Lost in Translation

3

They had been walking for more than an hour up Wangfujing through the crush of Chinese that spilled over the sidewalk and crowded into the street itself, leaving barely enough room for the trucks and cars and bicycles and buses to force their way through. Still the man was following them. Spencer aimed a quick look over his shoulder, keeping full stride. "He’s there, all right."

"I don’t know if we can lose him this time." Damn, she thought. They’re paying too much attention to us, and for what? Because this American is looking for some bones that have been missing for fifty-odd years? "We’re supposed to meet Mr. Zhang at the Jesuit House at seven." She checked her watch. "There’s not time for a detour."

"Screw it, then, let the guy follow us. I don’t care."

"Yes, but I care," she said, controlling her impatience. "And Mr. Zhang will care. Believe me."

"Why?" He took one of his hands from its habitual resting place in his pocket and put it to his head, pushing back his sparse hair.

"Arrest, interrogation, the threat of losing his housing registration-any of those ring a bell? And there’s the whole prison camp system too. Don’t forget."

"Prison camps? Come on. Isn’t the Cultural Revolution over?"

"Don’t kid yourself. The government hasn’t changed that much."

"You’re actually saying Mr. Zhang could be arrested, for talking to us?"

"I’m saying you never know, here."

"My God." He stared at her. "Well. We shouldn’t put Mr. Zhang at risk. That wouldn’t be right."

"And what about me?" She stopped dead on the sidewalk and challenged him with her eyes. "I don’t want to have to leave China. I told you that before! This is my home." China, home: it was at least one thing about herself, one thing she was willing to say, which was profoundly true.

"But why would you have to leave China?" His voice grew still with bewilderment. "We haven’t done anything wrong. And we won’t either."

She sighed. "I know-"

"Alice," Spencer interjected. "Look! He’s leaving."

She craned over the crowd and saw the man talking on a cell phone; then, snapping it shut, he turned and evaporated into the crowd.

"I’ll be damned." Dr. Spencer chewed his lip.

She turned back to him. "Look, Adam. I’m having second thoughts about all this. There are people following us, you haven’t got the money to pay me-"

"I’ll get the money, don’t worry about that. As far as their following us-I don’t know what that’s all about. But I know one thing. You’ve been stuck doing basically the same thing for a long time. Right? And this is the most interesting job you’ve had in years. Right?"

"Well…" She had to agree. "Right."

"So this is one of those times when life is just handing you something, telling you what to do, which way to go. So enjoy it. It’ll be fun. I guarantee. I can’t guarantee we’ll find the goddamn thing, but it’ll be interesting. Then if we do find it- if we do-the payoff’s huge."

"Huge how? What?"

"Attention galore. A moment on the world stage."

She considered. "Is that why you want it?"

His face changed. "No. Not really. It’s more for myself, my son-my dreams, you know. I’m forty-eight, I’ve been teaching for a long time. I need a second wind."

"And finding Peking Man will give you that?"

"God, yes," he said. "It’ll change my life."

She shrugged, knowing all too well how easy it was to long for a different life, how hard it was to find one’s way there.

"But, Alice…" He frowned. "We don’t even have permits. Is there any chance we won’t get permits?"

"Of course there’s a chance."

"How much?"

"I don’t know. I get the feeling what we’re asking for is not easy for the vice director to give. Couldn’t you see it in his composure, the way he sat? I don’t know why. Sure, it’s a closed area we want to go to, but China is full of closed areas and foreigners can usually apply to visit them when important research is involved."

"Should we"-he searched his mind-"should we bribe him?"

"Not openly, never, oh no. Most un-Chinese. But if things look like they’re not going well, a gift could be considered."

"How do we assess that?"

"We don’t. We wait. He’ll make a move. When he does we think as the Chinese think, and make the correct move in response." She studied Spencer. Was the correct move for her this job, with this pudgy-faced, aging blond American? She didn’t know yet. But she did know he was right-she was in a rut. And the project was interesting. They turned onto Ladder Lane. Tizi Hutong. "Ah, look," she said. "Mr. Zhang."

The old man came toward them, shaking his own hands in the old way. "Welcome you to see where the French priest lived. Regrettably my friend had to leave, but he left the gate open for us."

They stepped over the raised sill and into a quiet courtyard framed by curving tile roofs and a square of inward-facing, half-glassed rooms. "The old Chinese name for such a house is si-he yuan," Alice explained to Spencer. "That means ’four-box courtyard.’ A si-he yuan gave people privacy and a sense of their own inner world. In old China-"

"I don’t really care about old China," Adam said. "Where was Teilhard’s room?"

Alice bit back her words. He was desperate to find his one precious relic of ancient man, yet seemed indifferent to the recent past. It was a pity. Here on the back streets of Beijing the past was never far away. Close your eyes and you could just see the long-gowned gentlemen browsing bookstalls; the hawkers crying out in slushy Pekingese the names of their medicines and toys and candied crab-apples and roasted ears of corn; the ricksha pullers jockeying for position in the mud ruts, close up to the streaming, jostling pedestrians; and all around them silk banners snapping in the wind from gateposts, declaiming family news of weddings, the new year, births and funerals. She turned to Mr. Zhang. "Do you know which room the priest occupied?"

