Lost in Translation Page 0,26

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.