Lost In Translation Part 3

They shouldered north through the throng. Spencer felt tired and still a little jet-lagged; it seemed that an ocean of Mandarin sucked at him in waves. But he noticed that Alice strode calmly, at home in it. She jostled easily through the surging flood of people. She ignored the vendors promoting their sweet potatoes, steamed buns, tea, and Popsicles. She stepped around the drifts of garbage on the sidewalk. Barely glanced into the shop windows teeming with cloth, clocks, cooking pots, shoes, canes, clothing, and everything in between.

And then she stopped at a dusty storefront. "I can't believe it," she said. "Look." She took out her old guidebook. "Chang-er Bing Jia, "Chang-er Bing Jia, Chang-er's Cake House. Chang-er's the girl in the moon, you see, or so say the Chinese." She leafed through the guidebook. "It's still here! See? 'In business continuously since the late Ming, an acclaimed purveyor of moon-cake molds.' People here make mooncakes every year for the Moon Festival." She pushed past him and went inside. Chang-er's Cake House. Chang-er's the girl in the moon, you see, or so say the Chinese." She leafed through the guidebook. "It's still here! See? 'In business continuously since the late Ming, an acclaimed purveyor of moon-cake molds.' People here make mooncakes every year for the Moon Festival." She pushed past him and went inside.

He followed her. A tiny room, a low ceiling, every surface covered with the hand-chiseled wooden molds, each cut and carved to produce a scallop-edged cake the size of a hockey puck, imprinted in intricate relief with beasts and flowers and lucky characters.

"You s.h.i.+ ma?" said a young girl who had been sitting in the shadows by the counter. said a young girl who had been sitting in the shadows by the counter.

"Mei you, " Alice answered automatically. She was moving slowly around the room, squinting, examining the molds. " Alice answered automatically. She was moving slowly around the room, squinting, examining the molds.

"You like old stuff, don't you?" Adam asked her.

"I love it. Look at this one!" She touched one with a carving of a fairy in fluttering robes.

"Why don't you buy one?" He took a mold off the wall and studied it. "They're beautiful."

"Oh, no." She looked startled. "I never let myself buy things. I can't carry stuff like this around."

"It's a trade-off. If it expresses your inner..."

But she was already nodding to the girl, pus.h.i.+ng wide the bell-jangling door, heading back out to the sidewalk. "Just a little break." She unfolded her map and scrutinized the grid packed with tiny characters.

He waited, thinking how odd she was, absorbing the shade and the comforting, cooling rustle of an acacia tree growing up from the sidewalk, until she put the map away and started walking again. Then Spencer registered something peripherally: a man who'd been leaning against a building some paces back straightened at the same moment and began walking, after them, dodging easily through the moving crowd, keeping a calibrated distance.

"I know it sounds insane," he told her. "But you know what? I think someone's following us."

She looked sharply up at him from the corner of her eye.

"Is this possible?" he asked.

She quickened her pace. "Of course it's possible. Just keep walking."

"Has it happened to you before?"

She shook her head. "It's usually diplomats and journalists they trail, not people like me. I almost always work for businessmen, and business they leave alone. But Adam? Follow me."

She stepped abruptly to the side, turned, and walked briskly through an open courtyard packed with stalls and food vendors and walking, standing, eating, shouting Chinese. He scrambled after. She feinted to the left, threaded through a momentary gap in the crush of people, slipped through a door in a stone wall, and led him through an indoor dining room. It was walled in white tile, with a black-and-white tile floor, loaded with tables, all full. "There," she said, and pointed to a half-lit corridor off the clanging kitchens.

They slipped into the little hall, sank into the shadows, and watched the door. Workers in blue coats and tight-fitted white caps b.u.mped past them, trays high, steam billowing, their guttural Pekingese bouncing on the narrow walls. Just a few beats, and then there he was, the man, moving against the crowd outside the restaurant door. His eyes searched the crush of people. He glanced into the restaurant, hesitated, then slipped on, out of sight.

"Nice work, Bond." She winked at Spencer, stepped back into the light. "Come on, let's cut over and go up Dongsi Beidajie. He'll come back to w.a.n.gfujing to look for us. But we won't be there."