"Yes. In the back court. Follow me."

As they walked, his old steps shuffling quietly beside her, he asked, "Have you read the priest’s books?"

"Yes, elder brother. But many years have flown and I am just starting to read them again. I find his idea of the spiral of growth-that total forward movement-so interesting now. Somehow, when I was a student, it didn’t ring deeply to me. Now it does."

"Ke bu shi ma, " he agreed. "I, too, have sometimes gained hope for the future from his essays." He paused, perhaps wondering whether to say more. "Sometimes in the bad years I would come here to this house and stand in the priest’s room. Do you know why I did this? Because here he formulated his ideas. Here he wrote at night-while by day he sifted the dirt at Zhoukoudian. Eh, foreign miss, you cannot imagine the excitement in those days at Zhoukoudian. After the ape-man was discovered."

"I think I can," she said in a low voice, glancing over at Adam Spencer, who walked beside her, his eyes round and wide with anticipation, his hands clutching his book and pen. "Here," she told Adam when the old man stopped and pointed to a half-open door. "Teilhard’s room."

She stood back and let Spencer push his way inside. He flipped on a dim yellow bulb. "There’s nothing here," he said, voice strangled with disappointment.

The room was bare. No furniture, no cupboards, nothing.

"It was an office for thirty or forty years after the Jesuits left," Mr. Zhang explained. "Since then it has not been used."

"Did Teilhard leave anything?" Spencer asked. "Papers, books?"

Alice translated and Mr. Zhang shook his head. "Nothing. But I tell you, if you stand just so"-he turned his frail, graceful body toward the windows-"you can still sense the essence of the man! Go on," he urged Alice. "Translate. Tell the foreign scientist to try."

Alice looked dubiously at Adam Spencer, who was pacing the room like a frustrated animal, holding his notebook, scanning the bare walls continuously as if they might suddenly yield something if he looked at them long enough.

"Sorry, Mr. Zhang. I don’t think the American scientist is interested in Teilhard’s essence. You’re sure there are no records, pictures, anything?"

"None."

"Nothing remains," she translated for Spencer, inside thinking: But everything is here, isn’t it? Because this is where his vision was born. Dimly she knew there was something important in all this for her. "Sorry, Adam," she said.

"It’s okay," he sighed. "Let’s go."

Adam Spencer lay on his bed, studying the direct-dial instruction card, in eight languages, which had been placed on his nightstand. Outside line, international operator, country code… His eyes moved down to the rate listing and he swallowed uncomfortably. Expensive.

But he had to call. His longing for his son had grown so overwhelming that it seemed, these last few days, he was almost choking on it. It was a longing fraught with dread and apprehension, one that had started the day he and Ellen had told Tyler they were separating. He still remembered the child’s frozen, color-drained face, looking up from his handheld electronic game. And then the long horrible moment in which Tyler, his heart split apart, did not know whose arms to rush into. Adam and Ellen swore they wouldn’t make the boy choose between them. But they had, almost immediately, because she moved back to California. And Tyler had gone with her.

Adam swallowed hard, picked up the phone, and jabbed out the code for collect, then pressed a 510 area code, the San Francisco area, the East Bay. He listened to it ring.

Ellen answered, and the operator asked her in sawing Asian English if she would accept charges. She paused-and then she agreed. "Adam, my God, did you have to call collect?"

"Yes." He swallowed. "Sorry. I’ll pay you back when I get home. Is Tyler there?" He rushed on, wanting to avoid her.

"Yes. Wait-" She covered the phone, muffled talking.

His precious boy came on. "Hi, Dad."

Adam’s chest soared. He felt himself smiling. "Hi, guy."

"Where are you?"

"China."

"Weird."

"How’s school?" Adam said.

"Fine."

"What’d you do today?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing?"

"I forget."

"Hmm. Tyler, guess what? Daddy’s going to find these bones of an ancient hominid, ancestor of man, you know? They used to be in sort of a museum but they’ve been missing for a long time."

"Missing? Did somebody take them?"

"Yeah. But Daddy’s going to find them. You’ll see. It’ll-"

"Dad? Sorry. I have to go. Mom says homework."

Adam opened his mouth to protest but there was nothing he could say. After all, he’d called collect. "I love you, Tyler," he got out, the words like cotton in his mouth.

"I love you too."

There was the far-off click, the deadening of the sound, and then his son was gone. Gone, gone. Adam held the receiver in front of him, looking at it, the heat pressing behind his eyes, and then put it back on its cradle.

"We’re in luck," Alice told him in the lobby after breakfast. "While we were eating Vice Director Han called. He left word that he’d call back at two this afternoon. I told you he’d make a move."

"Great. So we’ll be here waiting at two."

"What about the money? Have you heard anything?"

His hands shoved into his pockets. "No. But don’t worry. This grant is a sure thing. According to my grandfather, Teilhard was clearly negotiating to get Peking Man back. No doubt. Plus, I have an in. Two guys I went to graduate school with are on the NSF Review Committee."

"And they have influence?"

"Influence! One of them chairs the committee. He’s in the National Academy of Sciences-teaches at Princeton. The other one teaches at Berkeley. He happens to be head of the Leakey Foundation Review Board. They both publish constantly, give papers at all the international conferences-you know."

