Mrs. Pollifax on the China Station

it really does.”
    She conveniently ignored this. ”In the mountains you’ll need help with
X, who may not have your stamina. Sheng could turn out to be valuable to you,
and how can he ‘blow it,’ as you say, if he’s with you all the time? Frankly I
feel he’d be extremely reliable if it helps him to get out of the country.”
    Sheng was looking at her intently,- she could feel his tension as he
comprehended what she was saying; she could hear the quickening of his
breathing, as if he waited with an incredulous hope.
    ”You’d trust him?” Peter said.
    ”Yes,” she said simply.
    Sheng sat very still; it was as if he’d not heard her but very slowly
she saw his shoulders straighten, and when he lifted his head it was to say
with dignity, as one equal to another, ”Xiexie. Thank you.” And then to
Peter, ”You sell me papers? I may go?”
    Peter was silent and then he nodded. ”Okay. But I give you papers, not
sell them, and you go with me. To the south and over the high mountains.” He
translated this into Chinese.
    When Sheng understood what Peter was saying he visibly trembled with
emotion. Impulsively Mrs. Pollifax reached out and touched his hand and saw the
gleam of a smile: it was the first time she’d seen him smile, and it was a
smile of incredulous joy. He said fervently, ”I will not fail you, I can die
for this.”
    ”It will be very hard going,” Peter reminded him.
    She said gently, ”Peter—”
    ”Yes?”
    ”He knows what hardship is. He can somehow make his way to Urumchi,
can’t he? Give him papers and money and have him meet you somewhere near the
hotel there.”
    ”Yes,” Peter said dazedly. ”You don’t think he’ll—?”
    ”It’s a good way to find out, isn’t it?” She stood up. ”Peter, I want to
go back now, I feel very uneasy about our being followed. I want to think—to
see—to check—”
    He looked startled. ”Oh—yes, of course,” he said, and then, ”I ought to
be thinking about that, too.”
    Very tactfully she said, ”I’ll think about it now, you can think about
it later.” It had needed all of her will power to concentrate on Sheng Ti and
his situation when instead she had wanted to cry out to Peter, If what I
think is true then someone in our tour group is here to find Wang, too. They’ve
known who you are from the beginning and they’ve searched suitcases until they
identified me as your cover because they knew just what to look for and they
found it in mine: that preposterous hoard of dried foods and vitamins. Peter,
don’t you see what this means?
    In silence Peter and Sheng escorted her back to the compound and around
the wall to the corner where they had scaled it earlier; she was boosted over
it to creep stealthily to her window, where she removed the screen and climbed
back into her room, securing the window behind her. For a moment she stood in
the darkness, her mind checking and rechecking the thoughts that had dazed her
during the last forty-five minutes, but her conclusion remained the same:
someone in their tour group could be working for the Russians, and she and
Peter could be in grave danger.
    Hearing a faint sound beyond her door she tiptoed across the room and
quietly opened it just in time to see a shadowy figure pause by the door next
to hers, open it, enter and close it softly.
    But that was Iris’ room, she remembered, and she thought, ”Iris?” and
then in astonishment, ”Iris!”
    By the luminous dial on her bedside clock it was half-past one in the
morning but Mrs. Pollifax did not feel like sleeping. She sat in the darkness
for a long time, not enjoying her thoughts or speculations at all.

Chapter Twelve
     
    M rs. Pollifax awoke with a
start to discover that both heat and daylight had arrived and that she had
fallen asleep across her bed, still in the costume of the previous night. The
huge electric fan was wheezing from exhaustion. Walking into the bathroom to wash
her face she was confronted by a mirror over the washbasin that reflected a
strange slant-eyed woman,- she hastily disengaged the tape hidden under her
hair and watched Emily Pollifax emerge again. The sense of pending heat was
oppressive; she felt vaguely worried still, and jaded from those worries; she
had not slept well. She stood on the slatted shower platform while a thin
stream of lukewarm water poured over her, and she wondered what Cyrus was doing
now. At this exact moment. He seemed very far away.
    Having dressed in her thinnest and