"You seem pretty good at this. People follow you a lot?"

She grinned. "Once or twice over the years. But writers get followed all the time-anybody a.s.sociated with a paper or a news service, forget it. Somebody's always on them, listening to their phone, opening their mail. It's just standard paranoid PRC procedure. So there's kind of a running compet.i.tion among journalists living in Beijing. You know-what you did yesterday to elude your tail."

"But this is just archaeology."

Her smile faded. "Right. Obviously something about what you're doing scares them. What, I don't know."

"Is it possible that they could, what, arrest us? I know that sounds crazy-"

"Not so crazy. In the fifties and sixties, even early seventies, some of the Westerners who'd stayed around after the revolution were were arrested. There were Americans and Europeans who languished in prison for years. But nowadays it's the kai arrested. There were Americans and Europeans who languished in prison for years. But nowadays it's the kai fang, fang, the open door. You do something bad, they just deport you. And they don't let you come back." the open door. You do something bad, they just deport you. And they don't let you come back."

"That would ruin my project!"

"Your project-what about my life? It would ruin everything for me! I live here, don't forget. But you have to break some serious laws for that to happen. And we're not planning to break any laws. Are we?" She looked hard at him. "Are we, Dr. Spencer?"

"No! No, of course not. And don't call me that."

"So long as you promise. I like you, I like your project. But I'm not getting deported for you."

He straightened and solemnly held up his right hand. "Very well. I, Adam Spencer, swear-"

"Okay, okay." She let her mouth curve up again. "Enough."

They moved over to Dongsi Beidajie, walked on, and found the Jesuit House up a terraced set of broad, shallow steps, cobbles overgrown with tufted gra.s.s. Formerly Ladder Lane. Now-Alice checked the book, and then her map: there, People's Northeast Small Lane Eight. She smiled. A lucky number in Chinese. Eight, ba. ba. It sounded like It sounded like fa, fa, which meant "to get rich." Enormous good luck to get an address with an eight in it. "Look," she said, and stopped by a wall with a round gate, "the house is still here." which meant "to get rich." Enormous good luck to get an address with an eight in it. "Look," she said, and stopped by a wall with a round gate, "the house is still here."

Through a crack in the gate they could see a stone courtyard with rooms opening onto it, peonies and locust trees in ceramic urns, bright cloth fluttering behind open windows, a single bicycle leaning. A breeze ruffled their hair and the tendril leaves of the trees above their heads, a soft wind, the longed-for kiss of the Beijing summer.

She knocked.

They stood in silence a minute. No one came out. Nothing but the moon gate of thick, ancient red wood, the stone walls, the eaves with their swooping Chinese tiles.

"This was the Jesuit residence?" she asked.

"Yes," he said while he wrote. "I've researched his life here. You wanna know? Okay. He got up every day; they said ma.s.s. He went to work at the Peking Union Medical College, where the China Geological Survey was housed-that's because both the college and the survey were run on Rockefeller money. At five o'clock every day he left the survey and went to Lucile's house. They talked, and dined, and spent the evening together."

Alice peeked through the closed gate. "You know where she lived?"

"No. In his letters to her he refers to her place as Da Tian Da Tian Shui Qing, Shui Qing, but I don't know if that's the name of the street or just what he called her house." but I don't know if that's the name of the street or just what he called her house."

"Without seeing the characters I can't be sure, but it sounds like it might mean 'Great Heaven and Clear Water'- probably an old hutong hutong name." She searched through her guidebook's index, frowned. "No. Not in here. So-they spent the evenings together?" name." She searched through her guidebook's index, frowned. "No. Not in here. So-they spent the evenings together?"

"Right. Talking, studying, reading. Weekends, they would go with other foreigners on excursions. Picnics in the Western Hills. Visits to temples. To the seaside."

"Then she was always with him." Alice's eyes softened.

"Yes." He was staring through the hole at the inside of the compound. "She was his muse. She listened to his ideas, retyped his ma.n.u.scripts, translated things from French to English and back again."

"But weren't most of his books published much later?"

