Wanderlust (18 page)

After the Summer Palace, they visited the Ming Tombs, in the Valley of the Ming. The main avenue to the tombs was lined by massive statues of animals, camels kneeling, lions roaring, leopards ready to leap, and twelve human figures, some of them depicting generals of the Ming dynasty. Again, the massive scale of it all, and the incredible beauty and detailing of the work, left Audrey bereft of speech, and more than once there were tears in her eyes, but the sight that impressed her most, that she could barely tear herself from, was the Great Wall. They had gone to Pa-ta-ling, twenty-five miles northwest of Peking, to observe its graceful curves, traveling on as far as the eye could see. The realization that it had been entirely built by human hands and stretched for more than fifteen hundred miles, separating China from Mongolia, seemed incredible. It had stood for more than two thousand years, and was the width of the four horses ridden by the guards who had patrolled the wall, keeping watch for roving Mongol bands, or the hordes who attempted to breach the wall from time to time. But the sheer grandeur of it, the endless continuity as it seemed to divide the world, was so amazing that she could only look up at Charlie with wonder in her eyes.

It's incredible, Charles ' my God, it is surely the most impressive thing ever built by man. He had always thought so too and standing here with her made it even more special to him now. He had always wanted to share it with someone, and never had before. He had stood here before, five or six other times, always wishing he could share what he felt, the immensity of the hand of history reaching down to him, as it did again now. And she understood that so well, she cared so much, and he knew she felt just as he did, as he took a photograph of her, standing on the Great Wall. And it was only with great reluctance that they left, and at nightfall took the train back to Peking again. It was a short journey back, and she was quiet during the brief trip. It took them a little more than an hour, and she looked up at him as they pulled into the station in Peking.

I will never forget this day. For the rest of my life, I will remember that wall. ' Stretching into forever for hundreds and hundreds of miles. She wanted to thank him for taking her there, but she didn't even know how. He had given her an experience she would never forget for the rest of her life. In fact, the whole time they'd been traveling had been that way, and it made the summer months in the South of France seem so wasted and frivolous. She tried to explain that to him as they lay in their bed that night after a delicious dinner of Peking duck in a restaurant he had heard about but never been to before.

There's room for both in one's life, Aud. Places like Antibes and places like this. Sometimes I enjoy the balance of both lives. She wasn't sure she agreed with him. In many ways she preferred this. She was more her father's child than she knew, especially now that she was here, the feelings she was experiencing overwhelmed her that night and she couldn't sleep. She could only think of the Great Wall, and the peaceful pastoral scenes on either side. There had hardly been another human being there, only that remnant of more than two thousand years ago, each stone carefully placed atop the next, wide enough for four horses ' it seemed to be engraved on her heart, and in her mind. She was awake when he first stirred, and she went back to bed to lie beside him. He was hungry for her, but she seemed distracted after they made love. Her mind was somewhere else. There was something else she wanted to see. She wanted to travel north to see Harbin, it had been another of her life's dreams. She had read a book about it once, and the book had been her father's of course. Will we be able to get to Harbin? she whispered to him in the darkened room. She was remembering her father's albums again and knew for a certainty that he had been there in his youth. He had liked it even better than Shanghai, or so he said, though she wasn't sure why, but she wanted to see it if she could. It was another of her dreams, left to her as a legacy by her father.

Do you really want to do that, Aud? Charles did not look enthused. We really should start back. He tried to make it sound as though they had decided that she was returning to London with him, when in fact, for the sake of a speedier return, she would have been better off crossing the Pacific by ship and leaving him in Shanghai to travel back to London alone.

But she hadn't made up her mind yet. And he wanted to get her to London with him. Going to Harbin could make the difference of her not having time to make the trip back with him. He didn't want any delays and he told her so. It isn't sensible. But she looked heartbroken at what he said.

How do I know I'll ever get back here again, Charles? Going to Harbin means a lot to me.

