Mrs. Pollifax on the China Station

and surfaced, nodding. ”We visit Dr. Sun Yet-sen Memorial Hall, the
panda at the zoo, various other stops, and late in afternoon departure to
Xian.”
    ”The beginning of the Silk Road ,”
pointed out Malcolm, nodding.
    George Westrum, on her left, said gruffly, ”For myself, I’ll say right
now that I want to see their farms, and the equipment they have. That’ll be
communes, of course.”
    ”I’ll make a note of that,” she told him. ”You’re a farmer, George?”
    ”Have a few acres,” he said.
    Mrs. Pollifax gave him an exasperated glance. She had wrested words out
of young Peter, and had witnessed Malcolm’s evasiveness, and she was bored with
all this modesty. She asked bluntly, ”How many?”
    ”Several thousand,” he admitted.
    ”Cows, horses, sheep, or grain?” she shot back.
    ”Beef cattle. And oil.”
    ”Aha!”
    He nodded. ”A surprise to me, that oil,” he said. ”Retired early from
government work —”
    ”Government work?”
    ”Yes, and bought a ranch, expecting to raise cattle, not oil. That young
lady I saw you talking to on the train,” he said casually, with a not-so-casual
glance across the table at Iris. ”She Miss or Mrs. Damson?”
    Mrs. Pollifax’s aha was silent this time. ”I haven’t the slightest idea,” she told him cheerfully,
”except that I do know she’s not married now. Is this a thousand-year-old egg?”
she asked, turning to Mr. Li.
    ”Oh yes, but not a
thousand years old,” he said with his quick smile and another merry laugh.
    ”It tastes like egg, it just looks rather odd, as if it had been left
out of the refrigerator too long.”
    Jenny said, ”I believe they’re soaked in brine or something, and buried
in the earth.”
    ”The food’s coming with frightening speed now,” pointed out Malcolm
across the table as the waiter brought still another platter to the table.
”Sweet and sour something,” he announced, spearing a piece between chopsticks
and delivering it to his mouth before passing it on. ”How many meals will be
Chinese on our trip?”
    ”It is good, you all using chopsticks,” said Mr. Li. ”Very good. You,
Mr. Fox—press fingers a little higher,” he told Peter, receiving a hostile
glance in return. ”The food? After tomorrow no Western food.”
    ”Not even breakfast?” gasped Jenny.
    ”Chinese breakfast.”
    ”What fun,” cried Iris with a radiant smile.
    ”I’ve been studying Chinese this last year,” Joe Forbes told him across
the table. ”I’d like to try it out on you now and then. For instance, would I
be called a da hi zi?”
    Both Mr. Li and Mr. Tung burst out laughing. ”Xiao hua,” cried Mr.
Li enthusiastically.
    ”Meaning what?” asked Jenny.
    Joe Forbes said, ”I hope I asked if I’d be called a ‘long nose’
among the Chinese—except it’s so damn easy to get the tones wrong. Did I?”
    ”You did, yes,” Mr. Tung assured him, ”and Comrade Li said Xiao hua, meaning ‘a joke’!”
    ”Surely we’re called round eyes, not long noses,” asked Malcolm.
    ”Anyway not foreign devils anymore,” contributed Jenny.
    ”Capitalist-roaders?” suggested Iris, grinning.
    Mr. Tung gave an embarrassed laugh. Mr. Li lifted his glass of pale
orange soda pop and said, ”Let us toast to Chinese-American friendship!”
    Mrs. Pollifax raised her own glass of soda. The others lifted their
glasses of Chinese beer, which she promised herself she would try the next day,
since water was advised against, the tea extremely weak, and the soda tasted
rather like flavored water. In the meantime she waited to ask George Westrum
just what his government service might have been. He was a silent man but he
talked well when he did speak; his face was expressionless, even harsh, but
there was that occasional twinkle of humor that suggested other dimensions. He
must certainly have retired early—as CIA men often did, Bishop had told
her—because he looked to be still in his fifties, and he was obviously strong.
She felt that he was noticing everyone and everything—watching and alert—and
she was amused that he had especially noticed Iris.
    But there was no opportunity to question George Westrum further. Mr. Li,
pleased that Forbes was learning Mandarin, at once grasped the chance to
practice his English, and their exchange of words occupied the others. ”Yes, I
teach history,” Forbes was saying, ”in a small Midwestern university.” He was
smiling but Mrs. Pollifax realized that actually he did not