"True." He grinned, pleased with her intelligence. "The Jesuits didn't permit him to publish much during his lifetime- essays mostly-almost all his books came out after his death. Think how he felt."

"G.o.d, you're right. Like a failure."

"But at least he had her."

"And she accepted him."

"Right, she stuck by him. Even though she never got the thing she always wanted from him," Spencer added.

Of course, Alice thought, but she didn't say it: the total commitment of his heart, his mind, his body. Pierre could love Lucile, could care about her and be close to her-as long as he never became her lover. Whereas she, Alice, entered the s.e.xual heart of China all the time-but only the s.e.xual heart. Which way mattered more?

She looked hard into the courtyard, into the rooms which boxed around it, each presenting a wall which was half windows. Small panes, old-fas.h.i.+oned wood trim. In one of those rooms he wrote The Phenomenon of Man. The Phenomenon of Man. Connected the scientific and the divine. Connected the scientific and the divine.

She had reread the book late the night before. Love alone is Love alone is capable of uniting living beings in such a way as to complete and capable of uniting living beings in such a way as to complete and fulfil them, for it alone takes them and joins them by what is fulfil them, for it alone takes them and joins them by what is deepest in themselves. This is a fact of daily experience. deepest in themselves. This is a fact of daily experience. Your daily experience, Pierre, she thought, gazing into his house. Did you really love her? Did you enter her heart and mind? Or did the two of you always remain outside each other? She pounded on the gate again. Your daily experience, Pierre, she thought, gazing into his house. Did you really love her? Did you enter her heart and mind? Or did the two of you always remain outside each other? She pounded on the gate again.

"Come on," Spencer sighed. "n.o.body's here. Let's go."

Alice took the steaming teacup and extended it to Mrs. Meng with two hands, the old way. The aged lady's face creased with pleasure. She liked the old customs.

"Eh, Six Tranquillities Black! Where did you find it?"

"Hong Kong." Alice poured her own cup. "It's nothing, a trifle, but I know how you like it." She glanced at the large brick of tea wrapped in a torn page of the South China Morning South China Morning Post Post which she had placed on Meng Shaowen's table. Another forgotten grace of old Peking, the constant affectionate gift-giving. which she had placed on Meng Shaowen's table. Another forgotten grace of old Peking, the constant affectionate gift-giving.

"It is I who should serve you, when you come to my home," the old lady protested happily. The room was dark, the slatted shutters closed against the July heat. Long shadows fell over all Meng Shaowen's acc.u.mulated treasures: the Qing dynasty embroideries in their dusty frames, the bed quilt which had come from Meng's own mother, the luminous sparrow carved from white jade, the photos of her son, Jian; and, on Meng's desk, the ornate old European-style clock, ticking off the days and months and years of life that still remained. Mrs. Meng s.h.i.+vered. Despite the summer heat she pulled her sweater closer.

"You, serve me? No, Mother Meng. And haven't we known each other too many years to talk polite?" Alice smiled at the old lady, who was always the first person she called upon returning from any trip, always the first person she went to visit. Yet at the same moment Alice noticed how old Mrs. Meng suddenly seemed. Was it last winter, or the winter before, that Meng Shaowen's hair had gone so white and her fingers had twisted into the tangled briars of arthritis? Or was it back when her husband died? Was it then that Mrs. Meng's eyes, once snapping sharp through long nights of debate over the Chinese cla.s.sics of literature and philosophy, had begun to rheum over?

The Chinese lady doubled forward in a raking cough. "Forgive me, girl child. Though it's the time of heat there's cold in my lungs."

"Nothing to forgive."

Mrs. Meng reached out and brushed a stray hair from Alice's forehead.

Alice clasped the old woman's hand.

"It's my sorrow, I never had a daughter."

The words hung. But you had a son, Alice thought. Jian. And I almost married him. And if I had I'd be your daughter now.

"They have a daughter," Mrs. Meng said. "Jian and his wife."

"Yes. I know."

