Mrs. Pollifax on the China Station

background in the
country. The situation needs someone entirely different, someone so outwardly
innocent that she’ll deflect suspicion.”
    ”She?” he’d repeated sharply.
    And Carstairs had smiled pleasantly and said, ”Yes, we have a woman in
mind.”
    So here they were, the two of them, locked together into this situation
for better or for worse, flying over mountains the color and shape of camels’
humps, in a country whose culture was among the most ancient in the world. And
he loved this country, which was a strange thing to discover because he loved
so few things. Because of this he knew that he hated Mao for setting China back
decades with his cultural revolution that wiped out intellectuals, closed
universities, nearly destroyed art and science, and, in turn, brought only a new
form of corruption out of the corruptions he’d intended to erase. Well, that
was long since over; both Mao and the more liberal Chou were dead, and new
leaders in command, but the country was still filled with Maoists. He thought
wryly of the current political metaphor, ”the two ends are hot and the middle
is cold,” a very Chinese way of saying that change was passionately wanted at
both the top and the bottom of the society, but sitting squarely in the middle
in many areas were Mao’s bureaucrats, threatened by the progressive changes,
indignant, clinging in fury to the old status quo. The reformers were
listening, though: how could they help but hear the people at the Democracy
Wall in 1979? The people still waited with infinite patience for the democracy
that had been promised them once by Mao.
    He turned and looked at the two men beside him, wishing he might ask
them a thousand questions. Seeing him glance toward them they smiled, eager to
show their friendship.
    ”Ni hao,” he said, carefully avoiding any tonal pronunciation,
rendering the greeting flat and drawling and clumsy.
    The man next to him nodded vigorously,- the second man by the window
leaned forward to give him an eager smile and a thumbs-up gesture, and he was
offered a Double Happiness brand cigarette, which he politely refused. As they
returned to their conversation he glanced down the aisle and saw Mrs. Pollifax
and her two seat companions stand up and change places with an extravagant
exchange of bows and smiles: she was being given the window seat, and he
wondered wryly how she had accomplished this without language.
    He wondered, too, how much she guessed when she had been told so little.
    He wondered if it had occurred to her yet that if Mr. Wang’s rescue was
a success, the man was going to have to be accompanied out of China —escorted,
led, or dragged out, depending on his sympathies and his state of mind.
    He wondered if she realized that in order to accompany Wang out of the
country he himself was going to have to disappear from the tour group—and
foreigners were simply not allowed to disappear into China . When would she recognize the
fact that the whole purpose of the tour was to allow him to vanish—and that
indeed all of them were hostages to his success in disappearing...
    It was a woman guide who met them at the airport in Xian, and Mrs.
Pollifax was amused by the look of awe and delight on Iris’ face at sight of
her. Apparently Mr. Li knew the woman from previous trips and greeted her
cordially. ”This is Miss Bai,” he told them, introducing her.
    She was a slightly built woman, older than Mr. Li, very serious and
intense, in fact one could guess her efficiency by the way that Mr. Li subtly
relaxed on finding her there. Noticing this Mrs. Pollifax experienced a sudden
insight into the tensions behind Mr. Li’s nervous laugh: the necessity to
please not only the people he guided but also nameless faceless superiors who
had selected him out of thousands to associate with foreigners.
    ”You will not be far out of town here,” he told them cheerfully. ”The
hotel is in the middle of Xian.”
    ”Hooray,” cried Jenny.
    Because they had all been separated on the plane Mrs. Pollifax noticed
that they met now like long-lost friends. Even Peter looked less sullen, and as
they headed for their next minibus she heard him asking Malcolm about his
books— word had spread quickly, she thought dryly—while Joe Forbes was teasing
Jenny about her hair, which she’d braided into a pigtail. ”Going native, huh?”
he said, pointing to a girl on the street with a similar thick braid down her
back.
    ”I can’t wait to buy a Mao