I kept climbing, trying not to crash around like a wounded animal, always on the lookout for some place to hide myself. At last I came to what I thought was a ridge, and staying down so that I wouldn’t show up against the dark sky, went over the top of it. I fell into a ditch or a small gulch of some kind. Something loomed above me, and I almost screamed. It took me a minute, but I decided what I could see above was the outline of roofs against the dark sky. There was even a very slight glow coming from one of the buildings. It was then I heard a shout from the road below, and the sound of someone coming after me.
I seemed to have found myself in a little town built on the side of a hill. I stumbled up stone steps wondering where I would hide. I tried a door or two that didn’t open, and then found one that did. There were no lights inside. I was in a little courtyard with buildings on three sides. There was a large cart of some kind, loaded with something I couldn’t make out. I heard someone cough nearby.
In my haste I banged against the edge of the cart, and let out an involuntary gasp. I could hear footsteps outsides whose I didn’t know. I tried one of the doors that led onto the courtyard, and it opened. In a second, I was inside. I was in a storage area of some kind, I thought, as I felt around in front of me, one that smelled of cat urine. It certainly wasn’t someone’s living room. There were sacks piled up and I crouched down behind them, only to feel something furry rub against my legs. I stifled a scream. There was a purr. Apparently I’d found the cat. A few minutes later, I could hear what I thought to be someone knocking loudly on doors. Whoever it was came closer. Then I heard steps in the courtyard, and then the ominous sound of a key turning in the lock of the building in which I’d hidden. I was trapped.
Zhang—I knew his voice well now—was in the courtyard a minute or two later. He called out in a loud and quite authoritarian tone, and a woman answered. There ensued a conversation that I could not understand. I held my breath as someone tried the door, rattling the handle. It was locked, as I very well knew. I thought I was doomed. The woman said something, and a few seconds later I heard footsteps moving away from my hiding place. Soon all was quiet.
I stayed there hardly daring to breathe for what seemed to be hours, absolutely petrified. I was cold, hungry, and scared beyond reason. Who had locked me in? Did they know I was there? Were they holding me prisoner for Zhang,-and if so, why hadn’t they just told him where I was? Maybe they had, and he was going for reinforcements. Then there were more footsteps outside my hiding place—or my prison, depending on circumstances I didn’t understand—and I heard a key inserted into the lock. The door opened. A woman spoke. I didn’t have a clue what she said, but I stood up. She couldn’t have been speaking to anyone else, and there seemed no point deluding myself with any pretense that I was safely hidden. My legs were aching from the climb and from having crouched down for so long. She took my hand in the dark and led me across the little courtyard and into another small building. This was the house. There was one lantern casting a pale light.
We looked each other over. I expect she saw a very large white woman with fair hair and pale eyes looming over her. I saw a tiny Chinese woman, someone who worked hard, judging from her worn hands. It was a one-room home, with one bed, on which a small child slept. I assume they slept together. She gave me a cup of tea, and even took me in the dark to the communal bathroom—after I said the word “toilet,” one she understood—a concrete structure with four holes in the ground cantilevered over a cliff. It was breezy, but what did I care? Then she took me back to the storage room, arranged some sacks as a bed and gave me a blanket. As I more or less collapsed on the makeshift bed, she locked me in again. Again I wondered whether I was a prisoner or a guest. At this point, it didn’t matter because I wasn’t going anywhere in the dark.
I didn’t think there was the slightest chance that I’d sleep, but I did. As the palest of light showed through the cracks in the walls of the house, I heard the key turn again, and the woman offered me a bowl of something. She signaled me to follow her, and I did, to a chair in the courtyard.
The home in which I had found myself was very basic. The cart in the courtyard against which I’d managed to bang my knee was loaded down with drying cobs of corn, dark gold against the green paint of the cart. Bunches of long, thin red peppers dangled from the rafters. A cat, perhaps my companion of the previous evening, was curled up beneath the cart.
The bowl contained congee, a soupy rice dish. To the rice were added some spring onions, and something a bit spicy I didn’t recognize. I ate every last bite. I kept saying xiexie, thank you, over and over again. Her child, a shy little boy, kept coming up and staring at me, before giggling and running away.
The woman prattled away to me for a while. I couldn’t understand a word. Finally I just said, and I believe there may have been a catch in my voice, “Zhang Xiaoling.”
The woman spat on the ground. I said it again, and she spat again. She obviously knew who he was, and she didn’t seem to like him.
After breakfast, she offered me a bowl of water to clean up a bit, and picked away at some straw that had attached itself to my jacket. “Lara,” I said, pointing to myself. She reciprocated. I think she said Ting, but I couldn’t be sure.
I pulled out my wallet, took out all the cash, the equivalent of close to two hundred dollars, and said “Beijing.” This elicited a stream of conversation. Ting left the house and came back a few minutes later with another woman, who introduced herself, at least that was what I thought she was doing, as Rong. The two of them talked away, and finally Ting took my watch arm, and pointed to two on my watch. I didn’t know what that meant, but I figured she must have thought that this was relevant in some way. It was now only eight.
I spent the next six hours in a state of barely controlled panic. I kept trying my cell phone, but of course it didn’t work. I was in the hills, and far from Beijing. I was fed regularly, and pots of tea were always available, but I didn’t know what was happening. I also didn’t know if Zhang Xiaoling was going to show up again. Every time I heard footsteps crunch against the stones of the lane, I ducked into the storage area.
Two o’clock came and went, and I was getting really frightened. Then, at about two-thirty, I heard a car horn sound several times. Ting gestured to me to follow her, and we carefully made our way down through the village toward the road. She went ahead at every corner, looking carefully about before signaling me to follow. High above the roadway we stopped, and I looked about me. We were in a narrow pass between two dark hills, their slopes brown with winter, in what looked to be a dead end. If so, this could very well be a trap. I tried not to think that way, to concentrate on what I thought had been some real human connection here.
The town clung to the slopes of both hills, with a road at the bottom between the two. The distance between the two hills at this point was just the width of a two-lane road. The town was spectacular. I think it had to be several hundred years old, Ming in style, with lovely rooflines, all gray stone and brick, with only two flashes of color, the red Chinese flag hanging high over the valley, and a red lantern swinging from a porch. Higher up the hill I could see one whitewashed building that looked like a tiny temple of some sort. I could not understand how a village like this got to be here, wherever here was, or how it had stayed like this for so long. The only modern touch was a truck at the bottom of the hill. Far, far below in another direction, on the main road, a white Lexus, at least what was left of it, sat on the shoulder. It was the car, and not the village, that seemed out of place in this setting. There was no one I could see near it. I was surprised how far I’d managed to climb in the dark.