Mrs. Pollifax on the China Station

said
quietly taking her place.
    But she was a foreigner, after all, and the clerk hurried to her,
smiling. Mrs. Pollifax thought, I’ll buy one, I’ll buy a book as my souvenir
here. She pointed to a paperback with a jacket design that stood out from
the others because it did not have an illustration of a soldier, or a girl and
a boy. ”That one,” she said, drawn by its black and white lines splashed with
abstract yellows and scarlets.
    The girl’s hands hovered, then dropped. She picked out a cream-colored
book next to Mrs. Pollifax’s choice and placed it in her hands.
    ”No,” said Mrs. Pollifax politely. ”No, not this one.” She shook her
head and then glanced down at the book and opened it to see what it was. She
found maps inside: it was a pursesized atlas of China , the cities and towns marked
in Chinese with not a single English word to be seen, and therefore
incomprehensible and useless to her. On the other hand, she mused, it could
make a lovely souvenir for her grandson, who would be pleased and amused by it.
”I’ll take it,” she said, nodding, ”but I’d also like—” and she pointed again
to the charming cover that had originally caught her eye. Several more books
were picked up and put down before the one she wanted was achieved. It turned
out to be a recipe book, also in Chinese, but with lavish color photos at the
back.
    ”I’ll take both,” she said, holding up two fingers and smiling. Reaching
for her purse the crowd drew closer while she and the salesgirl sorted through
her Chinese currency for the yuan that would purchase one recipe book
and one book of maps.
    And then—suddenly jarred—she thought, ”Maps?”
    Maps, she repeated, the word tugging at her mind, and she picked up the
atlas and looked again at its competently waterproof cream jacket. This time
she opened it more thoughtfully. On page one she found a map of the entire
country, with each province in a different color. She could recognize the
Xinjiang Autonomous Region because of its size—enormous—and its location in the
northwest corner. After studying the shape of it she turned the pages until she
found the identical shape on page thirty-eight.
    Which means, she thought in amazement, that I’m actually
staring at a map of Xinjiang Province with all its roads laid out in front of
me and marked, and all its towns and villages identified, even if their names
are written in Chinese, which I can’t read.
    But Guo Musu—if she found him—could read them.
    And standing there in the middle of China, in a department store in
Shaanxi Province surrounded by eavesdroppers and interested spectators, Mrs.
Pollifax began to laugh. Her laugh began as a chuckle that traveled up from her
toes and emerged as a luxurious, Cheshire-cat smile that lighted up her face.
    Her miracle had just happened.
    ”I’ll buy two of these,” she told the clerk, holding up the atlas, and
reached into her purse for another yuan.
    To the others, back in the bus, she showed only her recipe book. Peter,
Jenny, and Joe Forbes were happily wearing their new Mao caps and jackets
(”show and tell time,” laughed Jenny); Iris had bought a bright enameled mug,
Malcolm an ink stick, and George a handkerchief with Xian printed on it.
    ”A taste of the consumer life,” commented Malcolm dryly, ”to keep us
from suffering withdrawal pangs.”
    They lunched. They visited a cloisonne factory where they had a long
tea-and-briefing, due mainly to Iris asking far too many questions about
workers’ hours and wages,- they were led through dark and dusty halls to watch
cloisonne jewelry intricately crafted, and then to a Friendship Store for
purchases. They visited the Bell Tower , and the Wild Goose
Pagoda, except that by midafternoon it was so hot that only Jenny and Peter
climbed the eight stories to its peak.
    And then in late afternoon they came to the Drum Tower ,
and Mrs. Pollifax’s moment of truth had arrived.

Chapter Six
     
    M rs. Pollifax descended last of all from the minibus, trying not to
remember that she’d flown halfway around the world for this moment. She found
that her heart was beating much too quickly, and she forced herself to close
her eyes and remind herself that que sera sera, and that, after all, a
thousand years from now—Following these incantations she opened her eyes and
looked around her. They were parked in a dusty narrow alley, surrounded by
earthen walls. Off to her left she saw the high, lacquer-tiled roofs