Mrs. Pollifax on the China Station

vestiges of folly and violence?
    On the drive back to Xian she began to feel oppressively hungry. Miss
Bai was explaining to Peter and Jenny the government’s current Five
Stresses—civilization, morality, order, cleanliness, and manners, and the Four
Beautifications—of thought, language, heart, and environment—and Mrs. Pollifax
was ashamed of herself for yawning. ”Why do I get hungry so early?” she
complained to Joe Forbes, sitting next to her.
    ”Peanuts for breakfast?” he quipped amiably.
    ”But I also had a hard-boiled egg,” she protested.
    Malcolm called across the aisle, ”I’d say it’s the chopsticks. You may think you eat a lot—”
    Iris turned around in the seat ahead and said, ”But she’s the most
expert of us all, haven’t you noticed?” She beamed at Mrs. Pollifax. ”Wasn’t
Ban Po Village tremendous? I hope I didn’t monopolize the guide, but
honestly—eight thousand years! I mean the Qin Shi Huang Tombs we see tomorrow
are only 210 b.c.”
    ”Practically contemporary,” put in Malcolm mischievously. ”Possibly it’s
culture that’s giving us an appetite?”
    But Mrs. Pollifax’s eyes were on George Westrum who was seated next to
Iris, and who had turned now to give Iris a glance that startled Mrs. Pollifax.
She thought: George is on his way to adoring this woman ... It was a
peculiar word to choose but it was the word that had slid into her head: adoration, she mused. Devotion. Worship.
    The alliances that were beginning to form had already begun to interest
her. The infants, for instance—as Malcolm continued to call Peter and Jenny—had
at once formed a twosome. Iris talked to everyone, but Mrs. Pollifax noticed
how often George Westrum managed to sit next to her, his face inscrutable, his eyes
watching every play of expression across her vivid face. When Malcolm joined
them George’s eyes shifted to Malcolm’s face, again without expression. Iris
appeared to regard Malcolm with some caution and blushed a great deal, but Mrs.
Pollifax wasn’t sure whether it was his charm or his book writing that dazzled
her.
    As for Joe Forbes, Mrs. Pollifax admitted that she’d not yet fathomed
him at all. He was always with them—smiling and amiable—and often contributing
a brief comment or wisecrack, but he was oddly not there somehow. She
wondered if anyone else had noticed this. Not consciously, she decided, but his
personality had so little impact that once or twice she’d caught someone
adding, ”Oh yes, and Joe too.”
    She wondered if this meant that he was the agent who would eventually
approach her after her attempt this afternoon at the Drum Tower .
Her knowledge of professional agents was limited and theatrical, but she had
heard that certain full-time agents took great pains to rub out their
personalities and achieve anonymity; perhaps this became habitual, and the loss
of personality irreversible. Except, of course, for John Sebastian Farrell, she thought with a smile, who only heaped new layers of personality on his
own to gloriously and cheekily distract.
    She was still smiling, still thinking of Farrell, when they drew up to
the department store in Xian.
    ”A real department store?” asked Jenny skeptically.
    Mr. Li assured her that yes this was a real one, where the Chinese
people shopped. ”But they will also take your tourist scrip here, and you have
forty minutes to look.”
    ”Forty minutes!” wailed Jenny. ”To find a Mao cap and jacket? Peter
wants to buy them, too. Oh yes, and Joe,” she added.
    ”Miss Bai—?”
    Miss Bai nodded. ”I’ll go with them.”
    ”Anyone else?”
    No one else had any pressing needs. They entered the store together to
immediately veer off in different directions. The first floor was
high-ceilinged and large and struck Mrs. Pollifax as curiously empty, which was
puzzling to her because throngs of people lined the counters. She realized she
was associating it with American department stores, which were all color,
movement, and glamorous displays, and at once felt penitent. Turning right she
began a tour of the broad and dusty aisles, hungering for color to relieve the
dull greens and grays and blues, and was suddenly brought to a standstill by a
wall that blazed with color.
    ”Books,” she whispered in delight: books placed side by side against the
wall so that their jackets bloomed like flowers. She moved toward them, and the
people crowding around the counter made room for her. ”Xiexie,” she