"Little Lihua! She's my heart and liver!" The old woman's face wrinkled up in fondness. Then went serious. "Of course, girl child, Jian's wife is not like you! She is Chinese. She is not free with her mind like you foreigners. Jian once said he never knew any other woman like you. He said he could talk to you about anything."

Alice knew this was probably true. Most Chinese were educated through rigorous rote training. To even read books one had to memorize four, five thousand characters. So to a Chinese intellectual, more used to deduction than questioning, rarely presented in conversation with the unexpected, a Western woman-a smart, open-minded, sa.s.sy woman-was a marvelous companion. But only a companion. There seemed to be in the Chinese men she had known, even in Jian, the only one she had actually loved, the same hesitation she had to admit she felt within herself. They were exhilarating companions. Fantastically exciting as companions. But marriage?

"Perhaps this road is better," Mrs. Meng said gently. "It would have been hard for you and Jian. You can never be Chinese."

"Of course not," she said instantly. Yet Alice had begun to feel, during the year she was with Jian, that she had a place she belonged in the Meng family. A clan, a mother. A Chinese mother who taught her all the old techniques she herself had used to keep house during the decades of privation: how to maximize the things that were rationed and stave off hunger by using the hou men, hou men, the back door, to obtain more. Wash clothes in a bucket. Cook with a handful of coal. Buy slowly, cautiously, use the windowsill as your refrigerator in the winter. the back door, to obtain more. Wash clothes in a bucket. Cook with a handful of coal. Buy slowly, cautiously, use the windowsill as your refrigerator in the winter.

Mrs. Meng had recited the history of the Meng family, told the names of all the ancestral souls who now dwelt beyond the Yellow Springs. Alice would always listen closely, Jian beside her, bored. Like so many modern young intellectuals he was impatient with feudal superst.i.tions. Though he, an astute student of history, at least respected the past.

Jian. The bright, narrow black eyes, the expressive hands. Now a professor at Bei Da, Bei Da, Beijing University. Jian, loving her in his narrow bed in his small room, whispering to her in his musical, beautifully modulated Mandarin, of her body, its strange-feeling skin, the exotic way she walked and talked, and of his studies: the majestic tide of Chinese civilization, revolutions, upheavals, the march of legends and dynasties. Then the Khans and the Ming and the Qing and the Republicans and then the Warlords and finally, as if in a last gasp of Beijing University. Jian, loving her in his narrow bed in his small room, whispering to her in his musical, beautifully modulated Mandarin, of her body, its strange-feeling skin, the exotic way she walked and talked, and of his studies: the majestic tide of Chinese civilization, revolutions, upheavals, the march of legends and dynasties. Then the Khans and the Ming and the Qing and the Republicans and then the Warlords and finally, as if in a last gasp of Luans.h.i.+, Luans.h.i.+, Chaos, before the Communists nailed things down strangling tight, the rampaging j.a.panese. He had taught her that China's power lay in its endurance, its Chaos, before the Communists nailed things down strangling tight, the rampaging j.a.panese. He had taught her that China's power lay in its endurance, its shoudeliao. shoudeliao.

Jian. So open minded about some things. He knew he was not her first man but he never asked her to explain. Then, after a year he asked her, awkward and limpid at once, if she would come with him to his superiors at the danwei danwei and "talk about love." Marriage! She said she needed to think about it. She knew instantly, sinkingly, that Horace would ruin it. He would wage some kind of war that would force her and Jian apart. And that was exactly what happened. and "talk about love." Marriage! She said she needed to think about it. She knew instantly, sinkingly, that Horace would ruin it. He would wage some kind of war that would force her and Jian apart. And that was exactly what happened.

And since then no man seemed to be what she wanted.

"Yes," she said haltingly to Mother Meng now, "I often think back and forth on it. If not for Horace, Jian and I would have married."

"It's a bad road for you. Your baba baba forbade you." Meng used the familiar, intimate word for father even though Alice always referred to her father only by his first name. "And the blood and the flesh can never be untied. Isn't it so? But, girl child"-Meng lowered her voice-"listen to me. How old are you now?" forbade you." Meng used the familiar, intimate word for father even though Alice always referred to her father only by his first name. "And the blood and the flesh can never be untied. Isn't it so? But, girl child"-Meng lowered her voice-"listen to me. How old are you now?"

