I
The rain fell like tears from a leaden Beijing sky. Ironic, Margaret thought, for hers had long since dried up. From the shelter of her balcony on the sixth floor she could see, across the treetops in the park opposite, the dull reflection of a tiny pavilion in the rain-spotted lake. Above the rumble of traffic, and the mournful banter of furriers in the street below, she could hear the wail of a single-stringed violin and the sad cadences of a woman's voice breathing passion into a song from the Peking Opera.
Margaret moved back into her hotel room and slipped a light coat over her blouse and jeans. She had told herself she had chosen this hotel because of its proximity to the American Embassy. It was nothing to do with the park across the road. That's what she had told herself But Ritan Park was her last connection to him. A place where the death of a man had first brought them together and, in the end, forced them apart. Just one more failure in a life that seemed destined always to let her down. She lifted her umbrella and closed the door firmly behind her, resolved finally to act on a decision she had delayed for too long.
On the fourth floor, an elderly woman with brassy lacquered hair and too much make-up, stepped on to the elevator. Margaret saw that she was wearing a name badge on the lapel of herblue suit jacket. Dot McKinlay, it read. Margaret registered some surprise. Mostly the Ritan Hotel was filled with the wealthy but unsophisticated wives of Russian traders, desperate to spend their roubles before the exchange rate fell any further. The woman drew painted lips back across long, slightly yellowed teeth in what she clearly imagined was a smile.
'Where y'awl from?' she drawled.
Margaret's heart sank. 'The sixth floor,' she said, keeping her eyes firmly fixed on the illuminated numbers above the door, willing them to descend more quickly.
But Dot just laughed, heartily, as if she had enjoyed the joke. 'Ah do like a sense of humour,' she said. 'Y'awl from the north, that's for sure. We're from the south. Louisiana. Only thing further south than us is the Gulf of Mexico.' She laughed again, as if demonstrating that southerners could be just as amusing as northerners. 'Ol' Dot's Travellin' Grannies, that's what they call us. We been all over. Just our luck to choose China during the rice crisis. Don't you just get sick of those noodles?' She leaned in confidentially. 'And if Ah'd known this hotel was gonna be so full of goddamn Ruskies, Ah'd 'a booked us in somewheres else.' She nodded emphatically. 'But it's great to know there's a fellow American on board. Even if ya do come from the sixth floor.' She grinned. 'Why don't y'awl join us for a drink tonight?'
Margaret glanced at her. 'I'm afraid that won't be possible,' she said. 'I'm leaving tomorrow.'
The doors opened on the ground floor as Dot was about to express her disappointment, and Margaret hurried away past a group of a dozen or so elderly ladies all sporting name badges. She heard Dot greeting them with, 'Hey, you'll never guess who that was ...'
No, Margaret thought as she pushed through glass doors and out into the sticky, warm rain, they never would. Not in a million years. The two security men at the gate glowered at her as she opened her umbrella on the way out. It was only in the last couple of weeks that Western newsmen had stoppedhanging about the gate in the hope of getting photographs or an interview. The security guards in their brown uniforms, privately hired by the hotel, had been forced to take their duties seriously, instead of sitting around all day smoking and looking important. They didn't much like Margaret.
She ran the gauntlet of some half-hearted stall owners who thought she might be Russian and interested in the furs that hung row upon row under dripping canopies. But most of them knew her by now and didn't give her a second glance, sitting folded up on tiny stools, nursing jars of cold green tea, smoking acrid-smelling cigarettes and spitting noisily on the sidewalk. Everywhere you looked here, the names of shops and restaurants were written in the distinctive Cyrillic Russian alphabet. You could almost believe you were in some seedy corner of Moscow, if it wasn't for the Chinese faces. Someone had lit a brazier, in preparation for an early lunch, and smoke mingled with the mist and rain. Margaret almost stepped into the path of several bicycles, alerted only at the last moment by a flurry of bells. Oriental faces glared at her from glistening hooded capes. She grasped the railing at the edge of the pavement and held tightly, overcome by a moment of giddiness. She breathed deeply and steadied herself. She had not realised until now just how stressful this was going to be.
