"Cigarette?" the Leader asked. He held out a pack of the smelly local brand.
"Uh"-Spencer drew back-"no thanks."
The pack went around the table. Kuyuk and Kong helped themselves. The woman Ssanang declined. Alice stole a glance at Lin. No. He didn’t take one.
The Leader leaned to Kuyuk, accepted a light. All around, the Leader’s men took out smokes and lit up. The discreet fffft of matches, the pull of indrawn breath circled them, then the cigarette smell rolled overhead.
"Now," said the Leader, exhaling a pale cloud, "you say we must think like the Frenchman. First?"
"First"-Spencer grinned-"he loved it here-the countryside, the Helan Shan. Okay. I figure to Teilhard, the Helan Shan might have been a perfect place. It was a landmark, a mountain range. It had unique rock art, a motif that was found no place else in the world. Something to guide scientists to the spot later. But more! He sensed beauty here. I mean divine beauty. He said in his letters that here he felt close to God."
The Leader listened closely to her translation, approval replacing the neutral glaze on his face. "It’s so! Any man with a heart would feel that in the Helan Shan!"
"Yet it was remote," Spencer pointed out. "He could hide something and know it would never be disturbed. There’d be a marker-the petroglyph. And a dry, favorable climate.
"Other types of terrain around this village, I think Teilhard would have passed over. He wouldn’t have hidden anything in the desert floor, for instance. The sand shifts too much. He might never find it again. And the alluvial fans are no good either-flash flooding. So if he got Peking Man back, if in fact he came out here with it in 1945-I say he took it up to the mountains. Near some rock art." Spencer sat back.
"Interesting." The Leader stubbed out his cigarette. The doors flung open at the end of the room and three garishly made-up Mongol girls twirled in with platters above their heads. With a flourish they set down steaming platters of sculpture: sautéed eggplant and hair vegetable, arranged in small mountains and canyons to look like the desert’s wide open spaces, with a Great Wall of crenelated Spam down the middle of each plate. "Please," said the Leader happily, and he helped himself.
Alice stared. So different from Chinese manners! In China the host would serve others first, would not eat until the guests began. She bit into the eggplant; it was simple, but fresh and perfectly cooked. The Spam she pushed discreetly to the side. This was just the first course, she knew. She loved banquets. They always included a stupefying parade of food, endless dishes, five times as much as anyone could eat. In America, where food was plentiful, such a display would be impolite. In Asia it was de rigueur. She ate happily.
"To your visit," the Leader cried, and raised his tiny cup.
They all drank. She had to hold in a yell, the alcohol was so strong. It burned all the way to her stomach.
"That’s some moonshine," Spencer sputtered. "So." He wiped his mouth. "What do you think about my idea?"
"Most interesting." The Leader reached into his shirt and withdrew an envelope.
"What’s that?"
"Please have a look." He handed it over.
Spencer opened it and gently extracted a frayed, folded paper. Then he almost tipped over his chair.
Alice craned over. Teilhard’s signature! She could not really read French, or speak it, Je sais me faire comprendre, c ’est tout, she would answer when someone asked her, but this was clearly a note of thanks. She swallowed. Even with her patched-together French she could see the phrasing was not current, but reflected the flowery style of a bygone time.
"See the date," Spencer breathed.
She swallowed, nodded. May 1945.
"This is the man, then?" The Leader made a small gesture to the men by the walls, and one sprang up and refilled their wine cups.
"Jesus-yes-it’s him!" Spencer thrust the note over to Kong and Lin. They erupted into Chinese.
Spencer pressed open his notebook and wrote excitedly, then leaned forward. "Where’d you get this?"
"From my father."
"You mean-"
"Your Frenchman came here in 1945. He saw my father, stayed for many days. He talked of his love for this Banner. Do you know its name? Alashan. And it was as you said. The priest told my father he had been happier here in Alashan than anywhere on earth."
Spencer, Lin, Kong, and Alice exchanged glances.
"But so sorry, according to my father he said nothing about any fossils. The subject of Peking Man was never raised. In fact, my father said the visit lacked any obvious purpose."
"Yet that could be consistent," Kong said slowly.
They all stared at him.
Kong puffed on his cigarette. "Suppose the Frenchman did bring the Peking Man bones? Would he take the Leader into his confidence? Maybe not. It might have seemed too risky."
The three girls swept back into the room with the main courses: shredded lamb with chili peppers; deep-fried carp, hauled overland from the Yellow River; creamy scrambled eggs, and high piles of tomato and eggplant stir-fry, all with huge tureens of white rice.
"Still," said Alice, "he would tell someone where he put it -wouldn’t he? Someone?" She translated her words into English for Spencer.
"True," Lin put in. "He was growing old. He wouldn’t have wanted the secret to die with him."
Ssanang, the Leader’s daughter, cleared her throat and spoke for the first time. "I agree." Her gaze was direct and candid. It affected none of the womanish retreat a Chinese woman would use. "Perhaps there is someone here the French priest contacted-someone with whom he cleared his heart."
"The Mongol family," Lin said.
"Shenmo?" Ssanang asked.
"Shuode shi di yici lai, " I’m talking about the first time he came here. And Lin explained how Teilhard had come to Shuidonggou in 1923 and befriended the family of Mongols there. "We did find their homestead," he concluded sadly. "But it was long abandoned."
"Of that family, from Shuidonggou, we would know nothing," the Leader apologized. "It is out of our Banner. You should seek the help of someone on that side of the border."
"We have," Alice told him. She thought about Guo Wenxiang. Would he yet learn anything? Would he even be able to get in touch with them up here?
Food was served around, and in the silence of their temporary impasse they fell to eating. "Is your father still living, then?" Spencer asked the Leader.
"Yes."
Everyone felt the sudden increase in voltage. "Can we meet with him?"
"Oh, no, the Leader doesn’t see anyone anymore, especially outsiders. He spends his time in contemplation."
"I thought you were the Leader…" Spencer glanced around the table, confused.
The man shook his head. "No. His son. But I attend to all the Banner’s affairs. And I assure you, he has told Ssanang and me everything. He remembers these events with great clarity." He snapped his fingers for more wine, which was instantly poured by one of his men.
Dr. Lin stood. "Health, long life." They all drained their cups.
Alice put her empty cup down with exaggerated slowness, afraid she would somehow miss the table and send the tiny thing crashing to the floor. Her mind was a whirl. There. The cup met the tablecloth with a hard bump. God, the stuff was strong. She looked at her plate. Had she eaten all that?
"Will you have more?" Kuyuk asked, following her gaze and reaching for the nearest platter, which still held a gelatinous mass of hair vegetable and green, glisteny peppers.
"No," she said, feeling the word come out of her throat like a bubble and float to the top of her head. "No-I couldn’t possibly-"
"The lamb, then!" the Leader cried. "Bring the lamb!"