"And these are guys you went to graduate school with?"

He heard the dubious note in her voice and colored ever so slightly. "Right. We all got our Ph.D.’s at Columbia together. Look, Alice, they chose big-time academia. I chose-"

"The University of Nevada at Reno."

"-No, the desert. I went to UNR because it’s smack in the middle of the Great Basin, the American outback, the place where everything-the wind, the rocks, and the sand-makes me feel alive." But not complete. He hadn’t felt complete, even there, until he had Tyler. And now Tyler had been all but taken away from him. He fought down the familiar panic-his boy, growing older day by day, far away. At least he still had the desert. "I love it there. Can you understand that?"

She smiled up at him suddenly, his haphazard face, his gray eyes in their baggy pouches. "I’m not one to talk, am I? I live in China."

"No," he said, looking at her thoughtfully. "You’re not."

"So when do you think you’ll hear? About the grant?"

"Don’t worry. Any day. They have the fax number at the hotel."

"Inside," the old woman said, kicking at the door. "This is where Wang Ma put the west-ocean barbarian woman’s things. It’s not a bit convenient! This closet has been needed many times! But Wang Ma is a superstitious old bone; she wouldn’t let us remove them. She says then the woman’s ghost would be ill at ease. Huh!" She shook her blunt, iron head. "Am I a credulous lump of meat from the countryside to believe such things?" She ambled away muttering.

Spencer knelt and examined the ancient, rusted-over lock. "Hasn’t been opened in a long time."

She looked around the back of the si-he yuan on Dengshikou Hutong-the address that old Mr. Zhang at the Zhoukoudian museum had given them. The house seemed to have stayed not only intact but largely unchanged after Lucile’s time. From what Alice had gleaned, this was because the widow of someone important had lived here in seclusion until her death. Now, her servants were being permitted to remain. Unusual. Alice yanked the lock once, then took a fist-sized rock. "Stand back," she said, and brought the rock down in a decisive swing. One good smash: the lock gave out a grating squeak and fell apart.

"Not bad!" Spencer punched her arm in congratulations, then jittered the door open. Inside the small, dust-choked space were Chinese wooden trunks, stacked high in the narrow gloom.

They lifted the trunks out into the sun. The first one contained sculpting tools; the second, big irregular blocks of ancient desiccated clay.

"Why’d she keep this?" Spencer wondered.

"She must have thought she was coming back." Alice reached in and put her hands on the clay, thinking in a blaze of envy and admiration what it must be like to have an art. The way Lucile did. Alice pressed her fingers against the dry cake of clay, wondering.

"Here’s another trunk," he said. "Look. Cooking stuff." They pawed through kettles and woks and mortar stones and cake molds and vegetable cutters in the fanciful shapes of phoenixes and dragons, but nothing remotely related to Teilhard or Peking Man. Three cases of books, all in English. Novels, dictionaries, books of poetry and philosophy. Two trunks of clothing. "Hey, maybe this could fit you," he joked, holding a floral print dress up to her. "No. You’re too skinny."

"Thanks a lot."

"Just stating the facts. What’s this, now?" He pried open the last trunk. It was packed with small household goods: vases, table clocks, cloisonné ware, and all the treasures of the study: brush holders, inkstones, cases for chops and the small sticky pads of crimson ink that went with them.

"That’s it," he said when he had cleared everything out and was staring at the bottom of the trunk, half dazed. He twisted behind and peered into the empty, dust-billowing closet as if surely there were something else within.

"Hold on." Alice had pulled the clothing half out onto the packed earth and was searching through pockets and inner folds. She was a woman and she hid things this way all the time, in the pockets of put-away clothing: her passport, her money, extra pieces of jewelry. Why not Lucile? "Ah!" she said. "See?"

"What is it?"

"It’s a letter." With great care she pulled out the brittle, brown-mottled envelope, pressed back the flap, and drew out the folded paper. "It’s in Chinese. It’s-" She read. "It’s not to Lucile at all. It’s to Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, the address on Tizi Hutong."

"Tell me!"

There was a strained silence as she read through it. She looked up, green eyes big. "It’s from a Mongol. He’s talking about the situation in the Northwest. He’s saying don’t worry, the Communists won’t get control out there, just like the Japanese never did, because the local warlord, some man named Ma Huang-gui, is so powerful. Seems the warlord executes everyone who looks at him cross-eyed-’execute ten to terrify a thousand’ is the phrase." She paused, read further. "It’s composed point by point, as if he’s answering questions." She looked up, finishing it. "It says the region’s stable, safe from civil war, safe from Communists."

Spencer’s lips worked for a minute and no sound came out.

"You think he’s answering questions that Teilhard wrote to him?" she asked.

"God." He exhaled in a giant push, staring ahead into nothing. "Are you kidding? Of course. He wanted a safe place to put Peking Man. It was a time of war."

"There’s one other thing-in the margin. It’s a drawing." She showed it to him: a monkey’s face, simply but beautifully drawn, with huge staring eyes and, streaming out all around its head, a halo that looked like a crown, or the sun itself. In another way, the face of a monkey was also suggested by the little nose. "What is it?"

"Don’t know," he said. "Never seen anything like it."

She squinted. "Looks like ancient art."