Why? Just because your father went there. Audrey ' darling, please, be sensible. But her eyes unexpectedly filled with tears, and he hated disappointing her. He tried to reason with her as best he could. It's going to be freezing up there. I was there in November three years ago, and it was below freezing. Neither of us is equipped for that. The excuses sounded lame to her and she didn't want to give in.

We can buy what we need here. It can't be that cold, for God's sake. Charlie, I just want to see it. She looked imploringly at him. This was a pilgrimage for her.

Harbin is seven hundred miles from here. Darling, be sensible.

But she didn't want to be. We've come nearly six thousand miles and at this very moment I am more than eleven thousand miles from home, the way I came, somehow seven hundred miles does not sound like an insuperable distance to me. She was stubborn when she wanted to be.

You're being unreasonable, Aud. I thought we'd start back toward Shanghai tomorrow.

Charlie, please ' . Her eyes begged and he didn't have the heart to say no, but he made her promise that they wouldn't stay in Harbin for more than a day. They would go up, look around, and come straight back, and leave Peking for Shanghai the following morning. She promised to do as he said, and they spent the afternoon buying warm, well-padded clothes. It was more difficult to find clothes here that accommodated Western bodies. In Shanghai they would have had an easier time, but they had to make do. The trousers that Audrey bought were too short, but the fur jacket and warm stockings fit her well, and she was able to buy men's boots that just fit her. Charlie didn't do quite as well, but he insisted he'd be warm enough in the odds and ends they acquired for the brief trip.

And in the morning they took the Japanese-owned Chinese Eastern Railway for the seven hundred-mile journey north across the Manchurian plain. The trip should have taken eighteen hours, but took more than twenty-six, with countless stops and delays, and the Japanese stopping and searching the cars at every station. Their longest stops were at Chin-chou, Shen-yang, Shuang-liao and Fu-y++, but at last just before noon they pulled into the Harbin station. The first thing they saw was a cluster of old Russian women on the platform, with three chubby, rosy-cheeked children in their care, a few dogs sniffing around in the snow, and a bonfire burning nearby where men in Manchurian garb warmed their hands and smoked pipes, sharing the local gossip. There was also a horse-drawn fire engine nearby, the smell of smoke and the frothing at the horses' mouths from their morning's work told them there had been a fire. Charles had also been right, it was freezing here and there was snow on the ground as they left the train and looked around at the long rows of cars and rickshaws. Audrey looked enchanted as they found an ancient car to take them the short distance to the Hotel Moderne, and Charlie looked less than pleased.

He would have preferred to have been on his way to Shanghai on the first leg of the journey west, but she had been so stubborn about this that he had decided to indulge her. She had her own mind about some things, and this had proved to be one of them.

As it turned out, the Hotel Moderne was full, since half of the rooms were being repainted. And they were referred to a small cozy hotel with a bright fire burning in the living room that served as a lobby. There hadn't been any visitors for months, and the old man at the desk was happy to see them. He regaled them with tales of the floods of '32 and gave them one of their two guest rooms, and Audrey rubbed her hands as she looked around and gazed happily at Charlie. Isn't it wonderful? She beamed at him and he laughed. It's more like Russia than China. They had heard a lot of Russian spoken on the way to the hotel, and the town was heavily populated by Russians. It was only two hundred miles from the Russian border.

He looked considerably less delighted than she did. I suppose you'll want to go to Moscow next.

No, I won't. Now be sensible, Charles. Admit it, wouldn't it have been a shame to miss this? It looked like a scene on someone's Christmas card, but Charlie was not feeling very festive.

He wagged a finger at her as she warmed her hands by the fire. We are going back to Peking tomorrow. That's clear, isn't it?

Perfectly. And in that case, I want to have a good look around today. Do you have my camera? He handed it to her, loaded with film, and she picked up her heavy jacket again. It was barely warm enough for the freezing weather.

Where are we going? He looked at her with an expression of mock pain. I suppose you have the day's torture planned for me. She always knew exactly what she wanted to do. And the man at the desk had said something about Hu-lan being an interesting place. It was about twenty miles away, but the car that had driven them from the station could be hired for a trip to Hu-lan. She shared the news with Charles and he groaned. Can't we stay here? Haven't we come far enough for one day?