"Thirty-six."

Mrs. Meng shook her head. "Eh. Too pitiable! How can one tell how old a foreigner is? So you can no longer bear children."

"But in America, Mother, lots of women-"

"Ai-li." Meng drew her closer. "Children are for young women with strong bodies and innocent hearts. As you get older you eat too much bitterness. There's a legend, you know. It's like this. When you die you approach the Yellow Springs. Old Woman w.a.n.g waits for you there with the wine of forgetfulness. You drink this wine, you forget the life you've just finished. You are pure for the next life. You are yourself. And while you're still young this self is true-because all the memories, the pain, the burdens, have not started to come back to you yet."

"What do you mean, come back to you? Doesn't the wine erase everything?"

"By the last dynasty, people were burying the dead with cups that had holes in them." A smile touched at Mrs. Meng's thin, corrugated mouth. "Old Woman w.a.n.g didn't mind if you brought your own cup."

Alice laughed.

"At the time of your death you can choose, do you understand me or not? Leave it behind, or carry it forward."

Alice nodded.

"Don't carry it forward. Ai-li. Listen to your old mother. Find a man. You mustn't live without the yang. yang. It crosses the rule of nature." It crosses the rule of nature."

Alice nodded. She'd heard this before. As if I can just do it, she thought. Just pluck a rare, intelligent man, with kindness and room in his heart, out of the air. I wait. I look. And in the meantime, do I live without the yang? No. I allow myself to have a little.

"A strong man," Mrs. Meng was advising. "Maybe a Chinese man. You are older now."

Alice moved into the old woman's embrace, rested her head on the narrow chest. She felt the frail arms go around her. How could she have survived without the old lady's love? "I'll try. I fear I won't succeed."

"Narde hua," Nonsense. Mrs. Meng touched Alice's cheek. "But don't let too many more seasons pa.s.s," she whispered into the red hair.

Alice laid her things out ceremoniously on the desk in her hotel room. Her "four treasures": brush, ink, inkstone, and paper. Today for paper she had a small piece of xuanzhi, xuanzhi, the expensive handmade sheets one could still buy in certain shops here in the capital. She dripped a little water into the inkstone and rubbed the ink stick in the puddle until she had the right viscosity. In this she twirled the brush. the expensive handmade sheets one could still buy in certain shops here in the capital. She dripped a little water into the inkstone and rubbed the ink stick in the puddle until she had the right viscosity. In this she twirled the brush.

She looked at the exquisite, rough-textured rice paper. On paper such as this one should write poetry. Living, moving ideograms, their various meanings touching infinite shades of possibility.

Instead Alice found herself drawing the name Yulian Yulian with the brush-the name she had been using lately at night. First the radical for the moon, then the ear radical which brought in the notion of happiness through the senses and made it into with the brush-the name she had been using lately at night. First the radical for the moon, then the ear radical which brought in the notion of happiness through the senses and made it into yu, yu, fragrant. Then fragrant. Then lian, lian, lotus, with the flower radical on top and combining below the sound, lotus, with the flower radical on top and combining below the sound, lian, lian, with the symbol for cart or car, originally connoting the name of a related flower in Chinese. Lotus. Fragrant Lotus. with the symbol for cart or car, originally connoting the name of a related flower in Chinese. Lotus. Fragrant Lotus.

She looked at it, blinking.

She'd used other names in the past. Yinfei, Yuhuan. Yinfei, Yuhuan. None of them her real name. None of them her real name.

None of this her true self. She folded the edge of the paper over so the two characters, Yulian, were covered. Out of sight.

She took a long, cleansing breath and began again.

"Aiya, tian luo di luo di w.a.n.g!" w.a.n.g!" Professor Kong Zhen grumbled as he picked up the hand of cards that had just been dealt onto the table, fanned them out, and studied them. You've filled heaven with nets and all the earth with snares. Professor Kong Zhen grumbled as he picked up the hand of cards that had just been dealt onto the table, fanned them out, and studied them. You've filled heaven with nets and all the earth with snares.