"Like a petroglyph, but-certainly nothing like it has been found in the Americas. Or Europe. What do those say?" He pointed to a few characters scrawled in the margin.

She tilted the page. "It says, ’This is what it looks like.’ ’It’? What’s ’it’?"

"I don’t know. The drawing, I guess. This letter seems to be only one piece of some ongoing correspondence. Any return address?"

She examined both sides of the page, turned the envelope over. "No."

"A date?"

"March 1945."

"God." He sank into a squat.

"It does fit right in, doesn’t it?" She eased the letter back into its envelope.

He looked around the empty courtyard. "Look, Alice. Ordinarily I wouldn’t do this. Wouldn’t take anything, disturb anything. But let me ask you a question. Do you think the people in this house have any idea this letter is here?"

"No."

"Do you think they’d care if they knew it was?"

She hesitated only a fraction. "No."

He was silent.

"You’re asking if we should take the letter?"

"Yes. Listen. No one would ever find out. This stuff has been locked up here for years. It’s forgotten." He stared at her, hard.

A chill ran over her. Someone had definitely been following them, although they hadn’t glimpsed the man today. How much can they watch me? she wondered. Can they know everything that’s in my mind? Can they know what I do in my private life? It seemed inconceivable and yet the government always knew more than one expected. Alice looked around quickly. Nothing seemed out of place. Gray stone courtyard walls. Potted camellias. Twittering birds.

"Okay," she said in a moment of firmness, handed him the letter, and watched him slip it into his notebook. "Let’s move everything back."

"Good afternoon, Vice Director Han. Yes, of course we were here. We received your message. Thank you." She locked eyes with Spencer and nodded. She continued on in Chinese, trading good wishes with the vice director and chatting about what she and the American had done, their visit to the Zhoukoudian site-playing out the courteous line that was essential to any Chinese exchange, establishing the sense of connection, of relationship. She followed patiently along with the vice director. She knew he had to be the one to bring up business.

Finally he coughed as a mood break. "Oh, now that you mention the ape-man site, I have had the chance to discuss the matter of Dr. Spencer with several of my co-workers. They are considering his requests. I hope to be able to let you know soon.

She held back disappointment. He was going to stall again. "Yes, that is what we hope as well."

"You know, it is difficult. The scope of our work includes so many responsibilities. And our institute has limited staff. We do the best we can. Unfortunately we must spend much of our time editing scientific articles and arranging for their publication. You see, it’s so critical in China for scientists to publish, and to contribute to their fields internationally. It is the only way we can grow."

"Yes, I see. You’re quite right," Alice said carefully. "Of course the research we propose could be of great importance to both countries."

"Perhaps. In any case, the pleasure has been mine to converse with you. Please convey to Dr. Spencer my sincere hope that his project will be reviewed soon."

"Yes, Vice Director Han." She paused.

"Is there anything else?"

"May I trouble you to hold for a moment?" She covered the mouthpiece firmly. "Offer him coauthorship," she urged in English.

"What?" Spencer’s face contracted.

"Suppose you find this thing. Would it be okay if Chinese archaeologists shared authorship on your paper?"

He bit at his lip.

"Seems to be the hint he’s dropping."

He paused.

"Come on, Adam. A collaboration would only enhance your credibility."

"True." He raised his brows, studied her. "You think we need to offer this?"

"I do."

"Well… okay."

She returned to Chinese. "Please forgive me, Vice Director, for making you wait. Yes, Dr. Spencer understands your problem. It is probably of limited interest to your staff, but if his own insignificant project should engage anyone’s attention, he would welcome a colleague on your side. Otherwise he would not presume."

The vice director’s voice was neutral. Only the alacrity of his answer betrayed his satisfaction. "Eh, is it so? Well, I will mention it and see if any of our scientists are so inclined. Pardon me, Interpreter Mo, I have taken too much of your time. I know you are busy."

"Not at all. Don’t be polite."

"Good-bye."

"Good-bye," she repeated, and hung up the phone. "Okay," she said to Adam, "he’s interested. Now you should host a dinner."

"I’m listening."

"Invite him and the colleagues of his choice to a restaurant as your guests. Strictly social. No negotiation. But an essential stage of Chinese business relations."

"All right-if you say. Will you call him back?"

"Of course." Alice was thinking of a certain restaurant in Beihai Park which served food in the imperial style-scaled-down versions of the meals eaten in the Manchu court throughout the Qing dynasty. "I’ll call him back-but not today. Tomorrow. We don’t want to look too eager."

"Yi jin. " Alice pointed to the shredded lamb in the street-side stall. One pound.

The rotund Chinese in the stained white apron emitted a rude monosyllable of agreement, ladled up the raw, ruby-colored meat, weighed it out, and dropped it with an ear-splitting sizzle on the huge meter-wide griddle in front of him. With one hand he added deft scoops of vinegar, soy sauce, and bean sauce. With the other he moved the quick-cooking meat around in rapid staccato swipes.

"It smells great," Spencer said. "But how much did you order?"

"One pound."

Spencer’s eyes widened.

She shrugged, watching the cook’s assistant pile hot xiaobing, sesame buns, on the plates. Meanwhile the cook was adding handfuls of green onion and cilantro to the lamb, and then, before the vegetables could wilt, whisking the whole thing off the griddle and mounding it on the two plates. "Xiayige!" the cook shouted, Next!

