a suddenly shrewd and thoughtful look that
she was taken aback; she realized that in some way she was amusing him. ”That goes