Mrs. Pollifax on the China Station

near the Drum Tower—but what, she wondered, did
a Chinese barbershop look like?—and there was also a tentative list of the people
who would accompany her, subject to change, Bishop had told her. She eyed these
specula-tively:
     
    Peter Fox/Connecticut
    Malcolm Styles/ New York
    Jennifer A. Lobsen/Indiana
    George Westrum/Texas
     
    Next she carefully read her travel schedule: New
York to San Francisco ; San Francisco to Hong Kong; overnight in Hong Kong with
instructions to meet the rest of the party the next morning in the hotel’s
breakfast room before departure by train for Mainland China . The
itinerary: Canton , Xian, Urumchi, Lanzhou , Inner Mongolia, Datong , Taiyuan , Peking; departure from Peking for Tokyo and thence back to New York , arriving four weeks later.
    While her peppermint tea steeped in its china pot she put the notes
aside and glanced through the photographs in the brochure, fervently wishing
she could pick up the telephone and share her excitement with Cyrus. This was
very selfish of her, she admitted, because she knew that he must have been
bracing himself for just this occasion. How strange it was, she mused, that
Cyrus knew what even her son and her daughter didn’t know: the reasons behind
her small travels, the risks she met, and thinking about this she decided that
in her next letter to him in Zambia she would not mention China at all; instead
she’d write a separate letter that would be waiting for him on his return. This
would spare him at least one or two weeks of worry—and he would worry, she conceded; he
would know at once why she was going, and there was no way to reassure him that
it was a routine assignment. ”Routine?” she could hear him say. ”Went to Zambia on a
routine assignment, didn’t you, Emily? Just to take pictures, stay out of
trouble? All hell broke loose, nearly got killed, both of us, and caught an
assassin. Don’t mention routine to me, m’dear.”
    And of course at the back of her mind, not ready for admittance yet,
lurked an awareness of the tension she had sensed in Bishop. She thought now,
uneasily, He knows much more than
I’ve been told; he really hoped I’d say no.
    Lifting her eyes she glanced around at her safe, familiar apartment—at
the sunlight striping the worn oriental rug, the books lining one wall, the
tubs of geraniums at the window— and she remembered the number of times she’d
left it without knowing what lay ahead of her, or if she would ever see it
again. She said aloud, ”Yet I’m here. Very definitely still here. Somehow.” One
had to have faith, she reminded herself, and on impulse left the brochures and
walked over to her desk and removed from one of its drawers a collection of
envelopes bearing colorful and exotic stamps. Maybe I keep them for just such a moment, she thought, knowing
their contents by heart: a recent letter from her dear friend John Sebastian
Farrell in Africa; a birth announcement from Colin and Sabbahat Ramsey in
Turkey; a holiday message from the King of Zabya with a note from his son
Hafez, and Christmas cards from Robin and Court Bourke-Jones, from the
Trendafilovs, from Magda and Sir Hubert, all of them people she’d met on her
adventures.
    Last of all she drew out a soiled and wrinkled postcard that had reached
her just last year, a card addressed to Mrs. Emily Pollifax, New Brunswick, New
Jersey, the United States of America—no street address, no zip code—so that
only a very enterprising postman had rescued it for her. On one side was the
picture of a castle; on the opposite side the words: You remain here still with me, Amerikanski. I do not forget. Tsanko. 1
    Yes, she thought softly, her life had become
very rich since that day she found it so purposeless that she had tried to give
it away. So many new experiences and so many new friends...
    With a glance at the clock she put away the collection of cards and
letters, and carrying her cup of tea into the bedroom she quickly changed into
slacks and a shirt. An hour later she was in a back room at police
headquarters, wearing her brown karate belt and making obeisances to retired
police lieutenant Lorvale Brown before advanced instructions began. Presently
shouts of hi-yah filled
the air because Lorvale believed in attacking with sudden blood-curdling shouts
as well as a slice of the hand.
    The next day Bishop called and told her to add two more names to the
tour group, that of Iris Damson of Oklahoma, and Joseph P. Forbes