They crossed the dirty tile floor and squeezed into an empty spot on the jammed trestle table. "Venerable brother, excuse us," Alice said politely to the man next to them.

"Eh!" he grunted, turned away angrily, and spat on the floor.

She ignored him. They sat down.

"There are so many people here," Adam said, staring at the tightly packed, boisterous little room. As with all Chinese eating spots, the light was overpoweringly bright, the noise riotous. "Everyplace is so crowded."

"Oh, this is nothing," she said lightly. "Shanghai’s much more crowded than this."

"More crowded than this?" Following her, he split the xiaobing open and stuffed in the steaming shredded lamb, then added a squirt of hot sauce from the common bottle on the table. "But the strange thing is, I haven’t seen any street people, any beggars. Have I missed something? Are there street people here?"

"There are a few beggars. Though you don’t see homeless people, people living outdoors like you see in America. But there’s something else, that actually runs into millions of people. The floating population."

He paused, bing half up to his mouth. "Floating population."

"Right. People without housing registrations. A housing registration is the key to life in China. Without it you can’t get an apartment, get free medical care, work in the system, or buy food that’s on ration."

"And why is it millions of people can’t get housing registrations?"

"It’s not that they can’t get them. They can. They just don’t want to live where their housing registration is, in some poverty-stricken remote village or wherever, so they leave and go someplace else. Someplace where they’re not registered. They join the floating population."

"So then where do they live?"

"On the margins. Some of them get rich. But most of them-well-crash somewhere, if you know what I mean. Stay with friends, or relatives. Patch something together."

He bit into his bing. "Alice, you were right. This is great. And for street food! Oh. Here. I almost forgot." He dug into his pocket and handed her a small, two-inch-square newspaper clipping.

Lucile Swan, 75, died May 2, 1965, at her home in New York. Noted artist and lifelong confidante of the Catholic mystic Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. The cause was heart failure…

"Her obituary," Alice smiled. "Where did you get it?"

"When I first started researching all this I went back and poked around a little bit in New York. That’s where Teilhard died too. But they didn’t see that much of each other in those last years, even though they both lived in New York."

"There was a lot of bitterness-she was resentful and jealous," Alice said. "I can tell from their letters, the book we bought at Zhoukoudian. It’s fascinating."

"Really?" He ate thoughtfully.

"Oh, yes. I can really relate to her life. What I wouldn’t have given to have had somebody like her, so smart, so aware, for a mother."

"What was your mother like?" He added more hot sauce.

"Died when I was a baby. Never had one."

He looked up, penetrating. "That’s too bad. God. Some life. At least you have your dad."

"Who?"

"Your dad."

"Oh, you mean Horace." She smiled wryly. "I never call him Dad."

"You don’t?" He stared for a second. "Hey. Look. I’ve been meaning to apologize for bringing all that up, the first day we met, at breakfast. You know, the Alice Speech. I know it made you uncomfortable. I feel bad about it. I won’t mention your father at all if you like."

"I don’t really care that much," she said, staring at the obituary. "I hate everything he stands for. Basically, I don’t have anything to do with him."

"Ah." He examined her face. "That simple?"

"That simple."

"Well. Anyway." He nodded at the newspaper clipping. "I got to wondering about Lucile’s death, so I looked up the records. This is all I found." He saw how Alice was looking at it. "Why don’t you keep it?" he said kindly. "It’s not like I need it for the research."

"Really? Are you sure? I’d like to have this."

"Keep it." He resumed eating. Just then the Chinese couple on their left got up to leave, and the man pushed against Alice so hard, she almost fell into Spencer’s lap. Instead of apologizing he muttered, "Waiguoren," Foreigner, and stalked off.

Spencer stared after him. "The Chinese don’t like us too much, huh?"

"Not a bit," she said. "We’re barbarians. Ghosts. Even the lowest laborer feels superior to the most educated, most successful foreigner. You’ll see."

"That must be hard for you, being an American."

She tore into her third bing. "I’m not what you’d really call an American," she said between bites. "And believe it or not, that attitude is actually one of the things about the place I find appealing." She could feel his stare, but there was no use explaining. He’d never understand the safe, settled feeling it gave her to be a foreigner in China, an outside person, barely tolerated. The way the geometry of her world seemed righted here, all weights and balances, all retributions, called into play.

He put down his bing and pushed his plate away. "Best lamb I’ve had in years. But I can’t finish it."

She eyed his food. "Really? You’re not going to eat any more?"

"No."

She pulled it over and started in.

"Alice. How do you do it?"

"I don’t know. I just do."

"But you’re so-so slim!"

"Yeah. I keep eating and eating, and I don’t get fat. Sometimes I even think I’m trying-to pack something in around me. And then other times I realize that actually, I’m not even hungry. But I just keep eating anyway."

Alice sat on the bed naked except for the antique red silk stomach-protector, two strings tied around her neck, two around her waist. It was no more than a silk trapezoid with four strings. As an undergarment its purpose had never been clear to Alice, for it covered only the belly and left the breasts and the genitals bare. She had always assumed its function had been to conserve qi, the vital energy traditionally thought to be centered around the navel-but she wasn’t sure. In any case she felt good in it, and it suited her, since she never wore a bra. She loved the way she felt in it, especially when she went out at night.

