"Wei?"
"Give me Lieutenant Shan."
"Lieutenant Shan! Who’s calling?"
He raised his face and blew a perfect smoke ring, which floated lazily toward the ceiling. "His cousin," he answered, satisfied, for a moment, with his lot in life. "Ningxia Province Party Vice Manager Sun Gong."
Back at the Number One, she stopped at the front desk after dinner. "Phone call to Beijing." She took a form and filled it out.
The fuwuyuan took the slip, bored. "Hao-de, " she said. "Deng yixia. "
On her way back to her room Alice thought through what to say. Mother Meng, I’m sorry for the scene I caused, showing up like that with Jian and his wife there, at your apartment. Next time before I visit you I’ll call first -
The phone in her room was jangling. Next to it she saw the clipping, the yellowed newsprint, the obituary of Lucile Swan. She snatched at the receiver. "Wei!"
"Beijing dianhua!" the operator screamed.
Suddenly there was a male voice on the other end. "Wei! Wei!"
A male voice? But this was Meng Shaowen’s apartment.
"Wei, " she said tentatively, "Duibuqi." Sorry. "I must have punched wrong. I’m seeking the home of Meng Shaowen."
"Who is this?" The voice tensed.
"Jian?" she whispered. Of all the bad luck-
"Mo Ai-li," he said flatly, recognizing her.
"Jian, please. Is she there? I need to talk to her."
"You can’t."
"Please, Jian-"
"Do you understand me or not!" he cried in a swift, miserable spurt. "She’s gone away!"
"What?" Gone away was the Chinese euphemism for dead, but he couldn’t mean she was dead, he couldn’t possibly-
"Ta zou-le, " he repeated, She’s gone away.
"But what are you talking about!" she cried.
"It was her lungs-an embolism, they think. The neighbors took her to the hospital but"-now she heard his voice cracking -"it was too late."
"But I just saw her Saturday! She was fine!"
"It happened that night. Later."
"I don’t believe it!" Behind the words her heart was screaming and thrashing in her chest. "Are you sure?"
"Ai-li," he said softly. "Of course I’m sure."
"But, Jian, it’s impossible."
"Ai-li, please," he said. There was a strained silence, as if he was trying to decide whether to comfort her, which was dangerous, for it might let some of the love back in between them, or whether to cut her off quickly and decisively. "Eh, " he said gruffly. "How do you think I feel? She’s my mother. But now she’s gone. Gone to the Yellow Springs. You’ll see her in another life. Isn’t it so?"
He waited for her to answer but she couldn’t, she could only stand frozen with the tears burning and forcing and finally seeping out of her eyes. She pressed the phone against her forehead. How could he expect her to answer?
"Eh, Mo Ai-li, bie ku," Don’t cry. "I’m sorry if I was rough with you the other day. I never expected to see you here. And my wife-my baby…"
"I know," she gulped through her tears.
"I wish you good luck in your life," he said. "Really." He paused and she didn’t answer. He waited a little more and finally cleared his throat. "Good-bye, Ai-li," he whispered softly, and hung up the phone.
7
"All right," she called through the door. "I’m coming." She splashed a little more cold water on her face, then checked the mirror. Anybody could tell she’d been crying.
"What’s wrong?" Spencer said instantly.
"Nothing."
"Come on. Don’t be so Chinese. Something happen?"
"I just learned a friend in Beijing died."
"Oh." He studied her. "Close friend?"
"Yes."
"Hey. Sorry. Was it sudden?"
"Yes. Well, no. She was old. She had lung problems."
"That’s too bad." His baggy gray eyes were kind. "Still want to go out on our mission this evening?"
"Yes," she said firmly, and wiped her face with the backs of her hands. "Yes. Let’s go."
"Good. That’s what Teilhard would have said, you know. He didn’t let stuff keep him down. Okay. The Dutch missionary, Abel Oort. During the days that Teilhard and Licent stayed with him here in Yinchuan, they posted one letter- luckily." Spencer pulled one of the paperback editions of Teilhard’s letters from his day pack, and opened it to a marked page. "Here. The heading is Gansu Street, Yinchuan." He showed it to her.
"So." She read quickly through the letter’s text; it revealed nothing. "Let’s start there, then. Gansu Street."
They set out in the evening light on Sun Yat-sen Boulevard, alone, their Chinese colleagues busy sorting microliths in the hotel. Through her grief she noticed that the air was soft and warm, that the boulevard was throbbing with carts, crowds, full-laden mules, and camels. Itinerant Mongols lined the sidewalk, their goods spread on hand-loomed wool blankets. Yes, she thought, pausing sadly to stare at knives and inlaid daggers, kitchenware carved from wood, and bundles of camel-hair stuffing for quilts, Mother Meng is gone. But I’m still here, living. They walked alongside the mosque and stared at it, walking past. On its mosaic steps a kneeling tile-setter pounded, his pinging hammer a high-pitched heartbeat over the crowd. Snatches of Mandarin, Mongolian, and other dialects swirled up and were gone.
Gansu Street, which marked the border between the Muslim quarter and the old Chinese neighborhood, was only partially cobbled now; it had probably been nothing but a dirt lane when Teilhard came here in 1923. Yet almost at its end the two Americans came upon a weathered stone building, sagging in disrepair, that had the triple-arched doorways and the soaring facade of a Western-style church. To one side of the entrance, there was a small metal plaque. HAPPY FORTUNE CONSULTING SERVICES.
"Welcome to the new China," Alice said. Something like a smile stretched her mouth, piercing her pain for a moment.
Spencer knocked, then pushed the handle. It was unlocked. Inside they stepped through the darkened, gritty-floored nave and into the church itself, with high vaulted ceilings where sparrows beat at the air. No pews. No altar. Empty.
"Wonder where Happy Fortune Consulting Services is?" Her voice bounced unpleasantly around the hall.
They stepped back into the nave and ventured up a narrow stone stairway. At the top there was a small office, its desk cluttered with papers as well as a modern phone and fax machine.
"We strike out again." Spencer stared at the empty chair.
Alice leaned over the pile of faxes. "Looks like his name is Guo Wenxiang. I’ll leave a note." She picked up a pen and paper and sketched out the quick characters:
Esteemed Mr. Guo-
I am an American named Mo Ai-li, visiting at the Number One Guesthouse. I want to ask you a few questions on behalf of my employer. Thank you for contacting me there in Room 542.
Outside the church, Yinchuan was just slipping into the day’s last mysterious margin of light. Alice and Spencer fell into the moving crowd and walked on.
Lin Shiyang left the hotel, having been vague about his errand to Kong Zhen. He murmured a few words about something he needed, something at the light industrial store-one of the small requirements of travel. Kong had nodded absently, immersed in his fine pebbly mountain of artifacts.
"I’ll see you later, then," Lin told him, and left.
From the Number One he walked quickly east, toward the drum tower, along one of the main arteries of the old town. Behind the gray blocks of commercial-looking buildings life descended abruptly into narrow streets lined with close-fitted apartment houses and small, back-street establishments like market stalls, barbershops, cafés. Into one of these, a corner ground-floor room in a nondescript structure, Lin stepped.