To delay the moment, she took the route through the park, although she would have denied, if asked, that she was procrastinating. But she knew immediately it was a mistake. The place was too full of memories and regrets. She hurried past small damp groups of people practising tai ch'i under the trees, and out through the south gate. Again she took a circuitous route, along Guanghua Road and down Silk Street, past the new visa block in the Bruce Compound of the American Embassy. Women in white masks and blue smocks swept wet leaves from the gutters with old-fashioned brooms. Dismal marketeers sat under the shelter of trees opposite their empty stalls, tourists kept away by the rain.
A young woman with cropped hair approached Margaret hopefully. 'CD lom?' she said. 'CD music? Looka, looka, I have new ones.'
Margaret shook her head and hurried by. A very thin young man in a dark suit and white shirt with no tie approached. 'Shanja dollah?'
'No!' Margaret snapped at him, and stepped briskly away along Xiushuibie Street. There was no point in delaying any further. Past the Consular Section of the Bulgarian Embassy, the US Commercial Section, she stopped outside the gate of San Ban, No. 3 Building of the American Embassy. The Chancery. She pushed open the door of the gatehouse and found herself facing a scowling Chinese security guard.
'Margaret Campbell,' she said. 'I have an appointment with the Ambassador.'
An unsmiling marine in dress uniform watched her from behind the glass booth just inside the front door of the Chancery. A young Asian woman appeared at the door to her left and it clicked open to the accompaniment of a long electronic buzz. She smiled at Margaret. 'Come on through,' she said. Margaret entered and heard the door shut behind her as the woman held out her hand. 'Hi. I'm Sophie Daum. I'll be looking after you for the next while.'
'Will you?' Margaret looked at her suspiciously. Small, short dark hair, beautifully slanted eyes, sharp but not unattractive features, she barely looked old enough to be out of high school. 'What happened to the Regional Security Officer?'
'Oh, Jon Dakers is pretty well tied up these days. I'm the new assistant RSO.'
'You don't have a very oriental name for a Chinese-American.'
'Vietnamese-American,' Sophie corrected her. 'And I was adopted by a very old-fashioned, old-money family from California.' She led Margaret up a flight of stairs lined withpictures of previous ambassadors to China. 'I guess you probably think I look too young for the job. Everybody does.' She was trying to sound bright, but Margaret detected more than a hint of weariness in her voice.
'Not at all,' she said. 'You look at least old enough to be in the second grade.' She glanced across at the girl and saw that her smile had frozen on her face, and she immediately regretted the jibe. 'I'm sorry. You caught me on a bad day.'
Sophie stopped and turned on the stair. 'Look, Dr Campbell,' she said, the smile gone, the eyes suddenly cold and hard. 'I'm being polite here. But I'm twenty-three years old. I got a degree in criminology, and I'm straight off the security staff of the Secretary for Defense. I got a black belt in tai kwondo, and I could kick your ass all the way down the stairs. I don't need your bad days, I got enough of my own.'
'Hey,' Margaret held up her hands. 'I believe you. Sounds like you've got enough bad days to make up a whole week. PMS can be a real bitch.'
And to her surprise, Sophie's face broke into a reluctant grin. 'Yeah, OK, maybe I got that coming. But it's PCS I'm suffering from, not PMS. Post China stress. You know? I've been here a month and all I've heard is I don't look old enough to be out of high school. It's bad enough when I get it from the guys without the women turning on me, too.'
'And how many of the guys have you threatened to kick down the stairs?'
'Oh, just you,' Sophie said breezily.
'I'll take that as a compliment.'
Sophie grinned, a rapport established, and opened French doors into the Ambassador's outer office. To their right, the secretary to the Deputy Chief of Mission was talking on the telephone. To their left, the Ambassador's secretary's desk was empty. She was just emerging from the inner sanctum.
'Oh, hi.' She held the door open. 'Go straight on through. The Ambassador's expecting you.'
Margaret followed Sophie into the carpeted hush of the Ambassador's office. It was a big room - high ceilings, tall windows, a large polished desk facing the door, the US flag hanging limply from a pole behind it. Margaret had been in here several times, but it still intrigued her. The walls were lined with photographs of the Ambassador with the President and his family. It was said they were close friends whose friendship predated politics. There was a picture of the President at his inauguration, smiling to the heavens, an appetite whetted by the prospect of supreme power. Something to be savoured and enjoyed.
To the left was a sofa and several armchairs around a coffee table, pictures loaned from s...
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