She opened the book of Teilhard and Lucile’s letters to a passage she had marked the night before, this a letter Teilhard had written to Lucile: Sometimes, I think I would like to vanishbefore you into some thing which would be bigger than myself,- your real yourself, Lucile, – your real life, your God. And then Ishould be yours, completely.

Her real self, Alice thought, her real life. Somehow Lucile had accomplished a thing Alice had only imagined: gotten her true core coupled with Teilhard. Even if they’d never fully committed to each other.

She put the book down and opened The Phenomenon ofMan. To connect the two energies, of the body and the soul, in acoherent manner… Had Pierre and Lucile achieved that? Maybe. Though Lucile’s letters and diary entries-also included in the book-made it clear she was dissatisfied. Thelive, physical, real you, all of you. I want you so terribly and I’mtrying so hard to understand…

She rolled over on her stomach and dropped the books to the floor. She figured she, Alice, could connect the body and the soul-definitely, she could, if she just found the right man. A Chinese man, maybe. Though would there ever be one who’d accept her?

Of all the men she’d known, only Jian had come close. He’d understood her; he’d taken the time. But in the end he didn’t love her enough to fight for her. His separateness, his Chineseness, had won.

And who had she known who’d truly accepted her? Who’d been truly, seamlessly unconditional?

Only Horace.

God. She groaned and covered her eyes. He never understood her, it was true, but he was loyal and he never wavered. It was a kind of love. Punishing maybe, unfair, controlling, but love nevertheless.

Like the day she graduated from Rice University.

He had flown in early. As a senior member of the Texas delegation to the U.S. House of Representatives, Horace didn’t get back home to Houston much. But she knew he would come to her graduation from anywhere. From Boston. From Bahrain.

She could still see the dorm room, the books and typewriter and stereo packed in their boxes, the posters down, the bare-box walls bereft. Outside, the sweat-bath Houston summer was already rising from the ground in waves. Then he got off the elevator. She could hear the special tap of his walk. She felt the ripple of recognition, the thrill that followed him as he strode down the hall.

He stepped in the door, saw her. His face brightened with joy. "Too long, darling." He put his arms around her and squeezed. "So good to see you."

"You too." She smiled. He was someone who’d always known her. At school she’d been mostly on her own.

"I’m proud of you, Alice." He stood back and admired her.

"Thanks. Hard to believe it’s over." She looked balefully around the room. "And still so much to pack!"

"Go on, continue. I’ll watch." He sat on her plastic desk-chair in his gray tropical suit and wine-colored tie. He was a small man, exact, articulate. When he was onstage he grew to evangelical stature-but now, in repose, it was easy to see why he was the perfect elected official, conservative, smiling, devoted to the business and progress of the South. "Congratulations. And graduating cum laude too!"

"Oh, Horace." She’d gone back to pulling folded clothes out of her bureau drawers and stacking them in their cardboard box.

"Really, sweetheart, I mean it. You’ve done a great job."

She let out a modest laugh.

"And now you can come to work."

She looked up sharply. Had he said come to work?

"You see, I’ve talked it over with Roger." Happiness played around her father’s mouth, so proud and pleased was he with the prize he had to offer. "You know Roger oversees all my staff needs. And he’s already terminated someone so that the assistant-director position in the head office in Washington is open. For you." He beamed.

"Horace." She stared, stricken, the words all mashed up in her throat. "I can’t work for you."

"Now, honey, I know what you’re thinking. Working for Daddy!"

My God, she thought.

"But you won’t report to me, or Roger. We have it all worked out-"

"No," she interrupted. "It’s impossible. I can’t be around your life, your people. The things you stand for." If there was one thing she knew by then, by age twenty-two, it was that she had to get far away and stay away. Here in his world she was trapped in an intolerable corner, which seemed to grow tighter and tighter each year. And now no place in America felt right.

How clearly she remembered the night she’d first realized it.

She’d been only eleven then, exactly half her age on that day of college graduation. It was a regular dinner at the home of Janie Boudreau, her best friend from school. Alice was a frequent guest. She knew the Boudreaus felt sorry for her- there was no mother in Alice’s big house, only Horace and a housekeeper.

On this night Janie’s older cousin was there, visiting from Dallas. "So you’re the Alice, aren’t you?" He looked at her hard, through narrowed eyes.

"What do you mean?"

"Well-you’re Horace Mannegan’s girl, aren’t you?"

"Yes." She glanced quickly at her friend. Janie’s eyes slid away.

"I knew it! You’re the one who didn’t want to go to school with colored kids, right?"

"No," Alice insisted. It hadn’t been her idea! Not her, never.

"Yeah-come on. I remember. You didn’t want to go to a mixed school! Then your father made that speech, then the riots got started, and that’s how those girls got killed."

"It wasn’t me," she pleaded. "I never said-"

"Of course it was you! You’re Alice Mannegan. Alice Mannegan! Right, Aunt Dee? Huh?"

"Yes, Jackson," Janie’s mother had said in a quietly stern voice. "But Alice is Janie’s friend. Let’s talk about something else. Come. Who wants dessert?"