She looked at him in brief annoyance and picked up her jacket and camera. You can stay here if you want. I'll be back for dinner.

What about lunch? He looked like a mournful child as he followed her out to the main room, and the wife of the man who had rented them their room immediately began to wave from the kitchen doorway. She had piroshki and hot borscht for them, and after that, Charles was somewhat mollified as they went outside in the freezing air to find the car that had brought them from the station.

Audrey smiled a few moments later as they made their way through the streets of Harbin, glancing at the signs alternately painted in Chinese and in Russian, but in many ways it looked more like a European town than an Oriental one, and here as in Shanghai, one heard an assortment of languages in the streets, French, Russian, less English than in Shanghai, and a Manchurian dialect as well as Cantonese. She was fascinated by the clothes people wore, the fur hats, the odd little coats, and here, as in the rest of China, everybody seemed to be smoking.

The driver they hired showed them the American Bank and drove them toward Hu-lan, but he insisted to Audrey and Charles that the road was blocked before Hu-lan and they would not be able to go all the way. Instead they threaded their way down narrow roads heaped with snow and past picturesque little farms and buildings, as he explained about the soy crop to them. And they passed a little stone church half an hour out of Harbin and when Audrey inquired about it, the driver said it was French, and just as he spoke a young girl in a thin silk dress came running into the road, attempting to flag them down. She appeared to be barefoot at first, but as she approached the car, Audrey saw that she was wearing blue cotton slippers and although her feet had not been bound, they were tiny. She was speaking frantically to their driver in a dialect that sounded unfamiliar to Audrey and Charles, and she was waving frantically in the direction of a wooden building.

What does she want? Audrey leaned forward, sensing that somehow the child was in danger, and the driver glanced back at her with a shrug.

She says that bandits killed the two nuns who run the orphanage. They tried to hide in the church and the nuns would not let them. He spoke in careful English and all the while the young girl continued to wail and wave her arms frantically back toward the church and the adjoining building. Someone have to bury them but it too cold now. And someone have to take care of the children.

Where are the others? Audrey spoke quickly as Charles listened to the exchange. How many nuns are there?

The driver spoke to the girl again, speaking up in a loud singsong voice, and she answered him quickly. He turned and translated for Audrey and Charles, who was sorry they had come on this misbegotten leg of the journey.

She say only the two who are killed. The other two left last month. They go to Shanghai, then to Japan. And next month two more come instead. Now no nuns here at all. Only girl. They all orphans.

How many of them are there?

He asked again, and got the answer with a long sorrowing wail. She say twenty-one. Most of them very small. She and her sister are oldest ones there. She is fourteen, her sister eleven. And the nuns dead in the church. He seemed nonplussed and Audrey looked horrified as she swung open the car door and stepped outside, at almost the same instant Charles grabbed her arm and stopped her.

Where do you think you're going?

What are you going to do? Leave them there alone with two dead nuns? For heaven's sake, Charles, we can at least help them sort things out, while someone calls for some officials.

Audrey, this is not San Francisco or New York. This is China, Manchuria in fact. Manchukuo, as the Japanese call it and they are in occupation here. There is a civil war on to boot, there are bandits everywhere, and there are orphans and starving children all over this country. Babies die here every day, and so do nuns. There isn't a damn thing you can do about it.

She glared furiously at him, wrenched her arm free, and sank into the snow beside the car, looking directly at the shivering girl. Do you speak any English? She enunciated the words carefully and the girl looked at her blankly at first and then began chattering frantically, waving at the church. I know. I know what happened. Christ, how was she going to speak to this girl? And then suddenly she remembered something the driver had said. The nuns had been French. Vous parlez fran+oais? She had studied French in school, and it was rusty but it had gotten her through the time she spent on the Riviera. The girl answered her immediately in halting French, still waving at the church, as Audrey followed her and spoke slowly, assuring her that she would try to help her, but she was in no way prepared for the sight that met her as they entered the church.