People were all too close, too cloying, all about him in the eddying corridors, and Snow felt the fresh distress, wanting to stop and rest and knowing there was no possibility of his doing so. He let himself be carried along by the human tide. Once he collided with an unmoving, rocklike knot of people and felt the bible begin to go from his grasp, snatching out to get a fresh grip only seconds before he lost it completely. His breathing worsened: trying to confuse he was becoming confused himself.
The side door was small, quite different from the elaborate main entrance through which he had entered. Snow let himself be washed aside, thrusting gratefully out into the street: despite the overcast oppression it was cooler than inside the building. He wanted to pause, to relieve his breathing, but knew he couldn’t. He drove himself on, glad that this time he didn’t have to wait for a bus: one was pulling in as he reached the stop and he was aboard and moving within minutes. Snow slumped, panting, into a seat. He was soaked in perspiration and people immediately around were looking at him because of the snorting intake of his breathing. Snow put the bible openly on his lap, to free both hands from its wetness and let everything dry. Gradually his breathing quietened. No one had boarded the bus after him: he was absolutely sure of that. So if he had been under surveillance, he’d evaded it. Suddenly – wonderfully – what he’d been told to do didn’t seem inadequate or impossible any more. It was all going to work: make it possible for him to escape. His breathing became more even.
The offices of the Gong An Ju were very different. This was the headquarters of the omnipotent control of the People’s Republic, the all-seeing eyes that saw, the all-hearing ears that heard. There were a lot of people in the outer corridors and vestibules, but none of the hither and thither turmoil of the other place. Snow was uncomfortable here, anxious to get away, but he obeyed the instructions, waiting for a vacant booth and talking generally of taking another country tour, to the north this time, leaving his mission address and his name. Feeling increasingly confident, he allowed himself to stray very slightly from the script, suggesting he return the following day to fill out a proper application form to establish his hopeful itinerary. Automatically responding to the possibility that he would not have to be the one to process the paper work the following day, the clerk instantly agreed.
Almost there, thought Snow, going out once more through a side door and once more being lucky with a bus, which was again in sight as he came to the stop. Two men did get on directly behind him this time but both got off, long before the rail terminus. It was still only twenty to four: more than enough time for everything else he had to do, even taking into account the customary delay at the ticket office.
There was a delay. In front of every window there was a meandering line of patient travellers, almost everyone burdened with enough belongings to start life anew in another part of the country. Snow started, actually emitting a cry of frightened surprise, at the sudden but insistent plucking at his elbow. The money-barterer was gap-toothed and moustached and wore a Western-style suit that didn’t fit. Snow went through the ritual of offer and rejection, concerned how quickly his breath was snatched: it was five minutes before the tout gave up. Something else I’ll never know again, thought Snow. Nor want to. He was getting away: leaving forever. And glad to be going. Whatever worth he’d had here was over.
What explanation was he going to give the Curia, in Rome? Not the complete story, he thought. Just enough. He could talk of having had Zhang Su Lin as a pupil. Which was true. And of his not knowing, for a long time, that the man was a political activist and therefore dangerous. Again true. Zhang’s arrest was public knowledge. Which therefore made it essential he get out, with the emergency permission of Father Robertson, to avoid his becoming innocently involved and risking the very future of any Jesuit mission in Beijing. More than enough, Snow decided: Rome would accept the account and be grateful for his political acumen. And his conscience would be clear: there was no deceit, in anything he was going to say.
He didn’t feel sick any more and his breathing had settled down after the fright of the money-changer. The bible felt solid and comforting in his hand, no longer wet. His confidence, just as solid and comforting, was returning, too. What would he read, when he was hidden away on the Shanghai-bound sleeper? There were several teachings about overcoming evil, in Philippians: one very apposite tract, about wrestling against the rulers of darkness, which he’d surely been doing for the past three years in Beijing. Snow at once curbed the arrogance. Perhaps the Book of Proverbs was more fitting: particularly the warning of pride going before destruction and haughty spirits before a fall. Except that he was not going to destruction. He was going to safety with a man whose planning was working out just as he had promised it would. By this time tomorrow they would be secure in the Philippines: maybe even have moved on. There was no real reason for his going to London: the man had already accepted the end of any relationship. He didn’t know, but it was probably easy to get a flight from Manila to Rome: if not direct, then by changing somewhere en route. He would have to talk about it, on the way to Shanghai. He’d definitely go straight to Rome, if it was possible.
Snow finally reached the window. He hesitated, at whether he wanted a single or return to Nanchang, confronting a question they had not rehearsed. He asked for a return, guessing the clerk would remember him if any enquiry was made because he was a Westerner who had chosen hard-seat travel.
Snow patiently queued to pass through the barrier, unconcerned at the returning shortness of breath. It wasn’t bad, hardly anything, and it was obvious there was going to be something because of the tension of these last few minutes. Literally minutes, he calculated: seven, before the Nanchang train pulled out, twenty-two before the departure of the train he’d really be on, to Shanghai. He filed through, without any interest from the inspectors, on to the common, linking concourse that joined all the tracks at their very top, where the expresses arrived and departed. Everything was exactly as it had been promised at the embassy, with two tracks, both empty, separating the trains. Maybe a hundred yards between them: a simple, unhurried walk. He was anxious now to get to the embassy man: to be hidden away and from then on be told by him what to do and how to do it. He’d done very well by himself, though: gone through it all precisely as he’d been instructed, without any deviation. Apart from the bible. He was glad he’d brought it.
So close to departure, the Nanchang hard-seat carriages were overflowing with people, every available space already occupied. Snow didn’t bother to move from just beyond the door. Four minutes. As a precaution he brought the inhaler to his mouth. Three minutes. The noise of departure grew from outside, on the platform: a public address announcement, difficult to hear, and shouts from railway guards, and steam hissing up from beneath the skirts of the carriage. The whole train jerked forward, as the brakes began to release.
Snow got off. He actually descended on to the platform into the billowing steam, glad of its concealment. No need to hurry: no need at all. Plenty of time. Beside him the train groaned into life, coughing more steam: asthmatic, like he was. Near the concourse now: ten yards, no more. Once he was on the concourse there were just the two intervening tracks to pass. Very close. Practically there. Snow turned on to the concourse.