By that point, though, a messy silence had squashed down over the table. Everyone avoided everyone else’s eyes. The meal scraped to a nauseated conclusion.

It was only the first time, the first of many. After that night she’d known she was doomed. And she was. She grew up in the center of it, everyone’s lightning rod for pity, loathing, fascination, the whole freight train of emotions that followed the charging tension between the races.

Now, packing up her dorm room at Rice, she looked at her father, stunned. What he was suggesting was horrible, unthinkable. And as usual he didn’t even see it.

"I can’t work for you! Sorry, but it’s out of the question. Everyplace I went I’d be the ’Alice’ from the ’Alice Speech’! Especially in Washington. I’d never get away from it."

"Alice!" He got up, disturbed, and circled his chair a couple of times. "That speech was years ago! And we were only trying to restore a little bit of what was so good about America, what this great country has lost-"

"Like slavery?" she said bitterly.

"Please," he said mildly, as if she referred to something that was simply a bygone fashion and not a searing fount of human shame. "All I did was make a speech. It’s not as if I went out and burned the Fourth Ward down."

What? Her mouth fell open.

Just then a giggling group of girls stopped outside the open door.

"It isn’t-"

"I told you, her father’s Horace Mannegan!"

"Alice, is that your daddy?"

"No," she said sullenly. "It’s Horace."

"See! I told you, it’s him."

"You go in!"

"You!"

"Mr. Mannegan, sir, may I have your autograph?" The girl had long honey-colored limbs, short blond hair, and a string of pearls over her pale green silk blouse. The hand that thrust the pen and paper toward him had perfectly manicured pink nails.

"Yes, of course, dear." Horace smiled benignly, uncapped his gold corporate-looking pen, and signed. "We’ll be counting on your support in the next election."

"Oh, yes! Yes, sir! My parents-we always vote for you, sir!"

"Good. Don’t ever give up on this great country of ours."

"No, sir!"

"Here. Anyone else?" He signed autographs for all of them.

"Thank you, sir! Bye, Alice!"

"Bye," she said, hating them.

Horace turned back to her the instant they were gone and she saw his composed, boardroom mask drop away and leave, in its place, a father’s hurt and confusion. "I always assumed you would come to work for me."

Alice closed her eyes.

"I need you, Alice. I… depend on you."

"I know," she said. He depended on her to be the family in his life. When she was young, and living with him, she was the one who’d made sure he ate right, who told him it was time to stop working and go to bed. No one else ever told him he needed rest, or he was drinking too much, or he ought to cancel a meeting or an airplane trip because he was sick. She did. And he showered her with most everything she wanted in return. Everything except the freedom to be what she wanted to be-whatever that was. She had to break away. Whether he liked it or not. She had to.

Tell him. "Horace, I’m going to China."

"Where?"

"China."

"China! Why?"

"Please, Horace! You are aware, aren’t you, that for the last four years I’ve been earning a degree in Chinese?"

"Yes, but-"

"And that I visited there last summer? And loved it?"

"Yes, but-you don’t mean you really want to live over there? In China?"

He had gone silent, and she had started to cry herself, because after all she was leaving him. And it hurt him. Despite all her tangled emotions she didn’t want to cause him pain like this, him, her own-she could barely form the word in her mind-father. But she knew she had to go. And finally he had said all right, if it was what she wanted, he would go along with it.

And he had. He had bombarded her with love, and sent her regular checks every month, for the past fourteen years. The only time he had gone to war with her was over Jian. And he’d won. She hadn’t fallen in love since.

Ah. Alice lay back on the bed, feeling the knotted silk strings under her backbone, the scratchy chenille bedspread against her bare skin. Love. The love of her father. Love of her mother, which she’d never known. And grown-up love, or what passed for it, in whose arms she could always briefly forget before moving on.

She shifted on the bed. Mother Meng was right. She was getting too old now. Soon, she was going to have to make some kind of change.

Her eyes wandered to the dark crack of the Beijing night barely showing along the edge of the curtain. She reached down and fingered the soft embroidered silk of the stomach-protector.

Should she go out?

A few hours later, at the shift change down in the hotel lobby, Second Night Clerk Huang told First Morning Clerk Shen that the foreigner Mo Ai-li had left on her bicycle just before midnight.

"Ah, then I’ll watch for her return."

"Around dawn."

"Yes, around dawn." First Morning Clerk Shen smiled to himself. That was the time Mo Ai-li always came back. Her face would be soft and her yin would be satisfied-for a while. Aiya, the outside people! So strange and secretive about their coupling. So entertaining to watch.

"I’m sorry we could not accept your invitation for dinner," Vice Director Han said as he ushered them into his office. "You understand, we are so busy."

"Yes," Alice said politely, "we understand." She glanced quickly at Adam. She had explained to him that this refusal was not a good sign.

"Nevertheless I am trying to make some arrangements for Dr. Spencer to do his research in the Northwest. Why did I ask you here today? I want you to meet two of our scientists." He pressed the button on the side of his desk and his secretary put her head into the room. "Show them in."

She nodded and opened the door wider for two Chinese men.

"Professor Kong Zhen of Huabei University." Vice Director Han indicated one of them.

