Once a startled P’an asked:
“But then why do the white men come ride in our uncomfortable rickshaws if everything is so good where they live?”
Chow-Lin laughed:
“White people like money. You have to work for money. White people don’t like to work. They like other people to work for them. Where they live, machines and their own kind, whites, do the work for them. But there’s never enough money for the white people. That’s why they came to China and yoked up all the Chinese to work for them. The Emperor and the Mandarins helped them. That’s why Chinese people live in such poverty, because they have to work for both the Mandarins and the Emperor – and above all, for the white people, who need lots and lots of money, and so there’s nothing left for us.”
So the white people had to be fought? They were invaders, like the old calligrapher had said. But how could you fight them when they had discovered the essence of things, they even had solved the mysterious kua, over which the wise Fu Xi and the enlightened Confucius and one thousand four hundred and fifty commentators, and even the old calligrapher himself, had all wracked their brains? When they had machines for doing everything and machines for killing? How could you fight such people?
Chow-Lin said: For the time being you can’t. You have to learn from them. The Chinese nation is the most populous of all. If it knew how to do everything the white people can, it would be the mightiest nation in the world, and it wouldn’t have to work for the white people. Little P’an’s head spun from such conversations, his pulse hammered in his temples. At night he dreamt of enormous iron cities, gigantic, monstrous machines with gaping steel maws, pouring out torrents of ready-made clothing, hats, umbrellas, rickshaws, houses, streets, cities… and waking up in the middle of the night, P’an had reveries: he’d grow up, get over there – on foot was impossible, let’s say by ship – he’d spy, track down and smuggle out the white people’s secret, bring it back to China, build enormous machines everywhere, and he’d set white people at the machines (Chow-Lin said workers were needed even at the machines), the ones who didn’t like to work, and he’d force them to work day and night, so that the cowed, tired, and starved Chinese could finally rest.
Sometimes he and Chow-Lin would drive to settlements outside of town to drop off crates, and Chow-Lin would laugh and let P’an take the wheel, teaching him how to steer a vehicle. It turned out to be not so hard. One touch of the child’s trembling hands and feet and the truck moved obediently, turned, slowed down or sped up, as if it didn’t notice that it was being driven by little P’an and not Chow-Lin. Its name was incomprehensible: Au To Mo-bil.
Later P’an figured out that this was its last name, not its first. It had many first names. Riding about town, Chow-Lin taught P’an to know the first names of all the vehicles by their markings. These names were peculiar, and he had trouble learning them: Bra-Zye, Pa-Nar, Dai-Mler, Na-Pyer, Re-No.
Once out on the road they passed a polished black car shapely and sleek like a magical palanquin, with curtains in the windows and soft, gray, velvet pillows. It had an even stranger name: Mer Ce-des. Chow-Lin followed it with eyes aglow:
“That kind of machine could take you around the world!”
This stirred P’an’s interest.
“Could you even go to Europe?”
“You could even go to Europe.”
P’an stared with delight. But the vehicle was no longer there. It had disappeared.
In those days, P’an lived mainly on Uncle Chow-Lin’s bananas, though sometimes he managed to earn a few coppers. While wandering about, sometimes a fellow would stop him, and a bargain would be struck: Run a letter to the other side of town and return in a flash with the reply. He was known for his unusually strong and nimble legs (he had obviously inherited them from his father, who had been known as a first-class racer). He would run at a trot through two or three neighborhoods, and then right back! The coins went into his pocket.
That day looked as if it would be much the same. Some fat confectioner had sent him off with a letter to his partner. The reply was worth two coppers and some cake to boot. Off he galloped.
It was far away. Outside of town on a pretty, squeaky-clean road: greenery, blocks of villas in the middle of the foliage like dainty white cubes. He had never seen anything like it. He went bit by bit, forgetting he was in a rush. Then – he stood as if thunderstruck. In front of the closed gate, it stood there black and shining like a marvelous palanquin, softly snoring, the enchanted Mer Ce-des. There could be no doubt, he recognized it straight away. It was standing there alone, softly snorting in the sand. Even the chauffeur had wandered off somewhere. It would just be a matter of jumping in the front seat, stepping on the right pedal and… he’d vanish into thin air! Right, left – the lines of the road branching off like the mysterious kua on the holy tortoise shell. In the distance, over the hills and down the valleys – the gigantic iron city of Eu Ro-pa.
He almost dropped his letter from excitement. He looked around – nobody there. Chow-Lin’s voice rang in his ears.
“That kind of machine could take you around the world!”
He hesitated, a swarm of bees in his head.
No, there was no holding back. He crouched like a cat and then sprang into the front seat with one bound. He feverishly switched on the engine. He jerked the wheel. The automobile began gently rolling. He picked up speed. On either side villas and trees flashed by in a frenzied dance, a fan of pickets unraveled in a whiz. Through the countryside and into infinity ran the long strip of road. People had covered the globe with roads, like a cracked pot wrapped in wire. Farewell Nanjing, prodding elbows, goose eggs, half-chewed bones, evil calligrapher, Yangtze, carrying the holy I Ching on its waves, and Uncle Chow-Lin – Farewell!
Suddenly he went numb. He distinctly felt the weight of a heavy hand on his shoulder. He looked around and was paralyzed. A white, pungent-smelling man with a furious face was crawling through the open partition window from the back seat, trying to get up front. A steel hand grabbed P’an by the collar like a pair of forceps. The car dashed like an arrow, hopping lightly on the bumps. Finally climbing into the passenger seat, the white man grabbed the steering wheel from P’an’s hands and began to brake the automobile.
P’an’s first reaction was to be frightened, and in his sudden terror he let go of the steering wheel. Bit by bit, however, he came to his senses. The white man had clearly been sitting behind those curtains the whole time, perhaps waiting for the chauffeur. It hadn’t even entered P’an’s head to look through the little window! And now all was lost. He would kill him, surely. His one hope was to slip through the man’s fingers and bolt into the bushes.