Mrs. Pollifax on the China Station

go around being so quixotic in the
future.”
    Mrs. Pollifax beamed at him appreciatively. ”Malcolm, you’re wonderful,”
she told him. ”I’m truly happy to have met you and I feel that I shall forever
love your talking mice. You and Iris are a marvelously improbable combination,
but now that I think of it terribly right. You wouldn’t insist she stop
falling over chairs or that she cut her hair?”
    He smiled. ”What, and lose that awkward flash of hands every few
minutes? Not on your life.”
    ”When did you decide all this?” she asked.
    ”Well, there’s that psychic bit,” he explained. ”I had a nearly
overwhelming reaction to her when I first saw her, which—as you may
remember—was as she popped out from under a table in Hong Kong. I felt as if
I’d been hit over the head, frankly. It took some time to understand what had
happened, but there it was.... In any case I found her so funny, earnest, and
unique that it scarcely needed any help from the psyche, although it’s been
very pleasant knowing all this time —really knowing —that she wasn’t
going to marry George, no matter how ardent he proved to be.”
    ”But what about Iris and Peter?” she suggested mischievously.
    He laughed and steered her to the left, down a slope toward a more
intricate arrangement of walls. ”Surely you know that was a lot of
hogwash.”
    ”George didn’t,” she reminded him.
    ”Well, George is a nerd, of course. He has excellent taste in women, but
obviously he goes after form rather than content or he’d never have believed
Iris for an instant. He has a small mind.”
    ”Have you mentioned any of this to Iris?” she inquired.
    ”Good Lord no,” he said, looking appalled. ”Not being psychic she
couldn’t possibly know what I do. On the other hand,” he added with a chuckle,
”we have avoided each other assiduously for a week—suspiciously so—and I do
hope I don’t sound macho if I say there has been an intense awareness between
us.”
    ”I have been—not unaware,” she told him, remembering the electricity
she’d felt between them in Xian, at the tombs. ”You’re being very tactful,
then.”
    ”Oh no, just giving her time,” he said, and suddenly stopped.
    ”What is it?” asked Mrs. Pollifax, alarmed by the look on his face.
    He had become immobile, his head turned as if to listen to something she
couldn’t hear. He said, ”I heard—thought I heard—”
    She said sharply, ”Malcolm, are you all right?”
    ”Yes,” he said. ”Yes, yes—let’s keep walking.”
    ”What did you hear?”
    He shook his head. His face had paled, he looked strained, but seeing
her concern he managed a smile. ”I’m fine, honestly. No problem.”
    Mrs. Pollifax was already fumbling in her purse for the smelling salts
she carried with her. ”No problem except that frankly you look awful. Here.”
She held out the small vial to him.
    He grasped both her arms and the smelling salts and propelled her into
an open space. ”Look at all the shards lying around,” he pointed out. ”An
archaeologist’s delight.”
    ”And note the signs in English suggesting no one remove any. Malcolm,
what’s wrong?”
    He placed both hands over his ears. ”I’m trying, I’m trying, except that
covering my ears doesn’t help, I can still hear them.” He reached for her
smelling salts and unscrewed the cap. ”This won’t help either,” he said
fiercely. ”I still hear them. Voices wailing in despair, the same lamentations
I felt— heard—at Auschwitz , except here there
are no screams, just unbearable despair. Something very sad happened here,” he
said, looking around them at the sun-baked empty mesa.
    ”I wonder what,” she said, her gaze following his, believing him,
believing that what he heard was something lingering here from the past.
    ”Not violence—that’s the strange thing,” he said. ”Just weeping and
wailing, lamentations, and a terrible sadness.”
    ”Malcolm let’s get out of here,” she told him. ”You do look horrid, you
know.”
    Peter, following down the path and coming upon them said, ”What is it,
something wrong?”
    ”Malcolm.”
    Peter stared. ”My God he looks absolutely wiped out.”
    They helped him to his feet and slowly retraced their route back to the
bus. As soon as they left the walls behind them Malcolm straightened and lifted
his head, the color returning to his face. ”It’s okay, I feel better now,” he
told them both.
    ”The heat,” Peter