"Interpreter Mo Ai-li," Alice responded, and handed the man her name card. He looked to her like one of those too-thin Chinese men who seemed vaguely unkempt in Western clothes and really belonged in the loose robes of a feudal Chinese gentleman. Instead he wore Western suit pants with a cell phone clipped to his belt. His face was long, narrow, and flat. "And this is Dr. Adam Spencer, from America," she said.

"Spencer Boshi," Professor Kong said to Adam. He smiled, showing less-than-perfect teeth. "I confess I’m relieved," he told Alice. "At least there’s one of you who can talk!"

Typical, Alice thought. Not speak Chinese, just talk.

"And this is my colleague," Dr. Kong said. "Dr. Lin."

The other man stepped forward. He was the opposite of Kong, a hulking man with a broad face, small intelligent eyes, and a full, eggplant-colored Asian mouth. He was tall for a Chinese, over six feet, but he gave the impression that he placed his limbs about himself with deliberate care. "Professor Lin," he said to her in the soft, sibilant Chinese of the Yangtze Valley, and indicated himself.

"Interpreter Mo." They exchanged cards.

"It is my happiness to meet you," he said carefully, studying her.

"And mine," she answered, following him in keqi hua, Polite speech.

"The idea of the American archaeologist is most interesting to me. In our country, we had almost given up hope of recovering Peking Man."

"Do you study the ape-man, then?" she asked.

"All my life."

"Really." Like Jian, she thought: fascinated by the past.

"It’s been my life’s dream to find Peking Man. Without it, the fossils we have for our research are very limited."

"I see." She looked up, aware of the others. It was inappropriate to conduct a private conversation in a Chinese business meeting. "Duibuqi, " she murmured. They all sat down.

"Dr. Kong and Dr. Lin have some interest in your research," Vice Director Han announced. "As they have luckily consented to accompany your expedition, they can help you with the many arrangements you would naturally be unable to make on your own." He cleared his throat. "This means I do not have to allocate so much time to assisting you, do you understand me or not? It removes a difficult problem for me. Under these circumstances it has been decided that I can grant the permits."

Alice translated everything for Spencer in a neutral, professional tone, smiling at the American when she put the words into English: "I can grant the permits." They went through the arrangements, the date they would depart Beijing, the plan for these two archaeologists to return and make preparations at their home in the city of Zhengzhou, Henan Province, then come north on a separate line and join their train at the halfway point. Through her Dr. Spencer explained, all over again, why he believed Father Teilhard had gotten Peking Man back from the Japanese and hidden it in the Northwest.

As she did her job, her mind humming in its two languages, she tried to keep her eyes off Dr. Lin. But she couldn’t help seeing how he turned her name card over and over in his hands, large hairless hands with smooth, fine-textured pale-amber skin, studying her name in Chinese characters and then in English letters before glancing at her once, briefly, and then carefully sliding her card into his pocket.

"Fax for Dr. Spencer," said the short Chinese woman in the green hotel uniform, and thrust the folded paper at him.

"Yes-thank you…" He stared at it-amazing, it was here-then looked up. She was already off down the hall, her short, curved legs pumping. A young man was holding the elevator for her. She jumped inside and Spencer heard their quick, giggly Mandarin bubble up and then click off when the doors whooshed together.

He closed the door to his room, heart racing with excitement.

Open it!

He’d known they would back him, James Hargrove and Fenton Wills. Old friends. They’d been kind to him all these years, even though their stars had soared straight into the stratosphere and his-his had gone nowhere. Just teaching at the University of Nevada. Publishing the occasional minor paper. An unimpressive academic life which would contribute to Tyler’s inevitable realization-someday, when the boy was much older-that his father had been a failure. He had not succeeded in staying married to Tyler’s mother, and as if that weren’t bad enough, he hadn’t done much with his career either. Adam felt he had to turn things around. He had to be at least as good as his own father, who, though cool and preoccupied, had been a humanities professor of some note at a small campus in Sacramento. He, Adam, couldn’t even seem to measure up to that slim standard. These days he was never quoted, never cited, never invited to present work at conferences. Whereas James and Fenton quickly became the people running the conferences. Still they’d always taken his calls. Always had lunch with him when he passed through town. Maybe they knew what he knew, that he was just waiting for the right idea, the right opportunity-and then he would make his mark. Then he would break out.

Open it.

He turned it over in his hand, visualizing what it was going to say: Dear Dr. Spencer, the National Science Foundation is pleased to inform you…

He swallowed and pressed the single page open. He read it. Looked out the window for a minute, heart pounding.

He read it again.

And again.

We regret we are unable to fund…

How could they?

Heavy limbed, underwater, he stood and crossed the room to the wooden desk, opened one of the Teilhard books, and slipped the fax between its pages.

How could they? How could they turn him down? This was Peking Man, for God’s sake. And he knew, he had what his grandfather had told him, Henry Bingham…

Not only that. Now he and Alice had found the letter, the letter to Teilhard from the Northwest, hidden in Lucile’s clothes. It was solid evidence. It proved everything.

This rejection in no way reflects on the quality of your project. We receive far more proposals than our funds allow us to support.

His heart seemed to be trying to hammer its way out of his chest. He walked heavily to the bed and stretched out. He lay there, motionless, staring at the ceiling.

How the hell was he going to pull this off now?